You, Me and The Movies

by Fiona Collins

  ‘What time are they feeding you, Dom?’ asks Becky, draining the last of her prosecco. I have been sipping at mine steadily and it has gone, too.

  ‘Oh, I’ve had it. Mush and chips. Actually, it was OK. Not bad for institutional slop.’ Dominic does a giant yawn, loud and characteristically over the top.

  ‘Are we keeping you up?’ laughs Becky.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Dominic. ‘It’s pretty tiring, this broken bones business.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ says Becky, standing up. Her chair makes a hideous scrape and a nurse – petite, short dark hair with blonde at the tips – looks round and gives a conciliatory smile. ‘I’ll call you, Dominic.’

  ‘OK. Thanks for coming.’

  We both kiss him on the cheek and start to head out, Becky stuffing the empty prosecco bottle back in her bag and zipping it up.

  ‘Oh, look at that poor bugger!’ she exclaims.

  She tilts her head over to the other side of the ward, about halfway along. I follow her head. It’s the man lying prone like an Egyptian mummy. There’s a sheet up to his chin and his eyes are closed. His hair looks like it’s been freshly combed off his face and his cheeks are pink and a little raw, as though one of the nurses has recently given him a wet shave. He looks comatose: his body so straight, his arms so rigid and flat at his sides.

  ‘Do you think he’s all right?’ Becky asks in a stage whisper.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I say, thinking if he wasn’t surely someone would have noticed.

  Becky looks again. ‘Bloody hell, Arden,’ she says, narrowing her eyes, ‘you know, in a certain light that could be Mac Bartley-Thomas!’

  ‘What?’ I glance at the man’s face again and my insides lurch and then petrify. ‘Of course it isn’t!’ My voice doesn’t sound real; it sounds like it’s coming out of one of those suspended televisions; a sort of fizzing is going through me like I’m a cathode. ‘No way is that Mac Bartley-Thomas!’ Saying that name out loud sounds even odder, when it’s a name that’s been locked in a back chamber of my brain for so many years.

  Becky and I have both come to a stop. I stare at the man with the sheet up to his chin. ‘No, it’s not him,’ I conclude, attempting to sound breezy. ‘I don’t think he’d be in London. And that man’s way too old.’

  ‘Not really,’ says Becky, as we set ourselves into motion again and bustle out of the door – Becky with certainty, me with reluctance. It clanks softly shut behind us. ‘He was – what? – early thirties then, so early sixties now?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ I say. ‘It’s definitely not him, though. Oh God, hold on a minute, I’ve forgotten my phone!’ I’d taken it out to check the weather for tomorrow, at a point when my conversation was at the height of lacklustre. I’d put it near the foot of Dominic’s bed. It had half gone under a corner of the cellular blanket when he’d shifted his good leg and I’d thought to myself, Don’t forget that – and I hadn’t, as it’s in my bag.

  My heart thumping, I quickly buzz again, say Dominic’s name and dash back into the ward, making sure Becky is not in my tailwind.

  ‘Sorry, Dom. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on,’ I say, in lame idiom mode, as I pretend to retrieve my phone and slip absolutely nothing into my coat pocket. ‘See you.’

  ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ Dominic says, reaching for a magazine, but I’m ashamed to know I absolutely might be.

  Despite my sins, some kind of god is smiling at me as a nurse approaches to pull a curtain round Dominic’s bed and I cross the ward hurriedly, to stand at the end of the bed of the man who’s lying there like a mummy. The lights are dimmed over his head. I look at his face and feverishly consult my memory. Is it him? Is it Mac? Of course I’d seen him many times without his glasses, but without them now he looks like a scrubbed pickle. His hair is silver, but there are still traces of the dirty blond; his eyes are closed so I can’t see if they are watery, iridescent blue, with flashes of pistachio; his lips – once so soft and giving – now look set and half vanished. I think it’s him, though. I think it’s Mac.

  There’s a clipboard at the end of the bed, the sort that says ‘nil by mouth’ and other depressing things. I haven’t been in a hospital since my mother had her hip operation, but they are eternally depressing, aren’t they? I find it trite when people say they don’t like hospitals because is there anyone who does? But I have to linger on this ward a little longer. I have to look. Shaking, I pull my reading glasses from my bag, put them on and bend down.

  ‘Can I help you with anything?’ A male nurse is smiling at me, but there’s a certain steel behind that smile. He’s seen me, hasn’t he, visiting Dominic, and is wondering what the hell I’m doing nosing at another patient’s clipboard.

  ‘No, no, I’m fine, thanks,’ I mutter, mortified. I straighten up, shove my glasses back in my bag and hurry out of there on hot coals.

  ‘Come on!’ chides Becky, as I emerge. She attempts to link her arm through mine again and I resist the horribly ungrateful urge – so familiar to me, now – to wrench it free, escape from her and run all the way home, the damp wind in my hair and the many, many questions jolting round my mind. ‘Do you want to go for a drink?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ I manage to say and somehow I spring a bright, bright smile on to my guilty face. ‘I’ve got some stuff to do at home. Do you mind?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ says Becky, although she looks disappointed again. ‘Another time.’

  I nod. Becky’s feet don’t walk fast enough. Her lovely bubbly chatter is not speeding us along the streets at the right pace. Finally, we reach the point where she has to say goodbye and with a kiss and an attempt at a quick tight hug she is gone, leaving me to run back to my empty house, the damp wind in my hair, and let out the mighty exhalation of breath I am holding on to very, very tight.

  NOW

  Chapter 2

  I’m at work. I don’t have to go in these limbo-ish days between Christmas and New Year, but I want to. I quite like the listless post-holiday feel to these quiet days in the office. Drooping decorations. An artificial tree missing a branch that no one can be bothered to stick back on. Half-empty tubs of Heroes lying around, in case anyone fancies a quick shot of palm oil.

  I work at the production office of a long-running police series, Coppers. I’m assistant to the Locations Manager. It can be fun, I suppose; it can be tedious. It’s a job. I’m chatting to Charlie, who is fun. He’s the sort of bloke to wear a spinning bow tie at the work Christmas party (he did) and have a sign on his desk saying ‘You Don’t Have to be Mad to Work Here But it Helps’ (he does). He’s tall, fair and rangy, a young blond John Cleese – I can just see him striking a Mini with half a tree.

  ‘You’ve got something between your teeth, Hall,’ he tells me, perching on the front of my desk.

  ‘And your flies are undone, Hipworth,’ I retort, without even checking my teeth as I know that today I’m not remotely guilty as charged. I haven’t eaten since breakfast and that was half a yogurt. I’m not very hungry today. I’m also really tired, as I didn’t sleep a wink last night. To counteract this I’m wearing my smartest white silk blouse and black pencil skirt combo, which hopefully yells ‘wide-awake professionalism’ to anyone who might be interested.

  Charlie’s flies aren’t undone either, but he checks them anyway. ‘Oh, good one, Hall,’ he says. ‘Have you got the file on Three Hill Court? Michelle wants to cross-check who was in that burglary scene. I wish I’d taken these couple of days off, after all.’ He sighs, looking round the ghost-town office with its skeleton staff. ‘It’s dead in here.’ He huffs like a sulky teenager. It’s funny, really, how we get on so well. He’s like the younger brother I never had. ‘My wifey’s off; we could have gone to Winter Wonderland.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything worse,’ I reply – Christian once dragged me there, plied me with false kisses and candyfloss, then terrorized me on the Ferris wheel – ‘but then again, I am really old.’

  ‘You’re not old;
you’ve just lived longer than a load of other people.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, mock tersely. He’s twenty-seven; I’m forty-eight and have wrinkles and a whole lot of baggage to prove it. ‘That file’s in my in-tray. Help yourself. And tell Michelle she can give me a call if she wants a hand with anything.’

  I always wanted to work in film and television and this is where I ended up: a back-room office with ridged charcoal carpet and a view of the local gas depot. All the Coppers action takes place elsewhere – in the studio sets in the aircraft hangar-esque building down the road, or out on the streets, or at the locations I help to book but rarely get to visit. Nigel the Location Manager does that and he goes out on the days they film, too, to make sure everything goes smoothly. I sit in the office. I keep everything logged and on file. I do spreadsheets. I make phone calls and bookings. I make sure the people who own the locations – the lock-ups, the terraced houses, the newsagents, the garages – get looked after and paid on time. I go begging to the relevant London borough for permits to film on local streets, for all those chases, both on foot and in cars. My job is just another boring admin job, really, here in the office – despite the snazzy-looking LinkedIn profile Nigel made me set up – except we occasionally get people dressed as police constables popping in.

  Charlie works in casting. He’s good at spotting perfect faces for roles in Coppers, especially villains; he has a knack for finding just the right bald head and the right curled-up snarl. He’s also good for keeping me cheerful, even when I was at my lowest ebb.

  ‘Thanks, Hall.’ He refuses to call me Arden. It is a silly name, I agree. I was named after Ellen Wagstaff Arden, the character played by Marilyn Monroe in her last ever movie, Something’s Got to Give, with a short nod to Elizabeth Arden cosmetics. Arden Hall sounds like a stately home to me. My mother has a lot to answer for.

  Charlie picks up my hole punch and shakes its confetti contents. ‘So, still joining everybody for the works’ pre-New Year’s Eve drink tonight? You know it’s tradition.’

  ‘No, really sorry, Charlie; I can’t make it now.’ New Year’s Eve is on Monday, not that it matters.

  ‘You’re such a bloody killjoy.’ He raps me gently on the knuckles with the file then looks immediately sheepish. ‘I thought you would come. I know you’re a complete lightweight and half a shandy finishes you off, but you said you would!’ Now he sounds like a child. If I could reach it I’d be tempted to give the top of his head a little pat.

  ‘I know, I know. But I can’t now, sorry. Have my half a shandy for me?’ The phone on my desk is ringing. I let it ring three times and Charlie pulls an ‘I hate you’ face at me which makes me smile and then he backs away like a comical, shambling ape, swinging his arms like Liam Gallagher. I can’t go out tonight. I was forcing myself to anyway, to try to join in, to try to be normal, like everybody else, but now I have other plans. I have to have other plans.

  I answer the phone.

  ‘Ms Hall?’ says a clear voice. Scottish accent, although I know from the caller ID she’s calling from Walsall. ‘It’s Connie from The Cedars. Your mother is asking when you might be coming up next to visit. I’m sorry to bother you with it, but she’s talking about it all the time and it’s getting a little …’

  ‘Shrill? Irritating?’ I prompt. I can’t help myself.

  ‘Trying,’ says Connie. ‘Sorry. So, when do you think you’ll be able to come?’

  ‘In the next couple of weeks, hopefully?’ I sigh. I really don’t want to. Visits to my mother these days are the absolute embodiment of Duty Visits and kill me a little more every time. Who wants to sit in a pink room and hold hands with someone they never really liked and who never really liked them?

  ‘Fabulous,’ says Connie. ‘So Marilyn can look forward to seeing you very soon?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I say. ‘Thanks, Connie.’ Thanks for looking after Marilyn. Thanks for looking after her far, far away. It means everything to me that I don’t have to.

  I put the phone down with a sigh. I don’t have time to think about my mother. It’s two o’clock and there are about twenty phone calls to make, six contracts to organize and a whole lot of data to put into a spreadsheet before I can get on with my plans.

  The hospital is quiet tonight, as I make my way to Ward 10. It’s just as bright, though, the yellow light flooding everything in over-jolly, artificial sunshine. I pray Dom was right and has already been let out for good behaviour. I don’t want him to see what – or rather who – I’ve come here for. I do feel the lack of Becky’s breezy presence, though, tonight; in another life I’d feel able to lean on her for support. Instead, I am alone. I can hear crying from somewhere and the soothing sing-song voice of a nurse.

  I’ve been in a bit of a state since this time last night. I haven’t known what to do with myself. I’ve barely eaten, I couldn’t face Shawshank; my head’s been all over the place and full of Mac Bartley-Thomas. If it’s him, then he’s in London – this alone is incredible. If it’s him, why is he at St Katherine’s? What’s wrong with him? If it’s him, why, in a ward full of visitors, did he have no one at his bedside? And why is thinking I’ve seen him again having such an effect on me? My equilibrium – which took so very long to restore – has been shunted sideways. I am sidelined, derailed and other ridiculous train metaphors. I have come to Ward 10 to get answers to all these questions and the biggest one burns into my brain like a hot poker: is the man I saw last night the man I once loved?

  Realizing I am trembling, I press the buzzer.

  ‘Ward Ten?’

  ‘I’m here to visit Mac Bartley-Thomas,’ I say, and I hold my breath.

  There is a pause – quite a long one – then the door jamb clicks, just like that, and I push the door open and step into the ward.

  My heart is pounding, my thoughts racing, as I cross the ward as interloper, imposter, terrified visitor. I immediately glance to the other side to make sure Dominic has gone and he has. There’s now a friendly-looking man sporting a beard that looks painted on in his bed, pouring himself a glass of water.

  It is definitely quieter on the ward tonight, too; have all the visitors been and gone? It’s only six o’clock. I can just hear the murmur of televisions and the clank of equipment and the tinkle of teaspoons in mugs in the nurses’ station at the end of the ward. And some soft coughing.

  I head towards Mac’s bed, half-expecting a heavy hand to land on my shoulder and a voice to ask what the hell I am doing here: wasn’t I here last night, visiting someone else? Am I some sort of weird Munchausen-type person who likes breaking into hospital wards? But there is no hand and no voice. I make it to Mac’s bedside unscathed, despite the shockingly, un-Ratched loud noise of my heels on the polished floor, and I sit down, terrified.

  Mac – here in London, here at St Katherine’s – has his eyes open, which is an initial surprise and makes me feel like running away, and he is staring up at the television screen hanging above him in a giant, royal blue plastic box. Alexander Armstrong is chuckling at something Pointless. Will Mac recognize me? What will we say to each other? I haven’t a clue, except why is he here? Does he live in London? Does he live near me? If he does, how have we missed each other until now, and what would we have said to each other if we hadn’t?

  I wait. I keep my coat on, over my blouse and pencil skirt, my feet in black suede court shoes tucked under the chair. I wait for him to notice I am here, and after what feels like a very long forever, Mac looks down from the television. He looks at my face and stares at me for a moment, then his eyes crinkle into a soft smile of recognition – it is recognition, isn’t it? God, I hope it is – and finally, slowly, his mouth joins in. He knows who I am.

  Still petrified, I smile back at him. He’s older but the ghost of his beautiful, younger face is still there. His eyes are still periwinkle pale blue, with fair eyelashes. His mouth is still a delight, a promise. His hair is not back from his face today, some of it has flopped forward and it makes my heart contra
ct a little, as though squeezed by an eager hand. I loved Mac’s floppy hair. I would run my fingers through it and let it fall, in soft layers, into his eyes, before he would blow it up into the air again, his mouth a soft ‘O’. I hope I don’t disappoint him; I’m in my late forties, I have my own crinkles, an uncertain jawline, possibly an air of not long-departed despair … But he doesn’t disappoint me.

  He creeps his hand forward, at the side of the bed, so gradually I could be imagining it, but I place my own over it. His hand is warm and I am taken by a faint echo of the electricity I used to feel, a distant current, like the ripples from a skimmed stone on a faraway lake.

  ‘Hello, Mac,’ I say, my voice quavering. ‘It’s really good to see you.’ He smiles at me again, and I squeeze his hand gently until it stops mine from shaking. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  He nods very slowly.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ I know how I am. Nervous, shy, scared stiff, nothing like how I was when I first spoke to him, in the Arts common room, at university, thirty years ago. He, the charming, maverick Film Studies lecturer; me, the overconfident English Literature student. God knows what happened to her …

  Mac doesn’t answer. He just smiles at me, those blue eyes creasing until the irises nearly disappear.

  ‘I was visiting a friend last night,’ I gabble on. ‘He’s gone now, broken leg. I saw you were here. I came back to visit you. It’s so weird seeing you again. After all this time.’

  Mac nods again. He smiles. I can see his teeth, still a little crooked, something he always said he would fix, one day. He liked the idea of a Hollywood smile. He always joked that in the right light he’d look like a young Nick Nolte.