My Other Life

by Paul Theroux

  I thought of the loud, shouting, stamping people on the London stage. I had gotten little pleasure from all the hours I had spent at the theater. I did not believe actors any more than I believed in puppets. But there were movies that had gripped me by the throat and left me gasping with admiration.

  We always talked like father and son, but today I was the son, and Anton's face was pale and paternal and studying mine as he hid his uncertainty, his apprehension that I was in danger of making a fool of myself. It had been a mistake to raise the subject; I had not told him enough.

  Pondering this on the train back from Cambridge, finding the rain-flattened fields restful, I was grateful for Anton's giving me the word "indicating." There was a kind of writing that was indicating, too—just tentatively sketching. Ever since Ariel had called to offer me this acting part, I had stopped writing and begun indicating.

  What I resented about many actors was that they were being paid and praised for doing something I knew I could do better. You could see them acting. There was such a thing as an actor's face, an actor's hair style, an actor's laugh. Actors did not even walk like real people; they were slow and self-conscious. It was so much better when a person was doing the human thing, reacting, as in the old sixties movies that had influenced me, particularly Fellini's, where he had used amateurs. Such people had real faces and real voices. I thought: The very idea of hating actors is probably a good start. In this role I would not act at all. I would deal with it as I dealt with my writing, existing in every word I wrote, in every character.

  I woke the next day to good writing weather—cool, a stillness in the air, in the muted light a sense of harmless gloom, a low London sky full of gray tumbled stuffings. I sat, but I could not write; and there was nothing to distract me in the mail. Perhaps the script had been held up by British customs, as sometimes happened with business documents in this suspicious bureaucracy.

  The guy's a writer. That's the wholepoint. Ariel had insisted on that. Only a writer knew about writing, which was why I had never felt at a disadvantage in being interviewed on television—had never been nervous. There was nothing that anyone could ask me about my work that I could not answer, no question about my life that I had not already mulled over. My books were the visible part of my mind. And I could not separate my writing from who I was. It was not work I performed, it was a process of my life.

  The clouds became obscured in a shower of rain, spattering like crystal beads against the back garden and sluicing the slate roofs of the smaller house next door. I watched the gutters fill and run over, drenching the bricks; and the leaves being torn from the trees and falling in heaps, thickened like wet rags; and a cat compressing itself under a bush. The windows were pelted with heavy raindrops and water ran down the glass panes. Dramatic weather thrilled me and made me restless. I was now too excited to write.

  I watched it and thought how writing was all I had ever done. It had protected me, kept me from having to get a job, insulated me, insured me against ever having to work in an office, liberated me from the servitude of a salary, emancipated me and made me sane. I had no boss. I did not need permission to write. But all actors had to wait for their cue. I had no employees. I was free. What actor could say that?

  Only a writer knew these things, and only a writer could act the part of a writer. I was being asked to consider the part of the American writer in this British movie. That suited me. Because that was who I was, an American writer in London. Living in London was more a science than an art. It was an acquired taste, and you got better at it as time went on. I had developed those skills—not Anglophilia but tolerance and lowered expectations. I was a spectator, a witness. The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced that Ariel had made an inspired choice in asking me to accept the role.

  Another few days passed. I still could not work on my China book. I did research instead. I wandered the stacks of the London Library, searching the indexes of travel books for the names of the obscure towns where I had stayed in China, looking for inspiration. I made notes and tried to be busy.

  Another wonderful story, told to me by a woman in New York City, was about a woman friend of hers who had met a man on a plane. The man was dark, perhaps Middle Eastern. They swapped telephone numbers, and within a day the man called to invite her to dinner. The woman said she was busy—she was going away for a week. When she returned, she found that a large potted plant had been delivered to her. A few days later there was a basket of gourmet food, and not long afterwards a messenger arrived with a bracelet. All the presents were from the man she had met on the plane.

  The presents seemed so odd, so premature, that she called the man to tell him to stop. He had changed his telephone number. She could not find him. And he did not stop. He sent her a new refrigerator, and it was filled with bottles of expensive Chablis. He sent her a king-sized bed. Then a CD player and many discs. And there was more. It got so that the woman was hesitant to go home in the evening, so fearful was she of what she might find waiting for her. Now there was a present every day. They arrived in such profusion that it became a physical impossibility for the woman to send them back. Yet she did not have room for them in her small apartment.

  A dog was delivered. And then a motorcycle. By now the woman had called the police, but they did not take the complaint seriously—giving someone presents was not a crime, and it was hardly a nuisance. Yet for the woman it was worse than theft, she was half out of her mind with worry, the intrusion of all these unwanted presents was like the worst hostility—valuable jewelry, a Finnish sauna in a crate, a new car. She could not sleep. She lay awake expecting the doorbell to ring with another delivery. She lost her appetite and became depressed. And where was the man? He was hiding and relentlessly sending her presents. Now she hated him, and the onslaught proved to her that he wanted to drive her crazy.

  She went to see a psychiatrist, who after a few sessions simply advised her to move. And so she did, changed her job, relocated, and hid, her whole life changed by this chance encounter, almost destroyed by the gifts.

  But, "I never did find out what happened to her," the woman in New York told me when I quizzed her. This was the very thing you wanted to know. Unanswered questions always made me think that I was dealing with an invention—probe further and there was emptiness. Perhaps the woman on the plane did not exist. Perhaps the events had never happened. And it was not only that the man had been persistent; would the woman really have been so demoralized by the presents?

  The word "story" always made me smile. What's his story? Just a story. A likely story. "Story" suggested an insubstantial invention, a wobbly vehicle for an unconvincing proposition. Ask too many questions and it collapsed.

  I was waiting for the script—so I could not work. Then, at last, when the script came I could not work, because I was reading the script. It was called Mystery Man, a tide I hated and wanted to change. It was a love story. The lovers were English. The male lead had a friend, called the Writer in the script—no name—who loaned his apartment to the male lead so that he could have an assignation with the woman. Therefore, I was the key man. I got the plot rolling. In the novel I was the narrator, an American writer. The novel was a reminiscence of my English friends.

  Most of my lines were in the opening scene:

  Writer: You lucky dog. I'll bet she's beautiful.

  Jack: She's only twenty.

  I could almost believe that this older Englishman might find happiness with a dreamy twenty-year-old, even if the happiness was not long-lasting. But what about Heather (as she was named in the script)? The story needed cynicism, selfishness, manipulation.

  Jack: Don't you want to see her?

  Writer: Curiously, no.

  Wrong, I scribbled. Americans did not say, "Curiously, no." This was English writing, the slightly pompous, sniffy, weighty way of urbane Englishmen. If you knew them, you knew that it was an insufferable affectation; if you did not, it was just baffling or else mildly threatening.
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  I did not have much dialogue, the script was childishly spelled ("sizzors" for scissors, "miniscule"). I was described walking around my flat in Chelsea (more believable in Battersea or Islington, I thought), showing my friend my gadgets—coffeemaker, Jacuzzi, cable TV, video camera, all the items that figured later in the plot. I did not describe them. I showed him how they worked. That was simple enough acting.

  But would an American writer own such things in London? I made a list in the margins of the script of all the things I actually did own: a rowing machine, a working samovar, a wind-up gramophone with an old 78 of Heifetz playing Handel's Largo.

  After I had finished reading the script, I flipped through it and saw that I had scribbled so many notes on the pages it looked like one of my own rough drafts. I wanted to discuss the changes. And then I remembered that it was a script that had been sent for me to consider playing the role of the Writer. Peter, the director, was not looking for a script doctor to fix the lines, just an actor to say them—an actor to walk around, to be directed. Idly, wanting to respond, I dialed Ariel's number, but put the phone down before there was a ring. Surely they would call me. They did not want any actor; they wanted a writer.

  The following day I reread the script and, instead of working on my China book, learned the Writer's lines. They were few but significant. I had made some changes, improved them—Americanized them. It was not presumptuous. They would be grateful for the changes. I looked over my China notes, but with one ear cocked for the phone—Ariel's call. There was no call.

  At the BBC party, several people asked me what I was doing. I had not been working. I had been away from my book for a week. I noticed that these partygoers, all BBC producers and editors, spoke in exaggerated American accents whenever they used certain words or phrases. They mockingly said, "You're welcome," and "It figures," and "You gotta be kidding," and it struck me that the English were at their most comfortable hiding behind accents. His mustache wet with wine, one small, balding man named Meyer began to monopolize Alison's attention with his many accents, a different one for each sentence, like a man speaking in tongues, a kind of glossolalia certain English people were prone to when they were nervous. Not acting, but indicating.

  I turned away from them and lit a woman's cigarette.

  "That was nicely done."

  I was so surprised by the compliment I could not think of a reply, and then she too asked me what I had been writing. It was my usual superstitious reflex that made me deny that I was writing anything. But I realized that it was the truth. I had not been able to get back into my China book. All I did was stare at my notebooks. I wanted to confide in her and say I've just been offered a part in a movie. What would she say to that?

  On the way home from the party, I said to Alison, "Remember Ariel Draper, that casting director?"

  "That calls up at the oddest hours? Yes, I remember her."

  "She offered me a part in a movie."

  "You're joking."

  "No."

  Then she went silent.

  "So what do you think?"

  She said, "I'm trying to think of something clever like, Is it another installment of Planet of the Apes?"

  "I know. It's ridiculous. I just thought you'd be interested."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "That I had a book to write."

  Yet I saw this movie more clearly than I did my book. The car arriving at my house each morning to take me to the studio outside London, probably Pinewood, the one at Iver, in Buckinghamshire. Lunches at the studio restaurant. Chitchat with the actors. I knew from experience that there would be a great deal of rehearsal and repetition and that I would have a lot of time to kill. I could work on my book then. And I was the only American on the set. I would be a little exotic for that reason, and because I was not an actor, I caught myself feeling a little superior to all the rest of them, and corrected myself. I imagined the others' insecurities, their slighting remarks, the misunderstandings. The flirtations. And the meals with the director and producer—a time perhaps for pitching projects of my own. Using the notes I had made, I might become involved in rewriting the script.

  Sometimes these reveries maddened and embarrassed me, sometimes they were a consolation.

  In my reveries I did not win an Oscar, I was not nominated; but my performance was remarked upon, and I was asked to play in other movies. Because acting was out-of-date and formal and self-conscious, the thing was to have real people in these parts. I was noticed because I was not an actor. I was real. I was the writer Paul Theroux.

  And yet, even as this thought occurred to me, I knew I had done no writing lately. I disliked my indicating, my rationalizing, my ridiculous patience, my new alertness to the ring of the telephone. Waiting—I thought of myself as hanging—not able to work, I was asked to write a story about Sicily for a travel magazine.

  "I can't," I said, because I was waiting for the call. I was sure the telephones were terrible in Sicily, and I did not want to be there when the call came. I said I was busy. This happened several times—travel offers. Each time I thought: I'D do it after the movie.

  Alison said, "Are you all right?"

  My gloom was not from writing. It was from not writing—not writer's block but a sort of block from not being able to live and believe in myself. The thought of a part in a movie had rid my mind of all other thoughts.

  "I'm fine," I said, and kept my secret to myself until I found it so hard to bear that I called the studio.

  "Mystery Man."

  I asked to speak to Peter.

  "Who shall I say is calling?"

  I lost my nerve and hung up.

  Not being able to work, I walked the streets. I went to more movies and, examining actors' performances, became convinced that I had a career. It made me secretive and self-regarding. I looked at myself in plate-glass windows, in mirrors. I dressed carelessly, as though I did not want anyone to recognize me. When people glanced at me, I turned away.

  I had always suspected that I did not belong in London, but contemplating this part in the movie I became convinced of it. I was encouraged by the discovery. These feelings made me think I could give the movie credibility. I felt restless here. The writer in Mystery Man was like me, a witness, someone watching the rain come down, waiting to go home.

  These empty days and my nonworking gave me the feeling I associated with actors. It was easier, I felt sustained, as a nonworking actor rather than a nonworking writer. Waiting, not working, made me feel I had turned into an actor. No one could challenge me, and yet I knew there had been a change in my mood. I was tormented by the calls for work, more frequent now, as though I sat there waiting to be summoned.

  Alison said, "I'd love to read some of your China book."

  "Most of it's provisional—I'm still scribbling."

  There was no more of my China book.

  Resolute, grimmer than I wanted to be, hating the submissive way I sat there dialing the number, I called Ariel in Los Angeles.

  The message on her answering machine was obviously designed to discourage actors looking for work. " I'm away from my desk this week—traveling," her voice said. No indication where she was or when she would be back. "If you want to leave a message, you can call..." and she gave the number of her secretary. Get in line was the implication. Don't bother me—there are a million people like you. There was no way of leaving a message on this line.

  "Rats."

  Eventually, to take my mind off my part in the movie, I started working on my travel book again. I could not leave it unfinished; I would have to complete this book about China in order to be available for the movie. That was the story I told myself, to give myself the heart to go on. I labored at my desk, I listened to Chinese music—the Red Guards singing "Dong Fang Hong," "The East Is Red"—and I looked at maps and my notes, and slowly, my chair creaking as I shifted in it, hesitating, I resumed my travel narrative.

  And then, somehow, I knew the part was not going to happ
en. I was sure of it. How was it possible? I had heard nothing. Shooting was about to begin. The Writer was a key part. I had been a fool for ever thinking it would have been possible.

  And I felt more than ever like an alien—someone who will never belong, like the man in the movie. An American in England knew so much about broken promises.

  So, one day, I woke up and did not want to get out of bed and begin waiting. I lay there, deciding what to do, and in seconds I sat up and rejected the movie. I began to rebuff their attention, turning them down, not angrily but in a tetchy preoccupied way, interrupting their appeals. It seemed like another reason to leave England. I wanted to take a long trip. I wanted to be unobtainable.

  Please, Paul.

  Sorry. I'm much too busy. It's not my line of work.

  And I realized that I had already had this conversation, on the first day.

  "Are you joking, Ariel?"

  "Absolutely not. It's not a big part, but you'd be perfect."

  "I've never acted in a movie."

  "No problem."

  "Ariel, don't send me the script. I could never be in a movie."

  "Why not?"

  "I'm not an actor. I don't know the first thing about it."

  "That's what directors are for."

  "I don't want to learn. I'm a writer."

  "The guy's a writer. That's the whole point."

  "I can't do it. I have to get back to work."

  I hated Ariel. She was not a tease, she was the devil, offering me the earth and then skipping off.

  Even so, hardened as I thought I had become, I was excited when she finally called me a month or so later. I listened, breathing in a shallow, nervous way. She was gabbing. Was this a lead-up to the explanation of my part in the movie? No. She began talking about coming to London.

  "Auditions?"

  "No, just a vacation."