That is, the costumes of the girl who was supposed to play the part.
Ann smiled and went to the closet, grateful to the actress who had abandoned Denham. She reached in and made some space between dresses so she could get a look at one, then started quickly flicking through the others. The gowns were all glittery and formal, highly theatrical. Absolutely gorgeous, but not at all the sort of thing she could wear wandering around the deck of a tramp steamer.
Then again, compared to her other options…
She paused on an elaborate floral chiffon dress that made her smile even wider.
Tempting. Very tempting.
6
THE SKY WAS BLUE, morning light washing over the Venture, but Denham and Jack walked in shadows on the lower deck.
“Ann Darrow?” Jack asked, brow furrowing. “Who the hell is Ann Darrow? I never heard of her.”
Denham’s mind had been so occupied with other things—primarily trying to make sure Jack put together a great script for the picture—that he hadn’t gotten round to bringing up the casting change before. In his mind, Maureen’s quitting had created a problem, and once he’d solved that issue by finding Ann, he didn’t have to dwell on it anymore. Ann was more than a solution. He believed she would turn out to be a real discovery. But that was Denham’s way: solve a problem, and move on to the next one.
Of course, Jack was a little behind on the news, so Denham had to give him a chance to catch up.
“Well,” Denham said, “she’s not exactly famous.”
“I’m not saying she had to be famous,” Jack said, voice tight with frustration as they strode along the deck. “All you had to do was find a real actress!”
Denham would have laughed if he wasn’t so irked. Maybe Jack figured he had a lot riding on this film, on it being good, but did he actually think he cared more about the quality of the picture than the director?
“You haven’t even met her. Give her a chance, for Christ’s sake!”
They were just outside the mess room, the smells of breakfast wafting through the portholes, when Jack rounded on him.
“Half the theaters in New York are closed. You could have had your pick.”
“Ann’s from the theater!” Denham argued.
“Vaudeville,” Jack said, like the word was a curse. “Give me a break! How do you expect me to write for a glorified chorus girl?”
Denham stiffened. “I cast Ann because she’s special. She’s right for this part.”
Jack regarded him evenly. “That’s what you said about Dolores. The blonde? You remember her, the one who couldn’t act? She was in your last picture.”
All right, so that part was true. But Jack was jumping to conclusions, now.
“That’s a low blow, Jack. I learned my lesson. This is strictly on the level. There’s not gonna be any funny business.”
Jack shook his head as he pulled open the mess door. “Whatever you say, Carl. Just as long as she reads the lines.”
The mess room was comparatively quiet when they entered. Most of the crew had already come and gone, though a few sailors were still finishing breakfast. Lumpy was still keeping some porridge hot, stirring it from time to time, but he was doing double duty as cook and barber. He had a sailor Denham believed was called Judah in a chair and had lathered up the man’s face for a shave. The incongruity of the two activities didn’t seem to faze Lumpy or the other crewmen in the least.
Denham just took note, amused, and then went to a table where his film crew was assembled. Herb and Mike had been with him for years and over the course of several pictures. As far as Denham was concerned, they were true professionals. Herb was a genius with a camera, willing to hang from a tree, or to trust Denham’s word that the animal wranglers wouldn’t let the lion get too close. He was getting up there in age, but still capable. In his round glasses, bow tie, and wool cap, he looked more like someone’s favorite uncle than a world traveler. Mike, the sound man, was younger and thinner than Herb, and more vocal. But Denham didn’t mind his mutterings if it meant the job would get done well.
Preston hung back from the table just a bit. The kid had been with them for a while now, but still didn’t seem to feel quite a part of the group. Denham wished he would just get over it, realize it was his own self keeping that distance. Something to do with Preston growing up rich, he assumed. Wealthy people always assumed folks with no money had a grudge against them. The funny thing was, the people with no money didn’t have the luxury of holding grudges.
Jack and Denham wished everyone good morning, but then Jack went off to the other side of the mess room to examine the porridge and to fetch himself a cup of coffee. As Jack passed him, Lumpy started sharpening his straight razor, getting ready to shave Judah.
At the table, Mike adjusted his glasses, then started packing away his headphones and sound recording equipment. He’d been giving it the once-over, making sure it was all in working order, a stickler about keeping his equipment in perfect condition.
But Denham saw the way Herb and Mike were looking at each other; there was some unpleasantness there. Denham glanced at Preston, who gave a small shake of his head, as if to say he didn’t know what to do about the problem. Denham, though, just wanted to know what the problem was.
“Mike?” he asked.
That was all it took. The sound man started in, complaining about the difficulties of recording on board the ship, particularly while it was moving. Denham tried to soothe him, but Mike had obviously built up a good head of steam on his pique, and he wasn’t going to listen to platitudes. He wanted to know how Denham expected him to get quality recordings. At first the director was sympathetic, trying to be supportive, but that evaporated quickly.
“I’m gonna have the ship’s engines all over the dialogue,” Mike snapped. “Sea gulls, camera noise, wind, and Christ knows what!”
Denham didn’t like being snapped at. “I don’t care, Mike. You’re the sound recordist, make it work!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something pink. Pink was a color that just didn’t belong on this dingy, rusty steamer, and he glanced up curiously to see Ann standing in the doorway of the mess in a chiffon dress, clutching a handbag. She looked so out of place, and yet no more so than an angel come to Earth.
She hesitated, but Denham raised a hand and signaled for her to join them.
“Ann, come on over,” he said.
With a smile, she entered, the dress flowing around her. All of the sailors looked up, but no one said a word.
“Let me introduce you to the crew,” Denham said, knowing she would understand that he meant the film crew, not the ship’s. “This is Herbert, our camera man.”
Preston appeared behind her and pulled out a chair for her to sit, even as she shook Herb’s hand. Denham had to say one thing for Preston: growing up with money had given the kid manners.
“Delighted to meet you, ma’am,” Herb said. “And may I say, what a lovely dress.”
Ann smiled and plucked at the dress, swaying a bit. “Oh, this old thing? I just…threw it on.”
Preston leaned in toward Denham, the two of them watching Ann. “Isn’t that one of Maureen’s costumes?”
Ann overheard, apparently, and hurriedly changed the subject, glancing around. “What does a girl have to do to get breakfast around here?”
Denham grinned. “Lumpy, you heard the lady!”
Lumpy looked up from his dual duty, shaving the sailor with one hand while giving the porridge a stir with the other. “Porridge aux walnuts,” Lumpy declared. Denham looked on in amazement. It was like some kind of twisted circus act.
When he glanced back at Ann, he found her staring at Mike. The sound man had taken out a notebook and was scribbling in it, working out some of his recording issues, no doubt. He had his head down, so focused that he hadn’t bothered to look up when their guest joined them.
“Ann,” Denham began, “I don’t believe you’ve met—”
“It’s all right,
Mr. Denham,” she said, all sweetness and light. “I know who this is…”
The way she was beaming, and the touch of quiet awe in her voice, confused the heck out of Denham for a few seconds. Then he saw the way she looked at Mike’s notebook, the admiration in her eyes, and he put the pieces together.
Mike nervously glanced up at Ann.
“How do you like your eggs?” Lumpy called.
“Scrambled,” the vaudeville girl said, completely deadpan. “No stubble.”
Denham started to slowly shake his head. He glanced over at Jack, who was leaning against the counter and sipping from his coffee cup, watching the whole thing.
Ann reached out and took Mike’s hand, giving it a vigorous shake.
“Thrilled to meet you,” she said. “It’s an honor to be a part of this.”
Mike gave her a bewildered smile. “Gee, thanks.”
“Actually, I am quite familiar with your work.”
“Really?”
Denham winced and glanced at Jack, trying to figure out if it was too late for him to say something to prevent this from skidding out of control into utter embarrassment. He started to speak, but Ann wasn’t paying any attention to him. Her focus was Mike, and that notepad.
“The thing that I most admire is the way you have captured the voice of the common people.”
“Well, that’s my job,” Mike replied.
“I’m sure you’ve heard this before, Mr. Driscoll, but if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t look at all like your photograph.”
Mike raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”
Denham couldn’t let it go on any longer. “Wait a minute!” he said. “Ann—”
“Well, he’s so much younger in person,” she plowed on, giving a coquettish glance at Mike. “And much better looking.”
Again, Denham winced, but at the same time he couldn’t stop the quiet little chuckle of disbelief that rose in his throat, as he wondered what Ann would do when she realized she was flirting with the sound guy.
Jack started walking toward the table.
“Ann!” Denham said. “Stop! Stop right there—”
Mike wasn’t even looking at her anymore. He was staring past Ann at Jack, who came up to stand beside Denham. Ann, though, just pressed on, unaware.
“I was afraid you might be one of those self-obsessed literary types. You know the tweedy twerp with his head in a book and a pencil up his—”
Jack interrupted with a cough.
Startled, Ann turned around. The realization hit her face like a bolt of lightning—Denham saw it all pass across her eyes in an instant. Ann made a kind of terrible groan and just stared at him.
“You must be Ann Darrow,” Jack said.
She looked like she wanted to throw herself overboard.
On the lower deck of the Venture, Ann leaned on the railing and gazed at the churning ocean below. The thought of throwing herself overboard had occurred to her, but not in any serious way. She was too busy wondering if she was going to vomit, and all trace of strength had gone out of her limbs, so that she couldn’t even have climbed the railing at the moment.
Preston had followed her out of the mess—and what a mess it was—and out to the railing. He hovered nearby, a comforting presence, as though he wished to cure her ills. Ann only wished he could.
“Help me, Preston,” she said. “How do I get off this boat?”
“It didn’t go that badly,” he replied. Ann admired his ability to lie with such sincerity.
“It was a disaster.”
“Jack’s a writer,” Preston said. “He’s used to all kinds of personal abuse.”
Ann looked at him doubtfully.
Preston gazed at her as though he was the most reasonable man on the planet. “He’ll come round. Trust me.”
Jack did not sleep well on board the Venture. Each time he woke in the darkness to find himself wrapped in blankets on a bed of straw inside a cage, it took him several moments to remember that this was not some vivid and horrible dream. The first night had been the worst. But after a couple of days, he found himself strangely quiescent about the entire thing. Jack had always secretly wished to go along with Carl on one of his great adventures, but had never been able to bring himself to ask. He was always busy with the life he’d made in New York, locked inside his mind with all the doleful observations about the state of the world that made their way into his plays.
Now that he was on this voyage, however, he knew there was nothing to be gained by trying to fight it. All of his responsibilities were back in New York. His only duty now was to make the most of his predicament, which meant working with Carl to make the best film possible. They had always talked about such a collaboration, but even when Carl had asked him to write this script, Jack had never imagined something like this.
So this morning he had woken with a changed attitude toward his circumstances. But soon after, his brighter outlook had been rewarded with the rise of the ocean, churning waves that rocked the ship roughly and knotted Jack’s stomach with barely controlled nausea. He felt weak and pale, and from time to time his throat worked to keep the bile down, one more roll of the sea away from sending him into a corner to be sick.
Somehow, he managed to type.
Denham had brought him the typewriter, and Jack had found that focusing on his friend and the familiar activity of tapping away at the keys, at feeding paper into the machine and hitting the return, helped to keep his mind off the rough seas and soothed his roiling guts just a bit.
On the bright side, Jack had gotten used to the animal stink of the cargo hold. He figured that meant he probably now smelled equally bad, but still chose to consider it a benefit.
Now Carl paced back and forth across the hold, puffing on his pipe, eyes glittering with the childlike excitement that had first endeared him to Jack years ago.
“We’re killing off the first mate?” Carl asked.
Jack grimaced. “That’s assuming she knows who the first mate is.”
“Come on! It was an honest mistake. Ann’s shortsighted. It could happen to anyone.”
“Carl, I was joking.”
“It’s no joke, Jack,” Carl said grimly. “Do you know how much Bruce Baxter cost me? Let’s just call it a flesh wound.” The director started pacing. “The point is, she’s horrified! She’s has to look away, and that’s when she sees it: the island!”
Confusion overwhelmed Jack’s queasiness. He stared at Carl. “We’re filming on an island now? When did this happen? What’s it called?”
“Keep your voice down!” Denham snapped in low rasp. “We’re surrounded by sailors…they’re very superstitious. I don’t want the crew getting spooked.”
Jack narrowed his eyes, studying Carl. “What’s wrong with this place?”
A distant, sort of shifty look came over Denham’s face. “There’s nothing officially wrong with it because technically it hasn’t been discovered yet.”
Frustrated, Jack gave him a hard look.
“All right,” Carl said with an air of surrender. “It has a local name, but I’m warning you, Jack, it doesn’t sound good…Skull Island.”
The cage doors swung and all the ropes hanging in the hold swung with each roll of the waves. Jack’s insides twisted and he tried to force them to be still.
Before he could get any more information out of Carl, they had a visitor. Jimmy. The kid was maybe sixteen years old, the youngest member of the crew, and had introduced himself to Jack at breakfast, back before the idea of eating anything had become repulsive to him.
Jimmy walked into the hold carrying a tray that held bowls of some gray-looking stew, one each for Jack and Carl. He wore that navy blue cap that always seemed too big for his head and a kind of lost look that never left his face.
“Compliments of the chef,” the kid said earnestly. “Lamb brains in walnut sauce.”
He set a bowl next to Jack, who took one look at it—the kid’s description of it still echoing in his ears—a
nd squeezed his eyes closed, lips tightly shut as though that could keep the vomit down.
“Fend it off, Jack!” Carl instructed, seeing his distress. “You can make it to the end of the scene! Focus! Focus!”
Jack didn’t know if Carl was really trying to help him avoid getting seasick, or if he just wanted work done on the script. He chose to believe it was a combination of the two.
“Okay…all right,” Jack managed. He started typing again. “We’re sailing towards this place. S-K-U-L-L…Island.”
Even as he said it, he realized what he’d done and looked up to see Carl glance nervously at Jimmy, who’d clearly heard and was intrigued.
“Let’s stay with the action, Jack,” Carl said quickly. “The first mate, he’s been stabbed…he’s screaming…”
“Screaming,” Jack repeated. “Yes. He sinks to his knees.”
“There’s blood everywhere, lots of blood…” Carl prodded. “Can you write it?”
Jack started to nod, but then a small voice spoke up.
“When a man’s knifed in the back, there ain’t much blood,” Jimmy said, and it was the sincerity in his voice that haunted Jack. Not just the knowledge, but the very ordinariness of the way he said it, like the average teenage boy talking about baseball.
“And he doesn’t scream,” the kid went on. “The only sound he makes is a rush of air, like when you puncture a ball. He drops fast, like a stone. It’s the shock.”
Quietly, Denham said, “It’s just a movie, kid.”
Jimmy was unfazed. “There’s no such thing as a slow death, see? Not at the end. At the end it’s always fast. The light in a man’s eyes…one minute it’s there and then it’s gone. Nothing.”
Jack and Denham stared at the kid. Jimmy’s eyes were cool and expressionless.
“Just so you know,” he said, and then he turned and walked out of the hold, leaving them staring after him.
The words haunted Jack, and the kid’s matter-of-fact tone. Denham looked worried.
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