Araluen

by Judy Nunn

It proved to be a companionable evening. Just the three of them. Karol Mankowski was absent, Michael was at his entertaining best and Franklin, charmed by his grandson, was far less acerbic than usual. Helen was pleased to see the two men openly displaying the fondness they had for each other. Surely it meant Franklin’s worry that Michael might be ‘going off the rails’, as he put it, was unfounded.

  But two weeks later, news reached Franklin which confirmed his worries were far from groundless.

  ‘What comment do you have on the allegations that your grandson is a rapist, Mr Ross?’ the voice asked down the line.

  ‘What allegations? What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ The voice had a cockney accent and dripped hypocritical concern. It was a British tabloid journalist – the worst of the gutter press. ‘I was sure you would have heard by now. You see, the victim, Miss Waverley, has granted me an exclusive and my story hits the stands next Tuesday, so I naturally assumed your grandson would have warned you. I mean, it’s under just such unpleasant and upsetting circumstances that families like to stick together, isn’t it?’

  ‘Listen, you obsequious piece of shit,’ Franklin snarled, ‘you’ll get nothing out of me. Not one cent.’

  ‘I assure you, Mr Ross … ’ The voice was grovelling now, but not frightened. The journalist was unperturbed, obviously used to such reactions. ‘I was merely after a comment from you regarding – ’

  ‘And if you attempt to print one word of such slander, you’ll be hit with far more than a libel suit.’

  ‘Mr Ross,’ the voice sounded a little less sure of itself now. ‘I’ve already started writing the article … ’

  ‘Then stop. And start worrying about your health.’ Franklin hung up. Then he telephoned Michael.

  ‘What the hell’s going on, boy?’ he asked. ‘What have you got yourself into? Do I need to pay this worm off or not?’

  Michael assured him that he didn’t, that it was pure tabloid fiction, and that there was nothing to worry about. But Franklin wasn’t satisfied with that.

  ‘Get yourself around here this instant and explain yourself,’ he ordered.

  It had happened at a basement party in The Village. Michael related the story as patiently as he could. A girl had been coming on strong to him, so he’d taken her into one of the bedrooms and obliged.

  ‘Yes, I know, I should have been more discreet,’ he added hastily before Franklin could interrupt, ‘but it was one of those parties – everyone was playing up. Anyway,’ he continued, ‘the girl called rape on me. She raced out of the bedroom and started screaming that I’d attacked her. She was off her brain, of course.’

  ‘Honestly, Grandpa,’ he insisted as Franklin said nothing but scowled back at him, ‘she’s just after publicity, she’s renowned for it. Rebel Waverley, that’s her name – she’s always in the papers for one thing or another. Trying to kiss Prince Charles, or arriving topless at a movie premiere. She’s a weirdo.’

  Franklin realised that he had to accept Michael’s story at face value, there was nothing else he could do. ‘Temper your behaviour from now on, boy,’ he warned. ‘You have the Ross name to think of.’ And Michael left, relieved.

  ‘Keep your eye on him, Karol,’ Franklin instructed ten minutes later. ‘And get me the girl’s side of the story.’

  As it turned out, Rebel Waverley’s story backed Michael’s word for word. ‘So I was a bit bombed,’ she shrugged. Michael had told her that his grandfather would have her investigated. ‘I just thought it was a funny thing to do at the time. Then a journalist friend of mine decided to take it a bit further. No harm done.’

  Michael had paid her off handsomely. And the fact that her head still hurt where he’d ripped at her hair and that she still had a vivid bruise on her shoulder where he’d sunk his teeth into her was a fair enough price to pay for ten thousand dollars, she decided. But she’d certainly never set her sights on Michael Ross again.

  Michael had shocked himself that night. When they’d gone into the bedroom together, giggling and teasing each other, he’d had no intention of being so rough with Rebel. But when they were actually doing it and she was moaning and begging for more, he couldn’t help himself. Rebel Waverley looked so very like Emma. That’s what had attracted him from the outset of the evening. When he was at the peak of his passion, he had wanted her to scream that she loved him. The woman he had worshipped for seven years. ‘Love me, love me,’ he said over and over as he tore at her hair and sank his teeth into her shoulder. That’s when Rebel had pushed him from her and run screaming from the room.

  The story never reached the press. The cockney journalist had indeed been after a pay-off, and Rebel’s reputation was already as tarnished as Michael had painted to Franklin. But it was a sobering experience for all concerned.

  Six months after Emma returned from Paris, an American film unit landed at Nadi Airport on Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji. Michael had decided to play it safe and had chosen Fiji as the major location for Earth Man rather than any of the French territories in the Pacific. Given the controversial subject matter of the film, he didn’t want to risk incurring the wrath of the French government.

  The unit stayed at the capital, Suva, for two days while final arrangements were made and then travelled by boat to Moala Atoll, the chosen location for the scenes depicting Mururoa Atoll prior to the nuclear testings.

  As executive producer, Michael didn’t accompany them but remained in New York controlling the project’s finances. Emma, as associate producer, was put in command of the location shoot.

  ‘You’re the one Gireaux trusts,’ Michael had instructed. ‘You’re the one to keep him on side.’

  Although Michael had been delighted by Emma’s coup in securing Gireaux for the movie, on their one meeting in Paris the two men hadn’t got on particularly well. Purely a matter of egos, Emma supposed; they were both supremely confident and used to commanding the top roost.

  ‘Besides,’ Michael added when she looked a little dubious, ‘you’ll have Stanley to back you up and Derek doesn’t seem a bad sort of bloke.’

  Derek was the English director, approved by both Marcel and Michael. Strangely enough, it had been Marcel’s idea to choose the Englishman over several French names which had been suggested. ‘A French person may be too biased one way or another,’ he said, ‘either too guilty or too defensive – who can tell? Derek will be more objective. Besides,’ Marcel shrugged a little dis-missively, ‘he is a typical Englishman, detached, remote. That will work to our advantage with such an emotive theme.’ Marcel had made several films with Derek and deeply admired his talent and technique but he didn’t particularly like the fellow. No matter, one didn’t need to like the people one worked with.

  Derek and the crew left for Moala Atoll and Emma and Stanley remained in Suva for a further two days awaiting the arrival of Marcel.

  ‘Emma!’ As he came through customs, Marcel spotted her immediately and was effusive in his greeting.

  ‘Marcel,’ she said as he kissed her on both cheeks, ‘welcome to Fiji. This is Stanley Grahame, one of Ross Entertainments’ associate directors – ’

  ‘And stunt man extraordinaire,’ Marcel added, ‘and special effects genius.’ He shook Stanley heartily by the hand. ‘Your work in Halley’s and Blue Water History was remarkable, my friend.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Stanley was taken aback by the man’s expansiveness. He’d expected something a little more aloof, a little more grand. But Gireaux obviously didn’t intend playing ‘star’ at all.

  During the interminable drive from the airport to Suva, Marcel was in excellent spirits and as engaging as a child on summer holidays.

  ‘Look!’ he said. ‘Look! We are in paradise.’ Palm trees and lush tropical growth flashed past as the cab zoomed along, narrowly avoiding stray cows and goats and dogs. ‘I love Fiji. I have been here twice before. Paris is gloomy,’ he said. ‘Dank and gloomy and oppressive.’

  ‘I’ll
bet it’s not as bad as New York,’ Emma remarked. She was picking up on his mood -indeed, it was difficult not to feel abandoned in Fiji. ‘It was snowing when we left. The first day of spring and it was still snowing.’

  Marcel, seated beside the driver in the front seat, turned and grinned at Stanley. ‘And here we are in Nirvana. And paid to be here! Ah, Mon Dieu,’ he corrected himself with a grin, ‘you are the producers – I am not supposed to say things like that.’

  They laughed and waved out of the windows at the Fijians, who called ‘Mbula’ as they passed.

  ‘Mbula,’ the hotel staff said in welcome when they arrived.

  ‘Mbula,’ Marcel replied. He was having a wonderful time.

  Marcel Gireaux was not as complex a man as many people perceived him to be. Admittedly he was intelligent, committed and his background was academic, but his very ideals and education were a result of his simple origins.

  He came from peasant stock, the son of a fisherman. Although his childhood in Marseilles had been a happy one, he’d aspired to greater things. With the help of his family and a scholarship, he’d attended university, ultimately achieving a PhD in French literature, majoring in the seventeenth century poets and dramatists, and then he’d progressed to his status as a major classical actor. But the peasant boy was always there. The greater the hero he became to his people, the more he realised he could use his status to serve their cause.

  He became quite a power in the fight for the rights of the lower classes and, from there, he progressed to the fight for human rights and then to the plight of the environment. They were heady times – particularly when, as a young man, he realised that leaders and politicians were vying for his support.

  Marcel’s image as a hero of the people was important to him. So was his reputation as France’s premier classical actor. Inevitably, the roles became interwoven and there were occasions when he lost touch with reality a little. Just what was a role and what wasn’t? It was sometimes difficult to tell.

  Not for Annette, his wife. Annette was firmly in touch with reality.

  Annette and Marcel had met at university, where she’d topped the law course. She’d seen him through all of his formative years. From an academic middle-class family herself (who had initially opposed her association with Gireaux), Annette was fully aware of the effects of fame upon the peasant boy she loved.

  When she saw his roles as an actor and as a leader of the times had become interwoven, she didn’t try to disillusion him. Why should she? He was happy, he was serving a purpose, and the fight was a good fight.

  But when, after five years and two children, the adulation afforded Marcel posed a threat to her marriage, Annette took a stance. ‘Grow up, Marcel,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind if you play the hero off the screen but I will not have you play the lover.’

  It was the first time she’d caught him out having an affair with his leading lady. She’d never believed the tabloid and film magazine rumours before but now she wondered whether she should have. Wisely, she didn’t press the issue. What had happened had happened. She knew the depth of his love for her and she was prepared to believe that this was the first time.

  ‘I won’t have it, Marcel,’ she warned. ‘I won’t have it, you understand me?’ Marcel did and, for a year or so, he was terrified into submission. He worshipped Annette and the thought of life without her and his beloved children was more than he could bear. But, eventually, in a remote location, far away from the real world, the adulation of a beautiful young leading lady once again proved too much for him and he became infatuated.

  Annette took the children and left him twice over the ensuing five years. Both times, when he begged her forgiveness, she succumbed and their marriage survived. It still survived after a fashion, but it was not the marriage they’d once had. Marcel loved Annette and Annette loved her children and her children loved their father. It was happier for all concerned, she decided, if she turned a blind eye to his odd dalliance. And he was very discreet; he never strayed when he was close to home – he never wanted to. Besides, the discipline of working in the Paris theatre reminded him of his craft and his dedication.

  Annette called it ‘la folie du filmage’ – ‘movie madness’. She was aware that it was the suspended reality of filming in exotic locations which affected Marcel. For those several weeks or months, he genuinely became infatuated with the person and the situation that presented itself.

  She remained loyal. She never undermined Marcel’s public image, but Annette hardened herself to the fact that her marriage could never be what it once was.

  ‘Have you ever seen anything more beautiful!’ It was the following day and Emma, Stanley and Marcel were standing in the bow of the boat as it ploughed its way through the aqua waters of the Koro Sea towards Moala Atoll.

  Marcel held his arms out wide and breathed in the balmy heat of the day. ‘This is truly heaven on earth.’

  Emma breathed in deeply too. He was right. The sea was so clear that she could see through the aquamarine of the water to the white sand below with its dark patches of weed and shimmering sea grasses. The tide was not yet full and, as the skipper skilfully manoeuvred the boat through the surrounding reefs, she marvelled at the vivid coral and neon-coloured fish darting amongst the rich vegetation. Such colours!

  Gradually Viti Levu, with its towns and tourists and resorts, slipped away behind them until it was no more than a narrow strip of white sand with silhouettes of tiny palm trees in the distance.

  It was a five-hour boat trip to Moala Atoll. Finally, they saw it, low on the horizon. A tiny, lush green outcrop surrounded by coral reef, beckoning to them in its wilderness.

  ‘That would have been what Mururoa Atoll looked like before the testings,’ Stanley mused. ‘Pretty shocking, isn’t it?’

  ‘Shocking?’ Marcel turned angrily on the two of them. ‘It is obscene! Only man could commit such an atrocity. Do you know that the birds affected by the radiation are rendered infertile? That they make nests and tend eggs which will never hatch? Do you know that the giant sea turtle loses her sense of direction? That when she has laid her eggs and, exhausted, should return to the sea, she heads inland instead and slowly bakes to death?’

  Stanley and Emma exchanged a glance. Marcel’s eyes burned with all the passion of a zealot.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said as he recovered himself. ‘You have researched your film, of course you know all of this – it is just that such a crime makes me angry.’ He relaxed and smiled, his mood having dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. ‘I shall not lecture you any more, I promise.’ He looked about again at the picture postcard surroundings. ‘It is far too nice a day.’

  The film unit was comfortably ensconced in a small village of prefabricated cabins which had been built on the southern side of the atoll. There were two larger cabins constructed for communal purposes. One was a dining hall and the other a general recreation area which doubled as a viewing room when the film rushes were shown.

  There were men’s and women’s ablution blocks set up and no one complained about the lack of privacy or the fact that Marcel, Emma and Derek had cabins with private amenities. It was accepted that the star, the producer and the director should have superior accommodation. Indeed, Marcel was to be admired for the fact that he hadn’t demanded a Winnebago or something equally unrealistic.

  It was a happy shoot and a ‘family’ atmosphere prevailed. After the day’s filming, in the heavy dusk while the heat still sat like a blanket over the island, people would ‘party hop’ from hut to hut. They’d sit together on the small front verandahs of the cabins, chatting about the day’s shoot, sipping cold beer and looking out over the darkening Koro Sea.

  They were idyllic days. The atmosphere amongst the unit was as peaceful as the surroundings. It was one of those ‘magic’ shoots, they all agreed, when making movies was a pure joy. Marcel’s performance was electric and he was a pleasure to work with, Derek was a skilled director who knew exactly what h
e was after, and Emma was a thoughtful producer who didn’t believe in playing power games or rocking the boat. What more could anyone want?

  Every ten days, when the processed rushes arrived from the mainland, there was a flurry of excitement. Not only was it inspiring to see the result of their hard work on film, but it meant ‘rage’ time. Marcel, Emma, Stanley and Derek would view the rushes the evening they arrived, but the general cast and crew showing was reserved until the following Saturday so that they could really let their hair down and have the Sunday free to nurse their hangovers. Despite the camaraderie amongst them, it was agreed that they needed an outlet every now and then. The place was so isolated they needed to party hard once in a while.

  And party they did. Music blared around the island and they danced and drank and smoked until the early hours of Sunday morning.

  Emma and Derek rarely stayed the full pace, often retiring to Emma’s cabin where they’d discuss the following week’s schedule in the none too sober light of early morning.

  Emma liked Derek a great deal and deeply respected the fact that he didn’t hold her youth and inexperience as a producer against her. She had expected a director of his calibre to be a little condescending, but he wasn’t.

  ‘Why should I be?’ he’d asked her when she’d expressed her thanks. ‘You’re good at your job. Besides,’ he’d continued in his clipped English tone, ‘you keep Marcel in line.’

  Derek was fully aware that Marcel didn’t particularly like him, but then he didn’t particularly like Marcel either, so what did it matter? So long as the work was done, and done well.

  Personally, Derek believed that Marcel had a tendency to overindulge, which was certainly effective in the European films the actor made. For Earth Man, however, Derek demanded an economical performance. Marcel was basically in agreement but, on the odd occasion when he wanted to argue – and it was purely because of their temperamental differences, Derek was sure -it was always Emma who kept the peace.