The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life

by William Brandt

  “A porn star? Who wants to be a porn star?”

  “Lots of people. Lots and lots of people.”

  “Weird.”

  “Not that you’re judging.”

  “No. God, no. Did he look after you, though? Gary?”

  “Sure he did.”

  “Did he do the dishes?”

  “He did.”

  “Well, that’s nice.”

  “It was nice.” Melissa sighs in the darkness. “You do remind me of him, a bit.”

  “Of Gary?”

  “You’re not as attractive of course, but in other ways. Gary, he was so gorgeous.”

  “What other ways?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it’s just because we’re lying here like this, talking. We used to talk and talk, me and Gary. Talk till the cows come home.”

  We fall silent. I can hear her breathing. I can hear myself breathing. There’s a bass-voiced rumble of conversation from a few tents away, and a short, sharp burst of laughter.

  “You know, what you asked me before?”

  “What?”

  “It’s not actually impossible for a younger woman to be attracted to an older man.”

  “It’s not actually impossible for a younger woman to be attracted to small dogs.”

  She snorts. “You know, you run yourself down quite a lot.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ll try to stop. You’re quite right. That’s so typical of me. I’m hopeless. Just hopeless.” She sits up and I can see the faintest silhouette, a hint of cheek and a dash of hair. Then she hits me with her pillow. Quite hard. “Goodness me, that must be the first time someone’s hit me with a pillow for, oh, years and years and years.”

  “You’ve been asking for that for a long time, mate.”

  An obscure, intense, happiness.

  She takes a deep, desperate breath. “Christ, it’s hot in here.” I pick up Gerard’s script, lying on the ground between us, and fan her. “Ta. That feels great.” She’s silent. I can definitely make out the line of the cheek, the hair, and a bit of her shoulder. I wonder what the light source is. It can’t be morning.

  “Do you reckon you might be gay?”

  “No, not a chance. I did try once. Total disaster.”

  “Huh.”

  “So, where do you want to live?”

  “Huh?”

  “After the honeymoon.”

  “Oh.” She thinks. “I think we should go home.”

  “You think so?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I didn’t think you liked Auckland.”

  “Not Auckland, dummy, Levin.”

  “You can’t be serious. I’m not living in Levin.”

  “Okay, compromise—Taupo?”

  “What would we do there?”

  “I dunno. A farm.”

  “What sort of farm?”

  “Sheep?”

  “No, trout. No milking time. No shearing time. No worries about sudden outbreaks of imported foot-and-mouth. Well, certainly no worries about foot, anyway.”

  “Kids?”

  “Naturally.”

  “How many?”

  “Oh, hell, bucket loads. An entire tribe. We’ll get up in the morning, muck out the children, send them to school, round up the trout . . .”

  We decide to relocate. The sand is cool. There are low voices in the dark, up and down the beach. The moon isn’t yet up, but I’ve found my light source. We lie on our backs on the sand and stare. The stars are like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life. The Milky Way blazes across the sky like a viscous river of neon.

  She coughs and scratches her head. She lowers her voice. “So, explain why you want me to seduce Matt Chalmers again? You think you’ll get Sophie back?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “I don’t see how.”

  “Until recently she wasn’t in full possession of the facts. She’s only just found out that I’m the father.”

  “You knew and she didn’t? How did you manage that?”

  “It’s complicated. Technical. Anyway, the way I see it, in the fullness of time it’s inevitable that it’s going to fall apart with Matt. Either he’ll dump her or she’ll realize he’s a waste of oxygen. It’s equally inevitable that she’ll realize she really needs me. I’m the keystone of her existence. But I can’t afford to wait for that to happen. The birth of my child, the most important event in my entire life, is coming in six weeks. I have to be there. I don’t want that child being born without me there. So I have to strike now. I have to accelerate the process.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” She sounds dubious.

  “But look, don’t do it if you don’t feel comfortable about it.”

  “No, I’ll do it. If it’s that important to you.”

  “I don’t want you to feel you have to.”

  “I never feel that.”

  “But I mean, I don’t want you to do it just for me.”

  “Hey. I’m doing it for the money.”

  “I don’t mean I don’t appreciate it, I just mean . . .”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “I mean I’d understand if you changed your mind. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Forget it. It’s fine.”

  When I finally get to sleep, I dream. I’m sitting on the sofa at home with my dad. We’re watching Shag City.

  “Well,” says Dad, “this is nice.”

  I’m rather concerned as I happen to know that the next scene has me and Matt Chalmers. I’m sucking his dick while he strikes me lightly on the back of the head with a library book. Apparently a lot of people are very turned on by library books and it’s the next big thing after on-screen urination. I don’t really care too much if my father sees the scene but I don’t want him to know it’s me. “You know, Dad,” I say, “sometimes people who appear in porno movies aren’t really in them at all. They just appear to appear.”

  “Is that so?” says my dad. “That’s very interesting. I didn’t know that.”

  Then at that very instant I realize I’ve eaten all the popcorn and I’m so ashamed and stricken with guilt that I just want to die. I want to tear my heart out and offer it to my dad. “Here, Dad,” I want to say, “there’s no popcorn left, but have my heart instead.”

  Then, just before the scene comes on I realize that it isn’t going to be me and Matt at all, but Matt and my mother. I know the shock will kill my father stone dead, but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. All is preordained. I know that he will see the scene and I cannot stop him. I begin to wail and to grieve extravagantly. It seems like such a terrible way to lose the father I love. I fall on my knees. “God!” I say, “oh God, turn it off! Turn it off!” “Not at all,” says my dad, “it’s perfectly natural.” Then the scene comes on after some other stuff about the rape of Nanking that I don’t remember well, but when the scene does come on it’s not a porno movie at all. It’s Jack Lemmon in The China Syndrome, only it’s a remake and I’m Jack Lemmon, but it’s been retitled The Nuclear Family. It’s set in New Zealand and it’s all being shot on location. I’m standing on top of Mount Taranaki as the shots ring out and I watch myself fall to the ground, blood leaping from my mouth in elegant spurts. I am transfixed by the innocent beauty of my own dying eyes. “What a guy,” I say. “Goddamnit, what a guy! He was all right after all, that Frederick guy! Let’s give him a hand!” Then Jack Lemmon comes in. “Frederick,” he says, “you have achieved what I thought no mortal man could ever achieve. You have remade The China Syndrome so perfectly that it is exactly the same as the original movie. Not even Roger Ebert himself could tell the two versions apart. As a token of my esteem I’d like to present you with this pornographic library book.”

  I’m just about to make my acceptance speech when I wake up. It’s dark—pitch dark. Melissa is fast asleep. Her breathing is slow, regular and stealthy, like someone trying to pump up a bicycle tire while a killer attack dog sleeps just around the corner. Contrary to popular belief, sand is not nice to
sleep on. It’s fine for the first hour but then it gets as hard as rock. I crawl back into the tent.

  Chapter 16

  MATT IS ON THE BEACH, his back to us, staring out to sea. He turns and smiles an absent smile, a lot like the one he uses in Jesus Montoya Must Die, when he plays a father who lost his entire family in a gas explosion caused by an attempt to light one of his farts. That’s the kind of stuff he does—anything at all. Matt is not quite a big star, but he’s not a small one either. For a while he was always the bad guy. Now, he’s just starting to get into older, craggier roles. He still does a few baddies, but there’s a tendency nowadays to cast him as the aging hero, the old guy with a past. He’s got a kind of dangerousness about him that is supposed to be sexy, while at the same time retaining an air of little-boy vulnerability.

  He can carry a film, or he can play a supporting role. He doesn’t mind too much, just so long as he’s working. Working, working, working, that’s all that matters. If there’s a gap in the schedule, and the money’s right, you can book him. Doesn’t matter what the script is, who the director is. As a result, his filmography is as long as your arm, and as patchy as your oldest jeans. He’s worked with the best and the worst. He’ll do schlock one week, an Oscar-contender the next. He’s a hired gun. People like that. He brings an air of unpredictability, of whatever-will-he-do-next, to any job he does.

  Another aspect of Matt’s reputation precedes him. He is famous for a string of conquests of the world’s most desirable women. Somehow, through it all, he and Anne-Marie stuck together. We have some idea how. It probably wasn’t pretty. Now, he’s finally left her. He’s fallen for his young costar. And this time it’s true love. Maybe that’s how he really feels. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that he’s the devil incarnate. After all, someone like Matt probably doesn’t have people queuing up to tell him his faults. An intimate and detailed knowledge of one’s own shortcomings such as I enjoy is a hard-won prize. It’s taken me years of exhaustive inquiry and profound introspection, and even then I’m convinced there are one or two little lurking foibles I haven’t yet spotted.

  “Hi, guys.” Matt smiles at Melissa, who is in her fluorescent string bikini. Oiled head to foot, she gleams with a soft and lustrous shine. She is primed, loaded and cocked. “Sleep well?”

  “Oh, very well, thank you.”

  “So what are you up to today, Matt?”

  The plan is I’m going to go diving to give Melissa a clear shot at Matt. She figures it’s a morning’s work. The good news, at least, is that it’s as still as a millpond out there. That means I can dispense with the seasick pills. The seasick pills make diving a real chore. Falling asleep at twenty-five meters is not a good idea.

  Matt, lost in thought, doesn’t seem to hear at first, so I step in. “Hey, Matt, I’m going diving this morning, but Melissa can’t dive so we were thinking maybe you could take her snorkeling round the other side of the island. Apparently there’s a small secluded cove round there, sheltered by the rocks and invisible even from the sea, which is perfect for a bit of quiet . . . snorkeling.”

  Matt smiles. “Yeah, sure, we could do that. That’d be fun.” A sad look crosses his face. I’m not worried. The chances of Sophie accompanying them have to be minimal. Sophie has withdrawn completely. She stays in her tent and sees no one but Matt and Rebecca. Somehow I can’t see her sallying forth for a spot of snorkeling with Melissa. “Right,” I say, cheerfully. “That settles that, then.”

  There’s a distant mournful drone. A tiny black dot appears over the shoulder of the volcano.

  “Ah, that’ll be the croissants.”

  After breakfast they ferry us out to the boat. There are nine of us, including both Irish Brothers, Russell, me, Gilles and a few others. I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that things have changed between me and the Irish Brothers. There is no longer any intimacy. I’ve seen them around camp, here and there, lounging, drinking. I’ve not had any eye contact. Eye contact is important. I’ve not had it and it’s now clear. The Irish Brothers are avoiding me. I don’t blame them. Quite the opposite, I think they’re doing the only reasonable thing. If you’re a person like them, you don’t want a person like me. If I was a person like them, I’d run a mile across broken glass to get away from people like me. People like me are death to people like them. I should take pity on them. I should just say hey, guys, it’s okay. Forget it. This is your holiday. Just enjoy it. Pretend I don’t exist. I really wish I could do that. I wish I could just walk the hell up the other end of the boat and stay there and give the poor kids the space they deserve.

  It’s incredibly hard being incredibly successful. Ask anyone who is incredibly successful. Ask them in a moment of candor and they’ll tell you why too. It’s people like me. It’s not the dinners with Elton John that wear you down. It’s not even the distant but adoring fans, the drugs, the cars, the sex, the travel or the clothing budget that does it. It’s the hopeless people. The people like me. The in-between ones, the ones just a few stops either side of mediocre, the ones with unrealizable dreams and undreamable realities. The ones who envy but flatter. The ones you don’t want to know, yet seem to spend half your time talking to. The ones who are forever coming up, laughing at the jokes you haven’t even made yet. The ones you pity and hate, the ones you fear and yet are fascinated by, the ones who could have been you, and vice versa: these are the ones who cause guilt, anger and frustration, internal conflict, personality distortions, delusions of grandeur, paranoia, egomania, nightmares, substance-abuse problems, even migraine.

  I should turn around. I should give these young guys a break. I should stop pretending to be their friend. I should face facts, turn around and look the other way. But I’m not going to do that. I can’t do that. Not yet.

  “Hi, guys.” My smile is forced, my tone excessively offhand, overloud, over-friendly, overconfident. It’s wrong, it’s false, it’s jarring, it’s hopeless and it’s fucked. But that’s okay.

  Seamus and Sean nod and try small but distant grins. “Hey Frederick.” Sean (or Seamus) looks at the waves. Seamus (or Sean) squints at his toes and then at the horizon. Poor kids. They’re still desperately hoping I’ll just piss off and leave them alone. If only they knew. They’re not arrogant. No, not at all. They’re a nice couple of kids. They’re just plain scared. And who wouldn’t be? They know what’s coming. I’m going to hit them up in some clumsy and embarrassing way, with some crappy idea they know they’re not going to be the slightest bit interested in. They’re only human. They dread having to go through the same old routine of feigned interest and evasion. They’re embarrassed for me. They probably even feel sorry for me. Probably at some early stage in their young but meteorically vertical career tracks they even might have felt as belligerently desperate, as impotently humiliated, as I feel now. Without the bitter overtones of age and hopelessness, of course, but still, they almost certainly have a vague notion of how I’m feeling right now. They’re probably fighting with compassion at this very moment. But they can’t afford compassion, any more than I can.

  “So Seamus, listen . . .”

  “I’m Sean. He’s Seamus.”

  “Oh, yeah, I knew that, right, of course.” A braying and insincere laugh. I hate that laugh. Why do I do that laugh? “You guys should get T-shirts with your names on. Or maybe tattoo your foreheads. That’d be good.”

  Seamus looks at Sean. Sean looks at Seamus. Or vice versa.

  I sniff. I look at the sky. I pull a face. I “suddenly” have a “passing thought.” “So, listen, by the way, did you guys ever get that proposal I sent you?” I’m going for breezy here. I’m going for casually unconcernedly confident yet at the same time detached and not at all committed to the worthiness or otherwise of the idea itself. I’m on my toes. I’m ready to duck and weave.

  Seamus/Sean scratches his head.

  “Oh, yeah,” says Sean/Seamus. “Yeah, we did get that I think. Did we get that?”

  “Yeah,” says Seamu
s/Sean. “Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.”

  “We’ll give it a look when we get back to LA.” Sean/Seamus nods and smiles.

  “Yeah, well, whatever, no hurry. Just a little idea, really. I mean that’s great. I mean that’s terrific, that’s really, just fine and no problem there at all. Good, great. I’m happy. I’m very happy. Wow, look, a fish.” I want to kill them. I want to throw them over the side. I want to see them drown. They haven’t even looked at it. They haven’t even read it. Or have they?

  “So where’s Melissa?”

  “Oh, she stayed behind. She doesn’t dive.”

  “I hear you guys are getting married.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Don’t forget to invite us to the wedding.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “She’s great.”

  “We’re very happy.”

  Gilles meets us on deck and sorts out dive gear for us all. It’s been more than a few years since I dived and I can’t shake off the fear that I’ve forgotten something crucial.

  I go forward to the pulpit again. The water is so still and clear I can look straight down between my feet to the alternating patches of coral and sand on the bottom. A sea bird skims by, flying low. A crewman comes forward to supervise the winching of the anchor. The Cocksucker gently eases out of the bay and swings to the north. I can see ahead of me the brilliant white line of the reef. I wonder how Melissa is getting along. They could be at the secluded cove by now. I wonder when she’ll make her move. Probably she won’t have to. Probably he’ll make his. I have a dull ache in my chest, around where she hit me with the pillow. It must have been harder than I realized. The reef is getting closer. You can make out the individual waves now, as the Pacific swell is forced up by the coral reef into great towering white plumes, breakers the size of small houses. And yet here we are, gliding along on a lagoon as still as glass.