The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life

by William Brandt

  Sophie turns and swims. She lumbers ashore and heads for her towel. I follow. She turns and looks at me. She has a strange expression on her face. “Matt told me about Melissa.”

  “He told you about that?”

  “He told me about that.” She runs a hand through her hair. “I think you must be mad.”

  “That’s a little harsh. I realize it was an extreme step.”

  “You realize that?”

  “I love you, Sophie. We can work this out. We can have this child.”

  She shakes her head slowly. “You aren’t the father. I told you that. Why didn’t you believe me? I was pregnant before I even left you. That’s why I left. I found out just before.”

  The ground tilts. “And you said nothing?”

  She looks at her belly.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true all the same.”

  It’s funny. You can never tell if someone is lying. But if someone is telling the truth, you can always tell.

  “But then Matt is the father after all. Why didn’t you say? Why did you let me think, all this time, that I was the father? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Matt isn’t the father.”

  “What . . . what are you saying?” The ground tilts still farther. The whole island tilts. It’s ready to slide into the sea. “I don’t understand.”

  “Listen . . .” She takes a breath. I listen. The sky is listening with me, the trees and the sand and the whispering sea. We’re all listening.

  Chapter 18

  INT. PALACE CORRIDORS—DAY.

  HEAVY METAL MUSIC PLAYS AS THE PRINCE RUNS THROUGH THE BURNING PALACE. SCREAMS CAN BE HEARD FAINTLY THROUGH THE ROAR OF THE FLAMES. HE KICKS DOWN THE DOORS TO THE ROYAL CHAMBER.

  INT. ROYAL CHAMBER—DAY.

  THE PRINCE FINDS THE OLD KING HUDDLED IN THE ROYAL BEDCHAMBER. HE CLUTCHES HIS YOUNGEST SON TO HIS BOSOM, A MERE BOY EIGHT OR NINE YEARS OF AGE. THE PRINCE STRIDES FORWARD. HE TEARS THE BOY FROM THE OLD KING’S GRASP, AND RUNS HIS SWORD THROUGH THE CHILD. THE BLOOD FLOWS COPIOUSLY. THE OLD KING, SLIPPING AND SLIDING IN THE BLOOD OF HIS MURDERED SON, TRIES TO ESCAPE, BUT THE PRINCE POUNCES AGAIN AND SLASHES WITH HIS SWORD UNTIL THE OLD KING LIES STILL.

  Princess

  My son.

  THE PRINCESS IS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY OF THE INNER SANCTUM. SHE CROSSES THE FLOOR IN ONE STRIDE AND KNEELS. SHE CRADLES THE BODY OF THE DEAD CHILD IN HER ARMS. SHE ROCKS THE BODY GENTLY.

  Princess

  He was yours.

  SHE LOOKS UP, INTO THE PRINCE’S EYES. THE PRINCE RAISES HIS SWORD.

  Princess

  He was your son.

  THE PRINCE HESITATES.

  Princess

  Now, kill me.

  THE PRINCE LOWERS HIS SWORD. HE TURNS AND SEES HIMSELF, HIS DOPPELGÄNGER, STANDING IN THE DOORWAY WATCHING THE SCENE. THE SWORD FALLS FROM HIS NERVELESS GRASP.

  Princess

  Why do you wait? Kill me.

  THE PRINCE’S DOPPELGÄNGER BECKONS FROM THE DOORWAY. THE PRINCE FOLLOWS. THE PRINCESS CALLS AFTER HIM.

  Princess

  Let me die with my son!

  INT. PALACE CORRIDORS—DAY.

  THE PRINCE FOLLOWS HIS DOPPELGÄNGER THROUGH THE CORRIDORS OF THE BURNING PALACE. THE DOPPELGÄNGER IS ALWAYS JUST AHEAD, AT THE NEXT CORNER, AT THE NEXT DOORWAY. EVERYWHERE PEOPLE ARE DYING, BURNING. PIECES OF ROOF COLLAPSE, THE FLOOR FALLS AWAY.

  EXT. PALACE GARDEN—DAY.

  THE PALACE GARDEN IS GREEN AND SILENT. THE DOPPELGÄNGER LEADS THE PRINCE TO A POOL. HE GESTURES AT THE POOL AND THE PRINCE GOES FORWARD. HE LOOKS INTO THE WATER, AND SEES HIS OWN REFLECTION, WHICH SHIMMERS AND DISAPPEARS. IN THE WATER THE PRINCE SEES A VISION OF THE WORLD ON FIRE. DEMONS WITH ELECTRIC GUITARS STALK THE EARTH PLAYING HEAVY METAL RIFFS AND SHOOTING BURNING ARROWS FROM THEIR MOUTHS. THE VISION CLEARS AND HE SEES THE PRINCESS CASTING HERSELF UPON A SWORD. HE LOOKS UP INTO THE EYES OF THE DOPPELGÄNGER.

  Prince

  I see now, it was heavy metal all the time. Heavy metal has done this to me.

  HE FALLS DEAD ON THE GRASS. HEAVY METAL MUSIC PLAYS. THE ENTIRE GLOBE BURSTS INTO FLAME.

  END

  The sound of a seaplane. I open my eyes, suddenly. I’m seeing orange. I’m thinking genre. I know the twist. At last I know the twist. I should probably try to make sense. But how does anyone make sense? Ever?

  I close my eyes again, and I watch the credits roll. It was like that. Like when you’re sitting on in the dark after the film is over and everyone else has gone, and they just keep coming, so many names, more than you would ever have thought possible. What do they all do? you ask yourself. Are they really necessary? So many? Camera operators, sound-recordists, focus-pullers, directors of photography, actors, actresses, composers, stuntmen, editors, completion guarantors, producers, associate producers, coproducers, executive producers, legal advisers, postproduction supervisors, accountants, foley editors, researchers, stills photographers, personal assistants, assistants to personal assistants, hairstylists, standby hairstylists, dialogue coaches, set dressers, standby set dressers, assistant standby set dressers, gaffers, grips, best boys, drivers, carpenters, caterers, cat wranglers, runners, gofers, toers-and-froers, comers-and-goers.

  So many.

  “Oh Lord.” I knelt on the sand before her in grief. “Christ,” I could hear myself saying. “Oh, Lord Jesus Christ.” I don’t know why. I’m not even religious. There are no atheists in foxholes.

  I have news, by the way. I have peeped over the border of the land of no return. I have scouted the infinite. I have looked death in the face. It’s not actually that bad. I’m sort of disappointed. It wasn’t so much terrifying, as a pain in the arse, coupled with a strong sense of anticlimax. Death is like the realization that you have missed that plane. To put it another way, although it’s not a good thing, dying is not a bad thing either. It’s morally neutral.

  As I lay dying, I certainly did think about the things you’d expect to be thinking about, but I didn’t think the things you’d expect to think about them. I thought about my family. I thought about my mum and dad and my brothers and sisters. I thought about Sophie. I thought about the absence of an heir. I thought about my parents getting news of the sudden tragic untimely death of their son, aged only forty-two—still so young, so full of life and possibility, with all his own teeth—but I didn’t get sentimental about it. Quite the opposite. As the darkness closed in (which was just the way the Looney Tunes cartoons end: that shrinking circle of consciousness—that’s all, folks!), I thought what I thought was my last thought: “Tough, they’ll all just have to deal with it.” Death is a sentimental experience for the bystanders, only. The ones doing the actual dying are hard-nosed realists one and all. Death is the ultimate reality. Also—incidentally—I would like to report that death is not sexy. Sex is the absolute last thing on your mind when you hit the deck mooing, I assure you. Any sex-death link is purely in the mind of the beholder, a fetishizing coping strategy.

  The only other thing I thought about was New Zealand. I realized—once again, without getting in the least bit sentimental about this—that if I die anywhere other than in New Zealand I’m going to feel like I’m dying a long way from home. That’s just the way it is. It’s a perception. A notion I’m stuck with. Doesn’t mean anything in particular, but at least I know it’s there.

  The tent flap rustles in a can-I-come-in sort of way. One day someone is going to make a lot of money patenting an ultra-lightweight foldaway tent-door-knocker. Melissa eases herself through the gap. The orange light soaks into her. It infuses her. It’ll leave a stain for sure. “Brought you some tea and a croissant.”

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “The plane won’t be leaving for an hour or so, so you’ve plenty of time.”

  I nod.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Stable.”

  I slurp. It’s hot and very sweet. “This is great. Marry me.”

  She smiles. “I think you’re sti
ll in shock. By the way, I’ve been talking to Tamintha just now. Thanks.”

  “Nothing to do with me. And you’re fired incidentally.”

  “You can’t fire me. I already quit.”

  “Fair enough.” I slurp my tea and stand up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To do something I should have done a long time ago.”

  “I’ll start packing.”

  I stand at the entrance to the tent. It rained last night, during the wee small hours. Came down in buckets. I woke up. I’ve never heard rain like it. The tent staggered. I went outside in the dark and the rain was like a stick across my shoulders. This morning the sea is flat, cowed like a beaten dog. The rain has washed away every trace of everything from everywhere. The air is pure, clean and empty, the trees are polished, the sky is scrubbed, the sea sluiced, the sand sanitized. I grab a lungful. Such a strange habit, breathing. So hard to kick. I look out across the water. The seaplane is just nosing up to the beach.

  I start across the sand. I’m heading for Central Square. I walk past Sophie’s tent without breaking step. I walk past the bar, past the stage, past the massage tent. The hair dryers are going at full blast, the smell of perming solution is heavy on the air. There’s a spare seat at the end and I take it as a smiling staff member approaches. “What’s it to be? Just a trim?”

  “Radical surgery.”

  Years of systematic infidelity. Of calculated deception. I knelt in the sand before her as the names rolled by. I kept thinking it had to end but it just kept going. When she finally stopped, I found I had all the questions ready. It was as if I was reading off an internal clipboard. We started with the first, and we went right through, all over again, this time in detail. Names, places, dates.

  “The first? How long ago?”

  “A while ago.”

  “Exactly how long?”

  “It was on Guppy.”

  “On Guppy? On the set of Guppy?”

  She nodded.

  “That’s more than three years ago.”

  She nodded.

  “For three years you’ve been doing this?”

  She nodded.

  The ones I knew were the worst. The director who had that special little smile for me, the leading men, but also the gaffers, the grips. Boris. God, Boris. The net was spread wide. A good cross-section, age-distribution, a cross-gender sprinkling. No small dogs, however. I got them all. I drew them out, one after the other. To start with it was like teeth. But, gradually, she began to relax. She started to speak more freely. She began to volunteer details, names and observations, until it became a continuous narrative. It all just poured out. This was a big relief to Sophie. I could see that. As she talked I could see the strain lessening. I could see the weight coming off. That’s a hell of a load to carry around after all. All those lies. If you carry a lie around, you become an isolated and lonely individual. I read that somewhere in a magazine. I could see Sophie, as she talked, coming back, returning to the world. A painful but necessary re-entry.

  For me it worked the other way. It was like being buried alive. She talked and talked and I slumped in the sand and listened. Sometimes she’d lose the thread and I’d get her back on track with a question. There were certain things that I knew I had to know. She stared at her hands almost the whole time, and so did I. At the long blue veins on the backs of her fingers. At the tiny, fine hairs just below the knuckle. The minute quilted texture of the skin. I lost track of time completely.

  When she finally stopped talking, we both just sat and stared at her hands. Then in a rush I noticed a whole lot of little things. I was hungry and I had to go to the toilet. I heaved myself to my feet. I looked down at the stranger sitting on the sand.

  “Well, I’m going back to camp,” I said.

  She nodded. I left her sitting on the sand. I walked like an old man. I could hardly get one foot in front of the other. It was like someone had died. I felt sorry, but I didn’t know if it was for me or her. It was just this big disaster, like the wreckage of a 747. Her failure and mine, our catastrophic failure. I feel broken. I feel like I’ve been punched and punched and punched. There are bits of me falling off.

  Over the rocks at the far end of the secret cove, it’s back to a long curving sandy shoreline. I’m moving. I’m putting one foot in front of the other, in a slow, steady trudge. The sun is beating down and I’m facing pretty much due west on this stretch. I’m circumnavigating the almost-island. My eyes are screwed up even behind my sunglasses.

  He’s standing in the shallows, up to his knees, silhouetted against the sun. He’s wearing a crumpled Hawaiian shirt. Dangling from one hand is a half-empty bottle of Piper Heidsieck. He’s alone and forlorn-looking. He doesn’t see me until I’m almost upon him.

  “Gerard.”

  He turns, and holds out the champagne bottle. I shake my head. He shrugs and takes a swig himself. His beaky nose is terribly, terribly sunburnt. In fact his whole face is peeling and blistered, and he’s got the beginnings of a beard.

  “You can’t be here.”

  He shrugs, and swigs on the bottle. He seems inclined to agree.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Fishing.”

  “Caught anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You were wrong, by the way. It’s not there.”

  “What’s not there?”

  “Sin. It’s not at the core of my being at all.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s in there somewhere. It’s down, deep. Deep down.”

  “Maybe I’ll just leave it there.”

  He shrugs. He seems to have lost interest. He swigs on his champagne.

  Back at camp, Melissa is talking to the Irish Brothers, Tamintha is talking to Russell and Ella is playing with Brian on a beach blanket in the shade. The bathing drinkers are drinking and bathing. The sun is just gone and darkness is falling fast. Staff members are arranging seating in front of a large white screen at the back of the stage. The numbness from the day before is back. It has now spread to my entire upper left jaw.

  “Hey, Frederick! Coming to the screening?”

  I head straight for the kitchen tent.

  The kitchen tent is full of native Vanuatuan people in white T-shirts asking how is my day and how they can make it better. It’s a little hellish. It’s hot as all-get-out and sweat is streaming down the faces of the cooks, waiters and kitchen workers as they bend over their tasks. A constant coming and going and to-ing and fro-ing. Someone notices me, smiles, and bustles past. I make my way through the throng. There’s a big commercial-sized stainless-steel gas stove such as you might see in any restaurant, pots and dishes bubbling on the flames. On the big wooden bench opposite are the knives. Big kitchen knives, forks, spoons. A girl bent over a pile of vegetables, chopping away, frowning with concentration. Next to the wooden bench is another bench with a row of big low buckets full of soapy, steamy water.

  “Okay, gimme a pair of rubber gloves, there. Size XL.”

  The young guy at the tub looks up in surprise, then puzzlement, then embarrassment. “Sir?” He has eyelashes like cat’s claws. “The screening is just beginning.”

  “Yeah, I know.” I slip on the gloves. Generous on the talc. A good sign. I grab an apron. All around me, the clash and clatter of bowls, the blatter and cling of dishes, pots, saucepans, plates, tureens, glasses, cups and gravy boats. I plunge my hands in up to my wrists. “Shove over, kid. I’m here to help.”

  Hot, soapy water. Yes. Let’s get some dishes done here. After a few moments of shock-horror and a round of giggles for the staff, we all settle down to work. Dishes are all about rhythm, wrist action and timing. It’s something Sophie and I never shared. We’d always do dishes separately. I wonder why that is? I remember doing dishes with my mum. I remember doing them with my brother. I remember doing them with my dad. My sister too. She had a lovely sideways action on the dinner plates.

  I don’t remember doing them with Sophie. I remember doing
them for Sophie, and I can remember Sophie doing them herself. But not at the same time. Maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe whiteware is responsible for the failure of our marriage. Maybe if we’d never got that Fisher and Paykel dishwasher none of this would ever have happened. We’d have stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the stainless-steel bench, and something deeper and more meaningful would have grown between us. Maybe convenience appliances are in fact a cancer eating away at the fabric of society. Maybe hard-core porno on pay TV and ultraviolent action movies and urban decay and the global divide between rich and poor and socioeconomic dislocation have nothing to do with it. It was whiteware. Whiteware all along.

  I’m washing up a storm here.

  They give up before I do. They have to. They’ve run out of dishes. I high-five the kid with the eyelashes and walk on out. I’m pouring with sweat and my legs are a little trembly. “Hey,” the kid calls after me. “You forgot to take off your apron.”

  That’s okay, it’s fancy dress. I pick up a chef’s hat on the way out.

  Outside, the screening is over and the party is in full swing. Lights hang from the trees. Everyone’s in costume. I grab a mask from a nearby stack, just a cheap little cardboard number like you see at kids’ parties. They’re all over the place. Balloons, streamers, lights. A couple of people are dressed pretty imaginatively. There’s a walking fruitbowl, a pair of sharks, a coconut daiquiri and a Leaning Tower of Pizza. After that, predictably enough, are the gay boys done up in chorus-line outfits, a smattering of sailors, vamps, transvestites, and so on. The band is on stage with a sort of Latino-reggae mix that seems to be going down very well. A lot of people are dancing. I see Russell and Ella. Russell is Popeye and Ella is Olive Oyl and Brian is Swee’pea, which is sort of cute. They’re way over in a small deserted corner of the dance floor, all three of them dancing, the two big ones hanging on to the little one, swaying very gently. Brian has his fist in his mouth. His head is swaying in time to the music but I don’t think he’s really aware of it. He’s looking around him, and he’s very content. They’re closed off in a bubble of happiness, the three of them. They don’t know the rest of the world exists.