Still

by Adam Thorpe

  Shucks.

  I’m so cut up about the Zelda thing period. I was going to say I’m so cut up about the Zelda thing I can’t feel anything but hoovered right out, only that sounds too full and rich for what I’m feeling. I hope I didn’t misunderstand Zelda. Mime was never my forte and I didn’t have my granddaughter with me to lip-read. I told my love to fetch a pen but she mimed this really complicated thing about ink not being allowed before the third gong, it looked like she was starting a Rank feature by Kurosawa or someone. It was weird because when I was doing my mute yelling thing she started to wave her arms around too and looked kind of imploring and pointed at the temple and tapped her head and crushed her hands together in front of her chest and with this Kohl pencil around her eyes or maybe just fatigue from rising at three every morning I could see why Norma was a star, if it hadn’t been for the crew-cut I’d have spread me legs aht and turned me cap rahnd and plunged right in. This went on for about ten minutes while the old tall nun was sweeping the ninety-ninth maple leaf into miraculous position beyond and I had to take a break, I had to sit down on this stool because it’s very exhausting emoting silently, it had been a very physical experience. Zelda kept looking at me down on this bench and either doing a repeated take of the shower scream in Psycho or saying sorry over and over, I wasn’t sure. If it hadn’t been for the gentle rasp of the rake and the odd maple leaf hitting the dust and the second or maybe third series of Kojak in the distance and now and again a gong I’d have thought I was deaf or maybe underwater, what with me tinnitus ’n that, guv. Then she started all over again but this time she was doing the moon race all the way from V2s to Armstrong’s small bounce for mankind and even the buggy it looked like, the grey dust puffed but I didn’t believe it, it was a studio set up, they never left Houston Mr Thornby sir, I got off what turned out actually to be a small Buddha and wrote IS IT FINISHED PERIOD with my foot by the Sea of Tranquillity and she didn’t pause she just hunkered down in her habit and put a question mark on my question because she’s very particular and then YES came out of her fingertip.

  I didn’t have deep focus on.

  I’m sorry, but while I was putting a full stop with my heel after YES because I’m very particular I didn’t notice how the tall old nun had just put the broom down and lifted her hands in exquisite joy, she was just a kind of background blur, she could have been a dead tree or the Rape of the Sabine Woman in soapstone or something. I was very upset obviously and vocalised it and it was really shocking, it was like the whole world had waited for this moment, this crackly voice came out and instead of cheering Zelda covered her ears and looked broken so I carried on some more, the whole courtyard was echoing really astoundingly and the tall old nun stood very still, I think I ruined her moment, I think I put barbed wire all around her peak moment, if I’d not talked so loud she might just have had a few more seconds of timeless realisation or whatever but at that point I went for the maple leaves, I used my foot and then got right down on my hands and knees yelling my head off while Zelda kind of leaned without actually falling over and when I’d finished and the tall old nun had yipped and made me jump and wept on Zelda, Zelda looked past the tall old nun’s thighs at me and said out loud really steadily GO AWAY, GO AWAY, I DON’T NEED YOU ANYMORE and the courtyard repeated it in case I hadn’t picked it up the first time, thank you very much courtyard, how thoughtful of you, I’ll be thinking of you in my nightmares.

  It was extremely hurtful actually. It was more hurtful than anything she’d said yet and she’d broken her vow but only once.

  Maybe once is enough.

  My grandfather would probably think so.

  The naughty postcard sequence has started, by the way. Flap, flap, flap, it’s a great peep-show, it’s called What the Hell’s It All For. The guy with the chains has given up getting me rattled, I heard his motorbike just now or maybe it was the Son-of-Mike-the-Fly in my ear but I think I’ve just concussed it on my rolled-up Time, the one with the big cover feature on my impending retirement. The apron-strings have come undone. My grandfather undid them but my grandmother helped because untying bows when sexually excited is not easy, they turn into Boy Scout specials the second you grab at them. My grandmother is not sexually excited. I’m sorry to say this but she is actually about as sexually riveted as a soap boiling pan. She’s kind of repelled and scared but isn’t showing it, Robert would be very proud of her, it’s amazing, she’s a dead ringer for his Jeanne d’Arc, it’s like that great trial scene which surpassed Dreyer’s as in tyre’s last silent masterpiece on the same subject my dear children – she’s acting her whole being and her whole being is so profound my grandfather’s taking the surface calm on trust because he isn’t the scuba-diving type and never has been. There are these hands all over her smelling of linseed oil and then she finds herself topless. I have my eyes shut. Or maybe they’ve snuffed the candles. Or maybe the film’s come off the spool or maybe this is where Mike obeyed my instructions to call it quits as soon as the lens got more than its usual quota of flesh tints.

  I think however my grandmother’s showing up in the moonlight, or maybe it’s the moon outside right here and now.

  Hey, let’s not quibble, it’s the same moon, anyway. It’s coming in through my window and past the fern and pretending to be a movie on my wall. That could well be my grandmother peeled like a banana down to her waist very faint on a bad exposure but I’d need to stop the projector and do a blow-up, it might be the moonlight, there’s quite a breeze blowing the moon about and there are leaves in the way or maybe they haven’t taken the flicker-stick off Clifford, it’s dark, if you were out in the woods tonight you’d see nymphs all over the place, elves and stuff, sprites with silken wings and probably a hoof in the wrong place with a goaty smell out the dingly dell. You’d probably be very frightened and bump into the shepherd from Hemel Hempstead getting into his part by the big pool, some boldly practical person like me dammed the stream about a century ago, the village girls go bathing there at this period – yup, that’s the very faint laughter you heard from the room, well done, you’re on the ball, you’d make a great buff.

  But siddown on the leaf mould and keep quiet about it if you please, jerk. Gavin’s rehearsing. He’s rehearsing his part like he’s been rehearsing it in the caravan for the last decade or whatever. He’s never acted in his life before. I went for his face and missing teeth because I’m scrupulous, if you remember. Right now he’s rehearsing how to watch these girls with big shoulders and generally very firm bodies lifting their arms and walking into the pool, it’s a beautiful and touching and lyrical scene and Richard Thornby handles it with acumen and tact, there’s moonlight dappling on shoulders and elbows and stuff as these girls turn round and try not to laugh too loud with their upraised arms over the bright ripples and the slime of human passions underfoot and some frogs losing their meditation time and the lily-pads staying curled up while the water surface is measuring bust-sizes absolutely accurately in the deep part at least while trailing these gilded hay bits right back to the ones still dressed in air and itchy down to their thighs or even toes ’cos it takes some time for these nymphs to leave the warm gusts for the cold water so hey nonny nonny no our shepherd has dangerously wide eyes and his hand’s doing things that the bracken shadow is concealing except for the glint of his satisfaction, I want you just to grunt, Gavin, when the nymphs are departed you’ll stay there for about five weeks until you’re needed.

  If anyone’s sitting nearby on the leaf mould, don’t stare. Pretend you’re moonlight on a blackberry sucker, OK?

  I’m not sure exactly which days you’ll be needed. I’m talking to Gavin, not you, for once. You’re a background blackberry sucker, you have to start somewhere, just stay that way, the maids’ll come picking you in a couple months, be content and patient and get rooted. OK, Gav, just hang around an incy bit longer, I’ll order up some more Bit-Part Monthly back numbers or whatever, you’re an integral part of this story, you’ll be way up there on the
major credits unlike the ham who’s doing the blackberry sucker stick right where you are and DON’T MOVE, whoever heard of a blackberry sucker moving across during a big scene, huh? Do you want to fuck everything up for me?

  So, if you go back to Hemel Hempstead or hitch y’ canvas to some Traveller’s wagon-trail way out Shropshire way I’ll be left high and dry, bub. Listen. The day after these flesh tint sequences under moonlight William and Agatha go on this vital walk over the downs and they talk about sex, kind of. William catches a tiny blue butterfly and that’ll be in close-up with NO MOZART and then he’ll give it in its chloroform jar to Agatha who tries to appreciate the gesture because it’s well meant, it’s a thank-you for her incredible understanding and kindness and wisdom, Ags, you really are a frightfully wonderful person, you know, it’s a rather rare type of common blue and it’s yours all in mid-shot but, hey, the closing hold’ll be extreme long shot from your point of view, Gavin – Willo and Ags’ll turn into two nicks in this wide and lonely Vista Vision downland ocean anticipating the Somme to come and we’ll foreground the shoulder and this old oilcloth cape nicely flapping and the hand around the crook and maybe your left ear if the big red curtains are properly drawn back, you’ll be watching like you watched the Fawholt milkmaids flickering under the moonlight and rocking the lily-pads as the silver measured their midriffs because Isaac Flower the younger not to be confused with old Isaac Flower see up Ulvers way weren’t it ’arry aye I will have another ’n all seein’ as you’re the ’arfbrain as is payin’ in return for a load o’ cobblers IS VERY ATTRACTED TO AGATHA, Gavin.

  Heck, he’s in love with her.

  Deeply, deeply.

  I want to make this angle clear but subtle. This person is a normal human being but very lonely up there with his flock. And the fact is that Agatha in her blindingly bright summer frock of translucent muslin over white lawn Mrs Halliday donated to the V&A in 1990 for crying out loud and which I have actually handled in their store-room because I got permission but not to take it out and anyway it was in fairly bad shape, it smelt of railway stations for some reason and had a couple of rips in its organdie and was generally off-cream but I have the locket at least, it bounced for a while against her throat, if you scan it electronically I think it might have her voice somewhere inside like the walls of the Tower have screams somewhere inside, so nuts say – the fact is

  Fuck, I’ve lost it. Don’t move, don’t move, it’ll come. Your black-berries’ll be huge and black in time, just let yourself sweeten on the woodland floor, you might learn a lot in two months.

  Here’s to nuts.

  Gavin, I want you to show how nuts this shepherd is. Don’t worry about the sheep, we have a real live agricultural sheep technician on set to take care of the flock – all I want you to do, Gav, is concentrate on not acting how nuts you are on my great-aunt. Is that really much to ask, huh? I mean, Christ, I’m keeping you in food and water and prime-cut hashish, quit moaning about the open road, there are no open roads, Shropshire was won years ago, your wagon’s got tail-lights, you’ll only go get your last tooth knocked out by Lord Walters or someone. It’s come back, I told y’all it would, OK, stick with me – the fact is that Agatha in her blindingly white summer frock is more than a nymph she’s a goddess, you watched her gathering fistfulls of bluebells last year and couldn’t speak for a week, his eyes went funny, his mother thought he had the ague and did something with sneezewort. The tense but famously tender takes of William and Agatha in the meadow amongst the hogweed and horse-flies and hums when they’re discussing the kiss, Gavin, THE kiss, Gavin, you don’t have a kiss but you get to die for Christ’s sake, I’m talking about a kiss that missed but enough of a kiss to make William think that kissing can make babies because, hey, my grandfather never owned up, it’s complicated, Milly kept blank, my great-uncle William never touched anyone else right up to the shell landing on his tin hat with him inside it because he’d watched Milly swell and pop for crying out loud – these meadow scenes will include you, Gavin, as a dark and distant disturbance of the generally green and whiteish landscape beyond all this.

  All this, Gavin.

  Heck. Why do I have to WORK with these people?

  Listen. Put yer bleedin’ backpack back down and listen. You’ve got some great and immortal moments, buster. Following Agatha’s untimely loss when the crests no longer sway their grasses around her whitely shimmering form we have the major climax, we have your ginormous exit, we have the bubbles.

  We have the bubbles and then we have nothing but the still silvery sway of the pool under moonlight, Gavin.

  All you have to do is walk in, slowly.

  Not jump. The old blokes in the pub said you most definitely didn’t jump. I was relieved, it took two hours on my slate to get to that general agreement, like it took two hours the previous evening to get them to stop playing fucking dominoes in the corner and talk to me over the karaoke crap, we nearly got thrown out for reminiscence-yelling or something. Jumping’s naff and really uncinematic if it’s not slowed right down but unless you climbed a tree in 1919 your jump would’ve been off a two-inch tussock and we’d have had to have freeze-framed it which is even naffer, I’ve got over that phase a long while back, Gav. We could have you taking off your waterproof cape and your waterproof boots and gittin’ Scamp to sit, g’buoy, then shaking this beech about a bit, just the leaves shaking like in that Dennis Potter thing, then the jump but they most definitely said Isaac the younger walked ’isself in like ’e were takin’ a bath only ’e carried right on an’ that’s the truth, innit?

  All for love, see, all for love.

  For a bit o’ skirt.

  For my great-aunt, actually.

  Oh yeh? Make it a double o’ Johnny Walker Black agin, along wi’ the 6X, if you don’t mind. Your great-aunt, eh? Let’s think now.

  Very slowly, Gav, so the pool doesn’t actually notice anything’s cleaving it. Right up until your big hat floats off by itself. Then just stay under for about two minutes until the last bubble’s popped on the barely moving surface over which some damselflies are getting famous for two minutes. Hey, you walking slowly into the silver will most definitely be judged probably the finest thing Thornby has ever done, I have the cape you take off and fold up and place under a tree just before right here on my shoulders because it’s wet outside, it took me eighty-one years and half the Half Moon’s liquid stock to get my mitts on it, just appreciate how important your role is to me, Gavin.

  The blackberry sucker’s moving. See to it, Sylvia.

  Quit moaning, of course you can stay down there two minutes, you’ve got a metal leg, if it was wooden you’d have had problems OK but there’s a lot of iron forged by the Fawholt blacksmith under your stump, it’s the way Isaac wanted it, he was terrified of woodworm or rats or something, like I’m terrified of flying twenty thousand feet over the Arctic ice-sheets, we all have our weak spots, for Pete’s sake.

  Hey, it makes things easier. I wouldn’t want you to walk in with a pile of film cans around your neck or something or walk in with nothing and two good legs and faff about on the surface trying to keep your head under so Gordon’d have to wade in disguised as a lily-pad and thrust you down or whatever, that would be hopeless.

  Maybe the limp’ll cause ripples. I think the limp will definitely screw up the total calm idea. No scene in the history of movie-making has ever been free of this kind of technical hiccup so hold your breath for a while, the main thing is DON’T ACT. You’re a mechanism, Gavin. A mechanism.

  I don’t quite know when we’ll insert this scene because I don’t want it to rub up against Agatha’s funeral which is THE BIG ONE. Hey, there’ll be a great deal of your distressed face held staring at the far crest where you watched her shimmer once I suppose, I hope it won’t mean you have to hang around too long but we’ll use a dummy hand for the really murky underwater shot and you won’t be needed for the skeleton a coupla cagoules arm in arm discover in the infamous drought year of ’76 when even th
e pool cracks because decades-old skeletons have a special lustre to them, Gavin – yours won’t be seasoned sufficiently, even the special effects guys throw up their sprayguns on that one.