House of the Blue Sea

by Teresa van Bryce

  Mark was smiling at her. “Spoken like a true artist.”

  A young waiter arrived at their table holding menus in one hand and a notebook in the other. “Buenas tardes. El menus?” His name tag read Juan Manuel.

  “Sí,” Mark responded, “and una cerveza. Pacifico por favor.”

  Sandra held up two fingers, “Dos Pacifico. Gracias.” Juan Manuel placed the menus on the table and moved on to a group of four seated nearby.

  “You drink beer. I’m surprised,” Mark said.

  “Shouldn’t be. Beer is a big part of my Canadian culture.”

  “I just haven’t met many women who drink beer. It’s typically wine or cocktails, or tea in the case of my mother.”

  “Until I met my first margarita, I wasn’t much for hard liquor, and with beer and rye usually the only drinks at university parties, beer was the lesser of two evils. I guess I acquired a taste for it.” Sandra glanced toward the bar where Juan Manuel was talking to the bartender. “I’m not a very dedicated beer drinker. I like a few—the fairly light, not bitter variety. Most of the Mexican beers are quite drinkable.” She paused. “I would have pegged you for a wine drinker.”

  “I am. In fact that’s one of my errands today, picking up a case of my favourite wine. The selection in San Leandro is rather dismal.”

  “I didn’t realize there was a selection at all.”

  “The hotel will sell wine by the bottle.”

  Mark’s eyes went to the traffic rolling by on Alvaro Obregon, which ran the length of el Malecón. It was a busy street, day or night, with the local and tourist traffic interspersed with police and military, undoubtedly to put the tourists at ease. “I owe you an apology,” Mark said, looking back at Sandra, “for my very rude behaviour yesterday.”

  “It’s okay—”

  “No, it isn’t. You asked me a question and I threw a wobbly, as my dear mother was fond of saying.”

  “Wobbly ... sounds much cuter than it is ... but really, it was none of my business.”

  Juan Manuel returned to the table with two bottles of pale gold beer covered in droplets of water. “You are ready now?” he asked in stilted English.

  They hadn’t looked at the menus. “We’ll need a few more minutes to decide,” Mark said.

  When the waiter had moved away Mark continued, “You asked me why I was choosing to be here in hell, if hell is what this is for me. Fair question, since I’m a man of means and free to leave any time. I’d like to explain, if you’ll let me.”

  “Okay.”

  Mark stared out at the street. “Well, in a nutshell, my career has hit the skids, my ex-wife is a secretive bitch and I don’t have anything better to do but hang out in fucking Mexico drinking cerveza.” Mark lifted his bottle as if to toast and took a big swig.

  There was the guy she’d had breakfast with yesterday. Sandra had been wondering if he’d show up. She studied the label on her beer bottle, her thumbs sliding up and down its wet sides. Lunch wasn’t ordered yet, she could still make a getaway.

  “Right, that didn’t come out quite like I intended. Perhaps I should give you a standing apology for everything unpleasant that escapes my lips since my internal censor seems to have gone on holiday.” He took another long drink of Pacifico. “Please say something, before I spit out some other vile bit of verbiage.”

  Sandra smiled at his effort to be civil and rein in what was obviously wanting to break out of the gate. “Well, I’m a pretty good listener, or so I’ve been told. How about I ask you some questions and you try to answer them. You don’t need to censor everything for my benefit, but I do have two requests: one, that you remember I’m trying to help, and two, keep in mind we’re in a public place.”

  “Fair requests. Ask away.” He leaned back in his chair.

  She wasn’t sure where to start now that she was venturing from the safe zones of weather, shoes and beer. She let her mind wander back to her idyllic morning yoga session and tried to regenerate that feeling of calm. Nope. That wasn’t going to happen. Maybe she’d try Trisha’s approach. What would she ask him if he were “just a guy” sitting across the table from her? “So, is it the career or the ex giving you the most grief?”

  Mark peered into the neck of his beer bottle. “That’s easy. The work. Serena pissed me off, but that’s nothing new. If it hadn’t been on the backside of being sacked it wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

  She leaned forward with her forearms on the table top, her eyes fixed on Mark. “Okay, that’s a good start. So, you were fired?”

  He stared at his beer for a moment before meeting Sandra’s gaze. “I was offered a lead role in a movie with a very big British director, a role that could have changed the course of my career. I agreed, enthusiastically, and came to Baja to see Paul and go over the script. A week after I arrived, I found out another actor had been signed for the role, without even so much as a phone call or email from my agent or the director. I read about it online in Star Power. I flew to London to try to salvage things but it was done. I’d been dropped. They wanted someone with more Oscar potential,” Mark made bunny ear symbols with his fingers.

  “Ouch.”

  “Indeed. My agent has assured me he’ll find me something as good or better but his most recent suggestion is an absolute piece of tripe.”

  “Maybe it’s time for a new agent.”

  “I’ve thought about that, almost fired his sorry ass on the spot, but Nate’s been good to me, until now, and he has a lot of connections. At my age I’m not itching to hit the pavement looking for someone new to represent me. I’m comfortable with Nate, even when he pisses me off. If he’d only got them to sign the bleeding contract ...” He took another drink.

  “So you think it was his fault they gave the role to someone else?”

  “No, not really. I’d merely like to blame him rather than admit my career is turning to crap.” Mark glanced at the menus resting at the end of the table. “I guess we should think about ordering.” He opened his menu.

  Sandra opened hers but continued to look at Mark. With his head bowed toward her, she could see the grey strands of hair around his crown, and the angle of his face revealed little pouches under his eyes. She’d always thought aging must be so much easier for men. Maybe not, particularly for someone famous.

  Juan Manuel returned to take their food orders—two catch of the day specials, another Pacifico for Mark, and a glass of water for Sandra.

  “So what is this new course you’d like your career to take?” Sandra asked when the waiter was on his way back to the kitchen.

  “Playing the romantic lead was fine twenty years ago but those opportunities start drying up as the years go by, much like we do. Like it or not, we live in a society that values youth.”

  “Don’t I know it. Try being a fifty-year-old woman in a beauty-obsessed culture.”

  “Try being that fifty-year-old and having your wrinkles and flabby bits show up on the cover of a tabloid. That’s the life of an aging celebrity, male or female. Admittedly, you ladies do seem to get the worst of the lot.”

  “But don’t you think we also gain credibility as we age?” Sandra asked.

  “That’s true in many types of work. Unfortunately, acting is more than skill and experience; it’s also a game of looks, type and age. One of my instructors at the academy cautioned me on taking advantage of what he called my ‘matinee idol’ looks. He said I might not enjoy being typecast. I didn’t listen at the time, because the roles I was being offered were leads, the goal of every acting school graduate. At first, the BBC dramas were a miracle—a chance to be in films—and playing in Jane Eyre got me noticed by the Americans, something else I’d set my sights on.”

  “I know I’ve seen you in American movies so it seems that worked out for you?” The direction of the conversation reminded Sandra just who was sitting across the table. She leaned back in her chair, rubbing her hands on her thighs. I am an island of calm.

  “It did. But the roles in Ame
rica were all romantic comedies, some good, some dreadful. I never turned one down, thinking I was working my way up the ranks in Hollywood and would earn the opportunity to play roles with more substance. But, I continued to be called when they needed someone with a posh British accent to play in a romcom. I was the good-looking Brit when they needed one. I’d been typecast, precisely like I was warned I’d be, and now I’m mostly too old to fit the type. So what’s left? Apparently, pathetic bit parts in second-rate movies.” Mark took a drink from the fresh beer Juan Manuel had delivered.

  “So the period dramas and romances were a means to an end? They didn’t have value in and of themselves?”

  “Value in financial terms, absolutely. You can’t continue to act unless it puts bread on the table and my career has always been lucrative. So many actors, like Paul for example, find themselves doing things on the side to fund their acting. I never had to do that. I was lucky. But romantic stories don’t alter people’s lives or make a difference in the world.” He took another drink.

  “You don’t think so? You don’t think the stories by Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë affect people?”

  “Other than people who work in tissue manufacturing? Not likely.”

  “Such a cynic! You know, I had an English prof in university who said that real people will forever remain a mystery, no matter how well we think we know them. We only truly get to know people in stories, and from knowing them we learn to understand real people, and ourselves. So, what if your Mr. Rochester inspired someone to express love or abandon prejudice. Wouldn’t that be of value?”

  “And what if all my Mr. Rochester did was inspire thousands of women to swoon ridiculously over an imaginary man played by someone they knew absolutely balls about?” He picked up his beer bottle again, taking another long drink. Sandra was starting to see the pattern: touch on something uncomfortable, the man takes a drink. Not a coping mechanism she admired or had much tolerance for.

  “I think that would be a sorry statement on all womankind, one that I don’t believe. Falling in love with an on-screen or on-page character doesn’t make someone ridiculous, only vulnerable, and a bit of a romantic. And you have no idea where stirred emotions may lead a person. What if it awakened someone’s creativity and caused them to discover a passion they didn’t know they had? Point is, when you put art out there, you have to trust it will find its way into the hearts of the people who can benefit from it. You don’t get a say in how people will be affected or not.”

  “Wise words from a woman who keeps her art in the cellar.” He smirked.

  Sandra knew she’d been caught. “For starters, I don’t keep my work in a cellar ...”

  Juan Manuel arrived with two bright yellow plates piled with food and a basket of tortillas. “Dos especialidades de pescado fresco.”

  When he’d gone Sandra continued. “I used to work in galleries, as a curator. I watched people’s reactions to art and I watched the artists’ responses. A few artists, a handful, felt they’d made their statement and were satisfied. They didn’t seem to care if their pieces sold or were even appreciated. This one artist, Byron James, painted these magnificent landscapes. They were so vivid and alive with colour you wanted to step right into them. He sold out every single show, won a bunch of awards, but he’d never show up to receive the recognition, unless someone brought him to the gallery at gunpoint. He just kept painting. Until I can be that removed from what people think of my work it will stay in my cellar. I don’t want to paint for someone else; it needs to be my gift, not something I expect praise and payment for.”

  “That’s a high bar you’ve set.”

  “I get that from my father, in a roundabout way. Everything he did in life was to impress someone or garner some kind of attention. I don’t think it made him happy.” Sandra dug into her plate of fish and refried beans. The fish flaked apart with the lightest touch of her fork.

  “Was he an artist?”

  “No.” She paused to chew the mouthful of fish, her tongue sorting out the various seasonings used in the grilling. “An archaeologist. A successful one—published, respected. He was an incredibly clever man, but arrogant. It’s because of him I was a curator instead of a painter. Once he realized my interest lay in art, curator was the only career choice that suited him. It was never very important what suited me. But anyway, we were talking about you. Another question ...”

  “I think I’d prefer to hear more about your relationship with your father.” Mark placed a forkful of the Yellowtail in his mouth.

  “I’m sure you would. But you don’t get off that easy.” Sandra dabbed her napkin to her mouth, preparing for the next question. “So, what was so different about this part you didn’t get? Different from the other roles you’ve played.”

  “It wasn’t a romance for starters, a complete rarity in my career. When have you heard about an actor in a romantic comedy winning an Oscar for best actor?”

  Sandra smiled. “Jack Nicholson, As Good As It Gets.”

  “Well done,” Mark nodded as he chewed, “but try a second.”

  She thought for a moment. “Richard Dreyfuss, The Goodbye Girl.”

  “I’m impressed. Remind me to choose you as a partner if we’re ever faced with a game of Trivial Pursuit.”

  “But I get your point, there haven’t been many. Was that the difference with this movie then, potential for awards?”

  “Partially, and credibility with the right people.”

  “The right people?”

  “The people that make award-winning movies, I suppose.”

  “So it’s all about the awards?”

  “No, not really ... they’re just a way of measuring what’s ... valuable.”

  “And so we’re back to what adds value to people’s lives.”

  “It would seem so, unfortunately. You’ve tricked me!” Mark pointed his fork at Sandra.

  She was starting to enjoy the conversation. When she could forget he was famous and that he might bristle at a wrong turn of phrase, he was fun to talk to. “I believe you stepped into this trap all by yourself. So, would you say that all Academy-or-other-award-winning movies add value to people’s lives, in the way that you want to add value?”

  “No, probably not, but there’s more potential for it.”

  “Okay,” Sandra thought for a moment, “so if you were to look back over your career, what role gave you the greatest satisfaction, as an actor?”

  “It would have to be Rochester. I won a BAFTA for that one.”

  “So was it the role or the award that made it satisfying?”

  “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that it may incriminate me.” Mark responded in his best American accent.

  “Very good.” Sandra clapped her hands. “But what’s your answer?”

  “I enjoyed the challenge of the role. I enjoyed the accolades. I enjoyed the money. Did I feel I had given something of value to the world? Not really.”

  “So, would this new role, the one given to the other actor, would it have added value in the way you think is important?”

  “Are you sure you’re not some kind of therapist, masquerading as an artist?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “No, wait, perhaps a barrister.”

  Sandra stared at him.

  “All right then—no, probably not. It had the potential to make the award lists. The subject matter was not of much interest to me and I doubt it would have changed the world. But what movie ever does?”

  “So if movies don’t change the world, what does? Who does?”

  He began counting on the fingers of his left hand, tapping the pinky as it rose from his fist. “My brother does. He’s a surgeon; saves lives nearly every day.” His ring finger stood next, empty of any ring. He smacked them both with the index finger of his other hand. “My father does. He’s a history professor at Newcastle; builds young minds.” His middle finger joined the other two and Mark thrust his hand toward Sandra. “My friend N
orman definitely does. He’s an old school chum who runs a humanitarian organization that’s brought aid to a dozen different countries, horrid situations most of us aren’t even aware of.” Mark looked out to the sea. “He called me last week, asked me to narrate a documentary for him, on the high rates of child mortality in Mali and a couple of other African countries.” Mark’s gaze came back to Sandra’s expression. “Don’t feel bad. I hadn’t heard of it either.”

  “Well doesn’t that fit with your definition of work with value?”

  “A low-budget documentary that will be shown by film societies and universities? My agent was horrified. I believe he called it euthanasia for my film career.”

  “Perhaps it would be, but maybe it’s time.” As soon as the words passed her lips she wished she could pull them back.

  “Time to put my sorry career out of its misery?” Mark slammed his hand on the table top hard enough to make the cutlery jump. “Is that what you think?” Heads turned toward them from the surrounding tables.

  Sandra glanced toward the exit, wondering if leaving would be more or less uncomfortable than staying. She leaned forward and spoke in a hushed tone, “Number one—trying to help; number two—public place.” She was surprised at her own boldness.

  “Right. Sorry.” Mark signalled the waiter and ordered another beer.

  “What I meant to say was that if your career is no longer satisfying, why not venture out into something different?”

  “Because I’m not ready to give up yet. I’m not ready to call time.” The edge was still there. “I’ve invested more than thirty years of my life in this business. I can’t just throw that away.”

  “Fair enough.” Sandra leaned into the back of her chair and took the last swallow of beer from her bottle. It seemed the fun part of the conversation was over.

  “That’s it?” he asked.

  “That’s it. I rest my case.”

  ***

  Sandra followed Mark down the steps to the sidewalk in front of La Perla. She pulled her sunglasses from the top of her head to the bridge of her nose.