The Thompson Gunner

by Nick Earls

  ‘It’s interesting that he and Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce were all in LA Confidential,’ she says, ‘and they’ve taken such different paths since then. Simon’s role in that was quite small, of course. Have you ever met Guy Pearce? He seems very genuine too, but the only time I’ve spoken to him it was a phoner and I suppose it’s their job to seem genuine. Some of them could try a bit harder, though.’

  The best I can manage is a third-hand story about Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Guy’s thirtieth birthday party in LA. It’s gossip, and only low-level gossip at that, but I can’t stop myself telling it.

  Claire laughs and says, ‘Well, that sounds like typical Russell Crowe, if you believe what you read. Still, it’d be hard to stay normal with all the sucking-up those people get. And all the time away from home.’ She takes a bite at the biscotti that’s come with her coffee. ‘Speaking of which, I took a look at your website. It’s quite a tour that you’re on.’

  ‘It’s nearly done,’ I tell her. ‘And it’s had its moments.’

  ‘It can’t be easy for you, being away for these long stretches,’ she says. ‘And it can’t be easy for your partner, either. I suppose you find ways of making it work. Does he ever come along? Does his job let him do that?’

  My coffee cup is in my hand, and I can’t remember whether it was on the way up or down so I set it back on the saucer. I still had my Guy Pearce story in my head, trying to work out the hands it passed through to reach me, and I don’t know where to start the story that would answer her question.

  ‘I could do with some time at home, to be honest.’ That’s all I can say, and she knows there’s more. She’s too good at getting information out of people for her not to know. It isn’t in me to tell this story. Not here, not today, not yet. This afternoon at the Blue Duck is too good, too clear, too unspoilt so far.

  She asks if I’d like another coffee. She says she might have one, maybe decaf this time.

  My whole face feels congested, and I try to focus on her question but I start crying anyway. I grab a serviette and blow my nose.

  ‘It’s that poor girl,’ I tell her, and the tears keep coming. ‘Courtney. It was pretty upsetting.’

  And she says, ‘Yes, quite a shock. They should have told you.’

  ‘She made me think of Elli – Murray’s daughter who lives with us some of the time.’ People are starting to look over our way. I take another serviette and wipe my face, and try to look calm about it, try to take control of my breathing. ‘She’s with her mother at the moment. Murray’s away with work, too.’

  Claire pulls a squashed box of tissues out of her bag and passes it to me. ‘Aloe vera,’ she says. ‘Much less scratchy than serviettes.’

  Calgary — two weeks ago

  I WOKE TO A BED that was empty but for a note on the visitor’s pillow. It read:

  Meg,

  Last night was special but I have a wife and three children in Thunder Bay, Ontario, two girls and a boy (the youngest) and one of the things most important to me is being a good father to them. I don’t know that that came up last night. Which was a special night, sincerely, and a special memory, and I don’t thinly either of us wants it spoiled by a single unhappy word.

  I will be thinking of you.

  Rob

  Two small pieces of Fairmont Palliser Hotel Calgary paper, there on the visitor’s pillow. He’d tried to cram the message onto one but perhaps, with three children, it hadn’t been easy.

  I was stunned at first, angry with him by lunchtime, and in the afternoon I went back to my room alone and cried half a bucketful, though I told myself it wasn’t to do with Rob Castle at all. And then I realised he disappointed me most by writing such great songs and yet such a mediocre note, and I was stuck with the simple clear thought that the night had deserved better.

  I had needed his company desperately after breakfast the day before, as the wind skidded in from the Rockies or across the prairie and froze my cheeks and we walked from the mall back to the hotel. I had needed an arm around me, and preferably his, and from there one thing had led to another.

  Late in the evening we had ended up at the door to my room, me with my key card jittering in my hand, Rob Castle with his jacket folded over one arm. We had stood there with the door open, my foot against it, several ways for saying goodnight in my mind. I can remember the moment when the last of them went unsaid, and I pushed the door fully open and he followed me in. His folded jacket fell to the floor, its arms splayed out on the carpet in the last of the hallway light as the door closed.

  Over the next few hours I had times – seconds only – when I let myself think that this was a kind of proof. Proof that I could move beyond recent weeks and the past seven years, proof that I could and would fall again for someone for reasons of great sentiment. And I could smell the sweat lifting from his warm bare shoulders and his hair as I held him. It was his own smell, new to me. And his hair fell unevenly onto my face, brushed my closed eyes, and I told myself it was physical, all this. That’s how I should see it.

  I’m left with those ideas – too many of them – and the sharp recollection of my hands on his shoulders and on his back, of the noise of bodies between thick starched sheets.

  I fell asleep first. I remember him stroking my hair, saying something.

  Jen picked me up for the show on the evening of the day of the note, and I did the show and I bought her a drink afterwards, several drinks. On her fourth, when she’d decided to leave the car for the night and take a cab home, I said ‘Guess what I did last night?’ and she said ‘What?’ and I said ‘I fucked Rob Castle’. Because that’s how it looked by then, no better.

  She took another mouthful of beer and made a frown and said, in a tone that fitted perfectly with my ‘guess what’ way of putting it, ‘You know, I’d wondered about that. Not in a judgemental way of course.’

  So I said, ‘Did you know he was married with three children in Thunder Bay, Ontario? I now have a note to that effect.’

  And she said, ‘No, I didn’t know that. Was I supposed to? It sounds like essential background information. A note about the family? How considerate. Was this note in lieu of a conversation, or as well as one?’

  It had immediately become a kind of joke between us – which was such a good way to play it. It was as if her chaperoning wasn’t up to scratch and that’s where my trouble had started – I was ‘the talent’ and might take it upon myself to sleep with anyone or anything in the absence of contrary advice.

  She told me that she thought the festival should have given me a better briefing, and that she wished she’d come on board earlier, or at least given herself a lot more time to read trashy magazines. Because this was Rob Castle, after all, and his home life couldn’t possibly be a secret.

  She blamed the whole business on the demands of her studies, and on the number of festival volunteers who were only in it for the T-shirt and an occasional surplus Danish.

  I gave her the note and she read it and said, ‘I thought he was a better man.’

  All I could add was, ‘Or at the very least a better writer.’

  I explained myself a bit further when I could, which might have been another beer later or simply when enough time had passed after telling her, and I’d got my next lot of thoughts together.

  ‘I was the loneliest person in the world when he and I went out for breakfast,’ I told her. ‘That’s how it felt. Life hasn’t been good lately. And the mall was such a sad place. I feel horribly guilty now, of course, don’t think I don’t.’

  But he got all my back story, I got none of his. I knew nothing of his life beyond the Uptown Screen, the mall and the elegant Fairmont Palliser Hotel.

  Jen stayed on my side, and I needed that. I finished the night glad about Big Rock Traditional Ale and her company and sometimes even the sex with Rob Castle which, I had to admit, had been very agreeable and perhaps necessary at the time. But I also stayed worried about the other members of a family in Thunder Bay, Ontario
, and what might one day become of them.

  I didn’t know – couldn’t know – if the heartbreak in his songs was real or just clever invention, as it should be and as I’d thought it was. Maybe he’s not creating it for the songs, and his heart breaks all the time. Maybe it broke once, long ago, and that was enough to harden him, leave him open to misadventure, and damn the consequences. Not that there would be any, this time.

  Perth — Thursday

  THE RUNNING SHEET for tonight is waiting for me back at the hotel, in an envelope tucked under my door. There’s a list of minibus times with it, and another copy of the program, which describes the venue, the Watershed, as ‘a hub disguised as an installation – part club, part performance space, part pool, aquarium and sink, but above all, it is the hottest place to be cool in Perth this summer.’

  I couldn’t tell Claire about Murray. I’ve only met her twice, and every time the break-up surges back into my head it feels like it’ll burst. I didn’t want to crack up in front of her, and the crowd in the cafe. I didn’t want to get into any of the details, and hear good well-meaning things in return. We had a conversation going, our usual conversation, about the worries of the world and about people we almost have in common, and that’s what I wanted this afternoon, something normal.

  Somehow that didn’t apply on that cold morning in Calgary with Rob Castle, or it stopped applying because Calgary was so unlike home. I wasn’t quite myself there, from the moment I met him.

  He should have told me that he had a life back in Ontario. What kind of expectations did he think I had? A future together? Him and his lovelorn songs, me and my domestic observations, out on the wide open road playing every town on the CNBC weather map from Whitehorse to St John’s? Me, working on my chick stuff, amusing him and reminding him that there are shitty, dishonest men about, travelling with all the charm and tenderness they need to wreak quiet havoc and then move on?

  I want to see him again just to scream at him ‘I got what I wanted’ and then to say, in less than a scream, ‘And you’re welcome to Thunder Bay, Ontario, but you had plenty of chances to talk about that and you took none of them because you knew we wouldn’t have slept together if you had.’

  And that’s the simple truth of it. The complex part, the connectedness I felt, I can’t be sure of any more.

  I fell for a guy – nose-dived for him, plummeted for him – because of how brilliantly he referenced popular culture, from the things he noticed and the way he noticed them, to his hair, to the well-made look of longing in his eyes. And, like a lot of men in popular culture, he was ultimately disappointing.

  I struck him when I was in a moment of great need, but he wasn’t what I needed, even if the story had stayed simple and we’d woken up beside each other and our tours had quietly disentangled themselves the next day when he moved on to Edmonton.

  I’d like to say that I was in control, rational, and that it wasn’t so much about him. I chose sex over cigarettes, and because I couldn’t find a kickboxing class. But there were hours when we were together and I wasn’t sad. I don’t think I was sad at all.

  His writing in the note was at different angles. The paper had moved. He’d paused, and looked at me asleep there, and known what he was doing. He’d given it thought, and still it was such a lazy crappy effort.

  After a shower I can convince myself my eyes are less puffy. I can’t make a decision about what to wear though, and my suitcase is half-empty before I settle on my ‘Alby Mangels – Ladies Man ‘88’ T-shirt and my favourite black Dogstar pants, which always make my thighs look great (athletic, yes, but not Tour de France). The seven-twenty minibus is about to leave when I get down to the foyer.

  I sit across the aisle from the two other passengers, and the nearer one says ‘I’m Niall’ in an Irish accent, but from the south. ‘And this is Ken.’

  The driver slams the door shut and the minibus goes dark.

  ‘I’m Meg,’ I tell them, and Niall reaches out to shake my hand and then Ken does too. ‘Are you both on the program tonight?’

  ‘Niall is,’ Ken says. He’s facing me, but the bright foyer lights silhouette him and all I can see is the shaggy outline of his hair. ‘I don’t start till tomorrow, but they tell me there’ll be free beer backstage, and that’s enough for me. Besides, we’ve only got two nights in Perth before we move on to Sydney, so we’ve got to fit in as much hospitality as we can.’

  His accent is different, less of a lilt, harder on the vowels. The minibus jerks away from the kerb and into the traffic. We cross King Street and pass the bright lights outside the theatre.

  ‘And where are you from, Meg?’ he says. ‘Somewhere in Australia other than Perth I’d be guessing, if you’re staying in the hotel.’

  ‘Yeah, Brisbane. And you’re from Belfast? Or somewhere near Belfast?’

  ‘I am. How did you know that?’

  ‘I spent the first eight or nine years of my life on the Ards Peninsula. We left in 1972.’

  ‘And why wouldn’t you if you had the chance?’ he says. ‘We’d be about the same age, you know. Funny that we’d meet in Perth. 1972? Yeah, I was eight then as well. We should have a beer or two tonight, when you’re done.’ The minibus turns a corner and he grabs the window frame for balance. ‘I’ve got a big brother who got caught up in a lot of stuff that year. He was an angry bastard then. I used to run some of his messages.’ He stops himself, and smiles. ‘But I was from Ardoyne. I guess you and I would be as likely to meet in Perth as anywhere.’

  We’re stopped at some traffic lights, waiting to turn, and the headlights of the oncoming cars come in through the windscreen and I see Ken properly for the first time. He shrugs and smiles. His hair is greying at the temples in an attractive sort of way, his teeth are uneven. He’s holding a packet of cigarettes and pulling one of them in and out.

  It’s a knowing kind of smile that he’s giving me, and I nod and say ‘I guess’ and I can feel myself smiling too, in the same way he did.

  ‘Well I’m from Cork,’ Niall says, ‘so don’t mind me.’

  Ken laughs, puts the cigarette in his mouth and takes it out again. ‘Am I right in thinking they don’t want us to smoke in the bus? It’s not made easy for smokers in this country.’

  I tell him we’ll be there soon, a couple of minutes.

  He’s from Ardoyne. He ran messages for the IRA. He knows where I’m from too. We wouldn’t have met.

  We take a right turn and, as the minibus goes dark, my eyes are on his hands which are fidgeting with his cigarette. He’s still got the smile. He says he could kill for a beer.

  We turn left past the train station, then left again. We’re at the Watershed already. A volunteer meets us and takes us in through the back entrance. Ken lights up, and offers his cigarettes around.

  ‘You did well coming here,’ he says to me as he puts the packet back in his pocket. ‘The heat’s something, though. Is Brisbane like this?’

  The green room is crowded with T-shirted volunteers, comedians and several people I can’t account for. There’s food on a long table and beer in plastic tubs.

  ‘Ah, we’re in business,’ Niall says. ‘What are your thoughts, Kenneth? Domestic or imported?’

  They set off to plunder, and in seconds they’re elbow-deep in ice and talking through their options. I pick up a paper plate and put a couple of strawberries on it. Felicity comes in the other door, her mobile phone clenched in her hand. She sees me, and mimes a big sigh of relief.

  Her first words to me are ‘I’m so tense’ and they come out as though they’re under pressure. But she’s excited too, excited at the prospect of the festival finally starting and the sell-out crowd we’ll have tonight.

  Once they see us talking, a couple of volunteers come over and ask about TV, and how I got started. They want to talk about how it works, and about stand-up, and about how it isn’t easy to get a break in Perth. They get me to sign their T-shirts. A cluster of people forms around us, and it’s like doing the sho
w early – six, seven faces turned my way and waiting for the next funny line, demanding the next funny line. ‘You’re hilarious,’ one of them says, though I’m frankly closer to heartbroken, my head full of more wreckage than the McKendrys’ field. Murray, Rob Castle, that poor dying girl this afternoon, Ken and his IRA messages. I’m pushing it away, all of it, just to get the job done.

  Felicity interrupts and says, ‘There’s a sound check to do. I’ve got to take Meg to do a sound check before we let the audience in.’

  ‘Oh, I was supposed to do that,’ one of the volunteers says, still trying to make out the scrawl that I’ve put on her T-shirt. ‘I didn’t know that was now.’

  I get my first real sense of the venue when Felicity takes me outside. Its walls are temporary and it has no roof. It’s built over a pond at the entrance to the art gallery. There’s water and light and scaffolding, and it’s a clear starry night. Beyond the screens, I can hear people talking, a crowd forming. Sound feels different here when I test the mike, but I know it’s going to work. It’s going to be fine.

  We don’t rush back inside.

  Felicity says, ‘Do you ever get sick of that? All the same questions, all the questions about TV?’

  Her phone rings. She looks at the number and says it’s only Adam. I leave her to take the call, pointing out that it’d be preferable not to refer to him as Only Adam when she answers. She gives a laugh, puts her finger in her left ear – where it now seems to spend half its time – and as she turns her back I hear her saying ‘Hello again’.

  The first two acts have ten minutes each, then I have twenty. I could be out there in not much more than half an hour. I sneak out the back way, around the side of the building, as the gates open. This is exactly the time when, years ago, I would have been setting off for a walk with my packet of cigarettes in one hand and my beer in the other, collecting my thoughts, wandering around murmuring my routine to myself, getting the feel of it back, putting the punchlines in place.