by William Boyd
“Kiss her neck, then. Look like you fancy her. Then suck her tits. You’re meant to be nympho lesbos—Jesus! Action!”
Talbot stood there watching for a few seconds as the two girls on the bed fumbled with each other half-heartedly.
“CUT!” Talbot said in a loud voice. Everyone looked round.
“Who the fuck said—” Tony looked up from his camera and saw Talbot standing there, his look of poisonous irritation dissolving into shameful incredulity in a split second.
“Aw no. Fuck no. Mr. Kydd. No, no.”
“Yes, yes, Tony, fuck yes. I think the expression is ‘bang to rights,’ isn’t it?”
And then it became all very straightforward and meek and mild. Tony confessed—theft of film stock, of equipment, of malingering, of blatant moonlighting. He seemed almost relieved to have been discovered. Talbot felt like a prep-school headmaster who had caught, red-handed, a trusted prefect raiding the tuck shop.
Then, after the confession, things changed. Tony began to enter mitigating circumstances into the equation. He was heavily in debt, his home was about to be repossessed, his wife had three types of cancer. Talbot’s scepticism hardened and Tony sensed it. There was no way out. And as his demeanour became more crestfallen and defeatist so his naked actors and his crew started demanding that they be paid. Talbot found himself confronting the two “lesbians” who claimed they were each owed £20. As their voices became more raised he silenced them by threatening to call the police. He said he had an associate in the street outside who would verify everything that had taken place in number 43. Making hard-core pornographic films was a criminal offence. He advised them to put their clothes on and go home. And so they eventually did, with a certain amount of darkly peeved muttering and hostile looks.
When they were finally alone, Talbot turned to Tony.
“I reckon you owe us between two and three thousand pounds, Tony. Your debt burden has increased dramatically. What am I meant to do in these circumstances? I have my own responsibilities to our film.”
“I’ll pay you back, sir.”
“How?”
“I’ll ask my producer. He’s got loads of money. He won’t want this to get out so don’t call the cops, I beg you, Mr. Kydd. We can sort this out, boss. Honest.”
“Honest, you’ll never work again in the British film industry. Your career is in porno from now on, Tony. Good luck to you. Enjoy, as our American friends say.”
“Hoi! Tony!” came a call from downstairs. “What in the name of fuck is going on here? Where is everybody?”
Tony flinched. “Shit. That’s him—the producer.” He opened the bedroom door and called down. “We’re up here, mate.”
Talbot lit a cigarette, feeling immediately tense. He hadn’t expected this encounter. He clenched his fists. He hadn’t physically fought anyone since the war.
And then Ferdie Meares walked in.
* * *
—
Ken Kincade drove Talbot back to the production office. He had made sure that Kincade was a witness to the moment when he outlined to Ferdie Meares the exact nature of the theft that had been perpetrated and the extent of his responsibilities as the backer and producer of the pornographic film in question. Talbot’s silence could be bought only by a swift remuneration of the funds that had been stolen. Ferdie maintained a tone of aggressive resentment throughout, informing Talbot that every British film of note had an equivalent clandestine porn spin-off. When the proper film was released the porn version had a perfect, handy, piggyback. All your publicity became our publicity. What world was he living in?
“Whatever world I’m living in, don’t have my director of photography steal my film stock is my advice. Nobody would have been any the wiser and you could have danced to your own porno tune, untroubled.”
“I didn’t fucking know he was stealing from you,” Ferdie said, controlling his evident fury. “He was fucking stealing from me as well. I gave him money for film stock. He trousered that then stole from you. We’ve both been taken for a ride by that cunt. What do you take me for? Why would I risk stealing your stock? You think I’m some sort of arsehole? This is a proper business. You can make a fortune.”
“Whatever you say, Ferdie.” They looked at each other, coldly. “What was your nasty little film called, by the way?” Talbot asked, to break the silence.
“We hadn’t quite decided. It was going to be either Sex Ladder to the Moon or Ladder to the Sex Moon.”
“I assume you’re joking.”
“People like you don’t know anything about real life, Talbot. You’re so blinded by privilege that you make it too bloody easy for the rest of us. That’s the whole fucking point.”
Talbot sat in his office, recalling his encounter with Ferdie Meares and feeling a little stunned and unsettled. It was only lunchtime yet his morning’s events seemed to have provided enough life experience for a week, for a month. Reggie was off filming Sylvia Slaye somewhere, dutifully following the day’s schedule, a schedule that established, moreover, that Ladder to the Moon had entered its final quarter of filming. Yet he felt troubled and uneasy. Here he was, a man in his sixties, a veteran of the Second World War, an experienced producer of many films with their assorted histories of trauma and disappointments, surprise successes and unforeseen failures. However, in his confrontation with the loathsome Ferdie he had felt—what?—strangely naïve and unworldly, as if a window had opened to a world beyond his comprehension. “Blinded by privilege,” so Ferdie had accused him. Maybe he was right, maybe that lofty view obscured so much.
Oh, well, he thought, lighting a cigarette, you live and learn. It’s not every day that you stand in a house in Peacehaven arguing with two naked lesbians about proper financial recompense. You had to laugh. Or, at least, you had to try to laugh.
Joe rapped on the door jamb and leant in. Talbot knew him well enough by now to register that he wasn’t happy.
“Break it to me, Joe.” He assumed Joe was going to tell him that Tony During was off sick again.
“Detective Inspector Desmondson would like a word.”
Desmondson was shown into the office, declined coffee, lit a cigarette.
“I’ll come straight to the point, Mr. Kydd.”
“Please do.”
“We think that Anny Viklund has disappeared. Run away.”
Talbot almost laughed.
“That’s impossible,” he said. He looked at the schedule in front of him. “If you show up on Monday morning bright and early you’ll find her here hard at work.”
Desmondson patiently explained the situation as he found it. They—Special Branch and the FBI—believed that Miss Viklund had given substantial sums of money to her ex-husband, Cornell Weekes, a “most wanted” fugitive who had been arrested trying to flee the country. Desmondson and Radetski had tried to interview Miss Viklund the previous evening after she had finished filming but, having initially promised to meet them, she had left the set and was nowhere to be seen. They discovered she had returned to her hotel where she had ordered a taxi but they had no idea of her destination.
“QED,” he said. “Quod erat—”
“I know what the initials stand for, thank you.” Talbot put his hands palms down on the blotter. “Detective Inspector. Miss Viklund is a young woman. Moreover, she’s a young actress. Moreover, plus, she’s a significant American movie star. She is very rich. She has three days off work. Do I need to say anything more?”
“She knew last night that we wanted to interview her, that we wanted to ask her questions about her ex-husband.”
“And I suspect that’s why she decided to slip away and enjoy her weekend instead. I’m sure she’ll happily talk to you on Monday morning.”
“Is it normal that you lose track of your major actors in this way?”
“I should say ‘no’ but the answer is i
n fact, ‘yes.’ It happens. It is, in its way, normal—if anything is normal in this abnormal business. Look, Detective Inspector Desmondson, it’s a very odd job being an actor, anyway. It’s even odder if you’re a famous actor. You and I wouldn’t last twenty-four hours under the unique pressures they experience.”
“I believe she has absconded.”
“She can’t abscond because she has nothing to ‘abscond’ from.”
“She aided and abetted a known, convicted criminal who is a fugitive from justice. We have his testimony.”
“And I’m sure you can believe every word he uttered. Come on—you called him a criminal. He’ll say anything.”
“She gave him money to help him flee abroad.”
“There may be another explanation that vindicates her. She’s innocent until proved guilty, I assume.” Talbot smiled reassuringly, but was in fact remembering Anny’s request for $2,000. He suddenly had a bad feeling about this particular episode.
“Yes, of course.” Desmondson stood up. If he could curl his lip, he would, Talbot thought. No doubt he thinks I’m blinded by privilege, as well.
“I’d appreciate it if you could use your resources to track down Miss Viklund this weekend and provide us with any information regarding her whereabouts.”
The tired circumlocutions of every apparatchik throughout history, Talbot thought.
“I’ll certainly make some calls, ask the crew,” he said. He stood up himself. “This is all supposition,” he said, mollifying his tone. “Wild surmise. You don’t understand this business, Detective Inspector. Everything is fickle—beyond fickle—everything is unsure and uncertain. It’s like herding cats. She’ll be here on Monday morning, full of apologies. I’ve seen it a hundred times. She had other plans, that’s all. Talking to you and your colleague last night didn’t fit in. Sorry.”
Desmondson stubbed out his cigarette in Talbot’s ashtray.
“You won’t see her back on this fucking film,” he said, coarsely. “She’s done a runner. I’ll bet you a hundred quid.”
“Lucky for you I’m not a gambling man.”
Desmondson left and Talbot sat down again, slowly easing his head left and right, trying yet again to relieve the sudden tension in his neck and shoulder muscles. What if Desmondson was right? What if Anny had run away? The disappearance of Anny Viklund would make the confrontation over Ferdie Meares’ porn film look like a spat in a playground.
His private phone rang and he picked it up.
“Yes?”
“Ah, Mr. Eastman, it’s Mr. Brewster here, I’m the caretaker at—”
“Hello, Mr. Brewster, what can I do for you?”
“The broken window has been repaired and I have paid the glazier.”
“Excellent, thank you, Mr. Brewster.” There was an oddly sulky tone in Brewster’s voice, Talbot thought. “Is everything all right?”
“There’s a…a difficulty. The cheque that was given to me—by way of reimbursement from Axelrod Scaffolding—has bounced. That’s left me out of pocket, Mr. Eastman. Eight pounds, three shillings and sixpence.”
“I’ll be up tomorrow. Let me deal with it. I’ll personally refund your money.”
He hung up. Thank God for minor problems, he thought.
6
Back to Rottingdean. In a way Elfrida was happy to be at Peelings again, with its empty rooms, its monkey puzzle trees, its sleepiness, its inertia. After the distress of the fall and concussion in her house in the Vale of Health it was oddly reassuring to be back in this quiet village near Brighton. Reggie had no idea at all what had transpired in London. He’d clearly never bothered to telephone her—in fact she wondered if he’d even really registered her absence.
So here she was back in the kitchen, adding a slug of vodka to her orange juice as if nothing had ever happened and all was well with the world. Time to return to the novel.
Virginia Woolf was sleeping. On the wall by her bed a pale parallelogram of lemony early-morning sunlight crept towards her face. When the sunlight hit her eyes, she grunted and turned over, but consciousness had indisputably dawned in her brain as well and was urging her awake. Wake, wake. Thoughts began to stir, so she sat up, looking around, blinking. Sunlight on the wall. 28 March 1941. She knew that this was going to be the last day of her life.
Elfrida put her pen down. This was a better opening, she thought: the best yet, punchier somehow, with a more modern feel. She drained the glass of Sarson’s and orange and thought about a celebratory refill. Unthinkingly she was rubbing at a long four-inch scratch on the inside of her left forearm. She must have hit something when she fell in the kitchen. In the hospital they had put some gentian violet on it but the purple hue had now disappeared and the scratch was revealed in all its angry pinkness. Why was it like that? she wondered. Was it infected in some way? It didn’t look normal.
She held her forearm up to the desk light. It seemed more swollen, somehow. The torn skin was sitting on a little ridge of oedema. She looked closely and to her alarm saw that it seemed to be moving ever so slightly. She put her eye close and with her fingers stretched the skin and she could see—just under the translucent surface—quite clearly, tiny maggots the size of pin-heads pulsing, swarming, writhing.
She felt sick and covered the scratch with her palm, feeling a chilly sweat break out on her brow. Jesus Christ. What had she done to herself? What had happened? How could tiny, near-microscopic parasites be fulminating under a bad scratch on the skin of her arm?
She ran downstairs to the kitchen and opened a drawer where she knew the house’s first-aid kit was kept. She found a crêpe bandage and she wound it round and round her forearm, securing it with a pin over her festering wound. She poured herself a tumbler of vodka and took large gulps to calm herself. A complete nightmare! Like something from a science-fiction film or that novel by Albert Camus, what was it called—the name escaped her. Pestilence or Pandemic or something. Dead rats, that’s what she remembered. Rats dying.
The vodka was helping and she began to feel calmer again. What had Reggie told her to do? Any problem, any minor emergency call Joe—yes, call Joe. She found the typed list of the crew with their contact telephone numbers. There he was—Joe Swire, line producer. She put in a call to his office and after a minute or so he came to the phone.
“Joe here, Mrs. Tipton.”
“Hello, Joe. So sorry to bother you but I’ve got a bit of a problem—a medical, health issue. I need to see a doctor as soon as possible.”
“Easy as pie, Mrs. T. I’ll call you back with the details in five minutes.”
Elfrida put down the phone and topped up her drink. This was the marvel of working in the film industry. While the film was underway almost everything in life that you needed was made available to you—money, transportation, accommodation, food, company, guides, entertainment, restaurant and hotel reservations and, in this case, medical intervention. Her status as “wife” of the director gave her more priority, she knew. If she had called and said, “I’ve bought a piano and I want it shipped to London,” or “Book me a suite in the best hotel in Torquay,” or “I’ve a craving for avocado pears” somebody would be ordered to do what she asked and sort the matter out for her. The trouble was that once the film stopped, all this unquestioned aid ended, and you had to go back to doing things for yourself. It was very spoiling, not to say ruinous, to some personalities. Anyway, at least she would swiftly have an appointment to see a doctor—who was no doubt on some sort of lucrative retainer. He would know that she was “with the film” and therefore nothing would be too much trouble. Perhaps this was the great seduction of film-making, she suddenly wondered. It wasn’t about art; it was about making other people do your bidding.
In fact, the doctor turned out to be a “she,” not the “he” she had imagined. Her name was Dr. Sarah Ingham and she had a marked Irish brogue. She was a squar
ely built woman in her forties, wearing a checked tweed suit under her white coat, perhaps a couple of years older than she was. Her surgery was in Hove, just off Lansdowne Road near the cricket ground. She had a strong face, Elfrida thought, as Dr. Ingham examined her scratch with the aid of a magnifying glass, almost carved-looking, with a slightly hooked nose and a clean jawline. Her wiry greying hair was held securely back by a velvet band. Short fingers, no rings. Why did one notice these details? Dr. Ingham said nothing as she examined the scratch, nothing reassuring in any event, and Elfrida began to feel a little afraid of her.
Dr. Ingham put her magnifying glass down.
“You’ve a bad scratch on your arm,” she said. “How did it happen?”
“I slipped and fell. But then these creatures infested it.”
“There are no ‘creatures,’ Mrs. Tipton. You’ve a bad scratch. Full stop.”
“But I can see them—clearly—with my own eyes. I don’t need a magnifying glass. Tiny maggot-like creatures, swarming just under the skin.”
“We can all ‘see’ things, Mrs. Tipton.” Dr. Ingham sat back and steepled her fingers, looking at Elfrida along the lines of their tips as if she was aiming at her through a gunsight. “I’m here to tell you there are no creatures, no maggots, no nothing. Your scratch will be fully healed within a matter of days. Don’t bandage it, let the air get at it.”
“So, what am I seeing?”
“You’re not ‘seeing’—you’re hallucinating.”
Elfrida decided to say nothing more to this stern, strong-faced woman. She could have her profile engraved on a coin or sculpted on some Soviet war memorial, she thought. Absolutely not the sort of kindly, understanding doctor she needed in her current state.
“I’d like to take a blood test,” Dr. Ingham said.
“To confirm the presence of bacteria, microbes?”
“To confirm the amount of alcohol—or other drugs—in your blood.”
“I deeply resent that!” Elfrida said with as much feigned outrage as she could muster. She shrivelled inside.