Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales

by Diane Duane

  GUNTER

  Well, I will be in the Cafe Royal on Piccadilly around noon, if you want to meet me there.

  JOY

  Sure. If I’m free, I’ll be there.

  Gunter gives her that little bow and heel-click again.

  JOY (CONT’D)

  (grins at him)

  I’ll never understand how you do that in sneakers.

  She EXITS.

  INT. EARL’S COURT COMPUTER SHOW—DAY

  A big convention-center space, full of crazed computer people selling things to each other as fast as they can. An incredible ROARING DIN of voices from salesfolk, attendees, and loud sound systems.

  The Erickson stand is one of the largest in the show—a small seating area with big screen, and numerous smaller stands, sales areas for the staff (including Harry) to see buyers and take their orders, a small bar, cardboard cutouts of Robert Erickson, etc etc.

  To one side, near one of the cutouts, a TV REPORTER from the London 24-hour news channel, is taping the lead-in for the interview she’s about to do with Erickson. In B.G. of this shot we see Joy go by, craning her neck to see past, looking for Harry, then EXITING SHOT.

  TV REPORTER

  Three, two, one… By far the best-known face at ACAPS this year is Robert Erickson, self-made billionaire and one of the ten richest men in the United Kingdom. From his humble and unlikely beginnings as an maverick inventor working in a shed in the London suburb of Islington, Erickson has seen the company he founded grow to

  TV INTERVIEWER

  dominate the markets of three continents. But he’s never lost the personal touch, so it’s no surprise to see him here at ACAPS for the world product launch of Erickson Computers’ hottest new item, the epsCetera Pocket P.A., a WiFi-, 4G- and Web 2.0-friendly “smart” personal assistant device that fans and critics alike have labeled the “BlackBerry Killer”.

  The Erickson stand has a sales area—tables, chairs, a soft drink dispenser, surrounded by posters and displays—where the sales staff are talking to retailers and taking orders from them. Harry sits at one table, writing in a looseleaf notebook with one hand, working with one of the abovementioned Pocket P.A.’s otherwise.

  POCKET P.A. “VOICE”

  Harry, I’ve got a message for you.

  Harry TOUCHES AN ICON on the little touchscreen.

  POCKET P.A. “VOICE” (CONT’D)

  Call incoming from Nigel at oh nine thirty.

  HARRY

  Put him on hold for three minutes. If he can’t hold, call back then.

  POCKET P.A. “VOICE”

  All right.

  JOY

  Harry!

  He looks up, his expression annoyed. Joy comes rushing up to him, flustered. She puts her carry-all bag down on the table and starts rummaging through it, trying to find her badge for the show: can’t find it.

  HARRY

  Where’ve you been?

  JOY

  I’m sorry I’m late! I got lost on the subway.

  HARRY

  The Underground. But it’s okay. They’ve rescheduled the husband-and-wife seminar. It’s not till four.

  JOY

  Oh, good!

  She stops going through the bag in search of the badge, starts going through her secret pockets instead. Underground tickets, scribbled notes, and Heaven knows what else pile up on Harry’s work surface. He pushes them out of the way of his work.

  HARRY

  But I went back to the hotel to get some things, and I couldn’t get into the room. You had the key!

  JOY

  Didn’t they have another one?

  HARRY

  (one more irritation)

  Little family hotels here don’t usually. When you go out, you leave the key with them, okay?

  JOY

  Okay. Sorry. How’re you doing here?

  Joy finds her badge, sits down by Harry to pin it on. Harry PEERS over her shoulder, alert for approaching clients.

  HARRY

  Like a house afire. Everybody wants our new baby here. I haven’t stopped writing orders since I got in.

  (sees someone past her)

  And here come some more. Listen, hon, I can’t stop to socialize right now. Got plans for today?

  JOY

  Yes. Gunter and I are having lunch.

  (wants to tell him, doesn’t know how)

  Hon, the hotel —

  HARRY

  I know. I promise I’ll get us out of there as soon as I can.

  JOY

  No! I don’t want to go. The hotel’s fine.

  HARRY

  (taken aback)

  It is?

  JOY

  Yes. The people there are nice.

  Harry looks at her suspiciously, wondering what this means. As he’s about to ask, his immediate superior in sales, BOYCE, mid-thirties with a too-slick look and feel, walks by. He pauses, a hand on each of their shoulders, friendly, but with a get-a-move-on feel to the interaction.

  BOYCE

  And you must be Mrs. Collins! I’m just delighted to meet you. I’ll be seeing you at the husband-and-wife function later on, yes? Super. Harry, those people from Electronic Arts are on their way over, and we can sell them about a hundred units on the spot if we have enough people to concentrate on them. So nice to see you, Mrs. Collins —

  He’s off. Harry and Joy look after him with expressions of annoyance. Harry gives Joy a hurried smooch.

  HARRY

  Go on, hon. We’ll talk later. Have a nice lunch with Gunter.

  Joy nods, GETS UP and EXITS. As Harry is surrounded by a bunch of other sales people and prospective clients, he looks after her as if hearing what he’s just said.

  HARRY (CONT’D)

  Gunter…

  On her way out, Joy STOPS, intrigued, and with many others rubbernecks as the reporter from L!ve TV interviews Robert Erickson. Erickson stands there with his hands in his suit pockets, exuding accessibility and charm. He is upbeat and pleasant, even while rattling off buzzwords.

  TV REPORTER

  Many of your competitors have claimed that you must be using substandard materials or manufacturing processes to keep your prices so low.

  ERICKSON

  You mean, so low that we routinely undercut theirs by more than forty percent.

  (chuckles)

  All we’re doing is using British manufacturing skill and know-how to run a lean, effective organization. With our employee-friendly work structure, we can afford to take lower profits than our competitors, without resorting to ethically questionable practices like mass outsourcing. Erickson produces a world-class product while also creating jobs in the British workplace and plowing the benefits back into the local community.

  There’s a brief interruption as a group of POWER-RANGER CLONES in flashy costumes walk by behind Erickson with signs advertising a videogame. He reacts with amusement, turns back to the interviewer.

  TV REPORTER

  The exact source of that know-how has been a bone of contention for some time, hasn’t it?

  ERICKSON

  If you mean, would our competitors like us to tell them exactly how we cram five hundred percent more performance into our components than they can, of course they would! The Erickson chipset is the standard for performance and durability all over the world: our components are guaranteed to keep the memory burnt into them forever, or until the silicon and plastic wear out—whichever comes first. That kind of reliability, anyone would want in their hardware! Especially our competition. But they can’t match it. I understand how frustrated that must make them. I was frustrated too, a lot of those late nights in the shed, until I found the secret.

  (beat)

  Maybe I should rent them the shed.

  LAUGHTER from some of the assembled crowd.

  TV REPORTER

  Is it true that only three senior executives of your company know all the details of the production process?

  ERICKSON

  Sorry, no. Only one man kn
ows them all: me. The data can only be released to my successor after the courts declare me dead.

  (grins)

  Pity I’ll miss the sideshow when it kicks off. Sometimes I think it’d be fun to fake my death at least once to get a preview.

  More LAUGHTER: the interview continues. Joy, unconvinced by the charm offensive, wanders off to one side and has a last look at Harry. He is with a client, all animation and laughter: he makes his sale. It’s the kind of animation he does not have with her. Thoughtful, Joy EXITS.

  EXT. PICCADILLY—DAY

  Joy and Gunter have finished lunch. They EXIT the cafe, walking down Piccadilly toward the Circus.

  GUNTER

  No, we don’t have to eat or drink. But it does make us feel more… alive? So most of us do.

  JOY

  It’s just—I don’t get it. Why are you here, when other dead people aren’t?

  GUNTER

  I don’t know. Any more than George does, or Sarah.

  They pause near the Circus. Gunter looks across the street at what is now a Burger King.

  GUNTER (CONT’D)

  August 15, 1940: that was my last mission, mine and four others’. Right there, it ended. They all went on. At least I have never seen them again, and were they still here, I surely would have. We cannot go far from where we die. It is too painful.

  JOY

  But look, isn’t there supposed to be a tunnel of light or something?

  GUNTER

  (slight, sad humor)

  Ah yes, the light.

  (beat)

  It is very easy to be a bomber pilot, you know? Not the flying, I mean. The bombing. Everything is so far down, so far away. You drop the bombs, you go home… it’s nothing personal.

  They cross the street. Gunter finds it painful to be here: after that first look, he does not look at the Burger King again. They walk to the statue of Eros, and around it, slowly.

  GUNTER (CONT’D)

  I dropped them again and again. Nothing personal. Then that last day, a Hurricane fighter shot us down. We crashed just there —

  (indicates the spot)

  I got out of the plane, I thought, and tried to find my crew. All I could see was the fires, so terrible: everything burning all around me, the people screaming… That was personal, when I was in the midst of it. That was my doing.

  (beat)

  There was a light. I saw it. But the fires were so much brighter. I got lost among them. When they died down, and I wasn’t lost any more, that light was gone. I have not seen it since.

  JOY

  How awful!

  GUNTER

  Oh, it wasn’t so bad. I was confused, the way a lot of us are who don’t go on. I thought I was downed in an enemy city, so I hid in bombed-out buildings, starved a little—Then one night came more bombs. They fell right on top of me, and didn’t kill me. Then I knew.

  They cross the street, away from Eros and down toward Regent Street. For once, the splendid buildings and the bustle of London do nothing for Joy.

  JOY

  And all this time you’ve been here…

  GUNTER

  While the world just keeps going. You move among the living, and for them, life goes on. But you can change nothing, do nothing really new. Everything is the same… always.

  (shrugs)

  It’s not so bad. Lots of live people go through their days the same way, changing nothing, doing nothing new… They never even notice.

  JOY

  Are there a lot of you? I mean, more than just here?

  GUNTER

  Many. Some have a thing they want to do: they wait till they can do it, and then go. Some love this place too much to leave, and won’t go on. Great ones, some of them.

  JOY

  When do you see them? Where?

  GUNTER

  We have places where we meet sometimes. The society of our own kind is a comfort.

  (shrugs)

  We keep up with the news. Who is here, who has moved on.

  JOY

  (a little sad)

  I guess you must really want to.

  GUNTER

  Oh, sometimes. But I also think of the war… and I say to myself, “So many things I destroyed, ‘only following orders.’” I would like to make it up. To say, “I am sorry.” But I can never think of something. Or anyone to say it to.

  (sad but putting an amiable face on it)

  Maybe someday. For the time being, best to leave things the way they are.

  They turn the corner at the bottom of Regent Street, pausing there a moment to look down toward Trafalgar Square.

  JOY

  It’s really so sad, though. George, and Doris… they can’t even touch.

  GUNTER

  One must learn to be intimate in other ways.

  A look between them. Joy glances away, embarrassed. They start walking again toward the Square.

  JOY

  You say you can only touch dead things, like your clothes. But you go through walls. Why don’t you just go through your clothes, too?

  GUNTER

  We can choose what to touch, with some practice. To keep something, so that it moves through things with you, takes time to learn. And each new object, you must get used to, first. It takes an hour or so.

  (grins)

  This is why we need betting shops for our upkeep. I know some who have suggested taking money from cash machines. But one has to stand with one’s arm in the machine for an hour. People notice. And anyway, I would not like to steal.

  JOY

  (laughs: rueful)

  It sounds like hard work. I always thought being a ghost would be easy. You just jump out and say “boo” to people.

  GUNTER

  Not if you want them to have lunch with you afterwards.

  A smile between them. Then Joy looks shocked.

  JOY

  God, look at the time. I have to go meet Harry.

  GUNTER

  Perhaps I will see you later, then.

  JOY

  I guess so —

  GUNTER

  (off her flustered look)

  Joy. What are you going to tell him?

  JOY

  I don’t know.

  She hurries away through Trafalgar Square, plainly troubled: no Mary Tyler Moore stuff this time. Gunter watches her go.

  INT. HOTEL NEAR COMPUTER SHOW—LATE AFTERNOON

  A cross between a seminar and a cocktail party. At the first part, the seminar, it’s being “explained” to the WIVES, as a PowerPoint presentation, what their husbands are doing. Almost all of the Wives are rapt in the presentation. Joy, however, is terminally bored, and looks horrified to find herself the odd woman out. Anyway, she’s still distracted by what’s on her mind at the moment. Harry notices this and looks distressed by her obvious disinterest.

  At the cocktail party, most of the SALESGUYS congregate, chatting: the women, off by themselves, do the same. Joy listens to their chat for as long as she can, but her mind is elsewhere. She’s relieved when Harry comes to get her.

  HARRY

  Dinner?

  JOY

  Please. I didn’t know the Stepford Wives had an English branch.

  INT. RESTAURANT—EVENING

  A nice restaurant. Joy and Harry are in the middle of the meal. An empty bottle of wine is taken away and a new one is brought. Both of them seem edgy.

  HARRY

  And on top of it all, you forgot to leave the key at the hotel again. I couldn’t get a clean shirt.

  Joy starts going through her “secret pockets” with much VELCRO-RIPPING, hunting for the key in an abstracted way.

  JOY

  Oh, honey, I’m sorry. It’s just been—a weird day, that’s all.

  HARRY

  At least I was able to thank George. That was one heck of a tip he gave me.

  JOY

  Was it?

  HARRY

  It won me six hundred quid. I wish I’d bet more.

  JOY
>
  Oh, honey, that’s terrific! See what I mean about it being such a nice place.

  (ready to tell him)

  Harry—there’s something unusual about the people there.

  Harry is quiet for a moment: looks at her.

  HARRY

  So I gather. How was lunch with your boyfriend Gunter?

  JOY

  It was more of a snack, he doesn’t —

  (blinks)

  He’s not my “boyfriend”. Don’t be snide.

  HARRY

  That’s just how it looks.

  JOY

  It’s not like that. I think he’s lonely.

  HARRY

  Like you?

  Joy says nothing for a moment. She busies herself cutting up her food.

  HARRY (CONT’D)

  Look, I know this isn’t turning out the way I said it would. I had no idea the trip was going to be this busy. If I’d —

  JOY

  If you’d known.

  HARRY

  I’m glad you understand. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, or the next day —

  JOY

  (looking haunted)

  Yeah? Is there going to be a tomorrow? How can you be so sure?

  HARRY

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  JOY

  Harry —

  HARRY

  Look. I know I’m a workaholic. I want a good life for us, that’s all! After the way things went downhill with Mary because there was never enough money —

  JOY

  Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that money might not be the issue? And I don’t think it was for Mary, either. I don’t want stuff, or a big fancy house. It’s you I want. But you’re always working so hard, sometimes I think I’m running a hotel myself. Food and laundry service, travel agent, secretarial, everything but wife stuff! Sometimes I think Mary got tired of being married to “sales”, instead of a man!

  A long silence here. Harry is beginning a slow burn.

  HARRY

  If I thought you were seeing so much of this Gunter just to make me scared I was messing up our marriage by overwork, I’d get really angry. But I don’t think you’re calculating enough for that. So all I can assume is that you want me to know that you’re lonely. Okay! You’re lonely! I’m sorry! But it can’t be helped, not this trip. Don’t you realize how terrific it was that I asked to come here? It could mean a promotion, even a transfer over here —

  JOY

  “Not calculating enough?” God, what a backhanded compliment. Not smart enough, you mean.

  (angry too, now)

  You don’t believe a word I’m saying, do you? Even though you haven’t come right out and said “liar”. There is nothing between Gunter and me. He hasn’t touched me. He can’t touch me: he’s dead!