‘You didn’t go for lunch with Jeremy?’ I said.
‘Ah, no, no, I didn’t,’ Tiernan said.
‘I don’t blame you, to be honest. I wouldn’t have gone either,’ I said.
‘It’s not that. He was meeting people from the film studies department in UCC, so I wasn’t ever supposed to be eating with him. Alice said she’d organise someone to take me to lunch, but I had the intention of going down early to the station and doing a bit of work there so I said no and then you called and I changed my mind.’
‘I wasn’t impressed with Gill, I must say.’
‘No?’
‘With the way he treated you, I mean.’
‘Oh that? That was only a bit of banter. That’s just Jeremy,’ Tiernan said.
But he looked stricken, as if he’d lost something precious. Gill was all powerful now that he had his five Oscars and I suspected that it was more than Tiernan’s career was worth to bad-mouth him. I needed to change my approach.
‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘You know him better than me, I s’pose.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I do. Known him fifteen years. His bark is worse than his bite. He doesn’t suffer fools, but that’s a lot of why he is where he is. Total perfectionist, like.’
‘Absolutely. His films are amazing.’
‘Aren’t they?’
He sounded like a little boy, in awe of Gill’s talent, in spite of everything.
‘And was he a perfectionist from the beginning? What I mean is, was he like that during the film you worked on with him?’
‘Always,’ Tiernan said. ‘He had an actor lined up to play the male lead in Another Bad Day at the Office but he fired him at the last minute and took the role himself. And it worked brilliantly.’
‘It so did. He has such a gift for casting, doesn’t he? That young girl in it, what’s her name again, Rhona something, is it? She was fabulous.’
‘Rhona Macbride. Wonderful,’ Tiernan said.
‘How did he find her? Some drama school, maybe?’
‘He got her in the school where we did the filming, the Sisters of the Blessed Eucharist Convent in Neale Place, near Dorset Street. Did you not know?’
‘No!’
‘Yeah, it’s Gill legend at this stage. He went into the convent and charmed the head nun, Sister Bernadette, I think she was, and we had the run of the place. They were making us sandwiches and all. He auditioned loads of the schoolgirls and picked Rhona for the lead. The park in the film is actually the nuns’ garden, would you believe?’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That’s some story. And did you ever hear what happened to Rhona? She was so talented.’
‘Never heard of her again. She just continued on with school, I presume. I’m pretty sure she lived locally. Probably just got on with her life.’
I wondered if Tiernan knew more than he was saying. But he wasn’t going to break omertà just because I’d bought him lunch. I decided not to push any further. I could talk to him again if I needed to.
I crossed the bridge and climbed the steep, curving hill from the river to the northside. On my right, I passed the Maldron Hotel. Rumoured to be haunted, for two hundred and fifty years until the late 1980s, it had been the North Infirmary, used to treat fever patients during the famine in the 1840s. And, whatever layers came later, that grim history would remain, under the thin skin of the renovation. But the hotel, just below Shandon, had good rates and was always busy. The ghosts only added to its attractions, it seemed.
I walked to the top of the hill. The workshop was in the Firkin Crane, a circular building constructed and used as a weigh-room and butter market in the time of sailing ships. Now it was a choreography and dance centre, though its rehearsal rooms and performance spaces were also hired out to festivals and for special events. I was first to arrive, apart from the Film Festival staff on door duty checking the attendance list. In the ten minutes since, a succession of young people had slunk into the workshop room and scuttled out again immediately on seeing me.
‘Is it something I said?’ I murmured to myself, and went out again to the front of the building. The sun had come out for the first time in weeks and everyone knew it wasn’t going to be hanging around long. Apart from the teachers in huddled discussion near the shaded north-facing entrance, the workshop attendees were across the road, every south-facing step, sill and leaning space occupied. I counted ten school uniforms, five boys and five girls, and ten university-age students, four female and six male. I went up to the teachers, introduced myself as a board representative, and asked if they could get everyone to come inside. That way, I reckoned, I’d have a better chance of monitoring the situation.
I sat with the teachers in a row down the back of the room and the young people sat in a circle of chairs. The room divided along school and college lines and there was no interaction between the two student groups. It hadn’t been a great idea to mix them.
Gill arrived ten minutes later, along with Alice Chambers, and Boyband, the blond man I had seen talking to Tiernan, now carrying a clipboard. He looked cold in his California outfit. There was a second man with them, muscle-bound, younger than Boyband, who seemed to have no particular role. I realised that he was probably a bodyguard. Had he been around for all Gill’s time in Cork or had he just arrived? Alice moved towards the front of the room, intending to do another introduction and thank-you, but Gill waved her away. Boyband stationed himself, looking attentive, on a chair midway up the room and Security guy took up a menacing pose by the door. It was ridiculous, overkill, completely unnecessary and, if he started talking to his wrist, I was in danger of laughing out loud.
Or maybe not. I could see that the students were impressed by the show of power and importance, and that Gill had them before he opened his mouth.
He was dressed very differently now. It looked like he’d gone to a costume store over lunch and hired a movie director outfit. Instead of the dark suit, he was wearing board-shorts that came to mid-calf, and an oversized grey marl Seeing Things CREW sweatshirt. All of the students knew that Seeing Things had won five Oscars. Some of their mouths had fallen open. Gill’s long hair was tamed by a blue and purple bandana, worn like a kerchief and tied at the nape of his neck, and he carried a vintage brown leather flying jacket – sheep fleece lined – on one finger, over his left shoulder. He threw the jacket on a chair, and his eyes surveyed the room, and the people in it, in a lazy, knowing arc. He rubbed his right hand back and forth across his mouth. The room was so quiet I could hear the scratch of his stubble.
Then, Gill started to talk, in a low voice at first. The students leant forward, as one, to hear better.
‘Ah, I’ll introduce myself, first, I guess. Though I think that maybe you all know me, am I right?’
Nods, shuffles and few muffled ‘yeahs’ from the students.
‘Maybe I’ve gone deaf,’ Gill shouted. ‘Do you fucking know me? Yes or no?’
‘Yes,’ they shouted back, eyes shining and smiles wide, like a litter of golden Labrador puppies who’d got hold of an entire of roll Andrex.
‘That’s more like it,’ Gill said. ‘Now, tell me why you’re here. You, the pretty one in the green uniform, you, missy, what’s your name and why are you here?’
The St Al’s girl went pink.
‘Um, Carmel, here to learn, like,’ she said.
‘Excellent answer, young lady, sorry, Carmel, I mean. Now don’t be shy, I’ll be back to you later.’
He walked up to her, rested his hand softly on her head, then turned to the rest of the students and shouted, ‘Now, what about the rest of you? Do you wanna learn? Yes, Jeremy?’
‘Yes Jeremy,’ they shouted.
‘Let’s do it,’ he said.
For the next fifty-five minutes, his accent more Americanised than I had heard it before, Gill ran through a presentation on his films, how he’d made them, triumphs and successes achieved, hiccups and disasters overcome, at each stage engaging with individual students, getting them up to d
emonstrate shots or camera angles, asking their opinions, listening to their answers as if he truly believed they had something interesting to say.
‘Why do you think I did that?’
‘What do think happened next?’
‘Good answer.’
‘Interesting.’
Every time Carmel, the schoolgirl in the green uniform, spoke, Gill gave her a smile or a wink, no matter how inane the comment. Apart from that, Gill’s attentions were evenly spread through male and female. Except for Carmel at the beginning, there was no touching of any of the students. Though Gill’s language had been overfamiliar and borderline inappropriate throughout, the workshop was drawing to a close and I was assailed by doubt again. What did I know, ultimately? Only that he was an egotist – which was probably a prerequisite for being a successful film director. He had given no sign of having noticed me in the back row. Maybe he hadn’t thought of me since our encounter the previous evening. Why should he? In the end, I had nothing on him. Was that because there was nothing to get?
‘Film is a visual medium,’ Gill said, then. ‘It’s about the moving image. Break that down. The first part is technical, about how our brain processes what we see. You’re smart kids – I don’t need to go into the science of it. But the image. What the camera sees. Action or stillness. Landscape or people. What about sound? Crucial, of course. But secondary. The image is primary. Some of the most powerful scenes in cinema history have been silent. Hitch – Alfred Hitchcock – knew that.’
Gill paused, steepled his hands in front of his mouth, put his thumbs under his chin, and started to rub the sides of his index fingers up and down on the tip of his nose.
‘This is my thinking face,’ he said, and the group laughed. ‘No, honestly, ask my assistant, whenever I get this face on it means I’ve had an idea, am I right?’
Boyband made a half grimace, half smile, and said, ‘Oh yeah, I mean, yes, Mr Gill.’ He sounded like he was off the set of 90210. The group laughed again, more loudly this time.
‘You,’ Gill said, talking to the girl in the green uniform. ‘Carmel, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Well, Carmel. You’re the one giving me ideas. Any idea why?’
Carmel blushed, shook her head.
‘Anyone get the connection? What was I just talking about?’
‘Uh, maybe Hitchcock?’ one of the boys said.
‘Ex-act-ly,’ Gill said. ‘What we have here with the very beautiful Carmel is a Hitchcock heroine, an ice blonde, a Grace Kelly, a Kim Novak, before she piled on the pounds.’
Gill threw back his head and laughed, and the group laughed too, even more loudly. Most of them hadn’t a clue who Kim Novak was, I could tell, but Gill had shown them that it was okay to laugh at her, and they did.
‘So, Carmel, are you up for a bit of acting today? I mean, I know you’ve done some acting. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Um, yeah. A bit, like, just school stuff.’
‘What age are you? Fifteen?’
Carmel nodded.
Fifteen, I was thinking: the same age Deirdre had been when she met Gill.
‘Sweet,’ Gill said. ‘Sweet.’
The students laughed, but Carmel didn’t. She kept her eyes on Gill. Rapt, she waited for what he was going to say next.
‘What the fuck do you mean just school stuff? Everyone does just school stuff, has to, even me. Even Bobby de fucking Niro.’
Carmel giggled.
‘I’ll take that as a yes. Good, Carmel, Step forward, great, you’re great.’
He put his arm around her and brought her to the front of the room, put his right index finger on her nose, and stared, a beat too long, into her eyes. I looked around at the teachers. All of them were smiling. They had suspended judgement, were as seduced by him as Carmel seemed to be. But they were adults, in positions of responsibility. She was fifteen, a child. She was in danger, I was sure of it.
And then, I wasn’t sure at all. I kept quiet and I kept watching. In retrospect, I see that I was every bit as useless as the rest of them.
‘Stay there, gorgeous,’ Gill said, and turned to face the room again. ‘Now, do we have a leading man? Or am I going to have to play that part myself?’
The girls squealed; the boys sat up in their chairs. Gill walked along in front of the group, like a sergeant inspecting dress uniforms before a parade.
‘Up hands who’s done some acting? All of you? Great, like I told the lovely Carmel, it’s a good way to learn.’
He stopped in front of one of the college students, a slim, dark-haired boy with full red lips.
‘You, I like,’ Gill said. ‘You want this?’
‘Definitely,’ the boy said.
He stood, tall and straight.
‘Good attitude. How old are you, soldier?’
‘Nineteen, Mr Gill. Twenty next month.’
Four, five years older than Carmel. Was that why Gill had chosen the mix of college and school students – because he wanted an age gap? But what was he planning?
‘An older man, Carmel,’ Gill said, and looked back at her.
She smiled.
‘You like that?’ he asked.
She smiled again, but less surely.
‘Nice,’ Gill said.
His tongue played along his lower lip. For a moment or two, his attention seemed to drift. Then, quickly, he turned to the boy again.
‘So what’s your name?’
‘Stephen, Stevie.’
‘Great, Stevie,’ Gill said. ‘Step forward to the front of the room.’
Gill positioned the two students, Carmel at the front of the circle of chairs, Stevie just inside the room door. He spoke quietly to each of them separately, checked back to see that they knew what they were doing, and spoke to the group again.
‘Okay,’ Gill said. ‘I’ve just been directing my actors, telling them what I want from them in this scene and, because I like you guys so much, I’m going to let you in on it too, and I’m going to talk you all through the scene, and I want you to watch along with me. Now, to do that, I want you to make little rectangles with your fingers to see what the camera sees. I want you to go in for a close-up on what you like, on what looks good, to read the scene, to see what it’s saying, what it means. You all ready? Great. But before we start, does anyone know why I picked Stevie here, instead of one of the other guys?’
‘Cos he’s only gorgeous,’ one of the other boys shouted, to great hilarity.
‘You’re all equally beautiful to me,’ Gill said. ‘But, no, seriously, anyone?’
‘Em,’ Carmel said. ‘Might it be the contrast between us?’
‘Say more,’ Gill said. ‘I knew I liked this girl. I can pick ’em, you know.’
‘I can pick ’em.’ Like he picked Deirdre?
I shuddered. Should I say something? But what was there to say?
‘Go on,’ Gill said.
‘Uh, well, like, what you were saying about the image, like,’ Carmel said. ‘So, em, the, like, visual contrast would look good on screen, like, maybe?’
‘That’s right, Carmel. I sense you have a talent for this, and I’m never wrong about these things. This is going to be great. And remember, audience, this scene is silent. No dialogue. Let the actors and your imagination do the work. Now, scene 1, take 1, and action.’
Gill slapped his hands together in imitation of a clapperboard. I heard the sound echo around the inside of my head, but I didn’t say a word, and the truth is that, by then, he had me too. I was waiting to see what happened next, just like the other sheep in that room.
‘Okay, Stevie, turn, you see Carmel, you wave, that’s good, she sees you all right, oh yeah, but she’s pretending she doesn’t, that’s good, Carmel, you’re the ice queen, remember?
‘Now, Stevie, you’re getting a little frustrated, you want her to acknowledge you, but she’s still ignoring you.
‘That’s right, Carmel, I like that thing you did with your hair just
then, and now maybe, give him a quick look and, that’s right, look away again. You like him, don’t you, that dangerous older man, but you’re not going to show him, are you?
‘And, Stevie, you’re disappointed, yeah, that’s it, she’s raised your hopes and dashed them again, that’s women for you, but you can’t help it, you like her, you’re attracted to her, it’s something you can’t control, and you move a little closer, casual, like, but hey, fuck her, you’re a good-looking guy, let her beg, that’s good, Stevie, and yeah, that’s right, you’re drawing her in.
‘Her head turns, and she looks at you for longer now, that’s good, Carmel, and turn away, and I’d like you to open your mouth now, Carmel, just a little, that’s great, and close it, and now, you moisten your lips with your little pink tongue … that’s perfect.
‘And then, Stevie, come closer, and closer still, and step behind Carmel, put your arm around her waist, this is really good, you two.
‘And, Carmel, you’ve got mixed feelings now, things are moving fast, maybe too fast, and he’s what you want, he’s what you desire, but you’re afraid too, that’s good, Carmel.
‘No and yes, Carmel, no and yes, and Carmel, that’s so good, and Stevie, you know what you want, we all know, and you know she wants it too, even though she’s pulling away from you now, but you know what she really wants underneath that fear, you have to push through that.’
‘And do it now, Stevie,’ Gill said, and took a step closer to them.
With force, Stevie put his hands on Carmel’s hips, one at each side, then pulled her suddenly and violently towards his pelvis. She gasped. She hadn’t known this was going to happen. I looked at Gill. He had stopped talking and he was watching Carmel, her every breath and movement, appraising her as if she was a horse he was buying at an auction.
He spoke softly to her.
‘Carmel, you are so, so good at this,’ he said.
He swallowed, then continued talking in the same soft voice.
‘And, now, Stevie, like we planned and, remember, softly.’
Stevie bent his head to Carmel’s ear, and whispered. She blushed pink, and her eyes closed, and stayed shut.
Darkest Truth Page 14
