Maxwell's War

by M. J. Trow

  Marc Lamont was blond this week. He’d come up the easy way. His dad was something on the production side in the old days of Thames TV; there were all sorts of rumours about money having changed hands at RADA. There were rumours too about Marc and Helena Bonham Carter, which came as a surprise to many, none more so than Miss Bonham Carter. You only had to look at Marc Lamont to know that there was only one person in the world he loved – himself.

  ‘It’s not going to be too early tomorrow, Miles, dear, is it?’ he turned to his director lounging on the sofa next to his.

  ‘Eight,’ Needham told him. ‘I want to catch something of the early light. Seven would be better.’

  Lamont snorted. ‘In your dreams. When does little Miss Tightbum join us?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘I think Marc means …’ Angela thought she ought to break it.

  ‘I know what Marc means,’ Needham hissed. ‘Hannah is not required until after lunch. We’re doing the battle scene first. Your death.’

  ‘You wish.’ Lamont felt the ice cube hit his teeth. ‘Angela, have you changed those boots yet?’

  ‘Yes, Marc. They’re ready.’

  ‘And what about that poncy helmet thing?’

  ‘Well, we’ve had it adjusted,’ the flustered amanuensis told him, adjusting her shades and reaching for her clipboard.

  ‘Is that some sort of dildo?’ Lamont leaned forwards to her, an eyebrow raised in a vain attempt to become the Dirk Bogarde of the ’90s. ‘I never seem to see you without it in your hot little hand.’

  The men just had time to see Angela’s face darken and her lips crumple before she snatched it up and stalked out of the lounge.

  ‘You really are a prize shit, Lamont,’ Needham growled.

  ‘You’ve got too many pussies on your team, Miles,’ the actor told him. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s prima donnas.’

  ‘“Prima donnas”, he said.’ Needham threw his shirt at the nearest chair. ‘He couldn’t stand prima donnas. What a fuck that man is!’

  The girl on the bed raised herself up on one arm and stretched out the other. ‘Miles, it doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter?’ he gulped down the contents of the glass in his hand. His eyes flashed anger in the dim light of the bedroom, ‘I tell you, Hannah, somebody should kick that little prick’s head in.’

  ‘Well,’ she laughed, peeling off her black negligee so that her hair cascaded over her breasts and her nipples rose in the half light, ‘isn’t it his death scene tomorrow? There’s your chance.’

  For a moment, Needham hesitated, then he kicked off his trousers and whipped down his boxers. Then he grinned. ‘You’re right,’ he said, hauling back the covers and sliding in beside her. ‘How much would it cost, do you think, for props to tinker with a musket so that it really blew the bastard away?’

  ‘That’s too quick,’ the girl ran her fingers over her lover’s chest, tracing circles around his nipples with her long, pointed nails. ‘I thought you’d want him a piece at a time.’

  ‘Even better,’ Needham nodded against the headboard. ‘Starting with his nuts.’

  ‘These?’ she fondled him playfully.

  ‘Assuming he had any.’

  ‘And then,’ she started stroking his erection, ‘we can start work on Barbara.’

  She felt him stiffen in both senses and he shifted awkwardly, trying to pull away. ‘Not tonight,’ he said, ‘I really don’t want the why-don’t-you-leave-her routine, tonight, Hannah, if that’s all right.’

  She half smiled in the half light and launched her naked body across his.

  4

  ‘Krispy Krunchie Wheeto Bites?’ Maxwell perused the range of breakfast goodies for his friend, displayed as they were along the counter.

  Irving sighed. ‘I think I’ll stick to the orange juice.’

  ‘Wise,’ Maxwell poured for them both and they took their chilled glasses back to their table. ‘Comfy here at the Grand, John?’

  ‘It’s not bad,’ Irving told him.

  ‘Porn channel any good?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Irving raised a contemptuous eyebrow. ‘I spent most of last evening revising my article for Cornell University on Toussaint L’Overture’s social policy.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Morning, Mr Maxwell.’ A chirpy waitress had appeared at the great man’s elbow.

  ‘Sasha, I didn’t know you worked here.’

  Irving groaned.

  ‘Full English, is it?’

  Maxwell looked John Irving up and down. ‘Contrary to appearances, yes,’ he said. ‘Easy on the mushrooms.’

  ‘Toast?’

  ‘Absolutely. And a bottomless coffee pot, please.’

  And the girl made her exit.

  ‘Tell me, oh wise pundit of historical institutions,’ Maxwell leaned across the table to Irving, ‘why is it that hotels the country o’er give you your toast, which is traditionally eaten after the full English, before you get said full English?’

  ‘Ah,’ Irving winced as the orange juice seared his nerve endings, ‘mankind has pondered that one for … oh, Jesus!’

  Maxwell followed the man’s staring eyes to the other side of the dining-room. An apparition in a tartan scarf and beret was shooing away a member of the hotel staff and making a beeline for their table.

  ‘You’re John Irving,’ the apparition shrilled, pointing at him like one of Lord Kitchener’s posters. Even the moustache bore an uncanny resemblance. Irving struggled to his feet. ‘Good morning,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I want an explanation,’ the apparition said. ‘Am I to have it?’

  ‘Won’t you join us, Ms Marriner?’ Irving hoped for a less than positive response. ‘May I introduce Peter Maxwell? Bwana, this is Ms Erika Marriner.’

  ‘Really?’ Maxwell was on his feet too – ex public schoolboy and all, ‘Charmed.’

  ‘Bwana?’ the old girl’s hearing was like a needle, ga-ga though she probably was. ‘He called you bwana.’

  ‘An old term of familiarity,’ Maxwell smiled.

  ‘Well, it’s quite overtly racist. Have you no respect for yourself, Dr Irving? I was told you were a Cambridge don.’

  ‘It’s a little in-joke, Ms Marriner,’ Irving told her. ‘Mr Maxwell and I go back a long way.’

  ‘Really,’ she sat down heavily, rearranging scarves, shawls and handbags in a flutter of fuss. ‘I’m afraid I must have words with you, Dr Irving.’

  ‘Is that another full English?’ Sasha had arrived with two steaming dishes.

  Erika Marriner bridled. ‘Three pounds of assorted grease, you silly goose? Certainly not. Get me two Ryvitas and a glass of water. And charge it to Eight Counties Television.’

  Maxwell grinned at Sasha and crossed his eyes behind Ms Marriner’s ginger head. ‘What an interesting tartan,’ he said quickly as the old girl spun round with the speed of a cobra to stare at him. ‘The clan Marriner?’

  ‘The clan Campbell,’ she corrected him. ‘I’m currently writing a novel on the ’45. I believe in living my books, Mr Maxwell. My research,’ she turned her basilisk stare on Irving, ‘is of course immaculate. So,’ she rummaged in the tapestry portmanteau on her lap and hauled out a copy of the lamentable script of The Captain’s Fancy. ‘Here,’ her cadaverous finger stabbed page thirty four, ‘it says “Jemima pulls him to her and unbuttons his necessaries”.’

  ‘Does it?’ Irving had to ask.

  ‘I was told you were the film’s historical adviser.’

  ‘So I am.’

  ‘Well, I’ve just seen the rushes or whatever these wretched film people call them, at Basingstoke. That slip of a gel, what’s her name … Hannah Something, the one playing Jemima… she undresses Captain Fitzgerald in the twinkling of an eye. You do know, do you, that an officer’s necessaries invariably had sixteen buttons?’

  ‘Peeing must have been murder,’ Maxwell shook his head in mid-sausage.

  ‘Do you have any connection with t
his project?’

  Maxwell swallowed quickly. ‘I am supervising the battle scene,’ he told her.

  ‘And are you familiar with officers’ necessaries?’

  ‘Moderately,’ Maxwell nodded. ‘But more importantly, Ms Marriner,’ he craned his neck to check page thirty-four’s stage directions, ‘I think it most unlikely that a refined young lady of Jemima’s station in life would have done any pulling and unbuttoning in 1797, don’t you? It was rather more of a man’s world then, Ms Marriner.’

  Ms Marriner was on her feet. ‘How dare you? Are you sitting there and telling me that I have no sense of period?’

  ‘Merely an observation.’ Maxwell sipped his coffee while John Irving was stuffing bacon in his mouth to stop himself laughing.

  ‘I wasn’t happy about this from the start,’ she growled, and spun on her heel. ‘I’m going to see Miles Needham. Believe me, he – and you,’ she pointed at Irving again, ‘have turned my masterpiece into a charade. Heads aren’t just going to roll,’ she leaned towards the breakfasting pair, ‘they’re going to bounce!’ And she swept past Sasha, scattering her Ryvitas in all directions.

  ‘Mad as a snake,’ Irving muttered.

  ‘God save us from writers of historical fiction,’ Maxwell smiled. ‘Sasha, darling, never mind the nasty lady, freshen this coffee pot, could you, there’s a sweetheart?’

  The police car was parked at a jaunty angle above the Shingle when Maxwell and Irving arrived. A solitary copper, all flat cap and attitude was standing in the middle of a knot of people, making notes. There were other vehicles lower down – all of them marked with the Eight Counties logo. And a line of roadies was holding back the crowds, all nattering and laughing excitedly, waiting to spot a famous face.

  ‘Can I have your autograph, love?’ a middle-aged woman with a Sheffield accent accosted John Irving. ‘Right here. Could you put “To our Janice. Love Rudolph.”’

  ‘Rudolph?’ Irving frowned.

  ‘Well, whatever your real name is then. I think you’re ever so good in “The Thin Blue Line”. Better than that Atkinson bloke.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Come on, Rudolph,’ Maxwell flicked out his pen. ‘For your fans.’ And he winked at him. Irving sighed and scribbled something on the woman’s pad.

  ‘Ooh, ta, love,’ and she showed it joyfully to the cloth-capped man she was with.

  ‘There,’ Maxwell relieved Irving of his pen, ‘it doesn’t take much to make people happy, does it?’

  ‘Mr Maxwell?’ the pasty-faced policeman was suddenly in front of them. ‘May I have a word?’

  ‘Of course,’ the Head of Sixth Form nodded. ‘John. I’ll be along.’

  A pale sun was glinting on the bayonets of Maxwell’s Marauders as they laughed and joked with the crowds under the headland of the Shingle. Television company cordons had been placed to hold the people back and technicians in headphones wandered aimlessly here and there, checking light and sound levels.

  Maxwell found himself on higher ground, leaning against the constable’s car.

  ‘Mr Maxwell, do you know a girl called Helen McGregor?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Head of Sixth Form told him. ‘Why?’

  ‘She reported a prowler last night. A Peeping Tom.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over there at the camp. She said you were here late.’

  ‘That’s right. I was.’

  ‘What time would that be?’

  ‘Oh, let’s see … er … perhaps ten, ten thirty. The sun had certainly gone down.’

  ‘And you didn’t see anyone – in an anorak perhaps? Or a Barbour?’

  ‘No,’ Maxwell frowned. ‘Is Helen all right?’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ the constable flipped his notebook closed. ‘She’s fine. Tell me, you’re her teacher, right?’

  ‘One of several,’ Maxwell nodded. He thought it might be sensible at this stage to spread the blame.

  ‘Would you say she was … emotional? Over-excitable?’

  Maxwell shrugged. ‘She could be,’ he nodded. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, nobody else seems to have seen this prowler. She says he was just standing there – up on the ridge of the headland. But no one else we’ve talked to saw a thing. You were the last one around as far as we know – who’s not sleeping on site, that is.’

  ‘She’s certainly very excited to be involved in all this.’

  There was a roar from the beach and female shrieking that drowned out the wheeling gulls. Maxwell and the officer turned to see a tall, scarlet-coated actor walking in a knot of admirers and waving to the surging crowd.

  ‘Marc Lamont,’ Maxwell said.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ the constable tucked his pencil away. ‘Some of us live in the real world. Thanks, Mr Maxwell,’ and he clambered into his car.

  Down on the beach, Helen McGregor was already wearing her Welsh fishwife’s costume. She’d passed her screen test because Miles Needham had said she looked horrendous enough to pass for an historic hag and she’d smiled delightedly at him. She pushed forward now with the others, her bright eyes fixed on the holder of her heart. There was some woman fussing around him, a peroxide tart old enough to be his mother and he was laughing with her.

  ‘Marc!’ she screamed. ‘Marc! Over here!’ But her screams were drowned by all the others and some of her oppos from Leighford High had unrolled a home-made banner that read ‘We Love You, Marc’ and it was signed by all the girls Helen hated. All she could do was stand there, swaying with the hysteria of the crowd, staring at the sun flashing on the gorget at his throat. She couldn’t hear the crowd now. She couldn’t see the peroxide tart any more. All she saw was the blond curls under the black hat, cocked fore and aft, the blue eyes steady and bright and looking directly at her. Then, the moment that made her life. As if in a dream, she saw his lips move. ‘I love you, Helen,’ and the crowd carried her away, like a helpless weed on a running tide.

  Half a day’s march and three volleys later, the company was glad to break for lunch. The sun was high and the Marauders sweated in their serge and their stocks. One more take and it would be time to switch the uniforms to play the Castlemartin Yeomanry. Mr Ecclestone had started bussing his horses in. Miles Needham had the full attention of Marc Lamont under his parasol under the lee of the dunes. Maxwell couldn’t catch much of it, but both men’s colour was high and he saw Lamont haul off his cross-belt and throw his sword into the sand before he strode off, followed by a flapping Angela and other production team lackeys. A further cohort stayed with Needham. After all, leading men came and went. As soon as their hair or teeth started to fall out, they were history. Directors went on for ever.

  The extras left their sandwiches – with the accent on the sand – as a sleek limo crested the edge of the Shingle.

  ‘Cor, it’s her!’ Giles Sparrow, ever the most articulate of men, was on his feet first, throwing off his crossbelts and staggering across the sand. The other invaders were with him, headed by Martin Bairstow, interspersed with the ragged Welsh women, Helen McGregor positively dribbling, among them.

  ‘Hannah!’ the lad roared, waving his cap as though young General Bonaparte himself had appeared on the horizon. Helen caught him a nasty one around the ear with her shawl, but he wasn’t about to be deflected. The production team lackeys formed their second cordon of the day as Hannah Morpeth emerged from the car in jeans and sweater. She ignored Lamont completely and made for Needham and the brass hats around him.

  ‘That’ll be another two hours for costume and fucking make-up,’ Lamont snarled to Angela, ‘especially make-up. Let’s go!’ he bawled, snatching up his bicorn hat and striding for his horse. ‘You – Maxwell, is it?’

  The Head of Sixth Form turned to face him. ‘It is.’

  ‘We’re wasting time here. I want to do the death scene.’

  ‘Now?’ Maxwell blinked.

  Lamont stood nose to nose with his man. ‘I don’t need lip from technicians,’ the actor growled. ‘Get your fucking idiots lin
ed up. Give me a fucking volley.’

  ‘Mr Lamont …’ John Irving didn’t care for the man’s tone.

  ‘Don’t bother me now, nigger,’ Lamont stabbed his man in the chest with a white-gloved finger. ‘I don’t honestly have time for it.’ And he marched away.

  ‘Oh, John,’ Angela, the pacifier, was at his elbow. ‘I’m so dreadfully sorry.’

  Irving waved it aside. It wasn’t the first time.

  But retribution had caught up with Marc Lamont. Its name was Peter Maxwell and not even John Irving was ready for the man’s speed. He caught Lamont’s sleeve and spun him round, gripping his throat by his bunch of lace and the silver gorget below it.

  ‘The only actors I know,’ he growled with a gravel that sent ripples through Lamont’s curls, ‘are rather sad people who can’t hold down a regular job. Dr John Irving holds higher degrees from Cambridge, Harvard and Yale. But I don’t suppose that means much to you, does it, philistine? You probably think Yale is a kind of lock. You want a volley, Mr Lamont? I’ll give you a volley.’ And he threw his man backwards to sprawl awkwardly in the sand.

  Lamont scrambled to his feet, dusting himself down. There was no entourage now. The chattering crowd had fallen silent as all eyes were on the pair centre beach. Helen McGregor’s eyes were narrowed against the sun, her face a mask of whiteness, her fists clenched.

  ‘I’m suing, Maxwell,’ Lamont shrieked. ‘As soon as this crap is all over. I’m suing the arse off you.’

  Maxwell had already turned his back on him. ‘Marauders!’ he bellowed. ‘Form up. Two ranks deep. Maréchal de Logis!’

  Bob Pickering swung his spontoon onto his shoulder. ‘Here, sir,’ he responded.

  ‘The line will advance, Maréchal de Logis. Let’s give this … English captain a taste of French lead.’ Maxwell was good at clichés.

  The ranks thumped to attention as Pickering’s spontoon pierced the sky. Giles Sparrow was last in the line, fitting his shako and balancing his musket on his knees.

  ‘End of the line, lad, end of the line,’ Pickering muttered, nodding furiously to the boy.

  ‘The Twenty-Fifth will advance,’ Maxwell roared, taking his place next to Sparrow. ‘Double time.’