by John Moralee
“Laura, I loved your book,” she said. “It helped me refresh my memory of the good old days. I could feel your love of cinema on every page.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“This wonderful book is also the reason why I chose you. After I read your book, I felt like I knew you personally. I felt I could trust you with my secret. Have you told anyone about me?”
I shook my head.
“Thank you. For the last fifty years, I have lived like a normal person. Nobody around here knows me as Claudia Besson, the famous actress. I have been living under my old name, Lena Nordenberg. Only one person ever recognised me – Whitford. He has an excellent memory for trivia like the real names of movie stars. He put two and two together after he saw me browsing in a local bookstore. He’s been my friend since then.”
“Can I ask you some questions?”
She smiled. “I’m counting on it.”
“What happened that night?” I asked her. “Who was found in your car?”
“That was Rose Stewart. She was an assistant to Maxwell Greenberg. She drove me home that night because I was drunk. Maxwell made her do it even though she had no experience driving. She was a young girl, just obeying his orders. She didn’t know the road ... the poor girl. The crash killed her instantly, but I was thrown clear. I remember waking up, seeing the car on fire. I was badly injured. I passed out and woke up in hospital a few days later. Nobody knew who I was – except for Maxwell Greenberg. He was frightened he would be sued by Rose’s family for making her drive me home, so he paid off the local police and arranged it so ‘Claudia Besson’ died in the accident. He even had someone swap my dental records for hers. I went along with it when I found out because I had no choice. You see, I could never be Claudia Besson again.”
“Why not?”
“The accident damaged my spine, making me paraplegic. Nobody in Hollywood would hire a cripple in a wheelchair, believe me. I left Hollywood behind, becoming Lena again. I changed my appearance and moved to a small town without a movie theatre, where I could re-invent myself. I went to college and studied to become a drama teacher. I taught generations of kids how to act, until my retirement. Since then, I’ve lived here by the ocean, painting and writing.”
I heard Whitford’s footsteps behind me. He had brought some coffee and sandwiches on a silver tray.
“Whitty, I think it’s time for another,” Claudia said, suddenly wincing. He was at her side in a heartbeat, taking a bottle of pills out of his pocket, given her one to swallow with a glass of water. She swallowed the pill and lay back for a minute until the pain had gone.
“Are you okay?” I wanted to know.
“No,” she said. “I’m dying.”
“What?”
“I have cancer. In a few weeks, I’ll be dead, but first there is something I’d like to do. I want to give you something, Laura. There are some things in my study. Whitty will show you the way. Excuse me, I need to rest for a little ...”
*
Whitford showed me into a large wood-panelled study filled with antique furniture. “Miss Besson would like you to read her writing.”
A thick manuscript stood on an oak desk. I estimated a thousand pages.
“What is it about?”
“Her life,” he told me. Then he stepped into the hall, shutting the door.
I approached the desk, taking a seat. I switched on a desk lamp and pulled the heavy manuscript towards me. I picked up the first page and read it. It was good. Very good. I read on and discovered she had written her complete autobiography, warts and all. It must have taken years and years to write it. She had left out nothing significant, answering all of my questions. I read the manuscript in one sitting, putting down the final sheet several hours later, hardly aware of the time passing. I looked at the window and saw it had gone dark outside.
I stood up, puzzled. She didn’t need a ghost-writer. Her manuscript was excellent. So, why did she need me? It certainly wasn’t to be her ghost-writer. I was going to look for Whitford, who was certain to know the answer, when I noticed something in a cabinet across the room.
I gasped. No. It wasn’t ...? Yes, it was. There – in among as display of photographs – was her Oscar. I stepped closer for a better look. From a distance, to a layman, it could have looked like a sports trophy, but I instantly recognised her Academy Award. Margaret Herrick, a librarian for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, had thought the gold statuette looked like her uncle, Oscar, a name that had quickly caught on. I stared and stared at the Oscar, enraptured by it. It was beautiful.
I knew what I was going to do next was wrong, but I could not help myself.
Slowly, I stepped up to the cabinet and opened the glass doors. Reaching out, I felt my hands trembling. I almost expected an electric shock when I put my fingers around the base of the Oscar, but it just felt cold. I lifted it out and held it in both hands as I had imagined doing if I had won one. I felt the iconic power of the statue, the pinnacle of recognition for achievement in the film business. I wished ... I didn’t know what I wished, but I felt strange, holding an Oscar. I also felt a little guilty for taking it out of its case without permission. After a minute or two, I returned it to the cabinet, somewhat reluctantly.
It was then I became aware of Whitford. He was standing in the doorway, watching me shutting the cabinet.
He smiled. “Yes, I like to do that, too.”
I blushed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I should have shown you it, anyway. She’s awake now, wanting to see you again.”
*
“I don’t understand something,” I said to her as I entered her bedroom. “You don’t need a ghost-writer – so why am I here?”
“I’m sorry for misleading you,” she said. “If I had told you the real reason, you would have thought me insane. First, I wanted you to read my book, so you would know what I was offering.”
“What are you offering?”
“My memories.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“When I die the only thing left of my life will be that manuscript, which tells you about me, but doesn’t show you. As a writer I’m sure you’ve heard the advice that is better to show than tell?”
“Yes?”
“Well, I want to do that for you, Laura. Have you heard about the memory experiments performed on rats? No? Some neuroscientists trained some rats to run through a maze. They then removed parts of the rats’ brains, implanting the biopsy tissue into other rats, ones that had not seen the maze before. They discovered the rats could run the maze without seeing it before - just as if they had remembered it. The new rats had the memories of the first ones. Those experiments showed it was possible to transfer memory. That was decades ago. The technology has moved on. I have found a neurosurgeon willing to perform the operation on me, transferring my most important memories. I will die in the process, but my memories will live on – in you. Imagine what it will feel like to remember what it was like to win an Oscar. Books and movies can’t convey what it feels like. You have to experience it for yourself. When I read your book, I felt your passion for your subject. You’re in love with the old Hollywood. You want to experience it. Let me give you that gift. Let me give you my thoughts. What do you think?”
I thought she was a dying woman desperately seeking a way of cheating death. “I want to help you, but ...”
“You don’t believe me?” She sounded amused. “I didn’t believe it myself, until I read the research. It will work – but nobody has dared do it on a human subject. There are risks, but I wouldn’t ask you to do it if I thought you would be harmed. Whitford has already made sure you are a compatible donor. He has a friend who hacked into your medical records. You have the right blood type so you won’t reject my brain tissue.”
Whitford was standing by the door, nodding. “The neurosurgeon is the best in his field. All he needs is your consent.”
I stared at Claudia. “You’re serious?�
��
“Deadly,” she said.
“What if I say no?”
“Then you’re free to leave. Whitford will drive you back to your home.”
“What would you do then?”
“I’d try to find someone else before my time runs out. If I’m lucky, I’ll find someone willing to have the operation.”
“But it took months to find you,” Whitford said. “She’ll die before we find another person, Laura. You have to say yes. I’m begging you.”
“Don’t put pressure on her,” she said to Whitford. “The decision is yours, Laura.”
I sighed. “Can I have some time to think about it?”
*
Her obituary was in the LA Times a few weeks later. I read it out in a class to my students. They were all interested in it because the story had been in the news since it broke. The obituary stated Claudia Besson had been living under a false name for over fifty years. Her real identity had been discovered only after her death, when a friend found a manuscript in her house, proving she was the famous movie star. Her body had been cremated and scattered into the ocean. It was expected her autobiography would be a bestseller. All of the profit would go to the family of Rose Stewart.
“I was lucky enough to meet her before she died. She gave me something in her will, which I have brought in for you all to see today.”
My class stared as I opened my handbag and pulled out the Oscar.
I remembered when I had held it for the first time, standing in front of an audience of thousands, their faces staring up at me as I made my acceptance speech, tears of joy rolling down my cheeks. I remembered. I remembered.
Now it was time to pass that memory on.
Disconnected
When they turned the street corner, Alison knew they were lost. There were two BT phone boxes under the sycamore trees, shaded from the sweltering sunlight of the Indian summer, but no sign of a large redbrick house. Alison and Hailey paused in the relative coolness. Alison looked up and down the road, looking for the Eddington Road, while Hailey pulled a pack of cigarettes from her cut-off jeans and lit one, blowing blue smoke halos into the road.
“Smoke?” she said, offering one.
“No thanks.” Alison could not see Eddington Road. A sign for Theaston Avenue was on the stone wall running the length of the street. Private houses hid behind the walls, not the student flats supposed to be around there somewhere. She jumped as a grey squirrel darted across the road and into some bushes. Alison opened her A-Z and stared at the ring of red Biro ink around Eddington Road.
“This is Theaston Avenue, right?”
Hailey nodded.
“I can’t find Theaston Avenue anywhere near Eddington Road. I think we got the wrong bus from the station because I’m completely lost.”
“Great. So what are we going to do? I haven’t seen a single person to ask directions. No cars. No buses. Nothing. It’s Deadsville, Arizona.”
“I know, I know.” Alison opened the nearest phone box. “Okay, we call the landlord, what’s-his-face -”
“Nigel Brentwood?”
“- and ask him how to get there.”
The phone box was pleasantly cold after the long walk. Hailey squeezed in behind her. Alison gave her a look.
“I want to listen,” Hailey said.
Alison lifted the receiver. The line hummed tunelessly. “Do you have some change?”
“Spare change?” Hailey said. “Or the regular type?”
“Ha, ha. Have you?”
Hailey rumbled in her Laura Ashley handbag. Alison grew bored waiting, but she could not complain, since she had no money at all until her grant cheque cleared. She already felt guilty about borrowing the train and bus fares from Hailey. It was lucky they were going to the same university, studying the same subject - Law - and had known each other since Secondary School, or the disastrous events of the day would have proved too much. A six hour train journey was one thing, but the unusual weather had made it a nightmare. For September, the weather was unbelievably hot and sticky, testing her temper to the limit. There was nothing like a long train journey in 90o Fahrenheit heat to get the blood boiling. Just when she’d waited too long - how much stuff did Hailey have in her handbag? - Hailey found her purse.
“Aha! Here you go, girl,” she said.
Alison put ten pence in the slot and dialled the number. “It’s not ringing.”
“Give it time to connect.”
“It’s not ringing. There’s just the sound the phone makes. Eeeeeee.”
Hailey tut-tutted. “Let me,” she said, with an air of superiority Alison considered rude. Hailey pushed past Alison. The door closed, leaving them squashed face to face. As Hailey’s naked midriff pressed against Alison’s T-shirt, she could feel the navel ring there. Hailey tried the phone. As if she could work magic on the telephone system. Her eyebrows made a tight V. “This phone’s well knackered. Try the other one.”
Alison pushed the door and grunted. “Won’t move.”
Hailey added her weight. “You’re right. It’s stuck.”
Alison tried again, feeling her cheeks flush as she strained and sweated. The door resisted as if blocked by a brick wall. “This is ridiculous!”
Hailey put her back against the opposite wall and used both legs as a lever. She looked as if she were squatting on an invisible toilet, her face reddening, the cords on her neck standing out, teeth bared. The half-burnt cigarette dangled from her lips, which she spat out. “Try this with me.”
Alison copied her, pushing the door with all her leg strength, using one leg to kick and kick while the other provided support.
Nothing happened.
The door was stuck.
Alison could feel a growing panic, a sudden claustrophobia. I’m never going to get out of here. I’m never going to get of here. Pushing, she was breathing harder and faster, unable to get a decent breath. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trapped in a phone box. She kicked at the glass, but it was modern sort of box with Plexiglas. The glass absorbed the impact with a quiver, bouncing back into shape undamaged. After a couple of minutes, she was exhausted, and so was Hailey.
“We ... have to .. think ... of another ... plan.”
“I ... agree.”
Alison faced the phone and dialled 999. Then the operator. No reply. “Worth a try,” she said. “Of all the phone boxes in the world, we have to be stuck in this.”
“If we yell loud enough maybe someone will hear us.”
So they yelled.
And yelled.
“Hold on,” Hailey said. “I don’t think anyone can hear us. These booths are soundproofed against traffic noise.”
“Sound travels under the gap at the bottom.”
“Right. I forgot. There’s normally a gap of about six inches at the bottom to let air in.”
“And urine out.”
“But look!” Hailey’s shout stunned Alison. “The glass goes all the way to the ground.”
“What?” Alison hunched down. Hailey was telling the truth. The glass did go all the way to the ground. They were sealed in. She examined the door. The gap between the door and the box was filled with glass, glass which clearly could not have been there earlier because the door had opened easily. “Maybe the heat has melted the glass into the door frame?”
“This isn’t a real phone box,” Hailey said. Her voice was up an octave. “There’s something wrong with it. I can feel it.”
Though Alison did not want to admit it, she could feel it, too. There was a palpable atmosphere inside the box, something prickling her senses. It was the same feeling she got when someone was staring at her from behind. On a hunch, she reached for the Yellow Pages, but the phone book was solid, looking like paper but something harder. She could feel it throbbing under her fingers. Alive. The discovery was like an electric shock up her arm. She pulled her hand away but her fingers could still remember the feeling. “Jesus! You’re right.”
Once it had been said, A
lison could see the slight differences between the phone box and the real phone box outside. “This street doesn’t need two phone boxes. I think this is some kind of creature copying the actual one in order to lure people inside.”
“Why?” Hailey’s wide eyes showed she probably knew the answer, but wanted Alison to voice her fears.
“Food,” Alison said. This was one time she would have been grateful to see Jeremy Beadle step out from hiding, to tell her it was all a joke. “I think we’re inside its stomach.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I’m scaring myself,” Alison admitted. “I think - I think this creature must suffocate its prey. The door is like its mouth. You know, this area used to be forest a hundred years ago, and I’m wondering if this creature was a chameleon-like species. Maybe it can’t move quickly, so it disguises itself. Then humans came along and destroyed its natural habitat and it had to move among us. It must have adapted itself to live in full view of humans. It learned to copy a telephone box. If there were witnesses around it would have acted like an ordinary, broken phone - who knows how many of them are all over the country and no one ever bothers to report them. Just think of the number of people who go missing each year -”
“No,” Hailey whimpered. “I don’t want to die. Someone’s got to save us.”
The phone box creaked. They both screamed at the same time and hugged, watching the walls in case they moved inwards. The walls did not.
“I love you,” Hailey said.
“I love you, too.”
“No, I mean I love you.”
Alison froze. Now was not the time to discover her best friend was a lesbian. She extricated herself from Hailey’s embrace. “You love me?”
“Yes, I’m a lesbian,” Hailey said.
The word was out. “Oh.”
