Behind us I heard Patrick banging his glass again for attention.
Frank looked at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s a bit strong for you, is it? OK, I understand. Sometimes we find people who aren’t too happy with the way we work. But listen ... I’ve got one more idea. Have you heard that there’s a scheme here to build an entertainments complex? Bingo, ten-pin bowling, cabaret, discotheque... all that kind of thing under one vast roof.’
‘The programme’s going to be about that?’ I said.
‘Only in part. Can’t dwell on it too much. Quite a few local people are against it.’
‘So the film is going to debate the issue?’
‘Debate’s the wrong word ... that implies two points of view. No, we’re all for it... we want to portray this resort as a clean, family place. No drugs, no hippies, no foreign tourists... just good old Anglo-Saxon John Bull and his wife and kids.’
‘I thought television was supposed to be impartial,’ I said.
‘You’re living in the past, Chris.’
* * * *
Just then the barmaid called Frank to the bar, and told him he was wanted on the telephone. Patrick and the other man were still talking, laughing and nudging each other. The only other person in the bar was Tina, so I went over to her.
‘Are you really famous?’ she said.
‘Only for not paying my bills. What about you... are you with this lot?’
‘I suppose so. It’s unofficial because I’m not in the union, but Patrick got me the job of continuity. It’s hell getting jobs in television these days.’
I sat down next to her.
‘What’s going on here?’ I said. ‘Frank told me this was a film about tourism, but all Pat wants me to talk about is fascism.’
She grinned at me. ‘He’s good at that. It’s how he made his reputation. When Pat’s drunk enough he can make a right-wing film about any subject under the sun.’
I said: ‘Are you a... friend of Patrick’s?’
She looked away from me. ‘Not really. He thinks he’s a friend of mine. I just wanted a job. I keep him at arm’s length.’
‘Glad to hear it. Like another drink?’
‘No thanks. We’ll be shooting soon. Are you going to do an interview?’
‘I’m not sure. I was just about to leave. Frank was trying to make me stay.’
‘Why don’t you?’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have to do much. If it goes against the grain don’t answer the questions the way they want you to. Just say whatever you believe in, and if it’s no good they won’t use it. If they do decide to use the interview, anything you say will be distorted by the film-editor anyway to fit the message.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Have you read Pudovkin?’
‘No, but I’ve heard of him. The film-maker.’
‘Right. He’s one of Pat’s heroes. I had to read one of his books before Pat got me the job. Pudovkin was the first man to discover that a film can have its meaning changed by showing the same shots in a different order. If it’s done subtly enough, film can be used as a medium to support any political viewpoint.’
I said: ‘So whatever I say on the film, with a bit of careful editing Patrick can make me sound fascist.’
‘Right.’
‘So in effect I can say whatever I like?’
‘Yes. Will you do it?’
‘Is it worth it?’ I said.
‘You won’t get a fee.’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ I said.
She nodded then, and it was worth it.
* * * *
I was wandering around the square, looking at a clipboard of notes Tina had lent me, when Patrick came out of the bar. He stood at the door for a few moments, swaying slightly and blinking in the comparative brightness of daylight. The glare was indeed comparative, for in the last few minutes a heavy bank of cloud had swept in from the sea and a downpour of rain seemed unavoidable.
One of the crew had been sitting in the driver’s cab of the van, keeping warm by running the engine with the heater on. As he saw Patrick, though, he climbed out and went round to him.
‘The generator’s gone on the blink, Pat,’ he said.
‘Completely?’ Pat turned unsteadily towards him.
‘Yes... and we can’t use the mains either.’
‘We’ll use available light. Only a shot or two to do. Tina!’
Tina appeared from inside the pub, pulling the hood of her duffel-coat over her head. The wind had stiffened, and was gusting around the square.
‘Are there any available-light shots we can do from here?’
She took the clipboard from me. ‘Only a few establishing shots of the river.’
‘Too dark for that,’ Patrick said immediately.
‘What about me?’ I said, moving forward. Patrick stared at me for a moment, and I gained the distinct impression that he had forgotten who I was.
‘Not today,’ he said, eventually. ‘We need Ted for that.’ He turned away and walked slowly over to where the camera-operator was pulling a large polythene cover over his camera.
‘Who’s Ted?’ I said to Tina.
‘Ted Lumley. He’s the reporter, the man the viewers see on the film actually asking the questions. He’s had to go back to the Plymouth studios today because they’re re-dubbing the last film.’
‘And changing the order of the shots?’ I said.
She winked at me. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Frank Mattinson gave me the impression he wanted me to be interviewed now.’
‘That’s typical of him,’ Tina said.
‘Then there’s no point me hanging around.’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ she said.
This seemed to be a further promising development, but just at that moment Patrick came back and placed his arm expansively around Tina’s shoulders.
‘Too dark for shooting today. We’ll start first thing in the morning.’ He glanced at me. ‘Sorry, can’t fit you in. Frank says you want to talk about the entertainments complex. Great stuff. You know what to say ... we don’t want the viewers to think there’s any dissenting voice.’
They headed back into the bar, and at last I decided there really was no further point in hanging around.
* * * *
I stayed over in the town. I went first to a restaurant and had a meal, then caught the first house at the cinema. The film was one of those low-budget Westerns made in Spain or Italy, and I was totally unable to enjoy it; not because it was uninteresting, but because I couldn’t get out of my head the image of a film-editor snipping away at the shots before the film reached the projector.
I left the cinema, and walked through the dark and deserted streets of the town. The wind was now blustery and cold, with rain stinging my face. I was quietly dreading the ferry across the river. The day before I had been confined in the village, as the gale had suspended all services; now the weather was rough enough to scare me stiff, but not so rough that the service would stop.
As I came to the top of the slope leading down to the jetty, I saw the boat heading away from the shore towards the village. Even there, in the lee of the bank, it seemed to me to be going up and down unpleasantly. I hunched my shoulders and thrust my hands deep into my pockets, resigned to a twenty-minute wait.
I walked slowly down the slope, and went into the concrete shelter. Tina was there, huddled inside her duffel-coat.
She said: ‘You’ve missed the last boat. I heard them say it was getting too rough.’
‘I’ve seen it rougher than this,’ I said.
‘It isn’t coming back, Chris.’
I decided to believe her.
‘I won’t be able to get back to my hotel,’ I said.
‘I think I know a place you can stay.’
She slipped her hand into mine inside my pocket, and we walked back up into the town.
* * * *
For the sake of her job, Tina went down to breakfast five minutes before me, and when
I joined her she was sitting at a table with Patrick and Frank. They seemed quite unsurprised to see me.
I was just finishing my kippers when a tall young man, smartly dressed in a dark suit, came over to the table, drew up a chair and sat down between Frank and myself.
Tina said quickly: ‘Ted ... this is Chris Priest. He’s going to take part in the film.’
‘Got something to say about the new complex, haven’t you?’ said Frank.
‘I—yes.’
‘Wonderful development, don’t you think?’ said Ted.
‘Absolutely,’ I said. Tina was drinking her coffee, but she caught my eye over the edge of the cup and I knew she was smiling.
‘I’m glad you’re with us on this, Chris,’ said Ted, his face beaming. ‘We need a good strong opinion. Er ... you’ve no financial interest in the complex, I suppose?’
‘Of course not,’ I said.
‘Pity ... It would make your case stronger if you had. Never mind, it’s only a small part of the film.’ He turned to Frank. ‘I had another idea on the drive down here this morning. I gather some of the local fishermen are against this complex because they say the sewage from it is going to be pumped straight into the sea. They think it’s going to harm the lobster beds.’
‘That’s right,’ said Frank. ‘There’s an item in the local paper this week.’
‘Good. Then why don’t we work some kind of insinuation into the commentary? Something to the effect that the traditional Cornish pastime of smuggling is getting under way again? And that this would be more difficult with a huge increase of visitors to the town? Then if we get one of the fishermen to speak up against the complex we’ll know his motives, won’t we?’
Throughout all this Patrick had been silent. I didn’t care for the thoughtful way in which he was staring at me, then glancing at Tina. There had, after all, been that tapping at Tina’s bedroom door at about one in the morning, and she’d whispered that it was Patrick’s nightly attempt ... but I wondered now how much he was beginning to connect in his mind.
Ted was saying: ‘And I was thinking about the old biddy from the watch-committee. I thought perhaps while she’s talking we could do a cut-away to someone prowling along a hotel corridor. Hint of promiscuous goings-on, don’t you think?’
‘Don’t let’s overdo it, Ted,’ said Frank.
‘We could always leave it out later if we don’t like it. We could shoot it here, in this hotel. And look, couldn’t Tina and this chap here’ (me) ‘do something that would-’
‘Drop it, Ted,’ Patrick said, sharply.
I poured myself some more coffee with considerable haste, spilling most of it into the saucer in the process.
‘We don’t want to overdo the visuals,’ said Frank, carefully. ‘After all, it wouldn’t be right to give the impression that this is a fun town. I think Pat’s right... we should play it straight. Let the words speak for themselves. Only if something needs underlining should we try to find a visual to fit it. That’s how we’ve always worked.’
‘OK,’ said Ted, a little sulkily.
* * * *
I followed the others down to the square to pick up the van and the two cars. It had been decided that I would be interviewed on the site of the proposed entertainments complex: high on a rocky promontory overlooking the mouth of the river.
On the drive up (without any kind of stage-management, I found myself in the back of a car with Tina) I was trying to adjust my own understanding of this place to the distorted quasi-reality the television crew was trying to project.
I saw the town as a rather graceful pastoral community, mildly conservative, very insular. As a tourist resort, it was the sort of place people passed through as they came off the ferry; not the kind of seaside town where a married couple with kids would stay for a fortnight. I wondered how firm a proposal it was for this complex, and how much money was behind it, and whose. Would the National Trust—on whose land the complex was to be sited—stand for this kind of proposal for even one minute?
There was a long delay while the cameraman and his assistant set up the tripod and loaded the film-magazine on to the camera. The sound-recordist took a reading from my voice and set the level, and he and his assistant cursed at the amount of wind drumming against the microphone. In the background, Ted was going through the continuity-sheets with Tina, while Frank and Patrick sat together, sheltering from the wind in the back of the equipment van.
Finally, all was declared to be ready.
Ted came over and stood a disconcertingly short distance away from me, well inside my personal buffer zone. He took the microphone from the assistant sound-recordist, and held it out at chest-level between us.
‘When you’re ready, Chris,’ he said, and I was reassured to see that he was sufficiently professional to realize I was quaking in my boots. ‘Nothing to worry about. Just say what you feel, and if you muff it we can always edit it out later.’
I was too nervous even to ascribe an ulterior motive to his words.
Someone stepped in front of the camera and clacked a clapperboard (I hadn’t realized that those things were actually used) and then-
‘As a typical tourist,’ said Ted in his television voice, ‘how would you describe your reaction to an entertainments complex of the sort proposed?’
* * * *
Never mind what I said. That’s between me and the film-editor. Suffice to say I ducked the issue.
* * * *
We drove back to the town, and parked the cars and the van in the square. As I climbed out of the car, the barmaid came out of the door of the pub.
‘Mr. Mattinson!’ she called. ‘Mr. Mattinson, there’s a call for you. Gentleman in London, he says he is.’
Beside me, Frank swore under his breath, then followed her into the saloon. Patrick climbed out of the other car, stretched his arms and yawned loudly, then ambled off towards the Gents. I went with Tina over to the riverside walk.
‘I don’t think I was very good,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t really want you involved with this anyway. Next week when we’re cutting the film, I’ll see if I can somehow lose the footage of you.’
‘Make sure it’s burnt, won’t you?’
We watched an ore-carrier moving up the river towards the china-clay depot. It blew its siren three times, and we could hear the sound echoing off the low hills on either side of the river.
‘Are you going to stay on here?’ Tina said.
‘I’ll be in the village until the end of the week. What about you?’
‘We’ve a couple more days yet.’
‘Feel like a trip over on the ferry this evening?’ I said, and she nodded.
Just then, Frank came hurrying out of the saloon.
‘Pat? Where’s Pat?’
‘In the bog,’ Ted said.
Patrick appeared, and at once Frank went over to him. ‘They’ve re-scheduled us, Pat!’
‘What?’
‘The programme’s been put back a week.’
‘They can’t do that!’ Patrick said loudly. ‘It’s been fixed for months.’
‘They’ve unfixed it,’ said Frank. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’
‘You’re putting me on,’ said Patrick.
Frank shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t joke about this, Pat.’
‘Jesus Christ! I need a drink.’
He turned and walked into the bar, and Frank followed.
Beside me, Tina said: ‘One week. That’s awful.’
‘So you’ve got a bit longer in which to shuffle your shots about,’ I said.
‘Don’t you understand? It’s the worst thing that could happen!’
‘The best thing that could happen is that they postpone the thing indefinitely,’ I said.
She smiled wanly. ‘OK, you don’t agree with the way Pat makes his films, but putting it back a week is a terrible thing to happen at this stage. We’ve almost finished shooting.’
‘But it’s o
nly a week,’ I said. ‘The subject won’t go cold.’
‘Don’t say you haven’t heard of the Partiality Agreement?’
I stared at her blankly.
‘It’s the way television is programmed now,’ she said. ‘In the old days, everyone in television had to work to an unwritten code of impartiality. Well, they’ve dispensed with that now, because it was too much of a constraint. Everyone’s got his own opinion, and it made the programmes very artificial if the man behind it had to bend over backwards to be fair. And people like politicians never believed that anyone could be unbiased anyway. So the television companies drew up the Partiality Agreement. Now everything that’s broadcast is very right-wing and conservative one week; the following week, to maintain the balance, all the programmes are left-wing and radical. So you see-’
New Writings in SF 26 - [Anthology] Page 4
