The Book of the Film of the Story of My Life

by William Brandt

  Dr. Higgins walks fast, head down, chatting all the way. “It’s not often we get visitors like yourself. The boys are all dying to meet you. They love to meet people from outside.”

  “Is there anything in particular you want me to say?”

  “No, not really. Just talk a bit about yourself, answer any questions. The main idea is to remind them that there is a world beyond these walls, widen their horizons. So good of you to give up your valuable time like this.”

  “I see it as a chance to put something back in.”

  We walk past the corner of the main block and there, before us, is an old, neglected, low-lying building painted dull yellow. Sprouting out of it, one toadstool on the back of another, is a much newer building of pink concrete with slit-like windows. It looks like something you might have at a missile test facility. Dr. Higgins gets out his keys. He stops and looks back at me suddenly. I notice for the first time a gold crucifix around his neck.

  “Do you read the classics?”

  “Well, yes, I do.”

  He looks at me penetratingly. We pass through another double fence. There is no blade of grass, no tree, no plant of any description. I breathe deeply. There doesn’t seem to be enough air. We enter the old building. More keys and locks as Dr. Higgins leads me on, and on, down a long wide blue corridor, across ancient liver-colored linoleum. There’s a powerful smell of disinfectant. At the far end of the corridor we come to a new-looking door controlled by a guard’s post. There’s a sign above the door: SECURE UNIT. Dr. Higgins waves his ID at the guard watching from behind bulletproof glass. The electric door slides back. My heart is pounding. I feel as if I’m under water. The door slides shut behind us.

  “Welcome,” says Dr. Higgins, “to the Secure Unit.” I look around. We’re in a brand-new concrete corridor, wide and spacious, with delicate lemon-painted walls, clean denim-blue linoleum, and tasteful pink bars on the windows. Cell doors down the corridor are also pastel pink. There’s an overpowering smell of bacon fat.

  At one end of the corridor, milling around the bottom of the stairwell, is a group of youthful louts. These must be the criminals. They look to be average age of about eighteen. Ditto for the IQ. They’re shouting, laughing, ragging each other like schoolboys, each of them clutching an enormous bacon sandwich. The government-issue jeans are all four sizes too big and slung too low—way, way too low. Arse crack exposure must be averaging 40 to 50 percent. T-shirts this season are white, again massively oversized. Cigarette packets are worn Brando-style in the right sleeve. Trainers are unlaced and many have opted for no laces at all. We’re getting quite close here to my personal vision of hell.

  One of them lopes toward us, Quasimodo fashion, his sandwich spattering gray watery bacon fat down the linoleum as he comes. He’s short, pale and skinny. There’s a pathetic attempt at a mustache on his upper lip and a red bandana around his head. By now Quasimodo is right up close. I grip my briefcase tightly, tense all my muscles and prepare to defend myself, but he ignores me and dances around Dr. Higgins like a brain-damaged puppy. I can now see the reason for the attempted mustache. A badly repaired harelip.

  “Hey, guv . . .”

  Dr. Higgins puts him in a headlock. “Don’t call me guv!”

  The kid squirms. “Sorry.”

  “Never call me guv!”

  “No, sir.”

  “Call me Bart.”

  “Yeah, awright. Bart.”

  “Who am I?”

  “Bart.”

  Dr. Higgins releases him, and the kid shakes himself all over. “What can I do for you, Rickie?”

  “Tha’ ’im?” He jerks a thumb at me. “Tha’ the film geezer?”

  “Yes, Rickie, this geezer is Mr. Case and, Rickie, Mr. Case can speak for himself. Can’t you Mr. Case?”

  I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.

  Rickie gallops ahead as I follow Dr. Higgins to the staircase at the end. We climb, the mob behind us. I’m waiting for a forearm to close around my throat but it doesn’t.

  Dr. Higgins’s office is a slightly big room with a view over the prison walls to some blue hills, far away. Arranged around the walls of the room are shelves, ceiling high, crammed with books. In front of the bookshelves are chairs. Armchairs, broken-backed and threadbare, straight chairs, spindle backs, cushions, an old love seat. The room fills as Rickie does the rounds with a jug, pouring out instant coffee.

  The room is full. It’s warm and stuffy, criminals stacked two high. I look around me. I don’t get it. They’re all tiny, scrawny. Not a single one would give me the slightest concern in a dark alley. That kid over there in the corner with the curly hair and glasses. What could he possibly have done to end up in here? Cheated on his A levels?

  Dr. Higgins stands up and taps the table. “Now then, boys, this is Mr. Case, of Godzone International. Mr. Case is a well-known and successful film actor and producer, so as you can well imagine he has a fascinating and exciting life, and many stories to tell. Today he’s going to talk to us about employment opportunities in the film industry.”

  All faces are turned my way. Long faces, short faces, fat faces and thin faces. White faces, a couple of black faces. They’re all waiting. I have to say something.

  “Well . . . it’s good to be here today.”

  Silence.

  Dr. Higgins coughs. “Before we start, perhaps you boys could introduce yourselves. Rickie?”

  Quasimodo kid jumps to his feet. “Me name’s Rickie. Rickie Lunt.”

  Someone mutters the obvious.

  “That’s quite enough of that, thank you. We have a guest. Go on, Rickie. How long have you been here, now?”

  “Been in four years now. Three to go.” He pauses. “Oh, yeah, and my crime was rape. Of a little girl, like.”

  “How old was she, Rickie?”

  “She was only seven.”

  “And how do you feel about your crime now?”

  “It were wrong.” He looks baffled a moment, sits down, sighs, then looks around to see who’s next.

  They’re all sexually violent deviants. The whole roomful. Rape, rape and murder, sexual assault, molestation, rape and arson, rape and abduction of minors, family members, and in one case a horse. The curly-headed kid in glasses knifed and raped his mother, then locked the door and set fire to the family home. We work our way right around the room.

  “. . . Mr. Case?” Silence. All faces are turned my way. This is all wrong. There should be howling and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Not instant coffee and a chat. “So, Mr. Case, perhaps you’d like to tell us about yourself. What led you to film?”

  My gaze travels wildly around the room. Behind the murderers are the books. I take a deep breath. I fixate on a handsome leather-bound volume of Crime and Punishment.

  “Well, I was always interested in film . . . I . . . ah . . . I used to go to the movies when I was a kid. I worked as an actor for a while and then I got into producing. And when I came to England a few years back I started my company, Godzone International. And here I am.”

  A rather good-looking black kid puts up his hand. “You made a lot of films, then?”

  “We . . . have a number of projects on the slate.”

  “What sort of films?”

  “Well, all sorts.” I have a proposal with Channel Four for a documentary on the history of the G-string, called G-String Century. I have a projected television series on first aid for dogs, imaginatively entitled First Aid for Dogs, and last but not least I have a drama about a kid who takes his goldfish with cancer to Disneyland. Originally it was the kid who had cancer but the programmer at Channel Four thought it was a bit of a downer so we changed it to the goldfish. Also we thought this way it could easily go to a series, with different pets and different diseases. Of course when I say “on the slate” what I really mean is I haven’t got the rejection letter yet.

  Dr. Higgins nods thoughtfully. “What films have you acted in, Frederick?”

  “Just the one, really. It’s called Bon
za, Mate.” I look around hopefully. Blank faces. “It was quite successful.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Well, it’s about a young Australian hitchhiking her way around Europe.”

  “Do you do your own stunts?”

  “There are no stunts.”

  Mystified silence. A thin, red-faced boy puts up his hand. He broke into a house and strangled two nine-year-olds. He was just starting on his third when they got there. “What sort of car ’ave you got?”

  I look at Bart. He shrugs. “Ah . . . a Toyota Corolla.”

  “What year?”

  “1989.”

  There’s an incredulous hush.

  “Do you know Sylvester Stallone?”

  “I haven’t actually met him, no. Although I have been to Planet Hollywood.”

  “Bruce Willis?”

  “Most of the stars I know are more . . .”

  “Steven Seagal?”

  “Bruce Lee?”

  “Nah, he’s dead, stupid.”

  Disappointment hangs in the air. Dr. Higgins smiles and rubs his hands together. “So, Mr. Case, say I want to get a start in the film business. Say I want to hobnob with the stars myself. How would I go about it? Would I need to start at the bottom and work my way up?”

  “Yeah, that would be best.”

  “And what skills would I need to have?”

  “Well you need a lot of interpersonal skills. There’s a lot of networking. You have to be able to communicate your ideas with energy and passion. You need a lot of determination to succeed.”

  “And would I need to be able to read and write?” He looks pointedly around the group.

  “Ah, well, yeah, I would say you would need to be able to do that.”

  Dr. Higgins nods, significantly. “I would need to be able to read and write. Does anyone else have any questions?” There are no more questions. “Well, let’s all give Mr. Case a round of applause to thank him for coming along today.”

  As the others are filing out the door, one of the prisoners comes up to me. “Hey guv, you know about the Corolla?”

  “Yes?”

  “Get a steering-wheel lock. Dead easy, is Corollas.”

  Dr. Higgins brings another one over himself. He looks a little older than the others. His jeans are done up tight around his ribcage. He’s wearing a shirt with long sleeves and a button-down collar, done up at the wrists and neck. His hair is slicked down flat, gleaming with oil, parted perfectly down the middle. His skin is incredibly pale. His eyes are a washed-out blue.

  “This is Gerard,” says Dr. Higgins. “Gerard is a fellow countryman.”

  “A New Zealander?”

  “He’s from New Plymouth. Aren’t you, Gerard?”

  Gerard shuffles his feet. He’s obviously very shy. I’m trying to remember what he did.

  “Hi, Gerard.”

  He mumbles something.

  “Gerard has written a film script,” says Dr. Higgins, significantly.

  “Oh . . . really?” Oh, Christ. Just what I need.

  “Well,” says Dr. Higgins. “I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about. Gerard, you can take Frederick down to your cell if you like. Just come back to the office when you’re finished.” He winks at me as I follow Gerard down the corridor. He is wearing grandpa slippers and he shuffles along like an old man.

  Gerard’s cell is a tiny concrete slot with a two-tier bunk, a stainless-steel hand basin and lavatory, a high narrow window and spread-eagled pinups all over the walls. Gerard offers me a small chair. I take it. He sits on the bed.

  “So,” I say, “have you been here long?”

  “Oh, not really.” Gerard starts to roll a cigarette. He moves very, very slowly, as if he has all the time in the world. Which he probably has. “Just a year. Most of that on remand. I’m going to serve my sentence in New Zealand. They’re going to fly me back.”

  “They’re going to fly you back? To New Zealand?”

  “Yeah, that’s what they do sometimes. I’m really rapt, eh. Gonna be going home.”

  Gerard reaches under the bunk and pulls out a sheaf of pages. He hands it to me shyly. It’s a screenplay all right. The layout appears to be more or less standard but it’s handwritten. A tiny neat scrawl, dead straight, strong backward slope. One of the most basic rules of the trade is this: never read anything written in hand. Just don’t do it. “Well, this is certainly weighty.” It looks to be a good couple of hundred pages. Even allowing for the writing it must be well over-length. “When did you write this?”

  “Oh, I’ve had lots of time, eh.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “It’s the story of my life.”

  Of all my most unfavorites, prison scripts are absolutely the worst. They’re generally all about how tough it is being in jail all the time when you could be out there having fun. There’ll probably be a kid in it too. The kid will be in need of a father figure and suffering from a terminal disease and the criminal will end up doing one last job to save the orphanage. “Well, that certainly looks very interesting.”

  “I’ve put everything of myself into that. I’ve tried to trace the origins of my crime right back.” And then he does something quite extraordinary. He blushes. He blushes right from the roots of his hair down to the neckline of his oversize white prison-issue T-shirt. He goes bright red and he hangs his head. “I killed the only woman I ever loved. That was my crime. She was the only one I ever loved and I killed her.”

  What do you say in a situation like this?

  “And her kid too. Her unborn kid. It wasn’t mine.”

  “It wasn’t?”

  “It was someone else’s.”

  “Right.”

  “And then when I realized what I’d done I tried to kill myself.”

  “I see.”

  “It was heavy metal music. They put messages in it.”

  “In heavy metal music?”

  “Yeah. They put these messages in the music, telling you to do things. You know, like telling you to kill people. It’s actually the work of the devil.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah. It’s actually the devil. People don’t know, but it is. And that’s where it all started to go wrong for me.”

  “I see.” I stand. “Well, I’ll certainly be glad to give it a read and . . .”

  “And then there was Ted.”

  “Ted?”

  “Yeah. He was in the SAS but he wasn’t really. He only said he was. It was all lies, and that blurred the boundary between fantasy and reality still further.”

  “I see. That would be a problem.”

  “I’ve worked it all out. I’ve traced it right back. Right back to the very origins.”

  “Well, ah . . . well done.”

  “It took a long time, because when you follow it right back, it actually all traces back to the beginning of the world, and the birth of sin.” He taps the screenplay. “It’s all in here. I’ve put it all down.”

  “Well, I’ll certainly look forward to . . .”

  “’Cos it’s in all of us, eh?”

  “What is?”

  “Sin.”

  I want to leave. I don’t like it in here, I feel mildly insulted and I want to leave.

  “Even in you.” He looks up when he says this. It’s the way he looks at me. His eyes are extraordinary. They’re burnt-out blue with black exploded centers, like bomb-sites. “Yeah,” he nods, slowly and definitely as if confirming something to himself, something he’d always suspected. “Even in you.”

  I look at my watch.

  “But if I can figure it all out, then when I get out, I’ll be okay.”

  “And when do you get out?”

  “Ten years. So I need to be ready.”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I need to do something good. I’ve done a terrible thing, I’ve done a lot of terrible things and I need to do all I can to make up for it. And this is the only thing I can do. The only good thing.” He blushes again a
nd falls silent. He seems overcome. “Dr. Higgins said you could make my film.”

  “Did he indeed?”

  “’Cos I really think I can save the world.”

  “You think so?”

  “He’s made his plans, you know? The devil. He made them a long time ago. He’s been plotting and planning for thousands of years. The big takeover. He’s taking over the world, he’s twisting our minds. All of us. Even you. But this film is going to make the difference. It’s going to win the war. Because that’s where this war will be fought. In the minds of humanity. Can you help me? Can you help me save the world?”

  Dr. Higgins finishes early on Thursdays. He walks me down the hill to the Sittlebury station and I buy him a pint in the local, which is a real, genuine, ye-olde place. You can tell the real places easily enough: they’re the ones where you’re constantly braining yourself on the ceiling beams. They never think of that when they’re building the pretend places.

  “Yes, the classics. It was the classics that did it for him. I put him onto the classics and he didn’t look back. Brought him right back from the brink. He had such a thirst for learning.” He sucks on his beer, perhaps by way of demonstration. I’m buying, by the way; I’ve just found out that he’s Catholic, he’s got six children, two at university. And you wouldn’t believe how little a probation officer makes. Anyway, I’ve got a small fortune coming through in the next few days. It’s like this, always. Like a drug. Reluctance, fear, the resolve to kick the habit. Then capitulation, self-disgust, followed by shameless gloating and anticipation. Ah.

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

  He looks up. There’s a line of foam stuck to his whiskers. He looks like a stoat.

  “I can’t believe somehow that those guys are as dangerous as all that. They just seem so . . .”

  “Dangerous?” He laughs. “They’re not dangerous.”