by Nev Fountain
‘W…whaddya want?’ she slurred, in a strange American accent. She must have been having some odd, transatlantic dream.
‘Maggie, it’s me.’
‘Oh, hello.’ Her eyes fluttered. ‘Have we got to Woodstock yet?’
‘Time to go. Before Randall comes back.’
‘What?’ She sat up, startled, a fat red mark decorating her cheek. ‘How long have I been in here?’
‘Only 45 minutes.’
She looked at her watch. ‘Oh my God… I thought I’d be stuck in here for days. I was frightened to try the door in case the alarm went off.’
‘Don’t worry. I’d never leave you in here. I’m aware of the danger. Dogs die in hot cars.’
As soon as he said it he knew it was the worst possible thing to say. He waited for the world to crash around him, but Maggie just snorted with giggles. ‘Thanks,’ she said, flinging her arms around him. ‘Help me out of the car, Prince Charming.’
Mervyn pulled. Maggie slid out of the seat and allowed her drooping legs to hit gravel.
‘I’ll get my bag.’
‘Mervyn!’ she said suddenly, gripping his arm. ‘While you were gone. There was a man by your bag. He was poking around inside it!’
Mervyn rushed to his bag and looked inside.
‘Everything’s here that should be. No bombs or spring-loaded daggers.’
‘He was looking at your script, flicking through it. Then he put it back.’ Maggie clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘My God, I don’t believe it.’
‘Who was it? Was it a member of the production team?’
‘How should I know? I’ve only met you and Roger. And it wasn’t Roger.’
‘Did you get a photo?’
‘No I didn’t. Your bloody battery’s flat. Of all the luck.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Ugly. Fat. He was a big fat guy. Really really fat and ugly. I mean really, really fat. The type of guy you’d never bring home to meet your mother—in case he ate her.’
Mervyn closed the car door and locked it. ‘It doesn’t sound like anyone on the shoot…unless Glyn’s written in another alien monster.’
Maggie suddenly backed away from Mervyn. She seemed unnerved, and was looking over his shoulder. Mervyn glanced behind him, but could only see the production team; Roger, Randall, Glyn, Nick, Louise, Valerie and the Wagz, all walking from the location to their cars.
‘I have to go. Now.’
‘Wait, Maggie…’
‘Sorry, I just do.’
‘Look don’t worry about Roger, I’ll explain why you’re here. I’ll think of something plausible.’
‘I’m sorry!’
She ran, stumbling, to the exit.
‘I’m sorry about trapping you in the car…’
But she was already gone.
*
Louise and Nick came in Mervyn’s direction, into the car park. Mervyn nodded at them cheerfully, swinging Randall’s keys and trying not to act suspicious.
Louise unlocked her car door wearily. ‘I’m going back to Truro to talk to Clockworks, tell them what we’ve discussed. Perhaps we can make a start on the CGI.’
‘How can they do that?’ said Nick. ‘We don’t know what the Gorgs are going to wear yet…’
‘I have to do something!’ she snapped, smacking her car roof with the flat of her hand. ‘This is all we need. It’s karma. We take on some stupid sci-fi shit and look what’s happened. It’s punishment. I’ve been cursed. I was the brains behind That was Ben, This is Now, for God’s sake. I don’t need this crummy remake.’
That was Ben and This Is Now was a comedy drama made by Attic Space Productions for ITV. It starred Martin Gable (a great character actor, considered a triple A list name by everyone in telly) and was about a man who’d lost his memory and accidently fell in love with his ex-wife. It was a huge ratings hit about three years ago.
Mervyn was stung by her dismissal of Vixens, and couldn’t help himself. ‘Oh really? I always though the writer was the ‘brains’ behind That was Ben.’
Louise threw Mervyn’s knee a condescending look. ‘I’m talking modern television here, Mervyn. Everybody in modern television knows what I mean when I say I was the brains behind That Was Ben.’
But Mervyn was friends with the writer, and he knew exactly what Louise had to do with That Was Ben. He was ready for her.
‘Well, as you say, Louise, I’m not an expert in modern television, so I’m just guessing here. Does ‘being the brains behind’ mean ‘chucking the script in a filing cabinet, forgetting about it and carpeting your assistant for fishing it out and showing it to Martin Gable’s agent?’
Louis stuck her pointy nose in the air and glared at the clouds. She was obviously furious. ‘I always suspected there was something wrong about you, Mervyn. I had grave misgivings. When Randall told me you coming down here to “advise” us, I smelt trouble. When Ken described you as a high-handed pompous shitty arsehole, I thought that was just bad blood from your history together on the show. But he was right. You know what you are, Mervyn? You are a troublemaker. A dinosaur. A relic. Guarding the old and jealous of the new. Yours is a life living off past glories.’
‘At least I have past glories to live off,’ Mervyn snapped. ‘Not some illusion of achievement. The only work of fiction you’ve been the brains behind is your own CV.’
Louise’s face turned brick-red. ‘Thank God you’ll be gone soon, Mervyn. The sooner this pet project of yours dies and you go back where you came from, the better.’
‘My pet project? I didn’t even want to…’
But she had already climbed into her car and was driving past, narrowly missing his foot. That was interesting, thought Mervyn. Louise wants rid of me.
He looked around. He was embarrassed by her outburst and by his own. Had anyone noticed he was blushing?
Nick was on his mobile, talking intently. ‘Are you going back to the hotel? Do you want a lift? Glyn, are you sure you’re alone? I can hear someone else…’ He looked at his phone. Then pulled a face. ‘Cut off again. Bloody reception.’
Mervyn suspected that a dodgy signal had little to do with the fact Nick had been cut off. But he still raised his eyebrows sympathetically.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
That night, Mervyn dreamed.
He was back in the supermarket and he heard a scream coming from inside the freezer locker. He entered the locker and found boxes and boxes arranged against the wall, all with ‘Frozen seagull portions’ stencilled on them.
Maggie was dead, lying in the middle of a burst box oozing packets of icy breasts and frosty drumsticks. She had a ‘Reduced’ sticker on her forehead.
Mervyn started piling the frozen peas on her body. ‘If I keep her fresh perhaps she’ll come back to life,’ he found himself muttering.
He heard a laugh, turned round and there in the doorway was Glyn Trelawney. ‘Everything must go!’ he laughed, and closed the door with a clang.
Then there was shouting outside the door. Someone was shouting. It was Nick, demanding that Glyn open the door. ‘Open up!’ yelled Nick. ‘Open up!’
Mervyn awoke sluggishly, and realised he could hear Nick’s voice. Nick was indeed shouting ‘Open up!’
He looked at his bedside clock. It was 11pm.
He leaned over to the curtain and peered outside. There was Nick, standing in the car park, throwing handfuls of gravel at a first-floor window. ‘Come on, I know you’re in there!’ he said in a drunken drawl. Lights were pinging on throughout the pub. ‘Stop fucking her, you bastard!’ He picked up a rock.
The window slid open and Glyn appeared, bare-chested.
Nick stretched his hands upwards. ‘Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, Romeo?’
‘Just fuck off, Nick.’ This time Glyn was a cockney. All trace of chuckly bonhomie had been stripped away. In its place was an aggressive thug who just happened to be a writer.
‘It is the east, and Juliet is the sun!’
&
nbsp; ‘Fuck off.’
‘Come on Mr Writer. You can do better than that.’
‘Piss off.’
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Fuck…offff. This is nothing to do with you.’
‘Yes it is. ‘Sgot everything to do with me.’
‘I am not doing this here. Go away, you sad sack.’
The window slammed down. Nick threw another handful of gravel. And another.
There was a door-slam from somewhere inside the pub, and angry running feet pounded past Mervyn’s door. Mervyn peered out into the hallway to see what was happening but Glyn had gone. He looked back up the corridor, and there was Penny the script editor looking out from her door, swathed in a fluffy dressing down. She closed it quickly. No prizes for guessing where Glyn had come from.
Mervyn returned to his window and watched. Glyn burst out of the pub’s front door. He hadn’t dressed, just flung on a pair of jeans. His bare feet scrunched hard on the gravel as he rushed towards Nick, pushing him angrily square in the chest, punching him on the right shoulder.
‘What are you doing? What are you doing to me? Can’t you see I’m busy?’
Nick just took it, his head lolling forward on his shoulders, a defeated, punch-drunk boxer waiting for the bell to ring. Waiting for the abuse to stop.
‘Come back to the hotel, please. Don’t do this. Please stop.’
‘Don’t do what? Stop what? Stop screwing a woman? Is that what you want me to stop? Well sorry, I’m on a promise. She’s up there and she’s going off the boil, so if you’ll excuse me…’
Mervyn looked across at the window from where Glyn’s head had emerged. The curtain had been pulled back. Penny was watching, vaguely interested in the spectacle of her white knight charging out to fight for her lack of honour.
‘You don’t want to do this,’ mumbled Nick. ‘It’s not you. It’s not you.’
‘Yes it is. I’ve told you a thousand times. I’ve moved on, my lovely. I don’t do gay any more. It’s boring. It’s very last decade.’
This didn’t register with Nick; obviously he was in so deep he was just ignoring things he didn’t want to hear. He grabbed Glyn’s arm. ‘Come on. We can talk. We can sort it out.’
‘Get off me!’ Glyn shrugged off Nick’s arm. He walked a few steps back to the B&B.
‘Glyn!’
Glyn turned, but it wasn’t a change of heart. Mervyn had seen enough of Glyn’s technique; he knew that the man was a past master at closing down debates ruthlessly. This wasn’t going to be any different.
‘Why would I be with you, even if I was gay? Why would I waste my time being with you? Being your mummy?’
‘Glyn, please…’
‘Look at you, just look at you. You’re pathetic.’
‘No.’
‘You’re pathetic.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Path-etic. So needy.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You’re just my fucking glove puppet. Take my hand out of your arse and you cease to function.’
‘You need me!’
‘The fuck I do.’ Glyn started to walk away again.
‘I’ll tell!’
Glyn stopped, turned. ‘You have nothing to tell. You say anything—you hear me?—anything, and the party stops. For both of us. I go down. You go down. And you won’t do that, my lovely. You know why? Because you haven’t got the balls. So leave me alone and let me get on with my life. I’ve spent the last five years sleeping with an old woman, let me sleep with some young ones for a change.’
‘GLYN!’
This time, Glyn kept walking.
Nick stood there, bathed by light from the windows. One by one the curtains closed and the lights went off again. Then he was in darkness. Like an actor leaving the stage, he trudged into the tavern.
Mervyn saw his chance. He pulled his trousers on over his pyjamas, pushed on a pair of shoes, threw on a shirt and jacket and ran downstairs.
Nick was at the bar. He was arguing with the landlord. ‘I’m sorry sir, I can’t serve you,’ the landlord was saying.
Mervyn slid to Nick’s side. ‘Let me, Nick.’
Nick looked very grateful. ‘Thanks, Mervyn. They won’t serve me ‘cause it’s after hours. Residents only.’
Mervyn bought him a whisky, which he drank in one gulp. And then he wanted another. And another. By the time Mervyn came back from the bar for the third time, Nick was slumped low in his seat, rolling one of the glasses on its side along the table. It rumbled around in a wide arc and fell on the floor. Everyone was ignoring him, apart from the drunk’s dog. It padded painfully over and lay near his feet, like an AA counsellor in mongrel form.
Nick was staring at the clock. It was 11.32.
‘Are you expecting anyone?’
‘I’m waiting for Glyn to come downstairs.’
‘Are you sure he’s coming down?’
‘He’ll come back. He’ll get bored, and he’ll come back. He always does.’
‘I’m not sure he is.’
‘What do you know?’
‘Not a lot…’
Mervyn had a knack for needling people, for saying things that could make an embarrassing scene anywhere. If he volunteered a negative opinion on any actor/writer/producer, there was an almost 100% chance that he’d be talking to the wife/boyfriend/brother/sister of the actor/writer/producer and there would inevitably be tears/shouting/fisticuffs, or probably all three. If he casually mentioned that due to heavy drinking the night before he was as sick as a pig, he would very likely find himself sitting in the foyer of a hotel playing host to the Biannual Conference for the Promotion of Positive Swine Health. It was only recently he had started channelling this great power as a force for good.
‘I’m not sure. He seemed pretty cosy where he was.’
Nick’s eyes widened with sudden fury, then he faltered, eyes falling back to the table. ‘Yes…’
‘But he’ll be back.’
‘Yes!’
‘You seem pretty sure.’
Nick said nothing.
‘It seems to me that Glyn does what he wants.’
‘Yeah, he does that.’
‘But he’ll be back.’
‘Yes.’
‘How can you be certain?’
‘I just can.’
‘Can you make him come back?’
‘No.’
‘So how do you know he’ll come back?’
‘I didn’t say I could make—’
‘But if he does just what he wants…’
‘Shut up.’
‘And he’s doing what he wants right now…’
‘Just shut up. Shut up.’
‘Then how can you know…’
Nick punched his knee. ‘He’s got no fucking choice!’ They stopped talking for a moment, to allow time for Nick’s words to sink in. Then Nick piped up again. ‘I’m not saying any more. Go away.’
Okay, here we go…
‘Nick… Did you save Glyn from some kind of trouble? Does he owe you?’
This completely threw Nick. His mouth opened and closed, but only a croak came out.
‘Hello, hello, hello!’
Glyn was behind them.
Nick’s expression cleared, confusion and despair banished from his face. It was the crazed optimism of the battered wife, ever hopeful for a new start. ‘Glyn!’
‘Hello you two dirty stop-outs! Having some all-night drinking session? Lovely!’ Again, it was like that moment in the lift. A switch had been flicked, as if the row outside never happened. ‘Shall I set them up? What are we all having? Trebles all round?’
Glyn bought drinks for all of them, and they all sat there, sipping hurriedly, wishing the time away.
‘So isn’t this exciting? I’ve seen the raw footage and it’s fabulous. Really fabulous. Nick, we haven’t talked about the series yet, have we, if it happens. Which it definitely will—we’re really sitting on something special here. Tell me, Nick, ar
e you up for it, my lovely? Get yourself a nice big office in LA, with your own swivel chair and all the biros you can eat?’
Nick flushed with excitement. ‘You know me. If it’s a Glyn Trelawney project then I’m certainly available.’
‘And you, Mervyn—are you ready to chuck your hat into the ring and your balls into the fire?’
‘Me? You won’t need me.’
Glyn choked on his whisky and banged the glass down in an almost comical gesture of surprise.
‘What nonsense! Vixens from the Void without Mervyn Stone, my lovely? It would be like Star Trek without Gene Roderick.’ Glyn looked at his naked wrist. ‘Goodness me, is that the time? Let’s hightail it back to the hotel, Nick.’ Glyn drained his glass, got up and left without another word. After a bare second, Nick drained his and got up. He gave Mervyn a strange, half-imploring, half-resigned look.
Mervyn had once seen that look on the face of an actress who’d married a famously aggressive actor. She was always turning up for work wearing more make-up than the TV lights needed; usually around the eyes.
Nick gave a shrug, and trotted after his master. Mervyn was left alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Mervyn went back to his room, frustrated. He felt he’d been so close to finding out something important…
His mind flicked back through what he knew about Glyn; the conversations with Glyn; the row in the supermarket with Glyn; the threat in the lift from Glyn. What was Glyn prepared to do to get his own way? What was Nick prepared to do for Glyn?
He sat on his bed and pulled off his shoes, his trousers… Then he noticed the note.
It had been pushed under his door. For a glorious moment, he thought that Maggie had forgiven him. Perhaps she was feeling lonely and fancied a co-snuggler, volunteering to be a replacement for the badger in his lonely bed.
He read the note and his mind went numb.
It was a sheet of paper, with four sentences in a simple font that could have come from any printer. It read: YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO’S TRYING TO KILL YOU? LOOK OUT OF THE WINDOW. FOLLOW THE LIGHTS AT MIDNIGHT. THE PASSWORD IS ‘PANDORUS’.
