by William Boyd
There’s a café in Venice where I eat breakfast. A girl works there most mornings, thin, bottle-blond, kind of tired-looking. I’m pretty sure she’s on something heavy. So that doesn’t make her anything special but she can’t be more than eighteen. She knows my name—I don’t know how. I never told her. Anyway, each morning when she brings me my coffee and doughnut she says, “Hi there, Charlie. Lucked out yet?
I just smile and say, “Not yet, Jayette.” Jayette’s the name she’s got sewn across her left tit. I’m not sure I like the way she speaks to me—I don’t exactly know what she’s referring to. But seeing how she knows my name I think it must be my career she’s talking about. Because I used to be a star—well, a TV star anyway. Between the ages of nine and eleven I earned $12,000 a week. Perhaps you remember the show, a TV soap opera called The Scrantons. I was the little brother, Chuck. For two years I was a star. I got the whole treatment: my own trailer, chauffeured limousines, private tutors. Trouble was my puberty came too early. Suddenly I was like a teenage gatecrasher at a kids’ party. My voice went, I got zits all over my chin, fluff on my lip. It spoiled everything. Within a month the scenario for my contractual death was drawn up. I think it was pneumonia, or maybe an accident with the thresher. I can’t really remember; I don’t like to look back on those final days.
Though I must confess it was fun meeting all the stars. The big ones: Jeanne Lamont, Eddy Cornelle, Mary and Marvin Keen—you remember them. One of the most bizarre features of my life since I left the studio is that nowadays I never see stars anymore. Isn’t that ridiculous? Someone like me who worked with them, who practically lives in Hollywood? Somehow I never get to see the stars anymore. I just miss them. “Oh, he left five minutes ago, bub,” or, “Oh, no, I think she’s on location in Europe. She hasn’t been here for weeks.” The same old story.
I think that’s what Jayette’s referring to when she asks if I’ve lucked out. She knows I’m still hanging in there, waiting. I mean, I’ve kept on my agent. The way I see it is that once you’ve been in front of the cameras, something’s going to keep driving you on until you get back. I know it’ll happen to me again one day. I just have this feeling inside.
After breakfast I jog back up the beach to where I left the car. One morning I got to thinking about Jayette. What does she think when she sees me now and remembers me from the days of The Scrantons? It seems to me that everybody in their life is at least two people. Once when you’re a child and once when you’re an adult. It’s the saddest thing. I don’t just mean that you see things differently when you’re a child—that’s something else again. What’s sad is that you can’t seem to keep the personality. I know I’m not the same person anymore as young Chuck Scranton was, and I find that depressing. I could meet little Charlie on the beach today and say, “Look, there goes a sharp kid.” And never recognize him, if you see what I mean. It’s a shame.
I don’t like the jog back so much, as all the people are coming out. Lying around, surfing, cruising, scoring, shooting up, tricking. Hell, the things I’ve seen on that sand, I could tell you a few stories. Sometimes I like to go down to El Segundo or Redondo Beach just to feel normal.
I usually park the car on Santa Monica Palisades. I tidy up, change into my clothes and shave. I have a small battery-powered electric razor that I use. Then I have a beer, wander around, buy a newspaper. Mostly I then drive north to Malibu. There’s a place I know where you can get a fair view of a longish stretch of the beach. It’s almost impossible to get down there in summer; they don’t like strangers. So I pull off the highway and climb this small dune hill. I have a pair of opera glasses of my aunt’s that I use to see better—my eyesight’s not too hot. I spotted Rod Steiger one day, and Jane Fonda I think but I can’t be sure; the glasses tend to fuzz everything a bit over four hundred yards. Anyway, I like the quiet on that dune. It’s restful.
I have been down onto Malibu Beach, but only in the winter season. The houses are all shut up but you can still get the feel of it. Some people were having a barbecue one day. It looked good. They had a fire going on a big porch that jutted out high over the sand. They waved and shouted when I went past.
Lunch is bad. The worst part of the day for me because I have to go home. I live with my aunt. I call her my aunt though I’m not related to her at all. She was my mother’s companion—I believe that’s the right word—until my mother stuffed her face with a gross of Seconal one afternoon in a motel at Corona del Mar. I was fifteen then and Vanessa—my “aunt”—became some kind of legal guardian to me and had control of all the money I’d made from The Scrantons. Well, she bought an apartment in Beverly Glen because she liked the address. Man, was she swallowed by the realtor. They build these tiny apartment blocks on cliff-faces up the asshole of the big-name canyons just so you can say you live off Mulholland Drive or in Bel-Air. It’s a load. I’d rather live in Watts or on Imperial Highway. I practically have to rope up and wear crampons to get to my front door. And it is mine. I paid for it.
Maybe that’s why Vanessa never leaves her bed. It’s just too much effort getting in and out of the house. She just stays in bed all day and eats, watches TV and feeds her two dogs. I only go in there for lunch; it’s my only “family” ritual. I take a glass of milk and a salad sandwich but she phones out for pizza and enchiladas and burgers—any kind of crap she can smear over her face and down her front. She’s really grown fat in the ten years since my mother bombed out. But she still sits up in bed with those hairy yipping dogs under her armpits, and she’s got her top and bottom false eyelashes, her hairpiece and purple lipstick on. I say nothing usually. For someone who never gets out she sure can talk a lot. She wears these tacky satin and lace peignoirs, shows half her chest. Her breasts look like a couple of Indian clubs rolling around under the shimmer. It’s unfair, I suppose, but when I drive back into the foothills I like to think I’m going to have a luncheon date with … with someone like Grace Kelly—as was—or maybe Alexis Smith. I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind a meal and a civilized conversation with some nice people like that. But lunch with Vanessa? Thanks for nothing, pal. God, you can keep it. She’s a real klutz. I’m sure Grace and Alexis would never let themselves get that way—you know, like Vanessa’s always dropping tacos down her cleavage or smearing mustard on her chins.
I always get depressed after lunch. It figures, I hear you say. I go to my room and sometimes I have a drink (I don’t smoke, so dope’s out). Other days I play my guitar or else work on my screenplay. It’s called Walk. Don’t Walk. I get a lot of good ideas after lunch for some reason. That’s when I got the idea for my screenplay. It just came to me. I remembered how I’d been stuck one day at the corner of Arteria Boulevard and Normandie Avenue, There was a pile of traffic and the pedestrian signs were going berserk. “Walk” would come on, so I’d start across. Two seconds later, “Don’t Walk,” so I go back. Then on comes “Walk” again. This went on for ten minutes: “Walk. Don’t Walk. Walk. Don’t Walk.” I was practically out of my box. But what really stunned me was the way I just stayed there and obeyed the goddam machine for so long—I never even thought about going it alone. Then one afternoon after lunch it came to me that it was a neat image for life; just the right kind of metaphor for the whole can of worms. The final scene of this movie is going to be a slow crane shot away from this malfunctioning traffic sign going “Walk. Don’t Walk.” Then the camera pulls farther up and away in a helicopter and you see that in fact the whole city is fouled up because of this one sign flashing. They don’t know what to do; the programming’s gone wrong. It’s a great final scene. Only problem is I’m having some difficulty writing my way toward it. Still, it’ll come, I guess.
In the late afternoon I go to work. I work at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Vanessa’s brother-in-law got me the job. I park cars. I keep hoping I’m going to park the car of someone really important. Frank—that’s Vanessa’s brother-in-law—will say to me, “Give this one a shine-up, Charlie. It belongs to so-and-so. He produced th
is film.” Or, “That guy’s the money behind X’s new movie.” Or, “Look out, he’s Senior Vice-President of Something Incorporated.” I say, big deal. These guys hand me the keys—they all look like bank clerks. If that’s the movies nowadays I’m not so sure I want back in.
Afternoons are quiet at the hotel so I catch up on my reading. I’m reading Camus at the moment but I think I’ve learned all I can from him so I’m going on to Jung. I don’t know too much about Jung but I’m told he was really into astrology, which has always been a pet interest of mine. One thing I will say for quitting the movies when I did—it means I didn’t miss out on my education. I hear that some of these stars today are really dumb; you know, they’ve got their brains in their neck and points south.
After work I drive back down to the Santa Monica Pier and think about what I’m going to do all night. The Santa Monica Pier is a kind of special place for me: it’s the last place I saw my wife and son. I got married at seventeen and was divorced by twenty-two, though we were apart for a couple of years before that. Her name was Harriet. It was okay for a while but I don’t think she liked Vanessa. Anyway, get this. She left me for a guy who was the assistant manager in the credit collection department of a large mail-order firm. I couldn’t believe it when she told me. I said to her when she moved out that it had to be the world’s most boring job and did she know what she was getting into? I mean, what sort of person do you have to be to take on that kind of work? The bad thing was she took my son, Skiff, with her. It’s a dumb name, I know, but at the time he was born all the kids were being called things like Sky and Saffron and Powie, and I was really sold on sailing. I hope he doesn’t hold it against me.
The divorce was messy and she got custody, though I’ll never understand why. She had left some clothes at the house and wanted them back so she suggested we meet at the end of the Santa Monica Pier for some reason. I didn’t mind—it was the impetuous side to her nature that first attracted me. I handed the clothes over. She was a bit tense. Skiff was running about; he didn’t seem to know who I was. She was smoking a lot, those long-thin menthol cigarettes. I really didn’t say anything much at all, asked her how she was, what school Skiff was going to. Then she just burst out: “Take a good look, Charlie. Then don’t come near us ever again!” Her exact words. Then they went away.
So I go down to the end of the pier most nights and look out at the ocean and count the planes going in to land at L.A. International and try to work things out. Just the other evening I wandered up the beach a way and this thin-faced man with short gray hair came up to me and said, “Jordan, is that you?” And when he saw he’d made a mistake he smiled a nice smile, apologized and walked off. It was only this morning that I thought it might have been Christopher Isherwood himself. The more I think about it, the more convinced I become. What a perfect opportunity and I had to go and miss it. As I say: “Walk. Don’t Walk.” That’s the bottom line.
I suppose I must have been preoccupied. The pier brings back all these memories like some private video loop, and my head gets to feel like it’s full of birds all flapping around trying to get out. And also things haven’t been so good lately. On Friday, Frank told me not to bother showing up at the hotel next week, I can’t seem to make any headway with the screenplay, and for the last three nights Vanessa’s tried to climb into my bed.
Well, tonight I think I’ll drive to this small bar I know on Sunset. Nothing too great, a little dark. They do a nice white wine with peach slices in it, and there’s some topless, some go-go, and I hear tell that Bobby De Niro sometimes shows up for a drink.
Hardly Ever
“Think of it,” Holland said. “The sex.”
“Sex,” Panton repeated. “God … sex.”
Niles shook his head. “Are you sure?” he asked. “I mean, can you guarantee it? The sex, that is. I don’t want to waste time farting around singing.”
“Waste bloody time? Are you mad?” Holland said. “It only happens every two years. You can’t afford to miss the opportunity. Unless you’re suffering from second thoughts.”
“What, me?” Niles tried to laugh. He looked at Holland’s blue eyes. They always seemed to know. “You must be bloody kidding, mate. Jesus, if you think … God!” he snorted.
“All right, all right,” Holland said. “We agreed, remember? It’s got to be all of us.”
Niles had never asked for this last fact to be explained. Why, if—as Holland attested—the sex was freely available, on a plate so to speak, why did they all have to participate at the feast? Holland made out it was part of his naturally generous personality. It was more fun if you all had a go.
“Let’s get on with it,” Panton said.
They walked over to the notice-board. Holland pushed some juniors out of the way. Prothero, the music master, had written at the top of a sheet of paper: GILBERT AND SULLIVAN OPERA — HMS PINAFORE — CHORUS: BASSES AND TENORS WANTED, SIGN BELOW. Half a dozen names had been scrawled down.
“Cretins,” Holland said. “No competition.” He wrote his name down. Panton followed suit.
Niles took a Biro from his blazer pocket. He paused.
“But how can you be so sure? That’s what I want to know. How can you tell that the girls just won’t be—well—music lovers?”
“Because I know,” Holland said patiently. “Every Gilbert and Sullivan it’s the same. Borthwick told me. He was in the last one. He said the girls only come for one thing. I mean, it stands to reason. What sort of girl’s going to want to be in some pissing bloody operetta. Ask yourself. Shitty orchestra, home-made costumes, people who can’t sing to save their life. I tell you, Nilo, they’re doing it for the same reason as us. They’re fed up with the local yobs. They want a nice public school boy. Christ, you must have heard. It’s a cert. Leave it to Pete.”
Niles screwed up his eyes. What the hell, he thought, it’s time I tried. He signed his name: Q. Niles.
“Good old Quentin,” Panton roared. “Wor! Think of it waiting.” He forced his features into a semblance of noble suffering, wrapped his arms around himself as if riven with acute internal pain and lurched drunkenly about, groaning in simulated ecstasy.
Holland grabbed Niles by the arm. “The shafting, Nilo, my man,” he said intensely. “The royal bloody shafting we’re going to do.”
Niles felt his chest expand with sudden exhilaration. Holland’s fierce enthusiasm always affected him more than Panton’s most baroque histrionics.
“Bloody right, Pete,” he said. “Too bloody right. I’m getting desperate already.”
***
Niles sat in his small box-like study and stared out at the relentless rain falling on the gentle Scottish hills. From his study window he could see a corner of the dormitory wing of his own house, an expanse of gravel with the housemaster’s car parked on it, and fifty yards of the drive leading down to the main school house a mile or so away. On the desk in front of him lay a half-completed team list for the inter-house rugby leagues and an open note pad. On the note pad he had written: “ ‘The Rape of the Lock,’ ” and below that, “ ‘The Rape of the Lock’ is a mock heroic poem. What do you understand by this term? Illustrate with examples.” It was an essay he was due to hand in tomorrow. He had no idea what to say. He gazed dully out at the rain, idly noting some boys coming out of the woods. They must be desperate, he thought, if they have to go out for a smoke in this weather. He returned to his more immediate problem. Who was going to play scrum-half now that Damianos had a sick-chit? He considered the pool of players he could draw on: asthmatics, fatsos, spastics every one. To hell with it. He wrote down Grover’s name. They had no chance of winning anyway. He opened his desk cupboard and removed a packet of Jaffa cakes and a large bottle of Coca-Cola. He gulped thirstily from the bottle and ate a few biscuits. “The Rape of the Lock.” What could he say about it? He didn’t mind the poem. He thought of Belinda:
“On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore,…” He found her far and away the most alluring
of the fictional heroines he had yet encountered in his brief acquaintance with English Literature. He read the opening of the poem again. He saw her lying in a huge rumpled bed, a lace peignoir barely covering two breasts as firm and symmetrical as halved grapefruits. He had had a bonk-on all the English lesson. It hadn’t happened to him since they’d read Great Expectations. What was her name? Estella. God, yes. She was almost as good as Belinda. He thought about his essay again. He liked English Literature. He wondered if he would be able to do it at university—if he could get to university at all. His father had not been at all pleased when he had announced that he wanted to do English A-level. “What’s the use of that?” he had shouted. “How’s English Literature going to help you sell machine tools?” Niles sighed. There was an opening for him in Gerald Niles (Engineering) Ltd. His father knew nothing of his plans for university.
Niles ran his hands through his thick wiry hair and rubbed his eyes. He picked up his pen. “Alexander Pope,” he wrote, “was a major poet of the Augustan period. ‘The Rape of the Lock’ was his most celebrated poem,” He sensed it was a bad beginning—uninspired, boring—but sometimes if you started by writing down what you knew, you got a few ideas. He scanned Canto One. “Soft bosoms,” he saw. Then “Belinda still her downy pillow prest.” He felt himself quicken. Pope knew what he was doing, all right. The associations: bosom and pillow, prest and breast. Niles shut his eyes. He was weighing Belinda’s perfect breasts in his hands, massaging her awake as she lay in her tousled noonday bed. He imagined her hair spread over her face, full lips, heavy sleep-bruised eyes. He imagined a slim forearm raised to ward off Sol’s tim’rous ray, Belinda turning on to her back, stretching. Jesus. Would she have hairy armpits? he wondered, swallowing. Did they shave their armpits in the eighteenth century? Would it be like that Frenchwoman he’d seen on a campsite near Limoges last summer? In the camp supermarket, wearing only a bikini, reaching up for a tin on a high shelf and exposing a great hank of armpit hair. Niles groaned. He leant forward and rested his head on his open book. “Belinda,” he whispered, “Belinda.”
