‘Well, now,’ he said, shuffling the papers that would become the first draft.
‘Let’s start with the main character. What’s her name again?’
‘Emma Ball.’
‘I get the Ball … but why Emma?’
‘It’s the Madame Bovary reference …’
‘Oh, we’re losing all that Madame Bovary stuff so let’s give her another name.’
‘You want to cut out the Bovary theme?’ asked Cicely, knowing that to do so would cut the heart out of the book.
‘I told you. It has to be a hilarious romp.’
He patted Cicely’s hand encouragingly. She pulled it away, remembering that gesture of Odette’s, so different. Their secret hand signals. Heard once more that mental whisper, calling to her. But she must respond to what Dragan was telling her.
‘The Bovary stuff is the theme of it.’
‘Huh?’
‘To show she was just born at the wrong time … there’s no plot without it really.’
‘Ah, I’m glad we agree,’ he smiled. ‘That was my next point. There is no plot.’
He broke off and grabbed at Mr Mistoffelees. She hissed, arched her back.
‘Poor pussy, living here without a real man in the house. What you need is a big male to come around and do you regularly,’ he murmured, apparently to the cat.
Mr Mistoffelees scratched at his wrist before making her getaway.
Cicely stood up to chase after her, but Dragan’s heavy arms deftly pulled Cicely onto his knee.
‘Hey you, let’s heat things up a bit,’ he muttered to her breasts. ‘Grandpa’s asleep …’
He began nuzzling her, stroking her knee. She let him, watching his hand, imagining it was Sebastian’s.
‘You write about your own romantic needs …’
‘But I’m not Emma.’
He held her tighter.
‘Like this lawyer I know, he’s sixty years old and all washed up. Bad investment in Docklands, don’t ask. Anyway, fancies himself as a writer now. And every time he comes up with a storyline, it’s about an old lawyer who’s all washed up …’
His hand was heading slowly up her thigh as he continued his story. Was it flirting for Cicely to now listen as he went on to another story about his immensely important connections in the industry? To not tell him, while he patiently explained to her about ‘the archetypal paradigm’ in blockbuster movies such as the one Last Chance was to become, that the word was not pronounced paradijum?
She had heard a Hollywood star being interviewed once and they had asked her if it was true that the best way to get to the top was to sleep with the producers. She said no. The secret was, she explained, to make each man she dealt with feel that he just might have a chance.
To have him entertain the idea long enough for her to get the contract.
Miracle cure
Cicely woke early, walked into the kitchen and found Uncle Bill fully dressed and with his bags packed. He had even got his own breakfast. With surprising energy, he announced that he was going up north to sunny Queensland.
‘With Martha. Where I might get a bit of proper care. Bah, certainly don’t get it in this house.’
Such venom in his voice. The two women had indeed nursed him back to his natural strength. Cicely wondered if professional nurses felt like this, caring for weak, grateful patients until they turned on their carers, resenting their own previous vulnerability. If being rude and obnoxious was the first sign that they were feeling better, why bother? Did that explain the stories of the serial murderesses, the English nurses who killed off their patients one by one?
‘Queensland? What about you not having any money?’
‘Money, yes that’s what you were hoping to get out of me.’
Peculiar that now he was going she should feel rejected. She fought back a childish hurt, aware at the same time that ever since the Band-Aid incident, she had secretly detested him. Yet he was all the family she had.
A taxi pulled up outside, and Martha appeared at the door to collect Bill. She kissed Cicely goodbye, then instructed Bill to do the same. He meekly obeyed, and Cicely noticed that he now smelt of Martha’s lavender perfume.
Cicely was further astonished to see Uncle Bill not only pick up his own bags and carry them out to the taxi, but to turn to Martha and take her bag from her, then to load them all into the boot.
As Cicely gaped open-mouthed at this, Martha turned to her and, with her new, far-sighted vision, Cicely saw her point towards this manful display, in case Cicely had missed it, and give her a definite wink.
Last chance
Elated, Cicely immediately threw herself into a household purge, opening wide the windows of his sickroom – her study once more – converting the sickbed back into a sofa, attacking it with Dustbuster, putting his bedclothes in the rubbish bin.
With order re-established, she lit a stick of incense, selecting a patchouli one, in honour of – she stopped herself saying in memory of – Odette. She breathed it in, conjuring up once more that urgent whisper.
She straightened up the picture of Agatha on the wall, sat on the upright sofa, staring at the image, breathing in more of the heady incense. She would crochet another heart-shaped picture frame for it. Put it by her bed, next to Milan, and perhaps in that way have more success with the Christie Method.
Miss Marple had not reappeared since that shared tea on the old-fashioned train, and Cicely had not tried to invite her back. Miss Marple’s talk about the wedding cake, her rivalry with Agatha, her attempt to make herself interesting by referring to her ‘scandalous secret’, was all rather self-aggrandising. And she was holding back, had not really helped Cicely in her quest for Odette. Though perhaps she should have blamed Uncle Bill for abruptly ending the meeting?
By that evening, even though she was now ensconced once more in her thoroughly sponged – bicarb and eucalyptus oil – chintz chair by the fire, with the cat on her knee, the bubble of euphoria that had enclosed her was deflating.
With the sudden departure of Uncle Bill and Martha, the flat felt cold and still. Her small planet had shifted its axis.
Yes, she had resented being his nurse and cook, not so much because of the work but because it was unacknowledged. But then Martha had arrived to lighten the load, if with her own motive, as was clear now. She did not want to end up alone.
The other two in the house had been a ballast. They had noticed if Cicely was home or not. Now, who in the world waited for her anywhere? Now who was there to ground her? Free of invalid demands in her now floating life, she was also free of friends. Unless Dragan counted? That unsettling lightness that Milan had described so well was more dreadful that she had thought.
Zac had called the two friends codependent. Was that what it was, to try to rescue Odette, and feel at the same time this unaccustomed need to be, in turn, saved by Odette?
Sitting in the chair, which had once comforted her more than it seemed to now, Cicely felt that the Christie Method, though Miss Marple had dismissed it as the ultimate red herring, was still her only hope. Anyway, the old lady seemed to have vanished. And Cicely was now cross with her dream visitor.
Five suspects … unless she should go back to the beginning. To Zac.
But that would mean, she sensed, starting to grieve for Odette.
Not yet …
Outside the window with its freshly washed curtains, the greengage plum tree had once more sprouted its thin spring leaves, outlined against the late setting sun. She had not even noticed the change of seasons.
Cicely had last seen Odette in February, and it was now November. With a shock, she realised that she would have to pack up and leave the flat in just six weeks. Alone again.
Where would she go?
She pulled out the classifieds from the weekend newspaper, and began underlining, heavy with the physical and emotional burden of planning yet another move on a non-existent budget.
Rental Accommodation.
Share Ho
uses.
Rooms to Rent.
And at the bottom of the page, an ad for a hostel run by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
She saw herself in a tiny room, a single bed covered with a crocheted rug, in overbright primary colours and cheap and cheery nylon yarn. Tottering down a dimly lit hallway to the communal dining room which smelt of sausages and eggs …
Was she turning into her mother?
A fondness for pills.
Broke.
Isolated.
Was it as easy as this for a woman nearing forty to end up in a rooming house?
She had one last chance against such a willed decline.
The artistic temperament
The coast was clear of the invalid, so Dragan became Cicely’s daily visitor.
Now, as he stood at the kitchen door, the early summer sun was harsh through the yellow curtains and the lighting was particularly unflattering to Dragan. He hugged her and, susceptible though she was to the world of plenty which he could offer her, she couldn’t help it.
She sneezed.
‘You know. Allergic …’
Impatiently, he stepped away, towering over her in the small kitchen. He had graciously taken her under his wing, but she failed to appreciate her good fortune. Thousands would kill for his favours. Weren’t writers supposed to be perceptive? Excuse me?
He deliberately lit up a cigarette, knowing that it was forbidden to smoke in this hovel. He frowned as he exhaled, imagining himself to be in a soft yellow light from the window.
He jabbed at the script with his cigarette, dropping ash on it, and pushed it roughly across the table to her.
‘Four nights it’s taken me to remove your formatting.’
‘That’s not writing. That’s typing,’ she muttered, as if the sneeze had freed her up. She was as astonished as he was. Wasn’t he her last chance? Why was she messing with it like this? She sneezed again, her face half covered by her tissue.
He was staring at her in disbelief, his skin deepening to purple.
‘That’s just the sort of comment I expect from a bloody book-writer,’ he snarled.
Once more, a sneeze.
‘Why do you want to work with me then?’ she heard herself ask. He blew smoke towards the ceiling.
‘I don’t. But it’s got a bloody good chance of getting up if I write it. If my name’s on it, and yours is off it.’
He watched as Cicely opened the window, fanned away the smoke. Sneezed again.
Watched in astonishment as her large and still unconquered rear end wobbled away from him. Then heard her slam the front door as she stomped outside.
Looking out the window, he saw her sitting on the fence like Humpty Dumpty. Saw her lean down and pick up a scrap of coloured litter from the footpath, smooth it out. Read it. Then pull out a battered blue notebook and scribble. She must be doing that to impress people who might pass by. He liked to write in public too.
But when alone, he faced the terror of the immaterial in an otherwise material world. The void, the abyss, the one place he could not buy his way out of.
He had even bought love, or the envy of other men, which was the same thing.
Sitting on the low brick fence outside the house, Cicely was trying to work out what was happening.
Cicely genuinely did not understand why he would want his name on something he had not written. Nor the ferocity of his anger. She had never known the terror that the white glow of a blank page held for Dragan. Her own creativity was amorphous, transferable. If she did not have the urge to write, she could just as well crochet, knit or cook. In fact, it was when she was least concerned about it that the inspiration to write seized her.
A breeze was blowing litter against her foot. She picked up a coloured picture, smoothed it out distractedly. A page from National Geographic. Idly, she started reading the description of the komodo dragon in the illustration …
She scrabbled for her notebook, then her rubber-tipped pencil. Turning over the pages of abandoned novels, with their opening given lines, then past her diagrams for wool projects, mixed with her notes on email lovers, she pressed the spine flat at a fresh page. Here she began the words that just might be the beginning of a realised novel.
As always, it was like the return of a forgotten appetite after a long illness.
The dragon is a mythical reptilian beast, often portrayed as breathing fire.
It comes out his nose and plumes upward. It comes out his mouth and stinks of cigar tobacco. It come out his pores and stains his skin yellow.
When he isn’t smoking, Dragan is asking if he can smoke, or he is stubbing one out.
The komodo dragon, Varanus komodoensis, lives in Indonesia and is commonly thought to be the largest of the dragons, but across from me at the cafe table, Dragan sat, at six feet five.
If he drank wine, his nose became a deep purple, but he rarely drank, as that risked losing control. He told others to drink in his company, so that they loosened up and revealed their souls, even if it meant they slopped beer on him. He didn’t mind. He had no soul, and hoped in this way to absorb the froth of theirs.
He didn’t know that about himself, however. He believed he knew human nature, could pinpoint the weaknesses, the desires of others, could target these for manipulation; but remained free of them himself. The actress who needed reassurance that she was still beautiful, the writer who needed money. He noted it all for future use, offering them all another round of drinks.
Dragons feast on gems.
Dragons crunch up diamonds and rubies and pearls that are cast before them.
Dragons digest them into a grey glutinous lukewarm soup with no sharp edges.
The sound of hammering from across the road.
She looked up, startled by the sound that pulled her back, it seemed, from another planet.
Spell broken now, Cicely put away her notebook and observed a car pulling away from Miss Ball’s Haberdashery, revealing display windows covered in newspaper.
And a brand new sign.
FOR LEASE.
All stock and residence upstairs.
For a moment imagining for Miss Ball the fate that had befallen her in Last Chance, Cicely’s mind then raced through other, duller, possibilities. Retirement being the most likely. Cicely had to have that lease.
She was now in no position to refuse Dragan’s terms, whatever they were.
Wondering if already she had burnt her bridges, she smoothed her hair back under her cloche, applied rather too much brown lipstick, adopted what she hoped was a winning smile and hurried back into the kitchen.
Dragan would make the script into a straight-to-trash piece of crap. It would sink without a trace. Better to let him remove her name from the script, as he seemed to so passionately want, and to replace it with his own. Better to take the money he was promising from the Fund.
And run.
Would it be too late?
Would Dragan be so angry that there would be no more fairy money from the Fund?
Inside, at the kitchen table, Dragan was waiting impatiently for her to return, rehearsing the big scene. Timing was all. He wet his lips, rolled his tongue around the delicious words. He could already hear the applause for the timing, for the Hollywood accent. The land of the one-liners was bowing to him. Flashbulbs flashed, streamers streamed.
But would she even begin to appreciate the rhythm of his first-class dialogue? Realise his victory over her? Could he reduce her to awed admiration? He needed to see it in her eyes.
He heard the door open.
As she entered the kitchen, Dragan noticed that she was a little flushed. The pink cheeks made her more attractive, and her eyes sought his. Full of promise.
No doubt she had considered, seen the error of her ways. He wouldn’t rub it in. He would be magnanimous. She seemed almost too placid now. What had she done? Popped a few pills?
She down sat at the table opposite him, smiling, waiting respectfully for him to speak first.
&
nbsp; She could see the glint of victory in his eyes. As she looked up meekly at him, she made sure that he did not spot the similar one in her own.
Last chance
STORY FROM LAST CHANCE (DELETED BY DRAGAN GREID)
{NB: ALL OTHER SCENES ARE CURRENTLY UNDER EMBARGO BY DRAGAN GREID FILM PRODUCTIONS}
‘Madame Bovary, c’est moi.’
Gustave Flaubert, in defence of his novel.
MISS EMMA BALL WORKED in a shop that sold buttons and bows, embroidery threads, knitting wools and crochet hooks to an ever-aging clientele. Her shop, called Madame Bovary’s Haberdashery, was the last of its kind in the city.
Black wools at the far end of the narrow space, reds and blues, then yellows, creams and whites next to the counter where Emma sat. She arranged the wools by colour, by ply and by ratio of wool to acrylic, in intricate systems that impressed her customers.
She picked up her embroidery, a shirred cotton peasant top for Patchouli, her much younger sister. Miss Emma Ball preferred to wear plain white shirts with picot crochet collars, and black suits which she sewed herself. Crepe in summer, wool in winter. To a discerning eye, the hems and zips were often a little crooked, but no more crooked than cheap imports from the prisons of China.
Why bother sewing when she could buy them cheaper? It was something to keep her occupied so that she didn’t have to worry about Patchouli all the time. When she had achieved her target of clothes for herself, crocheted enough collars and edged enough lawn handkerchiefs, she embroidered these peasant blouses, pulling blue and green and yellow threads through white linen, to form intricate flower patterns. (She did not know that Patchouli sold these shirts in second-hand clothes shops after a few wears.)
Emma Ball’s fingers moved over her handwork as she tut-tutted with the customers about how unbelievable it was that modern young girls didn’t sew and crochet any more. What on earth did they do, to fill in the time, the ladies wondered.
Emma Ball thought of Patchouli and her problem with reality (as the doctor had put it), and how she did fill in her time, and as usual, her left eye began to twitch.
Madame Bovary's Haberdashery Page 13
