by William Boyd
“Elfrida—can I introduce you to Bruna Casanero?” Then he bolted.
Elfrida shook Bruna Casanero’s proffered hand.
“I am the wife of Dorian,” she said.
“Lovely to meet you,” Elfrida said. “Is there a telephone nearby?”
“I show you,” she said. “Come with me.”
She followed Bruna as they weaved through the messy tables into a kind of pantry area where waiters were stacking plates and glasses. Bruna pointed to a wall-mounted telephone.
“You dial nine, you get line,” she said.
“Thank you so much,” she said. “I just want to call a taxi to take me home. I’ve had a wonderful evening.” She pointed at Bruna’s pregnant belly and said, “Maybe you should sit down, take the weight off your feet.”
“No, I’m fine,” she said. “Strong Italian woman. Do you have children?”
“I do,” Elfrida said. “I have three daughters.”
“And their names?”
“Selina, Serena and Sabrina.”
Bruna looked at her fixedly, a half-smile on her face. It was a trick Elfrida used in response to the often-asked question. Sometimes she said she had three sons: Godfrey, Geoffrey and Gregory.
“I leave you to telephone,” Bruna said and went back into the ballroom.
Elfrida helped herself to a handy half-full glass of wine and called for a taxi.
* * *
—
Talbot stepped out into the street and moved away from the surprisingly strong circle of warmth emanating from the still-glowing braziers. In a cool shadow he lit a cigarette and thought about the party. Had he enjoyed himself? No. Had he met anyone interesting? Certainly not. Had his life experience been remotely enhanced? In fact his life experience had been diminished by the patent waste of time. What had possessed Dorian to mount something so ostentatious, so lavish? Not a clue. Cui bono? No one. Then, he thought, maybe that harsh reckoning was true of all parties. Someone—some young person—had once said to him that the only reason to go to a party was to “score.” To score sex, or drugs, drink, food, gossip, contacts, influence, advancement. If you didn’t score, then that party had been a waste of your precious time. By that token he had had a pointless evening. Still, not every—
“Ah, Talbot, there you are. Thank Zeus. They told me you’d just left. Glad I caught you.”
Dorian advanced into his patch of shadow beyond the glare of his portico’s lights. He had a cigar in his hand and his red sash had slipped under his belly.
“I think I might stroll back to the hotel,” Talbot said. “Bit of fresh air. What a lovely, special evening. Thanks, Dorian. What a night.”
“Can I have a quick word, Talbot?”
“Of course.”
Dorian drew him further away from the front door and its glow—guests were leaving now in significant numbers—and led him into deeper shadow.
“This film of yours, this moving picture, that you’re shooting here in Brighton,” Dorian said. “What’s it called?”
“It’s a very stupid film with a stupid title. Emily Bracegirdle’s Extremely Useful Ladder to the Moon. We call it Ladder to the Moon. Or simply Ladder. Reduces the shame.”
“Who cares? Film titles these days make no sense. The point is, Talbot, is there a part for me in your stupid film?”
Talbot took a breath.
“We’re fully cast, Dorian. We’re halfway through the shoot.”
“So what? A cameo role. I can be someone’s rich uncle. Visiting royalty. Evil mastermind. You name it.”
“It’s just not that kind of film. You’d hate it.”
Dorian sucked heavily on his cigar and its end burned an angry, cindery red. He tossed it away into the gutter.
“Let me put it this way, Talbot, old friend. Excuse my lack of subtlety, but I need to make—need to lay my hands on—a legitimate five thousand pounds by the end of next week. It seems to me that the only feasible way that objective can be achieved is if you give me a part in your film and pay me five grand. Simple as that.”
Talbot paused, then said, “How come you can throw a party like this one and still need five thousand pounds? You must have spent—”
“No, I didn’t spend. I ordered, I demanded, I arranged. Bills will come in, in due course, and one day I may pay them. But currently, my need is very clear. Five thousand pounds by the end of next week. I can’t put it more plainly than that.”
Talbot thought again for a few moments before replying, recognising that this request hid some stranger, darker, profounder crisis in the Villiers household. He decided not to enquire further about the crisis, whatever it was.
“I’d do it like a shot, Dorian. But—excuse my lack of subtlety—if I suddenly put you in this film it will fuck everything up.”
“There’s nothing you can’t fix, Talbot.” He put a big hand on Talbot’s shoulder. “You’re one of my oldest friends. I would owe you everything. I’m asking you for this favour as a friend, one of my dearest friends. If you don’t do this for me then everything’s going to go tits up. And I mean everything.”
“Dorian, listen, you know I would—”
“I’ll be there Monday morning. A couple of days’ work. Five thou. Everything lovely again. Bless you.”
He leant forward and kissed Talbot on the cheek, Talbot smelling his sour cigar breath, and then he walked back to his vast house. What the fuck has he done? Talbot thought. What kind of desperate, shocking mess is he in? He closed his eyes and felt his stomach acids begin to churn.
* * *
—
Elfrida was told by the Rottingdean despatcher that the taxi would be waiting for her outside in fifteen minutes. Perfect, she thought, just time for a final glass of wine. She wandered back into the ballroom, emptying now, and saw the stars of Reggie’s film—what were they called? Angie and Tim?—following a man carrying a clipboard out of the room. She found a half-empty bottle of red wine and a cleanish glass that she filled before making her way into the crimson drawing room. It was smoky and noisy, still busy with guests reluctant to leave, keen to hang on to the atmosphere of revelry and indulgence. She looked around, sipping at her wine, thinking that this room was like a chapel dedicated to the greater glory of St. Dorian Villiers. There were many portraits of the great man and many black and white photographs and playbills advertising performances of his most famous roles—Lear, Tamburlaine, Archie Rice, Prospero, James Tyrone, Macbeth and, of course, many Falstaffs.
She peered closely at a framed poster for a play she didn’t recognise, White Shadow, White Wave, and she saw, reflected in a corner of its glass, almost like a tableau, a couple sitting in a corner, knee to knee, the man leaning forward to light the woman’s cigarette. A second later she realised the man was Reggie. She turned, put her wine down on a side table, and wandered over, steering herself around groups of boisterous people. Maybe Reggie would come back with her; there was no point in ordering two taxis, seeing as the party was so clearly over.
“There you are, darling,” she said. “Taxi’ll be here in five minutes. Do you want to come back with me?”
Reggie stood up and the woman with him stood also.
“Oh. Elfrida. Talbot told me you’d already gone. Do you know Janet Headstone? She’s doing some extra work on our script. Thank God.”
Elfrida saw a young blonde woman in her thirties, her hair wound up in a loose chignon, wearing a shimmering turquoise dress, tight across her heavy bust with a chasm of cleavage on display. They shook hands.
“How do you do,” Elfrida said.
“Really lovely to meet you.”
She had one of those twangy London accents, Elfrida noticed, all glottal-stop. To mee’ you.
“See you tomorrow, Jan,” Reggie said, picking up his cigarettes and lighter.
“Safe home,” Jane
t said.
Elfrida and Reggie left the room and headed for the staircase.
“She’s saved our lives, has Janet. Very smart cookie.”
“Really? Lucky you.”
Elfrida said nothing more, her brain in turmoil, concentrating on descending the staircase without falling over. Now she knew who it was.
* * *
—
The man with the clipboard led Anny and Troy into a small dining room on the ground floor to the left of the staircase. The table was laid for breakfast. Sitting at it were Detective Inspector Desmondson and Agent Radetski of the FBI.
Anny felt a bolus of vomit rise in her throat.
Troy stepped forward, taking control.
“What’s going on here, fellas? We’re at a party. You can’t just—”
“May I ask who you are, sir? We want to speak to Miss Viklund privately,” Desmondson said.
“He’s a friend,” Anny interrupted. “I want him to stay.”
Desmondson glanced at Radetski, who nodded.
“Fine with us.”
“What do you want?” Anny said.
“We have news of your husband, Cornell Weekes.”
“He’s my ex-husband. I keep telling you.”
“Apologies.”
“What about him?” Anny’s throat felt parched, now. Not a trace of saliva.
“Have you seen him recently?” Radetski asked.
“No. Not for months and months. Over a year. More.”
“He was arrested earlier this evening at Southampton docks,” Radetski said. “He was about to board a ferry to Spain. He had a considerable amount of money on him.”
“What’s all this got to do with me?” Anny said.
“Yeah, exactly,” Troy added, supportively.
“Because.” Radetski paused and glanced at Desmondson. “Because he said that the person who gave him this money was you.”
SURRENDER
1
“What’s going on, Talbot? It’s outrageous,” Reggie said, plaintively. Faux-plaintively, Talbot thought, this sort of thing happened all the time in the wonderful world of movie-making.
“It’s no mystery,” Talbot said. “We need to create a cameo role for Dorian Villiers.”
“Why the fuck?”
“Because it will help the film in its film life. Having his name attached—you know: ‘with Dorian Villiers’—will help sell the film to the world. The sales people are excited, over the moon,” he lied.
“What does Yorgos say?”
“He’s delighted, couldn’t be happier.” That much was true. Talbot had phoned him and put the suggestion to him and he instantly agreed—agreed to Dorian’s hefty fee, also. “Cheap at the price,” he said. In fact Talbot had floated the idea precisely to gauge Yorgos’s response knowing that the nature of the response would confirm or cancel his suspicions. The speed of Yorgos’s acquiescence duly provided the sign, and it did indeed increase his suspicions. Something was going on, Yorgos wanted to keep Talbot happy. And they still had to survive their face-to-face regarding the contract for Burning Leaves. Talbot now had the feeling he could ask for anything and Yorgos would accommodate him—anything to keep him sweet. It was worrying.
He and Reggie were sitting in Talbot’s office at the end of the day’s shooting. Talbot fetched his bottle of whisky and poured them both a glass.
“Well, you’re the boss,” Reggie said a little sulkily. “What kind of a role could Dorian have?”
“I don’t know. He could be some kind of fantasy figure, an apparition, some creature of Emily Bracegirdle’s imagination.” He suddenly had an idea. “Why don’t we ask Janet to dream up something? We’re talking two or three pages, a couple of days’ filming, maximum. Janet writes it, we shoot it, if it’s no good we might not use it. Dorian only wants to be paid for work done.”
“Tax?” Reggie asked, knowingly.
“It could be anything.”
“Well, you can ask Janet,” Reggie said. “I refuse. It’s your idea.”
“All right, I will. With pleasure. By the way, it’s not an ‘idea,’ it’s a scheme, a tactic. This way we get a movie giant in our film. Nothing to lose, everything to win.”
Reggie didn’t look convinced.
“I’ll swing by Janet’s this evening,” Talbot continued. “She can dash something off. We’re paying her all this money, she might as well earn it.”
“Janet Headstone has already saved this film.”
“Then writing a couple of extra pages for Dorian Villiers will be like…” He searched for a simile. “Like falling off a log.”
Reggie was thinking. “I suppose ‘with Dorian Villiers’ does add a certain cachet.”
“Exactly. Worth every penny.”
“Just how many pennies are we paying the old bastard?”
“Still negotiating,” Talbot lied again. “Will you call Janet and tell her to expect me around seven?”
Talbot was late when he arrived at Janet Headstone’s house in Kemp Town—it was closer to eight o’clock so he told the driver not to wait. He rang the doorbell and Janet answered, wearing a red and black kimono above bare feet. He noticed her toenails were painted black. She was very pleased to see him, somewhat to his surprise, and as they wandered through to the kitchen, chatting, he wondered if she was a bit “high.” He could never be sure with drugs—what people smoked or injected or sniffed or what pills were popped. They sat down round the pine table and Janet made them both gin and tonics, Talbot trying not to have seemed to have noticed the roll and sway of her heavy breasts beneath the silk of the kimono, the lapels of which were beginning to gape alarmingly. She was definitely “stoned,” he decided. She lit a cigarette as Talbot told her about the Dorian Villiers situation and the need to create a small role for him.
“Where did this brilliant notion spring from?” she asked.
“It was an idea we had—seeing as Dorian’s actually in Brighton, living here. Capitalise.”
“And he can be anything?”
“Anything that fits into a couple of days’ filming.”
“Is Rodrigo happy?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s on cloud nine but he hasn’t said no.”
Janet thought. “Villiers could be an old tramp—some old dosser Emily meets when she goes on the run.”
“Ah. I don’t think we actually want him in a scene with Emily—with Anny, I mean. Maybe he could be some sort of apparition—something in one of our dream sequences. A wizard, you know. A spectre.”
“What if he was the ghost of her grandfather?”
“Not bad.”
“We’ve got that bit where Emily’s wandering around in the dark, lost, looking for somewhere to sleep. It’s raining, she’s hungry. She huddles in a doorway—goes to sleep.”
“And is troubled by a dream of her old grandad.”
Janet waved her cigarette around.
“Some sort of sleazy old geezer, admonishing her,” she improvised. “The ghost of the past. You know, maybe cursing her or something.”
“Like it.”
She stood up and paced about the kitchen, continuing her extemporisation, the speed of her progress up and down the room, to and fro, causing the skirt of her kimono to separate, revealing her pale sturdy legs and thighs. Talbot was half-listening, finding himself wondering if she and Reggie were having a full-blown affair. Quite probably, he reckoned, Reggie’s reputation encouraged the surmise. He just hoped poor Elfrida didn’t find out until after their film was finished.
Janet sat down with a bump that made the table shiver.
“Couple of pages should do it. Nice long monologue,” she said.
“As long as it’s enough for two full days’ work for Dorian. If we shoot a lot then we can always use bits in flashback if we want.”
<
br /> “Got you. When do you need this by?”
“Sometime tomorrow would be ideal. Then we can get him in next week.” Talbot had managed to push Dorian back by a couple of days. He didn’t want a cheque, he wanted cash and Talbot said that would take a little longer. I’ll sort everything out with my agent, Dorian had said. Best to keep it between us at the moment.
“Are you sure Rodrigo’s happy? It sounds like something he’d hate,” Janet asked.
“I think he’s becoming used to the idea. He can see the commercial advantages,” Talbot said carefully, knowing Janet would telephone him as soon as she could. He finished his drink and said he should be going. Janet walked him to the door and, to his surprise, kissed him goodbye.
“We must try and work together,” she said. “I mean, properly. Make a proper film together.”
“Any day. A pure pleasure.”
“I’ve written this script. It’s a bit autobiographical. Actually, it’s very autobiographical.” The thought made her laugh, quite heartily. “I’d love you to read it.”
“Send it along,” Talbot said, feeling a familiar weariness descend on him, as he envisaged significant portions of his future involved with Janet Headstone’s autobiographical film script.
“What’s it called?” he asked, trying to show willing.
“Turmoil.” She pointed at him, her forefinger unsteady, wavering in front of his eyes. “It’ll be fucking brilliant, Talbot.”
Outside, Talbot lit a cigarette. Turmoil—good title for a film about his life, currently. He felt that his life, his professional life, was beginning to accelerate out of control. Or crumble away, like a sandcastle undermined by a rising tide. A rising tide of complications and then more complications. This film, Ladder to the Moon, was like weather: both unpredictable and unavoidable. You had no idea what the next day would bring, but it would bring something: wind, rain, sun, storms, drought. The simple overriding ambition was to survive, to maintain some degree of normality. He needed another drink. Surely there must be a pub somewhere in the neighbourhood…
