prickly beard ruining her complexion. He
took this seriously because of the film; she was gorgeously photogenic.
Claire
never waited up for him. Why not? he wondered in his fury, and there and then,
at five-thirty in the morning, several times rang up his daughter Marigold to
cover her with insults about her flat-chested puritanism and jibes about her
husband’s extra-marital evasions of duty.
‘Pa, I’m
writing a book. I went to bed late and you woke me up,’ said Marigold.
‘What’s
the book about? The abominations of sexual marriage?’
‘It’s
called Redundancy and the Self-Employed.’ She added, ‘That basically
means people like you, Pa. And while we’re on personal subjects, your nose is
far too long, it sticks out. If I were an artist painting your portrait I’d
make it look like a late-comer at a party compared with and joining the rest of
your features. Small breasts are very good under clothes.’
‘Sometimes,’
he said, ‘you sound quite intelligent and almost human. I don’t say you are so
but you sound so. And only sometimes. You need a man to wake you up, and that’s
the truth, Marigold.’
Tom no longer needed his
nurse. Twice a week for three-quarters of an hour, he succumbed to a physiotherapist
who took him through his exercises. The Greek masseur, Ron, came every Saturday
afternoon. Tom missed his crew of attendants and confidants. Their personal
histories which he had become acquainted with were now lost to him forever like
television serials broken off and never resumed. The last of the nurses to go
was Tom’s day nurse Julia. He had got used to the developing stories of her
three children and her husband. Julia herself had another job to go to but her
husband, second mechanic in a garage, whose job had seemed so safe, was made
redundant the week before her job with Tom came to an end. He had asked her to
keep in touch, let him know how the family were doing. He never heard.
He felt
that all through his illness from the accident and convalescence, he had been
directing a film, interviewing interminable faces for casting with a mixture
of critical scrutiny, cynicism and sincere involvement which, to him,
represented sixty per cent of a film. It was a surrealistic process, this
casting and creatively feeling at the same time. At the initial stages faces
and shapes affected the form of his movies much more than the screenplay
itself. Until a film was three-quarters completed, when people asked him what
the film was ‘about’, he simply laughed in their faces.
Tom
mused: ‘I fell off my perch. Now I want a divorce from my past ideas. How do I
achieve this?’
Let
us go then, you and I,…
Dave
the taxi-driver, expensive but true friend that he was, sat in the driver’s
seat negotiating the traffic. Tom sat beside him, so rich as he was, so
democratic. ‘What you never say,’ Dave remarked, ‘is what your film’s about.’
Tom
laughed.
‘Why
laugh? It’s a question. You talk about your film, this image, that impression,
so on, so on. You cut, you save and you scrap. But what’s it about?’
‘A
girl,’ said Tom. ‘A girl I saw one day on a campsite in France. I stopped for a
coffee at a stall on the edge of the camp. A girl was making hamburgers. She
was nothing much, just a girl. But I saw her in a frame. When I see people in
frames I know I want to make a film of just that picture.’
‘Pictures
inside frames,’ said Dave.
‘That’s
really all there is to it,’ said Tom. ‘The title of the movie is at present The
Lump Sum… ’
The
Lump Sum … Tom knew that his film would not end up with that title. But how
he longed in his wish-dream to settle a lump sum on that young, poor hamburger
woman. To do it in an anonymous way so that she never knew how or why this
fortune had come to her. It would have to be untraceable. What would be the
consequence to her?
She
could be initially shocked, incredulous, then gradually indifferent, accepting
her vast
took this seriously because of the film; she was gorgeously photogenic.
Claire
never waited up for him. Why not? he wondered in his fury, and there and then,
at five-thirty in the morning, several times rang up his daughter Marigold to
cover her with insults about her flat-chested puritanism and jibes about her
husband’s extra-marital evasions of duty.
‘Pa, I’m
writing a book. I went to bed late and you woke me up,’ said Marigold.
‘What’s
the book about? The abominations of sexual marriage?’
‘It’s
called Redundancy and the Self-Employed.’ She added, ‘That basically
means people like you, Pa. And while we’re on personal subjects, your nose is
far too long, it sticks out. If I were an artist painting your portrait I’d
make it look like a late-comer at a party compared with and joining the rest of
your features. Small breasts are very good under clothes.’
‘Sometimes,’
he said, ‘you sound quite intelligent and almost human. I don’t say you are so
but you sound so. And only sometimes. You need a man to wake you up, and that’s
the truth, Marigold.’
Tom no longer needed his
nurse. Twice a week for three-quarters of an hour, he succumbed to a physiotherapist
who took him through his exercises. The Greek masseur, Ron, came every Saturday
afternoon. Tom missed his crew of attendants and confidants. Their personal
histories which he had become acquainted with were now lost to him forever like
television serials broken off and never resumed. The last of the nurses to go
was Tom’s day nurse Julia. He had got used to the developing stories of her
three children and her husband. Julia herself had another job to go to but her
husband, second mechanic in a garage, whose job had seemed so safe, was made
redundant the week before her job with Tom came to an end. He had asked her to
keep in touch, let him know how the family were doing. He never heard.
He felt
that all through his illness from the accident and convalescence, he had been
directing a film, interviewing interminable faces for casting with a mixture
of critical scrutiny, cynicism and sincere involvement which, to him,
represented sixty per cent of a film. It was a surrealistic process, this
casting and creatively feeling at the same time. At the initial stages faces
and shapes affected the form of his movies much more than the screenplay
itself. Until a film was three-quarters completed, when people asked him what
the film was ‘about’, he simply laughed in their faces.
Tom
mused: ‘I fell off my perch. Now I want a divorce from my past ideas. How do I
achieve this?’
Let
us go then, you and I,…
Dave
the taxi-driver, expensive but true friend that he was, sat in the driver’s
seat negotiating the traffic. Tom sat beside him, so rich as he was, so
democratic. ‘What you never say,’ Dave remarked, ‘is what your film’s about.’
Tom
laughed.
‘Why
laugh? It’s a question. You talk about your film, this image, that impression,
so on, so on. You cut, you save and you scrap. But what’s it about?’
‘A
girl,’ said Tom. ‘A girl I saw one day on a campsite in France. I stopped for a
coffee at a stall on the edge of the camp. A girl was making hamburgers. She
was nothing much, just a girl. But I saw her in a frame. When I see people in
frames I know I want to make a film of just that picture.’
‘Pictures
inside frames,’ said Dave.
‘That’s
really all there is to it,’ said Tom. ‘The title of the movie is at present The
Lump Sum… ’
The
Lump Sum … Tom knew that his film would not end up with that title. But how
he longed in his wish-dream to settle a lump sum on that young, poor hamburger
woman. To do it in an anonymous way so that she never knew how or why this
fortune had come to her. It would have to be untraceable. What would be the
consequence to her?
She
could be initially shocked, incredulous, then gradually indifferent, accepting
her vast
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