anotherâs picture posing with hardware and props. Which wasnât me, of course, but I was different. I wasnât just a fan, I was a FAN, and not for the space ships and the shiny rifles but for the stories, the characters, the knowledge that good would always win. The sometimes painfully beautiful speeches that Gethryn delivered, some of which had made me cry, while others had made me think hard about the nature of my life.
But here, outside my window there were few stereotypes in evidence. Instead, large motherly women chatted to model-gorgeous girls, two guys wearing Skeel costumes from the series â enormous cylinders strapped to their backs, full-face helmets and full-body Lycra suits â posed for pictures alongside a trio of small children playing tag in the dust. The air was loud with greetings and sharp with promise. I could almost cut myself on my own potential, and yet here I was, hanging onto the window frame like a child waiting for Mummy. I hated myself for my weakness, ground my teeth with the desire to walk downstairs but somehow I couldnât persuade my fingers to let go.
A door opened. I could hear distinct voices from a room further up the corridor, arguing their way to their open doorway, then a pause. It gave me just long enough to scoot across to my own door and open it the crack necessary to peep out.
âAll you ever give a fuck about is your work ,â a roundly American voice was scolding. It had the Californian intonation that I recognised from TV, a voice with the carrying power and destructiveness of a razor-edged Frisbee. âDo you really not care about anything else at all? Like, say, meeting your adoring public?â
Out came a slim tanned arm. It hooked itself around the doorframe and dug its nails into the plasterwork, as if anchoring itself against the unpleasantness inside the room. I watched, fascinated. A true American domestic! Like Jerry Springer!
Inside the room, a dull, inaudible tone answered her and she snapped back.
âYeah, well, thatâs just great. Iâm your agent , itâs kinda in the job description for you to need to hang around with me! Unless, you know, you never want to work again, and thatâs just fucking ungrateful, Jack, you know that? Itâs okay, you being some big-shot writer-guy in the UK, but the network brought you over here to write TV and in the good old US of A they like to see your face, know what Iâm saying here? Hermits is for crabs!â
I had to close the door right up to a little sliver to avoid being seen when the arm was joined by the rest of the body outside the room. This gave me the narrowest of views of my welcome distraction, but it was enough to ascertain that she was very thin, wore a tiny white vest over powder-pink jeans and had hair which obeyed the laws of physics that mine broke on a regular basis. Her face matched her arms by being brown, thin and angular. Pretty in the same way that a Wheaten Terrier is; soft and silky but with a mouth capable of inflicting great damage.
I watched the slice of corridor as she swept along past me, then I opened the door a little further as her slender back disappeared towards the lift. I only just managed to withdraw into the room in time to avoid being seen when she stopped and turned. She was so beautifully framed by the window at the head of the stairs that it had to be deliberate, the hard Nevada light giving her a golden aura. âIâm tired of it,â she directed back along the landing. âHow can I sell an emotionally frigid pig?â
I had to squint through the hinges in order to eyeball the pig in question. Felt a short stab of surprise at realising it was the dark-haired man Iâd already run into twice and then a sense of inevitability that if he actually had a girlfriend she would be gorgeous and feisty. I could see how her blonde fragile beauty would complement his saturnine looks, and sheâd need to be feisty to
But here, outside my window there were few stereotypes in evidence. Instead, large motherly women chatted to model-gorgeous girls, two guys wearing Skeel costumes from the series â enormous cylinders strapped to their backs, full-face helmets and full-body Lycra suits â posed for pictures alongside a trio of small children playing tag in the dust. The air was loud with greetings and sharp with promise. I could almost cut myself on my own potential, and yet here I was, hanging onto the window frame like a child waiting for Mummy. I hated myself for my weakness, ground my teeth with the desire to walk downstairs but somehow I couldnât persuade my fingers to let go.
A door opened. I could hear distinct voices from a room further up the corridor, arguing their way to their open doorway, then a pause. It gave me just long enough to scoot across to my own door and open it the crack necessary to peep out.
âAll you ever give a fuck about is your work ,â a roundly American voice was scolding. It had the Californian intonation that I recognised from TV, a voice with the carrying power and destructiveness of a razor-edged Frisbee. âDo you really not care about anything else at all? Like, say, meeting your adoring public?â
Out came a slim tanned arm. It hooked itself around the doorframe and dug its nails into the plasterwork, as if anchoring itself against the unpleasantness inside the room. I watched, fascinated. A true American domestic! Like Jerry Springer!
Inside the room, a dull, inaudible tone answered her and she snapped back.
âYeah, well, thatâs just great. Iâm your agent , itâs kinda in the job description for you to need to hang around with me! Unless, you know, you never want to work again, and thatâs just fucking ungrateful, Jack, you know that? Itâs okay, you being some big-shot writer-guy in the UK, but the network brought you over here to write TV and in the good old US of A they like to see your face, know what Iâm saying here? Hermits is for crabs!â
I had to close the door right up to a little sliver to avoid being seen when the arm was joined by the rest of the body outside the room. This gave me the narrowest of views of my welcome distraction, but it was enough to ascertain that she was very thin, wore a tiny white vest over powder-pink jeans and had hair which obeyed the laws of physics that mine broke on a regular basis. Her face matched her arms by being brown, thin and angular. Pretty in the same way that a Wheaten Terrier is; soft and silky but with a mouth capable of inflicting great damage.
I watched the slice of corridor as she swept along past me, then I opened the door a little further as her slender back disappeared towards the lift. I only just managed to withdraw into the room in time to avoid being seen when she stopped and turned. She was so beautifully framed by the window at the head of the stairs that it had to be deliberate, the hard Nevada light giving her a golden aura. âIâm tired of it,â she directed back along the landing. âHow can I sell an emotionally frigid pig?â
I had to squint through the hinges in order to eyeball the pig in question. Felt a short stab of surprise at realising it was the dark-haired man Iâd already run into twice and then a sense of inevitability that if he actually had a girlfriend she would be gorgeous and feisty. I could see how her blonde fragile beauty would complement his saturnine looks, and sheâd need to be feisty to
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