The Grin of the Dark (3 page)

Warren's comment loiters in my head as he leads the way upstairs.
A tear in the scuffed carpet snags my heel. Bebe lets her breath be
heard when she sees the clutter in the communal bathroom. Joe's
door has acquired a poster for a troupe presumably deliberately
misspelled as Clwons Unlimited. Warren's knock brings no answer,
and the door is locked. 'I'll open up if my quarters are due for
inspection,' I say.

'That would be helpful,' says Bebe.

I was joking, and if they don't understand that, they're the joke. I
might say as much, but I've nothing to hide except how demeaned I
feel. I throw the blank anonymous door wide and switch on the light
under the tasselled Japanese shade Natalie hoped would cheer up the
room. Her parents stare in, though there isn't much to see or criticise.
My clothes are stored in the rickety wardrobe, and yesterday I
dragged the quilt over the bed. Books are lined up on shelves next to
the skeletal desk on which my computer has pride of place. 'Do tell
me what you're looking for if I can help,' I say.

'It seems to be in order,' Bebe says but gives a quick ominous sniff.

'We'll check our other properties,' says Warren, 'and then we can
run you to the gas station.'

'I'm not due for an hour yet, thanks. I've things to do here first.'

'Do say they'll be productive,' Warren urges.

I clench my fists as I watch my landlords' heads jerk puppet-like
downstairs. Warren's scalp is lichened by a green segment of the
grubby lampshade, Bebe's is tinged an angry red. Warren glances up
at me, and a smile widens his mouth. I can't take it for encouragement,
even if it glints green. Once the front door shuts I switch on
my computer. The Hallorans have said too much this time. I'll
surprise them and perhaps Natalie as well. I'm going to take charge
of my life.

All my life that's fit to print (and maybe some that
isn't):

Simon Lester. Born 1 January 1977, Preston, Lancashire. Attended
Grimshaw Street Primary School 1982–88, Winckley High School
1988–95. Grade A GCSE in English Language and Literature,
Mathematics, Spanish; B in Physics, Chemistry, Social Studies. (History
and Geography, don't ask. Would have done better if hadn't fallen in
love with cinema and set out to watch every film on multiplex/television/
tape? Doubt it.) Grade A at Advanced Level in both English subjects and
Mathematics, B in the sciences. Attended London University at Royal
Holloway College 1995–98. Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Media
Studies. Co-edited (with Colin Vernon, but would rather keep that
quiet) college film magazine
Freeze Frames
and contributed reviews and
critical essays. 1998–2000, film reviewer for
Preston Gazette
. Wrote
articles for
Sight and Sound
and
Empire
. Then –

(Emailed by Colin Vernon.
Cineassed
will be most irreverent
movie magazine ever. His father's backing the launch. Colin will put
me up in his Finchley house until I can afford a flat. Any doubts
assuaged by editorial meeting, not to mention drinks afterwards with
Natalie. Had to be worth it for meeting her. Now libel case against
the magazine and Colin in particular won't come to trial until next
year. Assets of magazine frozen. My reputation seems to be, but
mustn't let that happen to my thoughts.)

2001–02, staff writer for
Cineassed
. I highlight this onscreen and
delete it and gaze at the absence. Whenever I mention that I've written
about films, interviewers remember where they've heard of me, which
is there. In that case, should I change my name? I connect to the
Internet and search for an anagram generator. Here's a site called
Wordssword, and I type my name in the box.

The trail of anagrams leads off the screen, but I can't find a full
name that anybody rational would use. I'm encouraged to play with
my letters, however. Milton Lime could be the third man's brother,
Noel Morse would be related to the inventor of a code. I substitute
the name that convinces me most at the top of my history. As I save
the document and shut down the computer, a gust of wind rattles a
plastic chair against the garden table by the dustbin, and I imagine
evicting my old self to sit there in the dark. I wish I had time to search
for jobs tonight. Tomorrow morning I'll be at my desk before work.

My breath grows orange as I step out of the house. Once I've
tugged the door shut I take out my mobile and bring up Natalie's
number. The spider in the bush twitches its luminous web as she says
'Hello?'

'Leslie Stone here.'

'Simon? Simon.' The second version is a fond but terse rebuke.
'Listen, I'm sorry,' she says. 'My parents just showed up.'

'You're saying they're back.'

'No need to be clever with words all the time,' she says, which I
wasn't intending to be. 'I meant before. They rang me at work and I
mentioned your interview and Mark's virus, but the first I knew they
were coming was when they arrived bearing champagne and a
computer.'

'That was kind of them.'

'I still wish we'd been on our own when you brought the news.'

'Never mind, soon they'll be hearing about Leslie Stone.'

'I don't think I'm getting the joke.'

'That's because there isn't one unless you think I am. I'm going to
use a pseudonym.'

'I'll come and see in a few minutes, Mark. To write a book, you
mean?'

The idea hadn't occurred to me, but it should have. 'What do you
think?'

'They say everybody's got one in them.'

I might have liked a more personal comment. A computer illuminates
a bedroom as I tramp downhill towards the Frugoil station,
where a car honks at a petrol pump as if to remind me of Simon
Lester's status. 'Anyway, I just wanted to let you know my plans
before I start work,' I tell her.

'Good luck with them, Simon. I hope I can still call you that.'

'Call me whatever you fancy,' I say, but the horn is louder. It plays
three notes that remind me of Laurel and Hardy as the impatient
driver swings the car off the forecourt. 'Love you,' I say, and believe
I hear an echo before Natalie vacates the mobile. I pocket it and
dodge traffic across the main road.

Shahrukh scowls at me through the pay window as I reach the
pumps beneath the slab of jittery white light that roofs the forecourt.
I could imagine that he doesn't recognise me as a colleague, which
suggests I'm turning into the person I want to be. Then he slides off
the stool and tucks his overstuffed white shirt into his trousers while
he plods to unlock the door. Having opened it an inch, he says over
his shoulder 'You are late.'

I blink at my wristwatch, and the colon ahead of the minute blinks
back. 'Just a few seconds. What's that between friends?'

'You are not meant to be late. There is much work to be done.' He
wags a thumb in the direction of the clock above the shelves of
cigarettes penned behind the narrow counter. 'You are slow,' he
declares. 'That is off the bloody computer.'

I hope my silence will speed him on his way. Instead he says 'Are
you hungry? Have you eaten?'

I know him well enough to recognise a trap. 'I've had something,'
I say, though it's barely the truth.

'Do not eat any of the sandwiches that are to be thrown out. That
is stealing,' he warns me. 'In fact, do not throw them out at all. Mr
Khan will deal with them in the morning if nobody has paid to eat
them.'

'Your father will have them for breakfast, you mean.'

'Now you are ragging me. I can take a joke if it costs nothing,' he
says and points one of his fattest fingers at the refrigerator cabinet full
of plastic bottles. 'What do you see there?'

'Something else I mustn't touch?'

'A gap on the shelf, and there is another. A gap is not a sale. People
cannot buy a gap. Wherever you see an opening to be filled, put in
what should be there.'

This time my silence takes some maintaining. 'Well, I suppose I
must leave you,' he says and unhooks his fur coat from behind the
door of the small office. 'Whatever you put out, write it on the sheet
for Mr Khan to check.'

His knee-length pelt shivers in the wind as I lock the door behind
him. His blue Mercedes darts out from behind the shop, its roof
flaring like defective neon, and then I'm alone except for the security
camera that keeps watch on my trudge to the stockroom. I might
enjoy working here more if it made demands of any kind on me, but
now that I've learned the routine it leaves my mind free to observe its
own lack of employment. Perhaps Leslie Stone should plan a book.

I fetch a carton of plastic bottles and the clipboard from the
concrete room, which is grudgingly illuminated by a bulb half the
strength of the one Mr Khan took home. How about
Product
Placement
?
Placed to Sell
is catchier, but I suspect there isn't enough
to the planting of brand names in films to make a saleable book. I
slash the tape on the carton with a Stanley knife.
Death Scenes
, then?
The cinema is alive with them, and I could look at how representation
has changed since the earliest one – a reconstruction of a hanging –
and the ways in which different actors and genres handle them. Or is
the theme unmarketably grim? I scrag two bottles from the carton
with each hand and knuckle them more space in the refrigerator.
Perhaps I could have fun with –

A white Volvo cruises onto the forecourt. I'm heading for the
counter to activate the pump beside which the driver has halted when
he opens his door. As he stands up to gaze at me over the
unshadowed roof of the car my hands close into fists, or as much as
they can on the plastic necks, and I almost drop to the floor, out of
sight. He's what I've been dreading for months.

I shove the bottles into the refrigerator and slam the glass door and
straighten up from my useless belated crouch. The driver meets my
gaze and climbs into the Volvo. It backs away from the pumps as if
he's trying to retract the sight of me, and then it coasts over to the
shop. It vanishes beyond the window, and I'm able to hope that it's
gone until the driver reappears around the building. He's Rufus Wall,
and he was my film tutor.

His largely ruddy brow looks even more exposed than I remember, as
if his shaggy mane and the beard that blackens most of his wide face from
the cheekbones down have tugged his forehead barer. He's all in black:
polo neck, trousers, leather jacket and gloves. Having tried the door, he
leans his face towards the glass. 'Simon?' he says so conversationally that
I decipher rather than hear what he's saying. 'May I come in?'

Mr Khan wouldn't like it – won't, if he checks the security
recording. I'm tempted to use this as an excuse not to admit Rufus. A
wind lifts his mane, and I imagine the chill on his nearly pensionable
neck. I can't leave him standing in the cold, however awkward our
conversation is going to be. I unlock the door, and he sticks out a
hand that feels plump with leather. 'Sorry to take you away from
your task,' he says. 'I was told you'd be here.'

My reputation has sunk even lower than I thought, then. 'Who
told you?'

'Joey, was it, or just Joe?' He waits for me to lock the door, then
folds his arms and gazes at me. 'What do you think you're doing here,
Simon?'

'Shall we call it resting?'

'In the actor's sense, I take it. Do you know where you're going,
though?'

He's as persistent as ever. In tutorials that helped me clarify my
ideas. Other students weren't so comfortable with it, and I no longer
am. 'I don't know if I ever told you,' he says, 'you wrote the best
thesis I've ever had to mark.'

'Well, thank you,' I say, and an insecure bottle lolls against the
inside of the glass door as if I need reminding of my job. 'Thanks a
lot.'

'What a beginning, I still think. I read it to some of my colleagues,
how you'd asked all your film buff friends about poor old Polonsky
who was once hailed as the greatest filmmaker since Orson Welles
and every single one of them thought you meant Polanski. I can't
imagine a better way of showing how reputations get lost.'

'Maybe I'm doing that myself now.'

'It wasn't your fault your magazine was sued.' His gaze drifts to
the glossy ranks of two-dimensional breasts on the topmost shelf of
magazines. 'Wouldn't you rather be writing than selling this stuff?'

'If you know any editors to recommend me to, you can be sure I'll
be grateful.'

'I don't think I'll be passing your name on to any of those.'

I adjust the bottle in the cabinet, but turning my back on him
doesn't hide much of my bitterness. 'I'd better get on with the job I'm
paid to do, then.'

'Could I borrow some of your attention for just a few minutes?'

I shut the cabinet and fix my gaze on Rufus. 'Here's all of it.'

'That's more like my old student.' He clasps his beard as if he's
testing it for falseness and says 'Have you heard of the Tickle
bequest?'

'Sounds like a joke.'

'Not as far as you're concerned, I hope. Charles Stanley Tickell,'
he says, and this time I hear the spelling. 'One of our students
between the wars. Very much an arts man, books above all.
Apparently nothing upset him so much in the war as seeing a library
bombed. Now he's left really quite a lot of dosh to the university. We
have to use it the way he wanted, to publish books.'

'Don't you already?'

'Not many of the kind he liked. Books on the art of the last
century, and of course that includes the cinema. I've been asked if
any of my students have it in them, and you needn't wonder whose
name I told them. That's why I won't be mentioning you to any
other editors. If we can make this work, and I'm several hundred per
cent certain that we can, I'll be editing our cinema imprint until I
retire.'

Is he entrusting me with that responsibility? It's almost too much
and too abrupt, but I can't afford to be daunted. 'Do you know, I've
been thinking of books I could write.'

'Tell me.'

'
Final Films
, that would be about the last films people made and
what they show us about the cinema.
Dying to be Filmed
, about
death scenes, of course.
We're in the Movies
, that would look at how
the cinema feeds into everyday reality so much everyone takes it for
granted. And maybe there's a book in how films send up other films
and rip them off. I might call it
Haven't We Seen That Before
?'

By now I'm improvising, since Rufus is gazing at me as if he
expects more or better. 'Maybe one about dubbing,' I say in some
desperation. 'I could interview actors who've dubbed films and call it,
call it
Speaking for Ourselves
. Or how does this sound, a book about
films that were never made? Did you know the
Phantom of the Opera
Hammer made with Herbert Lom, they'd written it for Cary Grant?
And Hitchcock nearly filmed
Lucky Jim
. Who knows how much
unmade stuff there is if I can track it down.'

'If anyone can, Simon, I'm sure it's you.' Rufus is petting his beard,
a gesture that used to indicate that he was waiting for a student to
add to a presentation. 'Right now we need whatever you can turn in
quickest,' he says. 'I think you should publish your thesis.'

I open my mouth to enthuse, but perhaps I'm assuming too much.
'You mean you'd pay me for it?'

'Handsomely, so long as you revise it enough that we can call it a
new work. May I suggest how you could?'

'Go ahead. You're my editor.'

'If you can make it more entertaining, don't hesitate. I'm not
saying it isn't already, but the bigger the audience we can net the
better. Expand wherever you see the chance if you have the material.
I'd love to read more about – who was that silent comedian who's
been written out of the film histories?'

'Tubby Thackeray, you mean. I couldn't even find a footnote.'

'That's the man. I thought your paragraph on him was fascinating,
especially how he may have suffered from the Arbuckle case. People
took against him just because they thought he sounded like Fatty, you
think? There must be a chapter in him at least.'

'I'm not sure how I'd find out more than I did.'

'However you have to. Whatever you need to spend will be taken
care of. Mr Tickell isn't going to question your expenses.'

'Would I have to spend it first and claim it back?'

'That's the usual way, I believe.' Rufus searches my expression
while I try not to look too mendicant. 'But you'll see an advance as
soon as the contract's signed,' he says. 'What would you say to ten
thousand now and twenty when the book's delivered?'

It's more than I would earn in two years from both my present
jobs. 'I'd say thank you very much.'

'Maybe we can raise the stakes for your next book,' Rufus says,
perhaps a little disappointed that I wasn't more effusive. 'I don't want
to go too mad too soon. Give me your email and I'll attach a contract
to you tomorrow.'

He produces a pen and notebook from inside his jacket. Dozens of
wiry hairs spring up on the back of his hand as he tugs off his glove.
'It's [email protected],' I tell him. 'Would you like me to use a
pseudonym on the book?'

'Most decidedly not. It's restoring reputations. Let's see what it
can do for yours.'

A Triumph has pulled up on the forecourt. Like every customer for
petrol, the driver ignores the sign that asks him to pay first. He waves
the metal nozzle at me, and I step behind the counter to push the
button that starts the pump. 'I'll leave you to your duties,' Rufus says
and extends a hand across the ageing headlines of the newspapers on
the counter.

His hand feels very little less plump than it did in its glove. As I
lock the door behind him he leaves me a grin that's by no means
negated by its hairy frame, and mouths 'You'll be hearing from me.'
I return behind the counter and don my widest smile as the Triumph
driver saunters to the window. I'm going to enjoy my shift. My only
regret is that it's too late to tell Natalie my news tonight, but
tomorrow's on the way. It can be the first day of my real life.