Читать книгу The Confessions Collection - Rosie Dixon, Timothy Lea - Страница 79

‘Have you noticed how pale Rosie is looking these days?’ says Sidney the morning after the caravan incident.

‘She doesn’t get out enough,’ I tell him. ‘Spends too much time cooped up indoors.’

‘You’re right,’ says Sid. ‘I’ll have a word with her about it. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t take Jason and Nicholas to the Cromby for a bit.’

Nicholas is the infant sprog Noggett so named virtually over my dead body. I mean! Nicholas Noggett! It sounds like a novel by Monica Dickens, doesn’t it? Not that there is much you can put with Noggett that does not sound ridiculous or dead common. Sid’s children would be better off just having initials.

‘You do that, Sidney,’ I say. ‘And now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and get kitted out for my part.’

Sidney winces because he is dead jealous that I am appearing in the picture. He would be happy for me to be clapper boy if he thought I was going to catch my dick in the board. He keeps ranting on about lashing out money as if the whole of his investment in the movie was going into my pocket.

The scene I am appearing in takes place in the recently restored Cock Tavern and features Bill Sikes and Nancy becoming acquainted over a few beers. I am only just getting used to the fact that none of the scenes are being shot in sequence and, in fact, we seem to be making the film backwards.

Besides Glint Thrust and Dawn Lovelost, who loathe each other, there are a large number of extras including some very handsome chicks none the worse for wearing off the shoulder costumes which are practically off everything. We are supposed to represent the tavern regulars and Ken Loser picks up a megaphone and ascends a stepladder to tell us what to do.

‘You are suppressed, reviled, downtrodden, miserable and helpless,’ he tells us. ‘Above all you are hungry. A hunger of the spirit as well as of the body. Your only food is each other’s mouths to be seized, devoured, fed upon in a manner the enlightened watcher can only regard as cannibalistic – evidence of how working-class solidarity is starved to death by inhuman capitalism. Yes, what is it?’ He breaks off to address one of the studio security men who has appeared at the foot of his ladder.

‘Excuse me, Mr Loser, sir, but your Rolls is blocking the entrance to the staff canteen.’

‘Don’t interrupt me while I’m creating, you numbskull!’ snarls Loser, ‘see my chauffeur. My God! Did Eisenstein have to put up with this?’ Nobody seems to know the answer to that one so he continues with his instruction. ‘So remember, use your bodies like weapons. When you embrace you are preying on each other. Your lips are wine, your bodies bread. Devour! Devour! Devour!’

I must say Loser knows how to get results. The clapper boy has not finished doing his stuff before a big, dark bird pulls me on to her mouth like I am an oxygen mask, and tries to suck all my teeth out. For a moment I am a bit taken aback but a glance round the set tells me that nobody else is bothering to exchange visiting cards so I get stuck in with a will – or willy as it is more commonly known. Really! Some of the things that are going on about me I would not credit if they were happening at a Young Conservatives’ wine and cheese party, let alone in front of a dirty great movie camera. People seem to have no shame these days. I have not seen so much groping since grandma’s dentures rolled under the table at Aunty Helen’s silver wedding knees-up and Dad went after them with Mrs. Blackburn. The miserable old git is a completely different proposition with a few ales inside him as Mrs. B found out to her cost.

‘Combine! Conjoin,’ bellows Loser through his megaphone. ‘You’re hungry, savage beasts rebelling against a million years of serfdom!’

‘Oh baby, baby!’ groans the bird I am grappling with, ‘do it to me! Do it to me!’ I must say that with all the writhing bodies around me and Loser doing an Ike Turner through his megaphone, the prospect does seem one not to be sniffed at.

‘To think we get paid for this,’ I pant as I feel my friend’s rearside shock absorbers bouncing against my tightening fingers.

‘It’s extra for physical contact,’ groans the chick. ‘The union demands it.’

The union is not the only one, I think to myself as strong female fingers plunder Percy’s private pad. I turn my head and the couple next to me are actually having it away on the trestle table.

‘Have you ever worked for Ken before?’ breathes my friend; ‘he’s fantastic – he gets things out of you that you never knew you had.’

My dark-haired chum is obviously a lady after Loser’s own heart, although I knew I had what she is getting out.

‘OK, cut!’ howls Loser. I sit up obediently but around me the set is still a writhe riot.

‘CUT!’ Still not a sausage. The couple on the table seem to have gone into orbit.

‘Oh baby, let’s use it while we’ve got it,’ pants my eager little friend. ‘We’re just two grains of sand on the beach of time. Tomorrow we’ll be infinity.’ This is a subject I would like to discuss further but Loser roars down his stepladder and starts breaking up the action with his riding crop.

‘Cut! Cut! Cut!’ he hollers. ‘There’s plenty of time for that in the deathbed scene.’

‘Too bad,’ says my chum, giving my old man an affectionate squeeze. ‘Maybe we’ll meet in the next orgy.’

‘I’ll keep my fly open for you,’ I say wittily.

‘That was a bit saucy, wasn’t it?’ says Sid when I speak to him a few minutes later.

‘It didn’t worry you at all?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you don’t think all that groping and stuff is a bit – er, well?’

‘Not if it’s art, Timmo. I have no complaints at all. Mr Tymely explained all about Mr Loser and how he is trying to liberate the hidden meaning of the subtext and how he is seeking to shock people out of their complacency. I think it’s very good. He’s socially committed, you see. As long as the sex and violence is used for a didactic purpose it must be all right, mustn’t it?’

It is obvious that Sidney has been nobbled. Words like ‘subtext’ and ‘didactic’ fall from his gob more rarely than pig’s trotters from a horse chestnut tree.

‘It can’t be bad for raking in a few shekels at the box office either, can it?’

Sidney shakes his head as if wounded. ‘You look too closely for the profit motive sometimes, Timmo,’ he says sadly. ‘There are other things, you know.’

I feel like being very unkind and asking him for a list of three that does not include moola but am prevented by being called back to the set. This time I am forming part of the background to a scene featuring Bill Sikes and Nancy, or Glint Thrust and Dawn Lovelost as their agents call them – which is probably very rarely.

As already mentioned, Glint and Dawn find it marvellously easy to resist each other and their only interest is booze. When not trying to ram his nasty up anything in a skirt that does not talk with a Scots accent and wear a sporran, Glint is frequently to be observed holding a bottle of the hard stuff at an angle of forty-five degrees above his parched lips. Dawn is more discreet in her booze intake and takes most of her snifters in her dressing room where all her scent bottles are rumoured to be full of brandy.

Whatever the source of intake, there is no doubt that both Glint and Dawn have had a very adequate ration of liquor before coming on to the set and a whiff of their breath would be enough to kill a St Bernard’s sense of smell stone dead for three weeks. In such a condition it might be persuaded to rescue Ken Loser, whose sheepskin is currently ponging something rotten.

‘Right, Lovelost,’ says the ageing boy genius, favouring Dawn’s shoulder with his arm. ‘I want you to give everything you’ve got.’

‘Is that the best she can do?’ sneers Glint.

‘Shut your face, you piggish lout,’ snaps Dawn. ‘Why don’t you concentrate on remembering your lines or, better still, write them on the back of a whisky bottle so you’ll always have them with you.’

‘Darlings, keep this tension. This is wonderful,’ hisses Loser. ‘Now Dawn, remember. First the knife through his hand pinning it to the table, then the mulled wine in his face. Glint, grab her by the hair and drag her across the table. You revile her then kiss her. Hold it while we pan from the kiss to the blood spurting from your hand. Have you got that, Mac?’

‘Got it.’

‘Extras crowd round as the knife goes in. Emote, erupt.’

‘Interrelate?’ says a voice hopefully.

‘If you want to, but the camera will be on the protagonists. Right, ready? Roll ’em.’

‘Blimey,’ murmurs the extra sitting next to me. ‘This coffee tastes like cold piss.’

‘So today it’s cold.’

‘Yeah. But I’ve never known it taste like this.’

‘Where did you get it from?’

‘From the urn. Blimey. Do you know what I think? They’ve put the stuff that’s supposed to be mulled wine in the urn and the coffee –’

‘Oo-o-o-o-oow!’ My friend is right. Glint collects a face full of hot coffee and his scream shakes the dust off the roof girders. ‘You bitch!’ Dawn cops a meaty left-hander.

‘You sod!’ Dawn’s fingers rake Glint’s cheek.

‘Filthy whore!’ Glint has both hands round her throat and is shaking hard.

‘You’re impotent! Impotent! Impotent!’

‘How dare you,’ shrieks Glint. ‘They call me “stud”!’

‘It should be “collar-stud” from all accounts,’ croaks Dawn.

‘Cut!’ shouts Loser. ‘That was beautiful, beautiful! What a performance! I haven’t seen such acting since we set fire to Joan of Arc for real. OK, Glint, you can put her down now. I said “put her down.” Glint! Glint!’

Eventually three of us manage to pull Thrust off her and he is carried away to his caravan demanding a bottle of scotch wrapped up in a warm starlet.

Dawn is less easily comforted and moans fitfully for almost ten minutes before we can get her onto her feet. During that time she has ‘sipped’ her way through three tumblers of neat brandy.

‘What fantastic commitment,’ burbles Loser. ‘I feel like a lightning conductor.’

It is occurring to me that this geezer is definitely round the twist and I wonder how long it is going to be before Sidney tumbles to the same conclusion. Several thousand pounds later as usual, I expect.

We lead Miss Lovelost back to her dressing room and I am fortunate enough to get my first supporting role on the left hand side of her body. This is in good shape and an ideal match for the right hand side of her soft and curvy frame. The upholstery may be on the move, but there is no doubt about the class of the article underneath.

‘Wait a minute,’ she wheezes as I attempt to follow my helpmate from her presence. ‘Can you give me a glass of water before you go?’

Naturally, such a request is well within my power and I watch with interest as she applies a trace of brandy flavouring to ‘take the taste away’ as she puts it. When I say trace I mean about enough to drown a guinea pig in. ‘Thank you, darling,’ she breathes – and what a breath. ‘I haven’t seen you before, have I?’ This is always a difficult question to answer but I nod agreeably and grant my eyes the freedom of her battered bodice.

‘Oh dear, I’m popping out all over the place,’ says Dawn. ‘Still, I’m certain you’ve seen worse.’

‘Oh, much worse,’ I assure her. ‘In fact I’d say you had a lovely figure.’

‘You should have seen me when I was first discovered. I was known as “The Made to Measure” girl. Betty Grable’s legs, Jane Russell’s bosom–’ ‘Trigger’s thirst,’ I think to myself. ‘Men beat a path to my door. They had to pile the flowers outside my dressing room for fear they’d use up all the oxygen.’

‘Not a word of that surprises me,’ I say. ‘I only wish I had a handful of blooms to thrust before you at this moment.’

I always find it easy to chatter to birds when they are pissed because in that condition I reckon they are not suddenly going to turn round and say ‘what are you on about, you stupid berk?’ With a chick who is totally compos mentis, my natural inferiority complex and fear of rebuff makes me more wary and tongue-tied. Fascinating, isn’t it? OK, so you don’t go in for deep psychological insights. See if I care.

‘You’re sweet,’ murmurs Dawn, touching me lightly with her hand. ‘It’s comforting to know that everybody on this awful movie isn’t a complete savage. Help yourself to a drink, darling.’

I ferret around for a glass and fix myself a small brandy. Experience of this kind of situation suggests to me that Miss Lovelost may be on the point of seeking comfort for the inner woman.

‘Cheers!’

‘Cheers!’

‘You don’t find my disarray too distracting?’

‘I do, but in the nicest possible way.’

‘You are a sweet boy. Very, very sweet.’ With these encouraging words she slides an arm round my neck and draws me down onto her generous mouth. When I say generous, I mean like it is trying to give me a second tongue. I don’t know whether it is the power of her kissing or the smell of brandy on her lips but I feel as if I am passing out in a burning refinery.

‘That was nice, wasn’t it?’ she murmurs, allowing me to escape for air. ‘Why don’t you turn the key in the lock? I don’t want to be disturbed while we’re talking.’

I have not been conscious of a lot of rabbit in the last few moments but I do not argue the point. This lady may well have much to teach a struggling young actor. I have always been prepared to bend over backwards in order to enjoy the fruits of other people’s experience. I dart across the room to perform the small service required of me and, from the door, treat her to a look of brooding intensity borrowed from an old Laurence Olivier film I saw on telly. She extends a graceful arm and it is obvious that we are going to make beautiful music together.

‘Don’t move,’ I murmur. ‘I always want to remember you like that.’

‘Come to me, you foolish boy,’ she burbles. ‘Don’t you realise this is madness?’

‘If this is madness then I envy every lunatic in the world.’ I collide with her cakehole and we enjoy the kind of kiss that would have been cut by fifteen seconds when Lassie was a puppy and still have had the film picketed by the Clapham Women’s Institute. Suddenly she breaks away and turns her head dramatically to one side.

‘But it can’t work. We’re being fools. Blind, stupid fools.’

‘Because you’re a rich, beautiful, talented star with fantastic knockers and I’m only a struggling extra? That’s no reason why we can’t snatch our moment of happiness. Oh, Dawn, Dawn. This was meant to be. It was written in the sky.’ If only one had music this could be really beautiful but unfortunately the only accompaniment is supplied by one of the grips turning up his transistor to get the racing results.

‘We can’t!’

‘We can!’

‘We shouldn’t!’

‘We must!’

‘Oh, Rupert!’

‘Dawn!’

I don’t know where she gets the Rupert from and I don’t care very much either. Probably one of the old movies she starred in. With practised ease she sinks back along the sofa and raises one knee so that the outline of her thigh swells temptingly. As my mouth adjusts to her new position, I drop my hand to her ankle and move it lightly up her extended leg under cover of her long skirt. Her skin is as soft as the inside of a tenderised marshmallow and I feel Percy lurching forward eagerly as my fingers send back the glad tidings. Fantastic thing, the human body, isn’t it? Just by looking at something you can make instant bone. Dawn’s hand slides round behind my neck and her fingers entwine themselves deep in my hair as she moulds my mouth against hers. I am now getting so used to the brandy fumes that I am hardly aware of them. Catching an eyeful of tempting tit I start to withdraw my mitt in order to get to grips with it but Dawn pins my pandy between her thighs and joggles them up and down in a gesture rather more inviting than an ‘at home’ card from your friendly local abattoir. Always try to keep the customer satisfied, is one of the golden rules I learned at my father’s knee – in fact it was somebody else’s knee I learned it at, but that is another story – as the builder said when his client asked him where the bedrooms were.

I move my trusty left hand forward, wondering idly how many battalions of fingers have passed this way before, and silently congratulate Charlie Dickens on having written his immortal classic before tights were invented. How delightful not to have to risk breaking your wrists when indulging in a spot of digit dunking. Encouraging moans suggest that Dawn likes what is happening at lap level, as does the eager pressure of her fingers against the front door of my brushed-denim flare-bottoms. Oh dear! Times without count I have bemoaned the lack of self-jettisoning clobber which could be instantly shed at moments like this, but the manufacturers refuse to do anything about it. There is nothing more passion pricking than trying to preserve physical contact whilst struggling out of skin-tight threads.

In the present situation I join Dawn on her couch and we entwine our arms and make a brave attempt to unlumber each other. Dawn’s dress is laced in at the back like a corset and I make no more impression on it than I would on a roll of chicken wire. Dawn has an easier task and Percy bounces out to make new friends before you can say Roger Carpenter. So far, so average but, capable performer that she is, Dawn cannot get my jeans below thigh level and I eventually have to disengage myself and finish the job.

‘That’s enough,’ says Dawn. Sensitive readers need not alarm themselves as I did for a moment. What she means is that enough articles of clothing have been removed for sexual congress to be joined. This is not strictly true in her case but after a rhythmic twist of the wrist and a little help from her arched back I am able to introduce her panties to my discarded Y-fronts. Now all that stands between us and our deserved ration of ecstasy is whoever it is tapping on the door of the dressing room.

‘Are you feeling all right?’ says Justin’s voice. ‘Yes’ would be my answer to that one as Dawn’s petal pandies pop Percy into her pork pantry.

‘I’m feeling better.’

‘Is there anything you need?’

‘I’ve got all I want at the moment, thank you, darling.’ Dawn winks at me and pulls me closer, gritting her teeth.

‘I’ll have you called in ten minutes.’

‘Make it twenty, darling. I need every second I can get.’

‘OK, darling,’ calls Justin. ‘Don’t let it get on top of you.’

Half an hour later I am on the set feeling exhausted but elated. Under the spotlights Dawn is doing her thing and I can bathe in the satisfaction of thinking that a few minutes before I was doing it too. There can’t be many extras who have had a star role – or roll – in their first picture.

‘Did you have a nice time?’ I am being whispered at by a thin, long-haired youth with a complexion so bad that the pimples are queuing up for vacant pores.

‘What do you mean?’ I hiss.

‘You were having it off with Fanny Freelove, weren’t you?’

The age of romance has obviously snuffed it. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Come off it. I saw you go in there. And I saw you when you came out. She doesn’t only make the movie, that one. She makes everybody on the set as well. She uses blokes like corn plasters.’

‘Who told you that?’ I snarl, feeling not a little aggrieved to think that my experience has been by no means novel.

‘Nobody told me. I found out the hard way.’ The odious little jerk nudges me in the ribs. ‘Do you get it? “Hard” way.’

I am still dead narked that evening when I return to Scraggs Lane with Sidney. We are putting up there, or as Sidney has it: putting up with it there. Dad obviously returns the feeling.

‘How’s bleeding Lilian Gish today, then?’ he says, flicking my hair contemptuously. ‘How’s the audience supposed to know whether you’re a girl or a feller?’

‘He keeps waving his dick at the camera,’ says Sid. ‘Come off it, Dad. Why don’t you leave him alone?’

‘You mind your own bleeding business, sponger,’ snarls Dad. ‘It’s marvellous, isn’t it? You can afford to make bleeding films but you can’t lay out a few bob on a hotel room. Oh, no. It’s round to Rosie’s Mum and Dad with a box of Maltesers – not even bleeding After Eights.’

‘I thought you encouraged show-biz personalities around here. What about little Jason?’

‘That’s different. He’s flesh and blood, isn’t he?’

‘What do you think I am, mashed potatoes?’

‘You know what I mean. He’s one of the family. He’s Rosie’s kid.’

‘Yeah, but I’m his Dad. Doesn’t that count for anything?’

‘Not with me it doesn’t. You haven’t got any of my blood inside you.’

‘What a disgusting thought. I reckon if you ever became a blood donor they’d be pushed to find anyone to give your stuff to.’

‘Don’t worry, mate. I wouldn’t give you none. Not if you were going baggy at the knees.’

‘Charming!’ says Mum. ‘That’s not a very nice thing to say, is it? I don’t like all this talk about blood when I’m trying to eat.’

‘ “Trying” is the operative word,’ says Sid. ‘This bit of liver, I mean – it is liver, I suppose?’

‘’Course it is,’ snorts Dad. ‘What did you think it was, shoe leather?’

‘Now you come to mention it,’ says Sid, putting down his fork and snapping his fingers, ‘that’s exactly what I was thinking. Either that or one of those stick-on rubber soles.’

‘Don’t you like it well done, dear?’ says Mum.

‘Not so you could light the fire with it. I mean, you know that Bisto we went to the other day, Timmo?’

‘Bistro.’

‘Yeah, like I said. Well, those Italians knew how to cook kidneys and liver and stuff like that, didn’t they? All the natural juices were still there.’

‘Don’t be disgusting!’ snarls Dad. ‘And don’t talk to me about Eyeties. I had enough of them during the war.’

‘Yeah, I remember. You were the only prisoner of war they ever took, weren’t you?’

‘I thought you spent all your time fire-watching,’ I chip in.

‘Sitting in front of the fire in an armchair. That’s all the fire watching he ever did.’

‘Don’t you talk to me about the war, sonny.’ Dad’s finger starts waving under Sidney’s nose. ‘I’m not going to bandy words with you on that subject.’

‘Bandy legs, that’s more your mark.’

‘Shut up! I’ve had enough of being insulted in my own home. If you don’t like it here, push off! I’ve said that to you a hundred times.’

‘Would you like some more liver, dear?’ says Mum. Sidney buries his face in his hands and shakes it slowly from side to side.

‘I’ll have it, Mum,’ I say quickly. Being raised on Mum’s cooking has given me the constitution of a rock lizard.

‘All this film business,’ grumbles Dad. ‘When are we going to see something, then? I’ve never heard of any of these people. Ken Loser. Who’s he when he’s at home?’

‘Just about the biggest talent in pictures today, that’s all,’ snorts Sid. ‘Even you must have seen some of the stuff he’s done on the telly.’

‘All that blasphemous muck, was it? All that sex and violence. That’s not how I remember Little Women.’

‘Yeah, but you watched to the bitten end, didn’t you? I didn’t see your hand sneaking out for the knob. Not that one anyway.’

‘It’s true, Dad,’ I say hurriedly. ‘He’s – er, a very talented bloke.’

‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ grunts Dad.

‘I’d like to show you him in action,’ says Sid, ‘but he’s very strict about visitors on the set. He had a bit of a barney with Rosie.’

‘We heard about that,’ says Mum. ‘He said some terrible things.’

‘It’s the same with all these highly-strung artistic people,’ says Sid. ‘They’re very edgy. Little things upset them.’

‘It is a pity,’ says Mum. ‘I’ve always wanted to see the inside of a film studio. All those cameras and lights and things.

‘Well,’ says Sid. ‘There’s no reason why you shouldn’t see round the studio when they’re not shooting. You can do that any time. Like now, if you like.’

‘Ooh! Do you hear that, Father? That does sound exciting,’ squeaks Mum. ‘Better than the telly, eh? I’ll just serve up the sweet then we can be off. What would you like, Sidney? Bread and butter pudding or semolina?’

‘I think if we’re going back to the studio I’d better fill the car up,’ says Sid, rising hurriedly. ‘I’ll pick you all up in ten minutes.’

Sidney has made a wise decision, as anybody who has tackled Mum’s semolina would be the first to admit. The only good thing about it is the dollop of jam, and I always save that ’til last as a reward for not throwing up.

Despite the fact that we tell her nobody is going to be there, Mum still spends twenty minutes tarting herself up and is in a rare state of excitement as she settles down in the back of Sidney’s Rover 2000. Dad is obviously choked at having to give Sid best at anything and starts complaining about the positioning of the ashtrays. Sidney lights up a Wills’ Whiff and starts making like Cecil Beady-eyes.

‘It’s the most satisfying thing I’ve ever done,’ he says, nearly running an invalid car off the road, ‘bringing culture to millions of people who haven’t had my advantages. Being associated with so many great talents. Marvellous. It really is!’

He rambles on like this ’til we get there and I can sympathise with Dad snorting and wheezing in the back. Sidney really can get up your bracket when he puts his mind to it.

I am a bit surprised that the bloke on the studio gates does not question us being there at this hour and even more so when I see a number of cars outside the hangar in which we have been shooting.

‘They must be getting ready for tomorrow,’ says Sid, when I mention this to him. ‘Don’t let on that you don’t belong or we’ll have the union on our necks.’

‘Don’t you start being derivative about the unions, mate,’ says Dad. ‘You wouldn’t be where you are now if they hadn’t established your rights.’

‘I’ve never been in a union in my life and I don’t intend to start now,’ says Sid. ‘I believe in Lassy fare.’

‘That’s a dog food, isn’t it?’ says Mum. ‘I’ve seen that on the telly.’

‘Do belt up,’ I say, swinging open the outside door. ‘You are not really supposed to be here, remember?’

Once inside, I get another surprise. The lights round the set are on and there are a large number of people milling about.

‘They must be doing a re-shoot,’ says Sid. ‘Look, Mum, you’ll find this interesting.’

Now, I don’t know if ‘interesting’ is quite the word I would have used, but it is very difficult to think of a single word that adequately describes what is happening before our popping eyes.

Behind the camera is Justin Tymely and half a dozen naked girls are removing the clothing from a large black man. And when I say large, I mean large. This bloke obviously finished up all his runner beans when he was a little boy.

‘Oh!’ says Mum.

‘Oh, my God!’ says Sidney.

Dad doesn’t say anything. He has swallowed his dentures.