What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
All I said to Graham was: ‘I thought it might be him.’
‘Not your cup of tea, I suppose,’ he said; and managed to make even this sound like another in my litany of inadequacies.
‘He has his moments,’ I conceded, and then added casually: ‘I’ve just reviewed his latest, in fact.’ I turned to Joan. ‘That phone call I had to make just before dinner. I was dictating it to one of the copy-takers.’
Joan blushed with pride, and said to her lodgers: ‘Just think – someone makes a phone call from my little sitting room, the words travel all the way down the lines to London, and a few days later, it’s in all the papers.’
‘The wonders of modern science,’ said Graham, and began stacking the plates.
∗
The next day, a wet and misty Wednesday, was not a great success. I decided to take Joan up on her invitation and accompany her on some of her visits, but it was a dispiriting experience. The bulk of her work appeared to involve turning up uninvited at family homes in order to conduct furtive interviews with the children while their parents stared on balefully, or beat ungracious retreats to the kitchen to make cups of tea which never got drunk. At first I actually went with her to sit in on these encounters, but my presence was so obviously unwelcome that I gave up on that after the first couple of visits and spent the rest of the day sitting in Joan’s car, reading through the pile of old magazines and newspapers which cluttered her back seat and waiting tiredly for her to emerge from the doorway of some council house or tower block.
For lunch we went to a pub in the centre of town. Joan had a vegetable pasty and I had steak and kidney pie, which caused her to tut reprovingly. That evening, it was Graham’s turn to cook. The dish he prepared for us may or may not have had a name: it seemed to consist mainly of lentils and walnuts burned down to a black crust, scraped off the bottom of a large saucepan, and served with a dollop of wholemeal pasta ribbons which had the texture of rubber bands. We ate, for the most part, in absorbed silence.
‘You ought to show Michael some of your work, tomorrow,’ said Joan to Graham at one point. ‘He might have some interesting comments to make.’
‘I should like that,’ I said.
∗
Graham sat me down on his bed and switched on the large, unwieldy television which dominated one corner of his bedroom. It took nearly a minute to warm up.
‘1970s vintage,’ he explained. ‘Pretty much on its last legs.’
Yesterday’s mist had cleared and the morning was turning out bright but muggy. Not that much of the sunshine would come our way: Graham’s room was permanently in shadow, with a tiny, lace-curtained window which looked out over Joan’s back yard and the back yards of other houses in the next street. We were alone in the house, it was half past ten and we were both on to our second cups of strong, sugary tea.
‘Have you got one of these yourself?’ Graham asked, kneeling down to slot a VHS tape into the video machine.
‘Can’t afford it on what I earn,’ I said. ‘I’m waiting for the prices to come down. They say they’re going to tumble.’
‘You don’t think I own this, do you? Nobody’s buying the things – you do it on the rental. Ten quid a month is all this costs me, down at Rumbelows.’
I sipped my tea and said spitefully: ‘When I was a student we used to spend our money on books.’
‘Don’t give me that.’ Graham gestured at the rows of tapes which lined his dresser and window-sill. ‘These are my books. This is the medium of the future, as far as film-making’s concerned. Nearly all our work at college is done on video now. Three hours of tape, there is, on one of these little beauties. Do you know how much three hours’ worth of sixteen mill would cost you?’
‘I see your point.’
‘Not too hot on the practicalities, you literary types, are you? It’s all ivory tower with you.’
I ignored this.
‘Does it have a freeze frame, your video?’
‘Sure. It’s a bit shaky, but it does the job. Why, what do you want one of those for?’
‘Oh, you know – It’s nice to have … all the gadgets.’
The screen flickered into action just as Graham finished closing the curtains and seating himself beside me on the bed.
‘Here we go, then. This is my end-of-year assignment. See what you think.’
It was a less painful experience than I had anticipated. Graham’s film was only about ten minutes long, and proved to be an efficient if unsubtle piece of polemic about the Falklands conflict, called ‘Mrs Thatcher’s War’. The title was double-edged, because he had somehow managed to find a pensioner called Mrs Thatcher who lived in Sheffield, and shots of warships steaming into battle and extracts from the Prime Minister’s speeches were juxtaposed with scenes from the life of her less eminent namesake: making trips to the shops, preparing frugal meals, watching news bulletins on the television and so on. In a disjointed voice-over commentary, the old woman spoke of the difficulties of getting by on her pension and wondered what had become of all the money she had paid in taxes throughout her working life: this was usually the cue for a rapid cut to some brutal and expensive-looking piece of military hardware. The film ended with the Prime Minister’s famous speech to the Scottish Conservative Party, in which she described the war as a battle between good and evil and declared that ‘It must be finished’, followed by a lingering shot of the other Mrs Thatcher carrying a heavy bag of groceries up a steep, forbidding street. Then the screen faded to black and two captions appeared: ‘Mrs Emily Thatcher supports herself on a weekly income of £43.37’; ‘The cost of the Falklands War has already been estimated at £700,000,000.’
Graham turned off the tape.
‘So – what did you think? Come on, your honest opinion.’
‘I liked it. It was good.’
‘Look, just try to forget that Southern middle-class politeness kick for a minute. Give it to me straight.’
‘I told you, it was good. Powerful, and direct, and … truthful. It tells the truth about something.’
‘Ah, but does it, though? You see, film’s such a tightly structured medium, that even in a short piece of work like this, all sorts of decisions have to be made. How long a shot’s going to last, how a shot’s going to be framed, which shots are going to come before it, which ones are going to come after. Now doesn’t that whole process become suspect when you’re dealing with something that advertises itself explicitly as a political film? Doesn’t it make the role of the film-maker himself intensely problematic, prompting the question – not “Is this the truth?” but “Whose truth is it anyway?” ’
‘You’re absolutely right, of course. Do you think you could show me how this freeze frame business works?’
‘Sure.’ Graham picked up the remote control, rewound the tape a few minutes and then pressed Play. ‘So my point is that the whole thing is deeply manipulative, not just of the audience, but of its subject. Mrs Thatcher invaded the Falklands and I invaded this woman’s life – both of us on the same pretext, that we had their best interests at heart.’ He pressed Pause and the old woman froze into jittery stillness, in the act of opening a can of soup. ‘In a way the only really honest thing for me to do would be to expose the mechanics of my involvement: to have the camera pan round and suddenly rest on me, the director, sitting in the room with her. Perhaps that’s what Godard would have done.’
‘Can’t you get rid of those lines across the screen?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes you can. You just have to keep pressing the button and eventually they go away.’
He pressed the pause button some more times.
‘It’s a bit blurred, isn’t it?’
‘The technology’ll improve. Anyway, would it have been anything more than an empty self-referential gesture, that’s what I have to ask myself. Because I know exactly what you’re going to say next: you’re going to say that any attempt to foreground issues of authorship would just be a throwback to formalism, a futile str
‘Do all the machines have this feature,’ I asked, ‘or do you have to go to the more expensive end of the market?’
‘They’ve all got them,’ he said. ‘It’s their main selling point. Quite a radical development, when you think about it: for the first time in history, control over cinematic time is being given to the audience and taken out of the film-maker’s hands. You could argue that it’s the first real move towards the democratization of the viewing process. Though of course’ – he switched off the tape and stood up to draw the curtains – ‘it’d be naïve to suggest that that’s why people were buying them. At college we call it the WP button.’
‘WP?’
‘Wankers’ paradise. All your favourite movie stars in the buff, you see. No more of those tantalizing scenes when some gorgeous actress drops them for a couple of seconds and then disappears out of the frame: now you can stare at her for as long as you like. For an eternity, in theory. Or at least until the tape wears out.’
I looked past him, gazing sightlessly at the window. ‘That would certainly … have its uses,’ I said.
‘Anyway, it’s been nice having this chat,’ said Graham. ‘It’s always helpful, getting a bit of objective criticism from someone.’
There was a short pause and then I snapped out of my reverie, suddenly hearing him again. ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I found it very interesting.’
‘Well look, I’m just going into town. Can I get you anything?’
∗
I was alone in the house for the first time. There is a sort of quietness I associate with such moments: more than absolute, it insinuates, takes root, and keeps watch. The opposite of a dead silence, it quivers with possibility. It is alive with the sound of nothing happening. You don’t get silence like this in London: not silence that you can listen to, savour, swathe yourself in. I found that I was walking around the house on tiptoe, and that the occasional noises of footsteps outside in the street or cars chugging past seemed highly intrusive. I tried to settle down and read the newspaper but could only manage it for a minute or two. With Graham’s departure the house had changed its character completely – had taken on a magical aspect, like a forbidden temple which I had somehow managed to infiltrate, and I was seized with the impulse to explore.
I made my way up the staircase, turned right on the landing, and stepped into Joan’s bedroom. It was a bright, cheerful room which faced on to the main road. There was a double bed, neatly made, with a pink duvet and several pale blue cushions arranged against the pillows. In the middle of these sat a figure I recognized from one of memory’s most distant corners: a battered yellow teddy bear called Barnabas, her bedtime companion since infancy. I noticed that his eyes didn’t match any more: one was black and the other was blue. It must have come off quite recently, and a brief, affecting image flickered across my mind – Joan sitting at the end of the bed, a needle and thread in her hand, sewing the button on, patiently restoring eyesight to this worn childhood relic. I didn’t touch him. I glanced at the neatly stacked bookshelves, the family photographs, the desk with its gift stationery and Liberty print lamp. In the corner there were more functional-looking ring binders and a cardboard box full of notes and papers. Nothing on her bedside table besides a half-empty glass of water, a box of tissues and a magazine, the cover of which boasted a picture of two green bomber jets in mid-flight, with the caption ‘The Mark I Hurricane – Britain’s wartime triumph’. I smiled and picked it up. This was the Sunday newspaper magazine published a couple of months ago with my juvenile story in it. I wondered whether Joan had simply never got around to putting it away, or if it was there for a reason, to be marvelled at and pored over every night before going to sleep. I wouldn’t have been surprised.
If this was the case, anyway, who was I to make fun of her: I had read and re-read the thing often enough myself, and even now I couldn’t resist sitting down on the bed, opening the magazine at the familiar page and immersing myself once again in the warm waters of that shallow glory.
Michael Owen [read the introduction] was born in Birmingham in 1952 and has recently received great acclaim for his novels Accidents Will Happen and The Loving Touch.
Michael was only eight years old when he created his first fictional character, a Victorian detective who went by the exotic name of Jason Rudd. He was the subject of numerous adventures, the longest and most exciting being The Castle of Mystery, of which we present the opening pages here. Sadly this is not the first in the series – an earlier case, involving a character called Thomas Watson mentioned in this extract, has been lost – but Michael assures us that it provides a good introduction to the world of Rudd and his assistant Richard Marple, which he describes as ‘Holmes and Watson revisited, with a healthy dash of surrealism’.
THE CASTLE OF MYSTERY
Chapter One
Jason Rudd, a distinguished detective of the 19th Century sat at a wooden carved table, opposite his companion Richard Marple, who had accompanied him on many of his adventures.
Jason was middle-sized and had light hair. He was more or less the bravest of the two, but Richard was extremely courageous too. Richard had dark hair and was very tall, but Jason had the brains. He could not do without Richard.
You see, Richard could perform athletic feats, and Jason couldn’t. They were about the most formidable combination in Britain.
At this moment however they were engaged in a game of Chess. The board was old and dirty, despite Jason’s efforts to polish it. Jason moved his knight and smiled.
‘Check’, he said.
But Richard moved his bishop and took Jason’s knight.
‘Bother’!
Jason sat extremely still hardly breathing. He always did this when he was thinking. He moved his queen.
‘Checkmate’!
‘You’ve won, well done’.
The two shook hands then sat down.
‘I’m getting exceptionally bored’, pronounced Jason. ‘I want something to think about. I mean, chess is alright but I’d like something like that Thomas Watson business, which reminds me, how is Thomas?’
‘Not too good I’m afraid. His arm is yet to heal’.
‘Is he in danger of dying, or worse?’
‘He is in danger of dying’.
‘He is? That is bad. We must see him. What about tomorrow or the next day?’
‘Tomorrow would be convenient’.
‘Then shall we make a day of it?’
‘Certainly, if my wife approves. Er, what is the time please?’
‘Five minutes past ten’.
‘Then I had better be going’.
‘Alright,’ said Jason, ‘Shall I see you out?’
‘No thank you’.
Jason watched Richard get his coat. He heard the door open then close.
Richard walked out. He was half-way home when a man stepped out of the dark and blocked Richard’s way.
‘I’m Edward Whiter’, he said.
He had an American accent, a beard and yellow teeth.
‘Are you Richard Marple?’
‘I am’.
‘I would wish to see you and Mr Jason Rudd together now’.
‘For what reason?’
‘I want to talk to you. It is about a very frightening business and I wish you would help me’.
‘Then when do you want us to start this?’
‘Tomorrow’.
‘I am sorry but that is impossible’
‘You must do it’.
‘Why?’
‘Because we don’t want our people to believe in it’.
‘Believe in what?’
Edward lowered his voice and whispered ‘The curse’.
‘The curse? What curse?’
‘The curse of Hacrio Castle’.
‘Alright. I’ll take you to see Jason. I’m sure that
‘That’s good’. He now spoke with an English accent. He sounded much pleasanter. He ripped off a false beard and smiled.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you Mr Marple,’ he said. Richard, being rather surprised held out his hand. They shook hands.
‘I – I’m very pleased to meet you Mr – Mr Whiter’.
‘Please, call me Edward. Now come on, where is Mr Rudd’s house?’
∗ ∗ ∗
‘I wish to tell you a story Mr Rudd. I imagine that it should interest you greatly. Shall I begin?’
‘Most certainly’.
‘Then I shall. It was dark. There was a terrible thunderstorm breaking out over Hacrio Castle. Faint cries were coming from inside. The Black Knight was hammering Walter Bimton to death with a spiked mace. Goodbye Mr Rudd’.
He got up and left the room. Jason heard the front door open and then shut.
‘A most surprising visitor. I wonder why he left so soon?’
‘I don’t know’, said Richard. ‘What do you think of the story?’
‘It was most interesting. We must locate Hacrio Castle. It will be most interesting for us to investigate’.
‘Yes’.
‘However, at present I am more interested in Edward Whiter. Why did he go so quickly? Why, he barely said a few words before he left’.
‘It is so, Jason. I wonder also. Perhaps we will get the answer later’.