Later. Poor old Matt. Shit, he was a good bloke. Sure he could get under your skin but so would St Francis of Assisi on a job like this. He’d have spent all his time looking at the bloody birds in the Jungle instead of reading his cue-cards. Sorry, love. Bad taste, I know. Just can’t find the way to put things. Very low. Poor old Matt. I wonder how you’ll hear the news and what you’ll think.
Jesus those fucking Indians. I think I’m going to die. I can hardly hold this biro. Sweating like a pig, comme un porco. God I do love you, Pippa, I just hold on to that.
C
Letter 9
I get out your photo with the chipmunk face and kiss it. That’s all that matters, you and me and having babies. Let’s do it, Pippa. Your mum would be pleased, wouldn’t she? I said to Fish do you have kids, he said yes they’re the apple of my eye. I put my arm round him and gave him a hug just like that. It’s things like that keep everything going, isn’t it?
It’s true what they say. Go into the Jungle and you really find out what people are like. Vic’s a whinger, always knew it. Whingeing on about the sodding film. I said don’t worry you can always sell your memoirs to the paper. He didn’t like that.
Why did they do it? Why did they do it?
love C
P.S. Wish you’d written. Would have helped now.
Letter 10
It could have been me. It could just as easily have been me. Who decides? Does anyone decide? Hey you up there in the sky, is anyone home?
I’ve been having this thought all day. I said to Old Fishy do you have kids and he said yes they’re the apple of my eye and we just hugged each other right there in front of everyone and ever since I’ve been wondering what it means. The apple of my eye. What does it mean? You say words like that and everyone knows what they mean but when you look at them you can’t understand them. The film’s like that, the whole trip’s like that. You go along thinking you know exactly what everything is, and then you stop and look at it and it doesn’t make any sense and you think maybe it only made any sense in the first place because everyone was pretending it did. Does this make any sense? I mean it’s like the Indians and the fake rocks that the chippie ran up. They looked at them and looked at them and the more they did the less they understood. They started off knowing they were rocks and they ended up not knowing anything. You could see it in their faces.
I’m going to give this to Rojas now. He walked past a few minutes ago and said that’s the third letter you’ve written today why don’t you put them in the same envelope and save postage? I got up and you know I swear I turned into Firmin for a moment and I said, ‘Listen, Our Lady of Communications, I shall write and you will transmit as many fucking letters per day as I happen to feel like writing.’ Well Firmin wouldn’t have said fuck of course, but his tone was there. Sort of austere and pissed off with anything less than perfection in the world. Oh well, better go and say sorry, otherwise he’ll throw them all away.
– love C
Letter 11
Waiting for copter
Pippa love –
When we get out, I’m going to do the following things. Have the biggest fucking Scotch they can pour in Caracas. Have the biggest fucking bath they can pour in Caracas. Have the longest phone call I can have with you. I can just hear your voice answering the phone, as if I’ve been to the shop for some ciggies and I’m back late. Then I’m going to the British Embassy and get a copy of the Daily Telegraph and I don’t care if it’s weeks old and I’m going to read something I never normally look at like the nature notes if they have them. I want to be told that the house-martins are nesting or you might see a badger if you’re lucky. Ordinary things that go on all the time. I’ll look at the cricket scores and pretend I’m some old member in from the shires with a striped blazer and a pink gin in his fist. Maybe I’ll read the births column as well. To Emma and Nicholas, a daughter, Suzie, sister to Alexander and Bill. Good old Alexander and Bill, I’ll say, now you’ve got little Suzie to play with. You must be gentle with her, you must protect her all your lives, she’s your little sister, you must make her the apple of your eye. God I’m crying Pippa, the tears are just streaming down my face.
love C
Letter 12
Caracas 21st July
Pippa love, I don’t believe it, I mean I just don’t believe it. We finally reach what we laughingly call civilization, we finally reach a telephone which is capable of handling transatlantic calls, I finally get my turn in the queue, I finally get through to home, and you’re out. ‘Number no answer, sir.’ Try again. ‘Number sti no answer, sir.’ Try again. ‘OK sir, number sti no answer.’ Where are you? I don’t want to ring anyone else. I don’t want to ring your mum and say look we had a spot of bother but now we’re back in Caracas and Matt’s dead, yes, you heard it on the news but I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to talk to you, honey, and I can’t.
Tried again.
Tried again.
All right, so I’ve got a bottle of Scotch which costs about 50 quid and if the studio doesn’t pay for it I’ll never work for them again, and a big pile of this flimsy hotel notepaper. The others have gone out on the town. I couldn’t face it. I keep remembering the last night we were here – same hotel and all – and how Matt and I went out and got stinko-paralytico together and ended up doing the Zorba dance and got thrown out and Matt pointing at me and saying to the waiters Hey don’t you recognize Mista Rick from Parkway Peninsula and they didn’t and made us pay for the plates.
We’d had our rest days, just three days work left. The first morning we rehearsed in the white water, pretty gingerly I don’t mind saying. Vic and the crew were on the bank, Matt and I were on the raft with about a dozen Indians paddling and poling. Just to be on the safe side we had a long rope attached to the raft and tied round a tree on the bank so that if the Indians lost control the rope would pull it to a stop. Matt and I had ropes on us as per contract. So we did a run-through in the morning which was OK, then had an afternoon in the shallows with the churning machine. I thought we didn’t need another day of rehearsal but Vic insisted. So the second morning we all went out again only this time wearing radio mikes as well. Vic hadn’t decided whether to dub or not. The rope was attached to the tree, the crew set up on the bank, and we got ready to do three or four runs past the camera with Matt and me so busy arguing about baptising the Indians that we couldn’t see the danger behind us which the audience could see for themselves. I’ve thought about what happened next a million times and I still don’t know the answer. It was on our third run. We got the thumbs-up, started our argument and then noticed something odd. Instead of a dozen Indians on the raft there were only two, each with just a pole at the back of the raft. I suppose we thought Vic must have said try it this way because Matt and I were already into our quarrel and it shows what a pro he was to his fingertips that he carried on as per normal. So did I for that matter. Then at the end of the scene we noticed the Indians weren’t doing what they normally did which was stick their poles in to stop the raft. They were just poling away and Matt shouted ‘Hey, fellers, cut’ but they didn’t take any notice and I remember thinking maybe they’re testing the rope to see if it works, and Matt and I turned at just the same moment and saw where the Indians were heading us – straight into a pile of rocks and foaming water – and I knew the rope must have broken or something. We shouted but what with the noise of the water and not knowing their language of course it wasn’t any use and then we were in the water. I thought of you as we capsized, Pippa, honest I did. Just saw your face and tried to think about you. Then I tried swimming, but what with the current and the fucking cassock – and then bang I got hit in the ribs like someone had kicked me and I thought I was a goner, it must be a rock I thought and I gave up and sort of passed out. What happened was that the rope they’d put on me suddenly pulled tight. I don’t remember anything else until I was on the bank throwing up water and puking in the mud while the sound-man thumped on my back and put h
is fists in my stomach. My line held, Matt’s line broke. That’s how it was, that’s my luck.
Everyone was in shock, as you can imagine. Some of the crew tried getting along the bank – you know how people are sometimes found clinging to the branches of trees overhanging the river a mile or so downstream. But it wasn’t like that. That sort of thing is strictly for the movies. Matt was gone, and anyway the crew couldn’t get more than 20 or 30 yards beyond where they’d set up because they don’t exactly have towpaths in the Jungle. ‘Why were there only two?’ Vic kept saying. ‘Why only two?’ They looked around for the Indians who’d helped them set up but they weren’t there. Then they went back to camp and the only person there was Miguel the interpreter, who’d been having a long conversation with one of the Indians and when he turned round all the other Indians had scarpered.
Then we went to see what had happened to the rope round the tree and there wasn’t anything left, it had just gone. Which was pretty odd as it was fixed with one of those fancy knots which simply can’t pull out. No doubt as per contract. Bloody suspicious. Then we talked to Miguel again and it turned out the Indian had started this long conversation with him before we could possibly have had the accident. So they presumably knew what was going to happen. And when we looked in the camp they’d taken everything – clothes, food, equipment. What did they take the clothes for? They don’t even wear them.
It was a bloody long wait for the copter, I can tell you. The Indians had taken the radio telephones (they’d have gone off with the genny if they’d had a crane) and Caracas thought they’d just broken down again so came as per normal. Two days waiting like two bloody months. Me thinking I’d probably got some filthy fever in spite of the jabs. Apparently when they pulled me out of the river and bashed the water out of my belly the first thing I said as I came round was, ‘Riddled with diseases, I’m sure’ and the crew broke up in this hysterical laughter. Don’t remember, but it sounds like Charlie. Thought I might be in for beri-beri and co. Ouch in spades, I thought.
Why did they do it? That’s what I keep coming back to. Why? Most of the others think they did it because they’re primitive – you know, not white men, never trust a native and so on. That’s no go. I never did think they were primitive and they always told the truth (except when they were teaching me the language) and were a damn sight more trustworthy than some of the white men we had on the job. The first thing I thought of was that we’d offended them in some way we didn’t know – done a terrible insult to their gods or something. But I simply couldn’t think of anything.
The way I’m looking at it, either there’s some connection with what happened a couple of hundred years ago or there isn’t. Perhaps it’s just a chance coincidence. It so happens that the descendants of the original Indians whose raft capsized were also in charge of another raft that capsized at about the same point in the river. Maybe these Indians can only take so much of poling Jesuits upstream and just instinctively snap and turn nasty and shove them overboard. Not very likely is it? Or there is some connection between the two incidents. This is what I think anyway. It seems to me that the Indians – our Indians – knew what had happened to Father Firmin and Father Antonio all those years ago. It’s the sort of thing that gets handed down as the women are pounding the manioc root or whatever. Those Jesuits were probably quite big in the Indians’ history. Think of that story getting passed down the generations, each time they handed it on it became more colourful and exaggerated. And then we come along, another lot of white men who’ve also got two chaps in long black skirts with them, who also want to be poled up the river to the Orinoco. Sure, there are differences, they’ve got this one-eyed machine and so on, but basically it’s the same thing, and we even tell them it’s going to end in the same way with the raft capsizing. I mean, it’s hard to think of an equivalent, but say you were an inhabitant of Hastings in the year 2066 and you went down to the beach one day and these longships were coming towards you and lots of people in chainmail and pointy helmets got out and said they’d come for the Battle of Hastings and would you rustle up King Harold so they could shoot him in the eye and here was a huge wallet full of money for you to play your part. First of all, you might be inclined to do it, wouldn’t you? And then you’d get thinking about why they wanted you to do it. And one thing you might come up with – this is just my idea, Vic isn’t so sure about it – is that they (i.e. us) have come back to re-enact the ceremony for some reason that’s tremendously important to their tribe. Perhaps the Indians thought it was a religious thing, like celebrating the 500th anniversary of a cathedral or whatever.
And there’s another possibility – that the Indians were actually following the argument between the Jesuits and understanding it a lot better than we thought. They – Matt and me, that’s to say – were arguing about baptising the Indians, and at the point the raft capsized it looked as if I was winning the argument. I was the senior priest, after all, and I was against baptism – at least until the Indians pulled their socks up and stopped some of their filthy practices. So maybe the Indians understood this and tipped up the raft because they were trying to kill Father Firmin (me!) so that Father Antonio would survive and baptise them. How about that? Except that the first time round the Indians saw that Firmin survived and they ran away because they were afraid, and the second time round they saw they’d killed Antonio, which was quite the wrong result for them so they ran away because it had all gone wrong.
Is that right? I just know it’s more complicated than it’s ever going to seem in the newspapers. I shouldn’t be surprised if Hollywood sends a plane to bomb the Indians and punish them for the death of Matt. Or does a remake – yes, that’d be more bloody likely. Who gets the part of Matt? What a career opportunity. I ask you.
Seem to be stuck here for a week or so. That bloody studio and its bloody lawyers. Apparently the movie has to be officially called off in some way and that takes time.
Taking this down to Our Lady of Communications and expressing it. Makes a change to be giving it to a real postman.
all love, Charlie
Letter 13
Christ don’t you do that to me, and I mean ever. Two days out of the fucking Jungle after nearly dying and you put the phone down on me. Look, as I was trying to explain to you, she was out here working, it was a complete coincidence. I know I’ve been behaving like a pig, comme un porco, for a bit, but please read all my letters from the Jungle and you’ll see I’m a changed man. It’s all over between Linda and me, I told you that before I left. And I can’t control where the woman works, can I? Yes I did know she was going to be in Caracas and No I didn’t tell you and Yes that was wrong but would it have been better if I’d told you? How on earth did you find out anyway? No she isn’t here, as far as I know or care she’s in the West Indies. For God’s sake, Pippa, let’s not throw away five years.
– your Charlie
P.S. Am expressing this.
P.P.S. Caracas filthy dump. Stuck here at least until the 4th.
P.P.P.S. Love you.
Telegram
PLEASE CALL CHARLIE HOTEL INTERCONTINENTAL SOONEST STOP LOVE CHARLIE STOP
Telegram
FOR GS SAKE CALL INTERCONTINENTAL MUST TALK SOONEST STOP LOVE CHARLIE
Telegram
WILL CALL NOON YOUR TIME THURSDAY MUCH TO DISCUSS STOP CHARLIE
Telegram
DAMN YOU ANSWER THE PHONE OR CALL ME PIPPA STOP CHARLIE
Letter 14
Dear Pippa –
As you don’t seem to be responding to telegrams for reasons best known to yourself, I am writing to say that I am not coming home immediately. I need time and space not just to get over the appalling things which have happened to me in which you do not seem to show much interest but also to think through where the two of us are at. There seems no point in saying that I love you in spite of everything because that only seems to irritate you for reasons best known to yourself and which you choose neither to explain nor comment on. I wil
l be in touch when I know where I’m at about all this.
Charlie
P.S. I’m expressing this.
P. P.S. If any of this is anything to do with that creep Gavin I will personally break his personal fucking neck. I should have hit him a lot harder in the first place. And in case you haven’t noticed, he couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. No talent. No cojones.
Letter 15
St Lucia
Some bloody day or other
Listen bitch why don’t you just get out of my life, go on just get out GET OUT. You always fucked things up didn’t you that was your one great talent fucking things up. My friends said she’s trouble and the last thing I should have done was let her move in and I was a bloody fool not to believe them. Christ if you think I’m an egotist you should look in the mirror baby. Of course I’m drunk what do you think it’s one way of getting you out of my head. Now I’m going to get stinko bloody paralytico. In vino bloody Veritas.
Charlie “the Hell-Raiser”
P.S. I’m expressing this.
Telegram
RETURNING LONDON MONDAY FIFTEENTH STOP KINDLY REMOVE SELF AND POSSESSIONS FROM FLAT BEFORE THEN STOP LEAVE KEY STOP ENDIT STOP
PARENTHESIS
Let me tell you something about her. It’s that middle stretch of the night, when the curtains leak no light, the only street-noise is the grizzle of a returning Romeo, and the birds haven’t begun their routine yet cheering business. She’s lying on her side, turned away from me. I can’t see her in the dark, but from the hushed swell of her breathing I could draw you the map of her body. When she’s happy she can sleep for hours in the same position. I’ve watched over her in all those sewery parts of the night, and can testify that she doesn’t move. It could be just down to good digestion and calm dreams, of course; but I take it as a sign of happiness.