“Please don’t ask me to run,” Rocky says. “Running is exhausting and undignified, and the destination is rarely worth reaching. Good things are as likely to come if you lie down and wait for them, and if they don’t come, well, at least you’re comfortable.”
As they cross the narrow bridge over the river by the Golden Galleon he looks out for signs of the film unit. He hasn’t told Cas, but this is the first time for him too, the first time he’s ever visited a location film shoot. The thought that such a mighty machine has come into being to bring to life his story makes him feel a little dizzy, except that it’s hardly his story any more. There was no single point in the last eighteen months when he was able to say: this is a change too far, this is no longer what I intended. But little by little, draft by draft, the project crept away from him.
Through it all, only Rocky remains: sharp-tongued, world-weary, cynical, but fundamentally loyal. Rocky alone holds Alan’s place on the movie, and represents his creative mind. If all goes according to the schedule, this afternoon they are to film the scene that introduces the sheepdog at the start of the film.
EXT. THE DOWNS—DAY
Sheep graze in late afternoon sunlight. Beyond, the curve of the river, the rolling green hillside, the blue sea. A MAN lies in the grass, a handkerchief over his face, an empty bottle by his side. The handkerchief rises and falls with the even breathing of sleep. A gray-and-white BEARDED COLLIE lies beside him, a second handkerchief over his face. It too rises and falls as he sleeps. A bee buzzes by lazily. The sheep drift over the hillside. Two hikers go through a gate. They fail to close it properly. The man and the dog sleep on.
The sheep find the open gate. One pushes through. Others follow. Beyond the gate is the road. Cars passing. A sheep goes on to the road. A car sounds a sharp horn and swerves to avoid it. The car horn wakes the man. He sits up abruptly, the handkerchief falling from his face. He is HECTOR, late thirties, disheveled, friendly-looking.
HECTOR: Bloody hell!
He jumps up, sees that the sheep are through the gate. Panicking, he turns to the dog.
HECTOR: Rocky! The sheep are on the road!
The handkerchief is puffed from the dog’s face. The dog opens one eye, not raising his head.
ROCKY: So?
HECTOR: They’ll be killed!
ROCKY: So what’s new? Every sheep is born to die.
Alan sees the film unit now, filling the car park opposite the Visitors Center like a traveling circus: a cluster of long trucks and smaller vans, round which men and women are coming and going in a purposeful way.
On the facing hillside a white Landrover is crawling slowly up the track toward a cluster of crew members. The sky overhead remains dull and gray.
He pulls up by the entrance to the car park, where a young man with a yellow armband stands guard, holding a clipboard.
“I’m really sorry,” he says politely. “Would you mind parking just over the road there? This is closed for filming.”
“I’ve come for the filming,” says Alan. “Alan Strachan. I’m the writer.”
“Oh, sorry.”
The young man studies a list on his clipboard.
“What was the last name again?”
“Strachan.”
In front of them three men are unloading sheep from a farm truck. Cas watches with interest. Two small black-and-white collies run back and forth yapping at the sheep, keeping them in a tight huddle.
“Dad,” says Cas, “which one’s Rocky?”
“I’m sorry,” says the young man. “I don’t seem to have the name.”
Alan sees Flora pass by, carrying two mugs of coffee.
“Hey, Flora!”
She turns and gives Alan a lovely smile.
“Alan! Great you could come!”
The young man lowers his clipboard.
“Should be a space the far side of the catering truck,” he says.
Flora walks beside the car as Alan drives in.
“Not a lot happening,” she tells Alan. “We’re waiting for the sun to come out. Three weeks of gorgeous sunshine and now this.”
“Can’t they use lights?”
“Apparently not.” Flora gives a light laugh. “Don’t ask me why. All I know is the schedule says golden hour and for golden hour you need sunlight.”
She stops by a trailer. Unable to wave goodbye, due to the full coffee mugs in her hands, she wags her pretty head. Then she taps on the trailer door with one foot. A sign on the trailer door says Colin Firth.
Alan parks where he’s been told and he and Cas walk back past the catering truck. A short line of crew members waits to climb the steps to the food counter. A strong smell of melted cheese fills the air. Ahead, the sheep are being driven round the end of a cattle grid and onto Exceat Hill. Cas wants to run after them to find out which dog is Rocky.
“I don’t think either of them is Rocky,” says Alan. “Rocky’s the star. He’s probably got his own trailer somewhere.”
He looks round for someone to ask, but everyone seems to be busily going about their own concerns. Alan is all too aware that he has no function here. It’s an odd and not very pleasant sensation, being an outsider at your own creation. He feels an urge to get back in the car and drive away. If it wasn’t for Cas, he would.
For want of any better plan they follow the sheep. Cas is watching the sheepdogs.
“How do they know what to do, Dad?”
“The shepherd gives them commands.”
“But dogs can’t understand English. I mean, not really.”
“It’s not exactly English.”
Alan makes one of the shepherd calls he learned while working on the screenplay, a little yipping sound. The dogs hear and look back, puzzled. Cas is impressed.
“They heard you!”
They pass a member of the crew, lumbering along with a lens case.
“Christ!” he exclaims good-naturedly. “You don’t want to do this more than you have to.”
“Are they filming up there?” says Alan, indicating the huddle of figures on the hillside.
“If we get the fucking light,” says the crew man. Then seeing Cas, “Sorry about that.”
The track up the hillside is steeper than it looks, and is carpeted with sheep droppings. Alan and Cas keep their eyes on the ground as they climb, to avoid treading in the mounds of dark close-clustered pellets. When they pause to catch their breath and look up, they find the valley laid out in beauty below them. The wide meanders of the Cuckmere River curl down the valley floor to the shingled cove where the river meets the sea. The western flank of the Downs rises up to its graceful curving summit, and there beyond is the sea again, a line of silver against the gray sky.
“What’s golden hour, Dad?” says Cas.
“It’s when the sun’s low in the sky and it makes long shadows on the hills, and a warm light on the actors’ faces. Everyone likes filming in the golden hour. It makes everything look much more beautiful than it really is.”
“So when does it happen?”
Cas looks round as if expecting the sun to show itself from some hiding place in the sky and oblige the waiting film crew.
“Should be pretty much now. But only if the cloud lifts.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
They walk on up the track. The huddle of figures round the camera is identifiable now. Alan makes out Ray Stirling, hunkered down on his haunches, talking to a youngish man with tight curly black hair. The camera crew are standing together, laughing at some joke. Make-up and costume have put up a wind-break, behind which stand two folding tables. Over to one side, apart from the rest, there’s a stocky woman sitting on the grass with a dog.
“I think that’ll be Rocky,” Alan says to Cas.
Then he sees Jane Langridge, halfway down the slope, talking into her mobile phone. She sees him and gives him a wave. She ends her call, but instead of coming up to say hello she makes another call.
br /> Cas pulls at his hand. He wants to go and see Rocky. So does Alan. Now that the moment is approaching he feels almost nervous. What if Rocky is in some unknown way wrong?
The stocky woman looks up as they approach, mistaking Alan for someone in authority.
“Do you want him now?”
“No, no,” says Alan. “Just come to say hello.”
“Say hello, Billy.”
The dog looks up and meets Alan’s eyes. He’s a proper bearded collie, and he’s the right coloring, and he has just the right look of tolerant contempt in his gaze. Alan doesn’t demean him by petting him.
“Good to meet you, Billy,” he says gravely.
The dog is all right. The dog is good. This is more of a relief than Alan has been expecting. Apparently he really cares.
“I thought he was called Rocky,” says Cas. “Why do you call him Billy?”
“Rocky’s who he’s acting,” says his trainer.
“How will he talk?” says Cas.
“He won’t talk,” says his trainer. “They’ll make it seem like he’s talking. But he can move his mouth.”
She makes a little clicking sound with her tongue. Billy looks at her and silently opens and closes his mouth. Cas is delighted, but the little demonstration makes Alan feel sad. Billy is a mature, serious dog. He shouldn’t be made to perform in this way.
Billy lowers his head once more and rests it on the ground. Alan, watching his every move, feels that he understands him. If this is what it takes to make a living for me and my trainer, the dog is thinking, then I’ll do it and I’ll do it well. Just don’t ask me to take any of it seriously.
“What does he have to say for the film?” says Cas.
“Oh, he has pages and pages,” says the trainer with a laugh. “Some of it’s quite rude. And he has to say that line Michael Douglas said. ‘Greed is good.’ That’ll be an odd one.”
“He says ‘Greed is good’?” says Alan.
Flora now joins them, panting and pink in the face.
“Hey, Alan,” she says. “I see you’ve met Rockefeller.”
“He’s called Billy really,” says Cas. “Rocky’s who he’s acting.”
“My son Caspar,” says Alan.
Flora shakes Cas’s hand.
“Pleased to meet you, Caspar.” Then to Alan, “Jane asked me to see if there’s any way I can help you. You should have called ahead to see what was happening. We’re not having much luck with the light, so I’m afraid it could be very boring for you.”
“Oh, we don’t mind, do we, Cas? I might just say hi to Ray before we wander off.”
He looks across toward the director, who is now studying a script alongside the curly-headed young man.
“I’ll tell him you’re here. He’ll come over when he can.”
Flora goes to the group round the camera. Cas wants to see Billy do more tricks. The trainer obligingly makes the dog shake a paw. Alan moves away, not wanting to watch. There are two crew men standing smoking, watching the movements of the flock of sheep. The sheep have spread out over the flank of the hill and are grazing.
“If you was a sheep,” says one crew man to the other, “all you’d be doing all day is eating.”
“Eating and shitting,” says the other crew man.
“Not a bad life.”
Alan joins them, nodding over toward the group by the camera.
“Not a lot happening,” he says.
“No light,” says one of the crew men.
“Not going to be any light neither,” says the other, looking at the sky in an expert sort of way.
Alan sees Flora talking now to Ray Stirling and the curly-headed young man.
“You see Flora over there?” he says.
“Yes,” says the crew man with a grin. “I see Flora. I see Flora any time I get the chance. Don’t you, Mal?”
“I do,” says Mal.
“You see she’s talking to Ray? Who’s the other guy with them?”
“The other guy? The little American guy?”
“I don’t know if he’s American,” says Alan.
“I know who he is,” says Mal.
He fumbles in his satchel and pulls out a copy of the script.
“There it is.” On the cover page it says: Screenplay by Harlan Rosen. “He’s the writer.”
Alan feels the blood drain from his head, leaving him dizzy and his vision blurred. Here on the top of the hill, with the grassy slopes rolling down to the sea, he has become untethered, no longer part of the familiar world. He thinks perhaps he’ll float away, up through the layer of cloud that hinders the filming, out into the cool clear sunlight above. But of course he can’t. He must stay here on earth, with his son.
He makes his way back to Cas and the dog.
“Billy’s amazing, Dad,” says Cas. “Listen to this. I hold up my fingers.” Cas holds up two fingers. “How many fingers, Billy?”
Billy gives two short soft barks. The barks are muffled by his beard, as if he’s a little ashamed of them.
“There’s not going to be any filming,” says Alan. “We might as well go.”
“No filming?” says the trainer. “Are you sure?”
“No light,” says Alan.
“Can we come back when they’re filming, Dad?” says Cas.
“Maybe,” says Alan. “Bye, Billy.” A nod for the trainer.
They head back down the turd-ridden track, moving faster than when they came.
“Can we have a dog, Dad?”
“Maybe.”
“I could train him, like Billy. That would be so cool.”
Flora catches up with them, panting and pink-faced as ever.
“Are you going?” she says. “I’m really sorry if you’ve had a wasted journey. Call me next time and I’ll make sure there’s something happening.”
Alan says nothing.
“So did you like Rockefeller, Caspar?” says Flora.
“He’s so cool,” says Cas. “He can actually count.”
“You wait till you see what he can do in the film.”
“Is he rude?”
“Yes, he is sometimes.” She looks toward Alan, who says nothing. “I don’t think he knows what the rude words mean, though.”
“What rude words does he say?”
“Oh, you know. The usual ones.”
“Does he say shit?”
“I think he probably does.”
“I keep treading in it,” says Cas. “It’s impossible not to. Why do the sheep only do it on the path?”
“I don’t know,” says Flora, looking again toward Alan.
When they reach the concrete road at the bottom Alan says to Flora, “So who’s Harlan Rosen?”
Flora has the decency to blush, which makes her look even prettier.
“The studio insisted,” she says. “Just a final punch-up.”
“A what?”
“You know. A quick pass for the director.”
“Ray agreed to this?”
“It was more Nancy in LA. It was a condition of the green light.”
Alan is heading for his car, wanting to be gone. There’s a big crowd round the catering van now.
“Am I allowed to see the changes?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Okay, I’d like that. Email me the latest draft.” He unlocks his car. “Hop in, Cas.”
Cas can tell from his tone that something has gone wrong, so he does as he’s told without a murmur. Alan gets in, starts the engine.
“It’s nothing, Alan,” Flora is saying. “Superficial stuff.”
They drive out of the car park and onto the road back toward Seaford.
“What happened, Dad?” says Cas.
“They’ve got another writer in to change my script,” says Alan.
“But it’s yours, Dad. They can’t do that.”
“Well, you know, Cas,” says Alan, trying to sound wryly amused by the ways of the film world, “it’s not, and they can.”
“But
you wrote it.”
“I wrote it. They paid me. They own it.”
When they get to High-and-Over on the way back Cas doesn’t go Woo-oo! As they crest the hill and see laid out before them the great green land, a land carved and formed by people, its every smallest track tramped by people, its every house sheltering people, Alan can see only the disappointment that follows all human endeavor repeated in every home, in every car, multiplied into the far distance. The vista laid out before him is a whole world of hurt, if only we could tune our senses to the wavelength of pain.
Down into the valley. Down into the trees. Down into the shadows where real life is lived in all its grubby littleness.
I could walk away from it all. I should walk away from it all. But then what? Back to teaching? That’ll never pay the mortgage on the new house.
How did this happen? How did I end up leading a life that makes me hate myself?
One of the lines he wrote for Rocky passes through his mind, making him smile even as he wants to cry.
“Life’s a bitch, but you know what? Bitches have their uses.”
21
Through the kitchen window, Laura can see Carrie sitting on the low wall of the terrace, talking with Toby Clore. Toby is lying on his back on the teak outdoor table, his hands behind his head. Carrie looks animated and laughs and moves her hands about in the air. Toby’s arrival has transformed her. This should make Laura happy. She and Henry have been worried recently by Carrie. She’s been so withdrawn and silent. Is she depressed? And if so, why? Is it their fault? It has to be, but Laura doesn’t know what she’s done wrong, and why it’s become so hard, so impossible, to have a conversation with Carrie. People say, Oh, she’s a teenager, they go through these moody phases. But why?
Was I like that when I was her age?
With a shock Laura realizes she was more or less exactly Carrie’s age when she fell in love. Her boyfriend back then had been all in all to her, she has no memory of her own family at the time, only of Nick. The time she spent with him was filled by her love for him, and the rest of the time was spent waiting for him.
Is Carrie in love with Toby?
It looks very like it. Silently Laura pleads with Carrie to be careful. He’ll walk away from you. He’ll break your heart. But how can she say this to Carrie? And why should she say it? Loving and losing is all part of growing up.