From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle (5 page)

‘I’ve
been sick of them forever,’ said Ren, feverishly scribbling.
‘They think they rule the film world. And they have creepy white teeth. Look! I’m on the other side of the Street now. Who’s this? Fountain Pen, Files, Pink Rubber Bands, Paper Clips, iPhone,
Mail
.’

‘Willy Edwards,’ said Barney, not really concentrating. His mind was busy with the blossoming thought.

He watched Ren’s hand and the HB 5 and the wobbly word towers: they were like curlicued architectural columns being sculpted from the top down. The popping at the back of Barney’s head grew in volume slightly, and a little more insistent.

Ren’s tilting columns, those lists, they were a kind of code, thought Barney. They were a word sketch of the Street, its sounds and shapes and smells, its activities and habits. They were like the sets, props and costumes of a film. And, all those words, those things, those
nouns
, they were code for a bunch of people, too: the people of the Street. The Street
characters
. The ca–’

A great Catherine Wheel of colour and noise exploded in Barney’s head.

‘Oh my God, Slash,’ he said. ‘I think I’m having an idea.’

‘At
last
,’ said Ren. ‘My brilliant plan is working. I am such a genius.’

‘The
Street
can be the story,’ said Barney. ‘Everyone on the
Street
is the
cast
. There’s the cast and the location and the sets and the –’ Barney paused and took a deep tremulous breath ‘– there’s
everything
– it’s all
there
. Don’t you see?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Ren. She turned another page and wrote Yukata, Obi, Hakama, Zori, Washi …

‘It’s going to be a
documentary
,’ said Barney, and heard the word with a little shock of surprise. It was as if the words coming out of his mouth were telling him, as if he was only finding out a millisecond after he spoke. It had happened several times today. He must be in some kind of new creative zone. Thethrillingalchemy was up and running after all.

‘It’s going to be about the
Street
and everyone in it. And it’s
exactly what I said before. Only I didn’t realise. What a lunkhead.’

He looked solemnly at Ren. ‘
Every building has interesting inhabitants. Every building is bulging with stories. It’s a
filmmaker’s
dream
.’

‘You never said that.’

‘I thought it,’ said Barney, remembering. It seemed a long time ago. ‘It was an idea but I didn’t know it.’

‘But a documentary doesn’t have actors,’ said Ren. ‘And there are no sets and props to organise. Everything’s already there.’

‘No actors is great!’ said Barney. ‘No one to walk off the set. It’s just going to be us and everyone we know, being
themselves
…’ He stood up, overcome with the glory of it all. He didn’t feel the slightest bit blocked or hot or tired. He felt magnificent.

‘We just go into everyone’s place and we ask them questions, and the film will just happen. It’s brilliant. Inspired.
Perfect
.’

‘When you say we, you really mean
you
,’ said Ren. Her voice had a tone. ‘You’ll be holding the camera. As usual. I don’t see anything for me to do.’

She bent her head and resumed writing. She was as dogged as Kiwi Keith with a bone.

Suits, Ties, Hats, Socks, Umbrellas, Handkerchiefs …

Brummel’s: Men’s Design (est. 2002).

‘But wait,
wait
,’ said Barney, grasping Ren’s non-writing arm. ‘Take Brummel’s. We go in there and we get Claude to talk about his weird views on menswear. And we ask him things like: “Why did you change your name from Kevin?” And, “Why do you think the jandal marks the end of civilisation?” And we get him to show us his favourite outfits. And he could give advice on how to dress. He could use me as a model –’

‘You’re banned,’ said Ren, shaking off his hand. She wrote, Wallet, Men’s Fragrance, Cufflinks.

‘Not me,’ said Barney. ‘Only my T-shirt.’

Claude had described Barney’s favourite T-shirt as an
excrescence and an eyesore and an insult to the noble tradition of menswear. The T-shirt was baggy and grubby, with Director in big black letters on the back and a picture of George Lucas and his hairy face on the front. Barney had got it printed at the T-Shirt Factory up the north end of High Street. He was very pleased with it; he hardly ever allowed it to be washed.

‘Still doesn’t sound like anything for me to organise,’ said Ren. She unzipped her pencil case, removed the barrel pencil sharpener and began sharpening her HB 5, fish-eyeing Barney as she did so.

‘There’ll be heaps, Slash,’ said Barney. ‘Don’t you worry about that. Release forms for a start. We’ll need a bunch of those. We’ll have to get permission from everyone. They’re actual contracts, you know. Willy Edwards will help. You love making forms, you know you do.’

Barney was gabbling and he knew it; it was his Persuading-Ren voice, one he’d perfected over the years. Ren was essential. He wasn’t exaggerating – there
would
be heaps to organise. And Ren was so good at it; she was Arch-Slasher, she did all the stuff he hated. She left him free to roll around in thethrillingalchemyofthecreativeprocess.

Right now, for instance, Barney just wanted to think about the brand-new kind of cast a documentary would enable: a cooperative cast, he was sure. Take Phil and Pete: they had endless stories about their travels nut scouting; they loved to talk. And Li Mai and Ping, they would talk about China and how they’d pitched up on the High Street. And Willy Edwards could talk about the time he got death threats. And Dick Scully – he was always going on about the history of the Street, he knew it right back to when it actually was a swamp.

And there would be so much to
show
, thought Barney, ecstatically. The Street itself, of course – all the comings and goings; the exteriors of the buildings which were of actual historical significance (Dad’s words); the glory of the horse-chestnut
tree … And the insides of people’s places, they were all pretty interesting, when you thought about it – the Boer War bayonet at His Lordship’s, the rows of splendid kimono and origami birds strung from the ceiling at Mulberry (est. 1997), the strange cuboid edifice made entirely of old
Beanos
in the back room of Comic Strip, the ingenious found-object sculptures and jewellery that Izzy displayed on the shelves of her studio –

‘So, Mr Writer/Director,’ said Ren. ‘So far I have one thing to organise.’ She stabbed at the page of the Production Book with her newly sharpened HB 5 and cross little holes broke out all over the paper.

Barney tore himself from the thought of Street accoutrements and considered Ren’s freshly pocked page.

Documentary: The High Street
she had written at the top. And under that,
A
. Consent Forms.

He whipped the pencil from Ren’s hand and wrote:
B
.

‘How do you spell Pre-Production Research?’ he asked. Ren whipped the pencil back and wrote it down.

‘And,’ said Barney, ‘that’s a
lot
of work. It’s a whole extra slash. And
C
.,’ – he counted off on his fingers – ‘Questions. You’ll have to help me work them out.
D
. Timetable, of course. You’ll have to work out whose place and when, and what order, etcetera, etcetera.’

‘It is usually a good sign when you say etcetera, etcetera,’ said Ren.

She favoured Barney with an almost smile. ‘It means you’re in the zone.’

She gazed at the new list and then gave a little huff of approval.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m in the zone now, too. This timetable will be
huge
. I’m going to need a bigger book.’

‘C’mon,’ said Barney. ‘Let’s start right now. We
can
start right away, cos we don’t need actors. Let’s go down both sides of the Street and start asking people. C’mon, c’mon!’

Barney felt hot all over again, but now it was with possibility and purpose. Fizz flowed in his veins as it always did at the beginning of a film. He wanted to go in fifty different directions all at the same time. He felt light and swept up and a trifle giddy, like one of the squadron of balsa-wood planes Albert Anderson and Gene always launched from the balcony at Montgomery’s on Poppy Day.

‘C’mon!’

Ren closed the Production Book and returned her pencil and sharpener to the pencil case. She seemed to be thinking.

‘There’s just one thing.’

‘What?’

‘There’s not really a
story
,’ said Ren, a little reluctantly. ‘There’s stories, everyone’s stories. But not really a proper story, with a beginning and a middle and an end. You haven’t got a hero.’

‘I’m sick of all that,’ said Barney. He swept back his hair with a flourish. He walked towards the swing doors. ‘But anyway we
have
got a beginning. We’ll start with His Lordship’s. And then we’ll go north down that side of the Street and south up this side and end at the Mediterranean. So there, we
have
got an end, as well. And the Street is the hero.’

‘I thought you were sick of knowing the end.’

Ren was so
picky
.

‘We only know
where
, not
how
,’ said Barney. What an excellent reply, he thought.

They pushed through the door and out to the Street, squinting against the bright white sun.

‘Our new set,’ said Barney, smiling with great benevolence upon the Street.

They surveyed the view northwards – the sunbathers at Little Wilt; the Yoga Room’s rainbow pennants, limp in the windless afternoon; the old park seat beneath the horse-chestnut tree where no one ever sat because of all the starling poo.

They looked south, past Montgomery’s sandwich board which showed the word
b o o k s
going up, down, diagonally and backwards in a word-find square; past Claude’s exquisitely dressed mannequin, Beau, leaning casually on his hawthorn walking cane in the entranceway to Brummel’s; past the Gilded Palace, the bright plinking of a mandolin coming through the open window; past the tall Polytech buildings; the green tops of spreading oaks; the domes of the Basilica; all the way to the Port Hills, straw-coloured and hazy in the distance.

‘Guess what?’ said Ren.

‘What?’

‘The Mediterranean
isn’t
the last place on this side. The Post Office is. We’ll have to end there.’

The Post Office. Of course.

The stately old building had not been a post office for years, though carved stone letters spelling P O S T O F F I C E reigned still above the top storey windows. It was the same for many of the Street’s shops. Their earlier lives announced themselves still to the passing world, chipped and shaved by the weather, or painted over: S T A C K ’ S B I C Y C L E S above Ping’s;
Squire’s Fine Meats
under the awning at the Nut House;
Amodeo & Co
, a florid inscription above the windows of Izzy’s apartment.

After it had ceased being a post office, the Post Office had housed, in succession, an accountancy firm, a tattoo studio, an anarchist art gallery and a Greek restaurant, but it had been empty for a long time now. It was waiting for someone with a good business idea to revive it. The windows of the several storeys had been boarded up after the glass had been smashed.

Dick Scully, not at all pleased by the sight of the neglected building, had made the sign straddling the big double doors of the Post Office.
KEEP OUT
, it read in blunt capitals. And underneath,
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. NO EXCEPTIONS.
Once, in the middle of the night, someone had altered the sign
so that it read,
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PERSECUTED. NO AFFECTION
.

‘I always forget about the Post Office,’ said Barney, his words trailing. Something had caught his eye. He crouched down and poked his head under one of Coralie’s outside tables. ‘I feel kind of sorry for it.’

‘It’s so big, but we never really see it,’ said Ren. ‘What are you doing?’

Barney had crawled right under the table and was lifting one of the heavy metal chairs. There was something wedged beneath the foot of the chair.

‘A thing,’ he said, backing out and standing again, dizzy with his efforts.

He turned the thing around. It was a white envelope, a single word written on the front: YOU.

‘You who?’ said Ren, and laughed. She took the envelope from Barney and felt around the edges.

‘Me?’ said Barney. ‘I saw it.’ He watched Ren inspect the envelope. ‘But anyone could have seen it. You could have seen it before me.’

‘Something flat and squarish,’ said Ren. They were experienced envelope-feelers. North Island Gran’s letters were folded in long rectangles and as fat as books; sometimes there were surprises to be found between the pages: small paper treats, or badges, or flat sweets.

‘You be YOU,’ said Ren, handing the letter back. ‘You did find it.’

All thought of the documentary was momentarily doused. They both stood very still, staring at the envelope, stark and arresting, in Barney’s palm. The YOU was handwritten in a fine-tipped, black felt pen. It was underlined emphatically, twice.

‘Maybe they left it there accidentally.’

‘You do not lift that chair accidentally,’ said Barney.

Of course, it was quite wrong to open other people’s mail. They both knew that.

‘Maybe someone put it there to stop the chair wobbling and then forgot it. Maybe we should ask Laurel.’

Barney checked the back of the envelope again. No return address.

They looked at each other, at the envelope.

Then Ren leaned towards Barney. Her eyes seemed to strobe.

‘Open it!’ she said.

(That was the very first envelope, Moo. Of course, I did not see its contents until much later. Nor did anyone else. Right from the beginning Barney and Ren knew this was a mystery they would keep to themselves. They weren’t sure why they chose not to tell anyone. Perhaps that was a mistake. It is hard to say.

I have told you about the envelopes before. But I have never told you what was inside.

This is a hanging chapter ending, Moo. You will need to turn the page to find out.)