Manhattan Nocturne (42 page)
Read Manhattan Nocturne Online
Authors: Colin Harrison
[Jerky view of an opulent hotel room. Camera stabilizes. One corner of the frame is blurred by an unidentifiable object, perhaps the strap of a purse. On the far side of the room is a large bed, a plush chair, and a window. It is night.]
Caroline: ⦠would be interesting, that's all. [Into view comes the immense figure of Hobbs, wearing an expensive suit. His back is to the camera. He picks up the phone.]
Hobbs: Operator, this is room 1412. I want no interruptions, no calls. With one exception. If a man named Murdoch calls, that call gets put through. Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch. M-U-R-D-0-C-H. Yes, quite right, thank you, nobody but him. [He replaces phone.] Unlikely he'll call, but there is a chance that my office gave him this number. [Hobbs turns his head at the sound of a knock. He checks his watch.] Yes?
Voice: It's Springfield, sir.
Hobbs: Come in, Springfield.
[A figure appears in the room, back to camera.]
Hobbs:Yes.
Springfield: We've finalized the London schedule, sir. Mr. Campbell said that I should inform you.
Hobbs: Very good, Springfield, give me the schedule.
Springfield: Well, sir, we have Mr. Trump at eight A.M., then Mr. Ridgeway from the bank at ten; then lunch with Mr. Lok's groupâ
Hobbs: Do we have the figures put together for that meeting?
Springfield: I'll have to ask Mr. Campbell, sir. But I would assume so.
Hobbs: Tell Mr. Campbell that if he doesn't have the figures prepared, he can buy himself fish and chips.
Springfield: Yes, sir. Will that be all for tonight?
Hobbs [turning toward Caroline]: Miss, is there anything you want, anything Springfield can get you? Cigarettes, flowers, anything you'd like?
Caroline: No, I'm fine, thanks.
Hobbs: [lifting a hand]: Okay, Springfield.
Springfield: Good night, sir. Miss. [Springfield leaves.]
Hobbs: Let's be very clear about this.
Caroline: Okay.
Hobbs: [takes off his suit jacket awkwardly]: I want you to tell me what you want, exactly.
Caroline: Okay.
Hobbs: You were looking for some sort of payment?
Caroline: No.
Hobbs: Odd. You're not expecting some kind of job or regular money or anything?
Caroline: No. Just a little time with you. I'm curious about you.
Hobbs: You see, I must ask because a man in my position, people are bloody always asking me for money or a job or something. It was Carol, right?
Caroline: Caroline.
Hobbs: Of course. I'm terribly sorry. [She shakes her head and then pulls something out of her hair, making it fall.] Do you want the lights on or off?
Caroline: Off. There's a lot of light from the city.
Hobbs: [He moves to the wall, and the lights go out. They settle on the bed.] Now ⦠[She takes his hand into hers.] Let me tell you something, my Miss Caroline. We gaze at each other across a far gulf. Of course, we know what these things are. [His voice is deep and slow and full of affection.] You are a beautiful
young woman, you are an American, you have your whole life ahead of you. And we know all too well what I am ⦠yes. I am aâ
young woman, you are an American, you have your whole life ahead of you. And we know all too well what I am ⦠yes. I am aâ
Caroline: Shhhh. [She begins to undress.]
Hobbs: That's quite kind. But let me just say this, my Miss Caroline, I want you to know that I know who I am. I know what I look like, to you. This is very important to me. Because it allows me to express my gratitude to you. I am a fat old man. I am a horror, an obscenity. It's been thirty years since I could touch my toes. I also am incapable of normal sexual function, my Miss Caroline.
Caroline: Are you sure?
Hobbs: Quite sure. [He kicks off his shoes.]
Caroline: Can't have sex?
Hobbs: No. But pleaseâ
Caroline: [She resumes her undressing.] Do you mind me asking why? I mean, is itâ
Hobbs: Not you, not at all, of course not. [He drops his pants, unbuttons his shirt.] It's something that happenedâquite a long time ago, I'm afraid.
Caroline: I want to hear about it.
Hobbs: [sighing]: It's an old man's tale.
Caroline: I can hear it. I've seen a few things.
Hobbs: Let me get a cigarette. [Disappears into bathroom, his fleshy bulk suddenly illuminated, like a moon, by a light that flicks on, then just as abruptly off.] Now then. Well. If you insist. I haven't spoken of this for many years, actually. Once upon a time, my dear Caroline, I was twenty years old and my father was the ninth richest man in Australia. My father and I did not get along then, not at all. He wanted me in the newspaper business and I had other ideas. I was rather interested in sailing and the girls, you know. I had quite a bit of money to spend for a boy my age, and I used to go to the brothels in Melbourne, which, I shall say, were marvelous. My father
had failed in his attempt to get me off to Oxford or Cambridge and had been forced to settle for the University of Sydney. Quite a disappointment, that. He was worried for my future, he was. I don't blame him. We had terrible rows. The summer before my last year of university I did the unmentionableâI signed on to work on a freighter.
had failed in his attempt to get me off to Oxford or Cambridge and had been forced to settle for the University of Sydney. Quite a disappointment, that. He was worried for my future, he was. I don't blame him. We had terrible rows. The summer before my last year of university I did the unmentionableâI signed on to work on a freighter.
Caroline: A boat.
Hobbs: [lies on bed]: Yes, a freighter is, or was, the ship that hauled everything around the world. Coal, steel, grain, whatever. Now, except for the big container ships and the oil tankers, it's all jumbo cargo jets. But back in 1956, the freighter was the thing. I loved working on the ship. There was quite a bit of painting. Scraping and painting. We worked our way up the west coast of Africa, then around Gibraltar toward France. I mailed very short letters to my mother and father from each port, knowing that they would arrive in Australia weeks later. In Marseilles, we put in to drop some automobile tires that we had picked up. Marseilles was a tough town, quite a tough town. Our captain had even warned us, but I wasn't scared. No, not at all. We had a boiler problem, so we were in port for five days, and for much of that time I was free.
Caroline: There's a woman in this story, I can feel it.
Hobbs: There most certainly is.
Caroline: Was she beautiful?
Hobbs: As beautiful as you, except that she was dark, like mahogany. She was the most expensive prostitute in Marseilles, that is, if she wanted you. I had quite a bit of money with me that I had kept hidden, and I did the most stupendously stupid thing I could have done.
Caroline: What?
Hobbs: I fell in love with her. I kept giving her money to spend time with me, and she obliged.
Caroline: She was taking advantage of you.
Hobbs: Which I knew. But I did not care. We spent half the time in the French countryside, drunk. I'd rented a car. She called herself Monique. She was half-Indian, a quarter Zulu, some Chinese, and the rest Boer. Born in Cape Town. Quite a life she had had. Her French was rudimentary. Very tough little catâjust like you, I'd bet. She had been kidnapped and taken to Marseilles by a captain after the war ended. Kidnapped by him, then fell in love with him. You can imagine how thrilling all this was to a twenty-year-old lad lying in the grass in the French countryside, half-drunk. I was quite smitten. The affair was doomed, of course. I knew I was back on the freighter in a few days. These days are as real to me as this morning's breakfast. I can look out of that window, Caroline, and I know that I am in Manhattan at the Plaza Hotel and that it is June eighteenth or whateverâI never know the date anymoreâbut I am simultaneously back there, looking into the dark, dark eyes of my Monique. I do not have a photograph of her. I do not have a letter. I have nothing but the memory of her, the last day we saw each other, which was May the twenty-third, 1956, at eleven-fifty-seven P.M. I was due back on the ship at midnight. We were shipping out at two A.M. to catch the tide. [Caroline lights a cigarette.] Her flat was two floors up, four blocks from the docks. I had given her every last franc and pound and dollar I had, willingly and happily. We had been together for almost five straight days. I was broken to pieces at the thought of leaving her, for I knew I would never see her again. But also I was strangely happy, because I knew I had just had quite a little adventure of the heart, you might call it, and soon I would be back on the ship safely steaming across the ocean.
Caroline: You said good-bye to her?
Hobbs: Indeed. I said good-bye to her and kissed her and told her I loved her and would never forget her
and all the other things one says when one's heart is full, and then she told me I had to go, it took three minutes to get down to the docks, and I told her I could run it in half that time, and she said, “Well, maybe two minutes,” and I believe we kissed one more time. Then I looked at her, that very last look, that look that you know will have to do you until you are dead, and then I flew down the steps and into the dark streets, and it was maybe a block away that some of the regular Marseilles sailors caught me, even though I was a pretty big lad and put up my best fight, and they beat me badly, and one of them stuck me with a knife about a dozen times around the groin, and they left me there for dead.
and all the other things one says when one's heart is full, and then she told me I had to go, it took three minutes to get down to the docks, and I told her I could run it in half that time, and she said, “Well, maybe two minutes,” and I believe we kissed one more time. Then I looked at her, that very last look, that look that you know will have to do you until you are dead, and then I flew down the steps and into the dark streets, and it was maybe a block away that some of the regular Marseilles sailors caught me, even though I was a pretty big lad and put up my best fight, and they beat me badly, and one of them stuck me with a knife about a dozen times around the groin, and they left me there for dead.
Caroline: God.
Hobbs: They hated me for having taken Monique, you understand. They knew that I must not really be a sailor if I had paid her for five days and had rented a car and bought a lot of wine. They had been waiting for me. They knew when my ship was off. I was in a very bad way. My boat left without me. They had dragged me off the main street, behind some rubbish. An old woman found me in the morning. I was very bad. The doctor said that he thought I had lost half my blood, that I was saved only by my youth. But the sailors, they had cut up my nerves, they had cut everything down there that you could cut Lucky I still have my balls actually, but after that it was no good. Couldn't get hard. Wanted to. I've wanted to for almost forty years. Nothing. Seen the best doctors in the world. The best. Kept hoping some kind of technique would come along ⦠some drug, but nothing. The nerves are all dead in there. I can feel when I am pissing, sort of, but that's all. Otherwise, almost nothing. Hot and cold a bit. Erection impossible.
Caroline: What happened to you after that?
Hobbs: I stayed in hospital. I was in a bad way. I had
no money, I didn't know much French. Finally I asked a nurse to contact the editor of the newspaper. Instead she came back with a man who used to work for the BBC. Retired. We could talk in English. I gave him my father's name and address. He contacted him. Three days later my father arrived. Then a private hospital in Paris. He stayed with me for a month there. Read me the papers. We were very much changed, he and I. He started to explain some of the problems he was having with his newspapers. He was wise enough to make it seem interesting. Every day, hour after hour. Sometimes he would read to me. Had a special phone put in the room so that he could do a bit of business while sitting right there. When I was well we flew back to Australia. He brought me right into the paper. I never would have done it if I hadn't been attacked, but I needed to have something. He was quite wise, my father. I miss him. [Hobbs is silent.] Three years later he was dead of a coronary and there I was with the whole bloody business. [In the darkened room, she is curled against Hobbs's great bulk. Minutes pass. His breathing is pressed and often; hers, unstrained, is inaudible. It seems that his hand is moving slowly back and forth on her shoulder and neck. She takes the large hand and lays it on her face, kisses it.] You are not repulsed by me?
no money, I didn't know much French. Finally I asked a nurse to contact the editor of the newspaper. Instead she came back with a man who used to work for the BBC. Retired. We could talk in English. I gave him my father's name and address. He contacted him. Three days later my father arrived. Then a private hospital in Paris. He stayed with me for a month there. Read me the papers. We were very much changed, he and I. He started to explain some of the problems he was having with his newspapers. He was wise enough to make it seem interesting. Every day, hour after hour. Sometimes he would read to me. Had a special phone put in the room so that he could do a bit of business while sitting right there. When I was well we flew back to Australia. He brought me right into the paper. I never would have done it if I hadn't been attacked, but I needed to have something. He was quite wise, my father. I miss him. [Hobbs is silent.] Three years later he was dead of a coronary and there I was with the whole bloody business. [In the darkened room, she is curled against Hobbs's great bulk. Minutes pass. His breathing is pressed and often; hers, unstrained, is inaudible. It seems that his hand is moving slowly back and forth on her shoulder and neck. She takes the large hand and lays it on her face, kisses it.] You are not repulsed by me?
Caroline: I think you're sweet. [She is taking one finger at a time and putting each one in her mouth, withdrawing it and then doing the next one.]
Hobbs: There is something else I would like to do, here.
Caroline: What?
Hobbs: I think it will be something ⦠it's quite meaningful to me in its own way.
Caroline: I don'tâ
Hobbs: Let me just ⦠[The immense bulk of Hobbs moves off the bed and passes by the camera.] Here, if you just, just move down here a bitâ[Hobbs is at
the end of the bed, kneeling, with some difficulty. She is lying with her legs open. Hobbs lowers his bulk between them.] You see, my Miss Caroline ⦠[Hobbs has put his head between her legs; his words are somewhat muffled.] I have aâperhaps you've seen it, my tongue isâI have a ratherâwhy, here, if I may, I'll just â¦
the end of the bed, kneeling, with some difficulty. She is lying with her legs open. Hobbs lowers his bulk between them.] You see, my Miss Caroline ⦠[Hobbs has put his head between her legs; his words are somewhat muffled.] I have aâperhaps you've seen it, my tongue isâI have a ratherâwhy, here, if I may, I'll just â¦
Caroline: Hey, oh.
Hobbs: [lifting his head]: Yes? I think that's probably quiteâ[Lowers his head, drops one meaty palm on each of her thighs.]
Caroline: Oh. That's your tongue? I can't
believeâ
oh! It's ⦠[Indecipherable sounds. Several minutes pass, Caroline breathing deeply.] Don'tâslow downâa little bit slower ⦠a littleâno, now go in with it and side to side ⦠I ⦠[Twisting her head back and forth.] Now come out, now go
âuh,
in, now, that's
too
⦠I said don't do it but please do it againâ
oh,
yes, that'sâ[The room is silent for a time, but for the wheezed breathing of Hobbs, and the sounds of Caroline as she twists on the bed. A siren passes on the street below. The air has a far buzz and hum. Then she rolls onto her side.] That wasâI feel so relaxed.
believeâ
oh! It's ⦠[Indecipherable sounds. Several minutes pass, Caroline breathing deeply.] Don'tâslow downâa little bit slower ⦠a littleâno, now go in with it and side to side ⦠I ⦠[Twisting her head back and forth.] Now come out, now go
âuh,
in, now, that's
too
⦠I said don't do it but please do it againâ
oh,
yes, that'sâ[The room is silent for a time, but for the wheezed breathing of Hobbs, and the sounds of Caroline as she twists on the bed. A siren passes on the street below. The air has a far buzz and hum. Then she rolls onto her side.] That wasâI feel so relaxed.
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