Night on Terror Island (5 page)

‘Well, thank you all so much,’ said Norman. ‘I’ll treasure this.’ He returned the watch to its box and slipped it into his pocket. Then he took a large gulp of his wine. ‘You know, this is the nicest wine I’ve ever tasted,’ he said. ‘I do believe I’ll have another glass!’

Dad dutifully topped him up.

‘It is lovely,’ he agreed. ‘We have Mr Lazarus to thank for that.’ He studied the tall thin man for a moment, as though trying to figure him out. ‘While we’re making toasts, I suppose we really should have another one,’ he said. ‘To the man who’s going to take over from our Norman. A man who has already made some … amazing changes. To Mr Lazarus!’

‘Mr Lazarus!’ everyone said and they all drank to his health. He stood there, looking back at them, his grey eyes regarding them, a half-smile on his thin lips; and Kip found himself wondering what other changes he might have in store for the Paramount.

KIP WOKE EARLY
the next morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. A weird mixture of thoughts and questions kept bubbling through his head and they all had to do with Mr Lazarus. How did that ‘business card’ of his work? How had he managed to switch Norman’s wine and present without anybody noticing? And how did he know so much about a cinema he had never visited before?

Eventually, Kip got up and slouched downstairs in his pyjamas. He found a note from Mum on the kitchen table, saying that she’d had to drive over to work to help out with an ‘unexpected crisis’. He was to let Dad sleep late, because Mum thought he was looking very tired. Kip sighed. He popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster and switched on the kettle.

When he’d finished breakfast, Kip put his plate in the dishwasher and went through to Dad’s study. He switched on the computer and, while he was waiting for it to boot up, he noticed a brown envelope lying on the desk. It was the envelope that Mr Lazarus had given Dad the day before.

He looked inside and saw a sheath of papers of various sizes. They were old and mottled, clearly not photocopies but originals. He set them down on the desk and started to leaf through them. They were mostly articles cut from newspapers, though annoyingly there was nothing on any of them to identify when they had been published. However, they all looked ancient, the typefaces all higgledy-piggledy, everything set out in little columns and boxes. When he looked closer, he realised that they weren’t even in English, but what looked like Italian; he wondered how Mr Lazarus had expected Dad to be able to decipher them.

Kip turned the pages, hoping to find something that he could actually read but then his eye was caught by a black-and-white photograph of a cinema. Carved into its stonework was the name
Il Fantoccini
. And on the hording in front of the cinema was what must have been the title of the film they were showing,
Cabiria
. Several people were posed proudly on the steps at the entrance.

Closest to the camera stood a man in a top hat, tail coat and those weird black shoes with white toecaps on them. He wore white gloves and was leaning on a walking stick. He had a thick, black moustache that made him look like a walrus and he was smiling at the camera and lifting his free hand in a gesture that seemed to say,
Behold, my cinema!
This, Kip decided,
must
have been the Señor Ravelli that Mr Lazarus had mentioned. Other people stood a polite distance behind him: several men wearing military-style uniforms with flat-peaked caps and epaulettes on their shoulders, and a younger man, dressed in a fancy waistcoat and striped trousers. He was gazing proudly at the camera, hands on hips, a half-smile on his face. Kip gasped because there was no mistaking who it was. He was looking at a much younger version of Mr Lazarus.

Kip leafed through the rest of the papers but found nothing else he was able to read. So he got Google up on the computer and typed Il Fantoccini into the search box. Up came a series of articles but none of them seemed to have anything to do with a cinema of that name.

He decided to try another tack and typed in
Cabiria
. The first hit revealed that it was a silent movie, directed by somebody called Giovanni Pastrone, released in …’ Kip stared at the screen and had to check another couple of sites to make sure there had been no mistake. They all agreed on the release date. 1914. Kip found the photograph and looked at it again. Though the cinema was undoubtedly old-fashioned, in the picture it looked brand spanking new, freshly painted and clean as a whistle. He looked again at the young man in the waistcoat. It
was
Mr Lazarus, he was sure of that, not his father
or
his grandfather. But if this really was the cinema’s opening day and the film it was showing was fresh on release, then that made Mr Lazarus … Kip counted in his head, not really wanting to believe.

Assuming he was in his teens in the photograph, that would make him way over a hundred years old. While Kip could accept that he was pretty elderly and might actually be some years older than he looked, this was pushing it a bit.

He remembered Mr Lazarus saying something about equipment that was being delivered to the cinema this morning, so he logged off the computer and went back upstairs to get dressed, dragging on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He glanced into Dad’s room but he was still snoring soundly, the covers pulled up around his head. He checked Rose’s room and she too was out for the count, her eyes closed, her golden hair fanned out on the pillow around her. She looked cute when she was like this, but Kip wasn’t fooled for a moment. Any minute now she’d be up, demanding that he play with her and her collection of Barbie dolls.

He went downstairs again, grabbed his jacket and keys and walked quickly to the Paramount, just in time to see a large van driving away.

The foyer was deserted, so Kip made his way up to the projection room. The door was open and there were noises from within, the gentle clinking of metal
against
metal. Kip could see that Mr Lazarus was busy setting up an elaborate piece of equipment alongside the projector. He had taken his leather coat off and was wearing a richly-embroidered waistcoat, very like the one he had been wearing in the old photograph. The equipment was like nothing that Kip had ever seen before and seemed to consist of a round wooden platform set on a couple of metal rails. As Kip watched, Mr Lazarus slid the platform backwards and forward, occasionally squirting a drop of oil from an old-fashioned canister onto the tracks. He never turned his head to look, but when he spoke it was evident that he knew who he was talking to.

‘Well, don’t just stand there, boy, come along inside.’

Kip stepped sheepishly into the room.

‘Er … hi,’ he said. ‘I remembered you were having stuff delivered and I thought you … you might like some help.’

‘That’s very kind of you.’ Mr Lazarus turned his head for a moment and studied Kip. Kip had the unpleasant sensation that he was being scrutinised by somebody who knew everything that went on inside his head. Mr Lazarus waved a hand at an open toolbox. ‘Grab yourself a screwdriver,’ he said. ‘You can help me tighten this track.’

Kip picked up a screwdriver.

‘Er … what do you want me to—?’

‘Just tighten all the fittings,’ Mr Lazarus told him. ‘There mustn’t be the slightest movement in any of it.’

Kip did as he was told and found that the strangely-shaped screwdriver fitted perfectly into the strangely-shaped screw heads.

‘What
is
this thing?’ he asked, mystified.

Mr Lazarus paused long enough to look at him. ‘This,’ he said, with a flourish of a gloved hand, ‘is the Lazarus Enigma.’ And with that he went back to work.

‘I see,’ said Kip. ‘That’s … great.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And what exactly does the Lazarus Enema—’

‘Enigma!’

‘Yes. What exactly does it do?’

Mr Lazarus sighed. ‘It is my own invention. It does many things but one of its main purposes is to … enhance film.’

‘Enhance it,
how?
’

‘Films shown using this apparatus look sharper, clearer, more lifelike. It improves sound quality too.’

‘Wow. Like digital?’ asked Kip, but Mr Lazarus made a face as though somebody had just shoved an unpleasant-tasting sweet into his mouth.

‘Don’t mention that word,’ he growled. ‘That’s nothing to do with cinema.’

‘But everybody says it’s the future,’ said Kip.

‘Pah! I speak of
real
cinema. The miracle that happens when millions of still images are fed through a shutter at twenty-four frames a second. Digital is an abomination. I will have nothing to do with it!’

‘But Dad says—’

‘You know,’ said Mr Lazarus, ‘we will get more done if we talk less.’

Kip took the hint and went on with his screw tightening. As he did so, he took the opportunity to glance around the cramped confines of the room and he noticed, amongst all the boxes and cases, an ancient folding bed propped up against one wall.

‘What’s the bed for?’ he asked.

Mr Lazarus sighed and paused in his work.

‘When somebody gets to my age, occasionally it is nice to have a little lie down,’ he said.

Kip studied him for a moment.

‘I wanted to ask you about that,’ he said, ‘about your age, I mean.’

Now Mr Lazarus turned and looked at Kip, a sardonic smile on his face.

‘Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a question like that?’ he said.

Kip felt his face reddening.

‘It’s just that I looked at those papers you gave to Dad—’

‘Did you, now? I was under the impression that they were for his eyes only.’

‘Er … well … I saw the photograph of Il Fanto … Il Fan … that cinema you used to work at. And it really looked like you in the picture.’

Mr Lazarus nodded but didn’t say anything.

‘And the film that was showing. Carri-whatsit? According to Wikipedia, that was released in 1914.’

Mr Lazarus was still looking at him. He seemed faintly amused by Kip’s discomfort.

‘What of it?’ he asked.

‘Well, let’s say you were eighteen in that picture that would make you … well, more than a hundred years old, wouldn’t it?’

Mr Lazarus considered for a moment.

‘I suppose it would,’ he said. ‘Assuming, of course, it was a
first
showing of the film. But it could be that we were running a revival. It could be that the picture was taken in 1924 … or 1946 … or 1951.’

He went back to his tinkering. Kip waited for quite a while before he asked, ‘Well, which one was it?’

Mr Lazarus shrugged his shoulders. ‘I forget,’ he said. ‘My memory is not what it used to be.’ He looked at Kip again. ‘Any other questions bothering you?’

‘Yes,’ said Kip. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the card. ‘How does this work?’

Mr Lazarus looked at it.

‘It’s a business card,’ he said. ‘You give them to people.’

‘Oh, yeah? With no address or phone number? What use is that? And besides, when I looked at it the first time …’

‘Yes?’

‘I saw something. On the card. I saw …’

Mr Lazarus leaned a little closer. He looked intrigued.

‘What did you see, Kip? Describe it to me.’

Kip frowned.

‘It was … well, I saw this, like, T. Rex? And it was running through a forest, smashing all the trees down.’

Mr Lazarus nodded. He seemed impressed.

‘I think people see what they want to see,’ he said. ‘You like films with prehistoric monsters in them, yes?’

Kip nodded. ‘I suppose,’ he said.

‘Well then.’

‘Yeah, but I’ve looked at it lots since then and I haven’t seen anything.’

‘It doesn’t happen every time. You have to be in the right frame of mind. Stop expecting to see something and that’s when it might work.’ Mr Lazarus went over to a cardboard box. He kneeled down and opened it, then took out an oddly-shaped lump of transparent glass.

‘What’s that?’ asked Kip.

‘It’s a prism,’ said Mr Lazarus. He stood and carried it back to the Lazarus Enigma, then began to attach it to an upright metal pole that stuck up from the side of the round platform.

‘And what does that do?’ asked Kip.