Original Cyn (18 page)

Laptop in place, she realized the act of stretching out had altered the position of the cushions. She reached behind her back and adjusted them yet again. “OK, right,” she said, giving a cushion one last tug, “let’s get going.” She typed:
Droolin’ Dream commercial.
She pressed the
return
key twice, indented and typed:
Scene 1.
She paused and added a colon. Then she linked her fingers and bent them back so that her knuckles cracked. “So, what’s my opening line? C’mon, think. Think.” Nothing. More knuckle cracking was followed by more cushion tugging. She turned her attention to the laptop and began playing with font size and trying to decide between print styles—should she go for Courier or Times New Roman? After two or three minutes she decided the only way to get her brain in gear was to make a cup of coffee.

She got up, went back into the kitchen and filled up the kettle. “So, Mo,” she said, going over to the birdcage and peering in through the bars. “It’s been ages since we had a talk. How you diddling?”

“Need a leg over,” he said in a perfect imitation of Keith Geary. “Need a leg over.”

“Same ol,’ same ol’, then. I, on the other hand, have big news. I’ve met a man and I think I’m falling in love. His name’s Joe. And he is just gorgeous. And I mean gorgeous with a capital cute.” God, Gazza was getting inside her head like one of those ridiculous Christmas pop songs. “I’ve never met anybody like Joe before. He’s funny, kind and ever so cute. He kissed me last night and it was so unbearably blissful that I thought I was going to pass out. What do you think of that?” She found a piece of cucumber on the counter, which had come from her salad, and pushed it through the cage bars. “Gorgeous Joe,” he squawked. “Love Gorgeous Joe.” Then he pecked the cucumber greedily from her fingers.

Cyn took her mug of coffee back to the sofa, but try as she might, no words would come. It was odd, writing scripts usually came quite easily to her. This one was different, though. Her entire career depended on it. The upshot was, her mind had frozen.

She typed:
Scene: Sixties kitchen. Three women are sitting at a Formica kitchen table.
She followed this with another colon.

When the words still wouldn’t come, more displacement activities followed. These included picking at the dry skin on her bottom lip, booking an eyebrow wax and test-driving her new
Sex and the City
bunny vibrator—five times.

Finally she decided to have a bath. There was no point getting dressed again, so she decided to change into her pajamas. Her new hiking boots were sitting on the floor at the end of the bed. She decided to put them on for a few hours—but over thick hiking socks this time—in one last attempt to break them in.

By seven o’clock, due to frequent displacement walks around the flat, the boots were feeling much more comfortable. Scriptwise, she’d only written two lines and was struggling. When the phone rang, she couldn’t have been more grateful. She would have happily chatted away to a loan company or wrong number, just to get a few minutes’ break. But it wasn’t either of those. It was a distinctly careworn Hugh, phoning to give her a progress report on the wedding arrangements. He’d finally booked the tent, and after spending the entire day on the phone had finally found a rabbi and a priest prepared to perform a joint blessing after a civil ceremony. The bad news was, he’d made no progress with the food and entertainment. The “simple elegance” idea had lasted five minutes, it seemed. Barbara was still fixated on deep-fried ice cream and Flick was talking white stretch limos and suggesting that instead of confetti, each guest should be given a children’s tube of bubbles and a wand. “I thought it was a rather sweet idea,” Hugh said, “until she started making noises about having a steel band playing ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.’ ”

Cyn had just gotten off the phone with Hugh when Harmony rang in a state of wild excitement to say she’d phoned Laurent and asked him out. “I’m picking him up in an hour. God, my heart won’t stop racing. I feel like a sixteen-year-old getting ready for her first date. I’ve already tried on a dozen outfits.” Cyn told her to have a wonderful time and ring her afterward with all the details. A few minutes later Barbara rang, equally hyped, to say did she know Harmony had asked Laurent out? Barbara couldn’t stop going on about what a lovely boy he was. Apparently, nothing was too much for him. He couldn’t do enough around the house and he’d even gotten Grandma Faye working out. “You should just see the pair of them going at it on the living room carpet.” Cyn said that really would be a sight to behold. “Oh, by the way,” Barbara said before she hung up, “your dad’s feeling a bit under the weather. He thinks he might be coming down with flu. If you ask me, those nasal tubes in that oxygen machine of his were full of germs.” Barbara didn’t seem remotely perturbed, so Cyn told her to wish Mal better and that she would phone tomorrow to see how he was.

It was well after midnight when she finished the script. In the end it wasn’t at all bad, even if she did say so herself. She’d managed to capture the right lighthearted tone, at the same time as getting in a reasonable selection of Gazza’s selling points. Of course it would probably need some last-minute rewrites when they came to filming, but for now she was happy.

She made herself some Marmite toast and hot chocolate, which she took back to the sofa. When she’d finished, she picked up the script, intending to give it a final read-through, but she could barely keep her eyes open. She had just begun to nod off, when the phone rang again. She gave a start and reached onto the floor for the phone.

“Cyn, it’s me, Harms. You awake?”

“Not really,” Cyn said blearily.

“Great, ’cos I just had to ring like I promised and tell you I had
the
most fantastic evening with Laurent.” If it was possible, she sounded even higher than she’d sounded a few hours ago. “He wouldn’t let me pay for anything. Of course he’s got practically no money, so we ended up taking this long romantic walk by the river, eating hot dogs and putting the world to rights. Cyn, he is a truly good man. A real visionary. He’s got all these amazing ideas about how to make the world a better place . . .”

“Harms, that’s wonderful, but I’ve been working all evening and I really am . . .”

“I mean, you want to hear him on fuel emissions and global warming.”

“I’m sure it’s fascinating. The thing is . . .”

“And famine. He says it’s not so much financial aid countries like Ethiopia need, as education in modern farming methods.”

“So they say . . .”

“And he thinks religion is one of the major causes of all the hatred and misery in the world. You know, the idea of my team being better than your team. I’d never thought of it like that.”

“It’s a good point, but . . .”

“He is dead brainy. I reckon he could give Hugh a run for his money. God, Cyn, men with brains are just
so
sexy, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely . . .”

“Oh, and to top it off, he’s also the most brilliant kisser. Bloody hell, I think I might be in love. Anyway, look, don’t be offended, I’d love to stay up yakking, but I really need to hit the sack.”

“It’s OK, Harms, I’m not remotely offended. Night, night.”

Cyn put down the phone. She did her best to get herself up off the sofa, but her legs simply refused to engage with her brain. Instead she rearranged the cushions one last time and fell asleep. She was still wearing her hiking boots.

Chapter 14

In her dream, the intermittent buzzing sound was coming from a chain saw being wielded by Mr. Levinson from downstairs. For some reason he had gone crazy and was in the street carrying out a ferocious attack on a twenty-foot mountain of Droolin’ Dream Low Nuts. With every long, piercing buzz, Mr. Levinson wrought more carnage. Huge, gleaming gobbets of strawberry jam spurted onto the pavement, hedges and car windscreens. In the distance a police officer was crouched behind the open door of his patrol car, megaphone in hand. “Sir,” he called out, “step aside from the doughnuts.”

Slowly, Cyn started to come to. In the space of a couple of seconds she realized that the buzzing was coming from the intercom, Joe was downstairs, it had to be half past seven and she had overslept. “Oh, God, no. Bloody hell.” She leapt off the sofa, making her head go all swimmy because she’d gotten up too quickly and ran to the intercom. “Hi, Joe, come on up,” she said, pressing the door release. She looked in the hall mirror and tried to flatten her psycho morning hair, but it was having none of it.

“I am so, so sorry I’m not ready,” she started to gabble as she let him in. “I was working late last night on the script for the Droolin’ Dream commercial and I overslept.”

“That’s OK,” he said brightly. “We’ve got plenty of time.” As he kissed her on the lips a goose pimple shiver went up her back. This was caused by sexual excitement, tinged with the fear that her early morning breath might have been less than sweet.

She thought he looked unbelievably sexy in his khaki parka, black scarf and well-worn hiking boots (and not remotely wholesome—at least not in the meat-paste-sandwiches-and-birdsong-records sense). By contrast she was standing there in her ancient brushed cotton floral pajamas with a question mark over her breath, feeling about as sexy as Granny Clampett. “Let me just jump in the shower. I’ll be ten minutes.”

“Don’t panic. Honest, we’ll be fine. By the way, the boots look great. I’d never have thought of teaming them with pajamas.”

She looked down at her feet and felt herself turn crimson. “Ah, yes . . . the boots.” She’d already told him she owned loads of hiking gear, so she could hardly say she was breaking them in. “I, er . . . I slept in them . . .” And why had she slept in them? In case of a sudden middle-of-the-night trekking emergency? “I slept in them to save time. That’s it. Always takes me ages to get them on.”

“But you’re about to have a shower. Presumably you’re going to take them off?”

“Ah, yes. Silly me. I didn’t think of that.”

He stood there looking at her, a bemused expression on his face. She suggested that while she got ready he go into the kitchen and make them some coffee. “You can say hello to Morris.”

“Morris?”

“He’s a mynah bird. I’m looking after him for a bloke at work. Chats away like mad, but don’t be embarrassed when he starts going on about his lack of a sex life.”

She headed off to the bathroom. “Hi, Morris,” she heard Joe say, “pleased to meet you, I’m Joe.”

“I’m Joe. I’m Joe. Gorgeous Joe. Gorgeous Joe.”

For the second time in less than five minutes, her face was burning with embarrassment. She had to stop having heart-to-hearts with Morris. They were just too dangerous. She charged back to the kitchen before Morris could do any more damage. She couldn’t tell if Joe’s bemused expression was new or left over from their conversation about her hiking boots. “Don’t worry,” Cyn said brightly, “he calls everybody gorgeous, don’t you, Morris? The milkman, the postman—even old Mr. Levinson downstairs.” She turned to Morris. “Say ‘gorgeous Mr. Levinson.’ ” Silence. “Come on, Morris.” Not a word. “Morris, show Joe how clever you are.” She was virtually pleading with him now. “Don’t be shy. Say ‘gorgeous Mr. Levinson.’ ” But Morris was having none of it. For once he was keeping his beak firmly shut.

“Doesn’t seem to be in the mood,” Joe said. “Don’t worry. I’ll put the kettle on. You go and get ready.” He said that as it was particularly cold out, she might want to put on some extra layers.

Cyn headed back to the bathroom, but not before putting a tea towel over Morris’s cage. Had she turned round and looked back into the room she would have seen Joe pulling off the cover and starting to engage Morris in more conversation.

When she returned five minutes later dressed in hiking gear, the cover was back on the birdcage and Morris was quiet. She’d hemmed and hawed about whether to include the plastic map holder and waterproof gaiters in her ensemble. Because of her confusion earlier, she couldn’t remember if Joe had been wearing them. Deciding he probably had, she fastened the map holder string round her neck and pulled the gaiters up over her trouser bottoms. All she remembered for certain was that he hadn’t been carrying a hiking pole—although he could have left it in the car. Since her hiking pole was retractable, she decided to play it safe and stash it in her rucksack.

“Wow, you really are a serious hiker,” he said, taking in the gaiters. He wasn’t wearing any. Nor was he wearing a map holder. Thank God, she wasn’t carrying the hiking pole. She already felt like the school swot who turned up every day with an immaculately pressed blazer and freshly polished protractor.

“Yes, I did a few walks last year,” she lied. “The Dales, Hadrian’s Wall, the Lake District, that sort of thing. I think it’s essential to have the right gear and be prepared.” To prove her point, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her compass and PowerBar.

“You’re right. Even though it’s almost spring the weather can still close in. You can’t take any risks.” He handed her a cup of coffee. “By the way, I love how you’ve done up this flat. You’ve got great taste.”

She thanked him and said she simply worshipped at the temple of Ikea, like most people.

“Maybe, but not everybody knows how to pull a look together.”

Just then she noticed Hugh’s Siamese twin screenplay—which, to her shame, she still hadn’t gotten round to reading—lying open on the kitchen table. “Hugh’s your gay writer friend, isn’t he?” Cyn nodded. “I hope he won’t mind, but I couldn’t resist flicking through it . . . You know, it’s quite inspired.”

“Really?” God, had she gotten Joe all wrong? Did he go in for the same sort of turgid, pretentious stuff Hugh did?

“Does this guy know how funny he is? I’ve only read the outline and a few pages of the script, but this has all the makings of a hilarious black comedy.”

OK, now she got it. She gave a soft laugh. “I think you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Hugh’s pretty earnest. He doesn’t do hilarious—at least not intentionally.”

“Well, I think this has real comic potential. A film about one Siamese twin facing the electric chair is so impossibly macabre and gruesome that you could only play it for laughs. With the right handling, the right director, it could really work.”

“You really are passionate about writing,” she said softly.

He gave a self-conscious look that suggested the comment had knocked him off balance. “I suppose I am.”

“You really ought to give it a go. There are loads of writing classes you could join if you need help getting started.”

“I know. Maybe I’ll check a couple out.” He said he would like to read the screenplay through carefully and if he still felt the same about it afterward, he knew a couple of film producers who might be keen to take a look at it. He asked her if she thought Hugh would mind him taking the script away to read.

“Mind? He’d be over the moon. Warner Bros. doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get back to him.” She didn’t say Hugh would be less than over the moon about
My Brother, My Blood, My Life
being made into a comedy, but they would cross that bridge when—or more to the point if—they came to it.

In the end they got under way just after eight thirty. “You know,” she said, pulling her seat belt across her, “us seeing each other outside therapy feels really wicked. It’s like we’re a couple of naughty kids bunking off school for the day.”

He said he felt the same. “Maybe we should buy booze and find something to set fire to . . . On the other hand we could just listen to some music.” He suggested she choose something from his pile of CDs in the glove compartment. She went for a
Sixties Greatest Hits
compilation. For nearly an hour they sat singing along to all the old classics. Round about Newport Pagnell, “Unchained Melody” came on and they agreed it was a crying shame that great songs became instantly debased once they were used in films or commercials.

When they weren’t singing, they talked about holidays, books, places they’d been, places they’d like to go. The only thing off-limits was any discussion of people in the group. They decided this would be disloyal.

Cyn couldn’t get over how the time just melted. At one point he started reminiscing about Dublin and told her how as a student he dived naked into the River Liffey on a dare and got caught by the police. She made him laugh by telling how she hated roast lamb as a child and that she always used to secrete her portion into her Barbie and Ken trailer that she kept under the dining room table for that purpose.

“So,” she said, at one point, wondering if she could finally draw him out about his job, “you still working on this science-fiction movie you were telling me about in the pub?” He said he was. She asked him how it was going.

“Oh, you know. Coming along.” She suspected that was all she was going to get.

“Are you based at one of the big film studios?”

“Yeah, Pinewood.”

“You know, Joe,” she said gently, “I’d really like to hear about your work. I’m interested in finding out more about what you do. I promise I won’t be bored.”

“OK, last week we digitized our rushes ready for the Avid off-line.”

“Oh, right,” she said, blinking with noncomprehension.

“See, you’re bored already,” he said, smiling.

It was true she hadn’t understood what he was saying, but she wondered if he was trying to blind her with science in order to put her off asking more questions.

As they carried on listening to the music, she noticed he had no Pinewood Studios parking permit stuck to his windscreen. Hugh had a friend who worked at Pinewood. He’d given her a lift home once. She’d spotted the parking permit and remarked on how glam it looked. It was odd Joe didn’t have one, she thought. On the other hand, maybe it had come off. The road-tax permit on her old Peugeot used to fall off all the time—particularly in winter when there was loads of condensation on the windscreen.

The traffic was clear until just before the Nottingham turn-off, when it came to a complete standstill. For an hour and a half they barely moved. According to the traffic news on the radio there had been “an incident” and “considerable delays could be expected.” They had no choice other than to sit it out.

When the traffic eventually cleared it was lunchtime and they were starving. They stopped at the next service station and gorged themselves on a surprisingly edible all-day English breakfast. Later on in the loo, she divested herself of the map holder and gaiters.

They arrived in Ribbledale just after two. It was snow-cold, but the sky was bright blue with the occasional splodge of white meringue cloud. Since the weather was so bitter, the place wasn’t at all crowded. They headed out of the car park. Joe had his rucksack slung over his shoulder, but there was no evidence of a hiking pole. She decided to keep hers hidden.

They made for the narrow river that lay a few yards ahead. Tiny ripples on its surface twinkled in the strong light. Gnarled, bent-over trees covered in a delicate haze of new green clung to the muddy bank, their branches skimming the water. In the distance, majestic emerald domes presided over the skyline.

“Isn’t this just grand?” Joe said, turning his face to the sky and taking in a lungful of air. Cyn agreed it was. It was even grander when Joe took her hand as they negotiated the stepping-stones across the river.

Soon they came to a wooded area covered in a thick carpet of tiny white flowers.

“They’re wood anemones,” he said. “Did you know that the wood anemone propagates mainly by means of creeping underground stems?”

“Wow, I’m impressed,” she said, secretly wondering if he really was going to turn out to be a hill-walking nature nerd after all. “How do you know all that?”

“Oh, I’m a bit of a nature buff on the quiet.” Her face must have registered a certain unease, which he picked up on, but he said nothing to relieve it. Instead he let her carry on wondering about him, let the silence stand between them. It must have been a full ten seconds before his face finally broke into a grin. “Not really. We just passed a sign asking walkers not to trample the wood anemones. The rest, for some ridiculous reason, I just happen to remember from school biology.”

She was still giggling when he reached out and tilted her face up toward him. The next thing she knew he was planting a kiss on her lips. “You know which bit of you I especially like?” he said. She shook her head. “It’s your eyes. They’re the most exquisite shape. Like two perfect almonds.” He ran his finger over her eyebrows and lids. Soon he was kissing her again, but properly this time. She felt herself melt into his arms, the familiar ache, the quivering in her stomach. She could have happily let him ravish her right there, among the wood anemones.

As they set off again he took her hand in his. It was big and warm. She enjoyed its firmness, the way it swamped hers. At one point a twitchy-nosed squirrel went scuttling across their path.

“You know,” she said, “sometimes in the winter when it gets really bitter, I worry about the animals getting cold.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. You wonder how the cows manage without Chap Stick.”

She burst out laughing and as they carried on along the riverbank they came up with more absurd ways to protect the animals from the elements—tiny thermal vests with special spike covers for hedgehogs; wetsuits for ducks.

Somehow talking about animals got them onto reincarnation and Cyn said she’d often wondered if people came back as animals and vice versa. Joe said he definitely believed in reincarnation. She saw the teasing expression on his face, but decided to play along. She asked him how long he’d believed in it.