The Shifting Fog
Authors: Kate Morton
Tags: #Suicide, #Psychology, #Mystery & Detective, #Australian fiction, #General, #Family & Relationships, #Interpersonal Relations, #Mystery fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Fiction
C o n t e n t s
THE SHIFTING FOG
Written and directed by Ursula Ryan ©1998
MUSIC: Theme song. Nostalgic music of the type popular during and immediately following the First World War. Though romantic, the music has an ominous edge.
EXT. A COUNTRY ROAD—DUSK’S FINAL MOMENT
A country road flanked by green fields that stretch forever. It is 8.00 pm. The summer sun still lingers on the distant horizon, loath to slip, finally, beyond. A 1920s motor car winds, like a shiny black beetle, along the narrow road. It whizzes between ancient brambly hedgerows blue in the dusk, crowned with arching canes that weep toward the road.
The glowing headlights shake as the motor car speeds across the bumpy surface. We draw slowly closer until we are tracking right alongside. The final glow of sun has disappeared and night is upon us. The early moon is full, casting ribbons of white light across the dark, glistening car bonnet.
We glimpse, inside the dim interior, the shadowy profile of its passengers: a MAN and WOMAN in evening dress. The man is driving. Sequins on the woman’s dress shimmer when they catch the moonlight. Both are smoking, the orange tips of cigarettes mirroring the motor car’s headlights. The WOMAN laughs at something the MAN has said, tips her head back and exposes beneath her feather boa, a pale, thin neck.
They arrive at a large set of iron gates, the entrance to a tunnel of tall, dusky trees. The motor car turns into the driveway and makes its way through the dark, leafy corridor. We watch through the windscreen, until suddenly we break through the dense foliage and our destination is upon us.
A grand English manor looms on the hill: twelve gleaming windows across, three high, dormer windows and chimneys punctuating the slate roof. In the foreground, the centrepiece of a broad manicured lawn, sits a grand marble fountain lit with glowing lanterns: giant ants, eagles and enormous fire-breathing dragons, with jets shooting water one-hundred feet into the air. We maintain our position, watching as the car continues without us around the turning circle. It stops at the entrance to the house and a young FOOTMAN opens the door, extends his arm to help the WOMAN from her seat. SUB-TITLE: Riverton Manor, England. Summer, 1924. 2.
INT. SERVANTS’ HALL—EVENING
The warm, dim servants’ hall of Riverton Manor. The atmosphere is one of excited preparation. We are at ankle level as busy servants traverse the grey-stone floor in all directions. In the background we hear champagne corks popping, orders being given, lower servants being scolded. A service bell rings. Still at ankle level, we follow a female HOUSEMAID as she heads toward the stairs.
INT. STAIRWELL—EVENING
We climb the dim stairs behind the HOUSEMAID; clinking sounds tell us that her tray is loaded with champagne flutes. With each step our view lifts—from her narrow ankles, to her black skirt hem, the white tips then pert bow of her apron ribbon, blonde curls at the nape of her neck—until, finally, our view is hers. The sounds from the servants’ hall fade as music and laughter from the party grow louder. At the top of the stairs, the door opens before us.
INT. ENTRANCE HALL—EVENING
A burst of light as we enter the grand marble entrance hall. A glittering crystal chandelier suspends from the high ceiling. The BUTLER opens the front door to greet the well-dressed man and woman from the car. We do not pause but cross to the back of the entrance hall and the broad French doors that lead to the BACK TERRACE.
EXT. BACK TERRACE—EVENING
The doors sweep open. Music and laughter crescendo: we are in the midst of a glittering party. The atmosphere is one of postwar extravagance. Sequins, feathers, silks, as far as the eye can see. Coloured Chinese paper lanterns strung above the lawn flutter in the light summer’s breeze. A JAZZ BAND plays and women dance the charleston. We weave through the crowd of assorted laughing faces. They turn toward us, accepting champagne from the servant’s tray: a woman with bright red lipstick, a fat man made pink by excitement and alcohol, a thin old lady dripping in jewels and holding, aloft, a long, tapered cigarette-holder emitting a lazy curlicue of smoke.
There is a tremendous BANG and people gaze above as glittering fireworks tear open the night sky. There are squeals of pleasure and some applause. Reflections of Catherine wheels colour upturned faces, the band spins on, and women dance, faster and faster. CUT TO:
EXT. LAKE—EVENING
A quarter-mile away, a YOUNG MAN stands on the dark edge of the Riverton lake. Party noise swirls in the background. He glances toward the sky. We draw closer, watching as reflected fireworks shimmer red across his beautiful face. Though elegantly dressed, there is a wildness about him. His brown hair is dishevelled, sweeping his forehead, threatening to obscure dark eyes that madly scan the night sky. He lowers his gaze and looks beyond us, to someone else, obscured by shadow. His eyes are damp, his manner suddenly focused. His lips part as if to speak, but he does not. He sighs. There is a CLICK. Our gaze drops. He clutches a gun in his trembling hand. Lifts it out of shot. The hand remaining by his side twitches then stiffens. The gun discharges and drops to the muddy earth. A woman screams, and the party music reels on.
CREDIT SEQUENCE: ‘THE SHIFTING FOG’
The Letter
Ursula Ryan
Focus Film Productions
1264 N. Sierra Bonita Ave #32
West Hollywood, CA
90046 USA
Mrs Grace Bradley
Heathview Nursing Home
64 Willow Road
Saffron Green
Essex, CB10 1HQ UK
27 January 1999
Dear Mrs Bradley,
I hope you will excuse my writing to you again; however, I have
not received a reply to my last letter outlining the film project
on which I am working:
The Shifting Fog
.
The film is a love story: an account of the poet RS Hunter’s
relationship with the Hartford sisters and his suicide of 1924.
Though we have been granted permission to film external scenes
on location at Riverton Manor, we will be using studio sets for
interior scenes.
We have been able to recreate many of the sets from
photographs and descriptions; however, I would appreciate a
first-hand assessment. The film is a passion of mine and I
cannot bear to think I might do it a disservice with historical
inaccuracies, however small. As such, I would be very grateful
if you would be willing to look over the set.
I found your name (your maiden name) on a list amongst a
pile of notebooks donated to the Museum of Essex. I would not
have made the connection between Grace Reeves and yourself had
I not also read an interview with your grandson, Marcus McCourt,
printed in the
Spectator
, in which he mentioned briefly his family’s
historical associations with the village of Saffron Green.
I have enclosed a recent article about my earlier films,
published in the
Sunday Times
, for your appraisal, and a
promotional article about
The Shifting Fog
printed in
LA Film Weekly
. You will notice that we have managed to secure fine
actors in the roles of Hunter, Emmeline Hartford and Hannah
Luxton, including Gwyneth Paltrow, who has just received a
Golden Globe Award for her work in
Shakespeare in Love
.
Forgive this intrusion, but we begin shooting in late February
at Shepperton Studios, north of London, and I am most keen to
make contact with you. I do hope you might be interested in
lending your hand to this project. I can be reached c/-Mrs Jan
Ryan at 5/45 Lancaster Court, Fulham, London SW6.
Yours respectfully,
Ursula Ryan
Ghosts Stir
Last November I had a nightmare.
It was 1924 and I was at Riverton again. All the doors hung wide open, silk billowing in the summer breeze. An orchestra perched high on the hill beneath the ancient maple, violins lilting lazily in the warmth. The air rang with pealing laughter and crystal, and the sky was the kind of blue we’d all thought the war had destroyed forever. One of the footmen, smart in black and white, poured champagne into the top of a tower of glass flutes and everyone clapped, delighting in the splendid wastage. I saw myself, the way one does in dreams, moving amongst the guests. Moving slowly, much more slowly than one can in life, the others a blur of silk and sequins.
I was looking for someone.
Then the picture changed and I was near the summer house, only it wasn’t the summer house at Riverton, it couldn’t have been. This was not the shiny new building Teddy had designed, but an old structure with ivy climbing the walls, twisting itself through the windows, strangling the pillars.
Someone was calling me. A woman, a voice I recognised, coming from behind the building, on the lake’s edge. I walked down the slope, my hands brushing against the tallest reeds. A figure crouched on the bank.
It was Hannah, in her wedding dress, mud splattered across the front, clinging to the appliquéd roses. She looked up at me, her face pale where it emerged from shadow. Her voice chilled my blood.
‘You’re too late.’ She pointed at my hands, ‘You’re too late.’
I looked down at my hands, young hands, covered in dark river mud, and in them, the stiff, cold body of a dead foxhound. I know what brought it on, of course. It was the letter from the film-maker. I don’t receive much mail these days: the occasional postcard from a dutiful, holidaying friend; a perfunctory letter from the bank where I keep a savings account; an invitation to the christening of a child whose parents I am shocked to realise are no longer children themselves.
Ursula’s letter had arrived on a Tuesday morning late in November and Sylvia had brought it with her when she came to make my bed. She’d raised heavily sketched eyebrows and waved the envelope.
‘Mail today. Something from the States by the look of the stamp. Your grandson, perhaps?’ The left brow arched—a question mark—and her voice lowered to a husky whisper. ‘Terrible business, that. Just terrible. And him such a nice young man.’
As Sylvia tut-tutted, I thanked her for the letter. I like Sylvia. She’s one of the few people able to look beyond the lines on my face to see the twenty year old who lives inside. Nonetheless, I refuse to be drawn into conversation about Marcus. I asked her to open the curtains and she pursed her lips a moment before moving onto another of her favourite subjects: the weather, the likelihood of snow for Christmas, the havoc it would wreak on the arthritic residents. I responded when required, but my mind was with the envelope in my lap, wondering at the scratchy penmanship, the foreign stamps, softened edges that spoke of lengthy travails.
‘Here, why don’t I read that for you,’ Sylvia said, giving the pillows a final, hopeful plump, ‘give your eyes a bit of a rest?’
‘No. Thank you. Perhaps you could pass my glasses though?’
When she’d left, promising to come back and help me dress after she’d finished rounds, I prised the letter from its envelope, hands shaking the way they do, wondering whether he was finally coming home.