Emerald City (5 page)

MIKE
: [
still reading
] Right. [
Pause.
] Present lady won't marry me.

KATE
's look indicates that she finds this far from surprising.

[
Still reading
]
Richard Mahony
's collapsed.

KATE
: Sorry?

MIKE
: The movie Tony Klineberg's supposed to be directing. He's talking here as if it's all happening, but the money fell through three days ago.

KATE
: Was it a film of the novel?

MIKE
: [
nodding
] Thought it would fold.

KATE
: Wonderful novel.

MIKE
: Screenplay was shithouse. Actor mate of mine got me a copy.

KATE
: The novel was wonderful.

MIKE
: Screenplay was shithouse. Doctor's marriage goes bad, he goes to the goldfields, gets gangrene and dies. Can't see the crowds queuing in Pitt Street for that little number.

KATE
: I don't think your synopsis quite does the book justice.

MIKE
: [
shrugging
] Screenplay was a real downer.

KATE
: What does your friend do?

MIKE
: [
looking up, puzzled
] What friend?

KATE
: The woman you live with.

MIKE
: [
going back to the paper
] Not nearly enough.

KATE
: [
getting really irritated
] She's not working?

MIKE
: Freelance PR. Gets about one good job a month and usually stuffs it up.

KATE
: Lacks experience?

MIKE
: Lacks grey matter.

KATE
: Does she mind you having such a low opinion of her?

MIKE
: She's got her good points.

KATE
: I'm glad to hear it.

MIKE
: She's a woman, which is more than you can say for half the dragons around this town.

KATE
: What exactly do you mean, Mike—‘She's a woman'?

MIKE
: Looks good. Wears nice clothes. Doesn't screech at you like a white cockatoo. Funny. Has the occasional tantrum, and she's so sexy she's dangerous.

KATE
: That's your definition of a woman?

MIKE
: Yep. And I'm sticking with it.

KATE
: Don't you think it's a little bit limited?

MIKE
: If some women want to be pile-drivers, that's fine. As long as they don't expect me to get under 'em.

MIKE
exits.
COLIN
enters.
KATE
is not happy.

KATE
: He's awful! I didn't believe that men like that still existed. What kind of woman would tolerate him?

COLIN
: I can't begin to imagine. Some anaemic little scrubber who enjoys being booted around, I suppose.

KATE
: Why are you working with the man?

COLIN
: I'm going to produce this script myself and I need some help.

KATE
: You're letting him
co-write
this script with you? What's he done?

COLIN
: He's not co-writing. He's sitting there typing what I tell him.

KATE
: His name will be on it as co-writer.

COLIN
: [
cutting in
] Everybody's going to know he didn't do anything. All he's done up to now is script edit soapies.

KATE
: So why are you working with him?

COLIN
: He knows where to look for finance.

KATE
: You said you were going to approach Malcolm Bennett. You've known Malcolm for years.

COLIN
: [
uneasy
] Mike gave me the confidence to realise I could produce my own scripts.

KATE
: You've never had any complaints about Elaine up to now.

COLIN
: Elaine
hated
this idea. Right?

KATE
: She still would have done it.

COLIN
: I don't want to work with someone who doesn't believe in what I'm doing. She can find someone else to make her rich.

KATE
: Make her rich?

COLIN
: Who's got that stunning harbour view? She has. Not me.

KATE
: This city's getting to you already.

COLIN
: I wouldn't mind a nice view. Is that so decadent?

KATE
: You're working with Mike so you can buy yourself a nice view?

COLIN
: [
tensely
] I am perfectly aware of the fact that Mike is a buffoon, but he obeys orders, does what he's told, and he's helping me get what I want.

KATE
: [
nodding
] A stunning harbour view.

COLIN
: Creative control! Deciding who's cast. Deciding who directs. Making sure the script is shot as I wrote it. And if there is some money to be made, making sure I'm the one who gets it.

KATE
: He's using you, Colin. Getting co-authorship of one of your scripts means he's going from nothing to something in one huge jump.

COLIN
: Everyone in the business will know I wrote it all.

KATE
: You think you're using him, but he's using you.

COLIN
: [
irritated
] I can look after myself.

KATE
exits.
COLIN
sits in an armchair and thinks.
MIKE
enters and sits poised at the typewriter. Suddenly
COLIN
bounds up out of his chair and starts pacing around waving a clenched fist as if he is threatening the gods of creativity with physical violence if they don't start the ideas flowing.

The trouble with this scene is that there's nothing at
stake
. Unless something's at stake you have no emotional undercurrent and all you're left with is two people chatting. What's at
stake?

MIKE
: [
dutifully repeating the magic litany
] What's at stake?

COLIN
: Hold it a minute while I think this one through.

COLIN
returns to his armchair and to deep thought.
MIKE
looks to the heavens as if to say, ‘How much more of this do I have to put up with?'

MIKE
: [
to the audience
] I began to think I wasn't going to last the distance. My stomach was giving me hell. Every morning it'd flicker from yesterday's embers and by the end of the day I'd have your full fireball. I was taking three times as many tablets a day as I should've been but it had as much effect as pissing on a bushfire. [
To
COLIN
] Just make a quick call.

He picks up the phone and dials.

[
Into the phone
] Bob? How about a drink? Six-thirty at the Admiral's Cup bar. Heard about Terry's film?
Disaster
. Absolute disaster. Only took three thousand over the long weekend. [
He nods
.] Disaster. See you at six-thirty.

COLIN
: Terry's film not doing well?

MIKE
: Disaster.

COLIN
: Do you know what really amazes me about this industry, Mike? I've got the best track record on script in the country and that phone never rings. Terry could've asked me to write that script and I could've made it work. But he didn't. They never do.

MIKE
: [
to the audience
] If I'd've heard him whinge once more about why producers weren't lining up to plead for his services, I'd've perforated. The thing that amazed me about him was that he knew nothing about how the real world operated. The reason producers weren't flocking to him was that they had egos almost as big as his, and who would enjoy crawling on their bellies like I had to do? [
To
COLIN
] I'll get some coffee.

MIKE
leaves.

COLIN
: [
to the audience
] I watched Mike with the fascination of a zoologist who's found a new species. Port Jackson huckster. He kept ringing around an endless list of contacts, all male, and arranged meetings. The currency being exchanged at the meetings was failure. Other people's. It seemed crucial to Mike that everything failed. If there was a film due for release that seemed in any danger of being declared a success, Mike and his drinking mates would expend enormous amounts of mental energy cracking its pretentions like a walnut. I had an image of Mike as a kind of filmic gridiron player, waiting with the ball until all of his opponents were lying bloody and prostrate so that he could wend his way through them to the touchline. I found this behaviour amusing and reassuring. Other people's failures are always reassuring, but the frantic energy and effort he put into his networking of failure was worrying.

KATE
comes home looking upset.

[
To
KATE
] What's wrong?

KATE
: I'm so angry I can't even talk about it. The children are all screaming for food, I suppose?

COLIN
: Don't worry about that. We'll phone up for some pizzas. He's not going to publish?

KATE
: I just wanted to grab that hollow little man by his collar and hurl him down into that sparkling blue harbour he's paid seventy thousand dollars a year to gaze at. I know you can't understand my passion about that book—

COLIN
: [
interrupting
] I can. I'm not totally insensitive.

KATE
: I was nearly in tears today. I'm going to have to resign.

COLIN
: Don't do that. He'll change his mind.

KATE
: No, he won't. He's gutless. And he just doesn't care.

She moves across and flops into a chair. There's a pause.

I didn't mean to hurt you about your work. You write beautifully. You can't be expected to write with her power and passion when you've led such a cosseted life.

She sees
COLIN
's look.

What's wrong?

COLIN
: That's a bit like saying, ‘I'm sorry I said you were indescribably ugly. I've just seen your parents and I understand why.'

MIKE
returns with the coffee.
KATE
sees him, gives a frozen smile, and leaves.

MIKE
: What's wrong with Kate?

COLIN
: Her boss won't let her publish a book she thinks is crucial.

MIKE
: Making things a bit difficult domestically?

COLIN
: I agree with her. I think it should be published too.

MIKE
: What's it about?

COLIN
: A black girl trying to break out of the urban poverty cycle.

COLIN
picks up some pages
MIKE
has typed and walks away from the desk as he scrutinises them.

MIKE
: What's the name of Kate's boss?

COLIN
: Ian Wall. He reckons, ‘Blacks don't sell books'.

MIKE
searches through the teledex and locates the name.
COLIN
, engrossed in the script, doesn't notice.

MIKE
: What's the writer's name?

COLIN
: Kathy Mitchell.

MIKE
starts dialling.
COLIN
barely notices.

MIKE
: Ian?

COLIN
looks up, frowning, but still isn't sure what
MIKE
's doing.

Ian, there's a rumour going around that you won't publish Kathy's book? [
Pause.
] Kathy Mitchell. [
Pause.
] Don't worry about who's speaking, mate, just listen to what I'm telling you. A lot of people reckon it's one of the most important books ever written on the black people's problems and they're bloody mad. They've heard the reason you won't print it is that you said, ‘Blacks don't sell books'—and they reckon that's a pretty racist statement. [
Pause.
] Well, that's how they feel it comes across, and they're so bloody mad that they're going to give you twenty-four hours and then they're going to start putting up tents around your building and calling the media in.

MIKE
hangs up.

COLIN
: [
frowning
] Jesus, Mike! What in the hell do you think you're doing?

MIKE
: [
reassuringly
] Blowtorch to the belly.

COLIN
looks anything but reassured. He sits there wondering how in the hell he is going to explain this to
KATE
.
MIKE
exits.

Later:
COLIN
still sits in an armchair.
KATE
enters, smiling and excited.

KATE
: You won't believe what happened.

COLIN
: [
tensely
] What?

KATE
: Ian got a call from some black guerrilla group who threatened to bomb the building unless he published. Should have seen the panic. It was wonderful.

COLIN
: [
worriedly
] Did he call the police?

KATE
: God, no. He's
terrified
of bad publicity.

COLIN
: He's going to publish?

KATE
: [
nodding
] Three thousand copies. What's your news?