The Mammoth Book of Dracula (27 page)

There was no script for this scene.

Francis was pushing Marty into a corner, breaking him down, trying to get to Jonathan Harker.

This would come at the beginning of the picture. The idea was to show the real Jonathan, to get the audience involved with him. Without this scene, the hero would seem just an observer, wandering between other people’s set-pieces.

“You, Reed,” Francis said, “you’re a writer. Scribble me a voice-over. Internal monologue. Stream-of-consciousness. Give me the real Harker.”

Through tear-blurred spectacles, she looked at the pad she was scrawling on. Her first attempt had been at the Jonathan she remembered, who would have been embarrassed to have been thought capable of stream-of-consciousness. Francis had torn that into confetti and poured it over Marty’s head, making the actor cross his eyes and fall backwards, completely drunk, onto the bed.

Marty was hugging his pillow and bawling for Mina.

All for Hecuba, Kate thought. Mina wasn’t even in this movie except as a locket. God knows what Mrs Harker would think when and if she saw
Dracula.

Francis told the crew to ignore Marty’s complaints. He was an actor, and just whining.

Ion translated.

She remembered what Francis had said after the storm, “what does this cost, people?” Was anything worth what this seemed to cost? “I don’t just have to make
Dracula”
Francis had told an interviewer, “I have to
be
Dracula.”

Kate tried to write the Harker that was emerging between Marty and Francis. She went into the worst places of her own past and realized they still burned in her memory like smouldering coals.

Her pad was spotted with red. There was blood in her tears. That didn’t happen often.

The camera was close to Marty’s face. Francis was intent, bent close over the bed, teeth bared, hands clawed. Marty mumbled, trying to wave the lens away.

“Don’t look at the camera, Jonathan,” Francis said.

Marty buried his face in the bed and was sick, choking. Kate wanted to protest but couldn’t bring herself to. She was worried Martin Sheen would never forgive her for interrupting his Academy Award scene. He was an actor. He’d go on to other roles, casting off poor Jon like an old coat.

He rolled off his vomit and looked up, where the ceiling should have been but wasn’t.

The camera ran on. And on.

Marty lay still.

Finally, the camera operator reported “I think he’s stopped breathing.”

For an eternal second, Francis let the scene run.

In the end, rather than stop filming, the director elbowed the camera aside and threw himself on his star, putting an ear close to Marty’s sunken bare chest.

Kate dropped her pad and rushed into the set. A wall swayed and fell with a crash.

“His heart’s still beating,” Francis said.

She could hear it, thumping irregularly.

Marty spluttered, fluid leaking from his mouth. His face was almost scarlet.

His heart slowed.

“I think he’s having a heart attack,” she said.

“He’s only thirty-five,” Francis said. “No, thirty-six. It’s his birthday today.”

A doctor was called for. Kate thumped Marty’s chest, wishing she knew more first aid.

The camera rolled on, forgotten.

“If this gets out,” Francis said, “I’m finished. The film is over.”

Francis grabbed Marty’s hand tight, and prayed.

“Don’t die, man.”

Martin Sheen’s heart wasn’t listening. The beat stopped. Seconds passed. Another beat. Nothing.

Ion was at Francis’s side. His fang-teeth were fully extended and his eyes were red. It was the closeness of death, triggering his instincts.

Kate, hating herself, felt it too.

The blood of the dead was spoiled, undrinkable. But the blood of the dying was sweet, as if invested with the life that was being spilled.

She felt her own teeth sharp against her lower lip.

Drops of her blood fell from her eyes and mouth, spattering Marty’s chin.

She pounded his chest again. Another beat. Nothing.

Ion crawled on the bed, reaching for Marty.

“I can make him live,” he whispered, mouth agape, nearing a pulseless neck.

“My God,” said Francis, madness in his eyes. “You can bring him back. Even if he dies, he can finish the picture.”

“Yesssss,” hissed the old child.

Marty’s eyes sprang open. He was still conscious in his stalling body. There was a flood of fear and panic. Kate felt his death grasp her own heart.

Ion’s teeth touched the actor’s throat.

A cold clarity struck her. This undead youth of unknown bloodline must not pass on the Dark Kiss. He was not yet ready to be a father-in-darkness.

She took him by the scruff of his neck and tore him away. He fought her, but she was older, stronger.

With love, she punctured Marty’s throat, feeling the death ecstasy convulse through her. She swooned as the blood, laced heavily with brandy, welled into her mouth, but fought to stay in control The lizard part of her brain would have sucked him dry.

But Katharine Reed was not a monster.

She broke the contact, smearing blood across her chin and his chest hair. She ripped open her blouse, scattering tiny buttons, and sliced herself with a sharpening thumbnail, drawing an incision across her ribs.

She raised Marty’s head and pressed his mouth to the wound.

As the dying man suckled, she looked through fogged glasses at Francis, at Ion, at the camera operator, at twenty studio staff. A doctor was arriving, too late.

She looked at the blank round eye of the camera.

“Turn that bloody thing off,” she said.

~ * ~

The principles were assembled in an office at the studio. Kate, still drained, had to be there. Marty was in a clinic with a drip-feed, awaiting more transfusions. His entire bloodstream would have to be flushed out several times over. With luck, he wouldn’t even turn. He would just have some of her life in him, some of her in him, forever. This had happened before and Kate wasn’t exactly happy about it. But she had no other choice. Ion would have killed the actor and brought him back to life as a newborn vampire.

“There have been stories in the trades,” Francis said, holding up a copy of
Daily Variety.
It was the only newspaper that regularly got through to the company. “About Marty. We have to sit tight on this, to keep a lid on panic. I can’t afford even the rumour that we’re in trouble. Don’t you understand, we’re in the twilight zone here. Anything approaching a shooting schedule or a budget was left behind a long time ago. We can film around Marty until he’s ready to do close-ups. His brother is coming over from the States to double him from the back. We can weather this on the ground, but maybe not in the press. The vultures from the trades want us dead. Ever since
Finian’s Rainbow,
they’ve hated me. I’m a smart kid and nobody likes smart kids. From now on, if anybody
dies
they aren’t dead until I say so. Nobody is to tell anyone anything until it’s gone through me. People, we’re in trouble here and we may have to lie our way out of it. I know you think the Ceausescu regime is fascist but it’s nothing compared to the Coppola regime. You don’t know anything until I confirm it. You don’t do anything until I say so. This is a war, people, and we’re losing.”

~ * ~

Marty’s family was with him. His wife didn’t quite know whether to be grateful to Kate or despise her.

He would live. Really live.

She was getting snatches of his past life, mostly from films he had been in. He would be having the same thing, coping with scrambled impressions of her. That must be a nightmare all of its own.

They let her into the room. It was sunny, filled with flowers.

The actor was sitting up, neatly groomed, eyes bright.

“Now I know,” he told her. “Now I really know. I can use that in the part. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing what for.

~ * ~

At a way-station, Swales is picking up fresh horses. The old ones, lathered with foamy sweat, are watered and rested.

Westenra barters with a peasant for a basket of apples. Murray smiles and looks up at the tops of the trees. The moon shines down on his face, making him look like a child.

Harker quietly smokes a pipe.

Harker’s Voice:
This was where we were to join forces with Van Helsing. This stone-crazy double Dutchman had spent his whole life fighting evil.

Van Helsing strides out of the mountain mists. He wears a scarlet army tunic and a curly-brimmed top hat, and carries a cavalry sabre. His face is covered with old scars. Crosses of all kinds are pinned to his clothes.

Harker’s Voice:
Van Helsing put the fear of God into the Devil. And he terrified me.

Van Helsing is accompanied by a band of rough-riders. Of all races and in wildly different uniforms, they are his personal army of the righteous. In addition to mounted troops, Van Helsing has command of a couple of man-lifting kites and a supply wagon.

Van Helsing:
You are Harker?

Harker:
Dr Van Helsing of Amsterdam?

Van Helsing:
The same. You wish to go to Borgo Pass, Young Jonathan?

Harker:
That’s the plan.

Van Helsing:
Better you should wish to go to Hades itself, foolish Englishman.

Van Helsing’s Aide:
I say, Prof, did you know Murray was in Harker’s crew. The stroke of ’84.

Van Helsing:
Hah! Beat Cambridge by three lengths. Masterful.

Van Helsing’s Aide:
They say the river’s at its most level around Borgo Pass. You know these mountain streams, Prof. Tricky for the oarsman.

Van Helsing:
Why didn’t you say that before, damfool? Harker, we go at once, to take Borgo Pass. Such a stretch of river should be held for the Lord. The Un-Dead, they appreciate it not. Nosferatu don’t scull.

Van Helsing rallies his men into mounting up. Harker dashes back to the coach and climbs in. Westenra looks appalled as Van Helsing waves his sabre, coming close to fetching off his own Aide’s head.

Westenra:
That man’s completely mad.

Harker:
In Wallachia, that just makes him normal. To fight what we have to face, one has to be a little mad.

Van Helsing’s sabre shines with moonfire.

Van Helsing:
To Borgo Pass, my angels ... charge!

Van Helsing leads his troop at a fast gallop. The coach is swept along in the wake of the uphill cavalry advance. Man-lifting box-kites carry observers into the night air.

Wolves howl in the distance.

Between the kites is slung a phonograph horn.

Music pours forth. The overture to
Swan Lake.

Van Helsing:
Music. Tchaikowsky. It upsets the devils. Stirs in them memories of things that they have lost. Makes them feel dead. Then we kill them good. Kill them forever.

As he charges, Van Helsing waves his sword from side to side. Dark, low shapes dash out of the trees and slip among the horses’ ankles. Van Helsing slashes downwards, decapitating a wolf. The head bounces against a tree, becoming that of a gypsy boy, and rolls down the mountainside.

Van Helsing’s cavalry weave expertly through the pines. They carry flaming torches. The music soars. Fire and smoke whip between the trees.

In the coach, Westenra puts his fingers in his ears. Murray smiles as if on a pleasure ride across Brighton Beach. Harker sorts through crucifixes.

At Borgo Pass, a small gypsy encampment is quiet. Elders gather around the fire. A girl hears the Tchaikowsky whining among the winds and alerts the tribe.

The gypsies bustle. Some begin to transform into wolves.

The man-lifting kites hang against the moon, casting vast bat-shadows on the mountainside.