The Ravine (10 page)
Authors: Paul Quarrington
I guess Veronica Lear had never heard the joke. At any rate, she laughed with all of her being, and for good or for ill, our fates were sealed.
“It’s me.”
“Of course it’s you. It’s always
you.”
“Subtext?”
“It’s
me.”
“What am I missing here?”
“Everything.”
“Let’s start again.”
“Not on your life.”
“I mean this conversation.”
“Who said we were going to have a conversation?”
“Well, jesus, we have to converse. I mean, we’re co-parents and everything.”
“We’re co-parents and that’s
it.”
“You seem a little bit angry with me.”
“What insight. What empathy.”
“Are you going to be mad at me for the rest of your life?”
“I doubt it. I expect you will predecease me by quite a few years.”
“Christ, Ronnie.”
“I’m sorry. How about if we don’t talk now? Why don’t I call you when … I don’t know. Sometime.”
“I wrote about how you and I met.”
“Right. You told some stupid joke. I went home with Hooper and we fucked like crazed banshees.”
“Really?”
“Okay, I suppose it was an all-right joke.”
“Did you and Hooper really …?”
“Yes, Phil, that’s what’s important now. Let’s get into that, who fucked who all those years ago. Then we can talked about who fucked who more
recently.”
“There’s another reason I hate Hooper.”
“What?”
“It’s kind of a sub-theme in my novel.”
“You’re drunk.”
“What insight. What empathy.”
“I’ll call you back. Sometime.”
“Yeah, okay. Whatever. I just wanted to say, um, I love you.”
“You know what, Phil?
Don’t.
Just don’t.”
THEATRE AND TELEVISION
|
ACT TWO, SCENE ONE
INT. LOUNGE—NIGHT
CLOSE ON: WILLIAM BECKETT, television producer. Beckett is a man in his forties, handsome despite hair that is similar to Einstein’s, only messy.
BECKETT
(reacting to music)
Ah! A Neapolitan sixth, that chord so beloved of Wagner, the great anti-Semite.
MCQUIGGE
He was a great anti-Semite?
BECKETT
A miselocution. He was a great man, despite his abhorrent anti-Semitism.
The waitress, AMY, drifts near the table. You remember her, don’t you? Sure you do. She is young, sexy.
AMY
How’re you guys doing over here?
BECKETT
All the better for your asking, my lovely.
MCQUIGGE
More beer. More beer, and another one of these, um, double Laphroaigs.
BECKETT
I myself am fine. Perhaps a glass of water.
AMY
Sure.
The waitress leaves. McQUIGGE stares after her.
MCQUIGGE
She’s good-looking.
BECKETT
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty. Youth’s a stuff will not endure.
MCQUIGGE
So … how are things in teevee land?
BECKETT
A bit quiet since your abrupt departure. Our greatest source of gossip has dried up. There are fuck-ups aplenty, but none with your panache. I miss you. And you tell me you’ve been holed up in your squalid bed sit, composing deathless prose?
MCQUIGGE
I’m trying to write a novel.
BECKETT
About …?
MCQUIGGE
About, um, me.
BECKETT
Ah! Then I shall read it with great interest.
MCQUIGGE
I always wanted to be an author. I don’t know what happened. I started writing for the theatre, probably because there were girls involved, and then
you
came along …
BECKETT
Yesssss! Notice the manner in which I hiss, very like a serpent.
MCQUIGGE
It wasn’t your fault.
BECKETT
No, indeed. No harm, no foul. The leper has no control over his contagion.
MCQUIGGE
I guess not.
AMY
Okay. One water, one draft, one of those double Laphroaigs. Forthems as want to get drunk as quick as possible.
MCQUIGGE
Hmm?
AMY
Hey, are you still violating the sacred form of the novel?
MCQUIGGE
Yep.
AMY
Good on you.
BECKETT
At least there’s no issue with violation in the land of the big eye. It’s hard to violate television.
MCQUIGGE
There is that.
BECKETT
That strange young man playing the piano …
MCQUIGGE
What?
BECKETT
He seems to be playing a fugue,
improvising upon the melody of, if my ears don’t betray me, “A Foggy Day in London Town.”
AMY
He’s good, huh?
MCQUIGGE
He’s my brother.
AMY
No kidding?
BECKETT
I didn’t know there were other McQuigge offspring.
AMY
How come he never talks to you?
MCQUIGGE
He’s mad at me. He’s mad because I, well, I’ve made certain poor life choices.
AMY
Such as?
MCQUIGGE
They are innumerable.
AMY
Give me a for-instance.
MCQUIGGE
Well, I, I kind of, um, you see, I was married … still am, technically … and I got involved with … say, I need another double Laphroaig.
BECKETT
Currently Phil is attempting to kick his own arse-end for get ting into the television bidna.
AMY
That’s your name,
Phil?
My name’s Amy.
MCQUIGGE
Yes, I know. It says so on your, um, name tag.
AMY
Right. Well, I’ll get you more hooch.
MCQUIGGE
No, that’s all right. I’m okay for now. Thanks.
AMY
Any time, Phil. That’s what we’re here for.
AMY leaves. McQUIGGE stares after her.
BECKETT
You are imagining Amy naked with such intensity that I find myself blushing on her behalf.
MCQUIGGE
Actually, I wasn’t imagining her naked. I was imagining her with clothes on. Not many. And somewhat diaphanous.
BECKETT
I shall imagine this with you. I was always very taken with the force and power of your imagination. I cite as an exam ple your script for Episode 215 of
Sneaks.
MCQUIGGE
Hmmm.
BECKETT
Mind you, the episode itself was unmitigated shite. But not
your fault. Say. That strange young man—your brother—appears to be shedding tears.
MCQUIGGE
You know what? I’m working on this novel—
BECKETT
Yes! I shall read it at the first available opportunity. When it hits the bookstores, I shall say,
Give me the master-work of Philly McQ.
I shall hold it in my hands and my bosom shall fair burst with pride.
MCQUIGGE
There’s this thing I want to write about—this incident—but I get a little sidetracked from time to time, and I write down other memories. And you know what occurred to me?
Padre
wasn’t my idea. I’ve always known that, of course, but was never really willing to admit it to myself.
BECKETT
I shall thumb through the pages, looking for references to myself. And if I find any, I’ll sue your ass off.
MCQUIGGE
Huh?
BECKETT
My pride shall be diminished not a whit.
MCQUIGGE
Why would you want to sue me?
BECKETT
Want to?
Not a bit of it. But I
would
sue you, if only to prove the point that people, human beings, are not mere fodder for your pages. Say what you will about hour-long television drama, it’s got this going for it, it is made up. It’s invention. Besides, it’s clear how you intend to paint me in your novel.
MCQUIGGE
“Television is a river of
money, into which we must jump.”
BECKETT
I may have said that television is a river of money. I never said you had to jump into it. Why would I? You would end up like me.
MCQUIGGE
What about “I take great pride in turning one of Canada’s most promising dramatists into a hack”?
BECKETT
I’ve said that, yes. I’ve said that to entertainment journal ists. And when were they ever given, when did they ever
expect
, the truth?
MCQUIGGE
Hmmm. This novelizing is not the liberating lark I had hith er to imagined.
BECKETT
Ah! There! You’ve proven my
point. You’ve begun to speak like me.
MCQUIGGE
Everyone seems to be mad at me.
BECKETT
I suppose you have to question your motivation, then.
MCQUIGGE
I just want to tell the truth.
BECKETT
Then why choose a vehicle designed to transport lies and fabrication? More to the point, what makes you think you know the truth?
MCQUIGGE
Hmmm. It’s true, I’m discovering that my memory is not all it could be.
BECKETT
Come back into the light of the big eye, Phil. Come and write for
Mr. Eldritch.
It’s an anthology show, not unlike
The Twilight Zone.
I thought Rod
Serling was your hero.
MCQUIGGE
No. No, I don’t think so.
BECKETT
I’ll give you co-pro.
MCQUIGGE
You see? You are the Great Seducer.
BECKETT
I don’t mean to be cruel, Philip, but it’s not as though you are a vestal virgin. One doesn’t seduce trollops; one sets out terms.
MCQUIGGE
Thanks very much.
BECKETT
Besides—and I really don’t care to mention this, but I suppose I must—I’m the only one in the industry who would even consider hiring you, given what happened.
MCQUIGGE
If I ever decide to get back
into the industry, Mr. Beckett, you’re my man.
BECKETT
Promise me you won’t put me in your novel.
MCQUIGGE
I promise.
|
VAN DER GLICK
PEOPLE ARE NOT MERE FODDER FOR MY PAGES.
Rainie van der Glick, racing around her kitchen, said, “Hey, I don’t mind. You want fodder, feel free.”
I nodded and said, “Thanks,” but I wasn’t sure what particular beast in the barnyard of my memory could use the stuffing. It’s not that Rainie hasn’t been important in my life, but she has been a constant, and there were few significant incidents. At least, that was the case until Sunday evening, a version of which I am now setting down on paper.
I will start by describing Rainie, who had made yet another of what I have called her heartbreaking stabs at femininity. She wore a tight red skirt that fell well below her knees and forced her to wheel about the kitchen with hobbled wobbles. Her blouse was white and sheer, and beneath it she wore a black brassiere. Her hair was piled up and pinned, although tufts and sprigs exploded everywhere. She had lightened it; she had gone from very blonde, as a youngster, to dirty blonde, and now she was back to very blonde, except that her eyebrows had darkened over the years and the combination gave her a vaguely sinister mien. She had forsaken her spectacles for contact lenses, although the optometrists could not make them strong enough, and her eyes were usually watery and pressed together in a squint.