Midnight Snack and Other Fairy Tales (28 page)

They pause near the Circus. Gunter looks across the street at what is now a Burger King.

GUNTER (CONT’D)

August 15, 1940: that was my last mission, mine and four others’. Right there, it ended. They all went on. At least I have never seen them again, and were they still here, I surely would have. We cannot go far from where we die. It is too painful.

JOY

But look, isn’t there supposed to be a tunnel of light or something?

GUNTER

(slight, sad humor)

Ah yes, the light.

(beat)

It is very easy to be a bomber pilot, you know? Not the flying, I mean. The bombing. Everything is so far down, so far away. You drop the bombs, you go home… it’s nothing personal.

They cross the street. Gunter finds it painful to be here: after that first look, he does not look at the Burger King again. They walk to the statue of Eros, and around it, slowly.

GUNTER (CONT’D)

I dropped them again and again. Nothing personal. Then that last day, a Hurricane fighter shot us down. We crashed just there —

(indicates the spot)

I got out of the plane, I thought, and tried to find my crew. All I could see was the fires, so terrible: everything burning all around me, the people screaming…
That
was personal, when I was in the midst of it. That was my doing.

(beat)

There
was
a light. I saw it. But the fires were so much brighter. I got lost among them. When they died down, and I wasn’t lost any more, that light was gone. I have not seen it since.

JOY

How awful!

GUNTER

Oh, it wasn’t so bad. I was confused, the way a lot of us are who don’t go on. I thought I was downed in an enemy city, so I hid in bombed-out buildings, starved a little—Then one night came more bombs. They fell right on top of me, and didn’t kill me.
Then
I knew.

They cross the street, away from Eros and down toward Regent Street. For once, the splendid buildings and the bustle of London do nothing for Joy.

JOY

And all this time you’ve been here…

GUNTER

While the world just keeps going. You move among the living, and for them, life goes on. But
you
can change nothing, do nothing really new. Everything is the same… always.

(shrugs)

It’s not so bad. Lots of live people go through their days the same way, changing nothing, doing nothing new… They never even notice.

JOY

Are there a lot of you? I mean, more than just here?

GUNTER

Many. Some have a thing they want to do: they wait till they can do it, and then go. Some love this place too much to leave, and
won’t
go on. Great ones, some of them.

JOY

When do you see them? Where?

GUNTER

We have places where we meet sometimes. The society of our own kind is a comfort.

(shrugs)

We keep up with the news. Who is here, who has moved on.

JOY

(a little sad)

I guess
you
must really want to.

GUNTER

Oh, sometimes. But I also think of the war… and I say to myself, “So many things I destroyed, ‘only following orders.’” I would like to make it up. To say, “I am sorry.” But I can never think of something. Or anyone to say it to.

(sad but putting an amiable face on it)

Maybe someday. For the time being, best to leave things the way they are.

They turn the corner at the bottom of Regent Street, pausing there a moment to look down toward Trafalgar Square.

JOY

It’s really so sad, though. George, and Doris… they can’t even touch.

GUNTER

One must learn to be intimate in other ways.

A look between them. Joy glances away, embarrassed. They start walking again toward the Square.

JOY

You say you can only touch dead things, like your clothes. But you go through walls. Why don’t you just go through your clothes, too?

GUNTER

We can choose what to touch, with some practice. To keep something, so that it moves through things with you, takes time to learn. And each new object, you must get used to, first. It takes an hour or so.

(grins)

This is why we need betting shops for our upkeep. I know some who have suggested taking money from cash machines. But one has to stand with one’s arm in the machine for an hour. People notice. And anyway, I would not like to steal.

JOY

(laughs: rueful)

It sounds like hard work. I always thought being a ghost would be easy. You just jump out and say “boo” to people.

GUNTER

Not if you want them to have lunch  with you afterwards.

A smile between them. Then Joy looks shocked.

JOY

God, look at the time. I have to go meet Harry.

GUNTER

Perhaps I will see you later, then.

JOY

I guess so —

GUNTER

(off her flustered look)

Joy. What are you going to tell him?

JOY

I don’t know.

She hurries away through Trafalgar Square, plainly troubled:  no Mary Tyler Moore stuff this time. Gunter watches her go.

INT. HOTEL NEAR COMPUTER SHOW—LATE AFTERNOON

A cross between a seminar and a cocktail party. At the first part, the seminar, it’s being “explained” to the WIVES, as a PowerPoint presentation, what their husbands are doing. Almost all of the Wives are rapt in the presentation. Joy, however, is terminally bored, and looks horrified to find herself the odd woman out. Anyway, she’s still distracted by what’s on her mind at the moment. Harry notices this and looks distressed by her obvious disinterest.

At the cocktail party, most of the SALESGUYS congregate, chatting: the women, off by themselves, do the same. Joy listens to their chat for as long as she can, but her mind is elsewhere. She’s relieved when Harry comes to get her.

HARRY

Dinner?

JOY

Please. I didn’t know the Stepford Wives had an English branch.

INT. RESTAURANT—EVENING

A nice restaurant. Joy and Harry are in the middle of the meal. An empty bottle of wine is taken away and a new one is brought. Both of them seem edgy.

HARRY

And on top of it all, you forgot to leave the key at the hotel again. I couldn’t get a clean shirt.

Joy starts going through her “secret pockets” with much VELCRO-RIPPING, hunting for the key in an abstracted way.

JOY

Oh, honey, I’m sorry. It’s just been—a weird day, that’s all.

HARRY

At least I was able to thank George. That was one heck of a tip he gave me.

JOY

Was it?

HARRY

It won me six hundred quid. I wish I’d bet more.

JOY

Oh, honey, that’s terrific! See what I mean about it being such a nice place.

(ready to tell him)

Harry—there’s something unusual about the people there.

Harry is quiet for a moment: looks at her.

HARRY

So I gather. How was lunch with your boyfriend Gunter?

JOY

It was more of a snack, he doesn’t —

(blinks)

He’s not my “boyfriend”. Don’t be snide.

HARRY

That’s just how it looks.

JOY

It’s not like that. I think he’s lonely.

HARRY

Like you?

Joy says nothing for a moment. She busies herself cutting up her food.

HARRY (CONT’D)

Look, I know this isn’t turning out the way I said it would. I had no idea the trip was going to be
this
busy. If I’d —

JOY

If you’d known.

HARRY

I’m glad you understand. I’ll make it up to you tomorrow, or the next day —

JOY

(looking haunted)

Yeah? Is there going to be a tomorrow? How can you be so sure?

HARRY

What’s that supposed to mean?

JOY

Harry —

HARRY

Look. I know I’m a workaholic. I want a good life for us, that’s all! After the way things went downhill with Mary because there was never enough money —

JOY

Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that money might not be the issue? And I don’t think it was for Mary, either. I don’t want stuff, or a big fancy house. It’s
you
I want. But you’re always working so hard, sometimes I think I’m running a hotel myself. Food and laundry service, travel agent, secretarial, everything but wife stuff! Sometimes I think Mary got tired of being married to “sales”, instead of a man!

A long silence here. Harry is beginning a slow burn.

HARRY

If I thought you were seeing so much of this Gunter just to make me scared I was messing up
our
marriage by overwork, I’d get really angry. But I don’t think you’re calculating enough for that. So all I can assume is that you want me to know that you’re lonely. Okay! You’re lonely! I’m sorry! But it can’t be helped, not this trip. Don’t you realize how terrific it was that I asked to come here? It could mean a promotion, even a transfer over here —

JOY

“Not calculating enough?” God, what a backhanded compliment. Not smart enough, you mean.

(angry too, now)

You don’t believe a word I’m saying, do you? Even though you haven’t come right out and said “liar”. There is nothing between Gunter and me. He hasn’t touched me. He can’t touch me: he’s dead!

HARRY

(aback again)

What?

JOY

He is dead
. He died in nineteen forty.

(wry beat)

His bomber was shot down and crashed into a Burger King.

Harry simply stares at her, completely confused.

JOY (CONT’D)

You saw how people in the hotel were just picking at their breakfasts —

HARRY

With that bacon, it’s no surprise.

JOY

It’s not the goddamn bacon! They only eat for practice! They’re from all kinds of times, and they’re stuck here, near where they died. Doris just gives them a place to stay. She has to!

(beat)

George is dead, too.

Harry rubs his face, finding all this a little too bizarre.

HARRY

George. And here I thought Gunter was the problem.

JOY

(cranky)

George is fine. He gave me a little scare when he came through the bedroom wall at me, but we’re friends now.

HARRY

Have you stopped taking the Zoloft?

JOY

(shocked)

Harry!

HARRY

I tried to be understanding about it, I really did. The doctor told me you were going to need some room and some time to get through the stress, the divorce going final and all, and dear God I tried to give it to you. But if you think you’re going to get some petty little vengeance on me now by acting like you’re going nuts—at
this
moment in time, when if I perform well enough, it could make my career —

Joy stares at him, stony-eyed. Harry glares back.

HARRY (CONT’D)

I can’t believe you’d be so selfish, so petty. I can’t believe it.

JOY

Believing does seem to be a problem for you. Doesn’t it…

Harry GETS UP, tosses his napkin onto the table, STALKS OUT.

HARRY

Just get back on the pills.

Joy sits there stunned.

INT. COMPUTER SHOW PARTY—NIGHT

One of the endless PR-driven boozefests that surround such events, this one thrown by Erickson Computers. A loud band, a lot of media and computer people talking and drinking nonstop. Harry wanders through this disconsolately, having come down from angry to vaguely miserable.

Off to one side, propping up the bar, are Harry’s immediate boss, Boyce, and another of the young Salesguys seen earlier at the computer show, NIGEL. Harry WANDERS over to them.

BOYCE

Harry! Great day!

HARRY

(unenthusiastic)

Yeah, thanks, Boyce. Hey, Nigel. How’d you do?

NIGEL

A hundred and fifty units, all by myself. I am a happy lad. What’re you having?

HARRY

A beer, thanks.

BOYCE

Hey, cheer up, Harry. You did just fine. And the whole group had a super day. Nine hundred units! The boss is pleased.

HARRY

(glancing around him)

That’s great. Looks like some people aren’t, though.

The others follow Harry’s glance. In B.G., MICHAEL CARLYLE, a tastefully dressed, slender, silver-haired older man, sits reading one of the trade papers (even in this bad light) and drinking doubles. No one sits with him: there’s a feeling that he’s being avoided.

BOYCE

Oh. Take more than a good sales day to cheer
that
one up.

HARRY

Who is it?

NIGEL

Michael Carlyle.

BOYCE

Formerly of Carlyle-Erickson.

HARRY

Thought he was bought out years ago.

Nigel hands Harry his beer. Harry takes a long drink.

NIGEL

He was. Still gets invited to these shindigs, though. Elder statesman, good will gesture and all that.

BOYCE

Not that the gesture produces much good will in
him
. Sour old sod.

HARRY

What’s his problem?

BOYCE

Oh, the usual. He was there when little Bobby was just getting started, Erickson would never have come to anything without him, blah blah blah.

NIGEL

I think it’s just ‘old school tie’ stuff.

HARRY

You lost me, Nige.

NIGEL

Oh, Carlyle was at Oxford, degrees out to here, and Erickson never made it past his local vocational school. Drives him nuts that Erickson was so good with the business angle, and now gets all these wads of money and the media attention as well.

Harry looks curiously over at Carlyle. Carlyle glances at him, an assessing look: then away again, dismissive.

HARRY

Is it bad to be seen talking to him?

BOYCE

Politically? Naah. Waste of time, though. He’d talk the ears off a donkey, that one. Listen, you coming to the Sega party later?  They’re celebrating that new Russian helicopter-gunship game. Unlimited caviar, fountains of Stoly.

HARRY