The Ghost (7 page)

THERE WERE FEW REQUESTS
more humbling than being summoned for a second sitting in make-up because of a producer's concern over ‘shine'. Cook was in position, installed on a minimalist sofa, side-on to camera, when a perky young runner interrupted their chat about the new wave of British realism and, with tender diplomacy, shepherded him back to the light-bulb mirror. He was re-powdered and re-deposited at the sofa area, where a second guest – Dan Machin from
Movie
magazine – had taken his spot, forcing him to sit further along and concede a subtle relegation of status.

“I think I actually prefer it to go out live,” Machin was telling Jonathan Trotman, the
Talking Pictures
presenter. “You can lose confidence in what you're saying if you have to repeat it too many times.”

“Oh! Is this live?” said Cook, sounding a little more concerned than he'd intended.

“Yeah,” smiled Machin.

Trotman, a wily power-ligger who had once been Cook's section deputy, stepped in. “It'll be pretty straightforward, Dorian. Just five minutes of general chat with hopefully a bit of debate.”

“Don't worry,” added Machin – to Trotman, “we'll try not to agree on too much”.

Cook swallowed reflexively. He was confident he knew the topic, but always felt cornered under the gaze of live television. Recording offered a fuzzy buffer of abstraction – he could do the job, walk away and get busy denying the sharp realities of the broadcast, shunting it into the fog of the future. But in a live setting, he was shoved into centre-stage to perform for a chorus of rolling eyeballs and curling lips. He felt like a fraud.

“Can I use the bathroom?” Cook asked Trotman.

“You'll have to be quick. We're on in five minutes.”

The runner guided Cook to a shabby rest-room around the back of the sound-stage and he slipped into a cubicle, locking the door. Without sitting down, he pulled out his phone, tapped through to the email inbox and skimmed a self-sent message of Wikipedia notes on the director of the film under discussion. He was about to pocket the phone and hurry back to the studio when the ping of his New Mail alert triggered a flutter of anxiety.

Two messages had arrived simultaneously. Cook's trembling index finger opened the first by accident.

He dismissed it with a sideways jab of the screen and opened the second new message – a notification from
PastLives.com
. He logged in and accessed the inbox.

There was an urgent knock at the cubicle door which made Cook jump and close the message.

“Dorian? Are you okay? We need you back in the studio! Live in two mins!”

“Yeah, coming now!” Cook shouted, failing to conceal a wobble at the base of his throat. He flushed the toilet and walked out – practically into the runner's arms. She scampered off ahead and he struggled to keep pace, disrupted and queasy.

*

“How does this compare to Whiteley's previous film,
Low Blow
?”

The studio heat was on. Cook and Machin sat stiffly, side by side, while Trotman – animated, informed – gently interrogated.

“I don't think anything could have prepared us for the progression,” offered Cook. “It's the difference between, say,
Reservoir Dogs
and
Jackie Brown
.
Low Blow
is the work of a promising talent, but it's solipsistic – there's too much of Whiteley's own prejudice in there.
Shifting Sand
is a much more mature work. It's hard to believe that both films are from the same director.”

“I'm not sure I agree with that,” said Machin. “It's clear that Whiteley is an enormously exciting filmmaker, but he seems to have fallen into the trap of believing his own press a bit too much.”

“Early reviews gone to his head?” offered Trotman.

Machin nodded. “Exactly.”

Cook released a strange noise – somewhere between a sneer and a scoff. Machin glanced at him, but kept focus on his point.

“Any artist who wants his work to engage with a mass audience must engage with them himself to some degree, and Whiteley has committed the schoolboy error of thinking that he only needs to engage with his critics – with the acclaim – and can safely ignore the dissenting voices, because they're mostly coming from less esteemed circles – the people who still
pay
to see films.”

Cook was subtlely shaking his head. Trotman spotted it, but stayed locked on to Machin.

“So, where does this story fall down for you?”

“I think he's sacrificed plausibility for stylistic indulgence. He obviously wants the film to be seen as some kind of
Midnight Express
update, but the cinematography is all exotic travelogue. He's infatuated by his filming location and has lost sight of how the character would actually behave in that predicament.
Midnight Express
has its problems, but it tells a similar story in a more accessible – and plausible – way.”

Cook was now shaking his head so vigorously, the camera was picking up tiny jiggling movements around the edges of the Machin shot. Trotman turned, gearing up a segue from critic to critic, but Cook was quicker on the beat.

“I'm sorry, Dan. That's crazy talk. We have the most exciting British filmmaker since Lindsay Anderson, and he's made an absolute masterpiece –
for his second film
. How many other home-grown directors have produced something indelible for their second effort?”

Machin swivelled slightly to face Cook.

“Welles did it with his first.”

“It's hardly like for like.”

Machin caught Trotman's eye. There was reassurance in the gesture – confirming he wasn't about to let the dissent lapse into discord.

“I thought we were discussing the film's place within the director's slim body of work, rather than making comparisons with other more established directors.”

“No, but if you're going to compare this film to racist drivel like
Midnight Express
, then we can pick and mix other irrelevant references from across cinema history.”

The comment carried an impressive economy of insult – it managed to dismiss Machin's taste, implicitly accuse him of xenophobic leanings and discredit the whole tack of his contribution. Machin greeted it with a stunned laugh.

“So, Dorian. Uh…” Trotman faltered. The director hissed into his earpiece: “Focus on the film!”

“…what do you think makes
Shifting Sand
so, as you say, indelible?”

“He's taken an incredibly difficult subject and presented it from so many different angles – political, social, sexual. And all framed inside this gorgeous photography – like something from Roger Deakins. What's most amazing is how he doesn't shy…”

“Hitchcock!” Machin interrupted.

“Hitchcock?”

“Yeah. His second Hollywood feature –
Foreign Correspondent
. Incredibly mature.”

“It's a glorified B-movie!”

Cook could feel his lips gumming together. The pitiless lighting had him surrounded, flaring down from multiple angles, searing through his thinning hair, baking his brain, boiling his blood.

“Well, that's the conventional wisdom,” said Machin, smugly. “Watch it again, though. It's actually improved with age. For a film that's over seventy years…”

“Hitchcock wasn't British, anyway!”

This was an ominous incision from Cook – calm and measured, but clearly intended to wound. He carried on.

“And if filmmaking is all about plausibility, Dan, then you're dismissing several genres right there. Or maybe you can only stand to watch documentaries?”

“Did you just say that Hitchcock wasn't British?” Machin's smile was bright and broad.

“Well… I meant he's not
perceived
as British.”

“He was born in Leytonstone, Dorian!”

Now, Cook was diverted by Machin's nicotine-yellow front teeth, his coarse little goatee (grown to distract from a double-chin), his overwashed check shirt. And, yes, he was actually wearing
cords!

“Anyway,” said Cook, spluttering, “this business of engaging with the mass audience. You can't produce art that second-guesses the sensibilities of those who might consume it. That's just marketing. Whiteley is shaping up to be one of this country's most essential artists, and if he's going to reach his full potential, he needs to
ignore
the masses and be a complete fascist when it comes to his artistic integrity. That's what he's done with this film, that's what makes it such a success and, I think, that's what every filmmaker who has ever made something truly great has also been aware of.”

“Dorian, I don't think I can take a lecture on film from someone who doesn't know the nationality of one of our all-time greatest directors.”

This was unnecessary, but effective. Cook was hushed. His eyeline detached from Machin's smirk and became unmoored, drifting off to the right – up, up and away, straight into the camera lens, returning its laser-guided glare. The dolly-mounted Sony NXCAM was happy to accept the staredown challenge. It stood firm, unflinching, taking photograph after photograph, exposure after exposure, blasting its subject out of the past and into the nearly-present – ageing, bloating, defiling. Cook absorbed the silence like a stolen peace, willing it to extend into eternity. And then, somewhere out there in the ribbons and refractions of light, he could have sworn he saw a ghost – something no longer imprisoned in soundless void, something dead and gone and yet somehow alive and here again. The idea stirred him from stupor, and he was mortified to discover himself unswallowed by unopened ground.

“Is it me?” he said weakly. “Or is it hot in here?”

They were the first words to be spoken in the studio for at least ten long, gaping seconds. Trotman guffawed, gratefully seizing on the remark as self-deprecating. Machin, head tilted, studying Cook with awe, spoke slowly and carefully in triumphant sympathy.

“I'm pretty sure it's you, Dorian.”

May, 1974

Uncle Russell shunted the two boys to his usual spot on the City home terrace and pulled two flasks from his work satchel – milky instant coffee for himself, ‘orange' for Cook and Mountford. Unusually, the surrounding cluster of fans could comfortably be described as a crowd, and the air was a churning brew of stale sweat, cigarette smoke and meat-pie belches. According to Cook – and, a little more reluctantly, Mountford – the two were now ‘best mates'. As milk monitor for the term at Bethesda School, Cook always tried to hold back an extra bottle for his visit to Mountford's classroom and occasionally managed to slip it onto his friend's desk unnoticed. Mountford had not formally requested this privilege, but he accepted the gesture and, despite their age difference, the two boys were never far from each other's playground clique.

The match was listless – early bursts of chanting were soon replaced by a murmur of cautious apathy. Mountford took to gripping the horizontal section of the terrace bar with both hands, tipping himself forward, legs straight, scuffing his feet on spectators behind.

“Mind out, son!” barked a scrawny man in a cloth cap. Cook and Mountford giggled conspirationally, and Cook copied the trick, swinging even further forward and drawing similar irritation from nearby fans. As attention shifted from a fruitless set-piece, his uncle came round to the commotion.

“Dorian! Are you watching the match or do you want to go home?”

Cook resumed the pretence of watching the match. Mountford did likewise, prodding and goading his friend into cackles and heckles, squawks of mock-protest, and theatrically defensive ‘dead-arm' punches. As the three filed out at full-time, Cook complained about the ‘bore draw'.

“It was 4-0 – to them,” snapped Russell. Neither Cook nor Mountford had been aware of a single goal.

After dropping off Mountford at home, Cook and Russell took an unfamiliar route back to Esther's, along the cycle path around the edge of the play-park. In the unwaning teatime sunshine, the gravel was warm and crunchy under Cook's cheap plimsolls. Russell quickened his step and slipped into the corner shop, emerging – just as a delighted Cook caught up – with a lollipop.

“School alright, Dor?” said Russell as they turned into Esther's street.

“Yeah,” shrugged Cook, lapping at the lolly. “There's a boy who gets bullied a lot and I don't like it.”

“Oh, right. That's not good. As long as it's not you.”

“No, it's not. But he gets bullied all the time.”

“Has he told the teachers?”

“I think so, but they don't do anything.”

“It's up to his mum and dad. Don't get involved!”

“But should I tell the teachers, as well?”

“Stay out of it, Dor. You might end up as the one being bullied if you're not careful.”

“I think they must really hurt him and I wish he'd stand up for himself.”

“Does he not do that?”

“He tries, but they just keep hurting him. I've told Den and sometimes he helps out ‘cos he's older but they just do it again when he's not there.”

The two reached Esther's door. Russell lifted the hinged metal knocker and let it fall, twice. The clangs were loud but unnecessary, since Esther was already in the parlour and had the door open in seconds.

“Just leave it, mate.”

“Leave what?” demanded Esther.

“Nothing,” said Cook, too quickly.

“Must be something, Dor,” said Esther. “Y'can't leave nothing.”