This Other Eden (22 page)

‘I
don’t know any Max,’ replied Max in his gentle Irish accent. ‘Jesus, you know
I’m still half-tempted to shoot it out with these Garda bastards.’

Nathan
couldn’t believe it. Max had only just popped the frock on and he was already
doing the usual actor crap. Nothing in the world frustrates writers more than
when actors claim to be getting ‘inside’ a role, and refuse to drop it. This is
because the writer, who has normally created the character, suddenly finds him
or herself being told that they understand nothing about it, that only the
actor can truly inhabit the soul of the part. Nathan had no such investment in
Max’s current characterisation, but he still hated the way actors tried to
imply that acting was ‘real’ and not just pretending.

Max
squatted down and did some deep breathing. He stood up and did some stretching.
He stood on his head. He lay on his back and hummed, the hum growing into an
articulated note… ‘mmmmmmaaaaAAAAHHHHH
‘
He got up. He was ready. He
walked to the window.

‘If I
come out,’ he shouted in his Rosalie voice, ‘will you be after leaving my Ma
and Pa be?’ Rosalie winced somewhat at his choice of language, which seemed to
be rooted somewhere in the nineteenth century, but she could not deny that the
accent and voice were good.

‘We’re
not interested in the old couple,’ the Inspector of

Police
replied. ‘You’re all we want, Miss. We’ll bring a truck up, you can walk out,
we’ll put you in it and be gone.’

‘All
right,’ Max shouted. ‘I’m coming out. If you break your word now, the sweet
Holy Virgin Mother of God and Jesus will know about it.’

Max
turned away from the window. Rosalie decided to venture a bit of advice.

‘Maybe
a bit less of the Irish stuff,’ she whispered.

Nathan
could have told her it was madness. You just did not criticise an actor
mid-performance. Max may have been falling in love with Rosalie, but an actor
is always an actor first and a human being second. He turned on her with a look
of such ferocity and contempt that she actually backed away.

‘Look,
babe!’
he hissed,
‘I’m
the poor bastard who’s actually got to make some
sense of this crappy little part!
I’m
the
dumb schmuck
who’s actually
got to get out there and
fucking do it!’

‘Sorry,’
Rosalie whispered. ‘Actually, I think it’s brilliant. I really do.’

She was
catching on fast.

Max
collected himself. They could hear a truck drawing up outside.

‘Just
go out there and
fucking enjoy it,’
Nathan murmured under his breath.

Max
picked up his automatic rifle and, holding it above his head, kicked open the
cottage door and stood, silhouetted in the dawn light. He paused for a moment
and then cried, ‘Before God I surrender my worthless body to you, but my
immortal soul you shall not have! That I keep for myself and the Earth which
bore me. And I tell you now, you agents of immoral laws, better men and women
shall follow me and a new law will prevail! A law for life and for the planet!
A law for children! A law for the future! You cannot stop us, for we are the
Earth and all that lives upon it!’

With
that, Max hurled his gun down and stepped forward towards the truck where the
Inspector of Police was waiting, visibly moved.

‘Miss,’
he said, ‘I have to take you in, but let me say it grieves me to do so.’

‘You
must do your duty as you see it, Inspector,’ said Max and, walking past him
coldly, he climbed into the back of the Garda truck, handling the dress like
he’d been born in one.

From
the cottage they watched as the Garda pulled away, police gunmen retreating
from behind every bush and rock.

‘All I
hope,’ Rosalie said, ‘is that when I do go, I go one half as well as that.’

The
sign of a good performance.

God he had been good.

As the
Garda truck pulled away from the tiny stone cottage and began to bump slowly
along the rutted dirt track, it flooded in upon Max just how good he had been.
The performance of a lifetime! Had such a triumph ever been presented at the
New York Met or by the Royal Shakespeare Company? Max thought not. He had
successfully hoodwinked armed police into accepting that he was a wanted green
terrorist, a
female
wanted green terrorist. And the show was not over
yet, the fat lady was a long way from singing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’. Here
he was in the back of a truck, with two constables and an inspector not three
feet from him and still his extraordinary characterisation continued to utterly
encapsulate his audience. He had them eating out of his hands.

God, he
was good.

But
theatre is a bitch of a mistress, as they say. She always wants more, more!
More! She won’t let go until she’s handcuffed you to the bed, spanked you hard
and made you plead for mercy. Max knew he must focus! Concentrate and focus!
That was all great acting consisted of, concentration and focus, and good
bones, of course. Good bones were terribly important, but fortunately Max had
been amply blessed in that department. Concentrate! Mustn’t lose it now,
must
focus.
Max discreetly checked that his knees were right… not glued
together, Just gently side by side, an unaffected, girlish, athletic grace was
what was required, not some tarty come-on pose.

Perfect,
the legs were perfect. Now, hold the body firm, don’t slouch, you’re Joan of
Arc, not some used-up bar girl. Proud bust. ‘If you’ve got it,’ Max thought,
‘flaunt it.’ Don’t thrust, though! Make the bosom work for
you
not vice
versa. Now the head. Chin turned slightly away, let it drop, sullen, but
defiant. The tiniest gap between the lips, short, angry breaths… And the
eyes! The eyes are everything. ‘If you get the eyes right,’ Max’s old triple-M
(movement, massage, meditation) tutor used to say, ‘you can play the part in a tutu
and rubber waders and people will believe in you.’ Let the eyes blaze. Fire and
defiance. A cornered dog. A wild thing trapped.

Max’s
spirits soared. How long could he maintain the pretence? To trial, perhaps?
Could he actually get himself imprisoned? The theatrical possibilities were
mind-boggling… and when the story came out! He would be the toast of
Hollywood. A play would be written. A movie made! There would be personally
sponsored VR games … ‘Max Maximus asks “Could you act well enough to kid
the cops and save the world?”’ Max had struck a blow for all actors! He had
proved that their very special and delicate talents could be used to protect
the environment. That they were not just a bunch of neurotics who liked
dressing up, but crack assault troops in the battle of life. Max was positively
tingling with his triumph.

Not
physically, of course. As far as the policeman and woman sitting opposite him
were concerned, he was not triumphant but defeated. His whole body suggested a
wild woman chained and captive. Except for one bit. One bit of his body
suggested neither a woman nor captivity. For unbeknownst to Max, his private
excitement was beginning to show. Just as it had done on his last morning with
Krystal, Max had often teased a reluctant appendage into action by dwelling
upon his enormous talent, and on this occasion the process was underway without
even being prompted. The Inspector and the woman constable watched in
astonishment as a bulge appeared in their captive’s lap. Whilst inwardly
discreetly congratulating himself on his brilliance, outwardly Max was taking a
standing ovation. The Garda could not believe their eyes as the bulge strained
at the cloth of the dress and thrust itself ever upwards. Growing right there
in front of them, reaching up to the feminine chin that rested in the delicate
cupped hands above it.
‘J’accuse,’
that straining bulge seemed to be
saying,
‘j’accuse.
This woman is not a woman and I, a proud,
full-blooded erection am here to prove it.’

Busted
.

Back at Ruth and Sean’s
cottage, Rosalie was just getting ready to leave when the Garda returned.

It was
a cruel blow. Moments before, they had been celebrating Max’s extraordinary
success. Rosalie knew that she owed him a favour and she promised Nathan that
if he remained in Dublin she would re-establish contact the moment Max reappeared.

‘They
won’t keep him long.’ Rosalie was sure of that. ‘The last thing the Garda want
is the papers telling the world that a famous American Virtual Reality star
tricked them into believing that he was a wanted Irish girl. There’s enough
jokes about the Irish as it is.’

She had
just finished pulling on a change of clothes when they heard the roar of trucks
hurtling back up the dirt track. There was no time to voice the disappointment
they all felt. Rosalie moved as if she had to escape from armed police every
day. She grabbed her automatic rifle and, pecking her granny and her granddad
on the cheek, she ran out of the cottage and made for the outhouse where the
trail bike was hidden. She was just kicking the machine into life as the Garda
arrived. In the cottage, Ruth and Sean made ready to fire at the police
vehicles. Nathan returned to his position under the table. There was the
high-pitched rev of an over-tuned engine and Rosalie roared out of the shed and
headed for the gully of the little stream by the dry-stone wall.

It was
over in moments, the Garda did not even leave their armoured trucks. A single
stun-shell from the riot cannon mounted on the front of the lead vehicle blew
the bike out from under Rosalie and she landed heavily in the stream. Nothing
was broken and she was on her feet in an instant. Peering out of the gully, she
considered running, but what was the point? They’d got her and she knew it.

‘Granny!
Grandpa! Don’t shoot,’ she called as she emerged from the stream, her hands
held above her head. ‘No sense us all going to prison.’

Poor
Ruth and Sean had to watch helplessly through the broken window as their
granddaughter was nicked. Nathan tried to look elsewhere, furiously studying a
magazine he found on a shelf. It is never a socially relaxing situation, being
a guest in the house of people you do not know, as they watch a beloved
relative get charged with numerous acts of terrorism and start what will almost
certainly be decades in captivity.

‘Don’t
you bastards understand!’ they could hear Rosalie shout as she was handcuffed.
‘The Earth’s being fucked rigid. We’ve got to do something.’

‘I have
to tell you, Miss,’ the Inspector of Police said, ‘this poof here in the dress
made a much prettier job of getting arrested than you’re doing.’

Angry
eyes.

They sat opposite each
other in the back of the Garda truck, retracing the journey that Max had made
so triumphantly a few minutes before. How different were things now! His
costume, which previously had been his armour, his triumphal robe, was now just
a stupid dress. Max had been hauled in by the law on many occasions, but this
was the first time he had done it wearing women’s clothes. He hated it. Still,
in a way he was lucky. At least you don’t get thirty years in the slammer for
wearing lippy and wasting police time. You did, however, for a five-year career
as a terrorist, and both he and Rosalie knew it. She was going to watch the
world die, helpless to stop it, from behind prison bars.

‘How
did they suss you?’ she asked.

Max was
ready for this one.

‘Oh,
you know, performance is a myriad of subtleties,’ he said earnestly. ‘You get
one gesture or expression out of place, even a thought, one tiny nuance, and
the edifice crumbles. A single tiny moment misjudged and the whole house of cards
collapses.’

‘Your
man here got an erection,’ the policewoman said cheerfully.

‘An
erection!’ Rosalie gasped in astonishment.

Max was
mortified. With every moment he was becoming more and more attracted to
Rosalie. And now this! Shame covered him as if it had been mixed with custard
and poured on his head. He loved this girl, he knew that. He had felt it from
the first moment they had met. He loved her soft Irish voice. He loved the
tough things she did. He’d seen her in her underwear and he loved that too.
What he wanted most in the world was to impress her, and he had a sneaking
suspicion that the manner of his exposure was unlikely to do so.

‘I
couldn’t believe it,’ the policewoman continued happily. ‘A big whopper, right
there in his lap. I nearly hung my cap on it!’ She was having a lovely day,
this WPC. You didn’t often get a chance to arrest movie stars in drag on the
west coast of Ireland.

‘That’s
enough of that, Constable,’ the Inspector admonished sternly and silence fell
for a moment.

Rosalie
looked round. Searching for the source of the stiffy. There were two policemen
and a policewoman. Rosalie knew that Max was not gay, not only from his
reputation, but also from the way she had noticed him looking at her. That left
the WPC. Rosalie was not one to judge a person by their appearance, but this
girl did not look the sort to provoke uncontrollable trouser-based excitement.
Particularly in a man who had recently been married to one of Hollywood’s
sexiest stars. The policewoman was large and rather dumpy.., very attractive in
many ways, no doubt, lovely hair, but scarcely an instant erection trigger.