The Dead Republic (10 page)

He still hadn’t told me. No one had told me. But I knew.

—Come on, he said.

He stood up and walked into his office. There were cardboard boxes on the floor and the photographs that had filled the walls

- the actors and horses - were gone. The empty squares made quick, sharp sense; he was getting kicked out of the studio.

Then I saw the chair - and the back of the chair.

H. Smart - Writer.

White letters, white words, across the back of the black canvas. I sat down. It was the same chair. It fell into shape exactly as it had before, whenever I’d sat into it. Only the letters were new.

And that was fine. I was H. Smart, the writer on the payroll. We were making a picture. He said nothing about the new letters. I could hear Meta Sterne, behind me. She said nothing either.

But I could feel them on my back.

—The I.R.A., said Ford.

—What about them?

—Forget about them, he said.

The interrogation had resumed. He was whacking me first; then he’d help me up and clean me. I kept my mouth shut.

—I’ve given those guys money, he said.—The I.R.A. I’ve donated. I know some guys.

He leaned forward.

—The fight’s not over. Right?

The little hard eyes behind the lenses - I thought I saw them, jabbing at me.

—What do you want? I said.

—I want you to forget what you think, he said.—You’ve been through a lot. Given the chance, would you do it all again? My guess is you’d say No. Am I right?

—I don’t know, I said.

He nodded, twice.

—Good, he said.—That’s okay.

I wanted to talk now. But it was too early.

—Before, he said,—when you told us about the killings and the no-come-back jobs, you spoke like a man who’d learnt to change his mind. Like we already knew the ending, so there was nothing new to hear. Understand?

I nodded.

—You didn’t even sound bitter, he said.

Meta Sterne still hadn’t written anything.

—Bitter can be good, he said.—We can see the guy earning his bitterness. It’s still a good story. And the girl can suck the bitterness right back out of him. Bitterness in the first or second act is dandy.

He shrugged.

—Bitterness has life, he said.—Believe me.

He was forcing me to fill the hole he was digging. And I wanted to. It was on my back - I was the writer. The words were on my tongue -
but
,
then
,
bombs
,
guns
,
bullets
- I wanted to save the story. But still, I said nothing.

He sat up, quickly. He slapped his leg.

—There’s one more picture in the old man. Right, Meta?

—Oh, yes.

—Yeah. And it won’t be a Western, I’m sick of ’em. It’ll be this one.

I tried not to sit up with him.

—But here’s how it has to be, he said, as he let himself sink back.—We got the love story. We got the love and the bicycle. It’s got to be Maureen. She can reach those pedals. You see Maureen yet?

I had.

—No, I said.

I’d seen Maureen O’Hara in Technicolor.

—You will, he said.—You’ve got to meet Maureen. Henry Smart and Mary Kate. We can write that script today. But it’s not the whole story. Right?

I nodded.

I’d seen her in
The Black Swan
. I’d sat in the dark and watched Maureen O’Hara, in among the pirates and the fencing, all the bloodless swashbuckling. She was supposed to be English, but her accent crept through. She was a big, good-looking bird from Dublin. That was all.

—See, look, said Ford.—You’re young when you talk about Miss O’Shea. And I want that when you talk about the I.R.A. Before you learnt the bitter truth. Let’s get back there, to the beginning. Let’s get Meta working here.

I was ready to talk.

—It’s your story, Henry, he said.—But we need to see you learn the bitter truth. Before you knew there was a lesson to learn. Let’s go. Ready, Meta?

—I’m here, Pappy.

—Alexander, I said.

—Who’s that?

—I had a brother called Alexander.

—I thought we had all of them, and the sisters. Meta?

—There are some—

—He’s another one, I said.—He came into my head.

—Fine. Got him, Meta?

—Got him.

—Alexander, he said.—Alexander the Great. You want time to get the name into your book?

—No, I said.—I’ll remember.

I believed that.

—Okay, he said.—What was the first time?

—What time?

—First time you handled a gun.

—I don’t remember.

—Then make it up, for Chrissakes.

 

 

 

He didn’t tell me. No one did. But I read about it in
Variety
. He was making another picture. He’d told me he was tired of making Westerns. Fair enough, but he was about to make another one. His photographs were already up on another wall, in another studio. Republic Studios - for fuck sake.

Bill, Ford’s driver, came looking for me. And I was ready. I knew what I wanted, words on paper, a script. I wanted to see and hear a typewriter.

—Ready, Mister Smart?

I picked up my hat.

—All set, I said.

We drove well out of what I knew of the city. I saw gulls above us. Bill parked the car. I didn’t ask him where we were. There was a wooden jetty, built low, just over the water, and a smell of long-dead fish and oil. There were five or six boats - yachts - tied along the jetty, and action on the one that was the biggest and furthest away. There were busy men there, hoisting a sail or some fuckin’ thing, five or six men. And one old man, dressed in white, staring at me. The old prick was wearing an admiral’s uniform. Rebel, my arse.

I walked.

I didn’t like the jetty. It wasn’t solid enough for me. But I kept going.

It was some sort of a bay. The water was tame and old, but I could hear the real ocean in the air, lifting and breaking not far off. I could feel it beneath me, the hum of huge waves, the power of the water.

Ford stepped onto the varnished plank that ran from the boat to the jetty.

—Welcome aboard.

He could fuck off; I wasn’t going aboard. I stood at my end of the plank.

—We’re ready to cast off, said Ford.

—Grand.

—We’ll be taking her out for a day or two.

He stepped back, through the small gate on the boat’s side, to give me more of the plank. The other men on deck stayed out of his way. I’d seen none of them before.

The boat’s name, the
Araner
, was in black paint, on the side. He saw me looking at it.

—My old mother came from the Aran Islands, he said.

—Mine came from Bolton Street, I told him.

It surprised me, stunned me. I hadn’t known I knew; the certainty. My mother lived on Bolton Street. My mother had been a child. I could see my mother.

But I was standing on the jetty. Staring at Admiral Nelson, staring back at me.

—I always get down to writing my scripts on the
Araner
, he said.—The sea air. Away from the producers and the goddamn mess.

I felt the sea beneath me, rising and letting me drop. I felt it pull at the leg.

He took another step back, to give me even more room. One of the other men jumped from the boat to the jetty - I felt his weight as he landed. And another jumped. I was ready to fight them. But they both grabbed the ropes that held the
Araner
, and untied them. They waited for the nod or the word, to throw the ropes aboard and jump back on after them. The boat was huge, a big long thing with two masts and a lot of white canvas, a Hooverville of the stuff. The varnished wood grabbed the sun and made the boat shine even bigger. It wasn’t a boat; it was a fuckin’ ship.

—Come on, he said.—We’ll lose the tide.

—No.

—You scared, Henry? he said.—Something we should know about?

—No.

—Someone drown? You drown someone?

—No.

—So? he said.—What?

He came down off the boat. He stepped off the plank and stopped in front of me. I could see the eyes behind the lenses. They were weak but they could hold onto malice. I’d seen it before, but there was none of it in there now.

—I didn’t tell you about my father’s wooden leg, I said.—Did I?

—No, he said.—You didn’t.

—He could find water with it, I told him.

—Felt it in the leg, right? A diviner.

—Yeah.

—What about you? You got that gift?

He looked down at mine.

—I don’t need it here, I said.—It’s fairly fuckin’ obvious.

—That’s right, he said.—But elsewhere?

I started to shrug.

—Great, he said.—We can use this. We’ll start with this. And you can meet Maureen.

I ignored the name.

—No, I said.

—Why not, goddamn it? Tell me about your father’s leg. How’d he get it?

He stepped back, nearer the plank. The two men still stood there, holding the ropes.

—He had it when he met my mother, I told him.—I never knew how.

—John Carradine will play him, said Ford.—John’d saw his own leg off for a part like that. Let’s get this thing started, come on.

I was tempted now. I could pull the story in my direction.

—No.

—Goddamn it, he said.—This just might be the last time you get to say that fucking word to me.

—Fair enough, I said.

He was chewing the air right in front of my face.

—Jesus Christ! I want to make this fucking picture!

—So, why are you making a different one, called
Rio
fuckin’
Grande
?

—That’s none of your fucking business.

The jetty sat on thick wooden stilts that had been hammered deep through the ooze to the solid stone beneath. But it still started to rock, under his canvas shoes.

—I have to make it, he said.—The fucking finance. I told you. I’ve hidden nothing.

—Grand, I said.—But we’ve been talking about it for - I don’t know - months. Fuckin’ years. And I haven’t seen a page of a script—

Then I saw another uniform. There was a woman standing on the deck, looking straight into the sun. She was dressed in the gear of Cumann na mBan.

—That’s Maureen, said Ford.

—What’s she dressed like that for?

—Like what?

He looked over his shoulder.

—That’s one of her costumes, he said.—She’s trying it on, see if it fits.

He turned now, so he was looking straight at her.

—And I guess it does.

She turned slightly, and saw him. He waved; she waved back. Her smile was huge.

—No famine teeth in that girl’s mouth, he said.

He was right. She outshone the varnish. The wind was there now, enough to lift her red hair and put it back in the right place.

—Where’d you get it? I asked him.

—What?

—The uniform.

—It’s a costume, he said.—I don’t know. Photographs, pictures. It’s okay, right?

—Yeah, I said.—It’s accurate.

The woman in the Cumann na mBan gear stepped carefully across the deck and began to sink; she went down some steps I couldn’t see, into the gut of the
Araner
. She had to look down as she went.

—Does she fit the bill? Ford asked.

—She’s lovely, I said.

—She’s Miss O’Shea, right?

—No, I said.—She isn’t. Be seeing you.

The sea air was doing me good, now that I was walking away from the sea. It was still hot but the breeze was on my back, patting me along. And the smell was good too; it was the soup I’d grown up with.

I was off the wood of the jetty now, happier on the solid ground. But that wasn’t why I hadn’t climbed aboard Ford’s ship and sailed away.

I’d made my mind up.

—I’m walking, I told Bill the driver.

—It’s a stretch.

—I know.

The picture would be made, because I wanted it to be made. It was my story. And I was letting him know; he had to make his mind up too. I wasn’t waiting. If he wanted the picture he’d have to come after me. Because I was more than the writer. I was the plot.

 

 

 

I knew it wasn’t Bill before I opened the door.

I should have known. I
did
know.

—Where’s your uniform? I asked her.

It was Maureen O’Hara standing there. And I wasn’t surprised.

—Come in.

—Thank you.

She walked past me. Three good steps and she was in the centre of the room. She didn’t look around and she didn’t look uneasy.

—He’s such a rude man, she said.

This was five days after I’d seen her on the boat.

—Ford? I said.

—Yes, she said.—Mister Ford.

She looked straight at me. She didn’t smile.

—I have to warn you, she said.—Turn down Mister Ford and he’s a demon.

—Grand.

—But he’s right about one thing, she said.—You are the real thing, even at your age. A little Dublin gurrier.

—He sent you.

—He did not.

—Okay.

—I sent myself.

—Grand. Why?

—To meet you, she said.

—Why?

—I wanted to, she said.—And I thought I was going to, on
The Araner
. What part of Dublin are you from?

—All over, I said.—It’s been a long time.

She was lovely, gorgeous - the words weren’t there to put her together.

—Yourself?

—Ranelagh, she said.—Originally.

I nodded.

—You remember it?

—Yeah, I said.—Sort of.

I’d been in the water under Ranelagh with my father and, later, I’d cycled and crept through Ranelagh, in the crooked line of duty. There’d been safe houses there, tucked in under the leafy respectability. I’d robbed books from good houses in Ranelagh, for my granny; I’d more than likely lifted books from this woman’s house, right from off her mother’s bedside table.