All the Hopeful Lovers (25 page)

Alan has determined that today is the day he gets back to work on his screenplay. First he clears his emails. Then he reads through his notes. Then he reads, or rather skips, through the most recent draft. Then he goes and has a pee. Then he makes himself a mug of coffee. Then, back in front of his computer screen he sets up a new Final Draft document and fills in the title page:
SHEPHERD by Alan Strachan, Third Revision, December 16, 2008.

Then the phone rings.

It’s Jane Langridge.

‘Alan. I’m in LA. It’s the middle of the night here, but I couldn’t wait to call you. I’ve been with Nancy at the studio all day. They’re all buzzing about
Shepherd
over here. Your ears must be burning.’

‘That’s good to hear.’

‘The thing is this, Alan. Do you follow the numbers?’

‘The numbers?’

‘I’ll give you the headlines. Dramas are tanking.
Frost/Nixon
,
The Reader
,
Doubt
, all dead on arrival. The recession is changing the mood music. People want to be cheered up. And guess what looks like being the big winner over Christmas?
Marley and Me
.’

‘
Marley and Me
?’

‘It’s a movie about a dog. A
dog
, Alan. Fox are tracking a final BO of over two hundred million.’

And it’s a movie about a dog.

‘So have you started on the next pass yet, Alan?’

‘Just about to.’

‘Fabulous. Hold the front page. Breaking news. Got a pencil?’

‘Yes, Jane. I have a pencil.’

‘Our movie is going to take your brilliant idea and run with it. It was you who made us love the dog, Alan. Now we want you to go all the way. Follow your heart. Put the dog at the heart of the picture.’

‘At the heart of the picture.’

‘That’s what Nancy wants. A story about a dog who goes into the world of investment banking and beats the pros at their own game.’

‘The dog becomes a banker?’

‘You got it. The dog makes a fortune. No one can believe it’s the dog, of course. They all think the shepherd’s doing it.’

‘So does the dog talk?’

‘Good question. The jury’s still out on that. What I want you to do is punch out a treatment for the new approach. Work out the best way to go. Maybe the dog talks. Maybe it works the keyboard with its nose. Your call.’

‘A treatment.’

‘Sure. We don’t want you wasting your valuable time on another full draft. And change the title. It’s not about the shepherd any more, it’s about the dog. What’s the dog called?’

‘Maggie.’

‘No, that’s no good. Has to be a boy dog. Get it a new name. And Alan – make the story funny. Loveable and funny. That’s where the market is now. Call the dog Harvey. No, that was the rabbit, wasn’t it? You’ll think of something.’

Then she’s gone.

Alan sits in his little study staring at the screen, breathing slow controlled breaths. A treatment: that means no money, or very little. He should ring his agent. She’ll tell him not to touch it. But what happens then? They get another writer. Better to hang on in.

A talking dog who becomes an investment banker. That’s insane, isn’t it?

As ever after contact with the movie world he feels that he’s slipped into a parallel universe. His own judgement is no longer to be trusted. His perception of reality is faulty.

I can’t do this. I can’t I can’t I can’t—

He becomes aware of dull thuds from the top floor. The plumber building the new bathroom. The plumber who plays the violin. All day he does sound constructive work, and in the evening he makes music. That’s perfect, isn’t it? No one says to him, I’ve changed my mind, rebuild this bathroom as a battleship. His world has a simple solidity to it, a respect for craftsmanship, a beginning and an end. What am I doing in this windless ocean of dreams, this Sargasso Sea where all my talent lies becalmed?

He hears light footsteps past his door on the stairs. Liz is out at work. Of course! Alice is home.

He jumps up at once and follows her to her room.

‘Sorry,’ she says as he looks round the door. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘You didn’t. I’ve just had my producer on the phone from LA. I need someone to tell me I’m not going mad. It’s you or the plumber.’

She’s sitting at her little desk in front of her laptop. One glance tells him she’s writing a story. Just the shape of the text on the screen. But now she shuts the lid and gives him a sweet grin.

‘Let’s hear it, then.’

He tells her, making it so funny in the telling that she rocks with laughter.

‘Are they all mad?’ he says, feeling much better. ‘Or am I?’

‘Of course they’re mad.’

‘But what if they’re right? Suppose they get someone to write their dog banker story and it makes a fortune?’

‘Listen,’ she says. ‘It’s all very simple. Can you write this story they want?’

‘No. How? What do I know about talking dogs? I wouldn’t know where to begin.’

‘There you are, then. You have to pull out. They’ve changed the terms of the contract, not you. They have to pay you for what you’ve done so far.’

Alan looks at her in awe.

‘You are so together, Alice.’

‘If only.’

Cas appears at the door. By some sixth sense he has intuited that Alan has left his keyboard.

‘Can I go on your computer, Dad?’

‘Only for a moment, Cas. I’ll be back at work in five minutes.’

‘Okay.’

He scampers off down the stairs.

‘Though Christ knows what work,’ he says.

‘Write a play,’ says Alice.

‘What about?’

‘About how people get together. I’d come and see that.’

‘Like, a love story?’

‘Yes. A story about someone who loves someone, and – surprise ending – he loves her back.’

‘Oh, Alice.’

‘I’m not being bitter or anything. I’d just really like to know how it’s done.’

‘Who would the main characters be?’

She meets his smiling gaze with another wry grin. We understand each other, he thinks, Alice and me. Always have.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘She’s a quiet girl, clever, reads too much, not pretty but not a fright or anything. He’s a sweet boy, nothing special, but he’s funny and he knows what she’s talking about, which in her experience is seriously rare. They get on really well together so long as they’re just friends, but she wants more, she wants to have a proper boyfriend, and she wouldn’t mind if it was him. Only there’s a twist. He fancies someone else. A girl who’s sexy and gorgeous and everything she isn’t.’

‘But the idea is that they end up together.’

‘That’s the general idea. But how?’

‘Well,’ says Alan, playing along with the game. ‘Maybe he goes after the sexy girl and she rejects him in some humiliating way and he realizes he really loves the plain girl best.’

‘Would you believe that?’

‘No, not really.’

‘So how does the plain girl ever get a boyfriend?’

‘Alice. Darling. You’re not plain.’

She shakes her head, a glisten of tears in her eyes.

‘No,’ she says, ‘no. Stick with the story. This is a story about a plain girl.’

‘When you love someone they stop being plain.’

‘Yes. Fine.’ She’s almost angry now. ‘So how does that happen?’

Alan doesn’t answer.

‘See? No happy ending. It’s a tragedy.’

But Alan is thinking. He wants to be as honest as he knows how.

‘I’ll tell you a different version of the story,’ he says. He speaks slowly, frowning, piecing together the ideas as they form. ‘This is from the boy’s point of view, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be much the same for girls. To start with the boy wants a girlfriend so that he can be like everyone else. So of course he wants the kind of girlfriend the other boys want. He wants her to be beautiful. But then as he gets older he starts to find out how tough life is. There turn out to be far more compromises than he thought. The right job doesn’t come along, so he goes for a half-right job. The right girl doesn’t come along, so he starts seeing a half-right girl. He doesn’t care so much any more about what other boys think. He wants someone he can get along with. Someone he can be himself with. Someone who’ll be good to him and not expect him to be perfect. He spends time with her, and she makes him happy. The more she makes him happy, the more he loves her. The more he loves her, the more beautiful she gets. Then one day he wakes up and realizes that every little detail about her has become beautiful to him. Because she’s the one he loves. Because she makes him happy. So he ends up with a beautiful girl after all.’

Alice’s eyes shine as she listens.

‘Is that it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Oh, boy. Some story.’

‘Would you believe it?’

‘How long does all this take?’

‘A few years.’

‘Is there any way of speeding things up? Like, show him a video reconstruction of the next ten years of his life and say, Let’s skip all that and get on with loving each other now?’

‘If only.’ A sudden thought pops into his head. ‘That’s how to rewrite
A Christmas Carol
for today, isn’t it? Have Scrooge be shown the ghosts of girlfriends past – all his failed relationships – so that he gets so scared of his lonely future he gets on with it and asks his current girlfriend to marry him.’

‘There you go. Write it.’

‘Better than a sheepdog banker.’

Steps on the stairs. The plumber at the door in stockinged feet.

‘I’ll be off now, if that’s okay.’

‘Yes, of course,’ says Alan.

‘I’m going over to your sister. Fix her shower.’

‘Oh, thank you. I hope it’s not too much bother.’

‘Just a pump needs replacing.’

He pads off down the stairs.

‘Oh, God,’ says Alan. ‘Cas has been on the computer all this time. I hate those bloody computer games.’

‘They won’t hurt him.’

‘He should be out in the woods playing with his little friends.’

‘How about me? Should I be out in the woods playing with my little friends?’

‘You were writing a story when I came in. I saw.’

‘Just tinkering.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘Not yet.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘It’s about a boy like Cas. It’s about finding out for the first time that there’s unhappiness in the world.’

‘Oh, Alice.’

‘Don’t worry. I’m okay. As much as anyone’s ever okay.’

Alan finds it hard. She’s so brave, so beautiful.

‘You know,’ he says, ‘I want you to be happy far more than I want to be happy myself. I don’t mind about life being hard for me. But I don’t want it to be hard for you.’

‘It’s not so hard. Though sometimes I do wish it could be that tiny little bit easier.’

‘Give me a hug, then.’

They hug.

‘I’ll go and boot Cas off the computer.’

Cas turns out not to be playing video games at all. He’s on Google.

‘I’m doing a secret,’ he says.

‘What sort of secret?’ says Alan.

‘Not telling.’

He’s closed the screen windows he had open.

‘Well,’ says Alan, ‘I need to get back to work.’

‘That’s okay. I’ve finished.’

He scoops some sheets of paper from the printer tray. For a moment Alan is amazed that a child of six can search Google and print out the results. But then he thinks, it’s not exactly difficult.

‘Cas, I really ought to know what you’ve been looking at. There’s bad stuff on the Internet.’

‘Trains,’ says Cas.

‘Trains? What for?’

‘I like trains.’

With that he runs off to his room, clutching his printouts. Alan wonders if he’s found out yet about unhappiness in the world. It seems unlikely. He still believes firmly in Father Christmas.

All the time that Matt Early is working on the shower pump he’s aware of Meg’s movements in the other parts of the flat. The conversion of the Victorian rooms has been shoddily done, the divider walls are poorly insulated, the door frames poorly fitted. The sounds of the television come through clearly from the lounge. Then after the television is switched off he hears the gush of the kettle being filled in the little kitchen, then the hiss as it boils, then the tinkle of music from a radio.

In a little while the job will be done. He will gather up his tools, exchange a few brief words with Meg, and leave. In those short minutes he must somehow establish a means of seeing her again. How? This is a problem more insuperable than any he has ever encountered. It seems to Matt to be a literal impossibility. Even given the slight connection formed between them on his last visit, when she had wept in his presence, he can see no way forward.

In a well-run universe, where true feelings are truly expressed, he would say to her, ‘I like you, and I’d like to know you better.’ He would suggest they share a pot of tea, or go for a walk on the Downs, or some such safe and innocent pastime. It would be nothing grand, and might lead to nothing, but it might just as easily be a beginning to everything. And yet it could not be done. He might want it with all his heart, and she might welcome it, but it was not going to happen.

In his practical way he puzzles over why this should be so, as he tightens the bolts on the refitted pump. If he wants a pint of milk he goes into a shop and asks for it. A perfect stranger takes his money and gives him the carton. How is it different if he were to ask Meg to join him on a walk?

The answer is brutally plain. You ask for a pint of milk and that’s it, no other hopes are concealed beneath the request. Ask a young woman to walk out with you and you might as well be saying, Do you love me? Will you marry me? Shall we set up house together and have children?

Well, maybe not quite that far; but the first move contains all that is to come, or all that will not come, which is even more daunting. Lifelong joy or lifelong loneliness lie tightly twined in those few brief words. The burden is too great, the risk too terrible. Matt knows he dare not make the move.

It’s a bit late to expect the girls to come knocking on your door.

His mother’s words haunt him. We’ll see, he says to himself. We’ll see about that.

The pipe work sealed once more, he opens the water valves and tests the system. The pump starts up with a slight shudder. The water streams out of the shower. He checks that the thermostat is performing as it should, turning up the setting until the water scalds his hand and then down again. Then he shuts off the shower and cleans up the grease marks he has left.

He’s aware as he packs away his tools that he’s moving slowly. What am I waiting for? Nothing is going to happen unless I make it happen. There’s no war on any more.

Matt envies his granddad, who met the love of his life in a bombed-out building in the Blitz. He pulled her out of a hole in the ground and carried her in his arms down a flaming street, or so he said. So of course they fell in love and were married.

I could carry Meg in my arms across a universe in flames. But I can’t speak a few simple words.

They manage things better in other countries. Your parents make a match for you, with someone you’ve never met. They let you meet, and if you’re not totally turned off you say, Okay, why not? The love comes later. Anyone can love anyone, really, if they try.

So why do I know that Meg is the one for me?

Because of the way she looked when she was crying. No, I knew earlier than that. Truth to tell I knew before I even saw her. I knew from the sound of her voice. Can’t say how or why. She just sounded right.

He can delay no more. He opens the bathroom door and joins her in the lounge. She’s sitting on the sofa with her eyes closed listening to the radio. A Brahms trio.

Her eyes jump open as she hears him come in. She reaches out and switches off the radio.

‘All done,’ he says.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you so much.’ She gets up, avoiding his gaze, and looks round for her handbag. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Well, the pump was £109. It’s a very straightforward job. I quoted you £150, didn’t I?’

‘That doesn’t seem enough. Are you sure?’

‘Yes, that’ll be fine.’

She writes him out a cheque. Her hand is shaking. Her face is very pale. In a moment she’ll tear out the cheque and give it to him, and he’ll pick up his tools and his shoes and go. Then the greatest test his life has yet offered him will have come and gone and he will have failed.

‘There,’ she says.

The sound of the cheque being torn from its stub fills the universe.

‘I’m so grateful,’ she says.

He takes the cheque and pushes it unseen into a pocket. He picks up his tools with one hand, his shoes with the other. Four steps between where he stands now, by the little white coffee table, and the door.

‘Any time,’ he says. ‘You’ve got my number.’

One step. There’s a humming sound in his ears. He feels flushed, short of breath. Maybe I’ll faint, and she’ll have to revive me. But of course he’s not going to faint.

A second step. Time moving slowly.

Dithering in the doorway like my dad. But not in the doorway yet.

She goes ahead of him, opens the door for him, can’t wait for him to go. Or a kindness, seeing that both his hands are full.

Someone has left a window open in the stairwell. A gust of cold air rushes in to the centrally heated flat. It picks up some papers resting on a music stand in the corner and flutters them onto the floor by his feet.

He puts down his shoes to pick up the papers. Sheet music. Handel.

‘Are you a musician?’ he says.

‘Oh, no,’ she says. ‘I just sing in a local choir.’

‘I play the violin.’

‘Do you?’

She looks at him with startled eyes.

‘I’ve played Handel. His Violin Sonata in A major.’

‘I didn’t know Handel wrote violin sonatas.’

‘Oh, yes. All the composers who write for the voice write for the violin too. It’s the closest instrument to the voice. The sound is made in the same way, really. A violin has a part called the voice box. It’s different for every instrument. There’s a tiny part in a violin called the sound post, it goes just under the right-hand foot of the bridge, its position makes all the difference to the instrument’s tone. Move it as little as a quarter of a millimetre and it changes everything.’

He knows he should stop talking but he can’t. She’s gazing at him wide-eyed.

‘There’s a special tool called a sound-post-setter which slips in through the F-holes, the sound holes, and goes round the corner to grasp the sound post and lets you move it. There are special dedicated tools for everything to do with making violins. I have a spoon gouge made by J. Spiller that I found in an antique shop, a junk shop really, I only paid a fiver for it, and it’s the best you can get. I was so happy when I took it home.’

He stops as abruptly as he started, and finds he’s standing in the open doorway, his eyes on the floor, breathing rapidly. His cheeks are hot and his back is cold in the wind.

I’m a nutter, he thinks. What on earth do I think I’m doing?

‘Do you make violins?’ she says.

‘Restore,’ he says. ‘I restore old violins.’

‘That’s amazing,’ she says. ‘I had no idea.’

‘No,’ he says, still looking down.

‘Why?’ she says. Wonder in her voice.

‘It’s just something I do,’ he says. ‘I have a shed out the back, where I keep all my tools. I like to go out there and work.’

He looks up then and finds her eyes fixed on him with such an intense gaze, as if she truly wants to understand him, that he says, ‘I could show you, if you like.’

‘Your shed?’

‘The violins. The tools.’

As he says it he hears himself and drops his eyes again. The violins, the tools: why would she want to see all that?

‘Would you?’ she says. ‘I’d love to see how you work on the violins.’

‘I’ve got about forty instruments. Some in pieces.’

‘Forty violins!’

He’s breathing deeply now. He feels suddenly buoyant, like a balloon. He wants to soar.

‘You could come over tomorrow evening.’

There: the dangerous words are out. No flash of lightning. No end of the world.

‘I’d really like that,’ she says.

He has asked her to come and see his violins. She has said yes. The first highest most unclimbable wall has tumbled before them. Now it can all begin.

He tells her where to come. They agree a time: seven o’clock tomorrow evening. He picks up his shoes and his tools and leaves her flat.

Outside there’s an icy wind blowing across the car park. Matt Early smiles at the wind, he hugs the wind, the beautiful wind that blew the sheets of music to his feet. This late afternoon December wind is his blitz, his miracle, his matchmaker. Meg knows nothing of how close he came to leaving her without a word. Maybe one day in years to come, sitting side by side in a house they share together, listening to the roaring of a south-westerly outside, he’ll tell her why she must always be grateful to the wind. She’ll say, Oh, but we would have sorted things out one way or another. But he knows this isn’t true. It takes some outside agency to get things started. An accident, a break in the pattern.

My God! I told her about the sound-post-setter! She must think I’m insane.

He drives home smiling to himself.