The Information Junkie (25 page)

'What about her...?' I must have looked lost because he said: 'Why are you concerned about Elizabeth...?'

I thought she might stymie our task. 'Is she likely to search you out and monopolise you?'

'Yes, but no mind. I can handle her. She'll not affect our work,' and he belched in a Falstaffian manner. 'Damn your
Monkey's Bum
,' he said. 'It's tickling my gut. I'd sooner drink a eunuch's codpiece. Remember:
And he that will go to bed sober, Falls with the leaf still in October—
John Fletcher 1579 to 1625. Haven't you anything stronger?'

'Well...'

'And don't palm me off with any of your fictive liquor.'

'Would you like to try an
Elephant's Tusk
?'

'Is that like rhino's horn?' he raged. 'I'm one of the manliest men in all England,' he boasted. 'I need no artificial stimulants.
Elephant's Tusk
? Sounds like one of your silver-tongued drinks.'

'That's all I have,' I said. 'Other than a bottle of something young, French and impudent.'

'A fie upon your sissy drinks,' he boomed. 'Where's the man that can stand by me in the Roebuck or the Stag and drink himself silly then sober then drunk again, and not have to go to bed? Eh...? You wouldn't know alcoholic fun if it jumped out of the air and grabbed you by the scrotum. A pox upon your vapours.'

He laughed, deep from the viscera. But, as well as excitement and release, his laughter disclosed a darker side. A desperate love of life, a vulnerability, a fragility; also a leer, a fear and a loathing. His laugh revealed the eternal paradox of the human condition; and strength, invulnerability when he confronted existential dread. Hence our adoration of stars: they do the dangerous things for us: they've looked down the chasm of ultimate terror and survived. Thus we too (vicariously) survive. No wonder so many live fragile lives: they're all living life at the dangerous edge. And he had the intellect and perceptiveness to see it. But he lacked the humility to face the fundamental contradiction. And was encumbered with the Celtic weakness for melancholy. So the only way he could reconcile his differences was through wooing, loving, arguing, smoking and drinking.

He knew he was destroying himself; but in his lonely hours he saw that he'd (also) created himself. This was not Richard Jenkins but Richard Burton. A new identity and the deed-poll made it official. But the twin personae were at war; both had flaws, and he knew it. That was why his classical, especially Shakespearean, acting was so successful. The commingling of poet and peasant. He was at home with the grandest themes. Those of man's identity, of his place in the cosmos, of the absurdity of existence. And that's why he always looked out of place, ill at ease in the pot-boilers. His finest performances were those in which the flaw was ennobled into something breathtakingly exhilarating and beautiful. He told us something universal which we'd always suspected. But what he told us was a lie. He said the contradiction was reconcilable. It wasn't.

Nobody could live with that self-knowledge. Only strong love, hate and self-abasement in alcohol made it tolerable. He had not gone gentle into that good night but went to it a wrecked and broken man, but still with all guns blazing, almost with a pride at having cheated death of a beslippered ancient scholar. His last thoughts were two excerpts from Shakespeare. The beginning of Macbeth's 'To-morrow' speech and of Prospero's 'Our revels now are ended'. Both suggesting that life is a play, therefore unplayable for real. But Rich always played, and played to win.

'Be not lost,' he said to me, 'so poorly in your thoughts.'

'Sorry, Rich. I was just thinking.'

'Time,' he said, 'to stop thinking and start writing. We have thirty-thousand words—big, bold publishable words—to write. And I intend to clast a few icons. '

'Only twenty-eight thousand. We're already about two thousand words in.'

'Rod,' he said, 'I have a hunger and a thirst and if I feel like writing three-
hundred
thousand words then I shall. And the devil be damned.' He waited. 'Are you coming along for the ride?'

'This is
my
book,' I insisted.

He smiled, stubbed out his cigarette and blew the smoke slowly into the air. 'Mine too, now.' He waited. 'Books can't stand on their own,' he said. 'They have to be performed. So always choose your performer with care.' He smiled with quiet self-confidence. 'There's only one can perform this—' he pointed to himself— 'and I'm just the kiddy.'

We heard a commotion. 'Quick,' he said. 'It's my baby child. Look lively!'

'Richard!' called a female voice.

We bent over the MS. 'Don't look up,' he whispered.

'
Richard!
'

'My pain's back,' she said, and waited. 'Richard,' she pleaded, incredulous that he could ignore her, 'I
need
you.'

He looked up. 'I love
you
,' he said. 'Only you do I adore.'

She said: 'If it be love indeed, tell me how much.'

'There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.'

'You left me,' she said, hinting at his death. 'Wherefore?'

'Wherefore could I not?'

She jumped up and landed awkwardly. 'Richard!
Pain!
'

'Excuse me, Rod,' he said. 'I have a task of some delicacy to perform.'

*

Or, on another occasion. We met again, alone; E must have been filming, or something.

'What,' I said, 'is the desert like?'

'Do you mean
Raid on Rommel
or
The Desert Rats
?'

'No. You misunderstand.' He did; his expression was innocent ignorance. 'Not celluloid deserts.
Real
ones.'

'How do you mean?
Rommel
was shot in a real desert—in Mexico.'

'No, Rich. The desert for those who died too soon.'

He looked at me. Searched my eyes, and behind them, for the question behind my question. I smiled, knowing he knew what I meant.

When he spoke the tone was low, almost conspiratorial. His voice told me that his experience was broader and deeper than anything I'd ever imagine let alone achieve. Oh, yes, he'd seen it all. Had flown on a sledge of stars at the edge of the world; had scaled and fallen down bottomless chasms; had supped—even briefly flirted―with the devil.

'I think you have mistaken me.' Almost a whisper but one with perfect enunciation. 'No, almost certainly you have mistaken me.'

There was no reply I could give, none requested. He placed an arm around my shoulder and said:

'Now, then, Sir Roderick. Shall we press on...?'

32

'Now, then, Sir Roderick. Shall we press on...?'

I nodded.

'So,' he said, 'can you give me a plot summary?

'I thought you'd read it?'

'Skimmed.' He waited. 'Indulge me.'

'I'm Rod writing a book. The book is about Charlie and Belinda. It is also about Rod writing a book about C & B. Also a book about real people interacting with fictive people. And a book about dead people interacting with living people. It's also about a narrator—and I'm not sure who he is—misleading, deceiving and entertaining his readers. But the narrator is not Rod. Not me.'

'Wheels within wheels and an infinity of mirrors, then?'

'Yes.'

'Okay, where are Charlie and Belinda now?'

'I forget. Let's look back.................................................….........

Ah, here we are, chapter 25: Martin calls on them in Wimbledon and in chapter 27 Charlie meets Amber then remeets the doc. There is a suspicion in Charlie's mind that Belinda could have had an affair with Martin or Burgess, or both.'

Burton drew long and heavily on his cigarette. 'And did she?' He released the smoke slowly.

'I don't know, Rich,' I smiled. 'I'm writing to find out.'

'But you have a game plan, don't you?'

'Yes: to win.'

He chuckled. 'Rod, you are a large tease. Now where's your synopsis?'

'I haven't written it yet.'

'Why not?'

'Because I don't know what happens until it happens.'

He laughed again. 'A bit like life, then?' I nodded. 'So, can you guess what might happen to Charlie in the end?'

'I'm not sure, I don't know. But whatever happens will influence the way the novel starts.'

He chuckled again: the boy Jenkins from a grim coal field; the man Burton from a rare constellation. 'You're playing with me,' he continued. 'You told me chapter 1 was already written.'

'It is—but I'll have to rewrite it in the light of the ending.'

'Rod, I'm jam-packed full of the desire to write. I've got phrases, clauses and sentences clawing at my brain. I must have a chapter to myself, to test them out, as 'twere.'

'Rich, this is outrageous. I'm a writer tapping keys on a PC. You're the ghost of an actor who died last century. In a sense neither of us exists.'

'Never,' he said, 'refer to me as a ghost.' His eyes were frightening. 'If you prick me, do I not bleed?' He grabbed my hand and held it to his chest. 'Feel me, I'm real.'

I felt him: he was.

He said: 'You exist. I can feel you.'

'Okay, I give in: you're real.' I felt overawed and exhilarated: Rich was taking
me
seriously. And before him I shuddered. 'But I'm sure some philosophers would want to question us closely about our term
real
.'

'To hell with philosophy and necessary doubt. Let's carouse till the second cock and devil take the hindmost!'

'Okay, Rich. You can have the rest of this chapter.'

He laughed. 'Rod, I don't think you understand. I must have a chapter to myself—I mean to clast a few icons!'

He frightened and thrilled me: I thought it best to agree. But he'd also be doing me a favour: a few days' rest while he wrote chapter 33 for me. Mm? Well, ghost-writing is an allowable fiction. Anyway, I was running out of ideas so fresh blood would revitalise the piece.

I offered my hand: 'Chapter 33's all yours,' and we shook. Then he nudged me off the stage and took to the task like a sop loose in an alehouse, like a miner alone in a pit, like a starving man tossed carelessly into a banquet.

33

We began as a band of thirty men with one goal. The weather and time of year had been against us but we took the challenge. Now, however, we're—I'm—down to one.

I thought I could overcome any obstacle, fulfil any promise but the place I landed up belied my

'Rod! ROD!!
RODERICK!!!
'

I rushed to him. 'What's the problem?'

'I'm stuck. I don't know what happens next.'

'I know the feeling, Richard.'

'What's the answer? I've tried a cigarette and a couple of those anaemic
Monkey's Bums
. I don't understand because I felt so full of it.'

'It's sometimes better to let the piece write itself: it could be very different from the piece you think you want to write.'

'Damn pseudo-intellectual bunk! In my notebooks, my thoughts, and my writing of them, came almost simultaneously.'

'I love that
almost
.'

'There's something deeper, isn't there? There's something more subtle?'

I nodded. He went on:

'But suppose it's unreadable, inelegant, uncommercial?'

'Then we edit.'

'Thanks for the tips,' he said, offering me a cigarette which I declined. 'No—' softly '—you don't, do you?' as if recalling the detail of a dream.

I made a soft exit.

*

I thought it was a wrap but Clark approached and threw me a line. I recognised the cue but I felt weak, a little light-headed, almost timid—too afraid to ask anyone.

'Richard,' he said. 'I'm glad to meet you after all this time.'

Richard?
I thought. I'm not playing a man called Richard, but I shook his hand. 'Clark,' I said. 'How's it going?'

'The movie?'

I was unsure but nodded.

'Swell.' He looked me up and down. 'Fancy dress...?'

I felt strange—anxious, weak. My life was crumbling and I was unable to pull myself together. I looked around: Henry, Elizabeth and the entire crew had gone. I was alone with Gable. 'Clark, I'm sorry,' I said, 'I can't recall the next line.'

'A bit like life, then?' and he smiled as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

I laughed unsurely. 'Perhaps a drink'd make me feel better.' Gable offered me his goatskin; I drank long and deep.

'You've got to watch this Nevada heat,' he said. 'Damn near turn a man crazy.'

Perhaps I was drunk
and
ill. If I just soldiered on I would soon feel better. I forced a laugh: 'Yes, bloody heat.' Smiling seemed to help.

Gable's next question floored me: 'Richard, tell me: are you a stray in my movie or am I a stray in yours?'

I laughed again as you do in your cups. What hallucinogen was in his goatskin?

'Clark, my friend, I don't know. You're dressed for a Western; me—or is it I?—for a war movie. But for the life of me I can't remember the title—even a working title.'

Gable loved this; laughed and slapped me on the back. 'Me neither.' So we shared the joke and started an impromptu dance. Afterwards he said: 'Where in hell has it gone?'

We were now great buddies—had a common loss. 'It...?' I asked.

'My outfit—I'm here shooting a movie with Marilyn Monroe, Monty Clift—bless him, and...well, if that ain't the darndest thing: I just can't remember.'

My rationalisation was that we were both getting drunker. Everything I said sounded funny. 'And I'm filming a few inserts.'

'Inserts...?'

I said, 'Don't laugh, but there was sufficient footage left over from
Toro
to make
Raid on Rome.
We're inserting dialogue scenes.'

He thought I was now going too far and seemed to sober up for a moment. That sobered me. As one we said:

'What the hell are we doing here?'

After a while he said: 'Rich, I'm moving on. I must search—I've lost my baby.'

'In this heat?' He couldn't be serious.

'It makes you wonder,' he said. We shook hands and off he tramped.