Hadley, page 14
“Yeah, Joe. The American guy who has been helping to arrange the competition. What do you think we’re all doing here?”
“What competition is that, sonny?” Torment asked.
“Pops doesn’t know. Along the beach, at the next hotel. They’re having a Robert Pattinson look-alike competition.”
“What on earth for?” said Torment. “This is a war zone, for heaven’s sake.”
“Well, it’s not much of a crowd, I’ll admit. In fact, only a few people in the audience and they were all Chinese.”
“Chinese?” He had my attention.
“Except for Joe, of course, who seems very excited about the whole thing.”
“Of course I was excited,” said the man with a ponytail as he joined our table. “Hi there, Hadley.” Joe, looking like an old boxer, stretched out his hand to me and then Torment. “And you are Chris Torment. Boy oh boy, what a strange meeting this is. Forgive me, I saw you both at the junk party.”
“I remember,” I said. “What are you doing here?” I meant, what in the name of jiggy-jiggy are you doing here.
“What am I doing? A bit of this, a bit of that. Right now I’m putting on the first ever Robert Pattinson look-alike contest to be held in this part of the world.”
“Why?” Torment asked again. “I’m surprised anyone has even heard of Robert Pattinson in this part of the world.”
“Have they heard of you?” This was Joe.
“Well, of course. But that’s not the point. They’re not having a Chris Torment look-alike competition. Not that I’ve heard of anyway.”
“We could always try one.”
“We could try. But the judges wouldn’t know what Chris Torment looks like.” This came from one of the new Robert Pattinsons. “Anyone could win.”
“It wouldn’t matter,” another said. “As long as they’ve all got cardigans and hearing aids.”
“Guys, guys,” Joe said, a big smile on his face. “Take it easy on the old timer. Tell you what, head back to the hotel and relax. Put the drinks on my tab. I got business to discuss here.”
“You thinking of opening an old people’s home, Joe?” the first Pattinson said.
“Okay, that’s it.” Torment jumped up from his chair and made a dash round the table. Joe casually put an arm out and grabbed him around the waist, stopping him in his tracks.
“Beat it,” he said to the standing Pattinsons, who turned and trotted away. The original got up slowly and joined them.
“Nice work, Joe,” he said. “Try to have a good evening.”
“Don’t mind them,” Joe said after the Pattinsons had gone. “They’re young. I like that first one. He’s got balls.”
“Not if I had anything to do with it,” Chris said, sitting back down. “The young… scamp.”
“He’s just 23 and he’s convinced he’s going to be the next James Bond. Sooner, rather than later.”
“Give me strength,” said Torment. “Shouldn’t he at least wait until he starts shaving?”
The waiter, wearing a bandana, arrived with drinks. I was interested in how Joe planned to move things along.
“I guess he’ll have to wait a while. But Chris, is it true they may have you lined up to be the next James Bond?”
Joe had a big smile on his face. No holds barred. This was what he called theatrical flourish?
“If I could have a penny for every time someone has asked me that.”
Joe was smiling broadly still, his fingers drumming the table.
“A penny for your thoughts then.”
“Well, between you and me. My chances aren’t looking too shabby at the moment.” I noticed that barmy old superiority returning to Torment’s voice.
“Not too shabby. How very English. So you’ve been approached?”
“I wouldn’t say that, but…”
“Well, what would you say? Obviously you’d be interested.” Joe was still smiling. What had happened to the code of conduct? Joe leant forward and said conspiratorially: “And by the look of the company you were keeping on the junk the other night, you’ve already got your Bond girl set up.” He winked at Torment and slapped his knee.
“Well, I’m not sure I appreciate…”
“What are you talking about? She was all over you.” Torment glanced uneasily at me as Joe continued. “But between you and me, I reckon you’re a bit too intellectual for the part.”
“Well don’t count your chickens. I may surprise you yet.”
“A bit soft and lily white. And those guys had a point. I mean, you ain’t no spring chicken no more. I believe they’re looking for someone fresh. Not David Beckham…”
“David Beckham?”
“I said not David Beckham. But someone they could build on, someone like him A bit younger, maybe.”
“Look, my friend. I am not sure who you are or how you seem to know so much about the film industry, let alone the James Bond franchise. But there’s a lot more to the process of finding the next James Bond than just finding some cute footballer.”
“No shit.”
“They consider many, many different things. The class of Englishness, for one.”
“Sean Connery is Scottish.”
“The class of Britishness then.”
“No, I don’t think so. Pierce Brosnan is Irish.”
“Also the sense of gravitas.”
“Gravitas? Pretentious? Moi? You mean superiority, I think.”
“Look, who are you? What do you do? How come you think you know so much? You’re running some hotel game show, for heaven’s sake.”
“I do a lot of things.” Joe pulled out a cutting from his jacket pocket. “Funnily enough, I happen to know the latest odds on who is going to be the next James Bond. Coming in at ninth at 10/1 is yours truly, Chris Torment. Coming in at 200/1 is David Beckham.”
“David Beckham?”
“Two hundred to one. Don’t be concerned. My point, Mr Torment, is that there are a few bright sparks above you.”
“Read the list,” Torment said.
“I can’t.”
“Oh go on.”
“I can’t.”
“Why can’t you? You’ve got it in your hand, for heaven’s sake.”
Joe looked at the newspaper cutting. “I could read this out to you if you like…”
“Go on.”
“…but it’s got nothing to do with what we are talking about.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That was just a coincidence, you see – my pulling this out of my pocket and my saying I knew the odds on who was going to be the next James Bond.” Torment was confused and his mouth was open. “Don’t let it worry you, please. This article is about the island.” Joe put it back in his pocket. “Apparently it’s full of snakes. You should watch yourselves.”
We heard some splashing from offshore and I got out of my chair and looked out to sea. Not enough light to see, but I could hear the thump of a load of rowlocks.
“Who are you, man?” Torment asked Joe. “What do you do? What are you doing here?”
“I’ve done a lot of things. Often on the entertainment side. Oh come on, I’m just teasing you.” Joe leant over and slapped Torment’s leg again. “Don’t mind me.”
Torment flinched. “Often on the entertainment side. What does that mean?”
“I’ve been instrumental in casting. Hence the Robert Pattinson show. You never know who’s going to turn up. I’ve also been involved in entrepreneurial projects and I do a whole bunch of other bits and pieces. Imports and exports. And I can do occasionally dynamic things. Pyrotechnics, for instance. I can do some now, if you like.”
“What are you talking about, man?”
“Raise your left arm. And put your heart into it. Punch your left fist into the air. Go on. I will show you some of my powers.”
Torment put on a schoolboy pout but did as he was told. Nothing happened.
“That didn’t work,” Joe said. “I want you to try again.”
“Oh please.”
“Punch your left fist into the air, followed immediately by your right.”
“I don’t want…”
“Just do it.”
Chris sighed, stood up and did an athletic punch in the air with his left fist, John Travolta style, and then, head down, threw another with the right.
The Disco Groove Nite Hut exploded into fragments of bamboo which showered the entire hotel. The sound system shattered and a white plastic chair whipped dangerously past the waiter with the bandana. We found ourselves without a table. Monkeys and parrots were screaming all along the coast.
“What the fuck was that?” said Torment, now spread-eagled on the red pavestones, looking out to sea.
“Whatever you do, don’t mention Shirley Bassey,” Joe warned. He had a mischievous smile on his face.
“What?”
“The singer. Shirley Bassey. I’m being serious. Don’t do it.”
“Who in their right mind, do you think, here and now, would feel the urge to mention Shirley Bassey?”
“Too loud, you complete fucker. I said don’t…”
There was heavy gunfire, aimed at the Jungle Wing of the Lagoon Beach Hotel. Windows were shattering, chips of wood were flying, television sets were exploding. Whoever was doing the shooting now started aiming closer to us. At least seven Robert Pattinson types were running in all directions with their heads down.
“Head for the trees!”
Four shots rang out quickly from behind me. Torment and I crawled over to the cover of the palm trees. I remembered being taught on a hostile environment course that any tree you could put your arms around probably wasn’t going to be enough to stop a bullet. I saw Joe sitting in the same seat, grinning and unmoved.
“Who is this guy?” I muttered to myself.
Then there was silence. Or rather just the sound of the sea, as though the shooting had whipped up the waves, along with the screaming monkeys. I edged my face around the tree, too high up on the beach to see any boats against the skyline. I looked towards the hotel. Joe was not visible but then, like a cockroach, he re-appeared at the edge of the light. He looked about him and sat down again. He raised his glass in a salute. No, it was another signal. At once, gunfire started from inside the hotel. Joe stood up and ran up the beach towards us, sticking his tongue out like a naughty boy.
“What’s going on?” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
“We’re leaving now. Some guys are ransacking the front office as we speak.”
“Where are we going?” Torment asked.
“To another island.”
Joe ran at a crouch, Torment and I following close behind, down to the sea where a long boat with an outboard motor was waiting. Joe looked pleased with himself as we climbed unsteadily aboard. Joe pushed the boat out over the lapping waves and hopped in. Inside were a fishing rod and a hurricane lamp. The sudden burst of activity made me want to throw up.
“Where are we going?” Torment asked again. “Joe, who are you?”
The engine was noisy and smoky, but no one started shooting. Joe was standing in the stern with his hand on a long tiller. We were heading round to the far side of the island.
“Can someone please explain what is going on?” Torment said. “Who are we running from and where are we going? How do you know we aren’t running straight into them?”
Joe looked in complete control. “Hush now,” was all he said.
HALF AN HOUR later, Joe turned off the outboard and let the waves take the boat into a small bay. We climbed out and he pulled the boat on to the sand, covering it with camouflage netting, and led the way up a sandy path. We were circling a smooth, symmetrical hill like a burial mound. I could smell dry grass. It smelt more like Cornwall than the tropics. Up ahead was a long bungalow surrounded by hydrangeas. Through a gap in some fir trees to the left, I saw a helicopter. Joe knocked on the front door, which was opened immediately by a man in a Hawaiian shirt. Joe went inside and disappeared through a side door, while Torment and I were led into a big, comfortable room with rattan furniture, cushions on the floor and a skylight. I could smell cigar smoke. The man in the Hawaiian shirt sat at the far end of the room and said nothing, but he kept catching my eye. I sat on a sofa and picked up a magazine from the glass-topped coffee table. On closer inspection, I realised it wasn’t a magazine, but an index of the DVDs that lined the wall.
Joe returned and sat at the head of the table. He had changed into a t-shirt with ‘Ben Hur’ written on the front.
“Okay, sorry about that. Hadley, this is our temporary new home.” Joe gestured proudly at the DVDs. “I told you I did a lot of filming. What do you think of the place?”
“It looks very nice.”
“Very nice. Okay, someone’s bringing whisky. Look, Chris, I have to level with you. I haven’t been completely honest about why you are here. Or why any of us are here.”
Where was he going with this?
“What on earth is going on?” Chris asked, looking from Joe to me. “Who were those people shooting at us? I demand to know. Why have you brought us here?”
“Of course. I’ll tell you everything. Chris, as a professional actor, I hope you won’t be offended by this…”
“What are you talking about, man?”
“But it’s because you are such a professional that I can tell you what’s really going on.”
“For heaven’s sake, get on with it!”
Joe took a deep breath. “To use English terminology, you are a complete berk.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You can beg what you like. I am not going to apologise. You are a berk of the highest order, but you are a berk I can work with.”
“You can’t say…”
“Yes I can. Please let me explain. You mustn’t take this personally. All actors are berks. I want you to sit back, enjoy your drink and let me explain. Will you let me do that?”
“But you can’t go around…”
“Will you let me do that?”
Fop Pants sat back with a sulk, folding his arms across his chest.
“That’s good. Now let me explain a little of what I do. I film everyone and everything. I film people even when they don’t know they are being filmed.” I looked around the walls and sure enough, there in the far corner, was the camera. “Some of the stuff I have done is being used in your new movie.”
“‘I Love Hong Kong’?”
“Exactly. Adolf Lee is a big fan of my work, and I’m a big fan of his. I film people all over the place. It’s a bit of an obsession of mine. Then, when it comes to making a movie, I can choose scenes out of a box. I mix and match it, with new software I have developed myself. It’s like an artist choosing his paints. You can have the same actor in a movie as a child and as an old man or woman. Think about that. No special effects, no makeup. The same person. I can create an entire person.”
“But I don’t understand,” said Torment. “How would you know what to film? How would you know what film was going to be made twenty, thirty years later? The idea is preposterous. How would you know the child would even grow up to be an actor?”
“Chris…”
“I mean,” Torment went on, encouraged. He stood up and started pacing the floor. “Take a movie like ‘Giant’. Rock Hudson and James Dean are young and then they get old. As does Elizabeth Taylor. Are you saying you could do that?”
“Well of course not, but…”
“Well, there you go. Who’s the berk now?”
“I am talking about a completely new concept of making films. You will see some of it in your movie. You wait.”
“But the whole idea’s just silly. Hadley, help me out here.”
“Let me put it this way, Chris,” said Joe. “I was in a supermarket in LA a few weeks ago and I had a shopping cart. Embedded in the handle bar was a calculator, so you could add prices up as you went around the shop, seeing how much you were spending. Are you following me so far?”
“Yes, but…”
“What do you think about that?”
“Useful, I suppose.”
“Useful. Exactly. Now, suppose I said to you – no, suppose I gave you a present. A shiny, pocket-sized calculator. But this calculator was special, because it came with a fucking great supermarket trolley stuck next to the percentage key. In between the percentage key and the square root. What would you say to that?”
“A bit unwieldy, I suppose.”
“Not just unwieldy. Complete fucking waste of space. Am I right?”
“Can’t disagree.” Fop Pants looked at me for support. The look in his eyes said: Joe is completely off his supermarket trolley and if we run for it now, we might just make it.
“I think what Joe is trying to say,” I ventured, struggling with the image of Joe in a supermarket, looking for the bargain of the day in the cold meats section, “is that there are different ways of looking at things.”
“Totally different. You will both see what I’m talking about, right here on this very island. Totally unusual ways. Who ever heard of a calculator with a trolley attached?”
Torment was not convinced. “So you’re filming us. What does that have to do with our being here?”
“The second purpose is of more immediate importance. I am working to ensure that the next series of Bond films is a rip-roaring success. That’s my job.”
Torment and I stared at Joe, who pulled out a cigar which in turn prompted an image from my childhood, a James Bond annual my dad had given me for Christmas when I was about ten. It had full-page pictures of Sean Connery, including one from ‘Goldfinger’ of him leaning against his Aston Martin wearing a grey trilby and smoking a cigar, and one from ‘Thunderball’ wearing a very un-macho one-piece towel suit. Between the pictures there were short Bond stories, most dating back to the years after the war in an unexotic England. But what I remembered most was the front cover – round the edges were little silhouette motifs of Bond fighting someone off with flailing arms which, if viewed at arm’s length and through squinted eyes, looked like complicated Chinese characters.
“I’m sorry to tell you Chris,” Joe said, “but there is no way we can let you be the next James Bond – this is not me speaking. I am just the messenger.”
