CHAPTER 9

HOLLYWOOD 2 - TO ENDURE

The next day Wendy and I did the tour of Universal Studios. It was a quaint old museum, showing the ways they used to make the special effects in straight films. Even though no one in the United States had made a new straight film for fourteen years, they were still immensely popular as ornaments. Many people displayed them continually on their walls, in a manner similar to the way people last century had bookshelves full of classics, preferably from a second hand-shop to make them look like they had at least been opened. The equivalent of the complete set of Dickens picked up at the local junk shop for a few electrons worth of emoney is the large room continually showing black and white films in French, from the era when French films still had dialogue. That was in the room where one would receive guests, for in the family room there would be wall-to-wall ...

I wanted to spend a day recovering, being pampered by unnecessarily beautiful women as if I were in a film, but (curse my rotten luck and solid constitution) I was not hurt at all. Women can make me faint by fluttering their eyelids, but falling off a 185-storey building leaves me untouched. Instead of resting, I went to see Vivian, my third wife, whom I had yet to persuade to appear in my film.

From the Screenplay of Victor: my varied life:

VICTOR AT HOME WITH VIVIAN. THEY ARE DRUNK, ARGUING. THEY EACH HAVE A BOTTLE OF BOURBON FROM WHICH THEY DRINK, SWIGGING FROM THE BOTTLE

VIVIAN You bastard.

VICTOR She was terrible.

VIVIAN You were terrible. Everyone was terrible. It was a terrible film.

VICTOR And on film was the only place we kissed. I swear it.

VIVIAN No kissing in the dressing room, huh? I don't believe you.

VICTOR Just because I admitted to playing around once doesn't mean I do it every time I meet a woman. (HE GIGGLES AND SPILLS SOME BOURBON)

VIVIAN Don't play around or don't admit it? (GRABBING THE BOTTLE) Gimme that.

VICTOR (STILL GIGGLING) I mean some of them don't even like me.

VICTOR LAUGHS RAUCOUSLY. VIVIAN STANDS AND GOES TO THE BAR. SHE PLACES THE BOURBON BOTTLE ON IT. SHE GOES BEHIND IT AND PULLS OUT A PISTOL. SHE SHOOTS THE BOURBON BOTTLE. THE SHARDS AND LIQUID FLY EVERYWHERE. VICTOR STOPS LAUGHING.

VICTOR What the hell are you doing?

VIVIAN You know I hate bourbon. VIVIAN AIMS AT VICTOR.

VICTOR No Vivian. Stop it.

SHE FIRES AND IT HITS VICTOR'S BOURBON WHICH IS JUST BESIDE HIS HEAD. THERE IS BLOOD ON HIS FACE FROM THE BROKEN GLASS.

VIVIAN Oh damn it. Missed again.

VIVIAN THROWS THE PISTOL ACROSS THE ROOM AT VICTOR. HE CATCHES IT AND FAINTS.

That was how Tim and I wrote the scene, but Vivian, despite allowing me to visit her, steadfastly refused to take part. She said if I came within range of her house with a director, a writer or a camera she would shoot me again. Wendy said that since that was something we wanted to film we could try it - as long as we had bullet-proof vests for the crew. I went to see Vivian on my own. She lived by herself now, not counting the flock of yapping lap-dogs and illegal servants. Her husband, Cliff, of whom more later, used to jog along to visit her from his own house at the southern end of the beach. Unlike Cliff, who was strictly disciplined by vitamins and aerobic generals, Vivian was fat, lazy, torpid, and mixed phases of belligerence and docility that bordered on split personality.

When I arrived she was (surprise, surprise) still in the bath, and after an hour or so emerged and flopped into the huge lounge chair opposite the one in which I had been trapped while waiting, fearing to be swallowed whole by the most voluptuous sinking furniture I have so far encountered in a life of Sybaritic acquaintances. Her maid brought me a martini which I somehow managed to drink while held recumbent, and Vivian regarded me for a long, long time, searching my face and staring at my body in a way most people would find at least discomfiting, if not absurdly impolite.

I opened my mouth to prompt her to speak. She lifted her finger, shook her head, took a deep sip from her martini and said, though quite gently, "No. It is not good to see you, Victor." I didn't respond so she added, "You can stay, however. Cliff will be over and he is quite excited about seeing you." Somehow in the embrace of her lounge she leaned forward, trying to speak into my face, though the distance between us diminished the effect of her sarcastic voice. "He's excited about being in your film. Thinks it's an exciting project. That was his word. 'Exciting'."

She leaned back and smiled, and as she dropped a few little pills of various colours into her drink she said, "Look! You have a visitor. Stay very still."

Over my shoulder I could see one of her little dogs crawling towards me on the ridge of the lounge. It stopped to sip at my glass which I immediately took out of reach of its tongue. Vivian bellowed at me.

"I said don't move," and her voice was so shrill and loud that I froze, though it did not scare the dog which came and happily drank my martini. The maid was beside me in a moment with a tray of martinis, prepared, presumably, for this occasion.

"Happens to everyone, Seņor," she said.

Meanwhile Vivian was comforting the dog from her lounge, saying indistinctly through lips pouted in an ineffective effort to kiss the dog across the void between us, "Poor wittle Muffy Wuffy. Mommy woves you, yes she does. Mean old Wictor won't give you a drink but Mommy will. Well actually Conchita will, but Mommy Wommy pays her."

"Maria Barbara," said the maid, who seemed to be under the influence of at least a double brace of martinis herself.

"What?" said Vivian.

"My name. It's not Conchita. Not all Mexicanas are Conchita."

"Well what is it then. Maria? Marguerita? Maria Marguerita?"

"She left last week. I'm Maria Barbara."

"Barbara! From Barbarian. Uncultured foreigner. How appropriate." The maid looked on stoically as Vivian rolled around in her lounge, unaccountably amused by her artless teasing. She stopped as quickly as she had started and said, or rather bellowed, to the maid, "I'll have another one too." Maria Barbara sauntered to the bar to refill the glasses, and as she passed me I could hear her mutter, "Mad about the damn bitch." She had an unmistakeable Canadian accent.

Finally we relaxed with our drinks, Mommy Wommy, Muffy Wuffy and I, and at last I could ask Vivian why she refused to appear in Victor: my varied life. I fully expected her answer to be simple, comprising a direct message of hate towards me [see Chapter 110 of Victor: my versey life, which is my condensed versions of her picture of me in her own autobiography, Vivian: Successfully Feigned Humility, partly recounted earlier]. I tried to pre-empt her. "It's because you hate me isn't it? It's because you think of me as a mixture of bodily fluids. You think my biggest disappointment in life is that there are only seven deadly sins. It's because you think I'm amoral, evil, lecherous, mendacious and..." I ran out of ideas.

"You're also flippant"

"See? You hate me."

She paused, as if for thought, but I could see it was merely dramatic, and said, "You forgot to mention that you think you know everything. Mistakenly. But you've absolutely no idea of the real reasons have you? There are three in fact. First, and most important, at least to my vanity which is but slight compared to yours, I am an actress, and like it or not that is how I make my living. One way I have managed to make such a good living from acting is that I have always refused parts in films that have no chance of success."

I was going to point out to her that the value of a film has almost nothing to do with the careers of the people involved in it, but she waved me down, continuing her reasons for declining my offers.

"You see I have an eye for scripts that will do well - you've always admitted that [I had not] - haven't you darling? But even without my discerning eye, anyone could see that your film is destined to failure. It is nonsense. Tragically for you, Victor, it is neither Tragedy, Melodrama, Comedy, nor even Farce - except in the contemporary, non-theatrical use of the word. Now why, I ask you, why should an actress of my reputation and fame prejudice her career - more than her career, her very integrity - by appearing in such rubbish? I'd never work again. There are absolutely no circumstances under which I would suffer myself to be associated with such a repulsively weak-minded project, and I've instructed my lawyers to watch the film very closely for my name, in case there's any possibility of suing you. You can't get me into your vanity film Victor. Absolutely no way."

"Okay," I said, unruffled. I used to be married to her, remember. "You said there were three reasons you won't be in the film. What's the second?"

"The second is that the script you gave me is bullshit. It never happened that way."

There was some truth in this, but more of that later. For now I was content to ask for the third reason.

"You can't afford me."

"What's your price?"

"Ten million."

"For a one-minute scene?" I was flabbergasted. I did not even suspect Vivian of such greed. "All you do is walk on, call me an asshole, and try to shoot me with a pistol. For you that's almost therapy. I could charge you psychiatric fees. Ten million? I've never got that for a starring role - except my last four films."

"You want me, you pay," was all she said, and leaned back into another martini, having spilled the last one all over Muffy Wuffy during her passionate tirade. Muffy Wuffy was evidently used to this, and was licking himself in a desultory fashion but showed no other reaction. The smell of wet dog is well known, and I wondered what uniquely unpleasing stench would shortly rise from dog soaked in very dry martini; so much for the marvellously sensitive canine nose, I thought, which shows how wrong you can be.

I considered speechless anger as my response to Vivian, but that being open to misinterpretation I rejected it for an impassioned tirade of my own; "No way, Vivian. Absolutely no way. No! Not even if you lower your price. You're out. Not even for free. Not even if you paid me. Good grief, you're not even worth that for a full part, not that you could handle one any more. Look at you! You're old, worn out. Your looks have gone, gone, gone! No one ever paid to see you act, so there's no longer any point paying you to try."

VIVIAN lolled with rage in her lounge chair, and she called out "Sick him, Muffy!", and the horrible little creature jumped on me and yapped in my face, making me spill yet another drink all over it, so that it yapped even louder. Vivian rolled about giggling while I sat there wet and scared that the dog would bite me, for, though tiny, it displayed heroic ferocity. Just then Cliff came in the door. He was sweating, having just jogged two kilometres from his home at the other end of the beach. He picked Muffy up by the scruff of his neck and, against Vivian's loud and vociferous protests, tossed him with all his strength against a concrete wall. Vivian squealed as Muffy gave a high-pitched squeak and hit the floor, where its stomach split open, allowing gin to pour out of its plastic bladder to form a pool on the floor.

Cliff wiped his hand free of the synthetic dog slobber and martini with the towel he carried to wipe his sweaty face. "Hello Victor," he said, offering his hand to me once it was clean. "I really hate pet-bots". And to Vivian he said, "If you can't get a real dog why don't you at least program them to be like nice dogs? A bull terrier would be preferable to that thing - even a child."

"Keep me Mommy Wommy. Won't you keep me pwease?"

Specifically, I was sorry to the tune of twenty two and a half million dollars - for the foreign citizen divorce tax. But I considered it money well spent. Life with Vivian was an endurance test. Probably the most incredible fact of my life is that Vivian and I stayed together for as long as twelve years - together in the sense that we remained married, for it was only in the later years that we spent a great deal of time with each other. We were both working very hard, drinking a great deal, and either in the act of, or more likely in the act of thinking about, being unfaithful, and to that end always making excuses not to come home. It takes a special kind of person to endure such a life, and when we did meet we didn't criticise, but rather supported each other. Without that support we probably both would have died of some type of poisoning or fatigue.

It was only when work started to dry up that we realised that without the constant pressure against us, the only thing drawing us together was that legal tie, the swapping of rings. It was a curious support that we offered each other; although our lives were so similar - the drugs, the lovers, the love of endless work - the illicit sides of them were never acknowledged. We were safe together as long as nothing was ever admitted. We lived inside a secret that everyone knew, and as the lie became older the tension of that secret mounted, and it became almost unbearable to be in each others' presence. We both wanted to scream, "I know that you're unfaithful, and I know you know I'm unfaithful. Can't we just get it out in the air and get on with our lives?" But we were prudent, and cherished our image. To be exposed as a sham would have been, for us, more demeaning than the sham itself, so the sham grew with time - and so did the tension.

That tension was near snapping-point when I filmed Operation Rejuvenate Righteousness, on the set of which, as you will remember, Vivian met Cliff and I met Sandy, the fourth and last of my wives. Operation Rejuvenate Righteousness, although only one of more than one hundred and fifty films in which I appeared, is significant for two other reasons: it was the last film I made and it was the film for which I received my Trevor - the University Award for Best Male Actor in a Nominally Lead Role in a Varifilm. For these reasons the film is important in my autobiography and hence in the current film. My marriage with Sandy was shorter than the period between the end of filming and the Award ceremony, but more of that in its place; for now we are engaged with the business of Cliff and Vivian. Cliff was the supporting actor in Operation Rejuvenate Righteousness, and almost, I believe, received an award for his role. Thus he is important to the filming of Victor: my viewers' lives. Vivian's importance is less apparent, but despite her deprecatory exclamations about me and my script she did play her role in the film - and I never paid her for it. Ten million! Good Grief!

So Operation Rejuvenate Righteousness was an important film for all three of us in that room. I was glad that Vivian and Cliff had found happiness with each other. I suppose she deserved it after twelve years with me, and there was always a chance that if she was not happy she might try to find me again. So I was even more glad to be out of their lives as I watched them slobbering all over each other, mouthing gibberish in each other's ears and spilling martinis at a rate that the maid found difficult to replenish.

Cliff said, "I'm looking forward to doing that scene with you, Vic. You know that was the last war-flick I ever did?"

"I didn't know that, no Cliffy." I hoped he hated 'Cliffy' as much as I hated 'Vic'. He laughed at me.

"Doing the old 'hate that name gag', eh Vic? We've done that a few times together, I'll bet. Come to think of it, I don't think I've been in a film without it. It's kind of comforting when you don't see it in a script so you know you're allowed to improvise it, don't you think? Eh Vic? 'Don't call me Vic!'" and he collapsed in veritable paroxysms, spilling his most recent martini all over Vivian who, belatedly understanding his joke, laughed and spilled hers on him. They were drenched in gin, sweat and tears, and as happy as I had seen either of them. As they became drunker they became more amorous, kissing violently, and Vivian, still in a bathrobe, tended to forget that there was an observer in the room. Being unable to do further business, I left them after Cliff promised to be on time to rehearse our scene. I left the house with only seconds to spare.

The next day ...

On the film set the next day, for the first time, Tim and Wendy arrived at different times. That could only mean one thing; they had spent the night together and did not want anyone to guess ...

After the museum closed Wendy and I went to a bar, ostensibly to relax and talk about the work we had been ignoring all day. But while I was getting the appropriate scene into the display, where it began to animate, Wendy skulled her drink and went to get more. When she sat down again she sighed. It was most unusual. It was beguiling. It was promising.

"I don't know, Tim. I'm a bit stressed I think."

"It hasn't gone according to filming schedule, has it?"

"It's not just the film."

"Is it Victor?"

"Partly. He's stopped making passes at me. It worries me."

I paused, held my breath, then asked, "Is it me?"

She looked up, almost harshly at first, then relaxing quickly into a sheepish smile. "Partly," was all she said.

The smile faded and her face relaxed completely, her eyes showing nothing, as if all thinking had stopped and she was resigned to getting on with life. It was an unmasked pose, and for the first time in our relationship I could look at her with true intimacy. I could see that her left eye was lower than the right; that there was excess skin drooping beneath her eyes; that there was a pimple on her chin and the beginnings of a cold sore on her lip. Her hair was greasy from neglect during the work and, as a result of being in a country without chemical additions to the water, had slight traces of dandruff. The skin of her arms was freckled and white, showing the black hairs starkly. Her clothes were wrinkled and ill-chosen in complementary neglect. Her teeth were slightly crooked, as if her parents had been just happy enough with nature to neglect the orthodontist and fashion.

"What are you looking at?" she asked.

"When you relax and make yourself vulnerable I am able to see you."

"Don't you like what you see?"

"You know I love you."

"That wasn't the question."

She was right of course. But was I? I paused to think while she looked around without obvious purpose, probably wishing I would shut up and get drunk with her. Something told me that it would be, by several parsecs, the best thing to do, so I finished my drink quickly and fetched four more. She laughed, and I felt that she was happy that she was getting to know me. And so the night passed.

In the morning she had left the hotel by the time I awoke,

Wendy said, "don't you like what you see?"

"You know I love you," I said. Holding hands we raced back to our hotel. My heart was beating so fast I thought I would explode, and it seemed to take forever to get to my room, to be sitting together on my bed - and to be alone with her!!! I reached over to her and put my hand on her l***. M*** at yi**** in t*** *****, oh! "***** me ****** and ** that **** ** ****** more times," she said. "*****, Tim."

In the morning she had left the hotel by the time I awoke, so I went to the studio by myself. Victor greeted me, winking curiously. He shook his head and said, "You should arrive either together or more than an hour apart. Don't you know Hollywood rules?"

Before I could ask him what he meant he had disappeared into the dressing room. Because my head hurt I took some analgesics and sat in a quiet corner to review the day.

From the screenplay of Victor: my varied life:

SCENE: VICTOR AND CLIFF ARE FILMING OPERATION REJUVENATE RIGHTEOUSNESS. THEY ARE SITTING AT THE BAR OF A QUEBEQUOISE CAFE. VICTOR PLAYS CLEM O'ROURKE, AND CLIFF PLAYS HIS BROTHER MICK. THE CAFE IS FULL OF BLUE HELMETS.

MICK I didn't want any want any trouble, Clem.

CLEM DOESN'T RESPOND. HE SLAMS HIS WHISKEY GLASS ONTO THE BAR, LOOKS AT MICK, AND SLOWLY LICKS HIS LIPS.

CLEM Don't want to waste no whiskey.

MICK What do ya mean by that, Clem?

CLEM Means I like whiskey, Mick.

MICK What do ya mean, Clem? Every time you say somethin' that don't mean nothin' it means somethin' else, an' ya always reckon we ought to be able to reckon what that somethin' is, even though you never give us a clue what ya really thinkin'.

CLEM You wouldn't like it if I said what I was thinkin' all the time.

MICK You never tried.

CLEM POURS THEM EACH ANOTHER LARGE WHISKEY. HE IS DETACHED, LOOKING A LITTLE BORED WITH MICK. HE TAKES A DRAFT OF HIS WHISKEY. MICK WATCHES HIM, OBVIOUSLY ANGRY.

MICK You can't just ignore me, Clem. I didn't mean no trouble.

CLEM (CHECKING HIS WATCH) What time did you say they'd be here?

MICK Don't desert me Clem. I didn't mean no trouble.

CLEM Three men dead and a woman shot in the arm. That ain't just trouble. (HE SWIGS HIS WHISKEY.) That's two whole days of paperwork. You know that French mercenary I shot? Soft bastard. Bullet went straight through him and shattered a plate glass window 10 feet square. And when the woman got hit I went mad and busted in a door. I been fillin' in reimbursement forms all mornin' Mick, and I've just about had enough. I hate workin' for the UN. I wanna go back to the wild west and be a happy stereotype. Imagine: it's hot and dusty, and every cussin' hombre swaggers around with a belly full of whiskey and a side arm full of lead, and we go on pretendin' to be big brave men, and we shoot up on each other - we don't know why most of the time, but we shoot up on each other. We pretend all the time, 'cause we don't know who we are. What a dream, Mick. But now we're livin' out a myth in a hostile land, where nobody knows us, nobody cares. We just live out the myth of the duelin' cowboys 'cause we don't know who we really are. Shoot once and your fate is sealed. We got no free will. We paid for the pleasure of not bein' able to think, and we paid that bill with our dangerous, empty, hypocritical lives.

MICK (PAUSE) I hate it when you rave on like that Clem. I wish they'd hurry up and get here. (HE CHECKS HIS WATCH)

CLEM You don't want to listen to me, eh Mick. You never did. I'm only here by my bond as your brother, and I might easily get up and leave you to face them alone. You should have thought of that before you stole off with my woman.

MICK Your woman? She loves me.

CLEM That's not what she told her husband. He's not really gunnin' for you. He's comin' here for me. I'm the real threat.

MICK You stinkin' outlaw. Get outta here. I don't need your help. An' if you want mine you ain't gettin' it.

CLEM STICKS A FIST IN MICK'S FACE.

CLEM Don't you try and leave.

MICK Why you.....

At this point the stuntmen were supposed to take their places for the ensuing brawl. Victor had insisted on using real stunters, rather than bots or simulations. It was a lot more expensive, but also a lot more fun. Philosophically, breaking a fake chair over someone's head is a form of simulation, but if you let the computer do it all then nothing breaks, and that would be no fun.

So, Victor put his fist into Cliff's face, with the intention of starting a brawl. Cliff, though, instead of looking scared in the role of Mick, grabbed the fist - as Cliff.

"Where did you get that ring?" he asked belligerently.

Victor was wearing a gold ring that he carried in his jewellery box. That morning, as he was dressing, Wendy and I went into his dressing room to discuss the day. She noticed the ring and said it looked like the kind of ring a cowboy soldier would wear if it was given to him by a lady. Victor remarked that he didn't see anything particularly soldierly about it, but since the plot calls for a lady to give him a ring, and it is never seen in close up, he consented without further thought. It was a simple gold ring without stones but with a thickened front embossed with a star; exactly the sort of tasteless rubbish I would never dream or giving to Wendy - at least it didn't match any of the gifts I had dreamt of giving to her. I wanted to say that right then and there, and add something about the incomparable jewels that her eyes were, but she was working and therefore deaf to me. With an inscrutable and bemusing wink she pushed the ring onto Victor's finger before leaving his room. I daresay it wasn't particularly valuable, but evidently it was easily identifiable.

On the film set Cliff's anger was growing. "Where did you get that ring?" he asked again.

"I don't know Cliff. It's just a ring."

"You thieving swine," yelled Cliff, and he punched Victor on the jaw, sending him sprawling onto the floor of the saloon bar set. He was so dazed that Cliff was able to smash the fake whiskey bottle on his head; only a simulated attack it's true, but it sent Victor further backwards under a table. More alert, he crawled out the other side, grabbed the leg of a chair, stood and swung the chair in the air and hit Cliff with it, smashing the chair into a hundred pieces while screaming, "Damn you natives."

Cliff stood slowly and gathered his strength. He took a deep breath and said very low, "Why you... why you..." and thinking of nothing to add, and having no props to strike with, he charged and took Victor full face on, forcing him backwards. They fell together onto a simulated table which collapsed easily beneath their weight, spilling glasses, bottles, and a U.N. Emergency Ration Smart Card reader which the U.N. soldiers were using to keep track of their gambling debts. Cliff had Victor pinned, and he asked once more, "Where did you get that ring?"

"I'm tellin' ya Cliff, I got no idea. Get off me."

"I gave that ring to Gloria. That ring was a present to my wife. She used to wear it around her neck."

"Well how in the hell did I get it?"

"That's what I want to know."

He reached for a whiskey bottle and raised it above his head. Victor moved his head aside just as it struck, but the pieces sprayed everywhere. He heaved and Cliff fell to the floor, but he was back on his feet quicker than Victor. He drew his side gun and pointed it at Victor.

"I want to know where you got the ring, Victor. That ring was special between us."

"You divorced her ten years ago, Cliff, and you're pointing a 'prop' gun at me."

Cliff fell to his knees. A remnant of the exchange with Gloria tormented him, despite the obvious love he had for Vivian.

Victor said, "I just don't know, Cliff." He was dissatisfied still, however, and I could see he was just about to rush again, this time with the butt of the revolver, which would indeed damage Victor's head more than the fake chairs and bottles. Victor prepared to run but a strong female voice stopped the battle.

"I gave him the ring, Cliff." From behind the glare of the lights stepped Sandra, Victor's fourth wife.

"Sandra?" he said, nonplussed. "I didn't think you were coming."

"I changed my mind. Hello Victor. I suppose I should be hurt that you forgot about my present to you."

Victor was still a little dazed, however, and had a cut on his face that was beginning to bleed. He said, "Maybe I will be hurt when I find out how you got that ring."

"Tony gave it to me."

"Tony who?"

"My second husband"

"How did he get it? And how would I get it after him since I was your first husband?" Victor asked.

"How should I know?"

By this time Victor had made his way back to the bar and was pouring out three glasses of whiskey from the real bottle he had planted among the props. Cliff and he sat, still dazed from their fight, and it was left to Sandra to find the answer.

"I have it," she said. "Cliff, you gave the ring to Gloria, your first wife. The ring was given to me by my second husband, Tony, and I then gave it to Victor. Somehow that ring got from Gloria to Tony."

"They were never married," said Cliff, a little confused.

"You don't have to be," she said. "In fact it was about the time of the Morality riots when it was a point of honour not to do it with a legal partner. As for Gloria and Tony, I'm thinking about a boring gangster film, made about ten years ago, called Still life with massacre."

"It flopped, didn't it?" said Cliff, still confused.

"Tony and Gloria were both in that, weren't they?" Victor said.

"And do you remember the bedroom scene?"

Victor nodded, his eyebrow rising at the memory. "Yeah. If they gave Awards for bedroom scenes.... And I thought I could improvise."

More eyebrows rose at that memory. Cliff became despondent, for he, too, had worked it out by now. "We were still married," he said quietly, pouring himself another whiskey and whispering "Oh Gloria" to himself. Victor was no doubt wondering at what point in his marriage Sandra had met Tony.

Meanwhile, the other people that were involved in the filming were being well amused. In fact it had all happened so quickly, no one claimed to have had a chance at stopping Cliff, and now the stunt people were busy repairing the set that they were supposed to destroy themselves while someone went for more prop furniture. They had just stood back and let them fight before, claiming they didn't want to risk getting hurt by involving themselves in a fight that hadn't been properly choreographed. Wendy had joined the fray now, and was berating Victor for letting Cliff do such a thing.

"Wendy," he said, impatiently, "this is Sandra..."

"Yes, we've met. Hello Sandra."

Victor continued, "...and if it was anyone's fault it was hers for giving me the ring in the first place, or yours for making me wear the bloody thing." He halted because they were smiling at each other. "When did you two meet?" he asked.

"Yesterday," said Wendy. "She came to tell me she would appear in the film after all. Tim spent the night writing the scene."

Victor was furious.

Victor was furious. "I'm supposed to be in charge here. Why doesn't anyone tell me anything?" He shook with rage and added, "Who put the cursed women in my history?" which sent us all into paroxysms of laughter, which were even joined by the desultory Cliff.

By now the set was ready to replay the scene, and Wendy called them to action. The stuntmen were all in place, the whiskey bottles refilled, and Cliff seemed to be in a normal mood. They played the scene as before, slightly better if possible, and we had almost finished a perfect take when the discharge of a pistol shook the room and a bullet went through the bottle Victor was holding in his left hand sending whiskey and shards of glass flying. The stuntmen dived for cover, but Cliff and Victor froze, both terrified. They turned to see Vivian walk through the glare of the lights.

Victor screamed, "No Vivian! Stop her!"

She fired again and the bullet hit the unsimulated glass of bourbon he was holding beside his head. Shards of glass cut him, and he started to bleed again. Vivian was livid.

"Oh damn it," she said. "Missed again." And she threw the pistol across the room. Stupidly Victor reached and caught it and put it gently on the bar, and though he was feeling very faint he didn't lose consciousness, as had lately been his habit when stressed. Vivian was crying now. She collapsed to her knees and a small piece of plastic she had been carrying fell to the floor. Victor watched it, momentarily puzzled, then suddenly went to Vivian, kneeled and patted her hair and slipped the piece of plastic into his pocket. He thought he was being surreptitious, but he looked up and realised he was being filmed. All blood drained from his face. He screamed weakly "Cut Cut Cut", then after regaining some strength from a bottle of bourbon that mysteriously appeared from behind the bar stormed over to Wendy, demanding an explanation.

"Of what?" she said.

"Why are you still filming?"

"You commissioned me to make a film of your life, Victor. That's what I'm doing."

"There is a script. We follow a script. We do not improvise and most particularly we do not improvise while there is an attempt on my life taking place. This is not a varifilm. How could you let her do that?"

"Don't be ridiculous, Victor. We didn't know she had a gun, and who could have suspected that she was going to step out and shoot you?"

"You're fired," he screamed.

"And look. You wrote a scene in which Vivian tries to shoot you. Now we have it on film. We have it in truth."

"She tried to shoot me at home."

"Well, we can use it as data for a simulation. It'll be nearly perfect - and we don't have to pay her."

"You're still fired."

"She'll have been in focus too - I wonder what the light was like."

"It doesn't matter. You're fired." His voice tapered away to an impotent whimper. "Get out."

She took a deep breath and I presume she was about to say something like, "Be reasonable, Victor," which would have vexed him worse, but Sandra stepped in and said to her, "What was it Vivian was carrying. What's in Victor's pocket?"

He drew a breath. "You get out of here too, Sandra. There's nothing in my pocket."

"Don't I know it," she said.

The item in Victor's pocket was a small plastic box, the plastic being protection for the permanent memory store within. It is a legal requirement that no camera can function without one of these installed. The memory stores are Class 1A historical documents, and tampering with them is an offence. Indeed in some countries with a long history of rewriting history it is a capital offence as well as a thriving industry, where if you don't get caught you might just become president. The law was necessary because of the development of varifilm technology. Since every moment of public life is now captured on at least one camera, and with the image captured by that camera so easily altered by computer, even during transmission, one no longer needs to rely on editorial prejudice to change the daily news. If you want, for example, to show the President of the USA in bed, literally, with a claimant to a paternity suit, or, more unusually, his wife, it is a simple matter to take a photo of both of them and let computer animation do the rest. With digital imagery, even a child can create a credible forgery. For certain situations, such as adultery, the software is sufficiently advanced for the forgery to be undetectable.

Like all technology with potential for good, the most creative minds were dedicated to its abuse. Who can forget the outrage over the documentary showing Jews pushing Nazis into the gas chambers? The outrage came from the Nazis that made the document since most people thought it would be rather a good idea. There was an equally unforgettable scene of U.N. soldiers stopping policeman beating up Aborigines during the intervention in the Australian Civil War. These incidents proved firstly that to get sympathy for your crime you only have to choose your victim properly. They also proved that history, as has already been noted, was in trouble - even though cameras have been rolling on it for 150 years.

So governments throughout the world mandated that all cameras make a permanent and indelible memory of everything they capture, and that those records be stored in the huge, and growing huger, government archives. Like governments throughout time, they had discovered that the greater the control they imposed, and the greater the amount of documentation they produced, the greater chance there was for all functionaries to receive bribes.

VIVIAN was still crying on the floor, with Cliff trying to force feed her with some whiskey.

"Drink this Mommy Wommy. You'll feel a whole lot better. Drink it for Cliffy Wiffy."

Victor grabbed the glass from him and skulled the contents. Vivian looked up at him and bawled even louder than before, Cliff yelled at him not to be so cruel, and Wendy and Sandra were still tapping him on the shoulder asking about the little plastic box in his pocket."

Suddenly Vivian stopped bawling, and it seemed that an extraordinary silence had taken its place, such was the noise she made. A blessed silence it was, but she sniffled, and broke it by saying "The truth is on that film store. Victor's carrying the truth. Unusual for him. Not too heavy, is it Victor?"

By now his horror was giving way to the emotion he hated most of all - embarrassment. With Vivian on the floor blubbering, Sandra laughing, and Wendy staring defiantly into his eyes there was little left for him to do but suggest an immediate screening.

He insisted on allowing only Cliff, Vivian, Sandra, Wendy and myself to see the film. As usual I tried to get a seat next to Wendy, but Sandra latched onto my arm as we entered the projection room. She dragged me to the back row and held my hand excitedly. It was disconcerting, especially as Wendy kept looking back at us, though it must have been too dark for her to see any expression on our faces.

Victor was raving about secrets and the confidences of friendship, but no one was listening. "It was naive of me, wasn't it," he said, "to think I could keep it quiet in the first place, considering the number of people involved in making a film, but at the time it seemed vitally important to at least try. You see that don't you?" I'm not sure whom he was talking to, but he desperately needed advance vindication for what we were about to see.

It turned out to be the original filming of the scene he and Cliff had played out earlier that afternoon. The film played, and there were Cliff and Victor, ten years younger, talking in the saloon in a scene from Operation Rejuvenate Righteousness. There were a few takes in the store, and then, when they had finally reached the end of the scene and were ready to hand over to the stunt crew, in walks Vivian who tries to shoot Victor with a pistol. She fired twice, killing a whiskey bottle and a whiskey glass. The film finished suddenly after a brief flurry of people on the set, and with Vivian falling as Victor takes the gun from her and Cliff and Sandra running over to them. There was a long silence after the film ended, while we waited for the lights to come on.

Wendy spoke first. "So it really happened that way?"

"Yes," said Victor, his throat dry with suppressed tension.

"Then we didn't need to shoot it again." Her humour died. Wendy looked at me, supposedly to see if I was laughing with her, but I was too terrified to make an expression, lest she interpret it as my enjoyment of being next to Sandra, whose pressure on my hand was still firm and becoming noticeably sweaty.

Instead I turned to Victor. "You lied in your autobiography, Victor. You lied to us. You asked us to film something that wasn't true."

"You make films to tell the truth do you? Then you're the only one. It's all lies - pre-planned, pre-scripted lies. 'Look at the bags under her eyes - make up! God, the leading man's too short - stand him on a box. She's too tall - raise the camera angle. He swore! Oh no he swore!!! - we'll have to edit the soundtrack. She's old enough to be his mother - get the computer to synthesise a twenty-year-old face on the old bag."

"Don't put it off, Victor. Why did you lie? I don't see any difference in the location of the shooting. The point is she tried to kill you. Who cares where?"

"My dear boy," he said, hoping that the tone of a patronising old theatre queen would dispel the moment, "One's public affairs and one's private affairs should remain just so. Public and private." Unfortunately, an epigram sufficiently clever to stop the conversation didn't arise, and he reluctantly relaxed the pose. "Look, Tim. If it makes you feel any better it's the only chapter in the book that's 'very' false."

"Well it doesn't make me feel better, Victor. I have some integrity you know. If I'm writing something that's false I want to know about it. It's extremely important for writers to know that they are lying to the right people. Do you want me to offend people for the wrong reasons? I'm hurt Victor. I thought we had become friends, but if you're going to continue with this shabby charade, I might as well go home. I suppose you are going to blame it on fame and the pressures of performing as a movie star.

"Let me guess how you're going to put it. 'You see Tim, when I was a child I discovered in the playground that there was no way I could prove myself to those that bullied me, because they were stronger and I had nothing to offer. I was not particularly harassed but something inside me screamed that there was more to life, that I could fly higher than these thugs and make the world listen to me. I saw myself on a pulpit, but ultimately one must remain answerable to God, and that would be redeeming power over a congregation of, at most, a hundred people for a local vicar, or a few million for a bishop, for papacy was too unrealistic for a man of twentieth-century morals. I saw myself as Prime Minister, but then I saw myself shaking hands with the masses, who, even forgetting their vile natures, only numbered twenty million in my backwater province in the South Pacific. And I saw myself on the screen, preaching in the dark to the world, across religious, political and racial boundaries. I could speak to the world and let them know my message. The fact that I had no message to give was beside the point, for it was the numbers that mattered. They knew my face and my voice. If they wanted to see them, there were messages contained in the characters I played, but the main message, the truth, fundamental and absolute, was that I was beautiful and I was important and I was larger than life, the life which I controlled from my pulpit and my throne and my soapbox was the movie set, and if anyone thinks that my personal life can just walk into my domain and shoot me with a gun then they are mistaken. I am the soul of the darkness - the true sovereign of the Kingdoms of darkness.'"...

"Thank you, Tim," said Wendy. "That explains everything - except why Victor lied to us."

Victor sighed, not because he was scared to reveal the truth, but because the past made him weary when it was given flesh. "I suppose it seems pathetic now," he said, ...

Victor sighed, not because he was scared to reveal the truth, but because the past made him weary when given flesh. "I suppose it seems pathetic now," he said, ... "but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. Vivian could have been charged for using the firearm in the studio, and since the story that she had tried to shoot me was bound to get out, I thought it best if she tried to shoot me at home, or at least she used the weapon at home where it would have been perfectly legal, I thought, especially if it was fired off automatically as we told people at the time. I... I..."

Wendy said, "You're raving Victor. Let's watch the film again and see if it can be used in our movie. You'll allow that now, won't you?"

Before he could respond the film was showing again. Vivian was revived now, or as revived as she could be with so much gin and whiskey in her veins, and seemed happy to give a commentary that no one else wanted or needed. Despite being told by everyone, including Cliff, to shut up she continued to describe the events we could see well enough for ourselves. "And here I come with my Colt 44 revolver, playfully spinning the barrel as if it were Russian Roulette. But no, I knew where the bullets were and I knew where they were going. The first was a blank and it was for the little pretty one."

"She's aiming at Sandra," Victor said, and everyone gasped, but the moment passed quickly because Victor noticed her and called. Wendy asked for the film to be re-shown, with the section enlarged. Even Cliff was staring at Vivian in disbelief.

"How could you?" he asked.

She laughed at him, ridiculing his horror, "It was supposed to be a crime of passion after all. And don't you start or we'll talk about Gloria." She must have witnessed the commotion caused by the ring. "Besides, it was only a blank for the pretty little girl, and I never fired it. I was only going to scare her. It was Victor, after all, who wanted to die famous and to die famously."

It was true. We watched again, and we saw that as Victor called to her, Vivian changed her mind and skilfully moved the barrel of the gun around as she turned to him. It was only then that she closed the gun and fired.

Wendy said, "We could use both films, Victor. The reconstruction, and the actual. We could compare them on screen." Her enthusiasm evidently made Victor suspicious, for like most of her editorial suggestions they were intended, accidentally or not, to make him look ridiculous. Instead of arguing with her he should have remembered that he had fired her, and told her that her opinions no longer counted. He was only reminded of this when Vivian started to talk again, slurring through her gin-induced torpor.

"What I don't understand, Victor," she said, "is that I was sure I only loaded with blanks."

"What?"

"Blanks. I loaded blanks."

"Now or then?" he asked.

"Now of course. I wanted to kill you then, but this time I only wanted to scare you to death. It was a good idea, eh, but wasn't mine really. And that one - what's her name, the sly bitch?"

"Wendy?"

"Her. She told me only to use blanks, and I am dead certain I only used blanks."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said I only used blanks."

"The other bit. Who asked you to use them?"

"She came to see me last night. We had a great time talking about you. And it was a great idea to shoot you again." She burped. "I wonder who switched the bullets."

VIVIAN collapsed under the strain of her wonder, and Victor seemed almost to collapse under the pressure of his fury. He called to Wendy, "You're fired."

"You've already fired me," she said.

"This time I mean it. And you're under arrest."

"For what?"

"Conspiracy to murder."

"Don't be ridiculous. It was a joke."

"So you're not denying it?"

"No."

"Then you'll go to prison."

"You can't arrest me Victor."

"You're wrong, Wendy. This is America. We can do whatever we want. We have the right to do ... to do..." He couldn't continue. Victor is a great improviser when playing someone else, but for his own passions his internal writers desert him. He shut up, sat with his head in his hands and cried. Wendy signalled to us and we stood, leaving him alon in the room.

Outside Wendy took my left arm, my right being still held by Sandra who said ...

I was left alone in the dark room, and there were no friends on the screen - not to comfort me, to scare me, to hate me, nor to love me. Though I felt unloved, equally I felt ungracious. The film had ended to abruptly. I took the memory store from the projector, inspected it, and confirmed what I had suspected. The seal was broken, but the break would only be seen if looked for. Vivian had evidently tampered with it, which was itself a capital offence, compounding the offence of not sending it to government archives. She had erased the end of the film, which showed me walking over to her, taking the gun from her hand, pointing it at her head and squeezing the trigger, recoiling from the explosion. I remembered that I wanted to see her brains scattered about the room. In that moment I honestly wanted to kill Vivian. But the bullet was a blank and she merely fainted with shock, and soon I felt arms around me as Cliff and Sandra had taken the gun from me.

To this day, neither Cliff, Sandra nor Vivian has mentioned the truth about my suppression of the film. Was that an expression of love or were they loading their sleeves with aces?