Thorpe - Still

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956 and brought up in India, Cameroon and England. He has published two collections of poetry, Mornings in the Baltic (which was shortlisted for the 1988 Whitbread Award for Poetry) and Meeting Montaigne (1990). His first novel, Ulverton, was published in 1992. He now lives in France with his wife and three children.

Also by Adam Thorpe

POETRY

Mornings in the Baltic
Meeting Montaigne

FICTION

Ulverton*

*available from Minerva

The most beautiful thing of all is the complete stillness of an audience so intent that it hardly breathes.

Charles Laughton

In memory of
Samuel, Malcolm and Nancy

The author was the grateful recipient of a Wingate Scholarship from the H. H. Wingate Foundation during the writing of this book.

Extracts from Notes sur le cinmatographe by Robert Bresson appear with the kind permission of the author. Extracts from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones appear with the kind permission of Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Company Inc.

HANDSPRING OVER MY neighbour and check out the wing fire fairly frequently. Hey, it was hard manuvring my own face out the way, it looked very old and lonely out there and wanted to tell me things, the pallor was exaggerated I hope by the cabin lights and three inches of perspex. Im guessing three inches, by the way. Three inches sounds dense enough because any less and Id start to get worried, Id start to think twice about placing my face so close to somewhere very high above the Arctic Ocean and theres still a draught that gets your nose iced over. Youd thought the whole thing was sealed up and triple-checked because if it isnt sealed up the eccentric but adorable bobble-hatted old lady or whoever sitting next to you gets sucked out screaming suddenly and youre only staying put because youre clutching your in-flight movie headphones or the stewardesss thigh or whatever. I thought about showing my movie in a 747 actually but I had to pay a pilot, they didnt do a self-fly. Anyway, this wing fire was doing fine despite the ice particles, I could see it clearly beyond my wide and terrified eyes if I barn-doored the night lights, there was a kind of red flame and sparks and the wing looked like it was about to fall off, it was doing hand flexions or whatever, these 747s are getting old, they cant just go on forever, somethings gotta give if youre a lump of metal ploughing through alien air at some God-forsaken hour in some totally God-forsaken place just under outer space with only five hundred military personnel in ski suits and maybe a few white seals below you for thousands of miles and this ectoplasm over your shoulder that turns out to be the aurora borealis. I must have been saying oh God oh God or something over the snores of every single other passenger dribbling onto their neighbours shoulder or groin or even sockettes in some cases if theyd really slumped because this stewardess came up to me and said relax, sir, its only Arctic thermals, is this your first time up and I unstuck my nose and my twin plunged away screaming and I said, no, if youre talking about aeroplanes, its my seventy-seventh, actually.

If youre late and you missed the beginning then frankly you wont understand a single thing for the next twelve hours, you might as well go learn some manners someplace else.

OK OK, it was the traffic, London has terrible traffic, you didnt think of leaving an hour early despite the fact that you have lived here all your life or whatever and know for sure that you can only jerk anywhere. So you got very stressed up and kept looking at the invitation and pointing out to your chauffeur or whoever that it started at eight oclock and you still had to park, Richard would be very upset if you came in late and then your chauffeur told you to shuddup for Christs sake because living togethers like that, instead of chilling each other out in a five-mile tailback with some vertebral massage you work each other up and shout and jerk and then say what youve actually now youve mentioned it been meaning to say for five years ever since and by the time I open the door and say hi, you people, come on in, youre late youre already negotiating on the splatterware vase with the chip you paid through the nose for but what the hell on that amazing weekend in Cromer when you couldnt stop looking at each other in the bus shelter.

Call me Ricky. Richard is granted to a select few, mostly dead.

The bit youve missed was vital but Im not rewinding and this is a unique screening, so shucks. It was something I wrote on the flight over, which if you werent trying to find your seat or grabbing a highball at the bar or yelling hi to everybody as if everybody wasnt staring up here with their mouths open and their eyes flickering because theyre hanging on to EVERY WORD youll have realised Ive just been talking about, so concentrate. It was a pretty scary flight because all the cans were in the hold and all of me was in the cabin and if the thing went down blazing and got the polar bears looking up for a moment thered be nothing left of me anywhere else and NO COMPLEX MASTERWORK either, youd just have been drinking highballs and jiving and cramming your mouths on my tick and maybe mentioning me about once, yeah, what a shame, theyve found the wreck with sonars I think but its too cold to go down, what are you doing these days?

Because I know this is a very exciting time, I know there are distractions.

I hope youre keeping your head dipped if youre stood up in front of this, because if you have a large head or a ridiculous coiffure for the occasion or some fucking stupid fedora that keeps knocking every bodys glasses off then you might be wiping out several days work on my part, light travels in straight lines, it doesnt curve for anyone, not even you. Unless your brains a prism or you are a very special visitor from some hitherto unknown galaxy with an important millennial message to impart, biding your time. Bide your time a little longer and duck, will ya? You have another thousand years in front, dont panic.

This is the trailer, by the way. Or maybe the foreword. Its filling in some large holes. Its important, youre not looking up and seeing this giant Coca-Cola can waterfalling while youre treading on everybodys toes nor are you wincing while everybody seems to be shooting everybody else one hundred times too big and missing the gangway step because Next Week is Mad Bastard 3 now the school vacation is over were talking serious informational content here and if its smeared its not your contact lenses playing up its because this reels a daily and going in practically green, Im scribbling in my kitchen, Im between time zones and feeling like the Blob from Sirius after Commander Codys dealt with it, bear with me, I know this ninety-nine-year-old whos got the keys to the Shepperton processing lab, they fired him or something for hand wobble or head shake, hes worked with Max Sennet and maybe Frank Tuttle and hes a genius, he has nitrates instead of blood, hell rush my rushes through and itll be rolling loud and as clear as can reasonably be expected given this fucking biro and my brain and the fact that its TOMORROW youre gonna be looking at this, cor blimey luvaduck guv, if only I had a little more peace of mind ummmmm.

Its certainly not the camera and its certainly not the projector if Joe the Gels on it. The projector is antique, its reliable, it cost a bucking bronco off a specialist dealer with sprocket holes each side of his brain, it takes 35mm silent like youve given it a free trip to the Seychelles or someplace, oars included. Dont knock it. Dont give Joe the Gel anything that might make his breath inflammable. If you feel a warmth on your head, DUCK. Crawl to your seat. Dont wave your arms in the air. Therell be intervals for your bladder contents to get recycled in, OK?