Sub asked if I was staying. Ruby and Tris asked for a story. I said, when I came back, they said Now. I said I’d tell them Beauty and the Beast when I came back. They said they’d heard it. Tris seemed now in spite of his age to be with Ruby, the two currents joined even though bedtime was also a divider because of their different ages. At an angle through the hall and her half-open white door with DADDY IS STUPIED marked on it in a slanted column thrice, I saw half of Ruby bent over something. She had forgotten me.
The children were glad to see me and so was Sub. Then Tris said, Did you and Daddy ever blow anything up?
Balloons, said Sub.
Fourth of July firecrackers, I said. In England they’re called thunderclaps and because they don’t have Fourth of July in England they explode them on Guy Fawkes Day.
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, said Sub.
Dad’s suing the TV people, said Tris.
I was, said Sub.
It was like a still shot with sound, I an alien element, moving too softly toward the front door.
Everyone stayed still while I moved. This was better than the other way around.
We’d never got round to some insert shots I’d had in mind of Lorna lying stilclass="underline" first, the mole on her left shoulder blade; second, up upon her shoulder the pearly scar my eyes and nose and tongue had crossed; third, the two clear mounds of pale cool buttock untouched by mole or spot though able to hold the nip of some passing teeth for upwards of three weeks, though by then you would need eyes peeled by lust or love that for their moments of search took other motions or the smell of flesh for granted and so saw only this month-old mark of blue. But what made thirty tripod seconds of Lorna’s still behind a movie — no quivering hand, no tremor on the skin or current through the faint dark down that grows at the end of her spine, nor later in projecting the developed film any faulting flicker to blink the moving frames. What, apart from sound on the film or in the projector, stamped a shot like that a movie rather than one of Millan’s slides? When I asked Lorna she said the movie shot would seem more alive no matter how still. This comment made the film more real and gave me a confidence I hadn’t known I needed or made me wonder if I had secretly dismissed our film.
I bore into Aut’s office building, the location of whose address I had again checked on the address-locater in my wallet, a crisp brown paper bag containing a container of coffee. The night man already on duty was leaning his chair against the empty newspaper and candy stand and stared straight ahead as if dreaming, and if so, not of dynamite.
It was not inevitable one of Claire’s keys would fit, but it did, and the glass door with Outer Film on it opened and my feet were on carpet.
Best turn on the lights, two banks of fluorescents momentarily blinking in the dark. Half a dozen big gray-green desks, some hooded typewriters, a World War II Uncle Sam Wants You poster, and nothing to do with films but a few cans on two desks and against a wall the hexagonal carrying cases.
Voices came, and as they passed my door the Outer Film phone nearest the door on what must be the receptionist’s desk started ringing and the steps stopped after a moment. But there was no reason to think the voices that happened now to stop weren’t waiting at the lift, and since it would not be unthinkable for lights to have been left on or for someone trying to finish up to wish not to get stuck on the phone, I let it go. I identified Claire’s desk by the glossy photos on the wall of Big Ben and Stonehenge. In her desk, not to mention stationery, pens, pencils, and the personals some nine-to-fivers feel more intimate with than anything in their bathroom cabinets at home, were two scripts, a modern Greek textbook, folders with invoices and letters, and in the center drawer notes, a notice from the dog hospital, and under a scattering of more letters, one from Dagger that felt in my hand like a look into the future meant for me. It was dated May 24 and it was typed on both sides and too long to recall in every detail. I could not decide whether to take it or not. I could have it copied but Claire would know. Steps echoed toward me, I thought from the elevator — someone who just might know it was unusual for lights to be on at this hour in an office, if in fact it was unusual, but might not know who worked for Aut and who didn’t. The letter was warm and confusing. What a guy! Dagger devoted the opening long paragraph apropos of nothing to a story about his Uncle Stan who had lived in Yonkers and when he heard his voice on one of the old prewar wire recorders had grown a beard and left his wife and gone to live in New Jersey and signed up in radio school and cultivated his voice and later got into eastern mysticism. Then Dagger wrote about the film. The ball-game footage was fast and funny, he’d dropped to 8 fps once so the film would show Umpire Ismay rolling a cigarette like a madman, and there were three moments, two of them not strictly in the game, that Outer Film would want to use, namely certain (shall we say, he said) arresting faces. Don’t worry, Aut will never hear about our initiative from me.
The steps stopped, a phone began to ring, the same phone, I couldn’t tell from the steps or the watery shadow in the glass door if I had two observers or one. This empty office was surrounded by me, or by the trick I sought in its aisles and files, its desks, demented desks every one messy but the receptionist’s, which was too clean on top not to be tidy inside even to some pattern of emptiness. Each desk had a bit of something. No desk had all. Not even Aut’s. Where was Aut’s? Claire I was sure had not been straight with Aut. Tessa had given confidence to Lorna who had given confidence to me. In a dim and unplaced room of recollection I believed I had given confidence to Tessa.
In one long shot of three people, Dagger went on in the second paragraph of his letter, he knew of course two but had to dig a bit to place the other Indian. No doubt, he said, I will run into him Friday. It’s been fun using the Beaulieu, blows better to 35 but it’s just a nicer little machine to hold than a Bolex though hell to load and with a few French shortcuts, but we might have to switch to a Bolex if I have to give back the Beaulieu. Advance some more bread, I’ll rent an Angenieux zoom. We are getting good now. We had a little practice this morning, but nothing to write home about. So far it’s been just the ball game Sunday, May 16, but we’ll be running both burners from this weekend on.
The steps started again but proceeded slowly. The second was like two people with a shared limp. The steps stopped down the hall. I thought I picked up a whisper. But I couldn’t have at that distance and through walls. The steps went off and then I didn’t hear them. I thought a door latched.
When the phone started again I noticed that when the steps had continued it had stopped ringing.
I was not sure. I closed the drawer, keeping the letter. I slipped to the wall and doused the light. I found my way back to Claire’s desk. I struck a match so I must have laid Dagger’s letter down. I wanted to check the deep drawer right bottom again in case the DiGorro film-file was in another folder. My match burned my fingers. I hadn’t found anything. I straightened up to strike another, I would try the last four or five folders, the names on them had meant nothing to me.
Steps, the same, came along again and stopped. It was two men very clearly. Would Phil Aut have come in, or called the watchman? The watchman had been unarmed.
The flame pricked my finger. I had taken it not even for granted, I had forgotten it. The steps had gone away again. To soothe and cure the burn, I didn’t know how long I’d stood there with Claire’s bottom right drawer out. I struck a match and as my head turned down to the folders my eye stopped on Dagger’s P.S. and I read, and my recollection is that it said, Don’t worry about Aut, I will definitely be able to handle the group in Wales, having experienced my Uncle Stan from Yonkers and New Jersey who once said, Don’t talk to me about the Stones and transcendental meditation!