‘And how many nights a week are we talking about?’
‘Five,’ said Ishmael.
‘And I suppose you’re talking main evening slot.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ said Ishmael. ‘Do you think I want to be over-exposed? No, I think late night.’
‘And how much money is this going to cost us?’
‘Ah money,’ said Ishmael. ‘It’s the root of all evil, you know. But if there are any of you who aren’t offering half a million up front then I’ll ask you kindly to leave my hotel suite.’
Nobody left.
‘Right, gentlemen. Talk to me.’
And talk they did. In the end Ishmael accepted an offer from the BBC, not because it was the highest (it wasn’t), but because he thought his mum would like that. He had been in touch with his parents, or rather they had been in touch with him, only briefly and only by phone. He had promised to buy them a detached bungalow. They said Debby was heart-broken. They said he was a heartless bastard and a bad son, and that he looked a daft sod in his leather suit. They hadn’t changed. A prophet is always without honour in the Osgathorpe family.
♦
Renata has long since completed her Volkswagen article, but the legacy is a pile of magazines containing articles on Volkswagens that Terry has given her. Some of it is dull stuff—‘D-I-Y servicing made simple’, ‘How to Cure That Flat-Four Flatspot’; but there are some issues of a magazine called Cal Vee-Dub. The title is newspeak, or she supposes illiterate-speak for ‘California Volkswagen’. They do things differently there. Cal Vee-Dub is like a girlie magazine but with salacious pictures of over-polished Beetles and over-endowed engines instead of girls. And just as girlie magazines address their readers in a heated private language, so the descriptions of California-style Beetles are written in some coded style, curiously dislocated from any world ‘out there’.
♦
Ronnie DeVoto’s ‘64 Vee-Dub is a real attention-grabber, super sano and clean to the max.
It took three years and four thousand dollars to convert a 1200cc clunker into the Looker you see today.
Brother Carl gets the credit for the trick paint-job — check out that sparkling Clementine orange and the wrap-around graphics.
The interior is decked out with buttoned naugahyde and brushed aluminum dash, while the sounds pound through a Uher 4-speaker system.
But this baby is for Go as well as Show. A Type 1 universal case is fitted with an 86mm Berg crank, Carillo 5.500 rods, 94mm Cirria pistons and barrels, and Super Flo II heads.
We like it. How about you?
Renata supposes she does. Very much. Is she obsessed? she asks herself. Is it healthy? She has even started work on a new article called ‘Fifty More Facts You Always Wanted to Know About the Volkswagen Beetle’. Her latest facts run like this:
TWENTY ITEMS THAT HAVE BEEN MADE IN THE SHAPE OF A VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE
Rings, key-rings, earrings, cakes, dice shakers, clocks, pens, ashtrays, soap dishes, belt buckles, radios, lamps, whisky bottles, pen-holders, staplers, telephones, bath mats, money boxes, paperweights, loo-roll holders.
FIFTEEN ITEMS THAT ALTHOUGH NOT SHAPED LIKE A BEETLE HAVE HAD PICTURES OF BEETLES ON THEM
Tee-shirts, sweat shirts, sweaters, underpants, blankets, lunch boxes, rulers, cushions, scarves, lamp shades, adhesive tape, tubes of glue, umbrellas, biscuit tins, postage stamps.
NINE ITEMS THAT SO FAR AS WE KNOW HAVE NEVER BEEN MADE IN THE SHAPE OF A BEETLE, THOUGH WE SEE NO REASON WHY NOT
Beds, wigs, electric guitars, fly papers, cameras, vacuum cleaners, umbrella stands, massage gloves, frisbees (although we admit that the Beetle shape might impair the frisbee’s aerodynamic properties).
Perhaps this new article is getting a little baroque. And it’s not as if she didn’t have other things on her mind — lots of things. She still hasn’t phoned her mother, she still needs a manicure, and she really does need to ditch Max. However, the main thing that’s on her mind, and she doesn’t know if this is the symptom or the disease, is this guy Ishmael. It all seems to tie in — the fact that she has written about Volkswagens, the fact that she gave a lift to one of Ishmael’s ‘followers’, and more especially the fact that she expected them to get locked up when they are not only at liberty, but that Ishmael has become some sort of quasi-mystical folk hero, some symbol of something or other. He has captured, or at least hijacked, the public imagination.
Every time she’s picked up a newspaper this last week or so he’s been there, with his Beetle and his leathers and his MP’s daughter girlfriend who wants to be a writer. It makes her angry. Yes, it all seems to tie in and in some way it involves her. It doesn’t seem to mean anything but it all ties in.
Terry, of course, has told her to go along to the Kensington Astoria and get an interview, but Renata has told Terry that getting Ishmael to give an interview these days is about as easy as getting the Pope to model swim-wear.
And all this time she has the feeling that she has seen him (Ishmael, not the Pope) before somewhere, and she becomes increasingly convinced of this, though she gets no nearer to recalling where or when. She recalls visits to parties, press launches, motor shows, even to car-parks and libraries, it would have to be at that sort of place that she saw him, wouldn’t it? She doesn’t know. She still doesn’t know as she phones her mother, and she still doesn’t know as she paints her nails. And as she picks up the phone again, gingerly because the varnish is still wet, to phone Max, she still doesn’t know.
But as Max speaks, as it flits through her mind that what she really wants to say to Max is, sorry this whole thing has just been a bad idea from beginning to end, all we have in common is drink, drugs and sex, at that moment she very suddenly and absolutely certainly knows.
‘Max,’ she says, ‘I have to come over and see you right now.’
♦
It was early evening. Marilyn and Ishmael sat together in their suite, taking a final look at the BBC contract before signing.
‘It’s going to be an awesome responsibility,’ Ishmael said. ‘I’m going to be very powerful, very well-loved, comparatively rich. I’m going to be able to change the world. I only hope I can keep my humility and the common touch.’
Marilyn poured him another glass of champagne. Late sun spilled into the room. All seemed well with the world. They were thinking that dinner wouldn’t be long away, when there was a knock on the door. Naturally Ishmael was furious. He had instructed the management time and time again to make sure they had no visitors.
‘Who’s there?’ Ishmael shouted angrily.
‘It’s me. Davey.’
Ishmael grudgingly opened the door.
‘You might have telephoned first,’ he said.
‘Then you might not have seen us.’
Ishmael saw that Davey was not alone. There was a woman with him. She carried a notebook and a video cassette.
‘All right then,’ Ishmael said. ‘Come in, but not for long.’
‘This is Renata,’ Davey said.
Ishmael said hello to Renata.
‘Renata’s a journalist,’ Davey said.
‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Davey,’ Ishmael yelled. ‘I’m not seeing journalists at the moment. How many times do I have to tell people?’
‘I think you’ll see Renata,’ Davey said, and there was a threat in his voice, a hint of ‘or else’.
‘Yes,’ said Renata. ‘You’ll see me. And you’ll see this videotape.’
♦
The film, which begins without titles, is shot from one camera position. Occasionally the lens zooms in and out, although as filmic syntax the zooms fail to articulate anything. They’re just done to relieve the boredom. The colour is bad, the lighting patchy, and the soundtrack non-existent.