Maud laughed. “It should have been. It was the beginning of a new phase for my husband, and for me too. But it was the end of the film.
“My husband had been standing on the summit of Skiddaw in the Lake District.” She sounded to be on the edge of tears. “He looked down at the glory of Derwentwater and the blue-green hills; it is the most extraordinary spot. The cameras were rolling, and an enormous Klieg lamp behind him was singeing his hair. He was exhausted from two months of solid work. All these extraordinary images and events have since been handed down like folklore among the local people.”
She described the scene beautifully. I realized that at the time, her husband still lost to her, she had probably been trying to make something poetic out of her loss, as well as open up.
“So what happened then?” I asked.
“My husband lost his marbles.”
Maud went on to explain that the scene in question was to run under the credits to the film. This was itself unusual, as films are rarely shot in chronological order. It was—as they say—a wrap. Shooting over, the crew congratulated each other.
“One of the crew said that after flying down the mountain in the hang glider, right over the second unit waiting down near the lake in order to shoot him flying low overhead, he was supposed to land and return to the unit in the second unit jeep. The helicopter chasing him could not follow as the light was fading. He disappeared into the gloom.”
“Where did he land?” I asked. I was becoming increasingly curious to know more. “What did the film crew say?”
“None of them seemed to know,” Maud said. “They said he would probably have found an updraft and would be flying low, although by this time it was more or less pitch-dark. They said he was an expert by then. He had been practicing of course, but…
“Naturally there was a boozy celebration gathering held that evening by the film crew in the nearby White Horse Inn at the foot of the hills.”
Maud quickly looked away.
“I had arranged to meet him there but he didn’t show up. I quickly realized something was wrong and set off alone to find him.” At that she fell silent, gazing out at the sky for a few moments.
“Do you believe in coincidences, Mr. Doxtader?” Maud asked as she turned to look at me, searching my face for any sign that I might be an unbeliever.
“I don’t think they are significant in the way some people do.”
“Neither do I,” she agreed. She looked down into her lap. “It did seem to me that Paul’s disappearance must have been planned in advance. I suspect the film producers recognized it would make a story that would greatly help the film. I felt no one was taking Paul’s disappearance very seriously and thought they probably knew very well where he was.”
“But he might have been killed!” I was shocked at the idea that Jackson had been subjected to some kind of stunt. “Surely they would have let you in on this?”
“Exactly,” agreed Maud. “But one of the crew mentioned that the movie’s insurance was still valid. They seemed rather callous.”
“Paul was their star,” I said. “They would have needed him for all the publicity surrounding the release, surely?”
“I’m afraid I thought the worst of them all, but I also had a bad feeling about Paul.”
“That he had crashed?”
“Yes, but not in his hang glider. I feared he had crashed emotionally at some point during the filming. He could be a very difficult man. As I say, he was used to being the leader, and making all the decisions in his life and career. He was also used to drinking hard whenever he felt under pressure. It had always been an effective medicine for him.”
“What are you saying? That he had screwed up the filming in some way?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “My fear was that he had lost the affection of the team around him. Maybe he had started to drink again and they had become tired of him, and were probably all glad to get rid of him.”
“They surely knew they were getting a tricky old rock star when they hired him?”
“What do you know about the behavior of the artist who drinks too much? Do you have any alcoholics on your own roster?”
“Very few of my clients drink. They are intoxicated enough.”
Maud smiled at this.
I wanted to talk about myself, to engage her in my story, to draw her into my life and feelings. “I drank and used drugs myself,” I confessed. “I know what happens.”
Maud did not seem surprised. She smiled once more.
“I climbed Skiddaw myself to search for my husband.”
How much she had loved her man, however foolish he was. I was envious of him.
“I don’t want to make you do another interview”—I smiled, hoping to reassure her—“but what happened next?”
“Well, I took a room in the White Horse Inn. But I hardly slept. So in the early hours of the next day, as soon as there was enough light, I got up and dressed and visited the local policeman who lived in a nearby cottage. To my great relief he arranged a search party. In contrast to the indifference of the film people, the locals treated it all very seriously. Apparently any soul lost on the fells gets the same response. After two days of searching—the team was getting increasingly worried—Paul was found.”
“Where? How was he?” What an extraordinary story she told.
She put up both her hands and seemed to wave them in mid-air, as though impatient with me. “I’m sorry, this is always hard to tell.” She went on: “He had managed to fly about fifteen miles, as the wind was strong, and the hills indeed created lots of updrafts that kept him soaring. When he finally landed, he was alone in the dark. The search party who eventually discovered him were shocked at his condition.”
“Were you there?” I cut in. “With the team who found him?”
“I was nearby,” she explained. “I was there shortly after they found him.
“He was still stripped to the waist as he had been in the film. He was shivering, and at first appeared to be delusional. He’d been sheltering in a shallow cave halfway up one of the mountains. He was a pathetic sight,” Maud went on sadly. Her eyes were now moist, but then she cheered up and began to smile.
“He was also quite impressive!” She grinned. “He looked like a castaway on an island who is rescued after years of living on coconuts.”
She paused for what seemed like an embarrassingly long time. At first, I didn’t stir, but our meeting was taking up a lot of my day.
“Would you like some more tea?” I offered.
Maud shook her head. She used her right hand to make sideways circles, like someone describing a “movie” in charades.
“This is the amazing part,” she said. “He told me he had experienced a divine revelation. Triggered by the heat and light from the film lights, and the sheer magnificence of the vista across Derwentwater, he had seen what he described as the ‘Harvest.’”
My attention was sparked anew.
Maud went on with her story: “He was extremely specific and very coherent about what he had seen, but he would not be talked down from the mountain.”
“What did he mean by the ‘Harvest’?”
“All very strange, but I knew my husband; he had definitely seen what he described. He saw a hundred angels, all in the shadow of one massive angel with wings that stretched from one side of the valley to the other, all flying low over a seething mass of several thousand human souls waiting for guidance and transport to wherever they were destined.”
“Destined?” I interjected. “Where?”
“I assumed he meant to some other place: heaven, hell, the astral plane. I don’t really know.”