'Excuse me,' I call, but the staff are nowhere to be seen. 'Excuse me,' I shout as a trickle of blackness rises from the monitor.
'Sssh.'
'Don't shush me. Where are you? Anyone,' I yell and give up. 'I'll do it myself. You don't want the place on fire.'
What could anybody do except twist the spooling knobs? The microfilm coils like a mutilated snake out of both sides of the viewer, scattering the table with flakes of blackened celluloid. The librarian hurries out from behind the shelves and emits a small cry at the last of the smoke but is otherwise as silent as any library could require until she's standing over me. 'I do know you,' she says.
'I didn't really pinch your power last time. That was just a joke.'
'We never did find out what went wrong.'
'Well, not me. Sorry about this. It must have jammed.'
She retrieves the sections of microfilm and carries them to the desk. 'Will you be wanting anything else?'
I can't judge whether she's being professional or sarcastic. I shouldn't risk another mishap – I can paraphrase what I recall. A charred fragment of microfilm is isolated on the screen. Rather than strain to be certain whether the letters it contains spell hack, I say 'Could I buy some time online?'
She moves to the table ahead of me and activates a computer. As I log onto my Frugonet account I hear brushing and sharp polite coughs at my back to remind me that she's cleaning the viewer. Willie Hart has emailed at last. I swallow a taste of my mother's defiantly unhealthy breakfast as I open the message.
si –
sore 4 silnce. no good nus im afrad. hop u got all u neded out of vuing. no 2nd chanc. u got guillermo 2 nthusd. he wachd 1 film 2 ofn & it wnt on fir. so did rest whn he trid 2 put it out. all films dstroyd & he ran off. ull realize iv not had tim 2 chec w girls. theyr filming in la whil i try 2 sort out insuranc clam & carer. but im sur if tha filmd u it wud hav ben a jok.
wile
I spend far too long in decoding sore as sorry and carer as career and tha as they, and then I wonder why she failed to contract realize. She must be preoccupied with her loss. Confusion is spreading through my skull as the blackness did onscreen, and I have to stop myself fancying that the film in the library viewer might have ignited out of sympathy with hers. I can't think of a reply to send her; I need to check that Smilemime hasn't been active. But he has, and I swallow a harsh stale taste as I bring up the message that's strewn through the newsgroups.
So Mr Questionabble wants his link, does he? Sorry, I forgot his name's suppossed to be Simon Lester. Do we think he'll shut up and go away if I post one? That's what he said I had to do. Let's think of an address for him. How about www.missionleer.com? That's him leering at us. Or there's www.emitsmorsel.com, which is all he ever does. Then there's www.silentmorse.com that shows how he keeps using a secret code. Where else shall we look for him? He ought to have a site at www.imtrollsee.com.
'Don't you call me a troll, you skulking little shit. I'm not the one that's too afraid to say my name. It doesn't spell that either. It's not even the right number of letters. You can't count and you can't spell.'
'Sssh.'
'You try keeping quiet when somebody's calling you names.' I don't say this aloud, but perhaps I mouth it while staring at the librarian behind the counter. 'Carry on, get all the links out of your head. I won't be following any of them,' I vow under my breath as I scroll down Smilemime's message.
He should be at www.istoremslen.com. Len's his partner in crime, which is to say himself. What's his name suppossed to be again, Collin Vernon? If you take Len out of that you get www.iconvrow.com. Vrow is Dutch for woman, and I'll bet he's conned one like he's trying with the rest of us.
I fight off a memory of Amsterdam – of a whitish slab that quakes with mirth as it peeps wide-eyed from under the bed. 'Going Dutch now, are we?' I mutter and try to ignore a sense of being watched.
Let's hope she reads this if he doesn't do something bad to stop her. Maybe she ought to look at www.snormalsite.com to see what he thinks is normall,
'The opposite of you, you obsessive deranged Christ I can't even think of a name for it. Can't you even spell the same way twice?'
and www.msmoresin.com, because a mannuscript's his sin. But the one he's hoping nobody would find beccause it hasn't got his name on is www.tubbiesfilms.com. Hasn't it gone sillent all of a sudden? I don't think we'll be hearing anny more about Mister Vernon Lester's book that he wanted us to think was the first studdy of the subbject. Goodbye if you've got any sense. Let's have more silents.
I can't help hoping Colin has responded, but there's no riposte. I swallow a taste or an equally harsh laugh and copy the final link into the address box. The computer hesitates, and then a blue line that might be underscoring an invisible or non-existent word starts to crawl along the bottom of the screen. Before it's half completed, the screen flickers or my vision does, and a page appears. I grin so fiercely that my face feels swollen. The site hasn't been found.
It's as much of an invention as all the other sites Smilemime listed. 'Funny thing, I won't be keeping quiet,' I say and reach for the keyboard, only to be irritated by a possibility. Would even Smilemime have misspelled the name? Purely for confirmation, I type www.tubbysfilms.com in the box. As the blue line inches towards completion an eager page fills the screen.
THE SILENT FILMS OF TUBBY THACKERAY AND ORVILLE HART.
By Vincent Steele.
It looks like the title page of a student's thesis or some even more unpublished item. The typeface gives it the appearance of a manuscript that has been submitted for approval. I send the blank expanse of the rest of the page up the screen, and then I suck in a breath I can't hear for the throbbing of my head.
Chapter 1: An Overview of the Careers of Thackeray and Hart.
We shouldn't think of history as fixed. That goes for the cinema too now that so many lost films are being rediscovered. Sometimes we could think they're memories repressed by the collective unconscious. We can see why people preferred to forget Stepin Fetchit, but how long will anyone remember he existed? Audiences once laughed at Max Davidson, but by now few people even recall how his brand of Jewish humour was judged unacceptable...
It's my opening chapter with a few words changed. The entire text is, and worse still, it more succinctly expresses everything I wrote. As I scroll past the end of the chapter I grow insanely fearful that the screen will show me thoughts I've had but not yet written. The only further matter is the date the site was last updated. According to the bottom line, that was weeks before I emailed my chapter to Colin.
It isn't true. Whoever created the site – who else but Smilemime – could have put in any date. I'm clinging to the notion as the nearest thing I have to reassurance when the librarian comes over to murmur 'Please be quieter or we'll have to ask you to leave.'
I've no idea what sounds I may have been uttering – very likely less than words. I respond as best I'm able, but she doubles her frown. 'I beg your pardon?' she by no means begs.
'I said you can ask.' Surely I didn't say cunt arse. 'Who am I supposed to be disturbing?' I object. 'There's nobody else here.'
I mean other than her colleagues. Whoever's laughing uncontrollably is somewhere beyond the room, although the noise is so invasive that she would be better employed in hushing it instead of me. When her gaze doesn't leave me I blurt 'I'll go as soon as I've dealt with this.'