Not Dead Yet

38

He couldn’t believe it! They were calling him back from the production office of The King’s Lover, less than an hour after he had phoned. A young woman with an irritatingly cheerful voice, like she wanted to give him the impression she was his new best friend.

‘Jerry Baxter?’

He did not like her tone one bit. He was tempted to ask her if she had seen the news today on television, about the famine in Africa. Heard it on the radio? Read it in a newspaper? He wanted to ask her how she could sound so happy with the knowledge of that terrible thing happening out there in the world.

Our world. Everyone’s world. Was she totally stupid?

The snakes were rising. Stuff was getting all tangled up inside his head as it often did when he got angry. He needed to focus, remember why he was here, why he had phoned the production office in the first place.

‘That’s me!’ he said.

‘Thanks for calling us. We’re casting for extras now. We start shooting on Monday and we’d need you every day next week until Saturday evening. Would you be free?’

‘Absolutely,’ he replied.

‘We’re shooting crowd scenes outside the Pavilion, weather permitting. I’ll give you the address to come for costume fitting.’

‘Are you filming inside the Pavilion, too?’

‘Yes, a lot, but there won’t be any requirement for extras there.’

‘Ah, right,’ he said, slightly disappointed. But the information was helpful, he decided, although he wasn’t sure why. He filed it away. Sometimes his brain felt like a junk room where the light bulb had blown and no one had replaced it. You had to root around with a torch for stuff you wanted; and each year as he got older the torch got smaller and the batteries dimmer. There was stuff he’d filed away in there that he had long forgotten about and probably never would retrieve now. Mostly the place was guarded by the snakes that rose, their tongues flicking, each time he looked in there.

After he ended the call, he went down into the lobby of the hotel and approached the reception desk. He asked for information about the Brighton Pavilion: what time did it open and close, were there guided tours, did you have to book?

The man behind the desk, who was wearing a smart grey uniform, opened a leaflet and showed him the hours of opening, and the times of the guided tours.

Drayton Wheeler thanked him. It was pelting with rain outside; he decided this would be a good afternoon to spend doing something cultural indoors. What could be better than a visit to Brighton Pavilion?