Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

“Let’s move,” he said.

He broke into a trot and the Englishman’s boy fell in beside him. The gophers squeaked and dove for their holes at their approach. The Englishman’s boy didn’t know why they were running, but suddenly, like Farmer Hank, he had no intention of being left behind. The taut look on the Eagle’s face persuaded him that if the Eagle said move, they’d better move.

The Eagle had bottom, he never let up until they reached Fort Farwell. The Métis were gone. Across the creek the Indian camp might have been a painting, except that now and then a dog or horse moved, spoiling the picture and the conceit. The only living thing outside the walls of the fort was Scotty hunched on a wooden bucket; Scotty smiling to himself, scribbling like mad with a stub of pencil in a cracked-spine journal.

“Where’s Hardwick?” Grace asked him.

Scotty didn’t look up.

Grace took him by the shoulder and shook him. “Goddamn it, where’s Hardwick?”

Scotty stared up with a dazed, angelic smile. He shaded his eyes with a hand. “Why, in Hades,” he said sweetly, then returned to writing.

The Englishman’s boy tapped Grace on the shoulder. A rider was coming toward the post at a gallop. George Hammond in a lather of high excitement. “That thieving red son of a bitch stole my horse again!” he shouted. “Same son of a bitch I paid a bottle of whisky yesterday! Same horse! I’m riding over yonder to get him back!” He pointed wildly to the Assiniboine camp as his horse champed and spun. “I regret to say there ain’t no men at Moses Solomon’s post with the guts to support me, but I heard tell there’s a fellow here by the name of Tom Hardwick who has a reputation for being a man! I rode over to see if he’s as big as his brag! I rode over to see if he’ll back a fellow recovering his rightful property! I rode over to see -”

“Goddamn right he will,” said Hardwick, stepping through the gate of the stockade. “Goddamn right he will.” He walked toward the mounted man with his arm outstretched. “And here’s his hand on it.”

Chance set an absolute deadline for delivery of a first draft of the photoplay. I’ve been working day and night for two weeks, surviving on sandwiches, coffee, cigarettes, and nerves. Fifteen years ago a scenario was a bare-bones sketch, often written in a day, a crutch which director and actors used as a guide to improvise a picture. Photoplays have become more detailed, but they’re still expected to be quickly written, rough-hewn scenes, a blueprint for a shoot. Maybe I’ve got too close to the material. It’s tough to convey the feeling of McAdoo’s story without dialogue, because I keep hearing his voice, the way he told it. I’m fighting to capture his emotions in images which will foreshadow the last scene, the awful conclusion to the picture. And while I’m doing this I have to keep in mind Will Hays, remember that what happens to the girl can’t actually be shown, has to be suggested in some way which won’t offend the proprieties of the censors but conveys to the audience the stark horror of her fate. Some scenes I’ve rewritten five or six times, trying to get a slow build to the fire, a suggestion of stealthily crackling flames which finally burst up in a raging conflagration. But instead, the writing feels like a forced march through a bog, every step forward sinking me deeper in a mire of confusion and uncertainty. Maybe Rachel is right. Maybe I am nothing but a blank-filler, a title-writer. After fourteen days of floundering I need help so badly I call her at home.

“Rachel?”

“My Little Truth Seeker! To what do I owe the honour of this call?”

Her pronunciation is a little eroded around the edges, liquor having rubbed away enough clarity for me to know she’s been hitting the bottle heavily. And it’s only seven o’clock.

“I need help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Help with a script.”

“You need help? I’m the one who needs help with a script. Bloody Gibson. You know what he’s got me working on now? Do you?”

“No.”

“Another Identical-Twins-Separated-at-Birth Saga. A real doozy,” she proclaims. I can hear the sound of a glass clinking faintly against the telephone receiver as she pauses to take a drink. “It’s based on a novel written by the spinster daughter of an English vicar. What else is new?” She takes a deep breath as preface. “Anyway, diabolical aristocratic parents give birth to identical twins. So as not to complicate inheritance and title, noble parents decide one is a keeper and the reject is set out in swaddling clothes to perish in the forest. Sherwood presumably. Disposable son is found by cretinous peasants who rear Boy Scout in uniform of swineherd – deeply attached to simple life, his hogs, and the Village Virgin whom he hopes some day to deflower within the bounds of holy matrimony. Then, one day, pig boy stumbles upon noble brother slaying deer in the forest. ‘What is this I see, as in a glass darkly?’ exclaims the Dispossessed One, smeared in pig shit presumably, but nonetheless smelling sweet as any rose. You know the rest. Evil brother plots swineherd’s murder. Caretaker of pigs overcomes all odds, gains title. Huge wedding in white in castle.”

“Who are they thinking of for the swineherd?”

“Fairbanks.”

“Village Virgin?”

“Pickford.”

“Sounds like a piece of cake.”

“Yes and no. After writing a hundred of these, mounting self-revulsion can cramp your style. Besides, our glorious story editor has decreed one fundamental change in this anodyne numskullery. He’s ordered me to make Douglas Fairbanks a shepherd rather than a swineherd. According to Jack, sheep are more sympathetic than pigs. It’s a well-known fact. Especially lambs. Everybody loves lambs. He feels the English spinster’s dark vision of life needs tempering with plenty of shots of gambolling, fleecy lambs. I told him, ‘No fucking chance, Jack. It’s got to be hogs or nothing. My artistic integrity is hanging in the balance.’ ”

“What did Jack say?”

“He said he’d put somebody else on the project. I said you were the only person innocent and naive enough to write this picture with all the mindless conviction it deserves. Harry Vincent, Little Truth Seeker. But, unfortunately, you aren’t available. You have a higher purpose. Since it falls on my shoulders, drastic action may be called for.”

“Such as?”

“There’s a new operation for scenarists. They suck out half your brains and then you can write again.”

“Surgery’s a serious business. Don’t make a decision under the influence of alcohol.”

“Is that a criticism or a witticism, Harry?”

“Just a warning.”

“Oh, fuck warnings.”

“Maybe I better let you get back to what you were doing.”

“Harry,” she says, “please come back to work. I miss how your freshly scrubbed and shining brow furrows with serious purpose and concentration each and every time you read another English spinster’s novel for Rachel.”

“Really? I thought you had Mr. DeShane to provide amusement.”

There’s a pause on the line which alerts me I’ve made a mistake. “Fuck you, too, Harry,” she says, a slight catch in her voice.

“What’s up?”

“I’m not seeing him any more. Not since the accident.” She’s trying hard to recover her sprightly air.

“What accident?”

“We had a car crash.”

“God, Rachel, you’re not hurt, are you?”

“No. Not a scratch.”

“And DeShane?”

“Mr. DeShane hit the windshield. His nose got broken. He didn’t take it well. He thinks it was his best feature. He blames me because I was driving. Somebody had to. We were both drunk and I won the toss.”