‘Come in, take a seat.’ I point to the stool at the very end of the bar before Barbara, Sandra, or any of the other older ladies try and corner him and he ends up spending his night brushing off several offers of arranged marriages.
Placing his regular drinks order in front of him, I reach behind the till to retrieve my last few days of work. Though in writing it, I have never felt more confident, suddenly as I lay out the pages on the bar and he passes his eyes over them, I can’t help but feel a little exposed. Not many people around here have seen this version of me, the one with a creative soul, the one that can create, at least not for a few years, so what has changed now? Am I really going to lay myself bare in front of Arthur Cavendish when I can hardly stand the guy? This man has read Hollywood scripts, been in the presence of this generation’s greatest writers. What if he takes one look at my work and laughs? I wouldn’t put it past him. What if I’m not as good as I used to be?
With shaking hands, I begin to recollect the papers, but Arthur places his hand over the stack and holds them all firmly in place.
‘This is what you’ve been doing?’ He looks at me with an unreadable expression, takes a swig of his pint, and refuses to allow me to remove my work from his line of sight. Nodding apprehensively, I pour myself a drink.
Arthur reads in silence whilst my patrons pull me awayfrom watching his every facial expression. When he lingers pensively over a page, my insecurity gets the better of me.
‘I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped. Or overtaken your project. They’re only ideas. Just things that I thought could help you if you wanted to. You’re welcome to completely ignore—’
‘It’s perfect.’
Chapter 20
Arthur
‘You did this in three days?’ I skim through the pages again, unable to calm all of the thoughts and ideas rushing through my mind all at once. The pain of her words on Tuesday are dulled a little by her actions now.
‘It’s not finished or anything.’ She fiddles with the straw in her drink and refuses to look me in the eye. ‘It’s only an outline. Just a rough plot and a few key points. Oh, and just one scene that I couldn’t not write.’ Excitement peeks through her apprehension just for a split second and she seems like an entirely different person. This isn’t the hostile farm girl I met two and a half weeks ago. This isn’t the sarcastic barmaid who’s always ready to bite back the minute I tease her. No, the woman in front of me is one full of hope, one who has a dream she is wearing on her face. A dream that glows on her skin and brightens her eyes to a beautiful hue. A dream that I’m going tohelp her achieve, if it means I get to see this version of her more often.
The scene she has written is the story Bruce told the two of us when I met him for the first time: my father and Jimmy together at the Gliderdrome. It’s so vivid that just reading it feels as though I am stood beside them having their conversations, smelling the air filled with smoke and booze.
Okay, perhaps the fact I am currently in the pub is helping, but still … She has a gift.
‘I just thought it would be interesting to show how two men with the same background went on to be heroes in their own rights but in entirely different ways. I thought you found that part to be the hook with your note onThe Road Not Taken. I never had you down as a poetry fan.’ As her anxiety subsides, her excitement is given the room to glow a little brighter.
‘Neither had I, to be honest.’ I cast my eyes to the bar, unable to confess whilst holding her gaze. ‘I studied that poem whilst I was retaking my GCSE English. Something about it has always interested me, I suppose. The idea that we can choose our paths, and neither option is wrong, andknowing how way leads onto waythat there is no point returning to that choice, because life offers you another, and another, until your own path is carved of many choices that are neither right nor wrong.’ She watches me so intensely as I speak, that I, for once, am unafraid to continue. ‘Then I wonder if my dad, knowing what he knows now, would have picked a different path that day after the bar fight? And if that could have changed anything for Jimmy.’
‘I thought the same thing.’ She sighs, and her gaze shifts to the opposite side of the pub. Jimmy is in his usual seat, a half pint in front of him, just watching the world of the Big Apple play out before him. ‘And I think before we take this any further, we need to ask Jim’s permission. Maybe he doesn’t want anyone to know his story. Or it would upset him too much. That would be the last thing I’d want.’
Me too. Though, how exactly do you ask a man if you can broadcast his life to whoever will listen? Would he really want his lowest moments dramatised for all to see? There are real people, with real feelings at the heart of all of this, and I suppose that’s something that Hollywood so often forgets. I hadn’t even thought of it, in all honesty. I’ve aways been more of an ask forgiveness rather than permission kind of person, but this isn’t just my life placed on the table here. This is exactly why I need Beatrice.
‘You’re right. Without Jimmy’s say-so, we’d be missing the point entirely.’ I remind myself more than anything that all of this started as a way to raise awareness. To represent people like Jimmy and my sister.
‘Would you like me to talk to him?’ Beatrice asks with the best of intentions, but I know this is something I have to do myself and that’s exactly what I tell her.
‘What are you kids over here tittering about in secret, eh?’ Tracy emerges from the back room with a smug grin on her face. ‘Are you distracting my staff again, Cavendish? I might have to start asking you to contribute to their wages.’
‘Sorry, Tracy,’ I reply with hot cheeks. ‘I was just heading over to see Jimmy anyway.’
‘Good luck,’ Beatrice whispers as I collect my glass from the bar and pluck up the courage to tell Jimmy about my proposition. From just that small, throwaway phrase, I find myself renewed again. A little shot of confidence surges in me and I shimmy around Barbara and duck under the outstretched arm of Al to take the seat opposite Jimmy.
‘Eddie.’ He nods, raising his glass to me before taking a sip. ‘How are you, my lad?’
I could talk to him as though I am my father, use whatever relationship they had to guarantee his agreement to the project, but this isn’t the big-city film industry. I’m here in New York to learn to be a better person, to find the authenticity that was missing in my life before now.
‘I’m actually Arthur; Edward is my dad.’ I outstretch my hand and Jimmy shakes it warmly.
‘Pleasure to meet you, son.’ My heart sinks a little, but Jimmy looks at me with such affection that it softens the blow. ‘You are ever so much like your old man. He was an old friend of mine, you know. How’s he doing?’
Trying to hold my composure, I simply nod. ‘He’s doing well. He sends his love.’ A lie, I know, but I can’t help myself.
‘Good man, your dad.’ He shakes his head and swigs from his glass as though remembering times like the one written in the script on the bar.
‘I’ve heard a great deal about you, Jimmy.’ I don’t clarify that it isn’t my father who has shared these stories, although I’m sure that will be what he assumes. ‘And you have lived such an interesting life.’
‘I would hardly know, lad. My mind isn’t what it ought to be these days.’ He scratches the top of his head as thoughwishing to dig his nails directly into the folds of his brain in frustration.
