Love, Unscripted Read online

  Today, though…today it sort of feels lonely to be the single audience member.

  Today I want the confrontation.

  Reviews for the film have been sniffy at best. Not that I care what the reviews say. Sure, I still read movie magazines, subscribe to a few actually. I even sent in a few articles once, to some of the big magazines, but I never heard back. Maybe that could be my next job. Maybe I could try harder.

  I wish Ellie was here.

  It has been almost seven weeks since she left, offering me “space” and “time.” I’m not sure what I’ve achieved with either of them.

  I could call her. We’re still friends, after all. We talked about being friends, didn’t we? It’s already a bit blurry. Maybe she’d want to hang out with her old pal Nick and watch a film. I could walk out now and buy us two tickets to the 5:30 show instead.

  I don’t mind watching the first ten minutes again. I have no idea what’s going on. Colin Firth is pissed off with Alan Rickman because he’s being a dick and now he’s hitting on Cameron Diaz. Is that age gap obscene? A quick IMDb check on my phone. It’s okay, there’s no one else here. Twelve years. Not grotesque by Hollywood standards. Shit. Cameron Diaz is forty. God, I’m old. I still remember that entrance in The Mask. A star was born in a moment. How often does that happen nowadays?

  Nowadays. What a depressing adverb. Directly compare now with the past.

  Nowadays, Nick goes to the cinema alone.

  Nick goes home alone nowadays.

  Nick, nowadays, wanks himself to sleep at night.

  This film is appalling. Or I’m just in a terrible mood. I wonder how many films have been unfairly judged because a critic or studio head was having a shit day. Would Citizen Kane have been recut if George J. Schaefer had had a hangover on the first screening? Would George Lucas have had to bin Star Wars if Alan Ladd Jr. had gotten out of bed on the wrong side when he pitched it to him?

  I just want to be distracted. I should have chosen something with explosions and car chases and endless fistfights. Something loud and brash and colorful and sparkly. Something to take my mind off her.

  But instead, I’m reliving time we spent together on a daily basis. Holidays always seem to take hold of the temporal lobe more than other days, and right now I’m fixated on the second night of our trip to Istanbul.

  It was, without doubt, one of the best days of my life.

  It was our third Christmas together, and instead of doing the usual round of “Whose parents do we visit?,” “Didn’t we do yours last year?,” “Can we please do yours again?,” we decided to get the hell out of England.

  The destination was Ellie’s choice, prompted by a visit to a photography exhibition at the Tate. She’d returned talking excitedly of the angles of buildings and the magnificence of the old quarter, and I’d decided to surprise her with winter tickets, knowing that the heat of Turkey at any other time of year would destroy me.

  Spending most of your waking hours in a dimly lit, windowless projection booth has a detrimental effect on how you deal with the outside elements. For me, too much sunshine is like kryptonite. My job has transformed me into a Lost Boy, a Nosferatu, a Dracula: Dead and Loving It.

  The journey was the typically hellish combination of crowded train to Stansted and “compact” flight on EasyJet. We kept the snark to a minimum and promised that we’d hit the ground running after an early night.

  And hit the ground running we did.

  More than ever in my recollections of Ellie, this memory finds itself by way of montage. Two young lovers in lands unknown.

  Our couple is awake in bed, wrapped around each other. They start the day playfully rolling around under the sheets.

  Room service arrives and the half-naked girl hides behind the door as the boy wheels in the breakfast and signs the bill. (Even though the “extras” are paid for by her, her treat, as they always are.)

  They eat great-tasting foreign food with the morning sun beaming through the window.

  Out on the streets they walk arm in arm. A mass of two thick coats; you can’t see where one ends and the other begins.

  They watch another couple fighting, passionately. They smile at each other. Never us. That’ll never be us.

  A meal out at a fancy restaurant. The waiter tries to communicate something to the boy, trying to make sure he’s ordering what he thinks he’s ordering. The boy dismisses him with a nod of the head and a slightly patronizing smile. The waiter arrives with the food and waits to see the boy take a mouthful. The boy gasps for air at the heat of the food. He grabs for his glass. Finding it empty, he grabs the girl’s. The girl is laughing so hard she falls off her chair.

  More drinks. More laughter. More hand-holding. More kissing. More intimacy.

  And the montage ends as it started. The couple in bed. Wrapped in the soft cotton sheets and each other.

  This always used to be soundtracked by—let me see—something upbeat and bouncy and cinematic and free.

  Something by Feist.

  Or “Impossibly Beautiful” by Julie Feeney.

  Or any of the first four tracks off Begin to Hope by Regina Spektor.

  Now, it’s maudlin music. Instrumentals only. One note, played over and over again. A soundtrack of impending dread.

  * * *

  —

  I’VE ONLY EVER walked out of three movies in my whole entire life.

  The first was Vertigo. I know, I know. But in my defense, I was thirteen and believed Terminator 2: Judgment Day to be the greatest movie of all time. I just didn’t get it. I grew up, revisited it, and have forever chastised myself for my youthful indiscretion.

  The second was the 2003 remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which was annoyingly corrected to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I’m not someone who thinks that all remakes are inherently wrong. Without them we wouldn’t have The Maltese Falcon (1941), there’d be no Scarface (1983), and Tim Burton would only ever have made one film.

  The third was The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Nothing against the film. It was simply not made for me and I was not made for it. We parted amicably half an hour in.

  This will be my fourth.

  There may be ten minutes left, there may be another hour. I have no idea. I have paid no attention to what’s going on. I was somewhere else.

  Somewhere good.

  As I grab my things and stand to leave, my notepad slips out of my bag. I glance around the cinema and see I have solitude. I switch on the light on my phone, and in the partial darkness, I begin to write again.

  The Girl didn’t measure happiness the way he did. She’d coped well enough without it for some time, and therefore it wasn’t something she fixated on. The Boy, raised on happy endings and perfect conclusions, felt it was something he could give her.

  It was Nick’s twenty-seventh birthday. The rock-star death age. Joplin, Jim, and Jimi.

  He’d tried explaining this to Ellie, how this year might be his last on earth due to the proclivity of the Grim Reaper to take the best of humanity at one score and seven years.

  After a useful reminder that you had to actually do something with your life to earn a place in the 27 Club, Ellie relented and told him, “If this is the case, it’s my duty to make sure you have a final birthday you’ll never forget.”

  With gusto she tackled the putting-together of his present. Booking the flights, finding the right place to stay. But it was the invitation she was most pleased with. Dusting off an old box full of arts and crafts materials, she spent the entirety of a Sunday afternoon designing the perfect vehicle for an RSVP. The card itself was made up of little pictures of film reels and projectors, and in the center in elegant calligraphy were the words YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE 2009 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL.

  “This is…I just…I li
terally have no words,” Nick blabbered as he opened the card.

  “The hotel’s a hole,” Ellie countered. “I just want you to know that up front. I don’t even think it has one star, but this time of year everyone puts their prices up and…”

  He was on top of her, kissing her neck while at the same time still incanting his appreciation as she continued to attempt to temper his expectations.

  “…it’s only for two days, it’s all I could afford. But we can always try and stay longer. Camp on the beach maybe? And the flights are super-basic.”

  Nick moved his mouth up to hers to let her know she didn’t have to add any caveats.

  “You.”

  He kissed her.

  “Are.”

  She started to unbutton his shirt.

  “Amazing.”

  * * *

  —

  ELLIE TRIED HER best to play down the date. In two days they’d be in the south of France, but she knew her mind would be in Scotland. She’d made every effort to convince herself that a change of scenery would do her good. That the usual rituals of remembrance only made her blue. This was her chance, she truly believed, to replace a sad anniversary with a happy one. Our first trip together, she thought. What could possibly go wrong?

  As they stood on the platform, the rain pouring down, the announcement stated for the umpteenth time—in a voice too carefree for the occasion—“This is a safety announcement. Due to today’s wet weather, please take extra care whilst on the station. Surfaces may be slippery.”

  They’d been at Clapham Junction station for forty-five minutes and hadn’t seen a single train. Nick was reciting a mantra to himself to fend off the demons: “This time tonight we’ll be in the south of France.” Ellie rubbed his arm.

  After the fifty-seventh announcement that “Closed-circuit television and remote video monitoring is in use at this station for your personal safety and security,” they overheard an attendant speaking about “one under” and put two and two together.

  He was reminded of a moment in the rather obvious—but not without its moments—deity comedy Bruce Almighty, where the titular Bruce, stuck in traffic behind what looks like a nasty car accident, laments how bad things always happen to him. He had previously considered it on the nose as far as character development went, but as he waited on an ever-more-populated train platform in the best example of the British climate, he was starting to feel very, very Bruce.

  Ellie, as pragmatic as ever, looked for solutions.

  “I’m not going to tell you not to worry about time, because I know that won’t work, but we do still have an hour before the flight.”

  “It’s okay,” Nick replied, trying to copy the announcement’s breezy intonation but doing little to hide the foot-tapping nervousness that was pulsing through his every muscle.

  The display updated from “15 minutes” to “30 minutes,” and a collective groan made its way up to the heavens as the heavens kept coming down.

  “Let’s grab a taxi,” Ellie offered. “It’ll only be about thirty quid. We can just make ourselves a meal instead of eating out tonight.”

  Nick looked down the track, as if his looking might encourage the train to show up. It didn’t, so he nodded and lifted up their bags.

  As they struggled down the stairs, which seemed to be designed to accentuate slippage rather than reduce it, a hive mind grabbed the other passengers and they too started heading for the taxi rank. Nick and Ellie joined the back of a queue and spent the next twenty minutes praying their train wouldn’t come.

  It did, of course, the second their bags were in the boot.

  * * *

  —

  “I SUPPOSE,” NICK wondered aloud, “missing a flight by two hours is dramatically less infuriating than missing one by thirty seconds.”

  It was the type of comment that didn’t require a response. But when none came, he felt hurt and began to catastrophize as to why she was ignoring him.

  It wasn’t one thing, she would have told him if he’d asked. She was tired, her period was due soon, she was fixating on some negative comments at work. And most importantly, she’d just had to pay for a new flight, meaning the next month would be on even more of a budget. What she wouldn’t have mentioned was the real truth: that she couldn’t stop thinking about Lucas.

  The day before had featured a perfect moment to tell Nick of the unfortunate timing, to get it off her chest and out in the open. To let her thought out where it could run freely, as opposed to growling angrily in the cramped corner of her mind and heart. But the moment came and went and here they were.

  They settled into their seats, offered each other a wordless “it’s okay,” and took out their in-flight entertainment. His was low-brow, a well-worn copy of Jurassic Park he’d had since he was ten. Hers was a much more intellectual but equally thumbed Love in the Time of Cholera. They’d tried book-swapping once but barely made it through the opening chapter of the other’s novel. Ellie rationalized that it was because these were nostalgic tomes and didn’t really represent who they were now. Nick became anxious it was because his taste was too dorky.

  That their new flight was subsequently delayed by exactly the length of time they’d missed the first flight by was a delicious slice of unnecessary irony.

  After takeoff, Nick’s ears clogged up and he couldn’t hear a thing, especially not Ellie asking if he could pass the bottle of water he was drinking from. When he finished the remaining milliliters of precious liquid, she looked at him with a level of disdain he’d never witnessed before. He saw her mouth “Thanks a bunch,” and his ears popped just in time to discover his crime.

  They were both beginning to get angry-hungry at a time before they understood that anger-hunger was the cause of 96 percent of all fights between loved ones, but were reluctant to pay £2.90 for a Twix. The hostility between them transported itself off the plane and into the rental car.

  * * *

  —

  DUE TO THE train and flight delays—plus an incident at baggage collection that remains unresolved to this very day—they had lost six hours of their forty-eight-hour holiday. There was a small but unignorable part of Ellie that viewed the complications of the trip as a blessing. They were a further distraction when distraction was exactly what she needed.

  If Nick knew the process of her thoughts, if he knew that to cope with the negativity of one subject she would focus on another even more negative topic, he would try to figure out a better, less problematic solution.

  Because she knew his need to do this, she kept her thoughts to herself.

  After emptying the vending machines of their glucosey goodness at Saint-Geoirs airport, they staved off their joint crabbiness and were starting to resemble their normal, happy selves again.

  The sun had begun to set when they first picked up the rental car. Now, a little over two hours from their destination, the sky was pitch black. Ellie had never been much of a fan of driving at night, but she had offered to do it on this occasion, as an extra distraction to her whirring mind. This left Nick to play with the iPod and curate the in-car entertainment.

  “Is it weird that I still know every line of every song even though I haven’t heard this album in about ten years?” he asked.

  “Is it weird that I think it’s weird that you listened to Jagged Little Pill with the same level of devotion I—as a fourteen-year-old girl—once did?” she answered.

  He gave a sigh of relief at this, knowing then that the tensions of the trip thus far had been relegated to the level of irksome. Ellie started singing along to the opening track again.

  As they turned their heads in perfect synchronicity to the beat of the pause in the song, a shudderingly awful sound took over as the car thumped over something unknown.

  Ellie screeched on the brakes.

  “What the fuck was that?” sh
e said, using a rare but appropriate curse word.

  They stepped out of the vehicle and gingerly approached the front of it.

  Splattered over the number plate and broken left headlight was a crimson solution they were both unused to seeing in such a large quantity.

  “What do you think it was?” she asked.

  “Probably a rabbit,” he replied, aiming for casual.

  “There goes the excess then.”

  They climbed back into the car and made it approximately fifty meters before an obscene clunking began to radiate from underneath them. With every thud, Nick winced and Ellie screwed up her eyes.

  “What are we going to do, Nick?”

  He didn’t have a clue, but felt a genuine buzz that she was looking to him for answers.

  Still two hours from Cannes and the comfort and warmth of their one-star hotel, and with the time approaching nine in the evening, there wasn’t much to hope for in terms of shops being open, and they hadn’t passed a village for miles.

  Up ahead a sign read: SISTERON 1 KM.

  “I could walk it?” Nick said, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn’t take him up on his generous offer.

  “Not to play damsel in distress, but I don’t really fancy being left in the dark by the side of the road in a place I don’t know, where I could definitely be attacked by wolves.”

  “Do they have wolves in France? I could Google it, I’ve got data roaming.”

  She looked at him in silence, exaggerating her blinking, a little disappointed in herself for having entrusted her safety to him.

  Finally she coughed and said, “Do you think you could use your roaming to search for a French recovery service? Le AA, perhaps?”