Bite The Wax Tadpole Read online

  Phyllida slipped on the plastic poop glove and scooped up the fresh turd from the pavement. “Come along, Rupert, time for beddy byes”, she said, pulling lightly on the poodle’s collar. It was late and the narrow, tree-lined avenue was deserted. She repeated her lines from the play, lips barely moving, as they headed back to the apartment. Her words were slight breaths above the pitter of Rupert’s paws and the patter of her slippers. And then, quite startlingly, she heard the clack of high-heels close behind. She looked round and the clack ceased. There was no-one there. Maybe they’d turned into one of the high-walled gardens that fronted the houses and apartment blocks. Or, more disturbingly, maybe they’d hidden behind one of the broad fig trees that leaned darkly over the pavement, cutting off the street lighting. Phyllida walked on. The footsteps started again. Then stopped when she did. This was silly, she told herself; silly, 1940s film-noir stuff. Nevertheless she increased her pace. And so did whoever was following her. Rupert seemed to be enjoying the extra effort. Why did she have to have a bloody poodle who’d had all his hunting and fighting instincts bred out of his gene pool? Right now she needed a Rhodesian ridge back with anger management issues. Soon she was almost running, glancing over her shoulder, Rupert trotting along with his tongue lolling. Breathlessly, she stumbled into the pool of light outside her apartment block. As she punched in the entry code, the clacking stopped. She looked back into the darkness. Somebody was standing behind a parked van she was sure of it.

  Once inside her apartment, and without turning on the light, she went to the window, peeped through the slats of the blinds. Across the dim street, just outside the pool of light cast by the street lamp, a figure, man or woman, hard to tell, was punching a number into a mobile phone. Now she was safely home, Phyllida started to relax. She was letting her imagination run away with her. She was having to learn too many lines, it was getting to her. All she needed was a chilled glass of chardonnay and...

  The phone rang. She gasped, put a hand to her chest in an instinctively thespian manner. The figure across the street had their mobile to their ear. Turning from the window, Phyllida banged her shin on the coffee table – “Shit!” – as she ran to grab the phone. “Hello, who is this? Hello?” A long pause was followed by the sound of a disconnection. She raced back to the window. On the other side of the road the Figure was closing their mobile. Then he/she/it moved off and was lost in the shadows.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  On the hillside above Rorke’s Drift, the Treorchy Male Voice Choir were lustily singing “Men of Harlech”. Rob could hear them quite clearly above the gunfire from the men of the 24th and the Zulus’ frenzied beating of spears against shields. In jeans and T-shirt, he sat behind the wall of mealie bags, a typewriter on his knees as Lieutenant Bromhead, resplendent in his red uniform coat, stood on top of the wall casually firing his pistol at the advancing horde while dictating. “Of particular interest are the yellow and orange Namaqualand daisies and the iridescent mesembryanthums. Are you getting this down, Jones?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Splendid. Jolly good.”

  Suddenly, a Zulu leapt over the wall, landed in front of Rob and drew back his stabbing spear. Rob hefted the typewriter up in front him for protection but the warrior looked at him and shook his head as if to say there was no point in wasting a good spear thrust on him. “Never end a sentence with a preposition”, said the Zulu and ran on. Mr Bromhead turned round and shot him. “Grammatical advice from a Zulu warrior”, he said. “What is the world coming to?”

  Since summer had arrived, mornings had ceased to break. They came to a swift boil as the sun stuck its fiery tongue over the horizon.

  Rob sat in the kitchen feeling that the hadn’t so much slept as drifted in and out of consciousness like a lost explorer looking for a water hole in the desert. But at least it was quiet. Except for the birds twittering and tweeting and possibly e-mailing in the trees. He switched on the CD player as he downed a slug of caffeine. Randy was, appropriately, talking about inner peace, how to keep oneself strong amidst the hurly burly and the stresses and strains of everyday life, of achieving a kind of homeostasis at the centre of one’s very soul or being. It was Randy’s theory that, apart from energising creativity, universal inner peace or enlightenment would also lead to the end of all wars and conflicts. Taking deep, calming breaths, Rob tried to envision such a time when all was calmness and light and joy and happiness.

  “That’s my DVD, give it back!”, yelled his daughter from somewhere in the suburbs of Elysium.

  “Whoo, touchy, touchy. Time of the month, is it?”, laughed his son.

  “Give it back, moron.”

  The argument continued, interrupted a few moments later by naked feet splatting down the corridor, the bathroom door being banged open and the sound of vomiting. For some reason Alison refused to retch in the en-suite.

  “Here, have the bloody thing!”, yelled Toby.

  “Ow, that hit me.”

  “Sorreee...”

  Rob sniffed. What the... oh, no, bollocks... He scraped the chair back, dashed for the toaster but too late. The bread was stuck and a black plume of carbonised toast curled up towards the ceiling where it demonstrated that the smoke alarm was in perfect working order. Rob grabbed a tea towel and attempted to waft the smoke away from the wailing alarm while, with his other hand, he tried to prise the burning bread out with a knife. He could just make out Randy’s mellifluous tones as he started to recite the Desiderata: “Go placidly among the noise and haste And remember what peace there may be in silence.”

  “Fuck off”, said Rob.

  Phyllida stepped out the apartment block’s main entrance and looked up and down the street. It went without saying that it was less sinister in the early morning sunshine. But dirty deeds could be done in daylight just as well as darkness. Last night she’d gulped down her chardonnay and decided against calling the police. Clacking heels, a phone call that didn’t connect and a Mysterious Figure in the shadows might possibly excite the interest of Sherlock Holmes or Hercules Poirot but if presented to the local constabulary would most likely end up filed under N for Nutter. Nevertheless, she had seen what she had seen and some caution was called for. But now she saw nothing untoward. Just the usual joggers and walkers and commuters slouching towards the station. She crossed the pavement towards the taxi and, as she opened the door, noticed the old, silver Ford Laser parked up the road. Someone was sitting in it. Or at least it looked like someone was sitting in it. It was hard to tell given the low sunshine and long shadows. She hesitated, half-inclined to march over and confront whoever it was, if indeed it was anybody. Confront them with what, though? Hey, you, what do you think you’re doing, sitting in your own car pretending to mind your own business? It was more likely that she would be the one going into a copper’s notebook. Telling herself that she really hadn’t the time to become paranoid, she got into the cab and they drove off.

  But she couldn’t help but look back. Oh, good god, this is ridiculous. The Laser was pulling out. Should she call the police? Tell the taxi driver to take evasive action, whatever that might mean? She should at least take down the licence plate number. NX... oh, the car was doing a U-turn and the driver was plainly the little old Chinese lady who ran the German bakery on the Parade. Phyllida slumped back in the seat. Valium. That’s what she needed. Valium and a part in a revival of “Salad Days.”

  Malcolm had arranged a late call at the studio so that he could attend his appointment with the neurologist at the large teaching hospital next to the university. It was a grand old place with turrets and imposing entrances and statues of the good and the great looking imperiously over the forecourt. It dated back to the days when surgeons in blood and pus stained frock coats operated with hacksaws and nurses were starched into their uniforms for life. To Malcolm’s eye, Professor Onslow looked as though he might have trained under one of the old surgeon-butchers. Apart from his longevity he was marked by a hump that would have made Quasimodo se
em like a pin-up boy for the Alexander Method. Malcolm rather hoped that it indicated a lifetime poring over learned tomes and clinical papers about the brain and countless hours bent over exposed grey matter while restoring it to tip-top condition. He was, at any rate, regarded as one of the top neuro-surgeons in the country so Malcolm sat upright and expectant as the prof showed him the print-out of the recent MRI scan.

  “It’s this white area here,” said the Prof, stabbing a bent finger at the print-out, “that’s the little feller who’s been giving you the headaches and the dizzy spells.”

  “I see”, said Malcolm. “So what is it exactly?”

  “Wish I knew. Bit difficult to tell, really, with it being inside your head. What we’ll have to do, that is, myself and some colleagues of mine, is take it out and have a jolly good look at it, see exactly what it is, see if it’s a malignant little so and so and whether it’s likely to have spread to other parts of your body. You haven’t had any new symptoms, have you?”

  Malcolm glanced across to where Norman Tubby, hand over one eye, was reading an ophthalmic chart.

  “Z... R... K... W... reminds me of the old story about the Polish Spitfire pilot.”

  “No, no, none at all”, replied Malcolm. “No other symptoms.”

  “Splendid. Hopefully then, we’ll have caught this... let’s call it a “thing”, shall we, in time. Of course, it’ll mean you having to take some time off work, couple of months in all probability. You tend to come out of these brain operations looking like your head’s been used as a match ball in the Grand Final. God, rather you than me. What is it you do, by the way? Interior decorating, isn’t it?”

  Months? He couldn’t afford to take months off. They’d kill him, write him out. Maybe he’d just take his chances. He could cope with the occasional headache.

  Norman stood behind Professor Onslow, and adjusted his codpiece. “It was during the war, and this Polish chap...”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Security to aisle twelve, security to aisle twelve, code tango, repeat code tango.”

  Mohammed, a victim of cutbacks in the IT industry, had only been in the supermarket security business for two days and was vague as to what a Code Tango was. In training they’d been very hot on certain codes such as Alpha which was a fire, Oscar which was a cardiac arrest and X-Ray which was an armed hold-up. But Tango... no, couldn’t recall it. He was helping an old lady reach the last packet of discounted toilet duck on the top shelf when the call came over the Tannoy so he was in no position to consult the handbook which he’d left in the office. The only thing to do was to get to aisle twelve as quickly as possible and hope that Code Tango wasn’t “homicidal maniac with machete.” He handed the toilet duck to the old duck and set off towards Aisle Twelve - tinned vegetables, beans and cook-in sauces. As he got closer he could see a small crowd gathered at the end of the aisle, staring at something. Judging from their shocked but amused expressions Mohammed guessed that this was not a machete wielding maniac scenario. The crowd parted to let him through and he slewed round into aisle twelve ready to take charge of the situation.

  A middle-aged man was pushing a trolley down the aisle, pausing here and there to chuck tins into it. A perfectly normal supermarket scene had the man not been stark naked. Mohammed spoke into his radio - “Can someone get a fire blanket to aisle twelve, please?” - before approaching the man who was now reading the label on a tin of asparagus tips.

  “Good morning, sir, everything all right?”

  The man looked at him and smiled. “Ah, yes, I expect you’re wondering where I’ve got my credit card concealed.”

  The car limped to a halt beside a row of shops. The chap in the traffic helicopter had just told Rob, via the radio, that a BW – whatever that was – had broken down on the Pacific Highway causing major southbound delays. It was a cooler morning, the sky dark, the wind fresh. Despite the early hour, a group of schoolboys came out of the corner shop sharing a bag of hot chips. The next shop along was a neighbourhood computer and electrical retailer. Rob did a double-take after reading the sign in the window - “writer Repairs”. Almost immediately he realised that “Type” was obscured by a blackboard outside the window advising of the latest offers on reconditioned laptops. Writer repairs. The shop of his dreams. Talking of which, both of last night’s had involved a typewriter. He’d woken up after the Zulu episode and when he’d drifted off again the second dream was set the 1950s and he’d been in the Writers’ Bungalow at Warner Brothers’ studio furiously typing out a movie script which he knew was going to be sensational. At nearby desks Graham Greene, William Faulkner and Dashiel Hammet tapped away one-fingered before tossing their finished pages into overflowing bins. Rob typed: The End and ripped the last page of his Oscar winning script out of the rollers only to find it was written in Dutch. He looked at the rest of the script. That was in Dutch as well. Graham Greene had looked across at him, raised a glass of whiskey and said with a shake of his head: “Het spel van het leven en dodo.”

  Hope was on the phone when Rob eventually shuffled into the Script Department. “God, how awful”, she was saying. “Was he completely, you know... goodness.... no, I’ll tell him as soon as he... oh, here he is now.” She put the call on hold. Bit of a record, thought Rob. Only one foot in the office and already there’s a crisis.

  “Yes, what is it?”, he asked with all the weltschmerz of a man whose welt can stand very little more schmerz.

  “It’s Jane, Neil’s wife. He’s been arrested.”

  Well, that was a new one.

  As he made his way towards the loading dock, Rob tried to reassure himself that Neil would have had a nervous breakdown even if he hadn’t been euphemistically rested from the writers’ list. Jane had said she’d seen it coming. Probably all for the best, really. Now he’d reached rock bottom the only way for Neil was up. Or was that just a cliché spouted by the likes of Dr Phil and Deepak Chopra? Anyway, he’d get treatment, that was the main thing. Meantime, there was the problem of what to do with the script he’d been given the day before.

  Gerry was in his usual spot, in costume, puffing away on a coffin-nail. He looked up as Rob approached, apprehensive. “Rob, mate, have you, you know, had chance to...”

  “Read your submission? As a matter of fact, I have. What’s your shooting schedule like today?”

  It was the first time Rob had run a script conference with the writer dressed as a marsupial. He was reminded of his first close-up encounter with a kangaroo. Alison’s father had taken him on a bush walk soon after his arrival in Australia. It had very obviously been one of those “let’s see if I can fathom out what the hell my daughter sees in this bloke” walks but they’d got on pretty well. Derek had been trying to explain the finer points of Aussie Rules when they’d rounded a corner and almost fallen over a big red who’d turned up his paws. Something had ripped open its guts and it was black with flies. The smell so indescribable he’d never been able to describe it to anyone. There were no flies on Gerry it was true but there was an odour rising from him like the miasma from a fetid swamp. It was particularly rank in the airless, windowless room. Dear god, had the wardrobe department’s budget been cut so low they couldn’t run to the occasional trip to the dry-cleaners?

  Gerry was nervous, fidgety as Rob ran through the housekeeping side of things - the cast and sets that were available, the exterior shooting allowed, how long the segments between commercial breaks had to be. Gerry nodded and doodled scratchy circles, stars and swirly things on his notepad. Oh, for the big boy’s book of psychology, thought Rob. Apart from a chapter on “Character Analysis Through Mindless Scribble” there might be a section on making decisions whilst under duress. After learning of Neil’s incarceration in the Barking Institute, Rob had sat at his desk wondering which writer to invite on board the sinking ship when he happened to glance at Gerry’s submission lying unread under a decaying pizza box. He’d picked it up, held it at arms’ length as though it might suddenly explode, gingerly
opened it up and read a few lines through narrowed eyes. Well, well, surprise, surprise, not bad... not bad at all... quite good in fact. Like he’d said himself, Gerry certainly knew the show and the characters. Give him a go or not give him a go? What the cotton-picking hell - why should he even care? He probably wouldn’t be doing him any favours, anyway, not with the show about to be “re-zoned”.

  “You don’t know how grateful I am for this, mate. Things haven’t been that crash hot since I got written out. Not that I’m blaming you or nothing. No, no, you got to write characters out, kill them off. I know that. Just didn’t think the only work I’d get in the next eighteen months would be playing a bloody kangaroo in a kids’ show.”

  “An actor’s life, eh?”

  “And it’s tough for me, see, playing a kangaroo ‘cos I’m a method actor, you know, like de Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Ray Meagher, those sort of blokes. I have to get inside the character, become the character, know what I mean?”

  “So... you do a lot of hopping, do you?”

  “When I was on the show, Benny the mechanic, I did a TAFE course in car maintenance.”

  “I didn’t know that. Brilliant, well done. You’ll let me know if you’re ever up for the role of Jack the Ripper, won’t you, so I can avoid dark alleyways. Right, I’ll just organise some coffee and we’ll get going on our magical, writerly journey, okay? Shouldn’t take long, got it all mapped out yesterday.”

  Trying not to breathe in as he slipped behind Gerry’s chair, Rob made his exit. On his own, Gerry dug into his pouch and came out with a hip flask. Given that kangaroos are not known for their alcoholic consumption, Stanislavsky would probably not have approved but, what the hell, Stanislavksy’d never worked in serial TV, had he?