AFTER THE ACT - Book review

 

Winston Graham’s suspense novel After the Act was published in 1965.

Playwright Morris Scott has been married for seven years to Harriet, a rich older woman, his muse, who suffers from ill health. Over those years she supported and encouraged him: ‘You ought to be relentless, Morris. Relentless to writing it down. Once the bones are there you can drape them and undrape them at will’ (p63) And now he is successful and planning for one of his plays to appear in Paris.

It had not been planned. ‘I was a man going to meet a girl, surrounded only by the anticipation, tautened like a bow-string with pleasure’ (p17). Inevitably, he has an affair with Alexandra Wilshere, a secretary to a rich couple in France. Passion, obsession... ‘We walked on the quay and walked together through the little town, which was murmurous with people. Cars probed the narrow streets like medical isotopes in a bloodstream...’ (p67)

A budding writer could learn from some of Morris’s observations:

‘Half of writing is gestation’ (p26).

‘You have to be tough to reach the top in any profession these days. Stamina’s an essential part of genius, whether you’re a four-minute miler or a composer of symphonies’ (p27).

‘How easy it is for a writer to lie, the inventions spring to his lips’ (p47).

The suspense deepens when Harriet falls to her death from a Paris hotel balcony. Was it an accident, or murder, or carelessness? ‘We all make mistakes; the error is in trying to hide them’ (p197). That phrase could well be the epitaph of many a politician’s career! The fact is that now Morris is free to wed Alexandra. If his conscience will permit it. ‘To be honest around a central lie is like building a house with the foundations unlevel’ (p135).

Graham the craftsman has delved into life, death and guilt. ‘The sun set. Dusk crept in like the beginning of death’ (p191).

Editorial note:

‘a passionate unsophisticated fumbling in the dark... among the heather and the bickering cicadas’ (p75). Long ago I was corrected: cicadas make their noise in the hot day, crickets make their noise at night, and this seems borne out by my time in Spain.

Saturday fiction – Grave Concerns

Today, (All Hallows Eve) begins the traditional ‘holiday’ – the Day of the Dead – that spans All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. There is a cemetery near our house here in Spain and at this time of year it is inundated with visitors, who tend the graves of their loved ones, taking flowers and food, sometimes having a family picnic, to remember and honour the dead.

Here is a previously published short story that concerns a certain Spanish cemetery. The narrator is Leon Cazador, a half-English half-Spanish private investigator, featured in Leon Cazador, P.I.

Grave Concerns

 “I have no tears left to shed.”

The mass grave by the roadside was not the first in Spain to be unearthed in the last four years, and it wouldn’t be the last. On each side were carobs and bright yellow and blue wild flowers, a tranquil contrast to the macabre sight before us. Men in the trench wore gauze masks over their mouths as they lifted out human bones and strips of clothing and placed them reverently on a length of tarpaulin. Behind them stood an idle mechanical earth-digger, while beyond the fields of rosemary and artichokes rose the rugged mountains, mute witnesses to what had happened about sixty-seven years ago.

I stood and watched while Clara Landera sat beside me on a green plastic chair by the edge of the road. She was in her seventies and wore the traditional black clothing of constant mourning and, despite the heat of the day, a black woollen shawl crossed her chest and was tucked into her black skirt’s waistband. Her thick dark stockings were wrinkled, like her face. Mascara encircled Clara’s old eyes, rouge emphasised her sunken cheeks, and her lips were painted carmine.

As I placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, her rough palm patted my knuckles. “I have no tears left to shed,” she murmured.

I understood. For many years, I’d known her as Clara Marzal until one dark evening she explained her tragic past. She had been sitting on her balcony, smoking a cigarillo, watching the television through her window. The screen showed a news item about the digging up of a Civil War mass grave. As the bottle of white wine emptied, her story gradually poured out.

***

While a new conflict raged across the world, the old Civil War that ended in Spring 1939 still claimed many lives. The reprisals of el Caudillo and his extreme right-wing followers killed thousands of los rojos—the Communists. Nothing was said about the illegal executions and the abduction of children from their families.

Clara’s pueblo was like so many, riven by fanatics of the left and the right. The Civil War was anything but civil, it was barbaric. Old wounds were reopened and old scores were settled with bloodletting on both sides.

In the dead of night in 1940, five men, three women and two children were taken away in a truck by village Falangists. Clara was one of the children and her mother Jacinta was with her. After a short drive, they stopped and were told to get out. Clara was forced to watch as the men in their blue shirts and leather webbing shot her mother, her grandparents and the others. To this day Clara could not wear anything coloured blue as it brought back the memories. The bodies were dumped unceremoniously into a ditch overgrown with weeds. An arm and hand stuck out, and Clara was convinced it was her mother, waving goodbye.

Nothing was done for over half a century. It was a conspiracy of silence born of fear. Even after the transición to democracy, the questioning voices were stilled.

With the new millennium, however, some individuals began to claim their family’s dead. They wanted them properly laid to rest.

“I cried with pain. And hate.” Clara had most of her own teeth and clenched her jaw tightly. “I may have been only four, but I have remembered all the names of those murderers.” She gripped her rosary beads. “Now, before I go the way of all flesh, I want my mother’s remains put in her final resting place.”

When I drove her to the spot that had figured in her nightmares until she was a teenager, Clara was surprised how little had changed. Inland Spain was timeless, it seemed, compared with the raped overdeveloped coast. Long may that be so.

We laid a wreath and on my return, I kept my promise to Clara and set in motion the paperwork for the disinterment of the bodies she claimed lay there.

***

Months later, at the reburial, few witnesses attended. Many villagers didn’t want to know. Some had died, never knowing the truth. Others were not interested in raking over the past. “Let it lie,” they said.

Pedro Jarillo was not one of those. He welcomed this solemn closure. He was in his eighty-ninth year and there was a haunted look about him, as if he could already feel the icy finger of his mortality on his shoulder. His bowed shape was slightly aloof, at the side of the small number of mourners.

The hearse made its way into the cementerio, a handful of people in black walking behind.

Instead of gravestones and the solitary Victorian tombs of England, this final resting place resembled a tiny town: the streets of the dead, complete with lamps and paved paths. Instead of doors and windows, there were square stone or marble niches, decorated with flowers, epigrams, religious tableaux, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, or photographs of the deceased. They were five tiers high, like elaborate filing cabinets. Whenever I visited a cemetery, I was reminded of the many mortuaries I’d been in, their cadavers lying in drawers.

As the hearse stopped at the empty vacant niche, second up from the ground, two men in overalls stepped round a corner, puffing on thick cigars. They carried a pail each and deposited them to one side, then removed the coffin from the hearse and eased it into its niche, while the readings from Lorca accompanied the mortal remains of Clara’s mother on her last journey.

Then the two men set to work. They placed the stone slab over the hole and plastered it secure.

Clara strode purposefully up to Pedro and suddenly slapped his face. The sound rebounded off the walls of the surrounding graves. She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving loud whispers and murmurings of displeasure behind her.

***

I stood on Pedro Jarillo’s doorstep. As he opened the heavy oak door, I said, “You asked to see me.”

He nodded, let me in and closed the door behind me. The room was cool and sombre, furnished with dark wood and leather, and it smelled old, like him.

“I know you are a friend of Clara,” he said, and ruefully stroked his unshaved cheek, making a rasping sound.

“Yes.” I hesitated, but realised there was no other way to say it, except outright: “She told me you and your father were there with the other Falangists that night.”

He sighed deeply, as if letting out in that single action, years of dread and guilt. “Yes, so help me, I was.” He pointed at a timeworn leather sofa, and I lowered myself into it. He sat on a ladder-backed chair, shoulders hunched, forearms resting on his knees as he faced me.

His eyes were pale with age now but probably had been shining bright brown when he was a young man. In years gone by, he must have been handsome, a catch for any girl. He made a helpless gesture. “Many of those men who were with me have died. Whether among the dead or the living, they never had any regrets. They believed that what they did was necessary. They justified themselves, saying los rojos had committed crimes just as bad.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right, though, do they?”

“No,” he said firmly, “they don’t. Ever.”

I nodded. “But you do have regrets, is that it?”

“Already, you sound like my confessor, Señor Cazador.”

“No, but I am a good listener,” I said. “Tell me, Pedro Jarillo. Tell me why you cannot face speaking to Clara.”

Even though his recall was surprisingly detailed, it took a while in the telling.

Pedro’s father was one of the area’s Falangist leaders, short in stature and temper, with constant stubble on his face and small penetrating dark eyes. He was acting on a recent denunciation that stated their prospective prisoners had been Republican sympathisers during the Civil War. Like many in his position, he never questioned the credibility of the denunciation or the relationship of the people involved. Old enmities and jealousies were not considered relevant. “We have to be seen to be strong,” he told his twenty-two-year-old son.

All the way to the home of the Landera family, Pedro had fretted, his insides like jelly. He knew what they were going to do. His mouth was dry, and his heart ached. No matter how he felt about it, he couldn’t back out and bring shame to his father.

Shame had already cast its bleak shadow on Señor and Señora Landera since their simpleton daughter, Jacinta, had become pregnant. The village castigated them for neglecting poor unmarried Jacinta. “The Landera puta is not worthy of the blessing of a child,” some said. Others declaimed the morals of the young in general. Jacinta gave birth to Clara, and she was a delightful healthy child adored by all, even those critical of her family. No amount of goading, beatings or threats of eternal damnation would convince Jacinta to reveal the name of the little girl’s father.

On that dark night, the Landera family and others who had been denounced were forced into the back of a truck. Tears and pleas fell on deaf ears. Pedro briefly put his hands over his ears, but it made no difference. He tried to turn his heart and mind to stone, but failed. It was not right!

As they drove behind the truck containing Jacinta, Clara, and the others, Pedro finally blurted out, “Father, little Clara, she is my daughter!”

“Madre de Dios!” His father nearly crashed their car into the back of the truck. He swore, and his big fist smashed down on the steering wheel. “They were Republicans, Pedro!” He turned to face his son, his eyes fiery, glaring. “Look what they did to the village of Segura del Carmen! They must pay!”

“But, Father, she is only a child.”

“Madre de Dios!” growled his father, moving the car forward again. “The shame of it!”

The rest of the journey took about five minutes, but in that time Pedro’s father had resolved what they would do.

It was dark as everyone stepped down from the truck and the cars. Swiftly and unseen, Pedro appeared from behind the truck and grabbed Clara and broke her mother’s grip on the girl’s little hand. Before she could shout out, he covered Clara’s mouth with his palm, almost smothering the poor child.

Jacinta screamed but nobody paid her any attention. They had expected hysterics from her anyway. The men and women and a child were shoved along in single-file further up the road, full in the beam of the truck’s headlights. Then they were told to stop and turn with their backs to the ditch. The priest stepped out of another car and took their confessions.

They were all brave, even Jacinta, who had gone very quiet.

As he had promised his father, Pedro forced little Clara to watch.

When it was all over, he carried her over his shoulder and hid with her in the back of his father’s car.

“We will go to the convent of Santa Teresa,” his father said when he got in. “They can look after her. Though I fear she is damned.”

***

“Does Clara know you are her father?” I asked.

“My God, no.” Pedro shook his head, his eyes evading mine. “As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t save her mother. I left the village for many years and never spoke to my father until he was on his deathbed. All this time, wherever I travelled, I have been unable to forgive myself.”

I leaned forward and put a hand on his shoulder.

His body trembled, shaking with an old grief, but still he stared down at the tiled floor.

“Look at me, Pedro,” I said.

He raised his head, and I feared that the light of life in his eyes was almost extinguished.

“You know what happened, of course,” I said. “Your daughter became Clara Marzal, the famous actress and singer.”

He nodded. “Yes, despite everything, she made something of her life.”

“It’s more than that, Pedro. She used her pain to inform her acting and songs.”

“Yes, I have heard her sing. More than once she has made me cry. I don’t know if it’s because of the words of her songs or the fact that I never knew her, never watched her grow up.” He shook his head, his fist pressing against his chest. “I ache, knowing what I have missed and what I haven’t been able to give her.”

“You don’t have to forgive yourself. That’s up to her. Give her this chance.”

He raised a hand to the cheek she’d slapped. “But—”

“Remind her that, at great risk to yourself, you saved her life.”

***

As I watched the two old people standing on the bridge over the dry rio, I could see that their eyes were not dry.

I don’t know what they said, but they shook hands and both seemed reluctant to let go.

It was a beginning.

***

This is one of 23 short stories related by Leon Cazador, private eye; they can be found in Leon Cazador, P.I. available as a paperback and e-book from Amazon here.

Review by Bobby Underwood of this story and the others can be found on Goodreads:
GRAVE CONCERNS
This one opens at a mass grave, as Leon sits with the elderly Clara Landera. It is about the lingering fallout from a brutal Civil War. The story of Pedro Jarillo and Clara is quietly and sadly moving. Excellent.

Book review - Johnny Nothing

A highly amusing and original moral tale about ten-year-old Johnny. ‘He’s not over-clever. He’s not under-stupid.’ He's called Johnny Nothing because he has nothing, whether that's decent clothes, toys, books, or love. Author Ian Probert can certainly give Roald Dahl a run for his money with this novel.

Johnny MacKenzie has two feckless parents who seem to have emerged from all of the worst nightmares of children’s fiction: his mother, Felicity, in truth, is a marvellous invention, unsavoury and selfish, among other things, while his father, Billy is a drinker and gambler and under the thumb, correction – ‘Billy lived in mortal fear of his wife.’ She is definitely the kind of person children of all ages will love to Boo and Hiss at: ‘SILENCE commanded his mother in capital letters.’

Uncle Jake Marley (deceased brother of Felicity) died a millionaire, and bequeathed £1m to Johnny, with the added proviso that if after a year Johnny increased that million rather than spend it he will be in line for a further £10m. Unfortunately, the cash card Johnny inherits is stolen by Johnny’s mother.

Marley’s solicitor is Ebenezer Dark, whose image graces the cover of the book. (Maybe Johnny should be on the cover as well as Ebenezer – or even Marley as well?) Might as well mention the illustrations, by the author’s daughter: they’re excellent, conveying that ‘otherness’ that surrounds the characters and the story itself.

Probert is a wordsmith, and loves playing with them, viz: ‘Uncle Marley didn’t mince his words (if he did, they’d probably come out in little gnarled up chunks and you could make wordburgers and chips or spaghetti with wordballs from them).’

Virtually every page gives us more of the same: ‘There was a stunned silence in the church. The only noise that could be heard was the sound of John McVicar dropping a small pin on the floor that he had just found in one of his jacket pockets.’

I’ve read somewhere that publishers and agents don’t like puns in books. Well, all I can say is, they’re sad people. Puns enliven a grey day, bring light into a monotonous life, and even the groans are uttered in pleasure – well, for most, anyway.

Besides indulging in puns, Probert has an eye for detail, popping the balloon of pomposity, and cocking a snook at political correctness.  ‘He had not used this type of mobile phone before but it was fairly easy for him to work out because he was under thirty.’

 
Johnny’s mother squanders his inheritance on expensive restaurant meals, gadgets, and foreign travel, and here’s a taster: ‘So they had turkey in Turkey. And then chicken in Kiev. And crackers in Caracas. And visited a deli in Delhi.’ Groan, but enjoy; there’s a lot more of that!
 
The book is ostensibly aimed at early teens but will be enjoyed by adults, since the story can be construed as a parable of our times, with a nod to Dickens; it shows that Johnny’s heart is in the right place. And the right place for the book is in the hands of any reader who appreciates humour of all complexions.

[A shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon and other sites.]

Book Review - Friendship Cemetery

Adele Elliott’s debut novel Friendship Cemetery is something to be savoured.  Halfway through the first page, I realised I was going to enjoy the book, and, happily, I wasn’t wrong.

The narrator, Emma Grace Lee, is almost nineteen and has a strange affection for Friendship Cemetery, Columbus, Mississippi.  ‘A few benches are also scattered around. I guess this is so that the ghosts who come out at night can sit and chat with each other,’ observes Emma, which may be construed as ‘maybe a bit morbid for an eighteen-year-old’.

Emma’s friends are Pea, Beau, and Tyrone, all of whom are well drawn. Pea is fragile and vulnerable, yet has a strong will, and is a lovely creation. Tyrone is shy and withdrawn, while Beau is clever and hiding a secret. Their parents and neighbours are distinct human beings, with their tragedies and petty jealousies, too.

Throughout, the observations and description put you in Emma’s world, where she is still suffering the loss of her father who died in New Orleans, a man whom her mother seems to have expunged from memory.  ‘When you lose someone there is always one more thing you wanted to say to them.’

The voice of Emma is captured perfectly – reminding me a little of Harper Lee’s Scout Finch, despite an age difference of several years. There’s the humour, pathos, compassion, irony and even satire.  She has never been to New Orleans, but knows all about it from her late father, and rather hankers after leaving Columbus to go there. ‘In this city, unlike New Orleans, dead people prefer to stay in the ground and are apparently quite comfortable there.’

It’s a Southern Gothic tale, not just because of the ghostliness of the cemetery, but also the healing ability of Tyrone’s mother; and the general behaviour of many citizens and their concealed past that is gradually disinterred. As Emma muses, ‘Willowbrook is the mental health facility connected to Baptist Hospital. There are no willows, and no brook. I think a crazy person named it.’

In truth, you’d be crazy to miss this book.

A shorter version of this review will appear on Amazon and Goodreads.

Screenplay - Death is Another Life (beginning)

This is the beginning of a screenplay I wrote based on my vampire novel of the same name. Yes, it's a different approach to novel writing; I had to excise much that was in the novel. The hard part isn't the writing, however, it's finding someone to read it. If you thought it was hard to place a book with an agent/publisher, try getting a reader in the business to look at your script!

There is a pathologist's scene, so please look away if you're squeamish...

You can read the text version as an excerpt here

Legend:
V.O. = Voice off scene
EXT = Exterior
B.g = background
INT = Interior

Malta - Delimera Point

“DEATH IS ANOTHER LIFE”

FADE IN:

EXT.  AERIAL VIEW - MALTA - DAWN

A painted eye, red and white staring out of a blue background, with an arching black brow.  Wide open, ever alert.   The eye of Osiris, to ward off evil.  Painted on the prow of a fishing boat.

We pull away, to see three small boats, with huge night lamps hanging over their sterns, still lit but no competition for the dawn spreading gold across the Mediterranean.

Sea-gulls circle, screeching, accompanied by the muted chugging of motors and the lapping of the sea.

B.g. - cliffs of Malta, reddish-brown.

The eyes on their boats are old superstition and they don’t work.  Evil is already on the islands.

Two fishermen with cigarettes dangling from their mouths  struggle to haul in their net. 

Water sluices off and they see a human arm protruding through, then the rest of a naked body.

EXT.  FISHING BOAT - DAY

The fisherman crosses himself and says something to his companion.

The other fisherman flicks his cigarette butt into the sea then pulls out a cell-phone from a food-basket under the seat.

DR CARUANA (V.O.)

The smell isn’t too bad.  Fish have eaten the contents of the

stomach and intestines.

CUT TO:

INT.  MORGUE - DAY

Floriana Morgue. The clock on the wall says 17:45.  The ticking is faint but can be heard above the sounds of flesh being professionally sliced.  We just heard DR CARUANA, 60, a pathologist, speaking into a suspended microphone.

Beside him is his daughter, MARIA CARUANA, 30.  Attractive. She’s Maltese-American, a reporter.  Both are in green scrubs and gloves.  Cream on her upper lip to combat bad odours.  The rest of the staff have gone.

The cadaver on the metal autopsy table is female, the front of her torso gaping from throat to pubis.  Her skin has a pulpy sickly white sheen to it. Maria points to the gaping wound.

MARIA

Hey, Dad, this isn’t your usual ‘Y’-cut.

He ignores her comment and removes the woman’s lungs. Weighs them.

(He switches the mike on before reading out the weight of each body part then switches it off).

DR CARUANA

Lungs: 1.2 kilograms. And before you ask,

she’s Doris Tabone, the heiress.

MARIA

I know, I can’t use it in my paper just yet.

He glances up, notices the crucifix dangling from his daughter’s neck.

DR CARUANA

You’re still wearing your mother’s necklace.

MARIA

Her dying wish. (Defiantly) It doesn’t change

how I feel about religion.

DR CARUANA

Maria, Maria, you were always too hard on her beliefs.

He removes the heart, places this on the scales.

DR CARUANA (CONT’D)

Heart: 280 grams.

I envied her deep faith, you know.

As a scientist, I’ve lost that simplicity, that sureness.

MARIA

But you were never close.

DR CARUANA

We were, my dear. You were too young to notice. 

When she left, taking you to America,

a light went out in my  world.

It’s the liver’s turn for the scales.

DR CARUANA (CONT’D)

Liver:  1.4 kilograms.

MARIA

(accusingly)

But you never came after us!

DR CARUANA

I wanted to, but my work -

MARIA

 

You were always bringing

the smell of death home.

DR CARUANA

So - I’m grateful you brought her back,

even if only to die here.

MARIA

It’s what she wanted.

 
Her mouth suddenly twists.

MARIA (CONT’D)

What’s that?

 

INSERT - GAPING CAVITY OF BODY

A white-and-red speckled ganglion.

BACK TO SCENE

MARIA (CONT’D)

It looks like an umbilical--

He lifts up the cord-like appendage and nods, eyes suddenly very sad.

DR CARUANA

She was pregnant.

              There’s no sign of the baby.

MARIA

These cuts - they were done with a knife.

DR CARUANA

Sacrificial.

MARIA

Oh, God, the baby was cut out of her, wasn’t it?

DR CARUANA

Probably.

MARIA

Dad, I don’t deal in probabilities - only facts!

DR CARUANA

Yes, sacrifice.

MARIA

Jesus!  (Beat) She isn’t the first, is she?

DR CARUANA

I’ve had my suspicions for a few months.

MARIA

Suspicions!  What, like Black Magic?

DR CARUANA

Probably.

MARIA

You’re joking, Dad.  Black Magic here –

               an island with a church for every day of the year?

DR CARUANA

Yes, but if you went to church you’d see the congregation is

of a certain age - and mostly old women.

MARIA

What will you do?

DR CARUANA

Nothing.  I’m too near to pension.

            I just want to retire with my roses on Gozo.

MARIA

            (outraged)

Well, I’m not going to let it lie. She deserves better. 

I’m going to find out which twisted pervert did this!

CUT TO:

MONTAGE - LIBRARIES - DAY

A)        Cathedral crypt. Maria leafing through a very old book padlocked to the wall.  Making notes.

B)  University library. Well-stocked shelves. Maria scanning microfiches.

C)  Private library. Maria reading computer screen, typing while surrounded by medieval shields, swords on the walls, with bookshelves between them.

D)  Public library. Maria annoyed at obviously not finding anything useful. On the shelf, a Book of Mediterranean Birds.

AZZOPARDI (V.O.)

We must stamp on the ugly face of crime!

It is ruining our children’s futures!

CUT TO:

EXT.  AERIAL VIEW - VALLETTA - DAY

A flock of big black birds -- Black Kites -- flying over Valletta Harbour, over the liners and steam-ships, the walled city, down to Queen’s Square, just off Republic Street ...

... where a crowd of people gather, listening to a loud brass band.

A garish float follows the band then stops outside the Caffé Cordina whose tables are ranged on the street and across the road in the square.  In a corner of the square is the black statue of Queen Victoria.

On the float is a National Party politician, Manuel AZZOPARDI, a megaphone in his hands.  Above him is a banner showing his name and party.

AZZOPARDI

Malta is not the centre of the universe. 

We must pay our way.

The black birds, not perturbed by the music and noise, perch on a roof-top, sinister, watching, and...

EXT/INT.  QUEEN’S SQUARE/CAFFÉ CORDINA - DAY

... Maria notices them and turns away, uncomfortable at their appearance.  She’s sitting opposite Detective Sergeant Francis ATTARD, 42, at a table in the square.  He’s a rather portly man in crumpled tan suit, open-necked shirt.  We can see the belt holster and revolver under his jacket folds.  Maria is in a colourful sleeveless dress.

Their sea-food meal is half-finished.  They sip white Marsovin wine.

MARIA

It’s good of you to see me, Francis,

at such short notice.

ATTARD

I spend most of my lunch-breaks here,

watching the world go by.

And not watching my weight!

Many of the tables are occupied, the diners idly curious about the antics of Azzopardi, who is overweight and sweating in his dark suit and tie.  Others couldn’t care less.  There’s the sound of cutlery, dishes, loud talking, the hubbub of passers-by.

Police in tan uniforms and Ray-ban sunglasses stand at regular intervals along the procession’s route up Republic Street. Waiters and waitresses weave between the tables. Nobody is in any particular hurry.

AZZOPARDI

We must get things done today,

         not next month, not next year!

A waiter rushes through the crowd and leans over Attard.

Attard gets up and follows the waiter through the crowd ...

INTO CAFFÉ CORDINA ...

... and passes two men, ZONDADARI, 40s, and BONELLO, 35, sitting by the window as he makes for the wall-mounted phone in the contrasting dark interior of the café ...

Zondadari is reflected in the ornate gilt mirror on opposite wall.  He’s handsome: the REFLECTION reveals a badly scarred RIGHT cheek, glinting eyes and a smile playing on his lips.  He is talking to Bonello who looks tired and drawn, eyes sunken yet filled with a strange light.

ZONDADARI

Now, Bonello, is the time to exert your

leadership of the New Power Party. 

Just concentrate very hard and your

opponent won’t know what hit him.

BONELLO

I will try, Count Zondadari.

Bonello closes his eyes and his face hardens.  Oblivious to his surroundings...

... while Maria is leaning over the back of her seat, watching Azzopardi the politician. 

Azzopardi stops a moment to bite on a sandwich a pretty girl helper has given him. Then:

AZZOPARDI

A vote for me is a vote for the future of these

magnificent islands! Vote Azzopardi!

Which is the signal for the band to start again. And, as if disturbed by the sound of the brass instruments, the black kites flap their wings, take off and drop towards the float, circling Azzopardi, suddenly covering his face.

Some onlookers scream. 

Azzopardi tries batting the birds away with the megaphone.  A bird snatches his sandwich and flies off.

And Azzopardi overbalances, the birds still surrounding him.

He falls off the float... as a policeman withdraws his revolver and shoots it in the air, chasing the birds away.

People run back, screaming, fearful.

While Azzopardi falls directly under the wheels of the following limousine.

Whistles blow, police rush through the panicking crowd. The band players stop, though not in unison, it’s a squawking cacophony... followed by silence...

While Maria, having seen it all, closes her eyes and...

...Bonello opens his eyes, looking quite pleased with himself.  He’s flushed, looks down, grateful his lap is covered with a napkin.

ZONDADARI

Enjoy that, then?

BONELLO

Yes, very much.

 

ZONDADARI

Remember, that was possible through

the sacrifice of a new life.

BONELLO

Yes... as you keep reminding me!

 

ZONDADARI

Just think what more is possible in this election. 

The New Power Party can’t lose!

Attard passes their table, heading outside to finish his meal with Maria. Attard notices the commotion and stops to talk with a policeman. He shakes his head, pats the cop on the shoulder and walks up to Maria’s table.

ATTARD

(to Maria)

I’ve got to give evidence at the

Law Courts in an hour.

MARIA

Can I have the story?

ATTARD

Sure. Family feud. The usual.

 

Sitting down, he thumbs back at the crowd.

ATTARD (CONT’D)

Looks like his policies took a nose-dive.

 

Maria pushes the plate away, no longer hungry.

 

MARIA

It was an awful accident.

At least, I think it was an accident.

 

ATTARD

Hey, don’t get paranoid on me. I doubt if there’s

anything in your father’s suspicions, but I’ll

dig up any strange goings-on in our reports, okay?

 

MARIA

(shaking her head)

You didn’t see those birds. They seemed

to know what they were doing.

Attard is cutting open a pawpaw with a fruit knife from his pocket.  Eating it. Wiping his mouth with a paper handkerchief.

Maria pulls herself together.

MARIA (CONT’D)

Okay, Francis, get me anything you can

find in your musty old police files.

ATTARD

The supernatural. Do you believe in it?

MARIA

No.  I just want the story. Something that’ll

push Azzopardi’s death off of page one.

ATTARD

Well, I do.  And it scares me.

She gives him a look of disbelief.

ATTARD (CONT’D)

Three years ago I was called in by

the curator of Ghar Dalam cave.

 

MARIA

I read about that in George’s back issues. You were lucky to

get out alive.  But I don’t remember anything supernatural...

ATTARD

Yes, I was lucky.  Not like the poor priest.

DISSOLVE TO:

 

EXT.  GHAR DALAM MUSEUM - DAY (THREE YEARS AGO)

... and there we'll leave it. The script was finished some time ago, the standard length, 150 pages. Note the white space - lots of it. Speech is kept to a minimum, also. I try to limit the instructions to the actors (in brackets) - they prefer to interpret the emotions of the characters.