A man alone. But a happy man. He strolled up Vernon Avenue, planning his glorious future. He’d move, for starters. His current London address was fine as far as it went, but it wasn’t expensive enough for his new lifestyle. He, Hayden McGlynn, screenwriter, was on his way. He started plotting out the story in his head, adding a few details here and there. How the Pope Twins found redemption serving life for multiple homicide. How his double session with Marina hadn’t been strictly business.
He whipped out his mobile. Punched in Rich’s number. Waited.
RICH: Can’t get to the phone at the moment. It’s in my pocket but I’m all tied up. Leave a message if you think you’re important.
Good. Hayden was going to enjoy this. The double-act answerphone message. Hayden. Hayden as Rich. He waited for the beep then spoke.
‘Just a quickie, Dickie. Can’t do the tour.’
‘Why’s that, Ay?’
‘Well, Dickie, it’s like this. Too fucking busy. Wolfe Swift, Rich. Heard of him? Irish “fillum” actor. Six Oscars. Wants to shoot my script.’
‘Sweet, Ay. Now here’s how we play it.’
‘We? Nah, Dickie. Here’s how I play it. First fillum, Bad Blood. Not about us, Dickie, so relax. For now. Follow up. Rich Mann, Dead Mann. He kills his agent. That’s you, Rich. No idea how to do it yet, but don’t worry, pal. Hate will find a way.’
Hayden pressed End Call. He pictured Rich’s face when he listened to it. Now that was very cathartic. He put his mobile on silent and positively skipped past Madden’s with its crime scene tape, up to the corner, and left onto Kincora Road. He sauntered the last few yards towards Eddie’s, singing internally at the top of his voice. He was toying with the idea of cashing in his double session with Marina when Rusty leapt joyfully into his arms. The three aunts spoke over his ecstatic bark.
‘Howaya, Hayding. Long time, no see.’
‘So how are tings in Londing?’
‘And what, if we may make so bold, brings you back?’
Hayden peered over the cotoneaster. ‘Eddie’s funeral, ladies. Remember?’
‘Oh God, yes. The funerdle.’
‘What funerdle?’
‘The funerdle.’
‘Oh, that one. He left everyting to us, Hayding, by the way. In his will.’
‘Well, apart from Portrait of a Lovely Lady.’
‘He left that to Francis.’
‘But everyting else he left to us. To be passed on to his only begotting son, to wit Hayding, in the unlikely event, it says here, of us predeceasing same.’
‘He must’ve tought you’d die young, Hayding. You being a great artist and so fort.’
‘Who did, Dottie?’
‘Dodie. Eddie did.’
‘Oh, Eddie. Who’s Eddie?’
‘Eddie is.’
They stared at Hayden, innocently but mischievously, over the cotoneaster.
‘You’ll have to excuse us, Hayding. We tink we’ve got dementia.’
‘Stand well clear. It could be contagious.’
‘Plus, we’re up to here on morphine.’
Hayden walked briskly up Eddie’s driveway, followed by peals of affectionate, possibly drugged-up laughter which, mingled with the melodious trill of the blackbird on Eddie’s chimney and Rusty bounding up the drive after him, gave him a warm inner glow. A sense of peace. Of completion. Of all being right with the world.
He went inside. Put the kettle on. Sat at Eddie’s desk, his desk, and planned out his routine. Writing in the mornings. Double session with Marina in the afternoons. He’d use the mother complex as an opening gambit and see where it led. Who knew, if the sessions went well, he might even get to smoke that cigar.
He glanced out the window at the luxuriant foliage, which seemed to Hayden in his current state to be life-affirmingly, vibrantly alive. The sun shone across Eddie’s masterpiece, which now resembled nothing more or less than revered Irish screenwriter Hayden McGlynn.28
He opened his notebook. Blank notebook, blank page. Took the top off his Rollerball Needlevision TX20. Rusty sat at his feet, gazing adoringly up as Hayden began to write.
BAD BLOOD
By
Hayden McGlynn
INT. STAGE. NIGHT.
HAYDEN McGLYNN IS ONSTAGE.
HAYDEN: (V/O) I couldn’t see the audience from the stage. This was good. I didn’t want to see the audience from the stage. I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else, working on my novel. But there I was. Going through the motions. Again.
The kettle boiled. Hayden wrote on. The kettle could wait.
28 Prof. Larry Stern, Disquisition, Chapter XXXIV – Comedy and Self-Delusion.