The Club(62)

That was when it had occurred to him it might be a good idea to find somewhere quiet and dark to be alone with his thoughts for a little while.

There were two screening rooms on the island, both housed in the same purpose-built cabin, both equipped with top-of-the-range sound and projection equipment and seats as spacious and comfy as armchairs. This weekend, one screen was showing a programme of self-consciously hip, trippy stuff (El Topo, Szindbád, Stalker, A Field in England). The other, rather obsequiously, was showing the complete works of Jackson Crane in chronological order – and was currently, Adam saw on the blackboard in the foyer bar, up to 1997’s Captain Aquatic. There was, of course, no sign on the door about turning your phone off, because this was the island without phones. As the door bumped closed behind him, Adam switched his own off and slunk into the back row.

Captain Aquatic. That took him back. Oh boy, what a mess of a movie that had been. Of all the films either Ron Cox or Jackson Crane had ever made, it was comfortably the worst. The epitome of a bad 1990s superhero movie. The whole concept of the thing unpromising to begin with (surfer dude nipped by genetically altered dolphin gains increased strength, swimming abilities and sonar, plus a heightened sense of mankind’s environmental responsibilities). Jackson Crane with that terrible blond dye-job, kicking henchmen through crates, running across rooftops, leaping off exploding speedboats, delivering laughable dialogue in a strange monotone. The endless fight scenes in smoky alleys, slow-motion roundhouse kicks. The terrible special effects throughout. The laughable plasticity of the dolphin. The deadly leaden irony of it all, the cheap cynicism, the joylessness. Perhaps that was just what happened when you took a funny, fresh, playful comic and tried to use it to sell a million plastic toys. Perhaps it was something to do with the notorious on-set tension between Jackson and Ron, their simmering dislike for one another. Captain Aquatic was one of those films you always thought you’d be able to enjoy if you turned half your brain off, but which somehow even then felt strangely depressing.

Evidently this was also the conclusion that the two members in the front row had reached; they left noisily just after Adam arrived, tripping up the steps to the exit in the dark. Now, apart from Adam, only two people remained in the room. Adam couldn’t see the person in the third row, but could tell someone was there by the gentle, rhythmic snoring. The third, down at the far end of the row in front of him, was Georgia Crane. Had she noticed him come in? He thought not. She seemed intent on the car chase unfolding in front of them, Jackson Crane (or more likely his stunt double) dangling in latex from the wing mirror of an eighteen-wheeler, the driver attempting to lean across and bang on his fingers with a tyre iron. It was always strange watching someone you actually know up on the big screen, so much larger than life, both themselves and not. It must be even weirder with someone you were married to. How old would Georgia have been, when this movie came out? A student, certainly. Perhaps she had gone to see it with her college friends at the cinema. That was pretty strange to think about too.

Jackson Crane took a tyre iron to the face and fell back with a cry. Georgia did not flinch. Now it was just Crane’s fingertips on the open window frame keeping him from falling, from tumbling under the wheels of the juggernaut. There was blood in the corner of his mouth. There was a rip in the shoulder of his costume.

Adam had wondered at points if Georgia had had any idea what she was getting herself into when she married Jackson Crane. He didn’t just mean the fame thing, either, although it was easy enough to read the relationship cynically, to itemize the ways that being seen out on the bigger star’s arm had boosted her visibility, how being his fiancée had brought her attention. Their marriage had helped a smart and ambitious young actress launch her career, and the lifestyle, the platform, the opportunities she had gained in return were undeniable. It was also easy to imagine how often he was away filming, or she was; how little time they ever actually spent together.

What he really meant was how well she had actually known Jackson Crane when she had agreed to spend the rest of her life with him. The truth being that he was very good at presenting himself as exactly who the person with him wanted him to be. Adam could all too easily imagine him asking Georgia for book recommendations, frowning in heavy-rimmed spectacles at one of Beckett’s novels, sitting with her (in a coat with the collar turned up) through some avant-garde poetry reading.

And Georgia had been young, much younger than him, only twenty-two when they met, only twenty-four when they married. How could you possibly imagine what it would be like, being married to someone like Jackson Crane, at that age? The relentless media glare, everywhere you went. The intensity with which people all around the world knew you, or thought they did, and held an opinion on your relationship; your clothes; your actions. All the things in life you’d be able to do – the doors your new-found fame would open – and yet, simultaneously, all the things you’d never be able to do again, or at least, not without someone lying in wait to photograph you; hoping to catch you in an unflattering outfit or from an unfortunate angle. The number of people with a financial stake in every aspect of your lives, every aspect of your marriage. What all that might do to your psyche. To both of your psyches.

He could remember Ned convincing Jackson to hold the wedding – this must have been the summer of 2000 – at the not-yet-open Highland Home, a brilliant PR coup given the guest list. He could still taste the panic of trying and not quite managing to get the place (over budget and delayed as usual) ready in time for their wedding, having to order five hundred box hedges to hide cement mixers and piles of bricks, laying acres of heather at eye-watering expense because it had fried in the extremely unexpected heatwave. Making sure that everything looked perfect. How happy they’d looked that day. How rapturously happy. How hard it was to imagine that Georgia had had any idea what the man she was marrying was capable of.