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Hadley on Valentine's Day


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#1 emmapeel

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Posted 01 January 2011 - 03:57 AM

"Hadley", by Nick Macfie, is about a plot to bring down an actor tipped to become the next James Bond. Great stuff. http://www.earnshawb...t&product_id=36

#2 emmapeel

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Posted 01 January 2011 - 08:44 AM

"But if some prat had to play James Bond, it had to be a British prat, and Patrick McGoohan (long Hadley’s choice for the role) was by then far too old. This was the gist of the words that slopped onto the page under a few pictures of the leading candidates (inset of Patrick McGoohan). Thunderballs." - Nick Macfie, author of "Hadley"

“We’re talking James Bond here. There is a heritage that has to be protected. Resurrected and protected.” - Joe Stein

"McGoohan would have been an excellent James Bond. Up there with Connery. He had the coldness and the brutality. All Brosnan and Moore had was charm. I’ve told the team that the actor who plays 007 must be dark, hard and brutal. He cannot look like a guy who has soft hands or wears an earring or uses hairspray." - Joe Stein

.... And some dialogue. just to give you a taste...
"What happened was, we were asleep last night, but I seem to recall the trap door in the roof opening. Like it was a dream. And then I fell asleep again and I dreamt this man – it was too dark to tell who but actually for some reason I thought it may have been ghastly Robert Pattinson – dressed all in black, who crept on to the beam above my bed. From his top pocket he pulled some cotton thread and a phial. He unravelled the cotton so it fell to just above my head. I dreamt that beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he unscrewed the phial and poured three drops on to the cotton. Drop followed drop down the string. It was just like that Bond film in Japan... What’s the matter?”
“You’re telling us your dream, Chris,” said Joe. “I don’t want to hear about your dreams.”
“No, but wait. This is the spooky part. I woke up, Joe. I woke up, and I opened my eyes, and what did I see?”
“I don’t know. Dolly Parton?”
“I saw the string! The end of it was about two inches above my nose. And I could see it was wet!”
“Are you trying to tell me they tried to kill you by dabbing your nose with wet string?”
“Don’t be silly, Joe. It was that James Bond film, ‘You Only Live Twice’. A drop of something reached the bottom of the string and was about to fall...”
“On to your nose.”
“Into my mouth, man. But then Linda turned in her sleep and pushed me... actually she kneed me in the balls, and before I could take stock, a drop had fallen into her mouth.”

Edited by emmapeel, 02 January 2011 - 09:43 AM.
Topics merged


#3 emmapeel

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Posted 26 January 2011 - 11:39 AM

An earlier extract...

Hadley was escorted into what looked like a kitchen, except that there were no appliances. There was a picture of Sean Connery, Pussy Galore at his side, on the wall above a pool table. There were also a lot of men in the room, sitting on chairs against the walls and talking among themselves. They all wore suits and a couple had pool cues in their hands. One was wearing a shoulder holster. Hadley gulped.
“Guys,” the big man said. “I’d like you say hello to…”
“Hadley Arnold.”
“He’s with the press.”
“How did you know that?”
“It’s written on your windshield. It says ‘press’.”
A few raised their arms in greeting and murmured words of welcome. A man with a paunch and dark hair tied back in a ponytail walked over. He was struggling to tuck in his shirt. He put out his hand.
“I’m Joe,” he said. “Don’t be a berk.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m playing with you. I said don’t be a berk. As an English joke. Because you like your ribald jokes, right? Cockney rhyming slang. Berkshire hunt. What rhymes with hunt? Don’t be a berk. What’s your name again?”
“Hadley Arnold.”
They shook hands. Joe, humming now, appeared to be examining Hadley’s teeth.
“Hadley Arnold?”
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure that’s not Arnold Hadley?”
“No.”
“You’re not sure?”
“No. I mean I’m sure.”
“Because Arnold is usually a first name.”
“No, but really, I’m sure. I know my own name. And what order the words are in.”
“Good.” Joe slapped Hadley’s arm. “You’ve come to watch the movie with us?”
“No. I...”
“It’s ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. Highly under-rated. You want to watch?”
“No, I can’t.” Tell them why, Hadley. “My father has a hernia.”
“Well I’m sorry to hear that. So how can we help you, Harvey?”
“Hadley.”

#4 emmapeel

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Posted 29 January 2011 - 02:56 AM

Behind the beautiful Thai, behind the nodding detective, sitting at the far end of the bar next to one of the VIP sofas and tables discreetly hidden behind plastic foliage, was the man with the ponytail.
“Hadley? You’ve gone all red.”
“It’s okay,” Hadley said. “I have to...”
What did he have to do? What had he done to warrant this attention? (Was it the trousers?) The man was stalking him day and night. Hadley said his apologies to the Thai girl and walked down the length of the bar, past the detective, to Joe’s stool. He studied the profile and the man ignored him. It was a smiling face now, self-conscious. One second there was a lot of hand movement, rubbing of the jaw and the cheeks, and then he was still. Hadley felt his heart do one of its unhealthy skips.
“Do you remember me?”
Joe, the American movie man, turned and smiled. He looked like an overweight boxer with hairs on his nose.
“No. I don’t think so.”
He turned back to the bar. Hadley stared some more and Joe was smirking again. A lot of neck movements now, like a hen, as he studied a photo of Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates on the wall in front of him.
“But I remember you. I remember you from Sotobech.”
“You don’t know me from Adam, pal.”
“No, but I do. You mustn’t mess me around. I met you in Sotobech when they were filming ‘Great Expectations’. I came to your house.”
Joe turned and looked at Hadley who, never one for reflection, thought back briefly to the Fens and remembered ‘Cadillac’ written on the wing mirror of one of the limos. Almost twenty years earlier.
“ ‘Great Expectations’? I know that movie,” Joe said, looking Hadley up and down, his eyes resting briefly on the red stain next to Hadley’s crotch. “David Lean, 1946. Class act.”
“No, not that one. They were doing a remake. And you and your friends were there. Driving Cadillacs.”
Joe drummed his fingers on the bar. He caught the eye of the Thai girl and winked. “ ‘Great Expectations’, you say. Funny, I’ve never seen it. Maybe they never got around to making it. Have you seen it?”
“No, but...”
“They say seeing is believing. I reckon they didn’t make it in the end. I reckon they came to their senses, out there on that God-forsaken swamp, and gave up the whole shooting match.”
“So you do remember?”
Joe slapped his hand on the bar and got up from his stool. He looked at Hadley and sighed. “I’ll be seeing you.” He brushed ash off Hadley’s shoulder. “We can talk more about the movies. Big James Bond fan myself.” Joe started down the aisle to the door and turned, a smile on his face. “Tip of the day: don’t be so scared. Take a risk here and there. Nice pants, by the way.”
And with that, he was out through the velvet curtains into the neon light and road-side incense. Hadley asked the mama-san if she had seen Joe before. She said he was a first-time cheap Charlie.

#5 emmapeel

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Posted 06 February 2011 - 09:43 AM

“Hello, is that Arnold Harley?”
“No it’s not.”
There was a pause. “I’m sorry, this is Eric from Camden Radio in London. We are trying to trace Arnold Harley.”
“He’s not here.”
“Oh.”
“I am Hadley Arnold. Can I help?”
“I do apologise. They told us you were still up.”
“I’m still up, yes. Who told you? How did you get this number?”
“I’m not quite sure actually.”
“Well, what do you want?”
“We were wondering if you could spare us a couple of minutes on our Asia Focus programme. We could take you there live in a few minutes. Sorry for such short notice, but you know how it is.”
“How is it?”
“We heard about some trouble near where you are.”
“Nearby. But I haven’t heard any news for hours. You’ll have to make the questions general.”
“Okay. No problem. Thanks for helping us out. Let me get the pronunciation right. Hadley Arnold.”
“That’s right.”
“And you’re in the middle of the war zone, near Tarragona.”
“Tarragona?”
“Please hold on.”
Hadley heard a scuffle of voices and a hand put across the phone and then Eric was back on the line.
“Sorry, you’re not the Hadley Arnold?”
“I am Hadley Arnold. I’m not sure what you mean. I’m not in Spain.”
“You’re the guy that saved Chris Torment’s life, right?”
“Not exactly.”
Hadley heard Eric put his hand over the phone again and say: “What a ****.” He came back on the line but not as friendly as before. “Okay, tell me if you can hear me clearly.”
“I can hear you. I’m not in Tarragona.”
“I don’t care where you are. Don’t mess around, okay? I’m going to leave you with the show. You will hear Susan sign off a guest, there will be a time check and a bit of the jingle. He’ll introduce you, and then you’ll be on live. Is that clear?”
“Susan’s a he? I’m not in Spain.”
“I’m leaving you with the show.”
Hadley listened and waited. Familiar night-time British commercial radio sounds. He imagined deserted motorways and people smoking cigarettes and stamping their feet in the cold outside service stations. He envisioned West End streets after all the bars had closed and dodgy people standing in shop doorways, near casinos, waiting for fun. When fun didn’t arrive, they stood in shop doorways waiting for mini-cabs. They didn’t arrive either. Hadley thought about Torment’s power to bonk and wondered what line the ******* had used on his sister. His sister! And he wasn’t even famous then. Hadley wanted a gin and tonic. Then he heard Susan.
“And now we are going over live to the South Pacific Macho Island where the ethnic war has been raging for donkeys with all sorts of mayhem. On the line from the war front in Tamaranda is Shrubs’s man in deep doo-doo, Harley Armwood. Harley, are you there?”
Hadley allowed a long pause.
“Hello, mum?”
“Hello, is that Harley Armwood?”
“Hello, mum?”
“Hello Harley. Good to have you Cool on Camden. Harley, tell us, we’ve been hearing dreadful stories about bombs in Colombia, tourists pulling out in droves, the economy in tatters. But I hear there’s a light side to all this. What’s it all about?”
Hadley thought a while. A light side to all this? In Colombia? He took a deep breath.
“Hello, mum?”
“Oh dear, we seem to have a crossed line...”
“Hello. This is Hadley Arnold.”
“Hadley. Welcome. We have you Cool on Camden. I don’t know whether you caught the question.”
“Not a word.”
“It’s just that we here in London have been hearing awful things about the fighting in Sri Lanka in recent years, but thankfully we hear there is a lighter side.”
“I’m sorry, Susan, but can’t think of one actually. There has been some sporadic violence here in Macho, but that is nothing out of the ordinary for this sun-baked archipelago where violence is pretty much, though not so much, endemic and entrenched after years of ethnic and civil unrest. As it is on the mainland.”
“Wow. Well, we hear that while some people may have been having a tough time of it, it’s onion soup on the house in all the top hotels.”
Hadley frowned and looked into the receiver. He banged it against a palm tree.
“Hello, Hadley. Are you there?”
“Yes, I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?”
“Yes. The papers here have picked up on the story that while some people may have been having a tough time of it in, um, near you, it’s onion soup on the house in all the top hotels.”
The penny dropped. The onion story. Hadley tried to remember his intro. “Well, you’re not far wrong there, Susan. It appears a ship carrying a load of red onions was barred entry from one of the islands and the skipper decided to dump his load overboard and look for trade elsewhere.”
“Oh no. What happened?”
“Oh yes. Well, put it this way, Susan, the British tourists are not the only things lying on the beaches turning red and peeling.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Wow, what a story. You mean the onions are being
washed up on the beaches?”
“That’s right, Susan. In their hundreds. What a load of... onions. All along the golden beaches of this tropical paradise.”
“And they’re peeling?”
“Well, I expect so.”
“You said they were.”
“They are.”
“So you saw them. And I hear that the locals are showing some pretty amazing entrepreneurial spirit?”
“That’s right, Susan. They’ve been gathering up the onions and selling them at roadside stores, and making a hefty profit into the bargain.”
“And it’s onion soup on all the hotel menus tonight, right?”
“I expect so, but I’d plump for the melon for starters. The soup could be a tad salty.”
“Ha ha ha. Okay, that sounds like good advice from the tropics. But swap me some of that equatorial sunshine for some salty soup any time.”
“Yes, but the onions are really ‘Macho ado about nothing’ as there has been a war raging on the mainland and only last night...”
“I also see Hadley, from a piece of paper just handed to me, that you’re the Hadley Arnold who saved Chris Torment’s life in Hong Kong a few weeks back.”
“Well, that’s not strictly...”
“And now we are hearing rumours he’s been kidnapped near you?”
Where did they get that from? “Kidnapped? I haven’t heard that. But I am here. I mean, I will find out what’s going on.”
“Our man in deep doo-doo and he hasn’t got a clue. Extraordinary. But there we have to leave the tropics and return to grimy old London where we hear a coal truck has shed its load at the north end of Tottenham Court Road...”
“Hadley?”
“Yes?”
“Hadley, it’s all over. You’re back with Eric. Thanks for that onion ********.”
“Thanks for what?”
“For that ******** about the onions.”
“You mean that’s it?”
“Bugger off.”

#6 emmapeel

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Posted 14 February 2011 - 12:36 PM

“You think we can just make up stories? The whole point of the news agency business is that we get it right and are seen to get it right. Or else no one would ever use us. Everything is sourced. ”
“So every quote is word for word legit?”
“Of course it is! You obviously don’t know much about news. How long do you think we would be in business if we made up quotes?”
Hadley felt one of his lapses of concentration coming on. He drifted back to his days on the Sotobech Sentinel and a fabricated Women’s Institute report sent to a rival paper about a handicraft afternoon in which the only materials at hand for each member were a cucumber, two onions and lots of aluminium foil.
“Sorry?” Hadley realised Joe was speaking to him in the present. Twenty years later. In a house on the Peak in Hong Kong.
“I said, what about that double happiness Valentine’s Day ****?”
“I’m sorry?”
Hadley racked his brain and resented having to. He had produced sixty lines the day St Valentine’s Day coincided with the Chinese equivalent in the lunar calendar, a couple of years before the handover. He had had to go out to flower shops and find out how much bouquets of roses were selling for, how much a romantic dinner for two would set you back at the Peninsula Hotel. He had to ask people in the street if love could conquer all.
“Does this day have special significance for you, being St Valentine’s Day and the Chinese equivalent?” he had asked one unsuspecting young Chinese couple as they stepped off a tram.
“Ah?”
“Do you think it’s extra romantic, poignant, because of the two days being on the same day?”
“Ah?”
A few hours later he was banging out his story. “Love is a many splendored thing, or so the saying goes, and St Valentine’s Day meant double happiness for Hong Kong’s young and restless on Tuesday as East met West in an alignment of the stars.”
Ah?
“Well, what about it?” Hadley asked.
“Did you think that was a good story?”
“No, it was a piece of rubbish. But it was a harmless piece of rubbish. No one was expecting an in-depth survey. No one’s credibility was at stake. Certainly not mine. It was a fun story about young lovers!”
“What do you know about young lovers?”
“It was an extended caption to go with a picture. We call them slice-of-life stories. Stand-alone stories to accompany a picture. This wasn’t the Nuremburg trials.”
“Well I want to put your idiot friend Chris Torment on some kind of trial.”
“I am not going to manufacture stories.”
“So write what you see. I know how you feel about Torment. Don’t try to pretend to me that there is such a thing as an objectively written story. Boy, I know more about your business than you do.”