The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle Page A

coal-burning engine. Ellen went ahead of him. She opened the door of the firebox and stepped back to let Kelvin throw the readies into the fire. Big Liam came charging at Kelvin but, no surprises, Kelvin decked him with a few good thumps. Kelvin shook the sweat off his neck, turned to the missis, and they all lived happily ever after.
    And John Ford thought he could force my life into that. That the life and even partially remembered times of Henry Smart could be reduced to a fight across a fuckin’ farmyard, for a couple of quid and the right to ride a good-looking culchie.
    I’d kill him. I’d give him his final scene. I’d batter him through the floorboards.
    I went back out to Republic. I walked into a new, hot day.
    But Ford wasn’t there.
    He was never there. And then there was no there . He’d moved again, to a different studio. There was a different director in Ford’s Republic bungalow. A younger man, with a younger secretary. She’d never heard of Mister Ford, she said. She was a hard girl behind the gorgeousness, or because of it. The message was clear: I’d be found when I was wanted. I could fight when he was ready.
    I walked to every studio; there was one at the end of every day-long avenue. Fox, Universal, MGM. I waited at the guarded gates. I climbed high fences after dark. I clubbed a German shepherd to death with the leg and its boot before I could get the thing off properly. I didn’t have time, and neither did the dog. I fell on him as his last bark licked my face.
    I gasped and laughed. I was living.
    I crept under palm trees, behind the lines of studio bungalows. I peered through blinds, for photographs of cowboys and their leading ladies. I found plenty but none of them were Ford’s. I jemmied locks and remembered how to get past window glass. I sat at desks and read scripts and script notes. I read in the dark. I looked for Ford in the lines. I resisted temptation; I added no notes of my own. I read all the hard men and war heroes, bad girls and heroines. But Ford wasn’t directing any of them.
    It stopped mattering, because every night I read. I learnt the codes and shortcuts. I knew what a script looked like now. I knew the layout and the language. I sat in the cave under Cecil B. DeMille’s desk and read every script in his Paramount bungalow, using a torch I’d bought on the way.
    I heard the key. The door opened.
    I walked out, past the woman who’d opened it. I was carrying the waste bin.
    —Grand morning, I said, the new janitor, in good suit and fedora.
    —Yes, said the woman.
    I dumped the rubbish behind a bush and brought the bin back in. I put it back beside her desk. She hadn’t moved.
    —See you tomorrow, I said.
    I broke into Ford’s house. I stood in the hall and knew he wasn’t there. I looked in the hidden rooms. I looked for scripts - Rio Grande , The Quiet Man - but I found nothing.
    I kept moving. It was the best time I’d lived in years. I was awake and younger. Over walls and fences, through wooden and cast-iron doors. Singin’ in the Rain , High Noon . I read them all; I prowled the sets. I fed the horses and pissed in the water tank. Gene Kelly never knew what rained on him while he was singing. I roamed all night and slept through the days.
    —Mister Smart.
    I left Bill at the door. He followed me in.
    —Ready? he said.
    —For what?
    —Mister Ford wants to talk with you, said Bill.
    —Is that right?
    —Yes, said Bill.
    —Grand, I said.
    —All set? he said.
    And I told him.
    —No.
    He was shocked, then anxious and annoyed.
    —You won’t come?
    —No.
    —What do I tell Mister Ford? he said.
    —It’s up to you.
    —You won’t meet him?
    —I didn’t say that.
    —Should I come back tomorrow?
    —Fair enough.
    —Tomorrow morning?
    —Grand.
    He walked to the door.
    —Goodbye, Mister Smart, he said.
    —Good luck, I said, and followed him to the door. He stopped and looked back. We could hear a fight going on, a few rooms away. A serious one -