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Chapters (48)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Introduction
  4. Endland
  5. About Lisa
  6. Shame Of Shane
  7. Who would dream that truth was lies?
  8. Eve & Mary
  9. Chaikin/Twins
  10. James
  11. The Shell Garages History Of Mud
  12. Kelly
  13. Morton & Kermit
  14. Crash Family Robinson
  15. Wendy’s Daughter
  16. Void House
  17. Jonesey
  18. Killing Of Frank
  19. Arse on Earth
  20. The life, movies & short times of Natalie Gorgeous
  21. German Fokker
  22. Carmen by Bizet
  23. They get you most all gone when you always alone
  24. It is murky and opaque
  25. intentions seem good
  26. Cellar Story
  27. I thought I smelled something dirty
  28. Last of the First 11
  29. The Ant and The Grasshopper
  30. The Chapter
  31. Mission of Jobbin
  32. wanted to get a good look
  33. Taxi Driver
  34. Loose Promise
  35. The children of the rich
  36. The Waters Rising
  37. #Dibber
  38. Long Fainting/Try Saving Again
  39. BureauGrotesque
  40. Anger is Just Sadness Turned Inside Out
  41. Maxine
  42. For the Avoidance of Doubt
  43. now not moving
  44. A Note about Endland
  45. Acknowledgements
  46. Dear readers
  47. This book was made possible thanks to the support of:
  48. About the Author

If you walk to the East facing edge of the building and duck under the security fencing you can get to the place from which Carla Labia jumped and ended her short life the day after the premiere of the film in her home town of Bradford, Endland (sic). She was wearing the costume she wears at the start of BONE GRAFTERS II – the little red cocktail dress that the press agency people still seem to love so much. There wasn’t a note. Just a list of the people she loved. And of her favourite places. And of her favourite journeys. And of her favourite books. There were rumours that she was several months pregnant – with a child conceived during filming itself. Take a look at her first big sex scene with Ludger Shat. People say that in its climactic moments there’s a flash of recognition in her eyes as he comes deep inside her – that that’s the moment when the child was conceived, a conception captured on celluloid, perhaps the only one in the whole history of cinema, though who knows. It’s possible, of course, like so many of these things, but none of it is provable.

This spot on the roof facing East beyond the security grilles is really something of a pilgrimage place – a suicide spot (for young lovers and lone girls) so notorious now that it had round-the-clock security until recent cut-backs in local government spending. The pavement below has seen the final movements, murmurings and ecstasies of some several hundred people – most of them teenagers, many of them Japanese.

‘The sky still gets dark at night . . .’

Those are Marnie’s last words in BONE GRAFTERS II and those who found Carla’s crumpled form on the ground below VOID HOUSE say she was whispering them then too.

‘The sky still gets dark at night, the stars still shine, the earth still spins . . . these are the certainties we cling to, these are the certainties we cling to . . .

On your way out take the elevator to the 5th floor landing and wait for the chilling so-familiar drone as it slows. Just close one eye and wait. As the door shudders open you can just about replicate the shot used by cameraman Aldrin to show the carnage in the second reel. Recall the bodies. The silence. The writing on the walls.