Chapters (48)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Introduction
- Endland
- About Lisa
- Shame Of Shane
- Who would dream that truth was lies?
- Eve & Mary
- Chaikin/Twins
- James
- The Shell Garages History Of Mud
- Kelly
- Morton & Kermit
- Crash Family Robinson
- Wendy’s Daughter
- Void House
- Jonesey
- Killing Of Frank
- Arse on Earth
- The life, movies & short times of Natalie Gorgeous
- German Fokker
- Carmen by Bizet
- They get you most all gone when you always alone
- It is murky and opaque
- intentions seem good
- Cellar Story
- I thought I smelled something dirty
- Last of the First 11
- The Ant and The Grasshopper
- The Chapter
- Mission of Jobbin
- wanted to get a good look
- Taxi Driver
- Loose Promise
- The children of the rich
- The Waters Rising
- #Dibber
- Long Fainting/Try Saving Again
- BureauGrotesque
- Anger is Just Sadness Turned Inside Out
- Maxine
- For the Avoidance of Doubt
- now not moving
- A Note about Endland
- Acknowledgements
- Dear readers
- This book was made possible thanks to the support of:
- 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.