A magnificent countess in nineteenth-century costume then delivers one of her lines to her prince: “Sire, I possess six castles and twenty carriages, but I can state only one thing with certainty: life is very tedious.”

Lastly there is a woman dressed as a 1968 left-wing militant. “Sure, we all want a revolution, so long as we don’t have to work too hard at it.”

Mick looks happily at each of his actresses. One by one, they all recite lines from his films.

A woman of thirty-five springs up from the grass. With a flowing mane of red hair, her shoulders bare, she looks wonderful, oozing fascination, and she says in a sensual voice full of nostalgia, “Alright then, I will sleep with you, but on one condition: you are not to have an orgasm. That way, and only that way, Frank, you’ll never forget me.”

All of Mick’s actresses line up like skittles, one behind the other, each delivering one of her lines. Those who appeared first continue to repeat the same line at a lower volume.

In short, a crucible of actresses is created, each one superimposed on top of the other, in all shapes and ages and different types of costume (a female soldier, a little old grandmother, a drag king, a sultry vamp, a singer, a gymnast, a ballerina in a tutu, and many others), all spread about the field.

Again the air hostess complains, “How do you want her, Mick? Honest and sincere or vain, fatuous and evil? And how should I walk? How does this character move?”

Mick is about to reply when yet another actress rising up from the grass catches his attention. And this is the one, more than all the others, that chokes Mick up, and he calls out instinctively, “Mother!”

All the other actresses fall silent now, handing the stage to this late arrival.

It is Brenda Morel dressed in a cheap dressing gown, ugly, decrepit, a fading shadow of her former beauty, who says in neutral tones, “My son, you were so handsome as a boy. And the really obscene thing is that you’ve remained a handsome man. Handsome and useless.”

Mick’s eyes are bright with tears in the silence of the empty meadow. He is alone. The daydream is over.

64

Fred and Mick are in Fred’s bedroom.

One is sitting in an armchair; the other is on the edge of the bed, looking out of the window. Calm and resigned, Fred eyes his friend, knowing what a difficult time he is going through.

“Have you spoken to the producer?”

Mick turns to observe him, “Fred, I’ve been in the business long enough to know that if Brenda refuses to be in it, this movie will never get made.”

Silence. Mick reflects a moment. His eyes come to rest on Fred’s bedside table. He studies the photograph of Fred hugging his wife ten years earlier. Old but happy, and still good-looking.

“Melanie looks so beautiful in that photo.”