11

Money Makes The World Go Around. Take 2

Russell’s bank manager eyed him through the long-distance section of his bi-focals. “Forty million pounds, you say?” said he.

“Give or take,” said Russell. “We haven’t worked out all the details yet.”

“I see.” The bank manager took up a sheet of paper, which is called in the trade, a “statement”, and ran his eyes up and down it. “You have one thousand one hundred and one pounds and one penny in your account,” said he. “Quite a memorable sort of sum really.”

“My life savings,” said Russell. “To buy my mum a stair lift. I’ve almost enough.”

“And according to the records, you’ve never had an overdraft.”

“I wouldn’t dream of such a thing.”

“Dream of such a thing, no, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Not me,” said Russell.

“Not you, no. But …” The bank manager made “ahem” noises. “You wish me to advance you a loan of forty million pounds?”

“We’ve tried elsewhere. My associate, Bobby Boy, called Hollywood. He tried to speak to Mr Spielberg. But Mr Spielberg didn’t phone back. And Walt Disney’s dead, apparently. Although ‘Walt Disney’ continues to produce films. I don’t quite understand that.”

“I don’t think you quite understand about finance at all, do you?”

“Not a lot,” said Russell. “But you have seen the videos. You can surely see the potential.”

“Ah, the videos, yes. The ones with you beating Arnold Schwarzenegger at the arm wrestling contest.”

“That was a good one, wasn’t it?”

“Very inspired, yes. You seemed a bit –”

“Drunk,” said Russell. “Yes I was drunk, I admit it. But you’d have been drunk, if you’d been there, realized the potential and everything.”

“I don’t drink,” said the bank manager. “I am Plymouth Brethren. We do not drink. Neither do we loan out forty million pounds to drunkards.”

“Wasn’t Aleister Crowley Plymouth Brethren?” asked Russell.

“Get out of my bank,” said the bank manager. “And don’t come back.”

“What about the loan?”

“We don’t swear either,” said the bank manager, “but in your case I am prepared to make an exception.”

“Well thank you for your time,” said Russell. “I’ll be going now.”

Russell trudged a bit more. Along the streets of Brentford. Nobody was really going to lend him forty million pounds. That was ludicrous. In fact, everything about this was ludicrous. Forty million pounds! Movie making! Holograms and time travellers! Ludicrous. It was like some plot from a really daft book. Like one of those Pooley and Omally yarns. Not real life at all. Nonsense.

Nonsense? Russell ceased his trudging upon a street corner. What was all this? What had he got himself involved in? It had all started out with his quest to locate The Flying Swan, to see whether Neville and Pooley and Omally really existed. And now he, Russell, Mr Ordinary, Mr Common Sense, had got involved in something as ludicrous as the things Pooley and Omally had supposedly got themselves involved in, in some mythical Brentford past.

Was it something about this place? About this town?

Russell sighed. It was something. But people were now relying on him. Old Ernest. Everyone at Fudgepacker’s. Jobs were at stake. The company would go under if he didn’t pull this off, it was his responsibility. And the technology was true. It did work. You really could make a movie with it. And one that would sell big time.

The forty million was a problem though.

Forty million!

“Forty million,” said Russell. “Hang about, we don’t need forty million. We don’t need any millions at all. All we need is a camera and some lights. We’re not paying anything for the stars, they’re holograms. Bobby Boy and Julie can act and get paid later. Everyone can get paid later, out of the profits. A camera and some lights, that’s all we need. We can do the show right here. Bobby Boy has the studio, Ernest has the props.” Of course they didn’t actually have a script. But they could work that out. Forty million pounds! That was just Bobby Boy trying to line his pockets.

“We can do this,” said Russell. “This we can do.”

Russell returned to Fudgepacker’s Emporium with a spring in his step. Bobby Boy was up in old Ernest’s office. They were drinking the expensive Scotch.

“Wot-ho!” said Ernest, upon Russell’s entry. “Do you have the scratch?”

“Not as such,” said Russell.

“Well, you want to hurry on up. Bobby Boy and I are almost finished on the script.”

“You are?”

“We are. And this is a killer. Blood and guts and sex and splatter. But with a strong social comment, or content, or something.”

“And lots of bits to make your eyes water,” said Bobby Boy. “As in weep. At the pathos.”

“I can’t raise the money,” said Russell. “No-one will lend me forty million. It’s too much. The bank manager was really rude, he told me to, well, he wasn’t interested.”

“Then we’re all doomed,” said Ernest Fudgepacker. “The company goes down like the Titanic. Everyone is ruined. Shame and misery. How will you ever be able to live with yourself? I know I couldn’t.”

“We don’t need the money,” said Russell.

“We don’t?” said Ernest. “That’s a very silly thing to say. And I should know, I say some very silly things myself.”

“We don’t need the money,” Russell reiterated. (Reiterated, I ask you!) “If we borrow forty million, then we have to pay back forty million, plus a percentage. If we don’t borrow anything at all, then we don’t have anything at all to pay back. All the profits are ours.”

“I do like the sound of that,” said Ernest. “But how do you make a movie with no finance?”

“Well, we’ll need some finance, just enough to pay for a camera and film and some lights.”

“No problem,” said Ernest. “I know chaps in the trade, I could hire all that.”

“And the only actors will be Bobby Boy here and Julie, the only actors we have to pay.”

“This really isn’t the way movies are made,” said Ernest. “But this is going to be a very special movie. Let me make a couple of phone calls.”

“Hold on there!” cried Bobby Boy. “I’m in this! And I’m going to be starring alongside the Hollywood greats. I want paying and I want paying big time. Proper Hollywood fees, I won’t work for less than five million. That’s not a lot to ask.”

Ernest scratched at his old head, raising flecks of scalp that drifted all about the little office, sort of dangled in the air, most unpleasantly. “I can appreciate that,” he said. “A labourer is worthy of his hire, and things of a likewise nature. But that’s not down to me, of course, I’m only the director. That’s down to Russell. And it’s Russell’s technology we’re using and Russell is the producer.”

Bobby Boy glared daggers at Russell. Big daggers, they were, and sharp with it.

Russell didn’t glare any back. He did grin at Ernest though. Ernest had really changed. He wasn’t rambling any more. He was focused. Dead focused. Russell really felt for the old fellow. He felt that he would not, under any circumstances, let him down.

And he saw Ernest wink a big magnified eye.

“I am the producer,” said Russell. “So the finances are my responsibility.”

“Of course if you’re not happy, Bobby Boy,” said Ernest, “I suppose you could quit. Walk off the set, as it were. We could possibly get in a replacement. Perhaps Russell here might care to star as well as produce.”

“Well –” said Russell.

“Only joking,” said Bobby Boy. “Of course Russell is in charge, the financial responsibilities are all his. What he says goes.”

“Well put,” said Ernest. “I’ll get on the phone then.”