Novel Treatments / CLS - Extract

        Dante stared at the vibrating phone in front of him.
        His writing hand suspended in mid-air, he inhaled slowly and sat upright in his chair, eyeing the machine warily.
        The phone vibrated again, forcefully spinning itself around in its attempt to attract his proper attention.
        Dante allowed his left hand to sink to the table. Then, rolling his pen to one side, he picked up his pad and ran his thumb along the ring binder, his gaze fixed.
        The phone began to flash impatiently, bright blue light competing with the lamp to illuminate the darkness.
        Dante continued to stare at the phone.
        It had been thirty seconds since the machine had first awoken, so, according Dante’s calculation, the disturbance had only a few moments of its course left to run. He counted down the seconds in his head.
        Five.
        Four.
        Three.
        Two.
        One.
        The lights went off, the phone stilled. With a slight grin of satisfaction, Dante replaced the notepad on the table, picked up his pen and began to write.
        Ten seconds later the rumbling began again.
        This time, Dante didn’t even bother to stare at the phone. There are, one learns in life, certain women who cannot be ignored.
        “Enchanté.” (Right accent?)
        “You don’t sound it.”
        Dante noted the hint of critical disappointment/disappointed criticism in the woman’s tone. “I’m sorry, Alana. It’s just…I’m in the middle of a…creative burst right now and I don’t want to waste it. Might not come again for a while, you know?”         Taking care to be as silent as possible, Dante put the phone on ‘Speaker’ mode, placed it next to his notepad and continued to write.
        “I’m sorry,” Alana replied, her voice echoing across the room. “Bad timing as usual…I thought I’d call to see how things are going. How’s your…is it the second draft? How’s that coming along?”
        Dante sighed quietly, then bent down towards the phone. “Everything’s fine, Alana.”
        “Don’t say it like that,” Alana said, chuckling. “You make me sound like your mother.”
        Dante dropped his pen in frustration. “Look, Alana, is there something in particular you wanted to say? For some reason, this doesn’t seem like catch-up call.”
        Alana paused. “Are you doing anything tonight?”
        “Writing.”
        “I know. Apart from that.”
        “I might do some research later on. Get some source material from an encyclopaedia, maybe the Internet. I’m trying to find some information on PMCs in fourteenth-century Venice. Why?”
        “PMCs?”
        “Private military companies. What’s the problem, Alana?”
        Another pause. “Have you heard of Lanre Kumble?”
        Dante’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “He’s a fashion photographer. Why, what about him?”
        “Well,” Alana ventured, tentatively. “There’s been a lot of hype about a party he’s holding tonight. It’s supposed to be in celebration of  -”
        “No. No,” Dante whispered fiercely, grabbing the phone as he shot out of his chair. “Alana -”
        “It’ll only be for tonight. You won’t have to follow up on anything else. In fact, I’ll…” Alana broke off. “Dante, am I on Speaker?”
        “That’s not the issue,” Dante retorted, practically barking into the phone. “I’m a writer, Alana. No-one cares who I am. No-one wants to care.”
        “I know, but it might be good for you to be seen. So that -”
        “So that what?”
        Alana sighed. “So that people don’t forget.”
        “You mean so that judges don’t forget.”
        “Exactly.”
        Dante stopped pacing around the room, coming to a stop in front of his desk. He glanced at the two-thirds empty page at the front of his notepad, all margin notes and crossed out lines.
        Damn. ? (Something?)
        “Alana, I read in an article that people get sceptical when they see nominees popping up every five seconds.”
        “Since when did the press become the authority on individual decisions?”
        “Alana -”
         “Dante?”
        “Yes?”
        “Do you want to win this Oscar?”
        “I do,” Dante retorted hotly. “Of course I do. I just want to the peace of mind that comes with knowing that I won on merit rather than because I smiled at the right photographers.”
        “You don’t know that you’re going to win.”
        “Thanks for the vote of support.”
        Alana tutted irritably. “Dante, I’m trying to make a serious point here.”
        “So am I, and that is, that (double that?) I’m not willing to attempt to prostitute myself to success.” (Wording)
        There was no response from Alana for several seconds, after which Dante began to wonder whether she had hung up.
        “Alana?”
        “The prostitute to my pimp. That’s a turn for the books.”
        “Alright,” Dante said, in a conciliatory tone. “Let’s say I did decide to go to this party. Beautiful women, nice food, music, all that. Very nice. But there’s a problem: I’m not a fashionista. I have no links to the pretty industry at all, right? So there’s no reason for me to be there. Let me paint an imaginary scenario for you. Junior Barrett-Crowther-Wallace spots me. We met at another of your parties a while back, so he knows me. He decides to bring over five of his comely young things to have a chat. Ambitious, opportunistic photographer from the Daily Tabloid or Housewife Weekly sees the huddle, thinks something’s going on. ‘The next generation of young pin-ups,’ he or she thinks. ‘I mustn’t miss this.’ Said photographer takes a picture. Millions of women and indifferently-interested men see the photo and start calling in to radio programmes to rant about how young wastrels such as myself are the scourge of society, wasting our lives away by going to parties every five seconds and setting a bad example to their children. As I said, my name is included on the blacklist. Word gets round to the Academy judges and they suddenly decide that Marshall Winston’s screenplay is a heck of a lot better than mine. More vivacious, more ‘relevant to our time’.” Dante paused to take a breath. “Do you understand where I’m going with this?”
        The sound of soft laughter could be heard at the other end of the phone line. “Dante,” Alana uttered, struggling to speak through her chuckles. “You’re so melodramatic. It’s just. A party.”
        “Either way,” Dante replied, a little tersely. “The point remains, as does the fact that I will not be going. I’m sorry, but it’s as simple as that.”
        “And there is a reason for you to be there. You’re showing people that, even though you’ve been nominated for one of the most prestigious awards around, you’re able to go out and enjoy yourself like any other John Smith.”
        Got it.
        Dante smiled. The world was a beautiful place, once you learned to appreciate it. “Alana, look. I’m sorry, but I just can’t go. Impossible. Never mind the press and the public – I can’t leave Chloe.”
        Silence.
         “Dante, that’s low.”
        Dante frowned. That wasn’t the answer he was expecting . “What do you mean?”
        “You’re using your younger sister to get you out of attending a public engagement. That’s low.”
        Dante hesitated, checkmated. “Even so, I can’t leave her alone all night. She’s fourteen, Alana, and we live in East London.”
        “Can’t you let her go spend the night with one of her friends?”
        “No.”
        “Why not?”
        “Because most of her other friends are fourteen and we live in East London.”
        “I don’t understand why you keep mentioning age and East London.”
        “There are bored people here who play with people like children play with toys. I’m not willing to take that risk, Alana.”
        An awkward silence filled the room, the unintended heavy nuances of Dante’s words rendering both individuals temporarily mute.
        “So you’re not going.”
        “I’m not going.”
        Alana sighed, again. “Okay.”
        “I’m sorry,” Dante replied, an increasingly heavy sombreness billowing within him. “I know why you’re doing this, and I appreciate it. I just can’t do it. Not this time. I’ll be at the Molotovs for Empire, tomorrow, though.”
        “One o’clock.”
        “On the dot.”
        Another sigh. “Okay.”
        “Enchanté.”
        After Alana had hung up, Dante collapsed into his chair, eyes intently focused on nothing in particular. Then, snapping out of his thoughts, he placed his phone down on the desk, he picked up his pen and began to write.