Chapter 206: Their Theater
The year was 1976.
It was a year hated by farmers across Great Britain, as a record amount of rain destroyed the crops and ruined the soil.
But the fancy people of London, the metropolis brimming with culture from across the globe, had no qualms with the downpour.
Their lives were too fast and glitzy for the sorrow of the countryside to matter.
And one of those people was Gene Conti.
His latest film, End to Odyssey, was making bank across the continent.
But he wasn’t satisfied.
Something had been irking him for days, and he kept thinking about it as he sat with a cigarette between her lips.
Thirty feet ahead of him, pictures moved on a large screen.
The dust particles in the air, lighted by the projector, vied for his attention. But they could not compete with the woman sitting next to him.
She wore a white dress and a white hat. Her watery blue eyes, perfectly black hair, and salacious red lipstick made her an appealing lady.
Her head was leaning on Gene’s shoulder, and her hand was caressing his thigh.
Gene Conti took a puff of his cigarette as the large screen of the theater showed his face.
He could feel her warm breath tingling his skin, her upper lip grazing his cheek.
The more animated his character on the screen became, the more she turned excited.
And Gene allowed it.
The theater was empty; they could be as inappropriate as they wanted to be.
The only people they needed to be wary of were the paparazzi waiting outside.
But on this particular day, it didn’t matter. In all honesty, it hadn’t mattered for the past couple of months.
The more they portrayed him as a sexual deviant, the more he wanted them to misunderstand. He gave them reasons to scandalize him.
In the war to normalize sexual dialogue, it felt like a slight victory.
Even those who wanted to criticize him needed new material. He provided exactly that. And in doing so, he had made chatter about his exploits much more common.
It was indeed a small victory.
Yet on his mind remained the ladies he had wooed for this very purpose.
He didn’t mind his name being dragged through the mud, but that was not the case for the ladies he spent nights with.
His head swerved towards the lady by his side.
Their gazes met, hers warmer than his.
Charlotte Wayne was her name. She was a theater actress, one of those stubborn ladies who refused to transition over to film acting.
Gene had tried to help her get started, but she had refused every time. She wanted to continue acting in front of an audience.
He always thought there was something tragic about her. And coincidentally enough, she thought the same about him.
As Gene Conti’s character on the screen lit a cigarette, Charlotte’s lips travelled closer to his.
In the dark room, the two actors shared an unplanned scene.
They had booked the theater until the next morning. And something about the mood caused Gene to abandon his previous plans.
He had no will to walk out in front of the paparazzi. He wanted to stay the night.
And they stayed the night, tired of their celebrity lives, dazed by the film lighting the room, warm in the rainy weather.
Gene thought he could spend an eternity in a theater, even better if he had someone to share it with.
Yet there were more important things to do. There was a need to be relentless, for the sake of missing Clarice Caligari.
For his actress, he needed to continue this ridiculous assault.
***
Applause erupted in the theatre.
People of all ages stood up to clap as credits rolled.
The noise, which sounded very much like rain hitting stone pavement, gently awoke Averie.
The rain from his dreams, the warmth of Charlotte Wayne, the musty scent—it all faded as his eyelashes fluttered.
His burning chest, the ignited fourth tattoo, was the only reminder of his dream.
The actor’s eyes mellowed. He wanted to stay a little longer in those memories that had long faded.
The warmth which he had lost, for a moment, he longed for it above all else.
And so, in the hall where the first film of the festival had ended, only Averie Quinn Auclair remained seated amidst a standing ovation.
He felt bitter. The applause in the hall seemed to mock his sorrow.
It became a reminder that he couldn’t return to those times, that he could never fix the past.
To his left was Josephine Petite, and to his right was Director Groux. Even now, he was surrounded by people from the film industry.
A surreal thought crossed his mind.
’Is this what life is?’
People fell in love, married, and had children. Their work shaped them, but their family defined them.
’Or is it the other way around?’
Either way, in his life—both the past one and the current one—only acting persisted.
The stage was where he belonged. Since the death of Gene Conti, that alone was his obsession.
Lost in thought, Averie didn’t notice as the screening of the first movie came to its end.
Josephine offered him her arm.
"Shall we have lunch together?"
Averie reluctantly stood up and linked arms with her.
All around the room, the celebrities and the VIPs—who must have spent a pretty penny on the tickets—were busy chatting about the film.
"It’s only the first film, and already, it’s a hit."
"It’s a contender for the Best Picture in my eyes."
"Do you think so?"
"Oh, yes. It was a great performance all around. The lighting, directing, everything was perfect."
"It was a little too thrilling for that, I think. An art film needs to be thought-provoking, don’t you think?"
"Director Sels was so humble while speaking about the movie that I believed something must have gone wrong. But I was pleasantly surprised."
"Yeah, I’ve never seen that man so humble."
Averie couldn’t remember what the film was about, as he had fallen asleep halfway through.
Seeing as Director Groux did not look impressed, he concluded that it wasn’t as inspiring as others made it out to be.
The lingering images of The Lady remained fresh in his mind.