ELEVEN

MANSFIELD STREET, MARYLEBONE, LONDON. 16 JUNE 2011. 4 P.M.

‘Good morning, dear Kyle.’ Max must have been pressed against the other side of the door because the moment Kyle’s finger released the bell button, the executive producer stood in the doorway; a red velvet dressing gown over smart trousers and a white shirt complemented with a club tie and ruby cufflinks.

Max ushered Kyle into a long hallway where immaculate walls of cream silk intimidated with old-school swank. It was like being in an antechamber of heaven depicted by 1950s Hollywood. Scents of roses and polish clouded, an exclusive pollen bottled in another era. Long glass panels fitted into the ceiling cast intense, near phosphorescent light, making his scuffed engineer boots appear incongruous and uncomfortably noticeable against the gleaming blue-and-white marble floor. Periodically, little white plinths supported dark statuettes and artefacts made from stone. An ancient Persian vibe. And a vast gilt-edged mirror showed him every pore and bristle on his unkempt face.

‘Nice address, Max.’

‘Thank you.’

He’d run from Regent Street Tube station to Mansfield Road, and only slowed when he saw the size of the building Max lived in. He’d then waited downstairs to be summoned from a reception at least six times the size of his own flat, where a dark carpet, thick as bear fur, stretched to walls made from marble. A porter in silver livery called Max on the house phone to announce him. Kyle printed and signed his name in a desk ledger with leather covers, the size of a stamp album, before being escorted to the steel doors of the lifts, polished to mirrors.

Max’s information on the casualty list continued moments after he opened his front door. ‘Gabriel will be flown back to England in a few days, and transferred to a hospital. The operations have been a success, but he’s very poorly with an infection.’

Kyle winced. And swore an oath to visit Gabriel, though the idea made him uncomfortable as he experienced a shade of guilt about Gabriel’s accident; he had been too preoccupied with the shoot and too irritable with the old man to look after his interviewee. And his guilt was fattened by a feckless desire to now question Gabriel about what the doctor had told Dan about the birds and the dogs. A scene of Gabriel in a hospital bed, after surviving one of Sister Katherine’s traps, would be bizarre, tasteless and inappropriate, but also solid material for the film and too good to let go. But the impression of the bony hand on the bathroom wall he’d kept from Dan until the sun rose, by which time it had faded, considerably. They’d filmed the residue and fled. Dan had remained in a perturbed silence all the way home. Which was not good at all. He had to keep the big man onside.

Max phoned Kyle at first light, in the hotel in Caen; desperate to see the footage from France. His feelings about Susan and Gabriel’s misfortunes struck Kyle not so much as flippant, but as secondary to the purpose of the call. And Max only agreed to discuss the situation once he’d seen what Kyle had filmed at the farm. Kyle had the master reels with him, which would go to Finger Mouse after the meeting; who’d agreed to do an all-nighter transferring the material.

‘Should have brought my shades,’ Kyle said, and followed Max’s dainty feet, sealed inside ox-blood loafers, further inside the penthouse. Shadows seemed to be entirely absent from every corner of Max’s home. The intense white light filled the entire volume of flawless space and made him feel transparent, but oddly relaxed. And the lights and lamps burned like suns in every discreetly luxurious room he passed.

‘Sorry?’

‘The light, Max.’

‘Oh, yes. Bright if you’re not accustomed to it. But light, my dear boy, is as essential to life as water. It purifies the spirit. Opens the heart. Cleanses the mind. One feels blessed in here. Truly.’

‘Makes my place look like its underground. You keep this up during the day?’

Max nodded, and showed him into a room that doubled as a home office and viewing facility: leather chairs waited before digital viewing equipment. ‘I suffered terribly from a seasonal disorder. Depression, my friend. For years, until I discovered full spectrum lights. They changed my life. Light boxes are fitted in each room here. Made to order. The ceiling fixtures are dawn-light simulators. Four thousand lux during daylight hours, ten thousand lux at night and during the winter. Same for the desk lamps, and I have visors too.’

Kyle nodded at the large sunlit windows. ‘Nice day.’

Max stared at Kyle with an expression of such self-seriousness he felt a twitch of discomfort, as if confronted by the impassioned but ludicrous beliefs of a stranger in a pub. ‘I don’t take any chances with my soul, Kyle. I want a life and a world filled with light. So that is what I have. Here, in my little retreat. A place of light. Of illumination.’

‘Right.’ If Dan had been present, hysterics would have ensued.

‘You know we have business interests in the field of Seasonal Affective Disorder? Mostly export. But it’s catching on over here. Doing very well too. The world is waking up to new light. I’d like to give you some for your own home.’

‘No, thanks. I like gloom.’

‘I insist. I shall have some desk lights delivered this evening. A standing lamp. Maybe a light box for your bathroom and kitchen on those grim London mornings. For Dan as well.’

‘You really don’t—’

‘Nonsense. See it as a gift, for all of your hard work. Which is appreciated, my dear friend. You have already made significant inroads into the mystery of The Last Gathering. And you must try the lights tonight. You’ll notice the difference. It’s immediate.’ Max sucked in his breath, and flicked his chin upwards, as if arriving at a decision with some relief before banishing whatever thought led to the decision.

‘Thanks.’

‘Think nothing of it. Oh, but if I may beg one indulgence from you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Please don’t ever call me a fuckwit again.’

‘It’s been pretty hairy, Max.’

‘Now I am forgetting my manners. Coffee? A light snack? Or would you prefer to wait for your dinner?’

Kyle had been so desperate to get to Max’s he’d not eaten since the ferry. Nor gone back to sleep after the dream. He spoke through a yawn. ‘I could take a bite out of something. Was up early.’

Max walked to the door of his study. ‘Iris!’

‘Sir,’ a voice called from the far reaches of the apartment.

‘Coffee for two. Cake.’

After a distant, ‘Yes, sir,’ Max returned his attention to Kyle.

‘Nice kit, Max.’

‘Yes. I often view rushes and offline edits in here. Works in progress.’ The desk also looked like Cecil Rhodes had once laid maps of Africa across its leather surface. Max sank his small body into one of two chairs supported by a steel swivel-mount. At least fifty inches of flat plasma screen loomed over them. Kyle took the chair beside Max and ferreted inside his shoulder bag for the six flash drives from the Normandy shoot.

Iris was small, round, Irish, and white-haired on the head and chin. She brought a coffee pot and a glass cake-stand. A thick fruit loaf with a paper frill looked too good to eat while it awaited the silver knife and two plates, thin as sea shells, that Iris busied herself with. At Max’s cake was also served with little silver forks and red linen napkins that billowed from either end of hallmarked silver holders. ‘Nice cake,’ Kyle said with his mouth full. ‘Rich.’ Iris left them on slippered feet and closed the soundproofed door.

Max scooped up the drives. Stared at them, his thin lips set in an attitude of distaste, or even indignation. He didn’t even look at his cake. Kyle swallowed a third mouthful of his own. The nervous energy made him wolf it like a last meal.

‘This all of it?’

Kyle nodded. ‘Finger Mouse will lay it across tonight.’

‘I want them uploaded as they become ready. And Dan, where is he?’

‘On another job.’

‘Good. Good.’

‘I’ll be seeing him tomorrow to talk through the arrangements for America.’ Max didn’t appear to be listening. He now looked at the flash drives like they were vials of Bubonic plague.

‘Max. Max.’

‘Yes?’

‘How did Susan White die?’

Max closed his eyes. ‘Stroke.’ And opened his eyes. ‘At home. A maisonette in Brighton. Her daughter was unable to rouse her for a trip to Bournemouth, or raise her on the telephone. This was yesterday. She let herself in and found her mother. Propped up amongst the pillows. Still alive, but barely. She died later in hospital, without saying a word before she left us. I’d called during the afternoon to discuss the interview. Her daughter picked up the phone. She told me.’

‘Were you close?’

‘Not for years. But we found each other again, recently.’

‘Sad. Kind of weird too.’

Max stared, as if afraid of an impending revelation from Kyle.

‘Those drives . . .’ Kyle did not know where to start, or how to explain what was recorded on them. ‘Same with the Holland Park stuff, there’s something not right.’

Max turned soundlessly in his chair. Placed one small manicured hand upon Kyle’s wrists, where they jiggled between his bouncing knees. The skin of Max’s fingers was baby-soft; a waft of expensive hand-cream billowed. ‘This is a difficult time for our venture, Kyle. Gabriel, poor Gabriel . . .’ Max closed his eyes and shook his head at whatever thought had reared up inside it. ‘And I am going to Brighton this evening. Susan’s funeral is tomorrow.’

‘It’s pretty terrible. Really shaken me up, Max. And Dan.’

‘Because you are a sensitive and caring soul, Kyle. I knew the moment we first met.’ Max continued to stare into his eyes, intently; the insinuation of a concerned frown stretched his forehead. ‘But you are also a dedicated film-maker. An artist. With conviction. A great deal of which I have appreciated in your former works. It’s why I chose you, Kyle, to make this film. Our work cannot, simply cannot, be derailed by these cruel acts of fate. These unfortunate accidents. We won’t allow it. Our work is greater than we are, its facilitators, its interpreters.’

‘But—’

Max gently shook his coiffured head. ‘We are unearthing painful and terrible secrets, my dear Kyle. We are disturbing what has long been buried. We are investigating the most awful crimes perpetrated against other human beings. Imprisonment, the withdrawal of all liberty, manipulation, control, cruelty, murder. But we must remain courageous, regardless of how much these matters distress us. Steadfast we must be before the things we will see, and hear. We must be on our guard, Kyle. Always. It’s why I insist on the light, Kyle. We must always remind ourselves that we are for the light.’

‘But there is something else. Something . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know how to explain it.’ Max watched him, his face stiff with caution and unease. ‘At the farm. It was strange. The atmosphere. Katherine’s fermette. What I felt there. Heard. The things on the walls. The figure in Clarendon Road. You’ve watched the London rushes?’

Max swallowed. ‘I have. The Gathering explored terrible things and took themselves to unusual places, Kyle. Levine’s book is not purely fiction.’

‘No. I’m not talking about what they did to each other. What I am trying to say is . . . it’s like something else has been left behind in those places.’ Kyle sighed, scratched around his head for a way into an adequate explanation. ‘On the walls. The bloody walls. You can see it for yourself. I filmed them in France too. I don’t think . . . I know it’s not art. Not something they drew, the Gathering. They can’t have, because it’s in Clarendon Road too, on new plaster. I tried to tell you on the phone. In the email, Max. The one you never got back to me about last Sunday. You can see more of it for yourself from Normandy. On there.’ Kyle tapped the drives in Max’s small hands. ‘And we weren’t alone at either location. I sound insane by just suggesting it, but . . . I do believe I’ve experienced four genuine paranormal episodes. One in London, one in the farm’s temple, another in Katherine’s fermette. The fourth was the imprint of a hand on the wall of our hotel room. Did you know, Max? That we would get this shit on film?’

Max’s leathery throat worked up and down. His smile was thin, stiff.

‘Residues, Max. The things we heard. At the house in Holland Park. They’re on all the audio tracks. Finger Mouse checked. Birds. Dogs. We think. Other stuff too. Wind. Can’t be sure, but it was terrifying. And when Dan was trying to free Gabriel from that bloody trap, I wasn’t alone in Sister Katherine’s fermette. There was someone . . . something . . . downstairs in the building. Same in the temple. I’m sure of it. Tell me you’ve seen the intruder in Clarendon Road?’

Max nodded.

‘We weren’t alone in that house. Or at the farm. I’m sure of it. How can this be explained?’

Max smiled. ‘My dear Kyle—’

‘Listen to me. You weren’t there. It’s like . . . and now . . . well . . . it’s like something has come out . . . out of those places. I’m getting these dreams. In France. And then the walls of the hotel room . . . the bathroom altered. An image of something was on the bloody bathroom wall, Max. I found it after the weirdest fucking dream I have ever experienced. I know you wanted the paranormal scoop, but for fuck sake . . .’

Max closed his eyes, though Kyle suspected it may have been as a result of his bad language.

‘Sorry. Potty mouth. But this is serious, Max. I’ve tried to blame the first sighting on a drug addict, put the second and third down to exhaustion. But the bathroom? I have it on film. And now Susan, not to mention Gabriel? What the fuck is going on here?’

Max opened his eyes, stared at the flash drives. ‘I don’t know. But who knows what that fool Katherine did. Suggested. Even brought into the Gathering. I can’t say. But I have long suspected that she connected . . . broke through to something that should never have been contacted. It’s why the film is so important, while there is still time.’ Max squeezed his wrist. ‘Now you are starting to understand my motive to make this film. I was right . . .’

‘Time? What do you mean, “while there is still time”?’

Max fidgeted in his chair. ‘There are not many of us left. Besides myself, I could only find three adepts from London and France.’ He cleared his throat. ‘There are even fewer adult survivors from Katherine’s time in Arizona. I only traced two. And now there is only one. Have you any idea how valuable an interview with Martha Lake will be now? We can’t dilly-dally.’

‘Why now, Max? Why is she breaking silence now? Martha Lake has remained incognito for thirty years. I looked online. Googled her. Same with the recently deceased Patricia Clover. You said yourself that Susan White never opened up to anyone before she came to us in Clarendon Road. Ditto with Gabriel, who didn’t tell us much by the way. I know, because Dan asked the doctor—’

‘Kyle. Kyle. Have you any idea of the stigma, the indelible stains upon those who were a part of The Temple of the Last Days in America? Not to mention what was suggested of us in the Gathering? This is not something one is willing to talk about. Not for a very long time. Because of the children. What was done . . . what happened to the children. The way they were taken from their parents. The way they were isolated, mistreated under Katherine’s direction. Unacceptable. It was abuse. Some may have even been . . . I can’t even bring myself to talk about it. Some were never found. And we live in a more sensitive time. It is only in the twilight of one’s years that one feels more comfortable with speaking up, and admitting an association with all this, with making amends with the past. Trying to find peace. The fact that I have paid them a great deal of money for their testimony, alas, must also be taken into account. Not all have been as fortunate as I have, Kyle, after their release from Katherine. And what happened to us was not the kind of thing one even wanted to remember. Please bear that in mind. Gabriel had an accident. Susan’s passing was a coincidence. High blood pressure.’

‘And the other one. Your friend who died last week.’

‘Brother Heron suffered from a long illness. Cancer. It’s why he didn’t want to be filmed. You are in no danger. Surely, you cannot believe that you are?’ Max half smiled, as if perched on the end of a frightened child’s bed.

Kyle stared at Max, searching his eyes for any hint of deceit. He didn’t see any.

After they viewed the pertinent rushes from Holland Park again, and the scenes from the temple building and fermette in Normandy, Max’s face was stricken. One hand trembled. He practically ran from his chair for the lights; which Kyle was pleased to have switched on too. ‘I think a brandy is in order. What do you say?’

‘We’re some way off my cocktail hour, Max, but I think that is a solid idea. I hit the bourbon at my flat last Sunday, right after seeing it.’

‘It’s extraordinary.’

‘Was that a man? Up there with us? And those things on the walls, Max. In the temple. What are they?’

Max rubbed his eyes and then glanced about the ceiling. When he realized Kyle was watching him, he became uncomfortable like a physical indignity had been observed. He turned on his heel and opened the door. ‘Iris! Oh where is she? Iris!’

‘Sir.’

‘The decanter.’

He turned back to Kyle, raised his hands. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before.’

‘In Clarendon Road. That figure? And the scream, Max.’ The echo of the final squeal outside the penthouse in Clarendon Road was ingrained into his hearing. ‘Half of me wishes I’d never heard it. But it’s priceless. Have you any idea how this will go down in a trailer?’

Max resumed his seat. ‘Quite.’ He had been unwilling to watch either episode more than once. And his reaction to the temple barn mystified Kyle; the images were not well lit, but were still hideous and begged a close examination that Max refused to give them.

‘Susan White told us about what she called “the presences”. But this? What is it? What’s the connection?’

‘I never anticipated you seeing anything quite so dramatic. This Finger fellow . . .’

‘Finger Mouse.’

‘He never . . . wouldn’t have tampered with the footage in any way?’

‘God, no. Wouldn’t have had the time. And anyway, we heard them in real time. Me and Dan. Heard everything that you have just heard.’

‘But in Clarendon Road, you never saw anything of that . . . intruder?’

‘Nothing. We heard feet. Twice. Downstairs and then upstairs later, so someone was inside with us the whole time. But we didn’t see anyone. It was dark. Which we wanted to use to our advantage. For effect.’

‘Forget the effects, Kyle. We don’t need such embellishments. In future, please light the sets properly, especially at night. Otherwise we have this confusion. It leaves us open to misinterpretation. To accusations of faking unnatural occurrences.’

‘Whoa, Max. Now you hold on—’

‘Nothing touched you?’

Kyle frowned. ‘Touched me? What do you mean?’

Iris opened the door and they both jumped. She came into the room bearing a crystal decanter and two glasses. And departed eyeing Kyle with suspicion. Max nodded at the brandy. ‘Help yourself.’ He checked his watch. Sucked in his breath. ‘Blast. I need to get ready. My suit isn’t packed. The funeral.’

‘What? We need to talk. You can’t just take off.’ Kyle raised both hands and offered them towards the screen. ‘We haven’t even begun to make any sense of this. I had the bloody fright of my life last night. I am struggling to even talk about this, let alone accept it, but it’s all there. Tangible, physical.’

‘I’m sorry, Kyle.’ Max made tracks for the door. ‘There will be ample time to discuss this later. And we need the American footage first before we can draw any conclusions.’

‘Max. There is something else that can’t wait. I need to get it resolved.’

‘Kyle, please.’

‘It can’t wait. I have concerns about this working relationship.’

Max paused before the door, then edged his way closer to the decanter. Kyle removed the top and poured two glasses. Max looked into his glass. ‘What are your reservations?’

Kyle filled his mouth with the smoky, velvety spirit. Gasped. ‘Before we go any further, I need some reassurance. I promised to make as natural and as honest a film as possible, and our arrangement has to be based on mutual trust.’ He held his hand out to prevent Max from interrupting. ‘But I am beginning to wonder what it is that you are not telling me. You were a part of The Last Gathering. You did two years in that bloody cult. You were one of the originals. But you overlooked mentioning it to me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out from one of the others? So why keep that from me?’

Max sighed with irritation. Checked his watch. ‘The car is coming in twenty minutes, Kyle.’

‘Then we have plenty of time. You look great. You can just throw a jacket over the shirt.’

Exasperated, Max took his chair. Leaned back, his small feet leaving the floor, and blew out all of the air from inside his tiny body. He looked even older to Kyle. He’d had surgery, on his forehead, around his eyes and mouth, lots of it. Made him appear gaunt and shiny at the best of times, but now his face seemed to have partially collapsed. He concealed the strain by rubbing at his eyes.

I tried that too mate, but what you’ve seen you’ve seen.

Across his hairline, the tiny clusters of implanted hair looked ready to squeeze themselves out of the follicles. When Max took his hands away his eyes glistened. ‘I had my reasons for keeping my involvement quiet.’

‘They need to be real good, Max.’

‘I understand.’

‘You need to. You’re producing this very thoroughly, laying everything out for us. I didn’t appreciate you blowing up at me for interviewing the tenant from Clarendon Road. And after this –’ Kyle pointed at the television screen ‘– I’m beginning to ask myself what the hell am I getting myself and Dan mixed up in?’

He spoke without looking at Kyle. ‘I’m sorry. But . . . look, even most of my dearest friends don’t know of my past. My colleagues. All those I have met and collected in my career, they know nothing of my time with Katherine. I feel responsible, Kyle. You see, I am to blame for everything that happened to that organization and to all who were ever a part of it. Until its dreadful conclusion.’

Kyle raised his hands and let them slap against his thighs in exasperation. ‘How?’

‘Kyle, I began The Last Gathering with Brother Heron who is now gone. I was one of its founding stones, its natural parent. And I was quickly and quite ruthlessly usurped by Katherine in the very first year.’

‘Why keep that from me? I don’t understand. You know my feelings about agendas, Max. We’ve been through this.’

Max was distracted again; he gazed in silence, as if beyond the chic walls of his fortress of light. Shook his head in some private reverie, and smiled, though not in a pleasant way. ‘Oh, she was clever, even then. Not monstrous, but close to it, and capable. Older than us. Streetwise. A hard woman. But a very charming one. Seductive when she needed to be. She learned a great deal behind bars, I can tell you.’ He finally met Kyle’s eye. ‘We were no match for her. She was already a Clear in Scientology when I first met her, at a Process meeting in Mayfair. The Process were another group. Far more advanced than us, so we based much of the architecture of our own organization upon them. They had such allure, even grace. And we wanted it for ourselves.

‘And I was young and foolish. Idealistic. What people called a hippy. A devotee of Sufi mysticism, of Buddhism, considering a Franciscan order, experimenting with communal living, an anarchist, a pacifist . . . clueless. Didn’t know who or what I was. But knew I wanted something else to what was on offer to an economics graduate in 1960s London. Something different. And like my friends, you must understand, I was perfect material for a manipulative sociopathic personality like Katherine.’

‘But why couldn’t you tell me? I don’t get it.’

‘It’s hard to admit, Kyle. That I was such a fool. And allowed something so real, so positive, to slip through my fingers. To allow it to become so twisted, so corrupt. The very antithesis of everything we hoped to escape by founding the organization. A refuge from the world. But we were so naïve . . . inexperienced. And she took it from us. Turned us against each other. Quickly. Brought in others. Formed a majority. A new consensus.’ Max squeezed his hands into fists. ‘She took everything. Everything, Kyle. There is nothing I regret more than that. I would say it is my only regret. I am afraid I am quite ashamed at how I was taken in by her.’

‘So why do you need me? You have everything at your disposal. Equipment, financing. You’ve even done all of the research. You even know the bloody people involved, Max.’

‘True. And I toyed with the idea of making the film myself. Directing, or at least scripting. But I changed my mind. For several reasons.’ Max stood up and walked across to the bookcase. Fingered the spines of the Revelation Press first editions. ‘I could not afford the stigma. Not with my production company, the publishing, my business interests, the charitable work. The unique selling point of all of my ventures is based upon positive spirituality, of offering hope through alternative paths. What the Gathering became . . . This film is an enormous departure for me. It’s why I have created the independent Mysteris imprint, solely for this venture. The film will never bare the Revelations brand. It can’t.’

Max rubbed at his tight cheeks. ‘Imagine the shame, the potential ruin, if the Daily Mail realized I actually helped found The Last Gathering. They’d make no distinction between the early days of the Gathering and The Temple of the Last Days. What my creation became. That monstrous thing in the desert. I watched things go bad in London in sixty-eight. Watched the poison seep in. But I played no part in that . . . in the desert. You have my word on that, Kyle. I learned my lesson and I removed myself. Started over. Covered my tracks. Broke contact with the others. And genuinely believe I have done a great deal of good since. To make amends. I suppose that has always been my motivation in my professional life.

‘And making the film myself would have been a mistake. My own bitterness, my resentment, my anger would have spilled all over it. You are right to fear agendas. So I needed an independent and objective retrospective. To tell such an incredible story that has been unforgivably ransacked by exploitation and opportunism for decades. When I think of that dreadful Desert Bitch film!’

Max looked into Kyle’s eyes, beseechingly. ‘I wanted someone who understood the occult terrain. Who had already cut his teeth with similar stories. Who presented the otherworldly as a very real possibility. Who has already suggested that disturbances do occur in the natural order of things. My own contribution, I knew, would be most effectively employed in an executive production role. As a manager of resources. A cultivator of contacts. A guide.

‘And I still genuinely believe that the very spirit of this story lies beneath the blood that Katherine and her deranged acolytes spilled in Arizona. The very meaning of the story is still buried. The real story has never been told. And it is a story of such an extraordinary nature, Kyle, as we are already discovering. Which is why I have directed you to pursue a paranormal angle.’ Max paused, sighed. ‘Because I have not been ready to see the full results of what Katherine did. To confront it. Even now I still need an intermediary. A defence. You must understand that it is a mystery I need you to unravel for me. I’m afraid I just don’t have the strength.’

Iris appeared in the doorway. ‘Sir, your car’s here.’

Kyle’s journey home from dropping off the rushes at Finger Mouse’s place passed without an awareness of his surroundings. He uncapped the pint bottle of Jack Daniels and took another hit. Pocketed it. He came out of meetings with Max uplifted, reluctantly flattered, even strangely energized. But the spell wore off. He was a good verbalizer, was Max. Sincere to a tipping point of becoming emotional. But Kyle fidgeted with the persistent suspicion that he had just been manipulated, again. He wanted to believe Max. Because he wanted to make the film more than anything. But maybe Dan was right and they should walk away. ‘Fuck that,’ he said out loud in the Tube carriage. No one looked at him.

It wasn’t possible for him to give up on the film, despite the instinctive notion that more was at stake than his career, finances or mental wellbeing. And he hated himself for it. He now felt vulnerable to dangers he could not even identify. One week in and he also queried his exposure to it all. His brief but compressed contact with all things Sister Katherine left him seasick, nervous, and disoriented. Two interviews and two shoots made the world he took for granted an insubstantial place, populated with maniacs and ghastly presences. It was all coming at him too soon. Virtually coming out of the walls. Something revealing itself when he should have been revealing it.

In his mind, all the way home, he both walked away from the film and flew to Arizona. It felt like he’d made a wish on a monkey’s paw; a wish for an edgy, groundbreaking documentary to fall into his lap, during an economic downturn that had plunged film and television commissioning into a free fall it might never pull out of. But now the film deal of a lifetime was in the bag, what else was in there with it? And not for the first time did he reflect that his compulsion to make films might be, as many had warned, his final undoing; though his long-suffering parents and friends were referring to financial ruin, not what he’d stir up by looking too hard in the wrong places.

But there was no denying the high-voltage current was back. Yes, there was fear, bewilderment and an inability to process what was being flung at him, but this was an opportunity to add the best work yet to his filmography. That production. That film. The consuming labour of his life. One he had circled, but never nailed. This was it. The Last Days. Even without the one hundred grand he’d have made the film. Was touched too profoundly by its prospects to walk. The travel, the insomnia, the interminable waiting around on shoots, the weeks of wading through rushes, overseeing the final edit, all of that in the months ahead was already worth it. And always was. Because making a film was everything.

Dan could survive without it. He had harder skills. Loads of paid work. But he needed Dan. His best friend. And best friends helped each other out. Let him sleep in his own bed for a night and then talk him round. Dan would come through. Dan always did.

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