‘Horror Westerns?’ says Sid in his ‘Worried, Clapham’ voice.
‘Low budget Horror Westerns,’ says Mac, soothingly.
‘It’s a brilliant idea,’ rabbits Justin. ‘And you could be in on the ground floor of it. I mean, this thing,’ he nods out of the window, ‘is going to run and run. Your great grandchildren will be living off it. You’ve got to do something with the loot.’
‘I think I’ll put it in a building society,’ says Sid.
‘Very secure, of course, but hardly going to bring in the returns that I can guarantee with this latest venture. Consider it. What two subjects never pall? Horror movies and Westerns. Put them together and you must have a box office smasheroo. Imagine the scene, Glint Thrust –’
‘Not him again.’ I have heard that Glint and Rosie were up to their old tricks again at Justin’s party. Sidney was not pleased.
‘I’ve got him on a six picture contract. He’s practically paying me for the privilege of working. Now, where was I? Oh yes. Glint glides into this ghost town, and when I say “ghost”, I mean ghost. He pushes open the door of the saloon and there, behind the bar, is the hideous Creature from the Black Lagoon, liberated by an underground nuclear explosion. Only one man in the world knows how to handle him.’
‘Count Frankenstein?’ says Sidney.
‘Precisely,’ says Justin. ‘Brilliant, isn’t it? This one must make us all a fortune. It’s got everything. Horror, horses, sex, violence, the wide outdoors, all wrapped up in one bonanza package by the old maestro here.’ He hugs Loser enthusiastically.
‘And lots of social comment,’ says Loser seriously. ‘I want this film to say something. I see the monster as the embodiment of the struggling proletariat, rising up against the brutal forces of international capitalism as represented by Count Frankenstein. His predilection for orgies with novice nuns is symbolic of –’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute!’ croaks Sid, ‘you’re talking as if this is all signed, sealed and delivered. I haven’t agreed to anything yet.’
There is a long pause before Justin shakes his head solemnly.
‘Quite right,’ he says, and both Loser and Mac nod in agreement. ‘Absolutely right. We were jumping the gun. I’m sorry. Now, let’s have another drink and talk the whole proposition over in detail. Barman, five large brandies please.’
Two weeks later, I am sitting beside Sid on a plane bound for Nicosia, which I have been told is in Cyprus, which I believe is an island down the other end of the Mediterranean from the Costa del Chips.
‘They got this thing off the ground quickly, didn’t they?’ says Sid.
‘It’s the jet engines that do it,’ I tell him. ‘Your stomach will catch up in a minute.’
‘I don’t mean the plane, you berk, I mean the film. They were out there recceing locations almost immediately, weren’t they?’
‘I reckon they had it all set up before you sunk all those brandies and started busking that cinema queue.’
‘I didn’t do that, did I?’
‘Yes, Sid. And then, when that other poor sod started to do a soft shoe shuffle, you tried to shove his spoons up his hooter. “This is my queue! This is my queue!” That’s what you kept shouting. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘I do get a bit funny when I’ve had a few, Timmo. You should have looked after me.’
‘Do me a favour. When I tried to stop you signing the contract you threatened to bash my nut in with the Doctor Barnado’s box.’
‘Oh my gawd!’
‘Yes, Sidney. That evening did not reveal you in your best light.’
‘Evening! But I was home with Rosie by lunch time.’
‘That was the next day.’
‘Oh my gawd! I thought she was a bit funny.’
In his sober moments Sidney has explained that we are going to Cyprus because Justin has cooked up a deal which makes it an all-time low in low budget movie production. I have thrown out the names of Spain and Yugoslavia but these apparently offer us nothing when compared to the simple fun-loving Cypriots.
‘You see, they haven’t been exploited,’ says Sid. ‘We’re going to be the first.’
‘Sounds great, Sidney.’
‘It is, it is. With local camera crews and the price at which we can get extras, Justin reckons this is going to be one of the cheapest movies of all time. These guys work for nothing.’
This may be true because they certainly do not seem to work for money. When we get to Mexos, where the unit is supposed to be located, the men of the village are enjoying a spot of Egyptian PT outside the local coffee-shop, their eyes registering only a flicker of interest as they watch an old woman stagger down the dusty street beneath about half a ton of firewood.
‘We should have got a taxi, Sidney,’ I say. ‘I didn’t fancy sitting with all those chickens. Some of them got very frightened.’
‘Don’t worry. They’ll be all right if you soak them overnight.’ Sidney averts his eyes from the unsavoury sight of my trousers. ‘I didn’t know it was going to be market day, did I?’
‘Nevertheless, Sidney, I’d have thought we’d got past the stage of travelling by bus. You must be rolling in it.’
‘You look as if you’ve been rolling in it, and all,’ says Sidney gleefully, never being able to resist a chance for coarse humour. ‘It’s all right going on like that but you can’t afford to throw it about. Count the pennies and gather ye rosebuds while ye may, is what I always say.’
‘Very quaint and commendable, Sidney, but I still think you could lash out a bit more on creature comforts. I mean, I don’t fancy putting up in any of the doss-houses in this dump.’
‘You’re not going to. We’re sleeping in tents.’
‘Tents?’
‘I told you this was a low budget picture. I suppose you thought you’d be lording it in the Nicosia Hilton?’
I don’t bother to answer that because sometimes Sidney gets up my bracket so far he starts affecting my breathing.
We walk through the village which pongs like Ken Loser getting excited and sure enough there is a large tent pitched where the last mud structure gives way to a wide, flat plain.
‘Why is it parked there?’ I ask.
‘So as to be near the shooting.’
‘But we’re not using this place as a set, are we? It looks like a convalescent home for run-down mosquitoes.’
‘I don’t know,’ Sidney sounds puzzled. ‘I thought they were going to build a set with local labour.’
‘If that was the local labour outside the café, they didn’t look as if they could separate a pack of bath cubes.’
‘We’ll ask Justin,’ says Sidney, sounding more cheerful the minute his lips wrap round the reassuring syllables of the Maestro’s name, ‘he’ll know what’s happening.’
But when we peel back the flap of the tent stirring uneasily in the hot wind, it is not Justin that we see. Sprawled amongst a welter of beer-cans and empty bottles is the familiar figure of Mac.
‘My God! This place smells like a cats’ comfort station,’ snorts Sidney. ‘What the hell’s been happening?’
The person best equipped to tell us is stirred into action by the toe of Sidney’s boot. This item he seizes fondly before attempting to insert an arm up its owner’s