[Lindstrom to Wells] 21/02/92
You’re sorry? Why?
[Wells to Lindstrom] 21/02/92
I’m sorry if I’ve unwittingly been the cause of problems between you and Astrid.
[Lindstrom to Wells] 21/02/92
A and I were over the minute I met you. We all know that.
Or do you mean you are sorry that A and I have split up?
[Lindstrom to Wells] 21/02/92
Hello?
[Lindstrom to Wells] 21/02/92
PLEASE don’t go silent on me.
[Lindstrom to Wells] 21/02/92
Claude? Don’t do this.
[Lindstrom to Wells] 22/02/92
Can’t sleep – worried about you. Can you just give me one word? So I know you haven’t been tied up by a crazy person or fallen into the Seine or run away with the circus or got your hair tangled in a rotating fan and are pinned to the spot, in much pain? I am happy to come to your rescue if any of these things have occurred but I may need coordinates.
Tx
[Wells to Lindstrom] 22/02/92
Not fallen into Seine, never been tempted by circus life, hair fine although out of control. Rather like me, it would seem. Have thrown caution to the winds and booked flight to New York. Will be with you tomorrow morning. We can discuss coordinates then.
Cx
[Lindstrom to Wells] 22/02/92
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
LOT 18
FRAMED PRINT OF CLOUD FORMATIONS
Entitled Wolkenformen and taken from a textbook. Shows illustrations of twelve different types of cloud. Oak frame, glass. Some signs of scratching on the front. Lower left corner shows small split in wood. Writing on the back:
For C, my silver lining, with love, Txxx.
NB: ‘Cloud’ was Lindstrom’s nickname for Wells. Lot includes photograph of Wells, with cigarette and dog, sitting in the Manhattan apartment she shared with Lindstrom, circa 1993; print can be seen on the wall behind her.
LOT 18
LOT 19
TWO PIECES OF CORAL
Kept by Wells on her desk.
Red organ pipe coral
(Tubipora musica) and blue coral (Heliopora coerulea), both native to the Indian Ocean. Provenance and significance to Wells unknown.
LOT 19
LOT 20
FIVE FLOPPY DISCS
Used by Wells to save various drafts of the script for When the Rain Didn’t Fall, the film she co-wrote with Lindstrom in 1992. All covers show notations, labelling and corrections in Wells’s handwriting.
LOT 20
LOT 21
TISSUE WITH LIPSTICK BLOT
Made by Wells. From the set of When the Rain Didn’t Fall, shot in late 1992.
LOT 21
LOT 22
NINE MAGAZINES
Most featuring Wells on the cover. Dated 1992–3. All are signed ‘To Derek’, by Wells.
LOT 22
LOT 23
ASHTRAY IN THE SHAPE OF A STAR
Aluminium, dates from 1940s. Included in lot is a photograph of Wells and Lindstrom on set, looking at a monitor together; Lindstrom has his arm around Wells; Wells is holding a cigarette and the ashtray in one hand.
LOT 23
LOT 24
MAKE-UP BAG BELONGING TO WELLS
Kimono design, gold leather loop,small inkstain to interior.
Contents are as follows: one large hairpin, seven small hairpins, two blue and white spotted hairclips, kilt pin, green Bakelite bracelet, small plastic dinosaur, enamel butterfly brooch,beetle cast in resin, two elastic hair-bands, Chinese enamel bangle, double shell, one plastic doll’s hand, one clear plastic button, one tortoiseshell button with four holes, one navy button with anchor design, one blue silk-covered button in paisley pattern.
LOT 24
LOT 25
GREY SILK DRESS
Embellished with red and orange beading, worn by Wells at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. Lot includes photographs of her arriving at the screening with Lindstrom. It was their first official appearance as a couple.
LOT 25
LOT 26
PAIR OF SNEAKERS
In red lightning-flash print, size 39, worn by Wells in the early 1990s. Some signs of wear to sole and canvas upper. Included in lot is paparazzi shot of Wells, torn from the page of a magazine, which shows her wearing the shoes, running across a road in New York.
LOT 26
LOT 27
GREETINGS CARD
To Claudette Wells from her brother, Lucas Wells, dated 12 November 1993. Image shows a girl being towed by a younger boy on a bicycle past the Eiffel Tower in 1943: Le Remorqueur du Champ de Mars (The Tug Boat of the Champ de Mars), Robert Doisneau. Some signs of wear and damage – large central crease where it has been kept folded.
Text reads: C, It is the most surreal experience watching your life explode from my position here across the Atlantic. I feel a bit like an astronomer traking [sic] the course of a comet and just hoping it doesn’t crash. Please just know this: you can come here any time. The house is ready (sort of) for visitors. Come, come, come. Wear a gorilla suit or similar so no one harasses you on the plane. Can you travel under an assumed name? Lx
LOT 27
LOT 28
PAIR OF SUNGLASSES
Given to Wells by Lindstrom. Rose-coloured frames, dark brown lenses. Good condition, scratch measuring 2mm on right arm. Case has leather outer and felt inner. Dented and shows signs of use and sun damage.
Written inside the lining is:
Be incognito but not with me. Txxx
LOT 28
LOT 29
HOSPITAL ID BAND
Red plastic, severed for removal, inscribed in black ballpoint:
WELLS, CLAUDETTE F. 2/8/93
A medical number is also inscribed in blue ballpoint. NB: various newspapers at the time reported a rumour that in the summer of 1993 Wells suffered a collapse during filming and was admitted to a New York hospital with ‘stress-related exhaustion’.
LOT 29
LOT 30
LETTER TO A PRIVATE SECURITY COMPANY
From Lindstrom, dated 4 December 1993, indicating that he wished to appoint a private security guard for Wells. The letter is on headed paper from Lagom Films, Wells and Lindstrom’s production company, and is signed in Lindstrom’s absence by personal assistant Lenny Schneider. Written on an attached sticky note, in Lindstrom’s handwriting, is:
Lenny, process this but don’t tell C.
Underneath, in Wells’s handwriting,in black ballpoint, is:
Don’t tell me what??
LOT 30
How a Locksmith Must Feel
A phone call, California to Donegal, 2010
‘Claudette?’
She has picked up so quickly that he thinks she must have been waiting by the phone.
‘Daniel.’ It is half sighed, half murmured. ‘About bloody time.’
Despite his surprise at this greeting, despite everything, he finds himself wincing, hoping the children aren’t in earshot. Marithe has a far more colourful vocabulary than any six-year-old ought to have; Claudette’s inability to refrain from swearing in front of their children is his one and only complaint about her as a mother. And one, he tells himself, over and over, isn’t so bad.
‘Hello to you too,’ he says, nonplussed. ‘Are you OK?’
He hears the sound of the television surge forward, then die away, and he can picture her, knows exactly where she is in their house, what she is doing: she is walking away from the sitting room, where the wood-burner will be fired up, where the dog will be lying, stretched out like a hairy hearth-rug, where Marithe and Calvin will be sitting, leaning up against each other, on the sofa, Marithe with her thumb in, slackly, watching cartoons. Claudette will be heading, on bare feet, over the splintery boards of the corridor into the front room, where she can swear at him with impunity.
The urge to be there with her is so strong he has to lean h
is head into a convenient lamp-post, grit his teeth, set his jaw.
‘Am I OK?’ she says. ‘Well, frankly, I’ve been better. The question is, are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? I was just calling to let you know that I’m not at my dad’s yet. I kind of—’
‘I know you’re not at your dad’s,’ she interrupts.
‘You do?’
‘Yes. Your sister called me and –’
‘Ah.’ There is a rising sensation in his chest, a small tide of dismay. He should, he now sees, have called her before. He should have tried to explain something to her, about the holes in his life, the underground rivers, about the sudden towering urge to fix as many as possible.
‘– told me you’d just taken off. There they were, waiting for you in Brooklyn, making lunch for you, when you sent some incoherent text message saying you were at Newark airport but that you weren’t going to be able to make it that day.’
‘Now,’ he says, swallowing, ‘about that. The thing is, I meant to go. Obviously. I really did. I mean, I was there, wasn’t I? But then—’
‘Where are you?’ she says. Her voice is low, forlorn, and the sound of it fills him with nothing so much as the desire to put his arms around her, to hold her head to his shoulder.
‘Fremont,’ he mutters.
‘Where?’
‘California.’
A sharp intake of breath. He listens to the ensuing silence. There is my home, he thinks, there is the noise of my house, the lives of my wife and children. He wants to bottle this sound, to stopper it, so that he can take it out and give himself a dose of it, when needed.
‘I caught a plane straight out of Newark for San Francisco.’
‘But … what happened to New York?’
‘I did go. I was there. And I’m going back there now. Right now. I’m heading to the airport to catch a flight back tonight. The party’s not until tomorrow. I’ve got loads of time.’
‘Daniel, what are you doing in California?’
‘I …’ He presses his fingertips into his eye sockets. ‘I had to … I wanted to see … my kids. My other kids. I had this sudden … I wanted to straighten things out with them.’
‘Oh,’ she says, taken aback. This is clearly not the answer she was expecting. There is a moment of silence. ‘And did you manage to see them?’
‘I did. I saw them just now.’
‘That’s great, Daniel. That’s wonderful. I’ve always said you should just turn up. How did it go?’
‘It was …’ He tries to articulate what he felt when he saw them, after a gap of so many years, how they appeared in the doorway of the coffee shop and walked towards him across the floor. It wasn’t so much a case of recognition, more a sensation of rightness, the idea of something being where it should be, something finding its place. He knows now how a locksmith must feel when he creates the key that finally releases an old rust-shut lock, or a composer when he finds the note to complete a chord. They had changed, Niall and Phoebe, yet were exactly the same and he, Daniel, had been filled with a crazed kind of delight and delirium at seeing them, their hair, their hands, their feet in their shoes, the way their clothes sat on their bodies so precisely and so uniquely. Your faces, he had wanted to exclaim, your fingernails. Just look at you both.
In several years’ time, in the middle of the night, Daniel will receive the news that Phoebe has been killed in an accident and he will find that during her funeral he will be picturing her as she was on that day in the coffee shop, sitting before him after so long, her hair hooked behind one of her perfect pale ears, a charm bracelet encircling her wrist, her knee almost touching her brother’s.
As yet, of course, he doesn’t know this. Nobody knows this. He doesn’t know that he will receive emails from her once a week for the rest of her life, that he will, for that short time, see her regularly, her flying to Ireland, him flying to the States; he will take her out to dinner, she will order for both of them, they will discover a mutual taste for spicy Thai soup; he will buy her the books she needs for college, a warm winter coat, a pair of leather gloves. For now, Daniel is walking along a Fremont street and he is raising himself up on his toes to answer his wife, banging his hand into the wall of a laundromat. ‘I saw them,’ he is saying, with unadulterated, unalloyed joy. ‘They came, Claude. And they were amazing, as amazing as they ever were.’
‘I’m really pleased for you. Really, really pleased.’
‘Thank you.’ He sighs, touched by her support, her understanding, her calm. Everything, he sees, is going to be all right.
Then she says, ‘Could you not have told me first?’
‘Well, the thing is—’
‘Could you not have called to tell me why you didn’t turn up in Brooklyn? Could you not have been a little bit more forthcoming in the single text message you deigned to leave on your sister’s phone? Could you not have let us all know before?’ And here it comes, he thinks, the emotive articulacy that movie-goers paid to see. ‘It’s your father’s birthday, Daniel. He’s a frail old man and he was expecting to see you yesterday. I know there’s a lot of history between the two of you but he didn’t deserve that. Not at all.’
Silence roils between Fremont and Donegal.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘You’re right. I should have called you. I don’t know what I was thinking. It’s hard to explain but I’m kind of as surprised as you are to find myself—’
‘Is this about someone else?’
‘What?’
‘Are you seeing someone?’
‘Claudette. That’s ridiculous.’
‘Is it?
‘Yes.’
‘Because you’d never do a thing like that, would you?’
He sighs. ‘I admit that my track record in that respect is not perfect but, come on, you know I wouldn’t do that to you. Who else would I ever want?’
She lets out a puff of air. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on, I’m not that man.’ He wants to say, aren’t you mixing me up with your ex, but he can see that this isn’t the time, so instead he opts for more reassurance: ‘Sweetheart, I swear to you it’s not that.’
‘Swear on your life.’
‘I swear.’
‘On the children’s lives.’
Unseen by her, he smiles. He loves her for her sense of melodrama, her extremity. ‘I swear on the children’s lives.’
‘OK,’ she says slowly and clearly. ‘Know this, Daniel Sullivan: if I find out that you are lying to me –’
‘I’m not.’
‘– I will cut off your balls.’
‘OK.’
‘First one, then the other.’
‘Got it.’ He hears himself emit a slightly nervous laugh. ‘Thank you, wife of mine, for that very graphic and precise picture.’ He dodges a man holding the leashes of no fewer than five dogs and sidesteps a leaking gutter. ‘So,’ he says, in an attempt to get the conversation back to the realm of normality, ‘what have you guys been doing today? Anything special?’
‘Well,’ Claudette says, ‘remember I told you I wanted to try to build that winch? I realised—’
‘That what?’ He isn’t sure he heard her right.
‘Winch. I realised—’
‘Did you say “winch”?’
‘Yes, the winch. We talked about it last week.’
‘We did?’
‘When we were out by the well that evening. With a bottle of wine. Remember?’
‘Er …’ Daniel casts his mind back to a recent evening by the well and can remember her talking, pointing to the barn and saying something about ironmongery but can recall only his attempts to grope her in the dark. She’d been wearing a diaphanous dress thing and not a lot else. ‘Sort of.’
‘Well, I managed to get hold of the right kind of rope, strong enough to hold both kids, I mean, but—’
‘Hang on a second. You mean this – this winch is for … what? Stringing up the kids?’ He tries t
o think of a way to begin to object to this plan, coming up only with ‘Claudette.’
‘What?’
‘Are you sure? I mean … have you thought about …?’ Daniel flounders for the right approach. He knows that her somewhat overblown and baroque parenting is just an expression of her sublimated creative urges. It’s the way she works off all the energy she once used for making ground-breaking films. She has to do something with all that fire and spark, he reasons. But he draws the line at rendering his children airborne in a homemade fucking winch. ‘I’m not sure this sounds entirely safe.’
‘I knew you’d say that,’ she says. ‘Which is why we’re doing it while you’re away. They want to put on a play, you see, for when you get back. Marithe has been making Calvin a unicorn costume and—’
‘Well, is there any chance it could be a terrestrial-based play? And we can discuss the winch when I get back.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘When will what be?’
She exhales. ‘When are you coming back?’
‘Next week, as planned. But, now you mention it, I was wondering …’ He comes to a standstill outside a grocery store. Banked up in bright pyramids are oranges, peaches, nectarines. All he would have to do is extract one single fruit from the wrong place and the whole perfectly balanced display would come crashing down. He pictures orbs of fruit bouncing like rubber balls all over the sidewalk, around his feet, into the gutter.
‘You were wondering what?’ Claudette prompts.
‘How would it be if I …’ he has to turn away from the grocery display, so strong is the urge to unleash chaos ‘… extended the trip by a day or two? I may not, I don’t know. It’s just a possibility. Would it be all right with you? I know it means you’d be on your own a bit longer with the kids but you’d have time to rehearse the unicorn extravaganza and it shouldn’t be—’
‘Are you thinking of staying on with your family?’
‘Um,’ he says, slowly, ‘not exactly.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Claudette says. ‘Where would you be in these two days?’