Heavy Water: And Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

after that, the screenplay appeared in the Little Magazine . Three months after that, Alistair received a check for £12.50, which bounced.
    Curiously, although the proof had incorporated Alistair’s corrections, the published version reverted to the typescript, in which Brad escaped from the Nebulan lab seemingly without concern for a Chelsi last glimpsed on an operating table with a syringe full of Phobian viper venom being eased into her neck. Later that month, Alistair went along to a reading at the Screenplay Society in Earls Court. There he got talking to a gaunt girl in an ash-stained black smock who claimed to have read his screenplay and who, over glasses of red wine and, later, in the terrible pub, told him he was a weakling and a hypocrite with no notion of the ways of men and women. Alistair had not been a published screenplay writer long enough to respond to, or even recognize, this graphic proposition (though he did keep the telephone number she threw at his feet). It is anyway doubtful whether he would have dared to take things further. He was marrying Hazel the following weekend.
    In the new year he sent Sixsmith a series—one might almost say a sequence—of screenplays on group-jeopardy themes. His follow-up letter in the summer was answered by a brief note stating that Sixsmith was no longer employed by the LM . Alistair telephoned. He then discussed the matter with Hazel and decided to take the next day off work.
    It was a September morning. The hospice in Cricklewood was of recent design and construction; from the road it resembled a clutch of igloos against the sheenless tundra of the sky. When he asked for Hugh Sixsmith at the desk, two men in suits climbed quickly from their chairs. One was a writ-server. One was a cost-adjuster. Alistair waved away their complex requests.
    The warm room contained clogged, regretful murmurs, and defiance in the form of bottles and paper cups and cigarette smoke, and the many peeping eyes of female grief. A young woman faced him proudly. Alistair started explaining who he was, a young screenplay writer come to … On the bed in the corner the spavined figure of Sixsmith was gawkily arranged. Alistair moved toward it. At first he was sure the eyes were gone, like holes cut out of pumpkin or blood orange. But then the faint brows began to lift, and Alistair thought he saw the light of recognition.
    As the tears began, he felt the shiver of approval, of consensus, on his back. He took the old screenplay writer’s hand and said, “Goodbye. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
    Opening in four hundred and thirty-seven theaters, the Binary sonnet “Composed at—Castle” did seventeen million in its first weekend. At this time Luke was living in a two-bedroom apartment on Yokum Drive. Suki was with him. He hoped it wouldn’t take her too long to find out about Henna Mickiewicz. When the smoke cleared he would switch to the more mature Anita, who produced.
    He had taken his sonnet to Rodge at Red Giant and turned it into an ode. When that didn’t work out he went to Mal at Monad, where they’d gone for the villanelle. The villanelle had become a triolet, briefly, with Tim at TCT, before Bob at Binary had him rethink it as a rondeau. When the rondeau didn’t take, Luke lyricized it and got Mike to send it to Joe. Everyone, including Jake Endo, thought that now was surely the time to turn it back into a sonnet.
    Luke had dinner at Rales with Joe and Mike.
    “I always thought of ‘Sonnet’ as an art poem,” said Joe. “But sonnets are so hot now I’ve started thinking more commercially.”
    Mike said, “TCT is doing a sequel and a prequel to ‘’Tis’ and bringing them out at the same time.”
    “A sequel?” said Joe.
    “Yeah. They’re calling it ‘ ’Twill.’ ”
    Mike was a little fucked up. So was Joe. Luke was a little fucked up too. They’d done some lines at the office. Then drinks here at the bar. They’d meant to get a little fucked up.