This Must Be the Place (46 page)

TL: A film script.

LC
: Can we talk a little bit about your return to directing?

TL: Sure. What would you like to know?

LC
: Well, you’ve been – how would you put it? – out of the game for a while, haven’t you?

TL: No.

LC
: Your last film came out almost twenty years ago. I’d call that a while, wouldn’t you?

TL: My last film was eleven years ago. It was called—

LC
:
The Unanswered Question
, yes. That was self-financed, I believe? It didn’t get a screen release?

TL: It did in Sweden. It was—

LC
: OK, so your last major release was almost twenty years ago and since then you have made a self-financed—

TL: A low-budget indie.

LC
: Right. A low-budget indie. But recently you’ve been working on a TV series that has won lots of awards here in Sweden, and it’s about to be shown in the UK and the States. You must be really pleased about that. How did you feel when you got the call, asking you to direct this series?

TL: I was cautious, at first. I’d never worked in the medium of TV, never been involved in such a corporation like that, and I’ve been used to working with my own material, in my own way. I’d also never been a fan of the crime genre—

LC
: How come?

TL: It can be too prescriptive, too formulaic. You know – a body is found, a detective is assigned, lots of danger and peril ensue, then at last a criminal is apprehended. I prefer to work with a looser structure, you know, an unexpected outcome. Ideally, I would—

LC
: But for you, getting that call, inviting you to direct this series, must have been a relief.

TL: A relief?

LC
: Well, you had effectively been out of work for—

TL: I have never been out of work. I’ve been working all this time.

LC
: You have?

TL: Yes.

LC
: On what?

TL: Many different things.

LC
: Would you be able to expand on that?

TL: Not really. You will see.

LC
: I will see? These things you have been working on will see the light of day, they will be released?

TL: Yes, I believe so. What you see from the outside is perhaps a career break but for me it has felt like lying in wait. I had to look at the rules I laid down for myself. I had to rethink their parameters for a changing world. I needed to regroup, to reassess after—

LC
: After Claudette Wells left you?

[
Pause.
]

TL: She didn’t leave me.

LC
: She didn’t?

TL: No. She left you.

LC
: Me?

TL: Not you personally but what you stand for. You are the synecdoche for what she ran away from.

[
A pause. TL can be heard disappearing into the undergrowth and fossicking around.
]

LC
: What are you looking for?

TL: [
distant
] It’s … [
inaudible
] … many of them … chan … possible to collect them and …

LC
: What?

TL: Mushrooms. Chanterelles. They grow this time of year in … [
inaudible
] … fry them … [
inaudible
] … grouped like this … damp places …

LC
: Oh.

[
More distant sounds of cracking and branches, then the sound of TL returning
.]

LC
: Wow. That’s a lot. Are you going to eat them?

TL: We are going to eat them. You and me.

LC
: [
anxious
] Um. Are you sure they’re safe?

TL: Of course.

LC
: Because I’ve read that—

TL: Don’t worry. I’ve been doing this all my life. What do you think, that I might poison you? [
Laughs
]

LC
: [
clearing throat
] So, we were talking about Claudette Wells.

TL: No, we weren’t.

LC
: You were saying that she didn’t leave you, that she was running from … the media? Is that what you meant?

TL: [
sighs
] Do we really have to do this?

LC
: You don’t want to talk about Claudette?

TL: Of course not.

LC
: Why not? Is it painful for you, still?

TL: No, it’s not painful, it’s just … Can you imagine how many fucking times I’ve been asked these questions, over the years?

LC
: I imagine it’s a lot.

TL: A hell of a lot.

[
Pause
.]

LC
: You seem angry.

TL: … [
something inaudible
]

LC
: Are you angry with her?

TL: Come on. Let’s not talk about this. OK?

LC
: You’d have a perfect right to be angry with her.

TL: … [
something in Swedish
]

LC
: She did walk out on what was to be your biggest film, which effectively put you out of work for two decades. Do you blame her entirely for your lack of output?

TL: Listen, I was a film-maker before I ever met her. I never needed her. She was nothing – she was an actor and actors are always replaceable, always—

LC
: That’s not quite what she was, though, is it? She acted on other films but with you it was different. She co-wrote and co-directed your most successful, most experimental films, didn’t she, as well as appearing in them?

TL: [
mutters
] Up to a point.

LC
: Up to a point? You’re saying it isn’t true? That those films were entirely your work?
When the Rain Didn’t Fall
was just you? And
A Manual for Living
? It wasn’t with her input?

TL: No, I’m not saying that. I’m actually not saying anything. I do not want to discuss this. Ask me something else. Let’s talk about the TV series.

[
Pause
.]

LC
: Did she tell you she was going to go? Did you know she was planning to disappear?

[
Silence
.]

LC
: When she vanished, off the coast of Stockholm, did you know she was leaving?

TL: [
mutters
] Of course I knew.

LC
: You did? She told you?

TL: Not in so many words. But I knew. She was my partner, my almost-wife. You can’t live with somebody for as long as Claudette and I lived together and not know the workings of their mind. I knew she would do it, that she would … dematerialise, disappear herself. I knew it was a matter of time. I think … I think I just hoped she might finish that film first. It would have been our masterpiece, our best work. But she couldn’t do it. She had to go.

[
Silence
.]

LC
: You’ve never said this before.

[
Silence
.]

LC
: Are you in touch with her?

[
Silence
.]

LC
: Timou, are you in touch with Claudette?

[
Silence
.]

LC
: You shrugged just then. Was that a yes or a no?

TL: It was a no-comment.

LC
: How about the son you had together? Are you in touch with him?

[
Silence
.]

LC
: Was that another no-comment?

TL: It was.

LC
: Timou, do you know where Claudette is?

[
Silence
.]

LC
: Timou?

[
Silence
.]

LC
: Is she even alive, do you know?

[
Silence
.]

LC
: You have no idea where she is? None at all? Is she … could she be … nearby?

TL: What – here? In Dalsland? You think I’m hiding her in the outhouse over there? In the attic? In the woodshed?

LC
: Are you?

TL: [
laughs
] Yeah, sure, why not? You’ve hit the nail on the head. [
Pretending to shout
] Claudette! Time to come out! The game is up! There’s a journalist here who wants to talk to you!

[
Pause
.]

LC
: Do you know where she is?

TL: [
mutters something
.]

LC
: What was that?

TL: I said, yes, OK?

LC
: You do? You know where she is?

TL: Of course.

LC
: You know where Claudette Wells is? You can confirm she is alive?

TL: I confirm nothing.

LC
: [
excited but trying not to show it
] But you’re saying you know her whereabouts?

TL: I do. I have always known. Like I said, she was my almost-wife. We were each other’s worlds, for a time. I knew everything about her. She knew everything about me.

LC
: Can you tell us where she is?

TL: What do you think?

LC
: I think that maybe—

TL: You think I’m going to keep it a secret for all this time and then suddenly one day I will just tell it to some journalist who turns up at my
sommerstuga
?