Pirate Cinema

Chapter 11

Speechifying/£78 million/A friend in the law

Writing a speech is stupid. You write it and speak the words aloud -- I'd started off saying them into a webcam so that I could see what I looked like when I was talking, but I was so self-conscious about the horrible spectacle of all those stupid contrived words coming out of my spotty, awkward face -- and they sound as convincing as a cereal advert. The thing was, I'd heard plenty of speeches -- Scot Colford had done more than a few brilliant ones in his films -- and felt my heart soaring in response to the words entering my ears, so I knew it was possible to say things that moved people and maybe even changed their minds.

But I didn't know what words to say, or how to say them. I sat in my room, filling screen after screen with stupid, stupid words, discarding them, starting over, and finally, I called Cora.

I'd been chatting to her all the time lately. She loved the idea of reforming TIP, and said that all her schoolmates were geared up to help. They'd descend on every MP's surgery in Bradford with their parents in tow, and grab the lawmakers by the lapels and demand that they listen to reason and refuse to leave until they did. Cora was so much smarter than me. She was like 26 in that regard (and 26 probably called her even more than I did -- she'd adopted her as big sister and co-conspirator and the two were thick as thieves), just another one of the brilliant women in my life who were much, much cleverer than I'd ever be. Why weren't they giving the speech? Well cos 26 had already filled in for my speech, and cos Sewer Cinema had been my idea, and because, weird as it was, millions of people actually cared what films Cecil B. DeVil gave his seal of approval to.

Cora would understand what it was like to grow up in the kind of family where no one believed you could change anything, ever. She'd know exactly what to say to me. I dialed her and listened to it ring two, three times. I checked my watch. Bugger, she was at school. I was about to hang up when it was picked up.

“Cora?” I said.

“Cora's at school,” my mum said. “She forgot her phone -- I found it between the sofa cushions. Is that Trent?”

I groaned inwardly. Mum and Dad and I had been on speaking terms since I'd gone back, and I rang them every fortnight or so to have a kind of ritualistic conversation about how many veggies I was eating and whether I was taking drugs or getting into trouble. The kind of conversation where everyone knows that the answers are lies, but pretends not to, in other words. I loved my parents and even missed them in a weird sort of way, but I hadn't gone to them for advice since I was a little nipper. I certainly wasn't planning on getting public speaking advice from my mum. The closest thing she'd ever come to giving a public speech was making the Christmas toast every year, and she was famously long-winded at that, too.

“How are you, Mum?”

“Can't complain, actually. Been looking up the drugs and that they have me taking for my legs, and you know what I discovered? Turns out the pills one doctor had given me, way back when I had you were very bad to take if you were on the other pills, the ones I've been on for about five years. So I stopped taking the old ones and I can't tell you how much of an improvement it made!”

“Wow,” I said. “That's fantastic news!” My mum's legs have given her trouble all my life, and on the bad days, she could barely stand. It had all been getting much worse lately, too. This really was brilliant news.

“It's better than fantastic, you know. Now that I can get about a little more, I've been doing the physiotherapy and getting some more walks in, and I've found a ladies' walking group that goes out three evenings a week. It came up as an automatic suggestion when I was looking up the physio things, you understand. It's made such a difference, I can hardly believe it.”