Page 57 of The Cut
The door hits the wood with such force that the glass almost shatters in the frame. Ben’s shadow turns and heads back to his father.
As Annie moves away, she can hear shouts from the kitchen. He’s taking it out on him, breaking crockery and flipping furniture. All their hard work undone.
It was her fault. At least, that’s what she told herself. She knew the effect she had on him. Passion was a wonderful quality in a boy, but inside Ben was a heat that could burn too hot.
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A burning fire emoji.
‘Hey … you there?’ Freckles burst on to the screen.
Nate sat up from the bed as the message dropped.
‘Hey, how’s it going?’
‘Check this out.’ Nate turned his camera on, lifted his T-shirt and turned to the side. A rainbow of livid bruises peppered the side of his ribcage.
‘Whoa, is that real?’
‘What do you think?’ A little artist with a beret and a paint-brush, then a wink emoji. Nate was a master with a make-up palette but the bruises looked awful against his pale skin.
Freckles’ three dots rotated. As Nate waited, he noticed another follower had logged on. He frowned and turned off the camera.
‘Did you shoot any of the vintage film yet?’
Nate had completely forgotten about the Panasonic that Karine had given to him. He typed back.
‘I haven’t got enough tape.’
‘You’re gonna be the next Spielberg.’ Camera emoji.
Nate stood up from the bed, moved across the room and pulled out the camera from his desk drawer. He returned to the screen. Freckles was fast.
‘eBay?’ Detective emoji.
Nate sat back on the bed and opened the little door on the camera. There must be some old tapes somewhere. There was all that junk in the basement, the Atari game console with the220geriatric tennis game that was like watching paint dry. Old VCRs, a Betamax and a beat-up ZX Spectrum, boxes of crap that should have been dumped at the charity shop. Maybe there were some video tapes buried in there.
‘I have a plan.’ He sent Freckles a fingers-crossed emoji and signed off.
Ben sat in his office staring at the screen in disbelief. Nate’s RetroFX site was open on one side, Lily’s Instagram on the other. He’d always allowed both of his kids their privacy online, he had never intervened or checked up on what they did … until now. He’d just witnessed Nate’s live feed. He’d seen the bruises, but he couldn’t see who he was talking to.
He cupped his face with his hands and exhaled sharply.
He didn’t know how to stop this; it was way out of control. Ben gritted his teeth and hit the keys so hard his fingertips stung.
Karine Mickelsen.
The Wikipedia entry flashed up an old head shot of her from a few years ago. She was Danish, but a profile link listed her training at Stockholms Filmskola, and there was a short entry about her private life, including a divorce.
A link to a video of huddled crowds at a black-tie event. A line-up of winners, Cate Blanchett, Léa Seydoux, and Karine Mickelsen draped in red silk, her white-blonde hair pinned up in a chignon, surrounded by a gaggle of studio executives smiling and waving on the steps of la Croisette at Cannes 2018. That was the year she had received the Palme d’Or and a César for best adapted screenplay forTheHoax.
‘The search for the truth is everything to a filmmaker like me.’ Karine was standing at the microphone, making her acceptance speech. ‘It’s all about pushing boundaries. I see myself as an archaeologist digging into the earth, to reveal the221secrets hidden in the past. Thank you to my agent and my backers at Sony and Ray of Light, and especially to Shiv Banerjee, who financed the movie – we couldn’t have done this without you. Thank you.’
Ben paused the video and sat for a moment. Banerjee … that name rang a bell. He continued to scroll through more articles about Mickelsen as a rising star, coming from a journalistic background, through a successful career as a documentary filmmaker and in 2018 breaking out as a feature director. AHello!magazine article of a UK premiere press launch. The after-party at Claridge’s in London, and a sea of well-known faces whose names slipped the mind. Ben stopped and clicked on one particular picture. Karine was at the centre of a shot, with five or six others. Below, their names were listed.
