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turning to page one
turning to page one
The bathroom of Margot’s and Raleigh’s apartment. Margot sits Indian-style on the counter painting her toenails red and talking on the telephone. There are cotton balls between her toes, and she has a towel wrapped around her.
Hot water runs full blast in the bathtub. A little black-and- white television set is tuned in to the six o’clock news with the sound turned off. Margot whispers into the telephone:
MARGOT
Well, I just don’t use that word
lightly.
Margot takes a drag of a cigarette balanced at the edge of the sink. There is knock on the door. Margot does not look up.
MARGOT (CONT’D)
I have to go, Eli.
Margot hangs up the telephone. There is another knock.
RALEIGH
Margot?
Raleigh has an English accent with a lisp. Margot answers without taking the cigarette out of her mouth.
MARGOT
Uh-huh?
RALEIGH
May I come in, please?
Margot puts out her cigarette. She waves the smoke away, turns on a little electric fan, and sprays perfume into the air with an atomizer. She reaches over and unlocks the door with her foot.
Raleigh cracks open the door and looks inside. He is wearing red pajamas and a camel’s-hair bathrobe. He seems worried and intimidated.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
Margot was married to the writer and
neurologist Raleigh St. Clair.
INSERT:
A copy of Raleigh St. Clair’s latest book, The Peculiar Neuro- degenerative Inhabitants of the Kazawa Atoll. On the dust jacket, there is a photograph of Raleigh -- dressed in a Speedo, with goggles on top of his head -- on a beach,
CUT TO:
Raleigh looking in the bathroom doorway.
RALEIGH
How are you, my darling?
CONTINUED: (2)
MARGOT
Fine, thank you.
Margot blows on her toenails.
RALEIGH
You must eat something. Shall I make
your dinner?
MARGOT
No, thank you.
Margot taps her fingers on the counter. The wooden one makes a clicking sound. She looks to Raleigh. Raleigh hesitates. He goes out suddenly and closes the door. Margot reaches over with her foot and locks it.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
She was known for her extreme secrecy.
For example, none of the Tenenbaums knew
she was a smoker, which she had been
since the age of twelve.
Margot opens a box of Q-Tips. There is a cigarette hidden inside. She takes it out and lights it.
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
Nor were they aware of her first
marriage and divorce to a recording
artist in Jamaica.
INSERT:
A remaindered copy of Desmond Winston Manchester XI’s LP record Dynamite Stick. On the sleeve there is a photograph of five Rastafarians standing in front of a metal shack. A younger Margot stands behind them partly hidden in the door frame. She is dressed in a string bikini.
NARRATOR (CONT’D)
She kept a private studio in Mockingbird
Heights under the name Helen Scott.