The process of writing throws up a lot of gorgeous bits and bobs which don’t make the final cut.

This particular out-take was an alternative page one for The Gone-Away World. It was part of a discussion about the name “Gonzo” and the original title of the book (“The Wages of Gonzo Lubitsch”) and I don’t think I’ll ever recycle it, so I wondered if you’d like to see it. I’m going to post it elsewhere on the site when I get my head together, along with some other DVD-Extra kinds of things. In the mean time, though, here’s how the book could have started:

            
Yelena Lubitsch, six months pregnant, was rescued from drowning in the harbour at Crowsey by a retired silversmith from Seville.  A long-fingered hand, pitted and speckled by inevitable scalds, drew her confidently from the water, while her husband wrapped one arm around the railing and twined the other about the formidable bicep of Gonzalo Guillermo Garcia.  A human chain thus established, Yelena was raised Titanic-like from the briny water, and shortly thereafter was greatly restored by an infusion of buttered crumpets.  Señor Garcia declined all manner of thanks, asserting that any damn fool can reach out and haul a lady from the sea, but not everyone can hold fast to a slime-covered fence while carrying the weight of three (and one half) persons at one time. 

            So saying, the Spaniard hurried away to keep an assignation with a local seamstress whose delicate wrists he had admired at lunch, and was never more seen by Yelena or her husband.  When in due course Yelena gave birth to their second son (eight pounds and one ounce, and approximately the colour of a blackcurrant), the couple naturally sought to call him after their saviour.  Owing, however, to a mild confusion brought on by the stress of the rescue and a basic unfamiliarity with Spanish names, the child was christened not Gonzalo but Gonzo, which sat in any case more readily on the tongues of his parents.  Gonzo William Lubitsch, without a trace of Spanish DNA, nonetheless took on by some cultural osmosis the significant traits of his not-quite namesake. He was quick to take offense and slow to forgiveness, decisive in action, magnanimous with friends and faithful to his promises, and when called upon to stand – to receive honours or accept disgrace – he stood with hands on hips and clear eyes unflinching, as if caught just after shooting his cuffs and turning away from a slain minotaur.