‘Nat. Nat? Are you all right?’
He had looked at Reiner, and felt an immense wave of tenderness engulf him. He was holding his hand and nodding, yes, it was wonderful, and now the mode had changed. He was riding a magic carpet in whose weave he could discern every blissful figure, though he wasn’t sure if he was saying it or thinking it, and it didn’t matter either way, because Reiner understood.
Freya was writing at home one morning when the telephone rang: it was a secretary calling from the production office of a new film company named Cosenza–Pulver. She’d never heard of them. They were working on a project in London at the moment, the girl explained – a film called Eureka. Anyway, she’d been asked to telephone and invite her to a cast and crew party a few weeks hence. Would she like to be put on the guest list? This had to be Nat’s doing, Freya realised, as she took down the time and date. There was a moment’s confusion about the address, however. ‘It’s the Thomas Bertram,’ said the girl. ‘Is that the name of a pub?’ ‘No, no, not a pub – a boat. It belongs to Harold Pulver.’ It transpired that this vessel would carry them down the Thames to Richmond, where they would arrive in time for dinner at a hotel. A guest of Harold Pulver! ‘A pirate ship, then,’ she wanted to say, but thanked the girl instead and rang off.
That evening she had her own guest for supper at Canonbury Square. Answering the doorbell she had found her father, Stephen, irresolute on the pavement. He was staring distractedly back at the road.
‘Dad. Is something up?’
Stephen pointed at the navy-blue Jaguar he had just parked. ‘Brand new. I’m wondering if it’s safe to leave it here …’
‘Of course it is!’ she replied with an irritated laugh. Her father had lived in Chelsea for most of his life, and it amused him to regard Islington as barely more than a slum.
‘Oh well. Too late now,’ he smiled, entering the hall with a little shrug. He handed her a dusty bottle of Margaux, which she briefly examined.
‘Looks expensive.’
‘It is,’ he replied. ‘Should go well with the roast chicken.’
There had been no consultation as to the meal: if it was just the two of them she would always roast a chicken. She left him in the living room while she fixed them drinks in the kitchen. Stephen, now in his late sixties, had settled into a look that was half squire, half bohemian. He was dressed in a nicely cut corduroy jacket and checked shirt on top, paint-spattered twill trousers and off-white plimsolls below. His days as portrait painter of a smart London set were long gone, without regret; it had left him free to concentrate on what he preferred, parks and streets, and the river. Humming vaguely while he inspected the cards on her mantelpiece, he picked up the stiff-backed invitation to Ossian Blackler’s retrospective.
‘Did you go to this?’ he asked her as she came through with gin and tonics.
Freya nodded. ‘You?’
‘Mm. Some good things there,’ he said, in a puzzled way. He belonged to an older generation of artists who didn’t much care for the cult of personality surrounding Ossie. In Stephen’s view one was simply a painter, not a social contrarian or a political outlaw.
He looked enquiringly at her. ‘Did you talk to him?’
‘Briefly. He was surrounded by his admirers.’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you notice that picture entitled Pregnant Woman on a Bed?’
Stephen thought for a moment. ‘I don’t recall it. Why?’
‘Oh, I just wondered. Nat was there and he thought all the women Ossie paints have begun to look exactly like one another.’
Stephen pondered this, seeming to sense he had been put on the spot. ‘Maybe so. I can’t claim Blackler’s breadth of experience with women, but it’s a problem for a painter if he can’t differentiate one from another. To be honest, I think he paints dogs more tenderly than he does women.’
Later, when they were having seconds, Stephen tried to sound nonchalant as he asked, ‘So how is Nat?’ There had been rumours for years that Freya and Nat had been an item; her father evidently believed there was an untold story.
‘Oh, you know Nat,’ she said lightly. ‘Always amusing. Always discontented. He turned forty recently– we had dinner at a fancy place in Camden Passage. Ava Gardner was at the next table.’
Stephen’s eyes widened. ‘Good Lord.’ Another pause followed. ‘Is Nat, um, involved with anyone at the moment?’
Freya had the impression that it wasn’t really about Nat he wanted to know. ‘I think he’s been seeing someone, but it’s over.’
‘Right, right. So there’s no urgency to settle down?’ Now she knew for sure that he was fishing closer to home. She had no tolerance of coyness.
‘Dad, you could just ask me, you know. I’m not seeing anyone, and I’ve got no plans to “settle down”.’
Stephen tucked in his chin and blustered a little. ‘That’s not what I – I was merely wondering –’
‘It’s all right, I don’t mind. But you have to understand, with men and me it’s probably never going to work.’
He looked at her, frowning. ‘Don’t be silly. You just haven’t met the right one.’
Could she talk openly with him? He might not yet be ready to hear the truth: that she was more likely to fall in love with a woman than with a man. Was it worth getting into, this far down the line? She looked at his lovable, lined, uncomprehending face.
‘I’m not sure I’m the marrying kind.’ She flashed him a rueful smile. ‘How’s Diana?’ Diana was her stepmother – Stephen’s second wife.
‘She sends her love. Had to go north for a big house clearance. They wanted her help with valuing the paintings.’
‘She seems to be doing a lot of that.’
‘Well, they’re closing down so many of the old houses nowadays. Plenty of bargains if you know where to look. Plenty of crooks, too.’
The word gave her a prompt. ‘Something I meant to ask: have you ever come across Harold Pulver?’
‘Harry Pulver. God … met him once or twice, just after the war. He supplied a lot of booze to clubs, then began buying up the clubs. I read something about him recently.’
‘He broke some waiter’s jaw. I mean, he’s a villain, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t think that’s in much doubt. Why?’
‘I’m following up a story on a German director – Reiner Werther Kloss? He’s making a film here at the moment. Nat’s done the script, and apparently Harold Pulver is producing. It seems such an unlikely thing for him to put his money into.’
‘It may not be his own money,’ said Stephen. ‘Even if it is, he’s probably worth a fortune from his rackets.’
‘I’ve just been invited to a party of his – on a boat. I think Nat must have swung it for me.’
‘I hope you’ll be careful. Probably crawling with thugs, knowing Pulver.’
Freya laughed. ‘What, you think they’ll make me walk the plank? It’s more likely to be crawling with actors and agents. I haven’t been out on the river for such a long time.’
‘Nor I. Must have been before the war.’ He held up his glass to the light. ‘Sorry about this claret. Quite a bit of sediment in there.’
‘Hadn’t noticed,’ said Freya, taking a long swig before getting up to look for cigarettes. It was late. The night was so warm the kitchen sashes were still wide open. She returned with a packet of Player’s, which she offered to her father.
‘Now I think of it, he once did some acting himself, old Harold. Bit parts in films.’
‘Maybe he’s hoping for another shot at the limelight.’
Stephen gave an abrupt laugh. ‘The artistic temperament – “the disease that afflicts amateurs”, Chesterton called it. The tragic illusion that because you have “feeling”, therefore you must be an artist.’
‘Well, an illusion, maybe,’ said Freya, ‘but tragic?’
‘For them, yes. The tragedy of the artistic temperament is that it cannot produce any art.’
Freya took a th
oughtful drag of her cigarette. ‘Well, should I meet Harold Pulver on his boat I must remember to bring that up with him.’
Once her father had gone, she put Coltrane on the turntable and started clearing up. She covered the remains of the chicken with a plate and put it in the fridge; it would make a soup for tomorrow. By midnight she was ready for bed when the phone rang: it was Nat, his voice unsteady and overloud against the background conversation.
‘Darling, can you hear me? I wondered if you fancied coming over: we’re at the Myrmidon, then it’s back to my place.’
‘Nat, are you stoned?’
‘No, no. Pounds, shillings and pence, rather.’ He had been trying to proselytise her to the wonders of LSD for weeks now. ‘Come join!’
‘It’s late. I’m just about to turn in.’
‘Oh, darling, it’s a lovely night in June, you can see the stars and moon, if you want me to I’ll croon –’
‘Oh, please desist, you loon,’ she said, cutting the doggerel short. ‘Funnily enough I’ve just been talking about you with my dad. He wanted to know if you’d found love yet.’
‘How perfectly charming of him. Can I really not tempt you?’
‘Sorry, Nat. I’m beat. But thank you for arranging the other invitation – it sounds terribly exciting.’
A puzzled silence fell at the other end. ‘What’s that?’
‘Harry Pulver’s boat trip; the cast and crew party.’
‘How d’you know about that?’
‘A woman from the Eureka production office called me this morning. I assumed it was on your say-so.’
‘Nothing to do with me … though I wish it had been!’ She could now hear someone else importuning him at the other end, the background becoming foreground, and his attention was lost for a moment. When he came back his thoughts had scrambled again. ‘So, darling, I wonder if you’re coming over?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Well, that is a shame.’
‘Goodnight, Nat. Go easy on the you-know-what.’
In bed, she tried to read, but her eyes kept drifting between the lines, and she had to go back whole paragraphs to pick up the thread. Another night she might have got a cab to Albany and joined Nat in his revels. Too tired now. Something else was preoccupying her. If Nat hadn’t invited her to the boat party, who had?
Billie arrived outside the King’s Cross studio. It was about seven in the evening and the pub opposite was filling up, drinkers standing on the pavement. Jeff had hardly used the place since they’d begun renting – the grottiness still depressed him – but Billie called in once a week just to check up. She worried about mice, and burglars, though there was really nothing there to steal but a few of Jeff’s collages. A couple of times she’d stayed there late into the evening, not quite able to face his company. He’d been so morose recently it was hard to be in the flat. She made the long days of filming her excuse to avoid him.
As she ascended the grimy narrow staircase she could hear a racket from somewhere, banging and snapping; someone was building something, or mending it, perhaps. At the half-landing she realised with a start that the noises were coming from inside the studio. With a quickening heartbeat she let herself in, braced for a confrontation. The sight that greeted her was a strange one: Jeff, stripped to the waist and sweating from the exertion of destroying his latest artworks. He had torn the canvases from their frames and set about the latter with a hammer, reducing them to shards of firewood. He looked wildly around at her standing in the doorway.
‘What on earth are you doing?’
He swiped his beaded face with the back of his hand. ‘What does it look like? I’m getting rid of them,’ he said, glaring from beneath his brow.
‘Well, I can see that – why are you?’
For answer he leaned another large frame against the wall and stamped against it with his boot. It cracked, and he moved in with the hammer. The wood began to splinter; he took another swing, then another.
‘Jeff. Jeff! Stop, please. Just – stop.’
He straightened, and turned an impatient look on her. When she held his gaze he finally puffed out his cheeks and let the hammer drop to the floor.
‘They sent them back. The gallery. Paid me half of what they agreed, said there was no way they could sell ’em.’
Billie shook her head in sympathy. ‘Well, that’s rotten of them. They should have honoured their agreement. But that’s no reason to destroy them. Someone else might want to see them.’
Jeff huffed out in disgust. ‘You think so?’
‘Yes, I do. And you have to believe it, too, or what’s the point?’
‘I’ve been asking myself that for a while now. What is the point of me going on, slaving over stuff that people just don’t get?’
‘But people do,’ she said brightly. ‘You’ve sold work already. Some artists take years to get theirs even seen, let alone sold.’
‘Don’t mention Van Gogh, for Christ’s sake.’
‘There are plenty of others. My mum almost starved herself before she got her break. But she always had faith in her talent.’
‘Being lumped in with your mother isn’t going to make me feel better,’ Jeff said sullenly. He bent down and began stacking the broken frames in a pile. Then he stopped and looked sharply at her. ‘What are you doing here anyway?’
‘I look in every so often. It’s our responsibility, as tenants.’ She could have added that it had devolved on her to pay the rent on the place, so who was he to sound narked about her dropping by? But she was too tired to have a fight. In the corner stood one of his smaller collages, which she presumed was about to be broken up like the rest. She picked it up, inspecting it at arm’s length. It was made from cut-up swatches of cloth and tailor’s drawings. ‘I like this one,’ she said, hoping that to say so aloud would make it true.
Jeff stared at her for a moment, then picked up his T-shirt and shrugged it on. ‘You’re holding it the wrong way up,’ he said, with a sad shake of his head.
‘Well, I want to keep it anyway,’ she said, tucking it under her arm. ‘Come on, let’s get a drink. That pub across the road looks nice.’
EXT. STREET – DAY.
CHAS is walking down a London street. (Jazz plays in the background, quiet at first, then more confident.) He stops outside a bookshop where stalls of books are on display. He looks down at the titles, running his finger along the spine of one or two.
Camera focuses upon a book with a title
that almost jumps out at him. It reads, in bold letters: EUREKA. We see the surprise on CHAS’s face. He picks it up to inspect, and as he does so the pages of the book flutter open and a folded note of paper falls out. He goes to catch it, but a gust of wind has picked it up and shooed it beyond his grasp. He reaches again for it, but the note – now blown open to a sheet, with writing visible but not legible – has danced away down the street. CHAS, frowning, follows it, almost catching up before it flies off, eluding him. As he picks up his pace so does the paper. He starts dodging between pedestrians as he pursues it: the jazz score busily matches his manic efforts to grasp it. The paper continues its maddening flutter through the air, CHAS, now in desperation, running. We watch him barge past people, who spin round to watch him, bemused or offended. Finally, he enters a deserted side street, his eyes still on the piece of paper. It has at last come to rest in the gutter. He stops, out of breath, and walks up to it. We see an expression of relief on his face. Got it!
Just as he bends down to pick it up the
sheet of paper windmills away along the gutter, then nonchalantly plops between the bars of a drain.
Camera looks up from beneath the bars at
CHAS, standing alone, disconsolate.
INT. BEDROOM – NIGHT.
We see CHAS asleep in bed. His eyes flicker open, he wakes and clicks his tongue, exasperated.
INT. KITCHEN – DAY.
CHAS, in his dressing gown, potters about making breakfast. He still looks bleary from slee
p, perhaps depressed by his dream. He has just lit a cigarette when he hears the doorbell.
INT. HALLWAY – DAY.
CHAS opens the door to find GWEN on the step. She holds up a letter, her expression enigmatic.
GWEN
From George. This morning.
CHAS stands aside to let her in.
INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY.
GWEN, seated in an armchair, casts an appraising eye around CHAS’s living quarters, noticing their modest, rumpled condition. It’s as if a chatelaine has just dropped in on her tenant’s hovel. CHAS enters the room carrying two mugs of tea and sets them on the table. He is still in his dressing gown.
CHAS
What does he say?
GWEN
Vereker invited him to his house in Portofino. I’ll read it to you:
CUT TO: A flashback of GEORGE in his sports car heading north from Rome along the Genoese coast.
GEORGE (V.O.)
Of course I was tremendously excited to get word from him. We’d corresponded already about my book, but he’d been brief, and made no offer of help. Once I’d told him that I’d ‘got the figure’, though, he was very quick to reply. Invited me to come and stay at his place.
CUT TO: GEORGE waiting, suitcase in hand, at the door of a pretty villa, being answered by a maid who smiles and admits him.
CUT TO: An ivy-creepered courtyard at dusk, where GEORGE has been shown to a table and brought refreshments by another staff member.
GEORGE (V.O.)
I was told that Vereker was asleep – he always has a nap around this time – but that he would be down for dinner. I was to make myself at home. While I waited, though, I saw a nurse arrive and go upstairs. It made me wonder if the old man’s ‘rest cure’ had really worked. Eventually he presented himself …
Eureka Page 17
