‘You’ll be all right, won’t you?’
That Vere, the condemned man, should be asking him such a question seemed to Nat quite the wrong way round. But his throat felt too constricted to say anything very meaningful. ‘Vere,’ he began, and then shook his head.
‘Don’t upset yourself, dear boy,’ Vere said. ‘I’ve really had the most marvellous time.’ He gave Nat’s arm a little pat before he climbed into the cab, which drove him away up the street.
EXT. HARBOUR, PORT OF RAPALLO – DAY.
CHAS, in sunglasses, carrying a suitcase, walks up the ramp of a passenger ferry. The boat is filled mostly with holidaymakers in high spirits. CHAS is the only passenger who seems to be on his own.
EXT. FERRY, AT SEA – DAY.
CHAS stands against the rail of the stern, looking back at the water churning in the boat’s wake. Camera switches POV to look face-on at CHAS, the sun glinting off his shades. He doesn’t see the passenger behind him stop and do a double take. It is JANE, also alone.
JANE
Chas?
CHAS
(surprised)
Jane!
They kiss one another.
What are you doing here?
JANE
Same thing as you, I imagine – going to Portofino. I’m visiting Hugh. Hugh Vereker.
CHAS
So am I. Or rather, George Corvick, who’s staying with him – he’s invited me.
JANE
You know that Hugh’s ill, then?
CHAS
George said something about a nurse being there. How serious?
JANE
He had a stroke – just last week. His doctor’s told him to rest. I had a letter asking me to visit.
CHAS
So he was well enough to write?
JANE
Yes, but he’s quite frail. His handwriting …
CHAS can see that she’s upset. He takes her hand in a comforting way.
CHAS
I’m sorry to hear it. But I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.
EXT. FERRY, AT SEA – DAY.
CHAS and JANE are strolling along the upper deck, amid other passengers leaning at the rails, chatting, taking photographs.
JANE
Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? We could have made the trip together.
CHAS
It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Gwen – whom you know, of course – had some quite important news from George. He asked her to visit him. But her mother’s ill, so she suggested I come out instead.
JANE
Important news? What’s happened?
CHAS
(pausing)
I don’t exactly know. George has been researching a book about Vereker – Hugh – and seems to have discovered, well … something.
JANE
That’s rather mysterious. Couldn’t he just have told her what it was on the telephone?
CHAS
Hmm. I gather George wants to divulge it face-to-face. Sorry, I know it must sound …
JANE
Potty! Has he found out some scandal about Hugh?
CHAS
No, nothing like that. It’s a book about his work, not his life. It’s difficult to – it goes back to that weekend at Bridges when you introduced us. I’d written that review of his book in the Middle –
JANE
Yes, and you were rather offended by Hugh’s reaction.
CHAS
I got over it. In any case, it seems I’d been barking up the wrong tree about his work. Everybody had, according to him. There’s some trick – but no, forget it.
JANE
What ‘trick’?
CHAS
Oh, it’s nothing, really. Don’t concern yourself, Jane, it’s not that important.
JANE
(bemused)
It’s important enough for you to come halfway across Europe!
They have stopped at a spot on their own. CHAS, shielding his eyes, gazes out to the horizon.
CHAS
Look. That must be Portofino.
CHAS is too preoccupied to notice JANE looking at him in a keenly appraising way.
13
The Thomas Bertram lolled against the landing stage as guests made their way up the boat’s roped gangplank. Nat, not a keen sailor, hopped down onto the wooden deck and instantly felt himself wobble. Low sun had burned off the intruding cloud and left the sky an acrylic blue. The Thames lay spread out before them. Nat parked himself against the stern rail and accepted a gin cocktail from one of the liveried waiters strolling stiffly around. He hadn’t anticipated the swank – or the size – of Harry Pulver’s yacht; it stood high on the water, every fixture and fitting on it burnished to a gleam. He wore a new white suit whose own dazzle he tried to dim with his sunglasses; he could dress like a film star even if he wasn’t one. He stared out to the river.
‘Are you trying to look like a film star?’
He turned to find Gina Press grinning up at him. She was wearing an aggressive perfume and a close-fitting frilled green dress that barely covered the tops of her legs. A pair of heart-shaped sunglasses lent her a kind of holiday sauciness. Not for the first time Nat fell to imagining what she would look like in just her knickers.
‘In this company I wouldn’t dare,’ said Nat, stooping to kiss her. ‘You look ravishing in that, by the way.’
‘Thanks! Harry doesn’t like it,’ she said, with a wary glance around her. She leaned in to whisper, ‘Said it was so short he could see me whatsit.’
Nat, trying not to check for himself, sipped his drink. ‘No pleasing some people.’
They talked about the day’s trip: from Greenwich the boat would take them all the way down the river to Richmond, where they were due to arrive in time for dinner. Gina was excited by the prospect of the onboard dancing, music courtesy of Dox Walbrook and his quartet, the American jazz outfit who had been hired to do the score for Eureka.
‘Dancing – really?’
She looked at him. ‘You don’t sound all that thrilled.’
‘There’s a Latin saying – nemo saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit. It means, no one dances sober, unless he happens to be insane.’
‘Sorry?’ said Gina, with an uncertain frown.
‘It’s just my excuse for not being a very good dancer.’
‘Don’t believe you!’
Nat, who really couldn’t dance, replied, ‘I’m sure Harry will be an energetic performer.’
Gina pulled a grimace. ‘Not today. He’s coming with the missus. She won’t let him out of her sight.’
The mistress’s lot, reflected Nat, who envied Pulver his voluptuous bit on the side and felt his gorge rise at the thought of what they got up to. He supposed Harry must be in his late fifties, had hit sixty, perhaps – old enough, in any case, to be Gina’s father, rather than the lardy lump who got to bounce himself on top of her. He sighed inwardly at the injustice of it and tipped back his drink. ‘A finger in every pie, and a foot in every grave,’ he quoted, in an afterthought.
‘Sorry?’ said Gina.
‘Nothing,’ he smiled, ‘just a line I was –’
Gina leaned towards him. ‘Sorry, darling, you know I’m half deaf.’ This was no exaggeration. A childhood infection had left one ear useless. She knew she ought to wear a hearing aid, but vanity forbade it. Nat had noticed her at the studio craning her neck forward, trying to catch what people were saying. She had told him once, ‘If I don’t hear someone for the third time, I just laugh and hope for the best.’
Though fond of her, it had not prevented him trying a wicked little experiment. They had all been drinking in the studio bar one night, and spotting Gina alone for a moment he’d approached her. She was staring abstractedly into a little compact, fixing her make-up. Goaded by desire, he said to her, quite clearly, ‘I wonder whether you’ve got pants on this evening?’
Her eyes flicked up to meet his. ‘Sorry?’ Her expression was sharp, and he felt
for an instant he’d blundered.
‘I said, I wonder whether you’ve got plans on this evening?’
She had smiled innocently back at him and said that she was meeting a couple of friends in town. He knew it was a mean thing to have done, but he’d found the risk of it too exciting.
While they had been talking the last stragglers had boarded and the deck already looked a little crowded. There came a sudden jolt beneath them. The engine was stirring; the mooring ropes had been unloosed and tossed onto the stern. With a sort of unwillingness the Thomas Bertram heaved away from the landing stage. The waiters were having a hard time of it finding a way around the partygoers, who had chosen to congregate, sheeplike, on the lower deck. From out of the throng Ronnie Stiles approached in an extraordinary get-up. A high-buttoned, hectically patterned silk shirt fought for attention against a double-breasted purple blazer with gold brocade facings. His trousers were guardsman-tight with a showy silver buckle, while a knotted cravat made a foppish, foolish adornment at his neck. Nat knew he’d got it all from Mr Fish’s in Mayfair: he’d bought a similar shirt there himself in a leopard-skin print a few weeks ago and hadn’t yet dared wear it in public. He had felt like a forty-year-old man trying hard to be ‘groovy’. Mutton dressed as leopard.
‘Ahoy, me hearties!’ Ronnie cawed annoyingly. He delivered a smacking kiss to Gina and gave Nat a wary masculine nod.
‘Ooh, Ronnie, look at you,’ cooed Gina admiringly.
‘I don’t think he needs further encouragement on that score,’ said Nat, meaning to be droll but sounding rather catty.
‘Well, it’s a party, isnit? Gotta wear the clobber,’ said Ronnie, giving Nat a quick once-over and then looking away, as if his own ‘clobber’ were beneath comment. Nat wished he’d brought some chemical refreshment. He’d been overdoing it lately. Walking into a friend’s living room he had been taken aback by the spectacle of the television screen ablaze with colour, a full polychromatic assault on the eyeballs. Was he tripping? He must have been staring hard at it, because the friend proudly announced it was an actual colour TV – they’d come on the market a few days ago.
Meanwhile his second gin cocktail, sunk in ninety seconds, had improved the shining hour. The afternoon was taking on a lift as he watched the churning wake of the grey-brown river. On either side London slid by in an anonymous fresco of wharves and basins and sleeping barges and monstrous cranes criss-crossing the skyline, latticed reminders that the city was building, clearing, digging, building … He thought of Whistler’s dockside sketches of old salts and mots, of Dickens on a cruise downriver for a pals’ supper of whitebait and hock. It had changed, and yet it was the same. The river had been here long before London had arrived, and would remain, he supposed, long after it had gone. As they rounded the bend at Wapping the high windows of an old factory blazed in the sun.
‘Nat! Over here!’ His reverie was broken. He swung round to see Penny, his agent, waving to him from the upper deck. With a slight droop of his spirit he realised he would have to go to her, thus surrendering the lovely Gina to Ronnie. He flashed a parting smile, and was rewarded with a wink. Yes, she was quite something, that girl. He started through the crowd, nodding here and there at faces he knew – Franck, the sound man; Alec Madden, trousers bulging as usual with that packet of his; Julie, the diligent script girl, who gave him a little wave. There were others there, mostly men in funeral suits and ties who looked like they hung about the boxing gym – Pulver’s cronies, he supposed.
Penny, in one of her swirly summer kaftans, offered her cheek to be kissed. She had a glass of orange juice on the go.
‘Is that all you’re having?’ asked Nat, with the drinker’s fear of social isolation.
‘This is a work trip for me, darling,’ she said, with an expansive sweep of her hand. It was true: Penny’s tinted glasses were owlish, but behind them her eyes were hawkish, scrutinising the scene below. ‘Who’s that dolly bird you were ogling?’
‘Hmm? Oh, Gina – Harry Pulver’s bit on the side. Was I ogling?’
‘On stalks, dear.’
‘Must be that dress she’s wearing.’
‘Dress? That’s not a dress – that’s a fanny valance.’
Nat spluttered a laugh. He’d forgotten Penny’s gift for a coarse turn of phrase. They talked about the final stretch of filming. The unit was off to Italy next week for ten days, and Nat was along for the ride. Penny looked at him shrewdly.
‘You’ve done very well. Jetting off to Italy just to kick your heels on set.’
‘I’ll be working. Those scenes won’t write themselves.’
She snorted. ‘Probably be quicker than you if they did.’
‘Reiner likes improvising,’ Nat shrugged. ‘He’s just had another idea about the soundtrack. Wants to use “A Day in the Life” – you know it?’
‘They won’t let you have that,’ said Penny with unillusioned firmness.
‘They’ve talked to Epstein.’
But Penny was shaking her head. ‘Even if they license it, can you imagine the cost? I mean, Pulver’s got boodle but he won’t run to that.’
Nat had noted the opulent furnishings and the champagne and the seafood platters they were at that moment bringing out to tempt the guests. If anyone could afford the Beatles’ copyright …
Penny had moved on to another subject: his next job. ‘A spy thing. London and Marrakesh. Talman’s producing and says that you’re their first choice.’
‘Pull the other one,’ said Nat, not eager to speculate on how many other writers they’d sounded out before him. Penny said that he’d have to deliver a draft by the end of September.
‘And that’s a real deadline. They won’t put up with any dodges. Talman’s lot mean business.’
The end of September wouldn’t give him much leeway. ‘Not sure I can do that, to be honest.’
‘Why not?’
‘Vere. His memoir. I need to get started, interviewing him.’
Penny frowned sharply at him. ‘But that’s just a ghostwriting job. You can do it any time.’
Nat pulled a face. ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ he began, and, wary of rousing Penny’s suspicions, changed tack. ‘I mean, I’ve promised Vere we’ll get cracking.’
‘Nat. Darling. We’re talking about a studio picture. With stars. With serious money attached. You can’t afford to turn this down.’
‘But Vere’s an old friend.’
‘Vere knows the business. He’ll understand. I’ll tell him myself, if you like. Is he here?’
Nat shook his head. ‘He’s indisposed.’
He couldn’t allow her to suspect Vere’s condition lest she twigged his dilemma and began a campaign of persuasion. Penny was an agent to the tips of her fingers: she wouldn’t accept even loyalty to a dying man as an excuse for turning down a job or a fee. He would have to bluff while he worked out a schedule for the book. If Vere could soldier on a while and help him with a few reminiscences, all might be well – he could do the screenplay in his spare time. But if his old friend were to fade as quickly as Nat had begun to fear, a hard choice faced him.
At the other end of the boat Billie was helplessly nodding away to the monologue of a studio person whose name she hadn’t caught – an accountant? – and taking in barely a word. She had been so distracted with wretchedness these last few days she had come close to skipping the party altogether. In the end Nell had persuaded her to go; if she stayed she would only fret and brood over what had happened.
What had happened was terrible – almost unspeakable. Relations with Jeff had been in the deep freeze, but through an effort of will she had kept going. Now that he had withdrawn almost into silence she found herself solely responsible for any civilised interaction. During the day, when she was at the studio, he stayed in the flat and smoked in front of the telly. If she got back in time they would have a mournful little meal together before Jeff went off to the pub, alone. Few of his friends called any more. When she asked him about th
is he shrugged and said that he had nothing to talk about, so what was the point? In retrospect she realised that the breaking point must have been the moment she told him about her next job. Penny Rolfe had called her that week to say that an American director Berk knew wanted to audition her for a new costume drama. She had only meant to make conversation, but she knew at once from Jeff’s clouded brow that she ought to have kept it to herself.
‘So you’d go to America?’ he asked her. Well, if they liked her enough at the screen test … ‘How long for?’ She didn’t know how long exactly but guessed that it might be six to eight weeks. Jeff stared at her. They had been eating while they talked, and at this he carefully placed his knife and fork across his plate and pushed it away. Without another word he stood up and went off to the bedroom. She sat there, wondering what he was up to. After a few minutes he emerged with his jacket on and made for the door. She asked him where he was going and he stopped, with a hint of reluctance. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘Just some place where you aren’t.’
It was late by the time she heard him come back. She got out of bed and found him sitting on the sofa, in the dark. She asked him where he’d been; he said nothing, only shook his head. Should she put the light on? No answer. He wouldn’t even look at her. She hovered in the doorway for a moment, mumbled a goodnight, and went back to bed.
She didn’t know how long she had been asleep when something, a noise, woke her. Groggily she raised her head from the pillow. A shadow was standing right over her. ‘Jeff?’ He didn’t speak or move. She reached for the bedside light and snapped it on. The sight turned her blood to ice water. Jeff stood there, his eyes fixed upon her, expressionless. In the first few seconds she wasn’t sure what he held in his hand; something that glinted, maybe a torch. No, it wasn’t a torch, it was a hammer, the hammer he had used to smash those collages into bits. Her first instinct was to scream, to leap up out of bed and scream for help. But then that would only provoke him into attacking her, bashing her skull until – it wouldn’t take him long. She sat up, holding her breath, nerving herself to speak if only she could find her voice from inside her constricted chest. She thought it would be better not to sound terrified.
Eureka Page 21
