Eureka

by Anthony Quinn

  Nat made a grimace. ‘My agent is furious with me. She got me a plum job, a spy thriller, and I turned it down.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m going to help Vere Summerhill write his memoir.’ Freya’s surprised look prompted him towards confession. ‘Please keep this entre nous, but Vere … he’s dying. Cancer, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh no,’ she murmured, touching his sleeve. ‘Nat, I’m so sorry.’

  He nodded, and blinked. ‘He’s been terribly brave. He looked so ill in Portofino I thought he might expire before the camera could roll. But like a trouper he did his big scene – a death scene, as a matter of fact. Probably the last thing he’ll ever do.’

  ‘But can’t you do the memoir and the spy thriller?’

  Nat shook his head. ‘I thought I could. But they want the script in four weeks, and Vere is so close to … It had to be one or the other.’

  ‘What a good friend you are,’ Freya said, almost wonderingly.

  ‘Tell that to Penny Rolfe. They were not the words she used when I turned down that film.’ His smile, in afterthought, was pained. ‘I could have used the money, too.’

  In the days following, Nat mulled over Freya’s startling theory about Reiner Kloss. The idea of his being a secret arsonist did not appear to him any less outlandish. Her evidence was precisely nil. This ‘friend’ of his Freya had talked to in Munich was either malevolent or deluded. There were always fantasists hanging around people like Reiner, stirring mischief as they strove for their own share in the myth. Even if he did have pyromaniac tendencies, it didn’t follow that he’d set fire to Harry Pulver’s yacht. What earthly reason might he have had to do so? No, Freya had gone way off the map on this one.

  And yet, ridiculous as it was, he found he couldn’t stop thinking about it. His mind drifted back to the day he had first met Reiner, at the Trat. Had he noticed a fanatical gleam in Reiner’s eyes when he did his trick with the matches? No, he had not. It was just a bit of schoolboy legerdemain. But he did recall that story about his football coach not letting him play. Reiner had said something, he was sure, about getting his revenge. Nat had presumed at the time that this ‘revenge’ consisted in some personal achievement, rising above the coach’s pettiness and maybe winning a trophy. Only now he wondered if things had taken a more material – criminal – turn. Could he have burned down a building? The police had interviewed him, so he had been considered a suspect at least.

  It was still on his mind as he made his way through Soho the following Monday. Reiner was back from Rome and wanted to show Nat the best of what he had shot in Italy, prior to assembling a cut. When he arrived at the dingy editing rooms on Dean Street he found Reiner already at work with Arno. The latter was examining translucent amber strips of film that had been hung on a line like clothes pegs. They looked up as Nat sidled in.

  ‘Ah, your timing is excellent,’ said Reiner. ‘Look at this.’

  The TV monitor was frozen on the image of a woman, blurred and indistinct. When Reiner let the film run it resolved itself into the figure of Sonja, filmed in mid-shot from different angles that showed her twirling the hula hoop. Reiner, hunched over the editing desk, flipped a switch to slow the action. The music came in, first piano and drums, then Dox Walbrook’s saxophone took up the tune of ‘My Favourite Things’, thoughtful at first, then more spiky and anxious as it proceeded. The rhythm of Sonja’s movement found a complement in the repetitive circling riff of the sax. Nat watched, mesmerised. If it was this good to watch sober, how amazing would it be when stoned?

  At the end of it Reiner turned to him. ‘You like that?’

  ‘Like it? It’s the sexiest thing on film since Dorothy Malone took off her glasses in The Big Sleep.’

  Reiner laughed. ‘Cool, na?’

  Nat went off to sit in a corner and listened while Reiner and Arno talked in German to one another, ironing out some technical glitch like a couple of boffins in the lab. He found himself studying Reiner, as if he might discern some incriminating flaw he had previously overlooked. He was dressed in his unexceptional way: biker boots, jeans, a black T-shirt with a blown-up white thumbprint on the front. Nothing about his boyish, mild-mannered demeanour suggested the smallest threat. He wore love beads, for God’s sake. Freya had him all wrong: this was no psychopath.

  Nevertheless, when Arno announced that he had to go out for a few minutes, leaving them together, he felt a quickening tingle of curiosity. Could there be any harm in probing a little?

  Nat gave a dissembling yawn and said, ‘Wonder if we’ll hear anything more about that fire?’

  Reiner looked vague. ‘What fire? Oh, on the boat, you mean.’

  ‘Mm. They’ve confirmed it was arson. The police are still investigating.’ Reiner nodded, fiddling with the dials at his editing desk: he seemed to be only half listening. ‘I gather there’s been newspaper interest, too. Some odd speculation being batted around.’

  Reiner, his attention absorbed by the monitor, merely grunted in response, so Nat decided to take a more direct approach. ‘Very odd. D’you know, there’s an extraordinary line of thought that’s fingered you as a suspect.’

  Now he did look round. ‘Why would they suspect me?’ His tone was not offended but curious.

  ‘I have no idea,’ he said, waiting a beat. Then, with a disowning laugh: ‘Has fire-starting ever been a pastime of yours?’

  Reiner had reverted to staring at the monitor, so Nat couldn’t see his face. He muttered something to himself in German before he said, ‘I like your English word “rum”. This idea is very rum, isn’t it?’

  ‘I should say so. Best ignore it. I only brought it up because I thought it might amuse you.’ He nodded at the monitor. ‘Why don’t you show me some more choice cuts?’

  His request made a timely diversion. Nat pulled up a swivel chair next to Reiner’s own and sat down to watch half an hour or so of unedited footage, some from Portofino, some from Rome. They were silent as Vere, tired and gaunt, went through a long take of his deathbed scene. At one point Reiner paused the film and said, ‘He performed that so beautifully.’ Nat, moved, could only nod his assent. Vere had played out his string to the last.

  By this point Arno had returned from his errand, and Nat perceived that it was time to make himself scarce: they had work to do. He was ambling to the door when Reiner, almost absently, called him back.

  ‘This story about me and the fire. They will print it?’

  ‘Of course not. There isn’t a shred of evidence. It would be libel.’

  Reiner looked at him. ‘So how do you know a newspaper is interested?’

  ‘Oh, just something I picked up.’

  ‘Who would tell you such a thing?’

  Nat hesitated. He didn’t want to land Freya in it. He made a friendly sort of grimace, as if to say he couldn’t possibly remember, and hoped that would cover him. But Reiner’s look was shrewd.

  ‘Might it have been that journalist friend of yours? Tall lady, good-looking?’

  Nat, alarmed at this sudden interrogative turn, began to bluff. ‘Oh, you mean Freya? No, I don’t think –’

  ‘Freya Wyley. Yes, on the boat, we met.’ He turned away, eyes narrowed, considering. Nat sensed that he had been indiscreet, and had foolishly stirred up trouble. But the next moment Reiner was back to his smiling self. ‘She asked me for an interview, I remember. Well, why not? We could talk face-to-face about all these fires I have been lighting. Tell her she will hear from me!’

  Freya wasn’t sure why she had chosen Bianchi’s to meet, except that she hadn’t been there in a while and remembered liking the diminutive Italian maîtresse d’, who now greeted her at the entrance. As she was led to a table overlooking the street she felt glad to have arrived first; it lent you a sort of strategic advantage, and perhaps a moral one, too. Through the open window came the secretive hum of night-time Soho, the honk of a car horn, shouts, laughter. The maîtresse d’ had personally brought over her aperitif, as though from one friend t
o another. Freya smiled her thanks and took a long swallow of the Martini, dousing an unaccountable flutter in her stomach.

  When Sonja arrived, ten minutes late, she was flustered with apologies, which Freya waved off.

  ‘You’re only a bit late. And whoever heard of a film star being on time?’

  ‘But that is why I am always punctual,’ she replied, taking a seat. ‘Nearly always. It is arrogance to arrive late – as though one says to the person who must wait, “My time is more valuable than yours.”’

  Sonja looked quite different from the last time Freya had seen her, on the boat trip. Gone was the androgynous cool, though not the glamour; this evening she wore a fitted silk dress, dark green, sleeveless. Her hair was down, which made her look younger, more girlish. A waiter had come to take her drinks order; without asking, Sonja leaned over to take a quick sip of Freya’s Martini.

  ‘I’ll have one of those, thanks,’ she said, and then to Freya, ‘What must you think of me? Arriving late, then helping myself to your drink.’

  But she said it more as a challenge than an apology, so Freya shrugged. ‘I remember as a girl when my dad used to take me to restaurants I’d always have a crafty nip of his drink.’

  Sonja leaned back to stare at her. ‘Mm. I wonder what you were like – as a girl.’

  ‘Oh … Quite bolshie, determined to have my own way. A pain in the neck. You’d probably have hated me.’

  But Sonja, amusement dancing in her eyes, shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  The menus arrived, and they communed over them for a few moments. When Freya looked up again she found Sonja’s gaze back on her.

  ‘I want to know about Munich. Did you like the hotel?’

  ‘Yes. Very, um, gemütlich. Though I hope I’m not in trouble with that nice manager.’ She told her the story of Jorge and Karl coming back for a nightcap and accidentally setting fire to the table. A cheque for damages had been sent. ‘And by the way, thank you for the Krug.’

  Sonja smiled. ‘It sounds like you were already well provided with intoxicants.’

  ‘We got through a fair bit,’ Freya admitted, recounting Veronika’s guided tour of the bars along Reichenbachstrasse after they’d seen the production of 29 Marks. When Sonja asked her where else she had visited during the weekend, Freya made an apologetic face.

  ‘I had to leave at short notice. A story I was doing back here came up.’

  ‘About Reiner?’

  ‘No, something else.’ She hadn’t meant to lie, but she couldn’t confide her suspicions to Sonja as readily as she had to Nat. As actress and director they were obviously close, and Freya didn’t want to be seen peddling malicious rumours about a friend. Yet she couldn’t help wondering how much Sonja did know. She could hardly have been deaf to gossip about him.

  They both had the veal escalope, and made quick work of a bottle of Soave. Prompted by a second, and by Sonja’s beguiling curiosity, Freya found her guard beginning to drop, dangerously. It amused her that Sonja was convinced there had once been a passionate affair with Nat.

  ‘You’re not the first person to have made that assumption,’ she said.

  ‘Do you mean it isn’t true?’ asked Sonja. ‘He talks about you all the time.’

  Freya laughed. ‘That’s nice of him. We’ve had our moments, Nat and I, but we’ve never been stupid enough to have an affair, thank God.’

  ‘What do you mean, “our moments”?’

  Always resistant to coyness, Freya shrugged and said, ‘The very first night we met he invited me back to his rooms at college. I ended up, at his request, spanking him with a squash racket.’

  ‘Ah …’

  She detected something unsurprised in the syllable. ‘You know about his habit?’

  ‘I have had experience of it,’ she replied, with a pert arching of her brow. ‘Not all of the time in Italy was taken up with filming. He asked me not to tell you, so perhaps you would keep it – was ist? – under your hat.’

  Freya, with a sense of being upstaged, said, ‘I had no idea. Was it fun for you?’

  Sonja seemed not to hear the edge in her voice. ‘Well, I was glad to be of use. I have quite a good arm for tennis, so Nat was, I believe, satisfied.’

  ‘But he didn’t return your serve?’

  ‘No! I don’t want to be thrashed.’ Then she laughed. ‘I’m not as brave as you.’

  Freya, wrong-footed, finished off her glass and poured another. She didn’t like the idea of them sharing bedroom secrets about her. Or a bed, come to that. She couldn’t figure this woman out. So far Sonja had made all the running – inviting her on the boat trip, arranging the hotel in Munich, now dinner here in Soho – and Freya had been flattered by her overtures. More than flattered. But now? Maybe Sonja imagined there to be a weird sisterhood between them, as occasional partners in Nat’s games of pain.

  As the table was cleared Freya lit a cigarette, wondering if she had made a fool of herself, had misread the whole thing. Yet she hardly had time to regroup before Sonja caught her out with a new line of interrogation.

  ‘Nat also told me about a friend of yours, the writer. Nancy?’

  ‘What did he say?’ Freya’s tone sounded brittle, and guarded.

  ‘Not much. That you were friends from Oxford, and lived together for a while in London.’ She paused, waiting a beat. ‘Is there something the matter?’

  Freya stared back at her. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because something just changed in your face. Perhaps I have annoyed you with my prying?’

  ‘I wonder – I wonder why you want to know. Nat’s jolly entertaining, but you must understand he’s not the most reliable witness, especially in matters of –’

  ‘Freya, please,’ said Sonja, leaning across the table to take her hand. The uneasy levity of moments before was gone. ‘I ask because I’m interested. Because I like you. But if you would rather, I will stop.’

  Her expression had darkened with concern, and Freya abruptly relented. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so defensive. Nancy.’ She took a breath. ‘She was my best friend. She is my best friend; the only one I’ve ever had.’

  Sonja, nonplussed, gave her a look that implored her to continue.

  ‘We fell out, badly, some time ago – so badly I left the country. For seven years.’ She went on haltingly. ‘It’s not worth explaining what it was about. I’m not sure that I could. When I got back we met up again – she was married by this point – and I realised, belatedly, though I think I’d known for ages, that I was in love with her.’ She took another swallow of her drink. ‘When she got divorced she came to live at my place, in Islington. It was only meant to be for a while, but she stayed for three years.’

  ‘So you were –’

  ‘No. Not like that. I’m afraid my – it was unrequited. The most painful love of all.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Nancy got married again, to a man I knew. I introduced them.’

  Sonja paused, consolingly, before saying, ‘But you still see her?’

  ‘Not so much. She lives in the country now. We write.’ She looked away for a moment, then back at Sonja. ‘I’ve never told anyone that before.’

  The murmurish ambience of the restaurant briefly filled the silence between them. Sonja produced a slim silver cigarette case and handed it to Freya, who took one. They lit up; neither of them said a word until Sonja, arms folded, squinting through the smoke, mused aloud, ‘I can’t speak for Nancy, but I imagine it would be rather wonderful to be loved by you.’ Her eyes were bright as she signalled to a passing waiter. ‘Shall we have one more drink?’

  The cab dropped her home at half past midnight. Sonja had asked her back for a nightcap – she was staying at the Connaught – but Freya had declined, too tired and just sober enough to trust her instincts. ‘I’m a liability this late in the evening. I might end up setting fire to your table.’ But she promised to meet for dinner again before Sonja left London.

  As she entered the darkened hallway at Canonbury S
quare she saw the outline of a letter on the mat. It had been hand-delivered, her name typewritten on the envelope. When she opened it she thought at first it was empty. Then she felt something stuck in the corner, and pulled out a small shiny square of cardboard. She switched on the hall light to take a closer look. It was, in fact, a book of matches.

  INT. VEREKER’S BEDROOM – NIGHT.

  The lamp at the bedside is turned low. The mood of the room is crepuscular, sombre, stifling. JANE, in tears, is holding VEREKER’s hand as he drifts away. In the background, CHAS, GEORGE and MAUD are waiting for the inevitable. A NURSE, keeping vigil next to JANE, rises to answer a knock: the DOCTOR enters and goes to check the patient.

  Camera focuses on CHAS as he witnesses the dying man’s last moments. His expression is grave, and we read in it both a pity for his friend JANE and a private feeling of thwartedness, because VEREKER refused him at the last.

  The DOCTOR holds the old man’s wrist, checking for a pulse. He lays it back on the counterpane, and nods to the NURSE. She gently puts her arms around JANE, who registers the moment with a racking sob.

  DOCTOR

  (softly)

  Gone, I’m afraid.

  He checks his watch, nods to the others, and leaves the room.

  INT. LIVING ROOM – AFTERNOON.

  CHAS and GEORGE are seated opposite one another, a bottle of wine open on the coffee table. Both are smoking.

  GEORGE

  I should telephone the paper. They’ll want an obituary.

  CHAS

  Do you have something prepared?

  GEORGE

  No. But it shouldn’t take me long. I feel like I have every word of his still in my head. What’ll you do now? Stay on?

  CHAS

  I don’t know. I’ll see whether Jane wants my company.

  GEORGE

  You know, you could come down to Rome for a few days. There’s a room at my place.

  CHAS

  Thanks. But I’m not sure that’s – I should probably get back. I have a catastrophe of deadlines waiting for me in London.