As he turned into the street Billie was waiting at the door, and waved on seeing him. There was something incongruous about him, she thought; men in well-cut suits didn’t tend to hang around these parts. Up close, however, he was bedraggled and sweaty, and his wan half-smile of greeting betrayed his distraction. ‘Here we are,’ she said, unlocking the front door and ushering him forward. Nat was briefly reminded of student houses he’d known in Oxford years ago, the clinging odour of neglect, of mangy carpets and unwashed net curtains. Billie took the staircase ahead of him. The back windows he passed on the way up offered vistas of sooty dereliction, and he listened wonderingly as Billie explained how she’d come by the place – it was meant to be a studio for the boyfriend.
On the top landing she let them into a small squarish room, unfurnished but for an exhausted mattress and a dress rail on which a few wire coat hangers shivered. The uncurtained window peered across to the sad pub opposite. Billie could imagine what Nat was thinking.
‘It’s not much, I know,’ she said, apologetic.
‘No, no,’ said Nat, not sure if he was agreeing or demurring. He was going to say ‘I’ve been in worse’, but he couldn’t think where. The single comfort to be drawn was the unlikeliness of Harry Pulver’s mob bothering to look for him here. ‘It’s fine, just what I need.’
Billie bit her lip. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
He sighed, gazing out of the window. It was rather a shaming story to tell, to Billie, at any rate, who he thought regarded him with affection, maybe even respect. But he told her anyway, about the fun and games in his room with Sonja and Gina, the subsequent loss of the camera that night in the bar – then the unexpected visit just now from Joey, who’d evidently got first look at those incriminating snaps and taken them to the boss.
‘But it’s not like Gina’s his wife,’ protested Billie.
‘No. Just his property. And he doesn’t want people like me getting their paws on her.’
Billie shook her head. ‘I’m disappointed in Joey.’
‘Because he’s a thief?’
She heard a thin note of irony in his voice, and understood. ‘No, not that. I mean his being a snitch.’
‘Only doing his job, I suppose. No, the blame lies with me, and my “goatish disposition”.’ Billie shot him a puzzled glance, to which he replied, ‘Lear.’
They were silent for a few moments. Billie opened the carrier bag she’d brought and pulled out sheets and a blanket; she knelt down and began to make up the bed. Nat told her there was no need, but she ignored him and continued.
When it was done she asked him, ‘What else do you need? Money?’
‘How much have you got?’
She produced her purse and pulled out two crumpled fivers. It would tide him over for a few days while he made his exit plan. At some point he would have to recover some things from Albany: suitcase, clothes, passport, chequebook. Though how he’d manage that …
‘I could go,’ she said. ‘Do they let women in there?’
Nat smiled his gratitude. ‘If I write you a letter of introduction. Would you mind? This could be the saving of me.’
They talked it through. Nat would make a list of what he needed, then telephone the porter to arrange her admittance to his set; they were quite particular at Albany about who came and went. In the meantime he would have to think hard about where he might lie low.
‘Ireland, maybe?’ suggested Billie. ‘Some little cottage on the west coast.’
Nat made a moue of distaste. ‘There’s the weather to consider, not to mention the people. I was thinking of Cap Ferrat. Vere’s got a place there he’d let me use.’
Billie paused. ‘Is Vere – he looked so terribly ill when we were in Italy.’
He could see no further use in keeping it a secret. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you, my dear, but he’s not long for this world. Lung cancer.’
He watched, helpless, as her eyes glistened. She said quietly, ‘He told me, at the hotel, he’d just had an adverse reaction to drugs. I – I should have known.’
‘No, he would have hated for you to know. He was determined to keep going, for the film’s sake as much as his own.’
‘To think how he did that death scene so beautifully.’
Nat smiled sadly. ‘Reiner thought he’d never seen him do better. You know, Vere once said to me, joking, “I’ve had such good practice at dying.” He reckoned he died in at least ten of his first thirty pictures. He was always dying. I’m sure, when his moment comes, he’ll do it beautifully again.’
Later that evening Nat finally got through to Freya, who came down to King’s Cross to meet him. It took some persuading on her part to get him out to the pub across the road. He didn’t smile when she suggested he wore a false moustache and glasses. There was hardly anyone else in there, but he insisted on sitting at a table in the corner, close to the door.
‘You may regret your levity when they start dragging the Thames for my body.’
‘If you’re that worried why not go to the police?’
‘And tell them what? Pulver’s not done anything yet. But I can tell from the fact he sent Joey Meres he’s got me in his sights.’
‘Meres. Why do I know that name?’
Nat shrugged. ‘Ex-boxer. Likes a bit of flash. A scar on his jaw from here to here.’
Freya was thoughtful for a moment. ‘These photographs of you and Gina “frolicking”. Do you think Sonja is in them?’
‘No. Not that I remember. But the camera was lying around.’
‘So you can’t be sure. Gina might have taken one, in which case –’
‘Oh God,’ groaned Nat, cupping his hands over his mouth.
Freya stubbed out her cigarette and rose from the table. ‘I’m going to call her hotel. If she is in those pictures she needs to be warned.’
From beneath his brow Nat surveyed the poky saloon. Everything came in shades of brown: the walls, the tables, the ancient advertisements, even the nicotine-stained ceiling. The barman was stolidly drying glasses and exchanging mumbled words with a couple of old boys. Nat supposed it was much like this every night, the mood of fatigue and dreariness lingering like yesterday’s cigarette smoke. The cracked lino, the ugly furniture, the despondent faces … no wonder you got drunk here.
He tried to read Freya’s expression as she returned. ‘I called the desk at the Connaught,’ she said. ‘Sonja was meant to be there for lunch. They haven’t seen her all day.’
EXT. STREET IN ROME – DAY.
GEORGE at the wheel of his sports car amid swirling traffic, with CHAS in the passenger seat. Dox Walbrook’s jaunty Eureka theme plays over the top. GEORGE looks relaxed in his adoptive city; CHAS has an air of bemusement.
INT. HALLWAY – DAY.
Camera cranes down on a high-ceilinged hall, where GEORGE checks his mailbox. He riffles through his post, pausing at one letter with a London postmark. He holds it up in front of CHAS.
GEORGE
From Gwen.
EXT. TERRACE – DAY.
GEORGE stands on the terrace of his apartment, which overlooks the imperial skyline of Rome.
INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY.
CHAS is on his way through to join GEORGE on the terrace when he spots GWEN’s letter, open on the desk. He halts, hesitating, and leans over to take a quick peek. All he sees are the words ‘All my love, darling – GWEN’.
GEORGE
(from outside)
CHAS – you coming?
CHAS reluctantly abandons his snooping and exits the room.
EXT. TERRACE – LATER.
CHAS and GEORGE sit there, drinking.
GEORGE
Anyway, she’s going to come over.
CHAS
Gwen? What about her mother?
GEORGE
Mrs Erme’s sister is coming to stay, to give Gwen a break.
CHAS
Don’t worry, I’ll clear out.
GEORGE
(lau
ghing)
Relax. You can stay as long as you like. I’m sure Gwen would like to see you.
CHAS
(nervous)
I dare say you’d prefer to have the place to yourselves.
GEORGE
If you want to go, I can’t stop you. But there’s no need.
CHAS
Thanks. So this party tonight?
GEORGE
Just people I know from the paper. Bit of this (mimes drinking), bit of that (mimes smoking a joint). Should be fun.
INT. AN APARTMENT – NIGHT.
A crowded party, and CHAS stands at the edge of things, a wallflower. GEORGE, in the middle of a crowd, spots him and beckons him over. CHAS nods, and gestures to say he’ll join him in a minute. He wanders off instead to another room, where people are slumped on couches, on the floor. The air is thick with pot fumes. A young woman, MEL, sits on her own at the window – their eyes meet. CHAS goes to join her.
CHAS
Hello there. Chas.
MEL
Hi. (She looks around, coolly surveying the somewhat zombified state of the partygoers.) I hope you don’t think I’ve got drugs on me.
CHAS
Oh, no, that’s not – not my thing. Wine’s about as strong as I go.
MEL
Look at these people …
CHAS
Yeah. Like the last days of Rome.
MEL
(smiling at him)
Funny. I’m Mel, by the way. So who do you know here?
CHAS
Hardly anyone. I came with a friend – George Corvick.
MEL
I know George.
CHAS
We’ve just got back from a … trip. Portofino.
MEL
How lovely!
CHAS
Yes. It was.
MEL
You don’t sound like you enjoyed it much.
CHAS
Um, it wasn’t a holiday. We were there for – someone we knew. He’d been quite ill.
MEL
You mean …?
CHAS
Yeah. He died.
MEL
Oh, God. I’m so sorry.
CHAS
No, no. He was old, and he’d had a good life. A writer.
MEL
Oh. Was he famous?
CHAS
Yes. Hugh Vereker.
MEL
(blankly)
Vereker …
CHAS
You’ve not heard of him?
MEL
I’m afraid not. Sorry!
CHAS’s face is a picture of bewilderment and incredulity. But he manages to return a weak smile.
EXT. STREET – NIGHT.
CHAS and GEORGE walking home.
GEORGE
She’s a nice girl, Mel. You seemed to be getting on.
CHAS
Hmm. I wish I hadn’t mentioned Vereker. Can you believe she’d never heard of him?
GEORGE
So what? Many haven’t.
CHAS
It was disappointing.
GEORGE
So she’s not a bookworm. Maybe she’s passionate about other things like – I dunno – macramé or ju-jitsu.
CHAS
I’m sure she’s very nice. But I couldn’t be serious about someone who’d never heard of a writer like Vereker.
GEORGE
Oh, Chas. That’s madness!
CHAS
Easy for you to say. You’re engaged to a woman who knows about books – writes them in fact.
GEORGE
Not every woman I’ve known has been a bluestocking. Besides, you could have introduced her to the work. Trained her up. You’ve read Pygmalion.
They have reached the front gate of GEORGE’s building.
INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT.
GEORGE brings in a jug of water and two glasses, sets them down on the coffee table.
GEORGE
Sure you’re on for this?
CHAS nods. GEORGE hands him a tab of LSD. They take one each.
CHAS
How will I know when it –?
GEORGE
Don’t worry. You’ll be there before you know it.
CHAS watches GEORGE get up and put a record on his stereo. It’s another version of the Eureka theme, slow and sultry, with lots of echo and a woman’s voice calling in the background. Camera gradually zooms in on CHAS’s eyes, narrowing on the ‘O’ of his iris. The picture suddenly switches to CHAS, seen from behind, opening a door and entering into blackness – a vanishing point. The music continues, slurring, echoing around the same three-note figure.
CUT TO: The same apartment, CHAS seeming to wake up from sleep to find GWEN sitting opposite. He looks about, wondering where GEORGE is.
CHAS
What are you doing here?
GWEN
That’s not very friendly.
CHAS
Where’s George?
GWEN
You knew I was coming. You asked me here.
CHAS
He’d kill me if he found out about this.
GWEN
(looking shifty)
He’s in the next room. I think he’s upset.
CHAS
No, that’s not right. You wrote to him – I saw your letter.
GWEN
He’d kill us if he knew I’d told you.
CHAS
I can’t blame him.
GWEN
You like a good snoop, don’t you? He knows you went through his room.
CHAS
Told me what? You mean about Vereker – the figure?
GWEN
Of course. This is what you’ve wanted from the start.
The sound of a cough interrupts them. They look across the room to where GEORGE stands.
GEORGE
Did you suppose I’d never find out?
GWEN
It was my fault, really. I was lonely.
CHAS
That’s not very friendly.
GEORGE throws a hula hoop across the room. GWEN catches it.
GEORGE
Go on then …
The room, the walls, begin to blur. GWEN, fringed in light, walks through the same door CHAS came through.
CHAS
Wait, wait a minute – is this it? Is this the figure?
EXT. A ROOF TERRACE – DAY.
A blinding sun creates a shimmer around the walls. A silhouetted figure, blurred at first, seems to be dancing. Close-up on a woman, in a bikini, languidly revolving a hula hoop around her midriff. The spangled sunlight at her back makes it difficult to identify her, but in fleeting moments the woman’s face is visible: it is GWEN.
18
The porter at Albany tipped his hat on hearing her name. ‘Mr Fane telephoned to say you’d be coming. You have the key to his set?’
Billie nodded. Conducting her through the rope-walk and thence into a stone-flagged courtyard the man was too discreet to ask why Mr Fane couldn’t pick up his own stuff; instead he yarned a little Albany lore, worn smooth by use like old coins. He led her up a staircase to Nat’s rooms, and told her to call at the lodge when she was finished. ‘Mr Fane was very particular about my seeing you into a cab.’ Again, he gave no sign of being curious about these instructions. She thanked him, and let herself into the apartment.
She had a list, written in Nat’s flamboyant cursive, of what he called ‘needful things’, though she couldn’t resist taking a snoop around the place first. It had the manicured look of an apartment you might see in Queen magazine or a Sunday supplement. The rooms were elegant and large, as she’d expected, with corniced ceilings and rippled windowpanes that seemed to have survived from the last century. A connoisseurial mixture of paintings and photographs adorned the walls. A few of the portraits were, inescapably, of Nat himself. In the kitchen she poured herself a gin and tonic, which she sipped on her way around his office, retrieving from his desk ‘chequebook, diary, p
assport, fountain pen (the Montblanc, please)’. She put these and other items in an old leather briefcase.
It was odd, picking off someone’s possessions in their absence, like an authorised burglar. Billie was suddenly reminded of their first encounter at Brown’s. If she hadn’t tried to filch his wallet that day she wouldn’t be here now. In the bathroom she found his ‘grooming case’, though she wondered if a silver monogrammed hairbrush was absolutely necessary to his arrangements in exile. Directed to the mirrored cabinet she found the bottle of L’Heure Bleue, his razor, brushes. On the hook of the bathroom door hung a dressing gown in mustard yellow, the only ugly thing of his she’d ever seen. The idea that even Nat could have a lapse of taste was comforting. On entering the bedroom she jumped at the sight of the polar bear rug; for just a second the black eyes and open jaw seemed to belong to a living creature. The room resembled a stage set – Molière, perhaps – with swagged curtains, gilt mirrors, a bust on the mantelpiece and a four-poster with a scrolled headboard. For some reason she sensed Nat’s influence here, his aura of ownership, the strongest. There was a ghostly impression, a dent, on the right-hand pillow. He’d asked her to pack whichever books were on his bedside table: The Scenic Art by Henry James, Enemies of Promise, and a hardback novel, Disciples, by someone called Nancy Holdaway. From a cupboard she pulled out a large suitcase, the old-fashioned sort with brass catches and travel labels striping the sides.
She opened a huge built-in wardrobe and started pulling out clothes. His only directive was ‘shirts etc’, so she improvised: a few of Turnbull & Asser’s finest, a pair of corduroys, a linen jacket. The first surprise came when she opened what she assumed to be an underwear drawer. There was underwear – all of it women’s. Black embroidered bras, scalloped bras, half-cup bras, silk camisoles, slips, garter belts, black and white stockings, Victorian corsets, bikini pants, a motley of lacy underthings in red and black and flesh. Starkest of all, in this rainbow jumble, a plain pair of white cotton knickers – the innocent at the party. Billie’s mind reeled: had Nat assumed she wouldn’t look, or did he not care? Were these keepsakes donated, or stolen, or purchased? Was he a mail-order obsessive compiling a trophy collection? There was another possibility: he had worn them himself, as costumes in some private theatre of erotic fancy. She felt a bump of nausea in her stomach, not from disgust but from the sudden vertiginous excitement of accidental intimacy. She steadied herself, took a breath, and looked up to the top shelf.
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