Michael wanted to ring off, but was not the ringing-off type. 'Unlike you, I have to create opportunities. I'm not spoon-fed by clerks.'
'Spoon-fed! I'm in demand, you fool!'
'This is going to be a twenty-million-dollar movie. Shane Hammond is on board as director. I've got a chance to produce and I'm not walking away from an opportunity that can settle my debts and save my house!'
'Frankly, Michael, the Irish have more chance of building the H-bomb.'
In the beginning Cassian had been supportive. Showbiz had secretly appealed to him, and he doubtless enjoyed bragging to lawyer friends about Intelligent Productions, his little dalliance with the arts. But when the going got tough he was bound to weigh in heavy-handedly, becoming harsh, and blunt, so that Michael could be in no doubt of the low esteem in which his brother had always held him.
'Michael! Just for once, consider that I'm a barrister. I know a tad or twain about matters legal. You'll hate me for saying so, but I'm in a good position to advise you. Now, just think upon this. When your company goes into liquidation, either by means of a winding-up order or voluntary cessation, which I urgently advocate, you'll be doorstepped by a horde of indignant creditors who'll want to sue you personally. The assets of the company are negligible, future income nil and creditors like Grossman will get very few pence in the pound. Your chief source of liquidity, an overdraft facility disproportionate to cashflow expectations, is secured by an asset mortgaged to a bank. Nobody but the bank'll see a penny of it. That leaves a line of angry creditors baying for your blood with only the diaphanous veil of limited liability hanging between their eye-teeth and your balls. And if those guys can get it into the liquidator's head that you were in business running up debts and liabilities when you knew or ought to have known they couldn't be met, he'll shred the corporate veil and sue you as a director. And if, indeed, they plead wrongful trading, you're dead meat. Why? Because your accountant warned you both orally and in writing that at the time of the Western Canon negotiation you were way overextended. You ignored him, and it has taken him another two months to bring his worries to me. Michael, unless you return now and make some semblance of responsible management you're a sitting fuck. You'll be financially poleaxed, barred from credit for years, barred from the directorship of any company. Everyone will know you're a bankrupt. Lenders will shun you. Your funds will be controlled by a trustee so that any serious money you earn will be hived off to creditors. You'll be a complete pariah with a certificate of incompetence and a ball and chain around your goolies, and you'll be eyed with suspicion because wrongful trading smells. Is that enough, or shall I continue?'
'I need to think.'
'Don't think. Pack your bags.'
Michael held the receiver to his ear and gazed at his bare foot on the floor tiles. He was crouched forward, the forefinger of his right hand pressed to his lip. He gazed vacantly as the unpleasantness bore down on him. Cassian's words drummed at his person and he felt as a kind of sickness the pass he had come to; because, even though he believed in his new life, he had a kind of fierce pride still, which converted Cassian's picture of him as a fly-by-night incompetent into something utterly mortifying. He would not be written off. He would not be bankrupted. He realised the violence of his need to show the world he could succeed. He wanted to defeat Cassian with his success, to repel and diminish him and crush him.
He sat in the bed, his anger hardening.
'I'm not winding up.'
'Michael, you've got to come back!' He was desperate now. 'I'm a co-director. I'm statutorily liable. Your creditors can come for me. Don't you understand? And I've got assets. I'm a bloody sitting target, and Christ alive, the money's bad enough but d'you think someone in my position needs litigation? Like a hole in the head. I've just taken silk! The last thing I want is wrongful trading action boiling over in the High Court before my bloody eyes. You've got to get back here, please, so we can sort this thing out. You help me and I'll do my damndest to help you. Is that a deal?'
Cassian was pleading with him. He felt a wave of pity for the man, for the limits and conventions of his life. He did not deserve embarrassment. He had worked hard and played by the rules.
'A few more days.'
'Please!'
He put the phone down on his brother. He was becoming quite tough.
Chapter Thirteen
He held the document in his hands, caressed his upper lip and read slowly through the clauses. He had successfully printed an agreement on his inkjet.
He would acquire an option to purchase film and television rights in Hilldyard's novel. On exercise the author would assign all rights to adapt and exploit the book as a motion picture or TV mini-series, and thereafter to produce sequel and remake films and spin-off series. Michael would control merchandising, soundtrack and book-of-the-movie rights; plus the unfettered right to alter or adapt the novel in any way, subject only to author consultation without veto. Hilldyard would experience three-quarters of a million dollars on exercise and, when the film got made, a single-card front-end credit in a lettering three-quarters the size of the director's.
There was a space for the author's signature.
It struck him as curious that the imprint of a name, the motions of ink on a page, could change everything.
He tucked the document into his pocket carefully.
Today would not be subtlety day. He would aim to get things done, so that other things could happen. First this, then that, a practical progression. Not everything that Hilldyard might feel should trouble him now; a certain withdrawal of empathy was inevitable, a certain narrowing of concern for the author, and, if it disturbed him to contemplate such efficiency, he told himself that Hilldyard had been persuaded to change his mind, and that he had changed his mind, too. He honestly wanted to produce the film. It was now his wish, his ambition, and where there was honesty there need be no embarrassment. Self-knowledge was proof against bad conscience.
His preparations were cool-headed, even dextrous. He dressed, shaved, and after a moment's preparation dialled Curwen's office in London. He was not decided on the degree of misrepresentation required to prepare the agent for the Americans, but he knew that something subtle would occur once they were talking. Curwen, it turned out, was ill, off for a day and possibly longer. There was no contact number and thus no risk of the Americans reaching Curwen before Michael did. He rang off thoughtfully.
He dialled Nick Adamson's Los Angeles number, not fearing to wake him in the middle of his night. The voicemail cut in. He deposited a résumé of developments and asked for a return call p.m. Adamson would be excitable, venally strategic. Once briefed he would shift into download: the shape of the deal, the theatrics of negotiation with Coburn, the body language and opening gambits and deal breakers. Michael needed that. He was reliant on that.
Adela had asked for a decision. He rang her hotel as though it were another business call. Her line was engaged and he left a message with reception: 'Shane's agent arrives tomorrow. With Hilldyard now. See you lunch.'
Enough to make her stay.
He descended to the lobby and asked the Signora to watch out for an incoming fax. Weislob had not yet sent the coverage.
He patted his pockets, composed himself. It was a ten-minute walk up to Hilldyard's villa and in that ten minutes he needed to become solid, dense with purpose. He inhaled resolutely and went on to the veranda where the day's light was captured in a thousand particles of colour.
Michael blinked, fetched out his sunglasses, waited a moment.
He made his way up the road, pushing himself to achieve clarity of thought. He needed to prevail. For once he was at the centre of things and the forces gathering to his person, of hazard and chance, would give him strength.
A wash of nerves hit the pit of his stomach, almost lifting him off his feet with exhilaration. He was dizzy for a moment, the screen of his mind clearing, losing colour, as though he could be anything, anywhere, was no longer fixed.
The figure came from a side-alley, catching his arm with a hard down-clasp.
Michael shrieked in surprise.
The writer recovered at the roadside. He held on to Michael's arm and glanced about, catching his breath. They had nearly collided. The old man was shaken.
'I was coming to see you,' he said at last.
Michael concentrated. 'I was coming to see you.'
They stood there facing each other, opening moves accomplished.
Hilldyard got his breath back, made a gesture. 'Frances has gone on a jaunt.'
'Has she?'
'Sorrento.'
Michael slowly nodded. 'Shall we go up to your place?'
Hilldyard looked over his shoulder. 'No. Come to my room.'
'Your room?'
'I have a room.' He produced a key from his pocket.
Michael looked at the key in surprise.
There was a flicker of insomnia in Hilldyard's eye. His jowls were rawly shaven.
'Go on.' He pointed the way up the narrow flight of steps. 'Up there.'
Michael pressed on ahead, putting some energy into his upward climb, as if he were his own man.
Hilldyard followed behind, one hand on the rail. The high walls on either side were crumbly, unrendered, host to spumes of weed and grass, and gloomy, like the sides of a dungeon. Halfway up the old man coughed violently, a catty spasm. He hauled himself on, watery eyes glinting behind Michael.
Chapter Fourteen
Hilldyard unlocked a turquoise iron gate in the side of a powdery wall and they passed into another alley, a narrow cement path inlaid with blue tiles here and there. Terracotta urns were set in niches at intervals and fronds of vine overcurled the top of the wall. At the end of the path a row of steps led up to a door in the side of a whitewashed house. Hilldyard turned the key and pushed the door open. It swung into a sunlit room perhaps twenty feet in length. Light ran into the study from a sea-view window and raised the pattern of a faded rug and the crammed elevations of a bookcase. A thousand volumes were distinct, spines articulated in the wash of sea-light: Penguin oranges, Pelican blues, Italian whites, calf-bound reds and tans, antiquarian golds, a vivid density of paperbacks and reference tomes running floor to ceiling on two sides of the room. On the wall by the door a pine shelf held a still life of ceramics: jugs and vases in corn yellows and sky blues, and a tray of sea-hazed bottle glass – jade and amber lozenges culled from the beach. Above the shelf was a painting, a rendering of the view from the window: the timeless prospect of a green pine against vivid blue sky.
Facing the window: a wooden table. A chair with struts at the back and a fading cushion on its seat stood by. On the table were an old manual typewriter, ribbon sagging, an electric typewriter with a sheet under its roller, and a computer screen and disconnected keyboard. These machines had been shoved together to make room for a mug with a maroon cockerel design in which jostled pens and pencils, and an extraordinary whirlpool of pages, spiralling on to the floor and surrounding the legs of the table, smattered with writing, Hilldyard's rapid hand, sketchy jottings, bustling paragraphs, a teeming of words around a central pad and cartridge pen.
Michael averted his eyes from the desk. He glanced at the hundreds of books towering over him. He was walled in by a lifetime of reading. Hilldyard's life; Hilldyard's reading.
The air was dusty and warm. Hilldyard unlatched the glass door, sliding it open. He stood for a moment with his hands on the back of a wickerwork chair and gazed at the sea with professional discernment.
'My ivory tower.'
Michael nodded slowly.
'Not much ivory, but some good books.'
He had to concentrate now. He was not yet ready to speak.
'Try the writer's seat.'
He did so. The swarm of words came closer. The handwriting was messy, energetic, spermatozoically thriving on the page, as though the life of a novel were teeming into being from a million impulses of thought.
'Suits you.'
Michael looked about him.
'I started in this room. I wrote three novels here! I used to rent it from a painter who lived in the villa. That's his picture. We became good friends and when he retired he sold me them both. Gad, what a festival! Italian conveyancing. Paid everyone twice, of course. A dozen bureaucrats, some kind of mayor, two or three Armani wearers from Mafia head office and a lawyer with an eye-patch and two missing fingers. A delirium tremens of hitches and set-backs overcome by a fiesta of bribery and more talking than I've ever heard in my life. Struth, these folk! They're gifted in that way. A beautiful babbling race.'
Michael nodded, feeling for the option agreement in his pocket.
'But now I own it. No doorbell. No phone.' He turned to face Michael. 'Absolute solitude.'
'James.' He stood up.
Hilldyard raised a hand.
Michael reached into his jacket. 'I have something for you.'
'I won't grant the film rights.'
His face gave him away. He could not manage the first response.
The author waved a hand, acknowledging the element of surprise whilst brushing it aside.
He had miscalculated. He was seized with panic.
'Sorry, Michael.'
'I thought . . . Adela converted you.'
'Really?'
He hesitated before lying.
'You thought that, did you?'
He smiled back desperately. 'You changed your mind last night.'
'I was evidently drunk.'
'You weren't, James.'
'Wish I had been.'
'It's a sensible idea. Look, here's an option agreement.'
'Last Muse into Hollywood won't go!'
'If that's the only reason . . .'
'I don't need any reason!'
Michael swallowed. Hilldyard was forceful and impatient, and, whatever had made him cave in the night before, he had shaken it off. Michael hesitated nervously. He had expected weakness, resignation. He had misread the situation.
He clung to common sense, the bluff of reasonableness. 'You didn't listen to a word of what we said!'
Hilldyard caught his tone and gave him a suspicious look. 'I heard it very well.'
'It's gone in one ear and out the other.'
'Rubbish does.'
'Frances and Adela will be heart-broken!'
'You're the one that's heart-broken.'
Michael steeled himself, fighting back. 'You can't be afraid of the publicity!'
'How can you ask such a question!'
'The world won't condemn you for being unfaithful once. Actually, the world doesn't care.'
'Oh God.' Hilldyard was horrified. 'Where is your imagination? Did you leave it in bed this morning?'
Michael shook his head. His palms were sweaty.
'Why should everything I feel be translatable into reasons? I don't have to justify myself to the ordinary consumer.'
'I am not the ordinary consumer.'
'Then stop acting like one. Snap out of it, for pity's sake!'
Hilldyard turned irritably and crossed to the far end of the room. He pressed both palms to his cheeks. An explanation was evidently required of him and he could not bear the effort of it. 'You know that I loathe adaptation as a matter of principle!'
Michael's chest was tight, and he stood speechless.
'Let me ask you, where do they come from? All these incredible books? From the minds of men and women who have spent years crafting their perception into the rigours of a form. Who have polished each phrase, wrestled with their senses for the best word here, the lightest touch there, brought every cell of these extraordinary organisms into being by a huge effort of imagination, and left us records of human consciousness that add to the wealth of our lives and are the essence of civilisation. The idea that these marvellous constructs of language should be hacked down to ninety minutes of cinema entertainment so that paraplegic consumers can be drip-fed the world's literature without making an ounce of mental effort I find too awful fo
r words. It is so contemptibly uneducated. Adaptation of any decent novel is vandalism. It mutilates the integrity of the original, misrepresents the truth of experience. It is an attack on the word, a violation of the selfhood of writer and reader! It cheapens the subtlety of life as recorded by the best minds! What you propose is an assault on all I have lived for and I cannot abide it!'
Michael stood his physical ground, but in his heart felt humiliated. He kept his hand on the back of his chair, struggled to think clearly. He had no choice but to contest the issue, to go against the grain of Hilldyard's absolute conviction. There was something here, a chink. Hilldyard had made no exception for him. His relationship with the author had been overlooked. He was being given no credit for the special nature of that relationship, and this was something Hilldyard could not deny.
'I have great respect for the integrity of the novel. I hoped for respect in return.'
Hilldyard frowned.
'When I offer my services as producer, I'm offering my own integrity. Isn't that worth something? Given the chance?'
Hilldyard's eyes burned brightly. 'Is this your chance?'
'I think so.'
'My God, you're easily tempted!'
'What?'
'Film producing?' He was scandalised. 'It's just hustling.'
'In a true cause.'
'The producers of this world are not carriers of the cross! You said so yourself.'
Michael brought his hand down on the chair. 'Can't you accept that I'm unusual?'
Hilldyard's eyes glittered. 'You're unique!'
'Then give me a chance!'
He shook his head violently. 'You're unfitted for such work. It's false to you.'
'Why on earth?'
'Because you like my writing! Don't you see?'
Michael's bafflement was total.
'The only reason you want to make this film is because you feel guilty for having failed as a producer, when failure is the very proof of your having something more special to give. You are sacrificing yourself to the standards and expectations of inferiors. You're accepting their canons of success when you should be determining your own. You want the money and recognition for the proof of something to others. You want that girl because she is out there, in the limelight, and the thought of possessing her reassures you that you are a person to be reckoned with. But who's doing the reckoning? Enter Hollywood as a man of integrity and you'll find the room empty. Those guys aren't rated for their sensitivity to literature. They're rewarded for the ability to suspend personal taste in the interest of market norms and audience research data. The original men with no face. Is that you, Michael?'
Sex & Genius Page 18
