Michael was almost soothed by Mahler's good-guy smile. Here was a man well-adjusted to celebrity management, the nerves of demanding stars and the trepidation of ordinary mortals. He could handle the vibes with the alert gentleness of a trusted uncle. They sat down on the foyer seats, a huddle of three, Mahler extolling the Amalfi coast, Gloria explaining her Italian roots, as briefcases were opened and documents withdrawn. Michael twice checked his jacket pocket, feeling for the option agreement. He was soothed by Mahler's dapperness, the signet ring and French cuffs; the tan suit on white shirt; the perfectly knotted tie, nice teeth and cappuccino complexion. This man had played golf with studio bosses and corporate honchos, had attended the birthday parties of movie stars' children, was that mildly phoney but essentially welcome thing: an American gentleman. He had one gold molar.
Gloria kept the remains of a New York accent, a bold, masculine, husky sound that went well with a rippling laugh and quick hands. She placed the documents on a coffee table before Mahler. In Coburn's absence Mahler was the senior agent. He wore his authority lightly.
'Thank you, sir,' he said, taking Michael's option agreements and passing them to Gloria.
'Gloria's the legal eagle. Don't look too closely, hon. I want to hit the pool before Yule.'
'Three-page deal memo,' she said neutrally.
'Short and sweet. Just how I like 'em. Say, Michael, can I get you a drink?'
He declined. 'Where's Rick?'
'Poolside with Adela and Shane. Hey! How'd that happen?'
'He gets the real tough assignments,' sighed Gloria.
'Myself,' shrugged Mahler, 'I find it so terribly arduous talking to extremely beautiful women.'
'She's gorgeous,' said the lady attorney, her voice unnaturally deep.
'You'll want to check these out.' Mahler passed a draft agreement and side-letter across the table. 'Shay's on a pretty tight schedule. When you're happy with the black and white, and I've read it myself and it looks great, maybe we can mosey down the terrace and get everyone introduced.'
He explained about faxing his colleague. Mahler took him to reception and left Michael to it. He watched the pages slide through the fax machine. Over his shoulder he saw Gloria conferring with Mahler about the option agreement. Her hands made three points. Mahler tongued his cheek, nodded knowingly. The document seemed to pass muster.
When the fax had gone he stood by the reception desk scanning their three-page agreement and side-letter. The first agreement was with a company called Cine Inc, the entity Hammond was using for the project. The second was with Coburn Agency. The Cine Inc document contained the terms of his producer deal, exactly reproducing the figures he had demanded from Coburn. The side-letter detailed Michael's cut of the packaging fee. He read quickly. Everything, to his astonishment, was included, sums doubled in words and numerals. The shortness of the agreement and the simplicity of expression was final proof of Adamson's assessment: the agents desperately wanted to close the deal. Long-form contracts might follow, but on signature of these pages he would receive one hundred thousand dollars and further unconditional undertakings.
Michael was relieved, and he could tell from the way Mahler smiled that Mahler expected him to be. They had not fought. The agent could afford to be generous.
Without mentioning Adamson's name, he explained the procedure. Mahler nodded graciously. If necessary they could amend in ink. The crucial thing was to sign before Shane departed.
'Ready to meet the star?'
They descended a flight of steps, went under arches along an arcade that was spaced by huge urns and the vista of a bar with white piano and glass-polishing waiter. An elderly man in bathrobe and raffia sandals crossed their path. A chambermaid disappeared into a lift. The establishment was quiet, in late-October lull, but eternally tuned to a five-star pitch of presentation and service. A moustached manager in a double-breasted suit met them with a smile and enquired after their happiness as they arrived on the terrace like long-standing guests. The view from the terrace was spotlit, like a painting in a gallery held up to the satisfaction of the hotel's guests, as though the Sirenuse, so well placed to behold the town from the superiority of its position, purveyed the full Positano experience to guests who might not wish to venture beyond the complacence of poolside sunbeds. Patrons could swim and sip long drinks in the knowledge that a masterpiece was before them, its colours palpitating beyond the balcony rail. At the end of the rail, at a discreet point beyond the pool's far corner, Michael saw a cluster of figures: two white-coated waiters bent over a trolley, bright-haired Adela, the figure of a man wearing sunglasses and lying back on his deckchair as if determined to imbibe every beam of the sun's good will. And Rick Weislob.
As they cornered the pool, closing the gap in space time between himself and Shane Hammond, Mahler prepared his cuffs, and Gloria set her best smile. Meanwhile, Hammond watched them approach without making any physical preparation for the imminence of Michael's arrival. Michael was knotted up and pale-skinned, in no state to impress movie star or shop assistant.
The introductions were a haze. Hammond sprang to his feet with last-minute energy, giving Michael a sharp handshake and a firm look, immediately conveying authority. Mahler's hands directed other introductions and reacquaintances. Adela's cheek came forward, her husky 'Hi' breathing through scented waft. Weislob swiped his hand and grasped his elbow and conducted him with a shoulder pat to a seat near Hammond. Gloria and Mahler drew up chairs and Mahler sounded pleasantries and requested the waiters to serve coffee whilst Adela repositioned herself in draped elegance behind Hammond, as though she planned to be more of a talented spectator than an active participant.
Hammond was shorter than Michael expected, neat-figured in chinos and white shirt. His sleeves were rolled up revealing good forearms and strong hands, and it came as a shift to see the famous face in three dimensions, something you could walk around and check from all angles. He seemed little more than thirty-five or -six, though he must have been forty. His hair was short, well kept, his demeanour high-tempered, royal.
Mahler made jokes about Italian paparazzi and Italian film distributors, eking joviality into the gathering, and Hammond kept his mouth shut and listened to the prelude with tolerance.
This quietness later seemed like deliberate poise, a reticence that kept him in the centre of attention whilst others were being listened to. The Englishman's worldwide success allowed him new economy of output and expression. Meetings had to be efficient. Meetings were not an actor's métier. They were a necessary imposition on scarce time and private moods, and Michael suspected, through the blur of his nervousness, that this American servility might even be embarrassing to an RSC actor. Hammond was famous. He needed top agents. But he was also British.
Michael had been terrified since he woke. He had come out of sleep suddenly, lurched forward and remained transfixed in the mess of his sheets while the tank of his mind filled with its slow, corrupted fluid, consciousness discoloured by guilt. His shame was greater in the morning than in the misery of the night, because the intervening hours had surely worsened things for Hilldyard, and improved nothing for Michael. What he had done would have sunk in now, progressed from shock to an established bruising or rupture; and every successive waking moment would indict Michael further, time itself cementing Hilldyard's despair, his sense of violation.
He had dressed like a man preparing himself for an ordeal. He found an earring of Adela's, held it to his lips, put it in his pocket. It was hard to think about her. She had derailed him from a sense of self, and yet he had followed her, gone with her, wherever that was. She had prised him away from his centre and he had no idea how to construe such an experience. It left him numb, motiveless as far as she was concerned. Adela, he realised, made love in a value-free zone. That's how she liked it, and she liked it because everything else was so stressfully calculated and intelligently strategic, and she liked it hard and lithe and brazenly carnal; though nothing had been possessed by feel
ing.
He needed to talk to her now; see how she felt about things, was affected. He needed the reassurance of a conversation that had nothing to do with Shane Hammond.
He had no idea how to impress Hammond. He had his wits but no certitude, no integrity to fall back on. His moral pith was extracted. And yet today was his day, and he found it completely strange to know that in a few hours he might consolidate his power by signing a deal. That would be final. He had it in his control to damn himself, an important opportunity which he must seize with determination. Retreat was impossible because on that side of things he had left nothing. The logic of peril forced the next stage, gave desperate necessity, and the manly thing was to get on with it. Then at least he would have objective strength – whatever the condition of his soul. His soul might wither and die. But so it could, if he had the money, and a hook into the future. And then, perhaps, his love for Adela would redeem the inner man, if she would let him love her as he wanted to.
Time to call Adamson.
Where he was it was late. He was audibly tired, though with the steady tone of a man using his last push of concentration to get a deal closed. Adamson did not let go. His sense of detail, his foreshortening of problems, the long-distance will-power he threw at Michael – these qualities were the essence of his being, making him endlessly high-concentrate. Phoned-out by a day in the office, his normal weavy spiel was slowed down. He took longer to collect the points.
'Say something nice about one of his films.'
'Yes.'
'Thinking Time.'
Michael hesitated. 'I never saw it.'
'Say you admire his work.'
He let out breath. 'OK.'
'Shake his hand and say it. Right off. First thing. Listen, this man's a rich, famous actor. Unlike other rich, famous people, he's insecure, paranoid and petulant.'
'Are you sure about that?'
'Eggshell time. You can't over-stroke an actor's ego.'
'He'll be relieved, surely.'
Adamson laughed wearily. 'Shane Hammond relieved? From where he stands, you just pulled a fast one.'
'I've got him the rights, Nick!'
'But he wants the project. So he can't be rude. And, likewise, you can't imply that you have him by the balls, or think you have. Sensitive. On the other hand . . .'
'He wants to do the deal.'
'He knows you can't back out.'
'What?'
'Your deal's too rich.'
'I can back out.'
'Unrealistic.'
'If I don't like his pitch I . . .'
'They'll know you're locked in. Coburn's not stupid.'
'But . . .'
'Which means you can be marginalised.'
Michael was behind, his intuition adrift. He panicked. 'It's a situation of complementarity. Of mutual interest.'
'Your so-called editorial control means Jack-shit unless Hammond buys the Hilldyard veto.'
'Hilldyard doesn't have a veto.'
'You'll get no respect from Hammond unless you stand up to him.'
'I'll stand up to him.' The words sounded hollow.
'If he thinks you've ransomed him, he'll know you're buyable. If he knows you need money, he'll realise that, eventually, you'll cave in on everything. And he'll make the film he wants to make.'
'Surely he respects Hilldyard?'
'Hey. Don't believe what you read in women's magazines.'
These equivocations weighed on him. 'I'm not prepared to just make any film.'
There was a pause.
'Perhaps we'll see eye to eye.'
Adamson started up slowly, framing and phrasing the presentation in its best light; and as he spoke, Michael felt a terrible longing for his words to be true.
'Your leverage is that you own Hilldyard. You have the relationship, and no matter how cynical Hammond feels, that relationship he has to respect. Like Hilldyard's major. Huge. A great living novelist. And you're his special friend. Now take that proposition one stage further. It's as if you are Hilldyard, an apostle of his taste. He's selected you to defend the . . . uh . . . keynote themes of the book, whatever they are, against false adaptation, development hell and blah-de-blah . . .'
'It's just that I know' – he had no one else to tell this – 'Hammond wants to ''open it out''.'
'And it's your God-given job to ensure fidelity to the . . . whatever . . . of the book. That's your role. Without that role you're just a man to pay off. Michael, you have to go toe to toe with him, or he'll know your ligging, and your control will end when you sign on the line.'
'Right.'
'It's a gamble.'
He realised that he was too far in. There would be nothing left for him if Hammond pulled out.
'Make him respect you.'
'Yes.'
'Be yourself. Say what you believe. Think about the book's bottom line.'
'These things are so subtle.'
'I mean, don't fucking blow it!'
'No.'
'But don't let them think you're a patsy.'
'I'm not.'
'Sell the Hilldyard pedigree.'
'Right.'
He could see it now. Nothing he said would be true any more.
He was politely listening to Tom Mahler. The longer Mahler spent recapping the situation for Hammond's benefit, the more oppressive Hammond's silence became. His brow was furrowed against the glare of the light and the gist of gathering issues. He was not handsome in a notch-jawed, straight-nosed way. Rather his face held intensity, like the young Orson Welles; the cheeks were broader, the mouth tighter-lipped, and the eyebrows capable of an ironic setting within an essentially serious demeanour. Hammond was more masculine than beautiful, though the eyes, when they flashed sideways, were surprisingly fine, unexpectedly so. An actor had to have natural attributes as well as talent.
He was still, listening to Mahler.
Michael swapped flat looks with Adela from time to time. She was neutral, of course. He felt the impulse to reassure her, to let her know he was OK now and that she could ignore his anger of the previous night. She did not need to worry about that. He would handle that; his problem. He looked at her miraculously incarnated yet again and found it impossible to believe he had had the luck to touch and kiss this woman, impossible to think she was still his. It lifted his yearning, and once raised, he found the desire to love almost unbearable. Such precious sensations needed a haven. They were the best thing left in him.
'Gentlemen, Michael has done us a great favour in making of himself a kind of link, if you will, in the association between Coburn Agency and James Hilldyard, and I think we now appreciate that in our previous design for the project there was an element missing which he has provided. Certainly there are details to finesse. Every movie has a one-off dynamic. But Michael will correct me if I'm wrong in saying we have a way forward on the commercial terms and will be in a position, with Gloria's permission, to sign off this morning, if that is our wish. Michael, we sincerely appreciate you, and I'm sure you respect the impact on any project of Shane Hammond. This man you see before you is one of the most important figures in contemporary cinema. He has great achievement behind him and a golden future. I'm here to ensure that his interests as director and star of this film are protected, and that any new element coming to the mix synchs with his vision of the film. We cannot paper this over. That's why we're here and I want us to dwell on it carefully. The agenda is simple. Gentlemen, how do we envision this movie?'
Michael finished his coffee and was available to speak. The important thing was not to dive in.
'Shay, d'you want to lead off?'
The star rubbed his eyes, hung his head. 'Can we back up a mo?'
Mahler raised palms. 'Please.'
Shane cleared his throat; his sinuses were heavy. He spoke in a low-toned voice of gravelly resource, which tended to a drawl, as if he were trawling for the essence of his concern. 'I'm sure I should be grateful to Michael . . . for his intervention. You know . . .
I'd written this project off. So . . . Great. Congratulations on your no doubt considerable persuasive skills.' He coughed. 'What I don't get, and pardon me if I'm being a bit fluey and thick, is the exact difference between the kind of film the author thinks Michael would make with his blessing, and the kind of film he wouldn't let us make.' He squinted.
'Michael, that's a key question.'
Michael hesitated, remembering himself. He faced Hammond's inquisition directly. It was a direct question, and a direct answer was in order. There could still be integrity on this matter.
'He trusts my judgement.'
Hammond did not experience this as a sequitur, but took up the point.
'What did he think was so wrong with my judgement?'
There was a pause. 'He has no personal knowledge of your judgement.'
Hammond kept the sun out of his eyes. 'I've done some pretty good films.'
'Of course.'
'I don't think my image is particularly lightweight.'
'Shane has an Oscar,' said Mahler. 'Literally countless theatre awards. You should see his CV. It's gold-plated.'
'I'm not boasting.' He smiled falsely. 'I'm just not clear what values you stand for that I don't.'
Adela moved to the edge of the chair, bit her lip.
Michael was taken aback by the hostility, not foreseen on this point. It had never occurred to him that Shane might have taken Hilldyard's rebuff as a personal slight.
Sex & Genius Page 29
