On the Brink of Tears

by Peter Rimmer

  “Sounds like the stuff of good journalism. A provocative title, this first one. I shall read with interest. Always nice to visit with you, William Smythe. Just you and me at the weekend with a couple of bottles of Scotch round the log fire. In April it’s still cold on the slopes. There may even be snow. Can you ski?”

  “Never tried. Won’t your wife want to come?”

  “Not if I tell her the subject. Samantha hates arguments. Why we have the perfect marriage and perfect children. We never argue with each other. If we don’t agree we shut up. Fortunately we share the same opinions. The two boys are growing up in a happy family. Why haven’t you got married?”

  “She won’t marry me.”

  Genevieve only realised she had ripped the soul out of a man and thrown it in his face when Gregory L’Amour walked onto the set the first day of shooting; they were equally self-centred and selfish, concerned with themselves, caring nothing of what they did to other people. Robbing a good man of his pride and soul just because she felt lonely was worse than stealing his money.

  “You’re a bitch, Genevieve.”

  “My word, we are getting somewhere. Are you apologising?”

  “Not to you, Genevieve. And don’t pretend you lost something. You’ve only ever loved yourself in your entire life.”

  “We are edgy.”

  For the next weeks they never said anything to each other apart from snide remarks and the lines of the dialogue that came between them in the film.

  Despite living close to Gerry Hollingsworth, Genevieve had succumbed to his invitation to move into the house. The thought of spending months alone in a hotel suite was worse than putting up with lecherous stares, that largely never came, and when they did, far from the prying eyes of Carmel. Carmel reminded Genevieve of her mum. Genevieve reminded Carmel of her children. Neither said so to each other at first but both were homesick despite the sprawling house they lived in on the perfect stretch of Pacific coast, south of Los Angeles, a mile south of Long Beach, some hundred miles from the Mexican border no one ever seemed to visit.

  By the time King Harold looked up at the sky, taking the Norman arrow in his eye just to the side of his nose armour, Uncle Robert and Aunt Freya had arrived from England to watch the scene on the south coast of England play itself out in the surf of the Pacific Ocean, no one remembering what the shores of England looked like back in 1066. By the time the Battle of Hastings was over, the last Saxon king dead in his grave, Robert and Freya had moved into the house on the beach with its superfluous swimming pool.

  Gregory L’Amour had rented his own house not far down the beach and surrounded himself with a harem. He made a splendid sight storming ashore from the Norman fleet, cutting up Saxons with a sword the size of himself. His bride, Genevieve, waiting patiently on board for the all-clear, frightened for the life of her knight as she watched the mayhem of battle from a gently undulating spot on the poop deck of the leading boat, looked perfect, the Héloïse of the book in her bliaut and veil, the most beautiful woman in France.

  Even Uncle Robert was pleased with the rushes and the way the film was panning out, even if there wasn’t much resemblance to the story in his book, a story Robert still claimed to be factual, his only proof the word of mouth passed down by his ancestors. Filtered stories even Robert conceded were better than the dirt, filth and lice the knights of old put up with under their suits of anything but shining armour. Fighting the good war, even when it led to a castle on some foreign land, was right; William of Normandy was the rightful King of England, not King Harold.

  The trick, according to Denzel Hurst the film’s director, was to make the battle scenes happen so fast that no one saw the flaws or doubted the veracity of the story, the whole playing out in the end to so much noise and surging, martial music the audience was saturated.

  “By the time we’re finished,” he said to Robert, “we’ll blast their minds into submission.”

  “I believe you, Denzel.”

  “Wonderful story.”

  “Which one?”

  “It’s all about making money, Robert.”

  “Of course it is. How foolish of me. Whatever was I thinking.”

  “They want to live in a more exciting world.”

  “Who, Denzel?”

  “The audience, silly.”

  “Yes, of course. Our job is to entertain, not inform.”

  “Now you’ve got it. Gerry’s throwing a party to celebrate the successful end of the battle scenes.”

  “How nice of him.”

  “Smile at them all, Robert. Publicity. The press will be there. We start now hyping the movie. Making a film is much easier than selling it. Having the public waiting with anticipation, their money at the ready. That’s Gerry’s business. Like your publisher. Max Pearl is flying in from New York for the party. He’s launching a new edition of your book to whet the audience’s appetite. You should be thrilled.”

  “Oh but I am. How nice it will be to see Max again.”

  “He’s invited the newspapers from right across the country.”

  “You think they’ll come?”

  “To a Hollywood bash on the beach? Are you kidding? They’ll kill each other to get that invitation in the press rooms. Makes journalism worthwhile. All the starlets get invited. If they don’t lay the press boys they don’t get invited again.”

  “You do do things differently in America.”

  “Bigger and better.”

  “Will the sun shine for the party?”

  “Hey, buddy. This is California.”

  Poor Uncle Robert, Genevieve thought, watching the exchange. From the backwater of rural England to the go-go of America where money was the only thing, where hype ruled over reason and telling the truth in business was a mortal sin if it was going to cost money. The cold stare in her uncle’s eyes said the opposite of his cheerful words; he knew exactly what they were doing with his book. When the director moved away to tell someone else what they were doing wrong she walked across to her uncle standing on his own, an oasis of sanity in a fictional world.

  “Are you all right, Uncle Robert?”

  “I’m glad your father did not come over as I suggested. He would have taken umbrage at all the commercialisation. To him the understanding from a book is more important than the pace of the story. Here, I’m out of my depth, but you would know that, Genevieve. You are part of them. The smile into the camera the audience see as a smile at your husband is all you have to do to tell the story. Let me just say what we are getting was not in my mind’s eye when I wrote the book. Everyone reading the book has a different mind’s eye interpretation of what they read. My words just spark their imagination. No two people see the same thing that’s right in front of them let alone a picture painted in words. Your father would have been miserable among all the noise and strange conversations. We use the same words most of the time but America speaks a different language. Maybe they understand better what they are saying to each other. We English are a little more reserved. We don’t shout our opinion from the rooftops. We don’t get quite so up close to each other. I’m too old for all this. Freya says it was easier to take when she was younger.”

  “Are you going to live in America?”

  “Probably, so I’ll have to adjust. It’s all a trifle too brash for a staid old Englishman. Richard is having fun. Freya wants the new baby to be born in America. She’s thirty-eight so we won’t have any more children. She wants to be near her mother this time to share the joy with her own parents which I quite understand. We have a cottage with a few acres near Denver where we intend to live until the new baby is born.

  “Richard is the problem. He should be in a good prep school by now. His mother has been giving him lessons. Your friend William Smythe was staying in the cottage when we arrived. We were staying with her parents and went to check the cottage during the week. Glen Hamilton had given him the key for helping clean up the place while the two of them talked British-American politics. When I ment
ioned your name to remind him of our connection he nearly bit my head off. What did you say to him, Genevieve? Never mind, it’s none of my business. You youngsters have your own way of doing things. He was as happy as a sandboy until I foolishly mentioned your name.

  “Between them they have published a series of articles on transatlantic relations which has caused a furore in American papers, everyone writing rude letters. William thinks America wants to move into our markets when the empire comes to its end, like every other empire in history. That underneath all the nice cousin talk there is a nasty undercurrent of greed. That America siding with what they call the oppressed people of the British colonies is a ruse to get us out and their big corporations into our markets. William told Glen later he learnt more from the letters written in response to his articles than any research could have given him. Glen Hamilton was thrilled. Nothing better than controversy to sell newspapers, though that side of life I don’t even try and understand. He also missed Harry Brigandshaw’s celebration bash. Freya and I were in America by then.”

  “Did it go all right? I wrote him a letter in response to my invitation.”

  “Tina brought in a band. Two of the girls played for my father at his last party. Tina used the inglenooks at the ends of the old banqueting hall to turn sides of carcasses to feed the hordes of guests for the weekend. Hastings Court was a madhouse. Everyone was given a dagger to carry around with them in case they got hungry. The theme was a medieval banquet that became formal on the Saturday evening when everyone sat at the long tables in the old hall while the carved meat was brought to them on silver platters held shoulder high. For the rest of the time food was laid out as a buffet with every kind of drink you can imagine. The guests took their daggers into the inglenooks and cut bits off the carcasses and stuffed their faces with fat dripping down their chins.

  “Harry’s ancestors looking down from heaven must have thought it was all like old times. Merlin said it took him a week back at Purbeck Manor to recover from the party. Great success. Had another letter from mother. She had gone up to Hastings Court for the shindig with your father. On the Saturday night with Harry’s birthday on the Sunday, your grandmother stayed awake until midnight, drank the toast to Harry and only then went off to bed. Every hotel for ten miles was full for the weekend along with every room in the old mansion. That young chap Tinus came down from Oxford.”

  “Was he on his own?”

  “I don’t think so, Genevieve. His other friend had gone back to South Africa. Merlin wanted to know what had happened to the other Morgan sports car. The girl with Tinus said he was going to play cricket for Oxford University. Round about now, I suppose. Something about the first week in July. It was all in the letters I received giving me chapter and verse on the party it was such a big event.”

  “Was she pretty?”

  “Who?”

  “The girl. The girl with Tinus?”

  “Merlin never mentions pretty girls anymore.”

  “Has William Smythe gone back to England?”

  “I imagine so. Here comes your boyfriend, Genevieve. I’d better not monopolise any more of your time. I forget you are a famous actress.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend, despite what they write in the newspapers.”

  “William thinks in his articles there’s going to be another war with Germany. That if England and America don’t join forces we’re all going to be for the high jump, that if Hitler wins he’ll take revenge on the whole lot of us who forced Germany to sign the peace agreement at Versailles. According to William, Hitler’s war reparations against the Allies will make the Germans look like a walk in the park. The British Empire will then become part of the Third Reich with American business right out of the picture and Gandhi not even allowed to mention Indian independence. William’s good at stirring up controversy. Some of it makes sense. Some of it, in my humble opinion, is a load of rubbish. Except the bit about another war, that’s coming. Why Freya wants to live in America. She thinks if Germany were to conquer Europe, America would make peace with Germany. She was a journalist before we married, worked for Glen Hamilton at the Denver Telegraph for ten years. She thinks America should fear Russian communism more than fascist Germany. That fascists still do business whichever way they run the country. For me, I’m just a country bumpkin writing a book on Merlin the Magician... I’ll leave you two alone. I’m her uncle, Mr L’Amour.”

  “Pleased to meet you again, Mr St Clair. What do you think of the film so far?”

  “I think it’s wonderful. Just wonderful. My ancestor would be proud of you.”

  “Why thank you, kind sir.” Gregory L’Amour was smiling comfortably. “Did they really talk that way in the good old days?”

  “I have no idea. I wasn’t there.”

  Giving them both a polite laugh, Robert St Clair went to look for his wife who had joined him from the Hollingsworth beach house, young Richard in tow. Despite what William Smythe said, America to Robert was a breath of fresh air. He could go for days without one word about the mess brewing in Europe. For Robert, living in his fictional world was the best place to be. The Mark of the Eyes was going well despite all the travel and the other interruptions. Max Pearl had wanted him in America more to boost the sales of his books, flogging, as Robert said to Freya, the relationships of the living with the characters in the new film as the newspapers and magazines picked up on the human side of the story.

  “It’s just business, Robert,” Max Pearl had said, “for us and Hollingsworth. You authors can write your books anywhere. It’s all in your head. All you have to carry is a pen or a typewriter.”

  Thinking back to the simplicity of his publisher’s naivety about writing books, Robert caught sight of his pregnant wife standing next to his son.

  “Why are you grinning like a Cheshire cat, Daddy?”

  “You’ve never even met a Cheshire cat so how would you know?”

  “Making a film looks like permanent chaos,” said Freya. “How do they all know what’s going on?”

  “Ask Denzel Hurst, the director. I just wrote the book. Why don’t we all go home and have a swim in the sea?”

  “I want to swim in the swimming pool,” said Richard, grabbing his father’s hand as they all went off to find the car.

  “He gets more American every day,” said Robert.

  Watching Robert St Clair go off with his wife and son gave Gregory L’Amour a pang of envy; the three of them together looked so happy. The moment her uncle walked away, Genevieve had left him standing. One of the camera crew was visibly sniggering.

  Like Genevieve, Gregory had lied about his age when he went into acting, giving himself another five years to impress his first producer. His voice had broken when he was eleven years old. At sixteen he stood six feet in his socks. By the time he was twenty-three and arguing with Genevieve on the set of Keeper of the Legend his shoulders were broad from pumping iron every morning in his room. His jaw was square with a dimple right in the middle. He was six feet two inches tall with hands the size of hams. His face, the papers told him, was beautiful, his voice rich in timbre, his eyes sparkling clear, his belly as flat as a board. But best of all, the camera liked him, even the shots of his broad back and tight arse when taken from the rear, walking, running or riding a horse.

  The papers called him The all American man; strong, silent, bursting with action, a man of few words as he rode through the old American West, the Forest of Nottingham, the battlefields of the knights of old. For America, he was their hero, always their hero, always there when the poor and downtrodden needed him.

  Even Gregory knew he was starting to believe in what they said of him, striding off and on the stage to be what people wanted, trying to make himself into what they said, never once himself. For now he was a knight, a giant striding the world. Even Gregory knew he had fallen foul of all the nasty, falling headfirst into the picture of what they told him was himself.

  “Gregory! You’re on,” shouted Denzel Hurst. “P
ull your finger out.”

  “Right with you, Denzel.”

  “Forget her except when you are together in a scene. How are the girls at your beach house?”

  “Fabulous. Wonderful. Everything a man can want.”

  “That’s the spirit. Now go out there and ripple those muscles.”

  Annoyed at his one vulnerable moment being noticed, Gregory strode onto the set, once again the man they wanted him to be, the beautiful man he saw every day in the mirror. All he had to do was give it to Genevieve one more time, laugh out loud and dump her in the trashcan with the rest of his discarded girls.

  Part 7

  Parting of the Ways — July 1937

  1

  Harry Brigandshaw pushed the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine to full throttle and sent the aircraft into a dive straight for Redhill Aerodrome far down below the clouds, feeling the wings of the new fighter vibrating dangerously, his whole body shaking in the cockpit.