‘Oh God, I’d love to, sweetheart . . . but I’ve got to go back to LA with Stu. It’s kind of critical that I keep this bonding thing going. And he wants to do some serious planning stuff with me at the office on Sunday.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘If it hadn’t been for this crisis at work, you know I’d be there with you right now.’
‘I do understand.’
‘Good,’ she said. Anyway, I just wanted to say how fantastic your news is . . . and that I love you . . . and that I really do have to get back to this meeting. I’ll call you tomorrow when I’m home.’
And before I had a chance to say goodbye myself, the line went dead. My five-minute window with Sally had closed.
My insecurity was quickly subdued by another night of being waited on, and by drinking an absurdly good Morgon ’75, and by watching another double feature (Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole and Kubrick’s The Killing), and by being presented with a cake (personally designed by the island’s pastry chef) in the shape of an Emmy Award.
‘How did you know about my nomination?’ I asked Gary when he brought the cake into the screening room, accompanied by six of the staff.
‘Hey, news travels fast.’
This was a world where everything was known about you, where all requests were granted, where no detail was considered too small. You received exactly what you wanted, when you wanted it. In the process, you became the walking equivalent of a detached retina – blinded to external realities.
Not that I minded being a tourist in such a rarefied realm. But though I vowed not to do any work on the island, when Joan from Business Affairs showed up with my freshly typed script, I found myself quickly sprawled in the hammock on my balcony, red pen in hand. The new version was around eight pages shorter. Its pace was brisk, jazzy. The dialogue was snappier – and less self-knowing. The plot points were hit with ease. But – on a second reading – I found much of the third act now felt contrived: the aftermath of the robbery and the way all involved turned on each other seemed just a little by the book. So, over the course of the weekend, I redrafted the entire final thirty-one pages – and fell into the self-absorbed chasm of work. Despite the continued gorgeous weather, I locked myself in my room for all but three hours a day, and finished the job by six pm Sunday night. Joan from Business Affairs showed up shortly thereafter, and collected the forty or so pages of yellow legal foolscap upon which I had drafted the reworked Act Three. I celebrated with a slug of champagne. I spent an hour lolling in a hot tub. Then I dined on soft-shell crab and drank half a bottle of some wonderful New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Around ten that night, Joan showed up with the retyped pages.
‘You’ll have them back by midnight,’ I said.
‘Thank you, sir.’
I delivered the pages by the deadline required and fell into bed. I slept late. The newly bound screenplay arrived with breakfast, along with a note:
‘We’ve just heard from Mr Fleck. He’s received your screenplay and he’s planning to read it as soon as possible. Unfortunately, he is again delayed at sea, but will be returning on Wednesday morning, and looks forward to seeing you then.’
My first reaction to this missive was a simple one: Go fuck yourself, pal. I’m not going to sit around here, waiting for you to grace me with your presence. But when I called Sally on her cellphone in LA and told her that Fleck was yanking my chain by delaying his return, she said, ‘What do you expect? The guy can do what he wants. So, of course, he will do what he wants. Anyway, my love, you are just the writer . . . ’
‘Hey, thanks a lot.’
‘Come on, you know how the food chain works. The guy might be an amateur, but he’s still got the money. And that makes him king of the hill . . . ’
‘Whereas I’m the serf in this scenario.’
‘Hey, if you’re that pissed at the guy, throw a tantrum and demand the Gulfstream back to LA . . . but don’t expect to see me for the next three nights, as I’m up paying a house call on our affiliates in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.’
‘When did that come up?’
‘Yesterday evening. Stu decided we should go on a little inspection tour of our leading Pacific markets.’
‘You and Stu seem to have really bonded.’
‘I think I’ve won him over, if that’s what you mean.’
That’s not what I meant – but I didn’t want to press the issue for fear of sounding possessed by the proverbial green-eyed monster. But Sally knew exactly what I was talking about.
‘Do I discern a hint of jealousy in your voice?’ she asked.
‘Hardly.’
‘You know why I have to schmooze this guy, don’t you?’
‘Of course, of course . . . ’
‘You know I am trying to keep the barbarians from the gate, right?’
‘I know . . . ’
‘. . . and you should also know that I am incredibly in love with you, and wouldn’t dream of –’
‘All right, all right . . . Apologies.’
‘Accepted,’ she said crisply. ‘And I’ve got to get back to this meeting. Talk to you later.’
And she hung up.
Jerk. Jerk. Jerk. You and Stu seem to have really bonded. What a brilliant comment. Now you’ll have to do a little bit of extra-curricular grovelling to keep her happy.
I picked up the phone and called Meg. I asked about sending a bouquet of flowers to LA. No problem, she told me. And no, I didn’t need to give her a credit card number: ‘We’ll be happy to take care of that for you.’ Did I have any preference? No – just something stylish. And the message on the card? I needed something reconcilatory and fawning, but not too deferential, so I decided upon:
You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you.
Meg assured me that the flowers would be delivered to Sally’s office within the hour. Sure enough, ninety minutes later, an e-mail arrived from Ms Birmingham:
Now that’s what I call a stylish apology. Love you too. But try to lighten up, eh?
Sally
I attempted to follow her advice. I called Gary and arranged for a day of sailing around a small nearby archipelago of islands. Fleck’s Cabin Cruiser was crewed up for this voyage. Scuba gear was also onboard in case I wanted to go diving. And the assistant chef came along to whip up lunch. They also rigged a hammock between the masts, upon which I napped for an hour. When I woke to the offer of a cappuccino (instantly accepted), I was also handed a print-out of an e-mail from Chuck-the-Movie-Guy:
Hey, Mr Armitage!
Hope you’ve not got anything planned tonight, because I’ve just heard from Mr Fleck, and he wants me to set up a screening of a very special film for you this evening. Could you let me know what time would suit, and I’ll have the popcorn ready.
When I said to the yacht’s steward that I’d like to speak with Chuck personally, he patched me in on the ship-to-shore telephone.
‘So what’s the movie?’ I asked him.
‘Sorry, Mr Armitage – but that’s a surprise. Mr Fleck’s orders.’
So I presented myself at the screening room at 9pm that night. I sank into one of the overstuffed leather armchairs, balancing a Waterford Crystal bowl of popcorn between my legs. The lights went down – and the projector flickered into life. The soundtrack played a lush, 1940s recording of These Foolish Things, then the screen was filled with a title card in Italian, announcing that I was about to sit through Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo – The 120 Days of Sodom.
Of course, I’d heard about Pasolini’s infamous last movie – a postwar reworking of the Marquis de Sade’s deranged novel. But I’d never seen it. Because after its initial screenings during the mid-seventies, the film was banned just about everywhere in the States . . . including New York. And when you get banned in New York, you know you’ve concocted something that’s just a little too hot to handle.
Within about twenty minutes, I understood why the New York authorities had a few moral qualms about this
movie. Set in the Fascist republic of Salo (created by Mussolini during his last stand at the end of the war), the movie kicked off with four Italian aristocrats (of largely seedy demeanour) agreeing to marry each other’s daughters. This was the mildest of moral transgressions instigated by this quartet – because they were soon scouring the northern Italian countryside for young nubile adolescent boys and girls, who’d been rounded up for them by fascist guards. Their victims were then transported to a stately home where their captors announced that they were now living in a realm above the law – a place where they would be required to participate in an orgy every night, and where anyone caught in a religious act would be put to death.
And so, the aristos began to have their way with their victims. They buggered boys and staged a mock wedding between a virginal girl and one of the adolescent boys, forcing the couple to consummate the ‘marriage’ in front of them. But just when the guy was about to penetrate his bride, the aristos rushed forward, deflowering these children themselves.
It got worse. During one ‘orgy’, the chief aristo defecated on the floor, then insisted that the child bride from the previous scene eat his faeces. Believing that everybody should join the party, they forced all their captives to defecate into bedpans and then served up a banquet of turds on fine china. But just when I started imagining that things couldn’t turn even more warped, they tortured and annihilated all their victims in the courtyard of the stately home – gouging out eyeballs, garrotting a young woman, burning another’s breasts with a candle, cutting off tongues. And as the strains of These Foolish Things returned to the soundtrack, two fascist male guards begin to slow-dance with each other.
Fade to black. Final credits.
As the lights came up, I found myself in an actual state of shock. Salo wasn’t just out there . . . it was completely beyond there. What disturbed me even more was that this was not some cheap-ass snuff movie, made by a couple of low-lifes for five thousand bucks in a San Fernando Valley warehouse. Pasolini had been an ultra-sophisticated, ultra-serious director. And Salo was an ultra-serious exploration of totalitarianism, taken to the outer limits of taste. I had just borne witness to the worst imaginable excesses of human behavior, while sitting in a lushly appointed screening room on a private Caribbean island. And I couldn’t help but wonder: what the fuck was Philip Fleck trying to tell me?
But before I could come to grips with this, I heard a voice behind me.
‘You could probably use a drink after that.’
I turned around and found myself staring at a woman in her early thirties – attractive in a severe New England sort of way, with horn-rimmed glasses and long brown hair pulled up in a bun.
‘I think I need a very strong drink,’ I said. ‘That was . . . ’
‘Horrendous? Appalling? Nauseating? Abominable? Or maybe just good old-fashioned gross?’
‘All the above.’
‘Sorry about that. But, I’m afraid, that’s my husband’s idea of a joke.’
I was immediately on my feet, my hand outstretched.
‘So sorry I didn’t recognize you. I’m . . . ’
‘I know who you are, David,’ she said, proffering me a small smile. ‘And I’m Martha Fleck.’
Six
‘SO . . . WHAT’S IT like being talented?’
‘Sorry?’ I said, taken slightly aback.
Martha Fleck smiled at me and said, ‘It’s just a question.’
‘A very direct question.’
‘Really? I thought it was a rather nice question.’
‘I’m not particularly talented.’
‘If you say so,’ she said with another smile.
‘But it’s the truth.’
‘Well, modesty is an admirable thing. But the one thing I know about writers is that they’re normally a mixture of doubt and arrogance. But the arrogance usually wins out.’
‘Are you saying that I’m arrogant?’
‘Hardly,’ she said, shooting me another smile. ‘Then again, anyone who gets up in the morning and faces a blank screen needs a fantastic sense of his own self-importance. Drink? I’m certain you need one after watching Salo . . . though my husband considers it to be a flat-out masterpiece. Then again, he did make The Last Chance. I presume you’ve seen it?’
‘Uh, yes. Very interesting.’
‘How diplomatic of you.’
‘It’s good to be diplomatic.’
‘But it makes for less-than-lively conversation.’
I said nothing.
‘Come on, David. It’s time to play To Tell the Truth. What did you really think of Philip’s movie?’
‘Not the . . . uh . . . best thing I’ve ever seen.’
‘You can do better than that.’
I scanned her face for a sign. But all I saw was that amused smile. I said:
‘Okay, if you want the truth, I thought it was pretentious crap.’
‘Bravo. And now you get that drink.’
She reached down and touched a small button on the side of her chair. We were sitting in the ‘great room’ of the house, having adjourned there at her suggestion. She was seated underneath a late Rothko – two large merging squares of black offset by a thin, centrally positioned crease of orange; a slight hint of dawn promise amidst all the darkness.
‘Are you a Rothko fan?’ she asked me.
‘Yes.’
‘So’s Philip. Which is why he had to own eight of them.’
‘That’s a lot of Rothkos.’
‘And a lot of money – around $74 million for the set.’
‘An impressive sum.’
‘Pocket money.’
Again another of her little pauses, in which she watched me watching her. Yet her tone was constantly light and coy. Much to my surprise, I was finding her seriously attractive.
Gary arrived.
‘Nice to have you back, Mrs Fleck. How was New York?’
‘Fun.’ She turned to me. ‘Shall we do some serious drinking, David?’
‘Well . . . ’
‘I’ll take that as a yes. How many brands of vodka do we keep, Gary?’
‘Thirty-six, Mrs Fleck.’
‘Thirty-six vodkas. Isn’t that droll, David?’
‘Well, it is a lot of vodkas.’
She turned back to the help. ‘So Gary, reveal all: what is the ultra-supreme of all our supreme vodkas?’
‘We have a triple-filtered Stoli Gold from 1953.’
‘Let me guess – it was Stalin’s reserve stock.’
‘I can’t vouch for that, Mrs Fleck. But it is supposed to be quite remarkable.’
‘Then please serve it up . . . with a little Beluga on the side.’
Gary gave a slight bow of the head, then left.
‘You weren’t on the boat with your husband, Mrs Fleck?’ I asked.
‘My name is Martha . . . and as I’ve never had an affinity with Hemingway, I saw no need to spend several days at sea, chasing whatever big fish Philip was after.’
‘So New York was a business trip?’
‘I really am impressed with your diplomacy, David. Because when your husband is worth $20 billion, most people wouldn’t expect you to have any work whatsoever. But yes, I was in New York to meet with the board of a little foundation I run to help indigent playwrights.’
‘I never knew such a species existed.’
‘Aren’t most playwrights down on their luck . . . unless they bump into luck? Like you did.’
‘Yes . . . but it was still luck.’
‘I am getting terribly worried about your extreme modesty, David,’ she said, lightly touching my hand.
‘You were a script editor, right?’ I asked, withdrawing my hand.
‘Oh, you are a well-informed gent. Yes, I was what’s known in the regional theater trade as a dramaturg – which is a pretentious Germanic way of saying that I doctored scripts and worked with writers, and occasionally found an interesting play worth developing in the slush pile of submissions.’
‘And that’s how you met . . . ?’
‘Mr Fleck? Yes, that’s where I bumped into my marital fate. In that place of twinkling lights and romantic allure called Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Do you know Milwaukee, David?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘A charming town. The Venice of the Midwest.’
I laughed. ‘Then why were you there?’
‘Because there’s a half-way decent repertory theater there. They were in need of a script editor. I was in need of a job – and they offered me one. The money wasn’t bad either – twenty-eight thousand a year. More than I made anywhere else. But, then again, the Milwaukee Rep was pretty well funded, thanks to their local boy-made-good Mr Fleck, who was on a personal crusade to turn his hometown into his very own Venice. A new art gallery. A new communications centre at the university, with – naturellement – its very own film archive. Just what Milwaukee was craving. And, of course, a spanking new playhouse for the local professional theater. I think Philip spent around $250 million on all three projects.’
‘That’s very benevolent of him.’
‘And very shrewd as well since he managed to offset everything against tax.’
Gary returned, wheeling in a trolley upon which sat a small bowl of caviar artfully surrounded by chipped ice, a plate of small pumpernickel bread rounds, the bottle of vodka, and two stylish shot glasses. Gary removed the bottle from the ice and formally presented it to Martha. She glanced at the label. It looked venerable and Cyrillic.
‘Do you read Russian?’ she asked me. I shook my head. ‘Nor do I. But I’m sure 1953 was a vintage year. So, go on, Gary, pour away.’
He did as commanded, handing us each a brimming glass. Martha raised hers and clinked it against mine. We threw back our shots. The vodka was very cold and very smooth. I felt myself wince with pleasure as it frosted the back of my throat and then travelled straight to my brain. Martha seemed to have a similar reaction.
‘That works,’ she said.
Gary refilled our glasses, then offered us each a pumpernickel round piled with caviar. I tried mine. Martha asked, ‘Does it meet your approval?’
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