Spies and Stars

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Exactly,’ I said, but only once I had finished the egg mayonnaise. Arabella looked mystical.

  ‘Something will happen,’ she said, finally.

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘It always does. Look at what happened to the Egyptians.’

  I knew what she meant, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to end up in a tomb alongside a pharaoh, however handsome.

  ‘Some day my pharaoh will come,’ I sang on the way back to the office, but Arabella wasn’t listening. She was too immersed in her How to Read Hieroglyphics book.

  I knew Arabella well enough to take her predictions seriously. She had said something would happen, so I was not surprised when, only a few days later, the telephone on my desk rang. It was Dewi, and he was not just excited. He was over-excited.

  ‘Lottie! You know I was in to see Leslie Johns’ summer show recently? Well, I never told you, but Charles Zuckerman and his entourage were in too.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  ‘Not good, Lottie … incredible, because – wait for it – he laughed from start to finish, most particularly at your sketches and Harry’s. I know because I had my glasses trained on him all the time. So I bumped into him in the intervals several times and made myself very known to him. He’s over here looking for writers to take back with him for his television shows, and he wants you and Harry to go over and see him at Claridge’s.’

  ‘What does he want us for?’

  ‘Writing, Lottie. He wants you and Harry to join his team of writers. He thinks your sketches are pure gold.’

  ‘Have you told Harry?’

  ‘No. But I shall.’

  ‘No, don’t, I’ll tell him. You make the date.’

  Harry was still in doleful mood after his Mackintosh part, so I thought I would surprise him about going to meet Charles Zuckerman. Before I did, though, I would confide in Commander Steerforth.

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t do that, Lottie. Really I shouldn’t. Men only like to be surprised by a cheque. Going about their day-to-day business they hate surprises. Surprises always find you in the wrong shoes.’

  I knew what he meant. A friend of mine never got over a surprise birthday party her husband threw for her because she hadn’t had her hair done. You can see her point.

  I was in a quandary. If I told Harry in his present mood that he was going to be interviewed by Charles Zuckerman, he would give me his ‘you are a bloated capitalist’ look and refuse to escort me through the hallowed doors of Claridge’s.

  I went back to sitting on the stairs with Melville. ‘Come up one step,’ he ordered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re on the blank thoughts step. You don’t want that.’

  Melville was right. If my blank thoughts were cheques, I’d be Charles Zuckerman.

  ‘What is your problem, Lottie?’

  I told him about Charles Zuckerman and knowing that Harry would never go up for the job if it was served to him straight.

  ‘Best to keep a good writer’s distance between you and that, Lottie,’ Melville said, putting on his about-to-have-great-thoughts expression. ‘Ask Gus what to do, and he can have a confidential talk with Dewi, and between them they will come up with something. But they mustn’t tell you or that will be the end of everything.’

  I did as Melville advised, and then I tried not to think about what might happen next. It was very difficult. I had to stay away from both agents; plans might be being hatched. I could hardly sleep for worrying. After all, as Dewi had said, Mr Zuckerman was not just big – he was huge.

  Commander Steerforth realised that all was not well. ‘You’re looking peaky again, Lottie.’

  I nodded sadly.

  ‘I’m feeling peaky, Commander.’

  ‘It will all sort itself out.’

  ‘We’ve only got a few days for that to happen.’

  ‘Take some dictation – that will lift your spirits.’

  It didn’t, of course, but his concern was touching, to say the least. I went home on the bus that evening not expecting much more from life beyond dog-spotting and the occasional lunch at Fenwick’s.

  Round at the flat Dermot opened the door. He nodded towards our writing screen.

  ‘He’s behind that and he’s drinking,’ he said, darkly.

  I peered round the screen. Harry embraced me.

  ‘You’ll never guess,’ he said. ‘Dewi telephoned and you will not believe this – the great Charles Zuckerman wants to see us, tomorrow evening.’

  I did not have to act stunned, I was stunned. ‘Tomorrow evening?’

  ‘Yes. Now wait for it. He is a huge fan of—’

  ‘Our work?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, of course that too, but more than that—’

  ‘He saw the Mackintosh play?’

  ‘Exactly right. At any rate, Charles Zuckerman thinks it is a masterpiece. So, you see, I was not wrong to do that play, Lottie-bags. I am not alone in recognising genius. I feel so vindicated! And tomorrow we will meet this man of great taste. Although why he should want to see us, I don’t know.’

  We had a drink or three and I returned to Dingley Dell with a renewed respect for agents and their wiles, and when I told Melville that I had acted on his advice and it had all seemingly come right, he was justifiably proud.

  *

  The following evening as Monty parked Rollo outside Claridge’s, the doormen sprang to so quickly it was as if they already knew we were coming. We had hardly said our names before we were immediately shown up to Mr Zuckerman’s suite. Inside there was a coal fire burning in the elegant hall. The doors of the drawing room were opened wide and we were announced.

  Mr Zuckerman was immediately affable. If you can exude an aura of affability, he did. He was rounded but not fat, smartly and expensively dressed, and smoking the inevitable cigar. He moved towards us with his right hand outstretched, and as he did so the people by whom he was surrounded seemed to be moving with him as if he had contained them in his own magic circle, an unseen force from which they could not escape.

  ‘How marvellous to see you,’ he said. ‘I love your work. Just love it.’

  At the mention of our work my toes moved into scrunch position. Oh, please help him to stick to our work, and not mention the blasted French play. It might be the end of everything.

  I glanced at Harry, hoping against hope that he would not pitch straight into some great speech about the tramp on the station platform and the metaphor and all that, but Mr Zuckerman did not give him the time. He straight away offered a cigar, which to my astonishment Harry accepted. The cigar was so big that he could hardly close his mouth around it. When he could, Mr Zuckerman’s assistant promptly lit it. Cigars were truly not Harry, probably because they interrupted him. Besides, as he later confessed, after only a few puffs, they made him feel sick.

  I quickly saw that it would be up to me to agree with everything Mr Zuckerman said, and he said a great deal. Among other things he wanted us to come to America and join his team of writers in Hollywood. He would fly us out there courtesy of the television company.

  ‘America will suit you,’ he said firmly. ‘You’re young and zippy and talented – that is the stuff of Hollywood. You will join our team.’

  I glanced at Harry, but he was still valiantly puffing, so I pitched in. ‘That’s very kind of you, but we’re a partnership, Mr Zuckerman,’ I told him firmly. ‘We don’t do team work. It is just how it is.’

  I did not look at Harry as I spoke. Principally because I thought, what with the heat in the room and the cigar he might be about to take an early exit.

  Mr Zuckerman put his head on one side.

  ‘So,’ he said, glancing round the room at his entourage. ‘Here we have a young lady who still has a long plait of brown hair down her back and is barely out of college, I would say, and she is telling me – the great Charles Zuckerman – how she works.’

  The faces in his inner circle were frozen in varying expressions. Only one winked at me. I made a note of
him, just in case we ever got to America which I very much doubted.

  ‘It is best to lay out our terms at the outset, don’t you think, Mr Zuckerman?’

  Charles Zuckerman stared at me.

  ‘Well, yes, I do, young lady. I do think that.’ He started to laugh. ‘Well, aren’t you the darnedest?’ he asked me.

  ‘Possibly if not absolutely,’ I agreed.

  By this time Harry had taken the cigar out of his mouth so the steam-engine effect was less in evidence.

  ‘My partner speaks for us both, Mr Zuckerman,’ he stated.

  ‘You Limeys, anyone would think you won the war! Let me tell you about our shows and what material we will be looking for. Original, funny obviously – and American. Do you write American?’

  At that moment I would have written in Lithuanian.

  ‘I have relatives in America,’ Harry said with some truth. ‘We can write it, and even speak it too – when necessary. We like writing American.’

  ‘We were brought up on American television shows – Bilko and I Love Lucy, you know – all those,’ I put in.

  Charles Zuckerman glanced around.

  ‘How about these kids?’ he asked. ‘We’ve got to take them with us, haven’t we?’

  They all murmured ‘sure thing’, or at least that is how I heard it.

  The young man with the wink did it again, so I thought it all right to smile at him.

  ‘Enough said.’ Mr Zuckerman shook our hands.

  We said thank you rather too much and shook everyone else’s hands. ‘We fly out tomorrow. See you in New York, and then on to Hollywood.’

  Harry and I left. In the lift he considered the cigar.

  ‘I’m never sure whether to leave the band on or not – it’s the sort of thing my father just knows,’ he moaned, staring at it as if it was a hand grenade.

  When we reached the ground floor we made our way to the revolving door feeling as if we had just passed our driving tests.

  ‘You’re on your way now,’ Monty called back to us as he drove us through the Park. ‘Once you join the big time at Claridge’s the world is definitely at your writing feet.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think anything will come of it, Monty,’ Harry said airily. ‘Jolly nice of him to see us, but we are not suited to America. We are far, far too English.’

  I couldn’t have agreed less. I thought going to work in America would be a great experience, so I gazed out of the window and dreamed of walking down Fifth Avenue in a smart new outfit and the kind of high heels that can only be described as cruel.

  A few days later I went to see Dewi in his new office.

  ‘You look quite different here,’ I announced.

  ‘The rent’s much higher,’ he said sadly, ‘probably because there are less flies. Actually I quite miss their buzzing.’

  ‘And you’ve got new teacups,’ I said brightly because flies are not my subject.

  Dewi stared at the cups.

  ‘I dunno who they’re from, Lottie, really I don’t. They just arrived. I hope I don’t get sent a bill because they’re a bit floral for me. Can’t be from anyone I know. No one I know likes me.’

  Of course, they were from me; not really a generous gift, just self-protection, because the old cups were health hazards, what with the chips in the china and handles missing.

  ‘I liked the old ones,’ Dewi said sadly. ‘They reminded me of the bombing in the war.’

  I was getting a little tired of Dewi and his china so I refused a cup of tea and went straight to the subject of our meeting, which was of course Harry.

  ‘He just won’t go to America,’ I said. ‘He thinks writing American jokes would destroy our writing style. And he doesn’t want to do that sort of work.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I love just the thought of America,’ I said, sighing. ‘Anyway I happen to know that the reason Harry won’t go to America is nothing to do with art or writing, but because he won’t get on an aeroplane, not at any price.’

  Dewi lit a cigarette and looked serious.

  ‘Why don’t you leave it to me, Lottie? We’ve got so far with Mr Zuckerman it seems a shame not to try and get a bit further.’

  ‘How far have you got, Dewi?’

  He managed to look mysterious and devious both at the same time, which was almost enviable.

  ‘I have got further than I thought, but not as far as I think I can get,’ he said.

  And with that I had to be content.

  ‘All this American interest is making you restless instead of happy,’ Commander Steerforth stated when I took him some Victoria sponge.

  He was right. I knew Harry would never be persuaded to get on a plane, and I knew that the studio would never pay for two scribblers to sail the ocean waves on one of the great liners. As so often happens in show business, I saw the whole excitement slipping away.

  I had not counted on Dewi.

  Nowadays every afternoon, around sponge-cake time, the telephone on my desk at MI5 rang, and every afternoon there was more transatlantic news that I could not tell Harry.

  ‘I have never known a negotiation like it, Lottie. Each time I tell Mr Zuckerman’s people that they are not offering good enough terms they go crazy So far they have offered not just money and a contract; they have offered the best suite in New York’s finest hotel. A car to be put at your disposal, to take you out to weekend wherever you want. They just won’t take no for an answer. I tell you, Lottie, I am exhausting their impatience.’

  ‘Just a minute – what sort of car, Dewi?’ I asked, suddenly alerted to a possible opening with Harry.

  ‘I’ll find out.’ He paused. ‘You know what Richard Burton always says?’

  Of course I didn’t.

  ‘Apparently he always says that American producers are like randy – sorry, Lottie, but you know what I mean – yes, like randy men. Turning them down only makes them more eager. I know I’m the same – I mean, I was the same, before I met Mrs Dewi.’

  I didn’t like to think of Dewi having a body, only a desk and a telephone, so I quickly rang off, thinking hard – which always makes my hair go funny.

  What I wanted more than anything was to go to the land of the Hershey bar, and movies and jazz and all that.

  In the evening I questioned Harry on his favourite makes of car and made a note of one of them before ringing Dewi and telling him to make sure that particular car would be made available to us.

  Sad to relate, this did not do it for Harry.

  ‘We now have the best suite at the best hotel, the car at your disposal, the money, everything we asked for. What else can you possibly need, Lottie?’ Dewi screamed at me.

  ‘Some wings for Harry to fly the Atlantic,’ I said sadly.

  Sunday lunch at Dingley Dell was as usual: Melville playing the piano, Hal booming, my mother arguing with him, my father pouring drinks.

  This particular Sunday my father beckoned to Harry and me. ‘Come into the garden,’ he said, using his most confidential tone.

  Harry glanced at me. It was not usual for my father to ask us both into the garden, so something must be up.

  Harry took a large sip of his drink and so did I. What had we done?

  I quickly wondered whether Harry had made a botch of some minor spooky business that my father had sent him on, but then I would not have been beckoned to by the finger.

  ‘You’re going to America, I hear.’

  ‘The contract has yet to be signed, sir,’ Harry said quickly.

  ‘But it will be,’ my father replied with that particular confidence he only employed while intent on getting something wrapped up quickly. ‘You’ll be on your way to the land of the free. While you are there, I want you to keep eyes and ears open for me … for the service. We have a long tradition dating to before the war of using people like you to report back on anything you discover that might be of particular interest to us – Noël Coward, Somerset Maugham – we like using creative people, usually writers.�
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  All the time he was speaking he was only addressing himself to Harry. My mind never really races, but seeing my father concentrating on him in that way, it did start to rev up. Had Melville told my father that Harry was being a stick in the mud about the US of A? Did Dewi work for my father?

  This was such a new and unexpected development that I was prepared to believe anything.

  ‘I’m not sure I am up to that kind of work, sir,’ Harry said, his voice rising.

  ‘Oh, I think you are, Harry. In fact, I know you are. I will give you more details nearer the time. You will prove very useful to us, I’m sure.’

  My father’s tone was so final that I could almost see my passport being stamped by American officials.

  ‘You’ll do a good job, Harry, and you will serve your country, which I know you are eager to do.’

  After that poor Harry could hardly eat his lunch. I wolfed mine. There was no going back now. We would be on our way soon, or so I thought. I’d counted without Harry.

  Night after night when we met to work, he sat about moaning that he couldn’t get on an aeroplane.

  ‘I don’t understand how they stay up,’ was his main reason.

  ‘I don’t understand how the telephone works, but I still use it.’

  ‘You don’t cross the Atlantic on a telephone, Lottie.’

  I got to my feet, finally fed up.

  ‘Tell you what, Harry, I’ll go without you and you can stay in the flat and phone your jokes in.’

  Now he too stood up.

  ‘You are not going to Hollywood on your own. I saw that man in Claridge’s winking at you.’

  ‘Winking is not a crime, Harry, but missing opportunities is.’

  ‘Oh, very well, I’ll go.’

  ‘I’ll ring Dewi and tell him.’

  Dewi was pleased, but practical.

  ‘Richard Burton always says just because a woman says yes, you can’t always be sure she’ll follow through. We may have a “yes” from Harry but we have to get him on the plane, Lottie. That’s still ahead of us.’

  Happily, Harry’s acting agent had a client on his books who specialised in burly-man-in-pub parts and was built accordingly. He was to meet us in the VIP lounge, all part of our contract courtesy of Mr Zuckerman for whom I now had the same admiration as Arabella did for Gandhi.