Close-Up

‘At least like walking up. This industry likes to pretend the producer is some sort of blimpish general dozing in his HQ while the crews fight the battle. In practice it’s the producer taking all the shit so that the crew can work undisturbed.’

‘So Stone’s watching cricket today.’

He smiled. He wasn’t going to be drawn as easily as that. He looked around the roof: they were changing the lighting set up for the third time in half an hour. He called to the runner, ‘I’m going for coffee with Mr Anson, tell me when my rushes are ready.’

On our way to the canteen he showed me his mountain shrine. They had assembled the Buddha there; its nose was taller than the painters and property men who swarmed all over it. There was a smell of freshly sawn wood and quick-drying paint as the chipped edges of the plaster mouldings were covered with gold. The room was hot with the rows of bare bulbs, installed so that the carpenters could work through the night. A set dresser experimenting with joss sticks made a thin plume of sweet-smelling smoke. Already it was convincing enough for the hammering to seem like blasphemy and to make the set dressers whisper as they arranged the flowers and offerings before the enlightened one.

‘All OK, Percy?’ said Nicolson.

The construction manager said, ‘It’ll be ready by morning but I’ll need an extra painter or two on my overtime crew.’

‘Let’s try and make it one,’ said Nicolson. He closed the big mahogany door to muffle the sound of the construction gang. The canteen had once been beautiful but now its moulded ceiling had a pox of damp marks and its paper was torn. With lunch over, the room had been used to park scaffolding and sandbags and pieces of a machine-gun nest.

At the far end of it, the caterers had left urns of coffee, tea and milk, a stack of plastic cups and a tin of biscuits from which all the chocolate ones had been removed. Lunch had been cleared away, apart from a fleet of plastic spoons that had been obsessionally arranged to sail the length of one table, and a steamed potato that had been trodden into the parquet.

‘White?’

I nodded. It was an unusual concession to my taste; Edgar usually knew exactly what was best for everyone. He poured coffee for both of us and we sat down. A youth in a dirty apron appeared from the room beyond. He brandished a plate of biscuits: all of them were chocolate.

Nicolson nodded his thanks to the boy. ‘How’s Mary?’

‘She works too hard.’

He nodded. He sorted through the chocolate biscuits. ‘My wife thinks I have endless lines of big-titted girls trying to get me on to the couch.’

‘I’ll tell her about the chocolate biscuits,’ I warned him.

‘That’s all it needs,’ he devoured a biscuit hungrily. He took a second one, bit into it and then studied the edge as if trying to understand the secret of its manufacture. ‘It’s a great life,’ he said.

The runner returned. “There’s a lady,’ he said to Nicolson.

‘A lady!’ He did a piece of comedy.

‘To see you about casting, she said. She’s with Mr Weinberger.’

‘I know,’ said Nicolson. To me he said, ‘An actress: it won’t take a couple of minutes.’ I nodded. ‘Tell her to come down here,’ Nicolson told the boy.

‘I’m doing a picture called The Farmer’s Wife, after this one: Gothic horror. I’m looking for people. It’s bloody difficult finding a convincing Wisconsin farmer’s wife of about thirty-five. Here in London.’

When the woman came in I recognized her. I’d seen her with Richardson and Olivier at the Old Vic at the end of the war. She had that glazed look that actors get when they have to look for work instead of work looking for them. Goodness knows how many auditions she’d been to in her time. I saw her switch herself on as she came through the door. Nicolson changed too, he used a voice that was not his own, as if it was a plastic overall he put on to stop the blood splashing.

‘I can’t quite remember the name…’

‘Graham.’

Nicolson laughed. ‘Oh, I know your last name, it’s your first name I can’t remember.’ I had the feeling that he would have known her first name if she’d told him that.

‘Dorothy,’ said the woman.

‘Dorothy Graham, of course. I’ve seen you so many times on the stage, Dorothy. It’s wonderful to meet you.’

‘We’ve met before: at a party at Mr Weinberger’s last year.’

‘Oh, sure, I remember. Smoke?’

‘Thank you.’ She declined with a movement of an uncared-for hand.

‘What have you been doing lately, Dorothy?’

‘I did the Albanian secret agent in the TV series “Mayday”.’

‘I remember it.’

‘It wasn’t very good but the money was good. Very good, in fact.’

‘That was the winter before last, wasn’t it. What have you done since then?’

‘I’d worked so hard the previous year that I decided to have a bit of a holiday after the series ended.’ She said it in a rush, as if she’d said it many times.

‘Now, I’m not casting this picture,’ said Nicolson, ‘because I haven’t yet settled the deal. I’m just taking a look at a few people.’

‘When would you be shooting, because I do have a few things planned for the coming year.’

‘October, November. Probably at Pinewood, no location work or anything. From where you live could you get out to Pinewood each morning?’

‘Dear old Pinewood.’

‘I’d send a car, of course.’

‘Of course.’ They left it there for a moment or so, each relishing their role of successful producer and glamorous star.

Nicolson said, ‘It’s the story of a woman who is haunted. She sees the past, the things that have happened in this strange old farmhouse, the things that are going to happen. Her husband and the grown-up sons think she’s going nuts and then one night this kind of crazy monster turns up. It’s a pretty scary movie; hokum, lots of special effects.’ He nodded to himself and added, ‘And a great part for you, quite different to anything you’ve done before.’

She tried to think of something appropriate to say. ‘It sounds fun. I’ve never done a horror film. Who will be directing?’

‘This is something that still has to be sorted out, Dorothy. I’m just taking a look round, you know.’

She smiled. I remembered her more clearly when she smiled. New York: a wonderful St Joan. And a Lear that had nothing except her superb Goneril. ‘I will have that cigarette,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ said Nicolson. He got to his feet, grateful to her for lessening the guilt he felt at knowing she was not suitable. She opened her handbag to look for a lighter. It was real leather, a treasure from the days when she was rich and had every prospect of getting richer. Now the leather was scuffed and one corner had been carefully repaired. Nicolson lit her cigarette for her. She had an envelope alongside her in the chair and now she put it on the canteen table. ‘I brought these,’ she said.

Nicolson tipped the contents of the envelope out on to the table. There were a dozen large glossy photographs. Some were the dreary stills of British films of the forties and others were stagey publicity pictures, the definition softened to a point where her face was like a back-lit bowl of rice pudding. The only thing they had in common was that in every one she was very young and very beautiful. We found it impossible not to look at her to compare the reality. Whatever she read in our faces it was enough to make her flinch.

‘You take these with you,’ said Nicolson. ‘As I say, we’re not casting yet.’

‘I had to come this way,’ said the actress. ‘I was visiting some friends who live just round the corner.’

‘That’s swell,’ said Nicolson. ‘It’s lovely to see you again.’