Close-Up

‘I like to keep in touch.’

Neither of us spoke until a couple of minutes after she had gone. ‘I’ll have to see a lot of people before I decide,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a special kind of technique, horror films. And anyway, the director is going to want a say in who we use. The wife: that’s a feature role we’re talking about.’

The unit runner came into the canteen. ‘Mr Benjamin says your rushes will be on the projector in ten minutes, sir. Will you be coming down or will you see them with Mr Preston this evening?’

‘I’ll be down.’

‘And your secretary says to remind you that they are screening the rough assembly of Silent Paradise at Koolman International tonight. There was a message from them saying that if Mr Koolman comes on the early plane, he will be at the screening too.’

‘OK,’ said Nicolson without enthusiasm. ‘And Mr Stone?’

‘His secretary says he’ll be there.’

To me Nicolson said, ‘Did either of us think we’d ever be pleading with Eddie to come and see himself starring in a movie?’ He sighed. Only Stone’s intimates called him Eddie. Often it had a disparaging tone, as if by knowing him before he was rich and famous, the speaker was in a privileged position to criticize him. Even Mary was able to imply that ‘poor Eddie’ or ‘little Eddie’ was what she meant when she used his first name.

‘Bookbinder must have seen something in him.’

‘Sure: Olivier’s head on Brando’s body. That’s what every actor was in 1948.’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘Wait a minute, Peter. Eddie is bloody good. He has some of Olivier’s economy…’

‘But?’

‘Gielgud has perception, Peter. That’s why actors envy him.’

‘I screened Last Vaquero twice last week. Stone is very stiff. Did you ever notice that?’

‘He wanted that. He worked on it. Maybe he’s not very intellectual, but he’s not an instinctive actor: he uses his brains. I saw him acting with some old fellow once and this guy had thought up the business of pulling his ear lobe – he was Italian or something. Eddie said, look like you might pull your ear lobe, even touch your ear, but best of all be a man who is ashamed of this awful ear-pulling and is trying to break the habit. Now that’s what I mean by economy. Use that for your book, if you like.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, although I had the feeling that Edgar Nicolson’s anecdote had been related many times to many reporters.

‘Ellen Terry said it: act in your pauses.’ He arranged the empty plastic cups in front of us. The fleet of spoons was probably a Nicolson. He said, ‘The trouble that Preston is having with the girl is the thing you have with all young actors. They only act when they are speaking their lines. But acting is using your mind so that when you do speak, the lines come as a natural sequence of thought and emotion.’

‘Getting the lead in Last Vaquero made him,’ I said. ‘Without that, he’d still be hanging around Chasens hoping for a walk-on.’

‘And would you believe me if I told you that I nearly got that role, Peter.’ He took a pipe from his pocket and filled it. He closed his eyes while he did it and his face and his body gave those little twitches that dreamers show in heavy sleep.

There was electricity in the air that almost forgotten night in 1948. There was no rain or thunder, nor even the silent erratic lightning that so often presages a storm in southern California. Yet Nicolson remembered feeling that the air was charged. He might have ascribed this to his anxiety or to the special tensions of the night, except that the radio reacted to the same disturbance in the air. The San Jorge station had an hour of big-band jazz every night at the same time. That night it was Jimmie Lunceford, and Nicolson remembered how the static had eaten most of the vocal, ‘When you wish upon a star.’ He could never again hear that melody without going back to that night.

Even today that interstate highway out of San Diego isn’t complete. In 1948 there was not even talk of it. The road past the Sunnyside was dark except for the tourist court itself: a yellow floodlight on two moth-eaten palms and a jacaranda tree. The broken vacancy sign was flickering.

It was only after the car lights were off that the mountains could be seen, like huge thunderclouds that never moved on. San Jorge was on the far side of them, ten miles or more along the valley road. When the cops came – just county cops from San Jorge – the red lights of the two cars could be seen moving down those foothills like the bloodshot eyes of some prehistoric monster slithering across to the Pacific Ocean to slake its thirst. But it was much later that the cops came. When Nicolson arrived no one had even phoned them.

He locked the doors of his car. By the uncertain light of the sign he could see a grey Ford sedan from the Koolman Studios car pool. Beyond it, carelessly parked, was Eddie Stone’s new MG. Nicolson wanted to enter the coffee shop as quietly as possible. It was a neurotic desire that could make no difference to the outcome. He tiptoed across the porch but a broken board creaked and the fly screen slapped closed with a sound like a pistol shot. Nicolson had never felt more clumsy both physically and mentally. Stone would have done it all quite differently. A bell pinged as he opened the door. Neon strips lit the place with a harsh blue light. In the centre there was a U-shaped counter with stools. On each side of it there were half a dozen scrubbed wooden tables. One table, near the juke box, was covered with a red cloth and set with ice water, tableware and a menu. Kagan Bookbinder – the producer of Last Vaquero – and Eddie Stone were sitting at the table.

A Mexican woman with a stained overall looked out of the service door when she heard the bell. She waited only long enough to make sure that Edgar Nicolson was the man that the others had been expecting.

Bookbinder said, ‘Sit down, Edgar.’ He got up and reached over the counter to the shelf under it, and he groped to find a clean cup. He poured Edgar Nicolson a cup of coffee and put it on the table in front of him.

Seen through Edgar Nicolson’s eyes the scene was static, as memories always are. The air is blue with cigar smoke in a way that it seldom becomes in these tar-conscious days. The men’s haircuts are so short as to be almost military and their California sports clothes now seem freakish. Eddie Stone and Nicolson are wide-eyed kids with long necks and slim hips. Stone has a kiss curl that falls forward across his forehead. Bookbinder seems elderly to the two young English actors but in fact he is only four or five years their senior.

Kagan Bookbinder was wearing one of his old Army shirts. Still visible on it were the dark green patches where he’d recently worn major’s rank and a slab of medal ribbons. His war decorations were not all of coloured ribbon, though. His cheek was scarred and his nose had suffered a multiple fracture which proved impossible to reset. On some men a scarred cheek can evoke thoughts of university duels. On the barrel-chested Bookbinder it was easier to imagine that he had fallen down a staircase while drunk on cheap wine.

Bookbinder’s voice was similarly unattractive. Among the soft California drawls that even the Hungarians managed to assume after a few weeks, Bookbinder’s Eighty-First Street accent was hard and aggressive. Perhaps with a less notable war record he might have chosen to conceal his German origins. Perhaps he was just lazy, perhaps it was his way of being provocative. Perhaps he just didn’t know he had any accent.

‘Sit down,’ repeated Bookbinder. ‘We haven’t got a lot of time.’

‘I must see her.’

‘Not yet.’

Stone said, ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’

‘How is she?’ said Nicolson again. So Stone was going to play it like that – why didn’t you tell us – oh well, espionage and show business have in common the tradition that everyone abandons you when you are in trouble. Again Nicolson said, ‘How is she?’

Bookbinder didn’t answer. He pulled the blind a little to one side and looked out of the window. He waited to see another grey Ford sedan park alongside the one he had brought. The studio drivers ignored each other.

The studio had three doctors on the payroll. This one was the senior, a man of about fifty with grey wavy hair and a dark suit. Bookbinder excused himself with no more than a grunt before going out to talk with him. Edgar Nicolson and Stone looked at each other covertly but did not speak. Stone drank coffee and Nicolson read the menu to divert his eyes.

Hamburger with all the trimmings. Roll. Butter. Jello. All the coffee you can drink. 85 cents. Today’s special. Thank you for your custom. Come again.

Clipped to the menu there was a white card distributed by the local radio station.

The headlines from the four corners of the world by courtesy of YOUR local radio station, San Jorge, California. Hollywood, Tuesday: new evidence of commie subversion in movie colony will bring famous stars to hearing. Washington, Tuesday: State Department official predicts indictment of Hiss on perjury charges. Nanking, Sunday: Chinese government army mauls reds in struggle for coastal cities. Weather: more floods feared for north of state. Low today: 71°. Downtown San Jorge 77°. Humidity 87 per cent. Pressure 29.6. Pollen count 40. Wind from south-west at 15 mph.

‘Stone. Eddie Stone.’

Nicolson looked at the bronzed man sitting opposite him. ‘That’s my name,’ explained Stone.

Nicolson awoke from his reverie with a convulsive start. ‘Yes, I know you. I’m Edgar Nicolson. And I’ve seen you around in London: Legrains, the French, Gerry’s.’

‘That’s it,’ said Stone. There was a long silence. ‘This is bad luck for you,’ said Stone.

‘Yes, you’ll get the part now,’ said Nicolson.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure. He seems pretty keen on your test. He showed it to me as an example: the first one I did was so terrible.’

Nicolson did not believe him but it was a friendly fiction. They looked at each other, assessing the competition that each faced from his rival. They had both invested in steam baths, facial treatments and had had their hair conditioned, waved and set. Stone’s brows had been trimmed and his lashes darkened. Nicolson couldn’t decide whether Stone’s tan was genuine or not but it made him look very fit and made his teeth seem very white. Nicolson tried to decide if any of Stone’s teeth were capped. Whichever of them got the role in his film, Bookbinder had already arranged for extensive recapping of the teeth. Many stars began their movie career with a week in the dental chair. It was one part of the contract that Nicolson did not relish.

‘Yes, you’ll get the part,’ said Nicolson. ‘This business with the girl will terrify the front office. And, let’s face it: the final decision is going to be made by some bastard in publicity.’

‘These bloody film people…’ said Stone. It was almost an agreement with Nicolson’s despair. Stone reached forward and gripped his arm. ‘I won’t do it.’