Sex & Genius Page 5

  'A manuscript?'

  'It hasn't been published yet.'

  She was referring, it seemed, to the very novel that Hilldyard had suppressed.

  'It knocked you out?'

  'Oh,' she shrugged. 'Incredible.'

  Hilldyard had described the work as loathsome.

  'At 6 p.m. Bernie's heard from Coburn Agency. They rep Shane. I'm offered the part. Female lead. What Bernie describes as Shane's love interest.' She smiled. 'I have to say, this was all very exciting and rather ridiculous.'

  'Was there a film script?'

  'No script.'

  He was surprised. 'They financed a film with no script?'

  'Well . . .' She glanced poignantly to the side. 'A script would have been written, I suppose. What really maddened me was they didn't have the rights.'

  Michael remembered the story: Curwen's movie deal, Hilldyard's second thoughts, three-quarters of a million nonchalantly repulsed.

  'What a mess!' she said, spreading her fingers. 'Shane's suits completely blew it. The negotiation was fine. I think the deal was agreed. Then there's a hold-up and some creep from Coburn goes behind Curwen's back and calls Hilldyard in Italy.'

  'Someone phoned Hilldyard?'

  'An agent – Rick Weislob.'

  Michael was amazed. 'Curwen gave out the number?'

  'Weislob told Curwen that Shane wanted to speak directly to Hilldyard, but then he went and called him himself. Hilldyard was horrified. He blew them out.' She touched her bosom. 'Shane is so distraught. His heart was set on this book. And can you imagine Coburn Agency? Shane's been signed there for six months. They do packaging, get distribution deals, virtually exec movies, but now they can't even deliver an option agreement. And what really upsets him is that he reveres Hilldyard. He thinks the book is a masterpiece.'

  He nodded in slow assessment. It was strange to be sitting in a caffè in Italy talking to an actress about film rights and movie stars. He sipped his coffee and glanced out to sea.

  'Which is why I'm here.'

  There was a pause. Adela galvanised herself.

  'We have a stalemate,' she summarised. 'Shane's people are powerless. Curwen can't help.'

  He waited for elucidation.

  'It's down to me, I realise, if anything is to happen.'

  'D'you mean . . . ?' He involuntarily smiled.

  She stared at him uncertainly.

  'You've come to persuade James Hilldyard?'

  'Oh no!' She was taken aback. 'I wouldn't presume. I mean, who am I?'

  There was a durable pause in which he declined to respond.

  'I've come to see you.'

  He stared at her.

  'According to Basil you have a wonderful relationship with James.'

  There was much that might have been implied in such a remark. Michael remained silent.

  'I know this is presumptuous.' She raised a hand, was pained. 'I have never done anything like this and it looks like disgusting self-interest, which it probably is, but I've come here because I genuinely think it's worth trying. There's something important at stake.'

  He shook his head, equally pained by her agitation. 'Tell me. What d'you want?'

  'Your help.'

  He was surprised. 'My help?'

  'I'd be eternally grateful.'

  'But to what end?'

  Her face lightened, encouraged. 'I want you to persuade James Hilldyard to change his mind.'

  Michael blinked.

  'And to grant the film rights.'

  There was an interval in which he merely stared.

  She merely waited for him.

  He thought he was blushing and raised a hand to his lips. He had no inkling she was coming to this. He was surprised, embarrassed, at a loss to know what to say. He pinched the bridge of his nose, playing for time. Adela had proposed something which to him was unthinkable.

  Her eyebrows converged, as if to meet his seriousness. 'I am very presumptuous.'

  The waiter jackknifed between them, speeding cups on to the table, posing himself for further instructions. She waved him away.

  'I think you're very enterprising,' he said quietly.

  'Basil has nothing to do with this. I went to him because I thought I could approach Hilldyard personally, which he said was pointless. Then he told me about you. It was my idea to contact you. As far as Basil is concerned I'm here on my own initiative. Shane knows, of course, but this is all my doing.'

  He nodded reasonably, noting that Curwen must nonetheless have given her his number. He might well have put her up to it.

  'I can't possibly help you.'

  To his surprise she blushed. She was not ready for a turn-down.

  'Please tell me why.'

  'Well . . .' He was uncomfortable now. 'For one thing, the novel's been withdrawn.'

  She was really quite distressed. 'It should be published. It should be filmed!'

  'Not in his view.'

  'How can he? It's so wonderful.'

  He smiled tightly.

  'Why give a manuscript to your agent if you think it's no good?'

  Michael shook his head. 'He must have changed his mind.'

  'Then his mind is changeable!'

  He was almost impressed by her insistence. To entertain hopes of persuading a famous novelist against his better judgement took a mixture of bravado and stupidity.

  'I think no means no.'

  She clasped the air, wringing her wrist. 'NomeansnotoaHollywood movie. And this was never going to be a Hollywood movie. This was going to be film for grown-ups, something intelligent.'

  He smiled awkwardly. 'It's hard for you to be disinterested.'

  'That's why I've come to you,' she pleaded. 'Read it and form your own opinion. You're the only person who can persuade him.'

  'Read what?'

  'The manuscript. I have a copy!'

  He was startled. There was a moment of silence as he digested the information.

  'Please!' she said.

  She was going to be insistent and he wondered in a vague panic whether he could make her back off without seeming discourteous. She had gone out on a limb for a project that appealed to her and that took some pluck. Unfortunately the matter was more delicate than she realised, so much so that he had doubts about receiving the manuscript without the author's knowledge.

  'Listen,' he said, with kind firmness. 'I have a very new and rather special relationship with James Hilldyard. I'm not his agent. I've no interest in where he sells his work. Other people do that job, and if they can't convince him, I wouldn't try. My responsibility is simply to help James with his work. He finds it useful to have me around. So I need to be sensitive, and I know for a fact that The Last Muse is a book he doesn't like, and won't want to hear about. To lobby for it on someone else's behalf would be an abuse of my position.' He paused, unsure how much else to say. 'The essence of my role is, actually, not to question him. It is to go along with him. And if he trusts me, it's because I've worked that out for myself.'

  She nodded slowly. She had listened carefully and seemed to understand his position rather better. She looked at him with renewed interest.

  'If he trusts you so much–' she was suddenly admiring – 'you must have very good judgement!'

  There was no need to acknowledge the assertion.

  'He relies on your judgement?'

  'He relies on my tact.'

  'But then aren't you the one person who can make him think twice?'

  It was odd to hear this from a person he had only just met.

  She gazed at him steadfastly.

  'And if he has any taste for the truth your views won't upset him.'

  He frowned at the stealth of her logic. 'What truth?'

  'That the book is wonderful.'

  He shook his head.

  'And should be made into a film.'

  'Oh please!'

  'Surely you can raise it with him!'

  He groaned. She was relentless.

  'He must do himsel
f justice,' she declared.

  'Why should I force him to defend an artistic decision?'

  'He can't be that touchy!'

  'He's a writer, Adela!'

  'So impatient with the human race?'

  He didn't like the inference or its tone. 'What you're asking me to do is just not on the cards!'

  She tossed her head, shaking the hair back from her face in a spirited manner. 'You see, it's not just my opportunity. It's everyone's.'

  There was something in her switched on to maximum, not entirely charming, but somehow impressive. Her commitment was focused, moving around obstacles and objections, which made it more important that she should understand him. She needed to absorb his concerns and make sense of them. He wanted her to feel Hilldyard's best interests more keenly than her own.

  'Look, Adela . . .'

  'You'll read the book and you'll agree with me. It's incredibly involving, amazingly written and definitely adaptable. But there's something else here. I've read hundreds of scripts, Michael. I'm sure you have, too. What I mostly get offered is corny rubbish that's made into worse rubbish. And then I read a book which is emotionally satisfying and subtle and I can hardly believe it when somebody comes along and says they want to make a film of it, because films like this are hardly ever made any more. It's an opportunity to do something really special. Can I tell you,' she said, moving to the edge of her chair, 'what it feels like to want a part? It's a hunger. You just have to have it. You know it will call on everything you have and that you can do it. And that's what I live for. What makes it worthwhile being an actress. And the reason I'm out here pleading with you and embarrassing myself is because I really believe there's a character in this book that I was born to play!'

  Michael nodded with an uneasy half-smile on his face. When she switched it on there was little he could say in reply.

  'Shane's wedged into Hollywood. He can get money, best writer, best cast, and really control quality. It's a major opportunity. And I can't bear that it might not happen because James Hilldyard spoke to some jerk in a Hollywood agency.' She exhaled suddenly, fanning her face and falling back in her chair. 'Gosh, it's warm!'

  He sat pensively. Adela, he could see, was a force. She was intelligent and ambitious, a natural persuader. She had enough self-belief to fortify her against the contrary views of great novelists.

  'You'll never take no for an answer,' he said.

  'I live by my instincts. I have to believe them.'

  This he did not doubt. And he also saw that she was more extended by having come to Positano to beg his assistance than he would be put out by talking to Hilldyard. Her interest was a fact, a force, a human need; and although Hilldyard's views were totally negative, it was no great sin for Michael to check them again, delicately and discreetly, and make sure that the matter was indeed closed.

  'I hope you'll accept Hilldyard's verdict?'

  'If I have no choice.' She smiled equivocally.

  'Then I'll ask him for you.'

  'Oh, thank you!'

  The immensity of her relief was embarrassing. He was a stranger to her, and yet in this matter she was utterly dependent on him.

  In a single movement she produced a plastic carrier bag from under her seat and set it on the table. 'Here you are, then.'

  He gazed at the carrier bag with some alarm. This was the manuscript, praised by two or three people in the world, reviled by Hilldyard.

  'When can you read it?'

  If he asked Hilldyard's permission to read the book, the author might decline.

  'Um . . . As soon as possible.' He would read first and deliberate later. It was not the ideal way to proceed, but that's what he would do.

  'Oh thank you!'

  'Can you stay a little longer?' he asked.

  'Oh certainly. I'll explore. I'll go to Capri.'

  'You don't mind being alone?'

  'I don't feel lonely here. And anyway, I hope we can have dinner. Not that I want to pester you.'

  'Not at all,' he said. 'Of course, if Hilldyard says no, you may not want to see me again.'

  Her lips twisted in appreciation. She was amused by this imputation. 'I'll want to see you.'

  He laughed at the determined graciousness of her reply.

  'I've been very curious about you, actually. You're a producer, but somehow working with Hilldyard. That's very interesting.'

  She was astute.

  'I don't know if I really am a producer.'

  'Basil said you were distinguished and discriminating.' She shivered grandly.

  'Did he say that?' He enjoyed the irony but kept a straight face.

  'I had an image of you.' She smiled provocatively. 'Rather older, a mature operator. A businessman-cum-connoisseur. Man of the world, confidant to artists and writers. Swann in Proust.'

  He duly noted the reference. 'The jealous Swann?'

  'But you're different.' She dwelt on his face so that he felt studied, sampled even, as though something of his essential self were being extracted for classification.

  'I certainly feel different.'

  She caught him instantly. 'It must be extraordinary.'

  He saw that her interest was genuine. 'It's the best thing that's ever happened to me.'

  She launched forward on her elbows. 'What has happened? What is this relationship? According to Basil, James thinks you're marvellous.'

  He was innocently pleased by this. 'I'm not sure why.'

  'You must have something special.'

  'Oh well . . .'

  'To command the respect of a man of genius is my ultimate ambition.' Her eyes glittered at the frivolity of the statement, which however silly was likely to be true, a paradox she could relish.

  'Oh yes?'

  She tossed her hair back, raised a refined profile. 'I'd love to be a muse. The source of inspiration. God knows what he'd think of me. Does he like women?'

  He remembered Hilldyard's reaction to her on the beach.

  'He does.'

  'Well, anyway, you will have dinner with me? I want to hear all about this.'

  Michael rose from his seat. He took up the carrier bag in his arms. 'Shall we try to meet the day after tomorrow?'

  'Will you call me?'

  'Of course.'

  'Or come to the beach? We could do lunch.'

  'I'll call.'

  She rose to see him off, and as he turned to take his leave he thought it better not to shake her hand. And as he could not kiss her, he simply bowed and smiled. She stood there with a hand on the chair, and smiled back.

  Chapter Five

  Michael held the telephone receiver in one hand and Nick Adamson's card in the other. The line had gone dead, but now he knew where Adamson could be reached in forty-five minutes. He replaced the receiver, lay back on the creaking bed and yawned. Too much had happened in a day. Tomorrow they were going to Ravello, and tomorrow was already today.

  At night-time his room was just a cuboid cell. Four white walls, a ceramic floor, a blank ceiling. There were no human sounds at this late hour. Only the tone of the pine outside, keening in the breeze, and the obscure pulse of the sea thumping the mountain a hundred yards below. Positano at night was eliminated by darkness, an empty warren of hotel rooms and villas hanging in the black.

  He rolled on to his side. He felt a mixture of hollow hunger and mental indigestion. Consuming a novel in a sitting had a disconcerting effect on one's frame of mind. The real seemed less present than the fictional. Aroused and disturbed by the book he now returned to the limits of his consciousness, a strange transition, disheartening. For the last several hours he had been overwhelmed by a superior intelligence. Something extraordinary had passed through his mind, and all he knew in the drained aftermath was that he wanted to call Adamson. It was a strange impulse. Nick meant nothing to him any more; they were old acquaintances whose lives had diverged since college, leaving only the fact of their student past in common. But the meeting in the club had given him a pretext, which was all
he needed. To Adamson, of course, he was just a piece of dying memory, briefly rekindled by the Soho encounter. If Michael were to call him, he had better get on with it. The impulse couldn't wait to be acted on.

  The manuscript lay fanned out on the bedspread. He had spent the evening clutching his way through the novel, shifting from a chair on the balcony to a supine position on the bed, neck stiffening over the last hundred pages, which he read in a posture of tense involvement. After finishing the book he strolled around the room feeling rather wilted.

  He had been conscientious. He had done a good deal of work for Adela, though he could hardly believe in this actress now. She had passed across his day and through the Italian scene like a vision, and although, in the course of his reading, he intermittently remembered her sitting at the caffè table imploring him to help her, their meeting seemed an age away. When he tried to picture her face he found the image blurred, as if she were too personable to memorise in one go. She had certainly appealed to him. And he had certainly obliged her.

  He was uneasy. He had decided to tell Hilldyard everything. His conscience required it, but it was also his duty. Because Adela was right: the novel was magnificent.

  Whatever the author's scruples, everything worked on the page. All the usual felicities were there: the familiar enveloping tone of voice, the control of material, scenes broached and characters set just so on the stage of one's imagination; the pages of high style and transparent description; the charged situation that brought everything to a terrible clarity, a beautiful emergency of interest. There were no longueurs. No failures of coherence or intensity. Quite the opposite. He was reminded of his idol's supremacy, of the vibrant fusion of his craft, intelligence and humanity, a manifold that struck him as even more miraculous now he knew Hilldyard personally. In the quantum leap between the author's intelligent conversation and his best writing lay the mystery of genius, the mystery of a writer being able to do so much more on the page. To recover the sense of that was almost shocking. There could be no equality with such a man, merely courteous parallel existence. However friendly, he lived for an intensity of thought beyond ordinary minds – a humbling realisation for Michael.

  He could see at a glance that the book was adaptable. There were scenes, dialogue, events; beginnings, middles and endings, though not happy ones. It told the tale of a middle-aged man wrong-footed by love. The action was contained, the story concentrated, the plot mercilessly focused on the ambiguity of love as pathology or cure, fulfilment or curse; it was a book that resuscitated the sense of a categorical morality, whilst rendering love as a beatitude, an experience of transcendental éclat. More than any Hilldyard novel he had read, it penetrated another's reality, a man crucified by his failure to integrate living and loving. As with all his work it treated familiar themes with unfamiliar truthfulness.