OLLIE
(faintly)
Mr Marryatt-Smith wanted the docket-book.
MOBERLEY
(mildly)
Well, the docket-book’s not kept in my desk, Oliver. You know that. This is where we keep the docket-book.
He shifts a paper to reveal the docket-book on the shelf.
OLLIE
Oh, sorry.
He reaches for the docket-book trying to pretend that nothing has happened but Moberley shifts it out of reach.
MOBERLEY
You shouldn’t go rooting about in people’s desks, Oliver. They’re private. We’ll put this back, shall we?
He takes the photograph and puts it back. As he does so he takes out a small, smart revolver.
I picked this up at a sale of firearms three or four years ago. Pretty thing. It belonged to Lindbergh, the air ace. That’s a tragic story. I’ve picked up all sorts while I’ve been here. Quite honestly, mind you. I’ve put in a bid like everyone else. An eye for a bargain. I’ve got a nice little collection. I’d have liked to have shown it to you, one day. Some lovely things. A bit like Mr Beck’s except that all mine are genuine. (He locks the desk.) Now then, I think we’ll go down to the stockroom where it’s quiet.
OLLIE
Mr Moberley.
MOBERLEY
Don’t dawdle, Oliver. I’ve got to go to the Royal Academy.
Ollie and Mr Moberley go along the corridor, through the saleroom, Ollie periodically nudged by the revolver in Moberley’s pocket. Maybe he makes Ollie carry some stuff so that he’s more helpless. Veronica passes.
VERONICA
All dressed up!
MOBERLEY
And somewhere to go! Ha ha.
At the hoist Moberley presses the bell and the cage slowly ascends and they get in and go down.
MOBERLEY
When Veronica showed me the photograph I knew straight away what it was. I had seen it before. A woman brought it in when I was a boy. Porter. Like you. It was a hot afternoon. The Test match was on and the Stones were in the park. I had long hair. Old Mr Medlicott showed me it. Ninety-nine per cent certain it was Michelangelo. But catalogued it as ‘School of ’. Woman upset. Came in, the day before the sale, withdrew it. Kicked myself. Tried to find her. No good, vanished. Entry in the catalogue, though, so I remembered. None of them know here. They don’t look, Oliver. They don’t see. It’s all laboratory work. Iconography. Nobody sees. Except Mr Jelley. He knew. I liked Mr Jelley. It’s all money, you see, Oliver. Money, money, money. When I went to see Mr Beck I thought he thought like I did. I thought he just liked beautiful things. But he was as bad as everybody else. Ten million. Fifty million. He didn’t deserve it, Oliver.
The hoist has arrived at the stockroom, which is empty.
Out you come, Oliver.
INT. GARRARD’S, SALES CLERK’S OFFICE – DAY
The telephone ringing in the empty office.
INT. GERRARD’S, MARRYATT-SMITH’S ROOM – DAY
Steiner and Kristina are waiting as Marryatt-Smith is on the telephone, Moberley’s room not answering.
INT. GARRARD’S, STOCKROOM – DAY
MOBERLEY
Now, Oliver, what shall we do with you? We don’t want another murder, do we, or somebody might think it’s not Christopher. You’re such nice boys, the pair of you. I see myself in you, you know, forty years ago. No, I think it would be better to look like an accident. Or as if you were so upset about Christopher you decided to do something silly.
Moberley presses the button for the hoist to go up and as it slowly ascends, he opens the gates.
Lie down, Oliver.
OLLIE
Mr Moberley …
MOBERLEY
No, don’t be silly. Not there. With you head over the edge. That’s it.
OLLIE
Please.
MOBERLEY
Now we don’t want a scene. It’s a silly hoist. It always has been. They’ve been going to replace it for years and now it’s scheduled for next month. I said to Mr Marryatt-Smith, well not before time. You could have an accident with that lift.
He presses the button and the hoist stops going up. He presses it again and it starts to descend.
Upstairs Marryatt-Smith, having given up on getting the docket-book is now conducting Steiner and Kristina towards the hoist.
MARRYATT-SMITH
I sometimes think that in our cosy little island we do not deserve art. We deserve our art, certainly … our sporting pictures, our conversation pieces, oh yes, we deserve those.
They have arrived at the hoist but Marryatt-Smith is so taken up with himself he does not press the button.
But the great rough uncouth masterpieces, those documents of suffering and endeavour … No, we are not happy with those.
Down below the hoist is slowly descending to take off Ollie’s head.
We don’t want those uncomfortable pictures above the mantelpiece. Oh no. We like our art safe, discreet, well-mannered. We who have only been cross or vexed or pained, never tormented, shot at, hounded from our homes. When was blood last shed in the streets of London? And it shows, I’m afraid. We are too nice.
Still he does not press the button.
The hoist descends a foot away from Ollie’s head. He screams in terror.
Too nice altogether.
He has reached the end of his peroration and he now presses the button, The hoist stops an inch from Ollie’s head. Marryatt-Smith presses the button again and it begins to ascend.
Moberley leans out to look up the shaft and Ollie tackles him. Moberley stumbles and the gun falls into the well of the hoist. Ollie scrabbles for the gun as Moberley flees.
EXT. GARRARD’S. ENTRANCE – DAY
The Commissionaire touches his hat to Moberley hurrying through.
EXT. PASSAGE BY BURLINGTON HOUSE – DAY
Moberley hurries down.
EXT. STEPS OF ROYAL ACADEMY – DAY
Moberley hurrying up, showing his invitation. Many ladies in summer frocks and hats. A nice, festive English occasion. We follow Moberley as he pushes his way through the rooms crowded with people looking at the pictures. Eventually he arrives at the room where his paintings are hung.
INT. ROYAL ACADEMY, GALLERY – DAY
Moberley forces his way to the front of the crush and his gaze focuses on one of his pictures, an innocuous landscape. He is reaching this down from the wall when he is addressed by two Middle-Class Ladies.
MIDDLE-CLASS LADY 1
Oh. You’re not taking that down, are you? We were just admiring it weren’t we, Mabel?
MIDDLE-CLASS LADY 2
Rather.
MOBERLEY
I’m the artist. It’s sold.
MIDDLE-CLASS LADY 1
So soon? Well I’m surprised. We make a point of getting here in the first wave. We’re always in the forefront. You should actually put a red spot on it if it’s sold.
MOBERLEY
I was just going to do that.
MIDDLE-CLASS LADY 2
What technique did you use on that one?
MOBERLEY
(desperately)
Oil and gouache.
MIDDLE-CLASS LADY 1
Oh, that’s interesting, Mabel. Oil and gouache. Isn’t that rather bold? We ought to ask Mr Petherbridge if he’s thought of that combination. Our art class. He’s a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. Oil and gouache … (Etc. etc.)
They chatter on.
Moberley sees the police through the door. Lightfoot scanning the crowd with Marryatt-Smith.
The two women are still prattling on when Moberley sees Marryatt-Smith catch sight of him. He alerts Lightfoot who begins to force his way towards him. Suddenly Moberley snatches the picture down from the wall, pushes the Middle-Class Ladies aside and flees from the gallery.
INT. ROYAL ACADEMY, ENTRANCE HALL – DAY
Moberley has given Lightfoot the slip and is just about to come out when he sees Kristina, Grisewood, Chris and O
llie rushing up the stairs. Moberley turns on his heel and runs back into the Academy, closely followed by Chris.
There is a chase through the cellars and galleries … including the sculpture gallery, with the Michelangelo Tondo. Moberley, now pursued by Chris, makes his way up a back staircase and on to a catwalk. Lightfoot and the police are in front of him, Chris behind. The only way of escape is over a glass roof.
Moberley begins to cross the roof. Chris waits anxiously. Suddenly Moberley slips, nearly falls. He holds on, but cannot hold on much longer, since he has the picture in one hand and can only cling on with the other. Chris starts to cross the roof towards him to help. As he gets nearer Moberley slips again. Chris stretches out his hand but Moberley won’t take it. Instead he holds the picture out to Chris so that will be rescued even if he is not. Chris grabs the picture.
Moberley now stretches out his other hand, Chris’s stretched towards him in a replay of the Sisttne Chapel scene. Chris just touches Moberley’s hand when he slips and crashes through the glass roof.
EXT. ROYAL ACADEMY, ROOF – DAY
Back on the roof, Chris scrambles to safety and the waiting hands of rescuers. He gives the picture to Marryatt-Smith who looks at it. Ostensibly it is one of Moberley’s paintings. Marryatt-Smith breaks it open, slides out the painting and underneath is the envelope containing the drawing. Kristina holds out her hand for it – the hand with her engagement ring on the finger. Chris looks rueful. Marryatt-Smith, the detectives, Chris and Kristina turn away, Marryatt-Smith discarding Moberley’s painting as he does so. It falls to the ground. Ollie sadly picks it up.
Two seeming shots take us into the next scene.
INT. SQUASH COURT – NIGHT
They are the sound of the final shots in the match between Chris and Marryatt-Smith which Chris wins. As they come off the court Chris is presented with the cup.
CHRIS
One thing I don’t understand. Why did Mr Moberley attempt to kill me in the Library?
MARRYATT-SMITH
He didn’t. (He smiles urbanely.) You needed a handicap.
Marryatt-Smith puts his hand on Chris’s shoulder.
Such a pity about the drawing. This scrap of paper for which three good people have died.
CRESSWELL
That would put the price up.
MARRYATT-SMITH
It was plausibly done and within a few years of Michelangelo’s death. And a nice thing. Worth £50,000 of anybody’s money. Genuine, it would have made all our fortunes. Yours for finding it. Yours – (He hands it to Kristina.) for owning it. And ours for selling it … if we may?
KRISTINA
I want to tear it up.
Marryatt-Smith is startled.
STEINER
No. It will go in the Museum. It could be Michelangelo. No harm in hoping.
Chris looks at Kristina. Vanessa signals to Marryatt-Smith that Farquarson has arrived.
MARRYATT-SMITH
No indeed.
Still, art persists. That is what we must think.
The permanence of art.
Credits over the Rembrandt portrait now hanging in the Steiner Museum alongside Rembrandt’s ‘Side of Beef ’.
Color plates
Yorkshire
On the beach at Sizewell
Tea with Anne in Café Anne
With Rupert en route to our civil partnership, 2006
Lynn Wagenknecht at L’Espiessac
L’Espiessac
22700017 Private Bennett A. Skill at Arms Book, 1952
Outside the Spider, Bodmin, 1954 Michael Frayn, back row left; AB back row right
Bruce McFarlane
With John Schlesinger, Caird Hall, Dundee, An Englishman Abroad, 1983
Alex Jennings as Britten; with Nicholas Hytner; Richard Griffiths as Auden
(The Habit of Art, 2009)
Jeff Rawle and Gabrielle Lloyd, Cocktail Sticks, 2012
George Fenton, Hymn, 2012
Filming The Lady in the Van, Gloucester Crescent, 2014
Filming The Lady in the Van, October 2014
On the terrace, 16th Street, New York
Armley Public Library
By the beck, Yorkshire
En route to Leeds, 2016
With Dinah Wood and Eddie
Frances de la Tour and Linda Bassett whooping it up in People, 2012
With Dominic Cooper and James Corden, The History Boys, National Theatre Gala, 2013
Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings filming The Lady in the Van, 2014
One of my dad’s penguins, diary entry 6 December 2007
Plumber by Wilfrid Wood, diary entry 6 August 2015
My shoe depicted by Rupert as a birthday card, May 2010
Lynn’s apartment, 16th Street, New York, diary entry 31 October 2015
Epilogue
I still occasionally speak at literary festivals and suchlike, doing readings from my diaries and short extracts from my plays. These are generally followed by a Q&A session and this winds up the proceedings. Except that all too often it doesn’t, quite, the questions dribbling to a stop with me or the chairperson waiting in mild embarrassment for a final question which doesn’t come. So the evening ends rather lamely. I’ve learned over the years not to conclude with Q&A but to finish with a final reminiscence of my childhood coupled with a speech from an early play, Enjoy, that relates to it. And that’s how I’ll end this book.
As a child in Leeds in the forties I often go down on a Saturday afternoon to see my grandma in Gilpin Place off Tong Road in Wortley. If I am with my brother we will sometimes put up our tent on the grass in Grandma’s tiny garden, the space so small that the tent pegs for the guy ropes have to be stuck in the cracks between the paving stones of the path. Grandma is in her seventies and, though I don’t altogether understand this, is beginning to fail. While she dozes by the fire in the kitchen I go into the front room and investigate the always fascinating contents of the sideboard, a bright chestnutvarnished many-mirrored piece of furniture crammed with the relics and evidences of Grandma’s life … glossy, deckle-edged postcards from Bangor or Dunoon, photograph albums with snaps of Grandma and her friends in their duster coats and cloche hats striding along the promenade at Morecambe or Cleveleys on the bowling club outing. There are sadder evidences, too … a silk bookmark printed with a photo of Clarence, her only son, killed at Ypres in 1917, a picture of Aunty Myra in the WAAFs in India and occasional pictures on stiff card of a kindly-looking moustached man who I gather was my grandfather. Sometimes Grandma wakes up and calls out, ‘What are you doing in there? Are you rooting?’ (which she pronounces ‘rooi-ting’). ‘I’m reading,’ I lie, ‘I’m reading my comic,’ though if I am reading it’s as clandestine as the rooting because it will be Aunty Kathleen’s brown paper-backed copy of Forever Amber.
Later on we have our tea, toasting some of Grandma’s homemade flat bread in a twisted wire roasting fork against the fire. The clock on the mantelpiece chimes five and the Yorkshire Evening Post struggles in through the letterbox, which is always blocked with coats. Now in the fading light Grandma sits in the easy chair and strains to read it … strains because she has an exaggerated notion of the cost of the electric and never puts the light on until she has to and so holding up the Evening Post to the last of the sun coming through the kitchen window. In a ritual that never varies she reads out items that catch her eye … and as the years pass and she loses her memory reads them out twice or three times. ‘Blackburn gripped by bread hysteria. Pensioner cleared of teacake theft.’ ‘I see the President of Rumania’s mother’s died. There’s always trouble for somebody.’
This perusal of the paper always ends in the same way with her reading out the Deaths and In Memoriams. The In Memoriams are always chosen from a big ledger in the Evening Post offices on Commercial Street in Leeds and adapted, not always successfully to the requirements of the deceased, my favourite (which isn’t apocryphal) ending up:
Down the lanes of memory
; The lights are never dim.
Until the stars forget to shine
We shall remember her.
This ceremony takes place in front of the fire and beneath the kitchen mantelpiece and in Enjoy (a play which would have been better entitled Endure) one of the characters describes it and catalogues its contents. Part of the play though it is I have read this speech so often in public it has become almost a parlour recitation so I’m happy to have it here as the conclusion to this book.
One clock in light oak, presented to Mam’s father after forty years with Greenwood and Batley. Stopped; the key lost.
A wooden candlestick that’s never seen a candle. A tube of ointment for a skin complaint that cleared up after one application. An airmail letter, two years old, announcing the death of a cousin in Perth, Western Australia, the stamp torn off. Two half-crowns not cashed at decimalisation because Mam read in the Evening Post that one day they would be priceless. Four old halfpennies kept on the same principle. A dry Biro.
Various reminders on the backs of envelopes. ‘Pension, Thursday’, ‘Dad’s pills’, ‘Gone down the road. Dinner on’. And, starkly, ‘Gas’. A rubber band. Three plastic clips from the package of a new shirt, kept by Dad with the idea it will save wasting money on paper clips. Not that he ever does waste money on paper clips.
Three tuppenny-halfpenny stamps.
A packet of nasturtium seeds on offer with some custard powder. A newspaper cutting recording the conviction for shoplifting of the wife of the local vicar, saved to send to relatives in Canada. Dad’s last appointment card at the Infirmary and two grey aspirins.
Keeping On Keeping On Page 60