by Nicola Upson
‘That’s what you get for casting Ivor Novello,’ Josephine said. ‘Rule number one of popular entertainment: a matinee idol can never be a killer – that really would incite the crowds.’ She thought for a moment, and added‚ ‘Anyway, I think it was better that way. There’s something very powerful about an innocent man being destroyed by people who think they’ve got right on their side.’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me if Hitchcock had been in trouble with the police, you know,’ Ronnie said, returning to give her dead horse one last flog. ‘There are far too many handcuffs involved in those films for my liking.’ She lit a cigarette and leant back thoughtfully in her deckchair. ‘It can’t be a very normal sort of marriage, can it?’
‘Is there such a thing?’
Ronnie gave her a wry smile. ‘What a shame that age has made you so cynical already.’
Josephine reached for the cigarette case and took one out for herself and Lettice. ‘How many so-called normal marriages can you name?’ she asked. ‘Normal is one of the casualties of our generation, and I knew that when I was twenty-one, so please put my cynicism down to something more creditable than age.’
‘Johnny did tell us that Hitchcock has a vulgar sense of humour,’ Lettice conceded. ‘He said he wasn’t at all sympathetic to his actors on the set and he felt very taken for granted.’
‘But don’t you think that’s Johnny trying to excuse the fact that he simply wasn’t very good in the film?’ Josephine asked. ‘What was it one critic said? “Bloodless, stilted and inept”?’
‘I have to say, sticking Johnny opposite Madeleine Carroll and expecting sparks to fly is commendably optimistic,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’ll give Hitchcock that, at least.’
‘Exactly, so I don’t think we can take Johnny’s testimony as gospel.’
‘It’s not just Johnny who’s been on the receiving end of it, though, is it? He sent Julian four hundred smoked herrings for his birthday and filled Freddie’s flat with coal while he was away on honeymoon. What sort of man does that?’ Ronnie sounded genuinely bewildered. ‘Perhaps it’s something lacking in me, but I just don’t find all that schoolboy stuff very funny.’
Josephine – who had heard only professional gossip about the Hitchcocks from Marta – was growing increasingly uneasy. ‘Can we change the subject?’ she asked. ‘If I’m going to end up working with the man, I’d rather not know all this.’
‘I wouldn’t take it too seriously.’ Archie put the tray of drinks down on the table. ‘That sort of stuff went on all the time after the war whenever any group of men got together. I doubt that film studios were any different to army barracks or a police incident room.’
‘But this is eighteen years after the war,’ Josephine pointed out. ‘We are going to have to stop using that as some sort of all-purpose excuse eventually.’
‘Ah, but there’s another excuse on the horizon,’ Archie said. ‘So I think it’ll tide us over.’ He handed the glasses round and raised his own. ‘Cheers. Did anybody know that Bella Hutton was going to be here?’
‘Bella Hutton?’
Lettice looked as doubtful as her sister. ‘Are you sure, Archie?’
‘Positive. I nearly stood on her dog.’ He glanced at Josephine. ‘And Lydia and Marta have arrived – they’re just checking in, but there seems to be some sort of confusion over their rooms. They’ll be out in a minute.’
It was a well-intentioned warning, but Josephine wished he hadn’t said anything. As it was, her behaviour on first seeing Marta was likely to be strained enough; now, robbed of the element of surprise, she could already feel her stomach tightening and the sincerity draining from her face. Resisting the temptation to glance over at the hotel, she tried to concentrate on what Ronnie was saying.
‘No one ever really got to the bottom of why Bella Hutton came back from Hollywood so suddenly, did they?’
‘Is this one of your famous conspiracy theories? I thought her marriage failed.’
‘Yes it did, but that doesn’t mean she had to throw her whole career away.’
‘Perhaps being married to America didn’t suit her any more than being married to an American,’ Josephine suggested. ‘I can’t imagine Hollywood’s a very pleasant place to be, and she must have made enough money from her films and the divorce not to have to work unless she wants to.’
‘And she comes from somewhere round here, anyway,’ Lettice added. ‘So it’s not surprising she should visit.’
‘What?’ Ronnie stared at her in amazement. ‘You mean Bella Hutton’s Welsh?’
‘Bella Hutton, my dear, is international.’
She seemed about to offer further insights into the movie star’s life, but Ronnie interrupted her. ‘I never thought this would last, you know,’ she said, stubbing her cigarette out and peering at the hotel. Marta and Lydia were on the upper terrace, looking round for them. ‘Why “rooms”, I wonder?’
Josephine reached for her sunglasses, although the fierceness of the day had begun to die down. From their safety, she watched as the couple walked across the lawn. Marta wore a halter-neck top and linen trousers, closely fitted to her hips. Her skin, pale from a London summer, was burnt a little at the shoulders; her face was impossible to read. In the past, Josephine had searched for words that would adequately describe that face, but it moved so swiftly between strength and insecurity, laughter and an intense seriousness, that its essence always eluded her. Now, she took heart from the fact that Marta, too, seemed to need a mask. Even so, when she stood to greet them, it was Lydia she turned to first, Lydia whom she hugged with a genuine warmth. She had rehearsed this moment for weeks, but, when Marta was beside her, all she could manage was a perfunctory kiss and a subdued hello.
Archie looked round for two more empty deckchairs, but Lettice stopped him. ‘Have ours,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to go and unpack.’
‘Just a minute,’ Ronnie said. ‘I want to find out where Marta stands on the Hitchcock issue.’
Marta sat down opposite Josephine. ‘What issue’s that?’
‘Is he a genius or just a strange little man?’
‘Does it have to be one or the other?’ She shook her hair out and retied it while Ronnie considered what was obviously a new idea to her. ‘Sorry – I’ve only met him briefly, so I can’t really help, but his wife is very sane and very clever, and I doubt she’d settle for less in a husband.’
‘Mm,’ Ronnie muttered, unconvinced. ‘His family owns MacFisheries, though. That can’t be right.’
Archie exchanged a weary look with Lydia. ‘Can I get you both a drink?’ he asked.
‘I’m dying for a gin and tonic, but don’t bother fetching it, Archie. Someone will come over.’
‘It’ll be quicker if I go to the bar. They’re very busy out here. Marta?’
‘Tea would be lovely.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Josephine offered. ‘I could do with the exercise, and you’ve been back and forth so often they’ll think you’re trying for a job.’
‘No, you stay here – I can manage. It’ll give me a chance to see who else has turned up. Do you know Daniel Lascelles, Lydia?’ he asked casually.
‘Danny? Yes, he was with me in Close Quarters. He’s a sweetheart. Why? Is he here?’
‘Yes, I met him at the bar earlier. He’ll be pleased to see you – it looked like he could do with a friendly face and a bit of encouragement.’
‘Oh, I’ll come and say hello now. I haven’t spoken to him since he lost his father.’ Archie walked with her to the hotel, leaving Marta and Josephine alone. It had been subtly done, and Josephine hoped she was the only one who had noticed.
They looked at each other for a long time without speaking. Eventually, Marta leant forward and removed Josephine’s glasses. ‘Hello again,’ she said quietly. ‘How are you?’
‘Pleased to see you.’
‘Are you? I thought with all the work you’d put into avoiding it that you might not be.’ Her voice was gentle, the words a genuine q
uestion rather than any sort of reproach.
‘It’s not that I didn’t want to see you. I just thought it would be better to wait a bit, that if we saw each other too soon . . .’
‘I might not be able to control myself?’
Josephine flushed. ‘No, of course not. I only meant that you and Lydia needed time to sort yourselves out, find out how you feel.’ She stopped and bit her lip before she found something even more patronising to say. This wasn’t what she had intended, and she wondered what had happened to the wise, funny, eloquent woman who had held so many imaginary conversations with Marta since they had last seen each other. She tried to think of all the things she had wanted to say, but the reality of Marta unsettled her more than ever and her mind was completely blank. In the end, all she could manage was a simple confession. ‘I ran away,’ she admitted. ‘I’m sorry.’
She had expected Marta to press the point further, but she only nodded. ‘And how has your birthday been so far?’
The abrupt change of subject floored Josephine. She had taken it for granted that, left alone, they would discuss their relationship and its future – if it had a future – but she realised now that her constant reliance on Marta to articulate feelings for both of them was childish and unfair. For the first time, it occurred to her that of all the obstacles she had placed in their way – Lydia, Archie, family commitments and physical distance – the hardest to overcome was her own selfishness. Livid with herself, she tried to find a way back, but it was too late: the moment had been missed, and they talked about Portmeirion until Archie and Lydia returned with the drinks.
9
David Franks ran lightly down the steps of the Bell Tower and emerged into the daylight, excited at the prospect of what the weekend held. The sun streaked the cobbles of Battery Square, and there were still plenty of visitors milling around at the outer limits of the village, making the most of their day before the curfew struck and they were shown politely back through the gates, leaving Portmeirion to its nocturnal guests. The character of the place changed completely after seven thirty, he had noticed: as everyone gravitated to the hotel for drinks and dinner, the village became a ghost of its daytime self, its illusions at once more rewarding and more unsettling. Without people to bring it to life, Portmeirion’s essentially artificial nature was somehow exposed. Last night, returning to his suite in Government House, he had sat for a long time on a bench in the Piazza, enjoying the peace; it was exactly like being the last person left on a film set at the end of a day’s shoot – so much so that, when he finally got up to go to bed, he almost felt that he should turn out the lights.
Now, he leant against one of the small cannons which had been placed in the square to justify its name, and squinted back up at the tower he had just left, admiring the way in which its architectural detail had been deliberately scaled down to make the building appear larger than it really was. There were several examples of this sort of forced perspective all over Portmeirion, and David – whose job it was to create illusions on screen – had a grudging respect for the man who managed it so successfully without the help of a camera. It was an achievement that he would have been proud to call his own had things been different.
He looked at his watch to make sure that the Bell Tower’s clock was reliable: no one with any sense was late for an appointment with Alfred Hitchcock. He had ten minutes to wait, so he took a carefully timed stroll round the gardens and tennis court, and knocked on the door to the Watch House exactly as the mechanism on the old turret clock kicked into life. When he saw that Hitch was on the telephone, he offered to wait outside, but the director shook his head and waved him in, so David retreated discreetly to the balcony. There was no ethical decision to be made over whether or not to eavesdrop: Hitch’s distinctive voice – gruff and deadpan, still faithful to its East London origins – carried easily across the small room, and he made no attempt to hide his part of the conversation.
‘I’m not denying it’s a generous offer,’ he said, with a strained patience which suggested that the discussion had been proceeding along the same lines for some time. ‘I’m merely pointing out to you that until I’ve completed the films I’m contracted to make for Gaumont British, I’m not in a position to consider any offer, generous or not. Forty thousand dollars a picture or four – it makes no difference.’
He fell silent again, and David waited for the next skilful deflection. Hitch turned down at least three offers a month from Hollywood, but there was a growing speculation among those closest to him that it was only a matter of time before he jumped – speculation, and an accompanying disquiet, as the people who relied on Hitchcock’s career for their own jockeyed with varying degrees of subtlety for a position in the new empire. There were no guarantees, but David was reasonably confident that, after ten years of working for Hitch and Alma, first as production designer and most recently as assistant director, there would be a role for him in the Hitchcock creative circle for as long as he wanted one.
‘What do you mean he’s going? He hasn’t said anything to me.’ There was a new tone in Hitch’s responses and David listened with more interest, wondering who had been reckless enough to plan a future behind the director’s back. He leant over the balcony and scanned the quayside below. Two or three bathers were by the hotel pool, but more seemed to favour the small, sheltered coves which punctuated the shoreline; a couple of parties had found the energy to take out one of the rowing boats kept for idling along the coast, but most people seemed content to relax on the terraces. He picked up a pair of binoculars which was lying on the red brick and looked across to the island in the middle of the estuary, holding the glasses first in one hand and then in the other so that the scorching metal did not have time to burn his skin.
‘Did you know that Selznick was trying to persuade Jack Spence to move to Hollywood?’
It took David a moment to realise that Hitchcock was talking to him. ‘What? No, sir, I didn’t.’ It was only a half-lie. Spence hadn’t actually said anything to him but they worked together closely enough for David to know that the cameraman had grown restless recently, and he was far too good for any of the major studios to baulk at exploiting that restlessness. Like David, Spence had arrived on the scene at a time when Hitchcock was just beginning to carry enough clout to make his own decisions about who worked with him, and director and cameraman had quickly developed a mutual respect. Now, that partnership seemed about to dissolve into bitter recriminations, with David caught in the middle. He admired Hitch and Alma tremendously and had learnt a great deal from both of them, inspired as much by their diligence, enthusiasm and professional courtesy as by their creativity. Even so, his liking for the couple could not blind him to a certain arrogance in the assumptions they made. Spence was a free man, not particularly ambitious but proud of his work and with no ties to hold him down; why shouldn’t he try his luck in Hollywood?
There had been a long silence and Hitch was clearly expecting him to say something. ‘Perhaps it’s just a rumour,’ he suggested, falling easily into his habitual role as studio peacemaker. ‘If Hollywood can convince you that enough of your people are on the brink of leaving, perhaps they think that will encourage you to jump as well.’
He spoke persuasively‚ but Hitchcock looked unconvinced. Spence’s timing was unfortunate: only a couple of weeks ago, Charles Bennett – another of the director’s closest collaborators, who had worked on every script with him since The Man Who Knew Too Much – had announced his decision to go to America after one more film. To the director, it must have felt like the end of an era, as the people he trusted conspired to hasten a decision he wasn’t yet ready to make. ‘And what about you, Mr Franks?’ he asked. ‘Are you still happy with us?’
‘Yes, of course,’ David said truthfully. ‘I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to make a film of my own one day, but I’ve still got a lot to learn.’
Hitchcock nodded thoughtfully. ‘What about the future, though? A little bird told me recently th
at you might draw the line at going back to America as part of your education.’
David looked up sharply. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Bella Hutton. Is she wrong?’
‘Yes, she is. I haven’t discussed my plans with her and she has no idea what’s in my mind.’ He made an effort to keep the anger out of his voice, but it was only partially successful. ‘I’m grateful to Bella for everything she’s done. She had faith in me at a time when my life could have gone in a very different direction, but these days I stand on my own feet and make my own decisions. That might be hard for her to accept‚ and I know she has unhappy memories of America, but they’re her memories, not mine.’
‘It was quite a surprise to see Bella, actually, but it plays into our hands that she’s here. There’s certainly no love lost between her and Mr Turnbull. Has the star of our weekend arrived yet?’
‘Yes, he checked in an hour ago and he’s been in the bar ever since, so we’d better catch him while he’s still sober enough to listen. Do you want to brief him, or shall I?’
‘Oh you do it. I can’t bear the man.’ Hitchcock poured them both a drink and passed David’s over. ‘So – run through it all with me.’
‘All right, but we’ll have to go outside.’ They walked out onto the lawn, and David wondered how Hitch could bear to make so few concessions to the weather; true, he had removed his jacket but he was still wearing a starched white shirt and navy-blue trousers, and just looking at his tie made David’s short sleeves and wide flannels feel heavy and claustrophobic. ‘You see why we can’t use the roof,’ he said, pointing out the distance between the Bell Tower and the Watch House. ‘The trajectory simply wouldn’t work. No one would believe it.’
Hitchcock nodded reluctantly. ‘And it would have made such a nice scene.’ He pouted, and wiped away a mock tear. ‘Where do you suggest Mr Turnbull’s body should land, then?’