by William Boyd
Yes, of course, how true, how perspicacious, Talbot had agreed, unreflectingly. But, later, thinking back, he found himself disagreeing. As far as he was concerned his adolescence was a forgotten history—like the Etruscans or the Neanderthals. For him, all his emotional intensity had come from his adult life, once he had confronted and accepted its nature. Only as an adult had he sensed and savoured true desire, burning disappointment, sexual excitement, lasting regret, unfulfilled longing, and so on. The fervency and immediacy of his emotional life as an adult had completely overshadowed and obscured what he’d felt and suffered as a teenager. Why was that? he wondered. And he answered himself by recognising that what he felt as a grown man was sophisticated, nuanced and understood—not raw, pulsing and baffled. He had moved on from those inchoate states of being and he was happier as a result.
Anyway, realising he had been a total fool with Gary Hicksmith, he had determined not to be fooled in turn—particularly by Yorgos Samsa. Throughout that Sunday, as he thought and mentally probed, relived and winced, berated and punished himself long into the evening, hunkered in his shuttered flat, drinking whisky after whisky, he had constructed a plan that was going to solve everything, or so he thought. A plan that no one would imagine Talbot Kydd could conceive.
He stood on his cigarette, took a breath and looked around. To his surprise, parked up the street, twenty yards away, was a Rolls-Royce with the number plate 1 AP. He recognised it instantly as Jimmy Appleby’s Rolls. What was it doing here? No matter. It was time to act. He pressed the buzzer, was admitted and pushed through the door.
Yorgos seemed unusually smart, Talbot thought, wondering if he was going on somewhere that demanded special sartorial protocol. He was wearing one of his wide-chalk-striped double-breasted suits and a floppy navy-blue bow tie with white polka dots. It was as if he had dressed specially for the occasion. His face looked glossily moisturised and there was an expensive scent of some cologne about him. He seemed very relaxed and Talbot hoped his own nerves were not in evidence. A great deal of super-confident bluff would be required of him in the next few minutes.
Yorgos had everything ready. Three duplicate contracts for The Smell of Burning Leaves lay in a neat row along the edge of his desk, facing Talbot, a silver pen at the ready.
“I know what this may look like to you, Talbot,” Yorgos said in his reassuring bass. “But, believe me, this is the only way to make the rights secure from the estate, to protect us. The Luxembourg company will own the rights and only we can unlock them. So if the estate tries to sell to others, if the estate sues us, to try to block us making this film, our hands are clean. They can do nothing.”
Only you can unlock them, Talbot silently corrected him, smiling.
“It’s all very clever, Yorgos. I could never have figured it out, myself. Where do I sign?”
“Have you explained to John Saxonwood? Every stone must be turned over, in case there is a rotten truffle.”
“Exactly. He’s happy. He understands it all.”
Yorgos turned the pages of the contract and indicated where Talbot should sign and what clauses he should initial. He did so, swiftly conveying his part of the film rights in Burning Leaves to FUMODOR S.A. (Lux). He looked at Yorgos’s slack expressionless face but thought he could sense, all the same, little inward tremors of exhilaration.
“So. This means I—we—don’t own the rights any more. Theoretically.”
“In name only. Officially, legally we don’t. But we can get them back when we want—and then we make disgusting amounts of money.”
“Ah, yes, money.”
“Think what you may do with it all, Talbot. Money is the root of the good times at the end of the rainbow.”
Talbot smiled.
“I thought I saw Jimmy Appleby’s car parked outside. Is he here?”
“Appleby? No. Maybe he’s doing some shopping.”
Something about Yorgos’s terse denial and the easy excuse gave him pause. Sometimes it was the very lack of curious follow-up questions that was the giveaway. Mentioning Appleby’s name should surely have triggered a few offhand remarks, an anecdote, a recollection, an opinion. But nothing. Yorgos didn’t want to talk about the Applebys. Talbot suddenly had a convincing vision of an Appleby/Samsa collaboration in the matter of the Burning Leaves complexities. It didn’t concern him any more—he had his escape plan, whoever else was involved.
“Yes, probably shopping in Oxford Street…Anyway, talking about money,” Talbot went on, trying to keep his voice level and emotionless. “I think the time has come, Yorgos, for you to buy me out of YSK Films. I want you to buy my shares. You can have the lot for a fair price.”
Yorgos’s smile faded then disappeared. He frowned, thinking fast, getting nowhere. Completely outflanked, Talbot thought. This was not part of the Yorgos plan.
“What? A buyout? Are you crazy, Talbot?”
“No. I’m very sane.”
“You just signed the contract.”
“I know. And I know what’s going on. I want you to buy my 49% share in the company for £200,000.” He smiled. “Or else.”
* * *
—
“It’s very, very smart of you, Talbot,” John Saxonwood said admiringly, rubbing his jaw, thinking. “Yes, inspiringly clever. I wouldn’t have thought it of you. But very risky.”
“All reward comes with some risk.”
“But this risk is impossible to quantify, to assess.”
“I’m not so sure. I actually didn’t think there was much risk in it. My scheme only works because of the very strange, curious and paranoid nature of our business,” Talbot said. “If it merits the name business.”
“I’m a bit surprised you didn’t run it by me first.”
“Because if I had you’d have forbidden me from doing it.”
“True. But all’s well that ends well, it seems.”
Talbot had explained in some detail. If there is one thing the film industry hates, detests and despises above everything else, he reminded John Saxonwood, then that is litigation—even the vaguest threat, the slightest whiff of litigation circling round a project is anathema. He had known exactly what he was doing in allowing Yorgos to defraud him. Yorgos and his sleeping partners now had the extremely valuable asset that was the film rights in The Smell of Burning Leaves but it would cease to be valuable—or its value would dramatically diminish—if there was any taint of scandal attached to it. Talbot’s threat had been very simple, he told John Saxonwood, and was one that Yorgos would understand and evaluate immediately. Yorgos had a straightforward choice. He had to buy Talbot out for the price mentioned—there would be no negotiation—or else Talbot would sue him.
“But you signed the fucking contract,” Saxonwood said, baffled. “You’d lost your leverage.”
“And, paradoxically, that gave me more power. Yorgos’s ‘fraud’ was in place, in print, in legalese.” He went on, explaining further. Why else are successful films bombarded with plagiarism suits? he asked rhetorically. Because the plaintiffs know that, rather than go to court and jeopardise the timetable or the viability of the film under attack, the studios, the producers, will pay money to make the problem go away.
“So my ‘or else’ to Yorgos was the threat of a massive lawsuit. All guns blazing, the full majesty of English law.”
“So what? You’d signed.”
“It doesn’t matter. That’s the beauty of it. And, remember, he was actually defrauding me. My lawsuit against him would have buggered up the potential film of Burning Leaves completely. No financier would invest in the film—in any film—with a big, public lawsuit pending, even a half-baked lawsuit, even one that might get thrown out of court. And, moreover, a lawsuit initiated by the other partner in the production company. Pure, lethal poison. And Yorgos knew that. It might take a year, or even two—and I’d appeal any judgement that
went against me. Yorgos knew that—he knew I’d got him. The film community would know that Yorgos Samsa was being sued by his former partner for fraud. Talk about a ‘taint’ of scandal. Very bad news for YSK Films and FUMODOR S.A.”
“I take my hat off to you, Talbot. Nerves of steel, all the same. Bloody hell.”
“For good measure—as extra insurance—I threatened to remove my name as producer from Ladder to the Moon. That would have set more alarm bells ringing, also. Nasty smell. And I said that if I took my name off then Andrew Marvell—the first writer—would also take his name off. Another problem. The nasty smell getting more noxious. With all this smoke the film business would wonder where the fire was.”
“The smell of burning leaves,” Saxonwood said.
“Exactly.”
“Right. It is a funny business.”
“So Yorgos’s simple option, his simple solution, was to buy me out. End of problem. In a flash. Problem gone. Talbot gone away forever. He knew that. It took him about ten seconds to agree.” Talbot shrugged. “I’m pretty sure the Applebys are behind this, colluding with Yorgos. They want to move into the film business but only with like-minded people. And I don’t fit that description, as they made very plain to me the other day.” He paused. “Yorgos and the Applebys baked the cake that was the FUMODOR S.A. version of Burning Leaves and they decided they didn’t want to give me a slice. But what they didn’t know was that I had the recipe. But, still, I didn’t want to take it, didn’t want any part of their cake.” He smiled. “So I came up with this plan, this way of having my cake and eating it—but without the cake, if you see what I mean.” He could see that John was looking bemused.
“You know that crazy pop song that’s playing everywhere,” Talbot said, thinking it might help. “The one about the green cake in the park, melting in the rain?”
“Are you feeling all right, Talbot?”
“Never felt better. I think I understand what it means. The song, that is.”
“You’ve lost me, old fellow.”
“It was a fair price anyway. Not too much over the odds. I didn’t ask for a million. I wasn’t being greedy.”
“How much was it, again?”
“Two hundred thousand pounds.”
“That should keep you going for a few years.”
“That’s what I thought. I could join the idle rich for a while. Become a remittance man. I could get used to it.”
“What made you make up your mind?”
Talbot wondered how much he should tell John. He decided to keep the explanation vague.
“I had an experience this weekend that shook me up, rather,” he began. “Stripped veils from my eyes, if you know what I mean, and made me rethink my priorities. Made me rethink the direction my life was going.”
“Maybe you’ll tell me in more detail one day.”
“I will, don’t worry.”
“Shall we drink to your Machiavellian tendencies?”
“Yes, please. A large one.”
11
She kept it on a small shelf beside her bed as a reminder of her old life—of her old self—an empty bottle of Sarson’s White Vinegar. Sometimes she unscrewed the cap and sniffed, although she knew vodka had no smell and there would be no trace, but, fancifully, she imagined that some atom, some molecule, might be inhaled. It would be a tiny souvenir, a memory of what it had been like to be Elfrida Wing, novelist.
As Sister Jennifer, she had adapted to her new life with astonishing ease, or so she thought. It was—though she disregarded the religiose undertones—like being born again. She rediscovered her schoolgirl talent for sewing and spent many hours in the convent’s sewing room making repairs to the nuns’ tunics and aprons. She started designing better aprons to her own pattern, cut from heavy linen with extra pockets, that proved very popular. She had even repaired the Reverend Mother’s wimple. Also, she rediscovered the bracing, restorative properties of strenuous manual labour. She picked apples and other fruit in the orchard, she swept leaves from the lawns and the pathways, she helped repair breaches in the dry-stone walls around the estate. She stopped reading books, newspapers and magazines. She never watched television or listened to the radio. Any news from the outside world came to her by hearsay, second- or third-hand. She went to bed tired and slept well. If she found she had time on her hands she simply went to one of the more senior nuns and asked for a task: polishing the brass in the chapel, typing letters in the administrative office, changing a tyre on the Reverend Mother’s old Vauxhall Velox. The days passed in tranquil order, seamlessly, happily.
Only one person knew where she was, her friend and lawyer, Jessica Fairfield. Elfrida had given Jessica full power of attorney and she was engaged in initiating her divorce from Reggie and selling the Vale of Health cottage, the profit from which would ensure she could remain a “visitor” at St. Jude and St. Simon the Zealot for as long as she wished—perhaps even for the rest of her life. Reggie, Jessica told her, was being surprisingly accommodating, keeping the moans and grumbles to a minimum. Elfrida wasn’t surprised—Janet Headstone was doubtless looming ever larger in his life. Elfrida had sworn Jessica to absolute secrecy but it hadn’t been necessary, Jessica reminded her, as she was fully protected by the legalities of lawyer/client privilege. The right attaches to you, darling, Jessica had said, not me. Only you can waive it.
Apart from Jessica no one in the world knew where she was…As she lay in her narrow bed at night this was the thought that sustained her. Elfrida Wing had effectively disappeared from the face of the earth. How marvellous! She found the concept entirely liberating. To her astonishment she realised she was happy again.
12
Some vestiges of his old life did remain, Talbot realised, flicking through weekly Variety at the breakfast table, catching up on all the film industry news at home and abroad. It was now almost four weeks since his confrontation with Yorgos and three weeks since £200,000 had been paid into his bank and he had formally renounced his partnership in YSK Films Ltd. He was still the titular producer of Ladder to the Moon and from time to time calls came in, there were documents to sign and he was occasionally required to pop in to the post-production office in Frith Street in Soho where everything was being readied for the film’s eventual release. Even Janet Headstone had written to him sending him a copy of the new draft of Turmoil. He took a sip of tea and turned the page. He wasn’t missing his former life, he had to admit. He looked up to see Naomi sitting opposite him doing the Times crossword—to set her morning brain in gear, she said. It took her ten minutes or so. She was frowning, biro poised—then pounced.
Talbot turned and scanned another page. Ah, yes. There was always something of interest.
Here under a gossip piece about “hot” UK helmer Rodrigo Tipton was the news that his latest film Moonladder—that was unforeseen—was scheduled to screen at next year’s Berlin Film Festival. Tipton, moreover, was about to move straight on to the hugely anticipated film version of the Broadway smash-hit play The Smell of Burning Leaves. Script by Janet Headstone. Stella van Fleet and Dorian Villiers attached. Yorgos hadn’t wasted any time. Talbot investigated his feelings, now he knew the facts. He felt nothing. Well out of that, he thought to himself, tossing Variety aside.
“I’d better be going,” Naomi said, standing up. “Want The Times?” She passed it over. “Governors’ meeting—give me strength.”
“Give ’em hell, darling,” he said.
She came over and pecked him on the forehead.
“You all right? Not getting bored?”
“Boredom is one problem I’ll never experience.”
She left the room, Talbot realising that her instincts were shrewd: he was a bit bored. He had mown the lawn twice this week. He’d played squash, joined a swimming club and had investigated doing a degree in comparative literature as an extramural mature student at University College
London. He had started reading A la recherche du temps perdu for about the seventh time. All the indications of a man with too much leisure time to fill.
He heard Naomi’s car drive away, made himself another cup of tea and idly picked up the newspaper. Mayhem and street-fighting at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Warsaw Pact invades Czechoslovakia. God, 1968, he thought, what a year, and we still have a few months to go. He turned a page and his eyes were caught by a headline: “AMERICAN FILM STAR FOUND DEAD.” Who was it, he wondered: Greta Garbo? Lillian Gish? He read on:
Bordeaux, 27 August 1968
The body of the American film actress, Anny Viklund (The Yellow Mountain, Aquarius Days) was found in a car on Thursday in the village of Cap Ferret, near Bordeaux. Based on forensic examination of the corpse, French police speculated that her body had lain there unnoticed for about three weeks. Miss Viklund (28) had recently starred in the British comedy film Moonladder but had fled the country as a result of a Special Branch/FBI investigation into her links with her ex-husband, Cornell Weekes, also a fugitive from justice, recently charged and found guilty of terrorist offences and conspiracy to murder.
Miss Viklund’s body has been taken to Paris for a post-mortem.
At the time of filing, French police declined to confirm a verdict of suicide. A spokesman for the FBI denied any involvement in the pursuit of Miss Vikland or any connection with her “tragic” death. French police say there were signs of a struggle and that Miss Viklund’s car had been broken into. They say suspects in a potential murder case are being actively sought.