No doubt there was irony here, but I said, ‘Very excited. Really thrilled. I’m looking to Lorne to help me over this hurdle — Lorne, with his years of experience and his—Hang on. You’d better not put that. Try this. Uh, Lorne is a true professional, one of the old school. Wait. You’d better not put that either. Just say he’s a true professional, okay?’
‘What about Butch Beausoleil?’
‘The big thing about Butch is that she’s not just a dumb blonde.
She looks like a million dollars but she’s also a very intelligent and sensitive young woman. I think she’s got a great future in our industry.’
‘Last question. Money.’
‘Well, as I said, Fielding Goodney is the money genius. This is his first feature too, but he’s had a lot of experience in, in money. We’re going to bypass the big studios until the distribution stage. We’ve got this quorum of medium-sized investors. Some of the money will be coming from California, some from Germany and Japan. As you know, this is the new thing in funding.’
‘That’s right. What’s the budget? Six?’
‘Twelve.’
‘Christ. It’s all right for some, isn’t it.’
‘Yup.’
Bill then buggered off, thank God, and I strolled back to the bar with my empty mug. Eleven-thirty, Sunday morning, the Shakespeare. In the booze-lined defile under the bendy mirror, Fat Vince and Fat Paul, two generations of handyman-and-bouncer talent, assembled beer crates with simian stoop. Fat Paul straightened up and I looked into his colourless, moistureless face.
‘Same again?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Hey, and — Fat Paul. Give us a scotch and all.’
‘Big one?’
‘Nah, just a double’ll do.’
Fat Paul placed the drinks on the bar. He folded his arms and leaned forward. He nodded pensively. ‘There’s a new stripper on today,’ he offered. ‘Veronica. Jesus. Beautiful.’
‘I’ll stick around.’
‘Here, that — Selina. Still giving her one, are you?’
‘Don’t ask me, pal.’
We heard the sounds of chains shaking. We turned: a small shadow bided its time behind the locked glass doors.
‘Fuck off out of it!’ said Fat Paul, in his youthful way.
‘No, it’s all right,’ I said. ‘This must be my writer.’ ——————
Five days of London time, and still no fix on Selina.
Twenty-four hours ago I ran Alec Llewellyn to ground, but then the trail went cold. Alec, that liar. He was holed up in a service-flat block off Marble Arch — a high-priced dosshouse for middle-management loners and transients, with the strict feel of the ward or the lab: fifty units of downward mobility, observable under controlled conditions. Alec sees himself as one of life’s deep divers. Crime, debt, dope — these are the fathoms through which he swims. The pinch of his long fingers over bookmatch and cigarette packet corresponds to the lines of his handsome, nervous, nutcracker face. Yes, he’s nervous. He is much weaker than he was a year ago. He could do it all then. He is not sure he can do it all now.
‘Where’s Selina?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alec. ‘Lying in a pile of cocks somewhere. Wiggling her bum in some penthouse. Take your pick.’
‘Who’s she fucking?’
‘How should I know?’
‘You told me it was someone I knew well. Who is it. Who.’
‘Doesn’t matter who. Think about it, man. I can’t believe I’ve got to sit here telling you this. She’s a gold-digger pushing thirty, right? In other words, an exhausted sack artist with shrinking assets. She can’t stop digging, she has to keep digging until she strikes. There’s nothing else she can do. Okay, marry her. Or try another kind of girl: freckles and A-levels, career woman, divorcee with two kids, fat nurse —’
‘Oh you’re such a liar. You just don’t care what you say. What’s it like, being a liar?’
‘Not too bad. What’s it like being a moron? Where do you think she is. Summer school? Walking in the Lake District?’
I looked round the room, at the churned bed, the hairbrush, at the splayed, eviscerated suitcase. Lean Alec, at thirty-six, a father of two, with his education, his privilege — what’s he doing in this hired coop? We were drinking pernod, or paranoid, from a litre bottle with Heathrow tab.