The Golden Notebook (31 page)

THE NOTEBOOKS

[The black notebook continued empty under the heading Source, on the left-hand side. The right half of the page, under the heading Money, was full, however.] Letter from Mr. Reginald Tarbrucke, Amalgamated Vision, to Miss Anna Wulf: Last week I read-by chance, I must confess!-your delightful book, Frontiers of War. I was immediately struck by its freshness and sincerity. We are, of course, on the lookout for suitable themes for television plays. I would so much like to discuss this with you. Perhaps you would meet me for a drink at one o'clock on Friday next-do you know the Black Bull in Great Portland Street? Do give me a ring. Letter from Anna Wulf to Reginald Tarbrucke: Thank you so much for your letter. I think I had better say at once that there are very few plays I see on television which encourage me to write for that medium. I am so sorry. Letter from Reginald Tarbrucke to Anna Wulf: Thank you so very much for being so frank. I do so agree with you and that is why I wrote to you, the very moment I put down your charming Frontiers of War. We desperately need fresh, sincere plays of real integrity. Will you meet me for lunch next Friday at the Red Baron? It's a small unpretentious place, but they do a very good steak. From Anna Wulf to Reginald Tarbrucke: Thank you so much, but I really did mean what I said. If I believed Frontiers of War could be adapted for television in a way which would satisfy me, my attitude would be different. But as it is-Yours sincerely. From Reginald Tarbrucke to Miss Wulf: What a pity there are not more writers with your delightful integrity! I do promise you that I would not have written to you if we were not desperately searching for real creative talent. Television needs the real thing! Please join me for lunch next Monday at the White Tower. I think we need time for a really long, quiet talk. Very sincerely yours. Lunch with Reginald Tarbrucke, Amalgamated Vision, at the White Tower. Bill: £6 15s .7d. Dressing for lunch I was thinking of how Molly would enjoy this-playing some role or other. Decided I'd look like a 'lady writer.' I had a skirt, rather too long, and a badly fitting blouse. I put them on and some arty beads. And some long coral ear-rings. Looked the part. But felt enormously uncomfortable-as if I were inside the wrong skin. Irritated. No use thinking of Molly. At the last moment changed into myself. Took a lot of trouble. Mr. Tarbrucke (call me Reggie) was surprised: he had expected the lady writer. A soft-faced, good-looking, middle-aged Englishman. Well, Miss Wulf-may I call you Anna-what are you writing now? 'I am living off the royalties from Frontiers of War.' Look of slight shock-my tone was one of being only interested in money. 'It must have been very successful?' 'Twenty-five languages,' I said, throwing it away. Humorous grimace-envy. I switch my tone to one of dedicated artist, and say: 'Of course, I don't want to rush the second. The second novel is so important, don't you think?' He is delighted and set at ease. 'Not all of us achieve the first,' he says with a sigh. 'You write of course?' 'How clever of you to guess it!' Again the now automatic humorous grimace, the whimsical gleam. 'I've got a novel half-written in my drawer-but this racket doesn't give one much time for writing.' This theme takes us through scampi and the main course. I wait until he says, inevitably: 'And of course, one fights and fights to get anything halfway decent through the meshes. Of course they haven't a clue, the boys at the top.' (He being half a rung from the top.) 'Not a sausage. Bone-stupid. Sometimes one wonders what one does it for?' Halva and Turkish coffee. He lights a cigar, buys me some cigarettes. We haven't mentioned my charming novel yet. 'Tell me Reggie, do you propose to take the team out to Central Africa to make Frontiers of War?' His face, for one second, freezes; then sets into charm. 'Well, I'm glad you asked me that, because of course, that is the problem.' 'The landscape plays quite a part in that novel?' 'Oh, essential, I agree. Marvellous. What a feeling for landscape you have. Really, I could smell the place, quite marvellous.' 'Would you do it inside the studio?' 'Well, that is of course rather the point, and that's why I wanted to talk to you about it. Tell me, Anna, what would you say, if you were asked, what is the central theme of your lovely book? Simply, of course, because television is essentially a simple medium?' 'It is, simply, about the colour bar.' 'Oh, I do so agree, a terrible thing, of course I've never experienced it myself, but when I read your book-terrifying! But I wonder if you'll see my point-I do hope you will. It would be impossible to do Frontiers of War on the...' (whimsical grimace) '... magic box, as it is written. It would have to be simplified, leaving its marvellous core intact. So I wondered what you would feel about changing the locale to England-no wait. I don't think you'd object if I can make you see what I see-television is a question of vision, isn't it? Can one see it? That is always the point and I do feel some of our writers do tend to forget that. Now, let me tell you what I see. It's an air-training base in wartime. In England, I was in the airforce myself-oh, not one of the boys in blue, I was just a pen-pusher. But perhaps that's why your book got me the way it did. You got the atmosphere so perfectly...' 'What atmosphere?' 'Oh, my dear, you are so marvellous, real artists are so really marvellous, half the time you don't know what you've written...' I said, suddenly, not meaning to: 'And perhaps we do, and don't like it.' He frowned, decided to ignore it, and went on: 'It's the wonderful Tightness-the desperation of it all-the excitement-I've never been so alive as I was then... Well, what I want to suggest is this. We'll keep the core of your book, because that's so important, I agree. The airforce base. A young pilot. He falls in love with a local girl from the village. His parents object- the class thing, you know, alas it still does exist in this country. The two lovers must separate. And at the end we have this marvellous scene on the railway station-he is going off, and we know he will be killed. No, do think about it, just for a moment-what do you say?' 'You want me to write an original script?' 'Well yes and no. Your story is basically a simple love story. Yes it is. The colour thing is really-yes I know it's desperately important, and I couldn't agree with you more, how utterly beastly the whole thing is, but your story is really a simple moving love story. It's all there, trust me, it is-like another Brief Encounter. I do hope you see that as clearly as I do-you must remember the telly is just a question of seeing.' 'Very clearly, but surely one can throw away the novel Frontiers of War and begin again?' 'Well not entirely, because the book is so well-known and so marvellous, and I would like to keep the title, because the Frontier is surely not geographical? Not in essence? I don't see it like that. It is frontier of experience.' 'Well, perhaps you'd better write me a letter setting out your terms for an original television script?' 'But not altogether original.' (Whimsical twinkle.) 'Don't you think the people who had read the book would be surprised to see it turn into a sort of Brief Encounter With Wings? (Whimsical grimace.) 'But my dear Anna, no, they're not surprised at anything, how could they be, with the magic box?' 'Well I've had a lovely lunch.' 'Oh, my dear Anna, you are so right, of course you are. But obviously with your intelligence, you must see we couldn't do it in Central Africa, the boys at the top simply don't let us have that sort of money.' 'No, of course not-but I think I rather suggested that in my letters.' 'It would make a lovely film. Tell me, would you like me to mention it to a friend of mine in films?' 'Well, I have been through all that already.' 'Oh, my dear, I do know, I do really. Well all we can do is to keep on plodding I suppose. I know when I go home at night sometimes, and I look at my desk-a dozen books to read for possible stories, and a hundred scripts, and there's my poor novel half-done in a drawer and I haven't had time to look at it for months-I console myself with the thought that I do sometimes get something fresh and authentic through the meshes-please think about my suggestion for Frontiers of War, I really do believe it would work.' We are leaving the restaurant. Two waiters bowing. Reginald gets his coat, slips the coin into the man's hand with a small, almost apologetic smile. We are on the pavement. I am very dissatisfied with myself: what am I doing this for? Because I knew exactly what would happen from the first letter from Amalgamated Vision; except they are always one degree worse than one expects, these people. But if I know it, why bother? Just to prove it? My self-disgust begins to turn into another emotion I recognise quite well-a sort of minor hysteria. I know quite well that in a moment I'm going to say something wrong, rude, accusing, or self-accusatory. There is a moment when I know I can either stop myself, or if not, I'll be propelled into speech which I can't stop. We are on the pavement, and he wants to get rid of me. Then we walk towards Tottenham Court Road tube station. I say: 'Reggie, do you know what I'd really like to do with Frontiers of War? 'But my dear, do tell me.' (He frowns involuntarily however.) 'I'd like to make a comedy out of it.' He stops, surprised. Goes on. 'A comedy?' He gives me a quick sideways look, revealing all the dislike for me he in fact feels. Then he says: 'But my dear, it's so marvellously in the grand manner, simple tragedy. I can't even remember a comic scene.' 'Do you remember the excitement you talked about? the pulse of war?' 'My dear, yes, too well.' 'Well I agree with you that that's what the book is really about.' A pause. The good-looking charming face tightens: he looks cautious and wary. My voice is hard, angry, and full of disgust. Self-disgust. 'Now you must tell me exactly what you mean.' We are at the underground entrance. Crowds of people. The man selling newspapers has no face. No nose, rather, his mouth is a rabbit-toothed hole, and his eyes are sunk in scar tissue. 'Well, let's take your story,' I said. 'Young flier, gallant, handsome, reckless. Local girl, pretty daughter of the local poacher. Wartime England. Training base for pilots. Now. Remember that scene we've both seen a thousand times in the films-the aircraft go off over Germany. Shot of pilots' mess-pin-up girls, pretty rather than sexy, doesn't do to suggest our boys have the cruder instincts. A handsome boy reads letter from mother. Sporting trophy on the mantelpiece.' A pause. 'My dear, yes, I do agree with you we do that film rather too often.' 'The aircraft come in to land. Two of them are missing. Groups of men stand around to wait, watching the sky. A muscle tightens in a throat. Shot of pilots' bedroom. Empty bed. One young man comes in. He says nothing. He sits on his bed and looks at the empty bed. A muscle tightens in his throat. Then he goes to the empty bed. There is a teddy bear lying on the bed. He picks up the teddy bear. A muscle tightens in his throat. Shot of aircraft in flames. Cut to young man holding teddy bear, looking at photos of a pretty girl-no, not a girl, better a bull-dog. Cut back to aircraft in flames and the national anthem.' There is a silence. The newsman with the rabbity face and no nose is shouting: 'War in Quemoy. War in Quemoy.' Reggie decides he must be mistaken, so he smiles and says: 'But my dear Anna, you used the word comedy.' 'You were acute enough to see what the book was really about-nostalgia for death.' He frowns, and this time the frown sticks. 'Well, I'm ashamed and I'd like to make reparation-let's make a comedy about useless heroism. Let's parody that damned story where twenty-five young men in the flower of their youth, etc., go out to die leaving a wreckage of teddy bears and football trophies and a woman standing at a gate looking stoically at the sky where another wave of aircraft are passing on their way to Germany. A muscle tightens in her throat. How about it?' The newsman is shouting: 'War in Quemoy,' and suddenly I feel as if I'm standing in the middle of a scene from a play that is the parody of something. I begin to laugh. The laugh is hysterical. Reggie is looking at me, frowning and disliking. His mouth, previously mobile with complicity and a desire to be liked, is shrewd and a little bitter. I stop laughing, and suddenly all the propelled laughter, speech, is gone, and I'm quite sane again. He says: 'Well, Anna, I agree with you, but I must keep my job. There is a wonderfully comic idea there-but it's a film, not television. Yes, I can see it. ' (He is talking his way back to his normality, because I am normal again.) 'It would be savage of course. I wonder if people would take it?' (His mouth has twisted back into whimsical charm. He glances at me-he can't believe that our moment of pure hate has occurred. I can't either.) 'Well perhaps it would work? After all it's ten years since the war ended-but it simply is not television. It's a simple medium. And the audience-well I don't have to tell you, it's not the most intelligent audience. We have to remember that. ' I buy a newspaper which has the headline: War in Quemoy. I say, conversational: 'This is going to be another of the places we know about only because there's been a war in it. ' 'My dear, yes, it is too awful isn't it, the way we are all so ill-informed. ' 'But I'm keeping you standing here, and you must be wanting to get back to your office. ' 'As it happens I am rather late-good-bye Anna, it was such fun meeting you. ' 'Goodbye Reggie, and thank you for the lovely lunch. ' At home I collapse into depression, then angry self-disgust. But the only part of that meeting I am not ashamed of is the moment when I was hysterical and stupid. I must not respond to any more of these invitations for TV or films. What for? All I am doing is to say to myself: You are right not to write again. It's all so humiliating and ugly you should just keep out of it. But I know that anyway, so why go on sticking the knife in? Letter from Mrs. Edwina Wright, Representative for the 'Blue Bird' Series of Television One-Hour Plays, U. S. A. Dear Miss Wulf: Watching with hawk-like eyes for plays of durable interest to bring to our screen, it was with great excitement that your novel, Frontiers of War, was brought to our attention. I am writing to you in the hope that we may work together on many projects of advantage to us both. I shall be in London for three days on my way to Rome and Paris and hope you will ring me at Black's Hotel so that we may meet for a drink. I am enclosing a brochure we have compiled for the guidance of our authors. Yours sincerely. The brochure was printed, nine and a half pages