Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

“Look, Carey, it isn’t only that. Paul has a reputation for being difficult, and there’s nothing worse when you want a job. People who ever worked with him don’t forget what he was like—he’s not a man you CAN forget. If he were on top, they’d all say what a wonderful experience they had, but now he’s out, so they all say what a son of a bitch he was. And he was too, let’s face it. I used to quarrel with him so many times I lost count, and when he called on me recently after he got back from Europe he was just as impossible as ever. How he managed to make pictures for the Germans I’ll never know—”

“He didn’t. That’s one of the lies, Micky—”

“I meant BEFORE the war—don’t get so excited. The good pictures he made—they were for the Germans, weren’t they?”

“They were for the world.”

“Oh, come now, he made them in Germany, they were German language films —nothing wrong about that, mind you—”

“Yes, yes, of course. I’m being silly. I’m sorry.”

“Sure, I understand. You like the fellow. So do I—in a way. But as I said, I’ve often wondered how he managed to get on with them over there. Maybe it’s what they go for—the Wagner type. Highbrows and headaches.”

“No, Micky, that’s wrong too. He’s not highbrow. His pictures have been POPULAR.”

“Not in Paducah, Kentucky. That’s the hurdle he has to cross.”

“So you think there’s nothing can be done?”

“I should say at present, not a thing. Unless you want me to fix up a package deal for both of you? Then somebody would have to take the pill to get the jam.”

He had said this as a joke to lighten the tension on Carey’s face; and she did indeed respond, but he saw the laugh drain away into a look of different tension. She said quietly: “Could you really make a deal like that with someone in Hollywood?”

“Sure. You can make any kind of deal if you have something to offer that somebody wants. During the liquor shortage I once sold an actor because I could throw in a dozen cases of Scotch.”

“Well… go ahead and sell Paul along with me.”

“You’re not serious?”

“I am.”

From habit he pulled a pencil and scratch-pad towards him, then pushed them away again. “No, I won’t need to remind myself of this. You’re sure it’s not a gag?”

“I’m serious,” she assured him again.

They discussed details, and just before she left his office he said: “Your personal affairs are none of my business, Carey, but it’s only fair to mention one thing… people are going to draw a certain conclusion from all this.”

“That I’m doing it to get Paul a job? I don’t see why they’ll know that if you don’t tell them.”

“It’ll leak out from the other end, you bet… but that wasn’t what I meant. The big conclusion they’ll draw is that you’re leaving your husband and going back to Paul.”

That startled her. “Yes, I suppose they will. It’s not true, but I can’t help it… It’s NOT true, Micky—it’s almost comic, when I think of it. I could never go back to Paul. You believe me, don’t you?”

“Why not, if you say so? But who else will?”

“Then I don’t care. It’s no worse—and no less absurd—than the other rumour.”

Michaelson walked with her along the corridor to the elevator, and as the pointer swung to their floor number he said: “I know you’re serious, and I’m itching to get at the phone, but I’ll wait for one hour… exactly… in case you change your mind.”

Half an hour later she was with Paul. “Now for heaven’s sake don’t YOU back out…” she exclaimed, watching his face as she gave him the news, but to her relief he seemed delighted and especially because he would now, he said, have a chance to make a movie star out of her. “You remember I always promised I would, Carey? You have a good face—the right profile slightly better than the left. I’d like to cast you as an old lady— you’d be beautiful with just a few wrinkles here—and here—” He touched her with his finger-tips.

“Well, thanks, but I’m pretty sure you won’t have a chance. They’ll give you a certain picture to make and you’ll have to make it. There’ll also be a story, whether you like it or not, and there’ll be a producer to decide how much you spend, and a camera-man who’ll think he knows more about angles than you do, and a writer or writers to do the script… Micky told me all this, and I’m passing it on to you now, so that you know the worst.” (It occurred to her then that it hadn’t been at all a bad idea of Michaelson’s to wait for that full hour.) “But there’s also good news, Paul—and the best of all is that you’ll have your chance, and it’ll be a big one, because it’s bound to be an important picture if anybody’s willing to pay so much for me in it.”

“What will they pay for you, may I ask?”

“Micky thinks he can get a hundred thousand.”

“Ridiculous,” Paul muttered, under his breath, and then added, thoughtfully: “But of course that’s for you and me together.”

“I expect so,” she agreed tactfully.

The full hour passed, after which she returned to the house. Austen was out, and Norris, she learned, had gone to the Museum of Modern Art. She told Richards, with an exhilarating sense of freedom: “Any time, if there’s a call for me from a Mr. Michaelson, I’ll take it.”

There was no call that day, or the next, but the following morning she talked to the agent from her bedroom while Austen was dressing. “I haven’t clinched anything yet, but you’re hot, Carey, same as I told you. We were batting it out all day yesterday. Better drop by my office later and we’ll talk over what’s happened.”

She said she would, then hung up. She knew that Austen had heard enough to wonder who it was she had agreed to meet, but of course he was too polite to ask and she felt it would have been challenging to tell him.

By the time she reached Michaelson’s office there was a tentative deal to be discussed. It was with Majestic Pictures, not the biggest studio, and possibly not the best, if there were a best, but recommendable if only because it had shown the greatest interest and been the first to make a firm offer. On the whole, though, Michaelson seemed a little disappointed. “I could have sold you to any of the studios,” he said “except for Paul. Even the jam wouldn’t cover that pill, with some of them. And when I named my price to Majestic they didn’t even flinch till I said he had to be in the deal. Then they started to hum and ha. They had their own directors, didn’t need another—all that sort of thing… By the way, how much do you think he should get?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Micky, that’s your province.”

“Ten thousand?”

“For the whole job?”

He nodded.

“A hundred for me and ten for him… he’d be pretty mad, but I suppose he’d have to take it. I thought a director would get more, though.”

“Most of them do. But Majestic already have their own directors, that’s what they kept telling me. What would you say to Paul being brought in as a technical adviser—wouldn’t mean such hard work for him— probably not much at all—and he’d get the cash just the same?… I presume what you really want is to help him financially without getting into any tax situation.”

“And he wouldn’t direct the picture?”

“He wouldn’t have to.”

“But he MUST—I want him to—that’s the whole point. It isn’t just a question of money.”

“I see. I told them I thought that might be your attitude… Still, don’t worry. I can make a deal on those lines, but it won’t be such a good one.”

“Micky, don’t you see what I’m after? I want Paul to get established in the kind of work he can do—”