Джеймс Хилтон - Morning Journey

“Yes. Made in Germany in 1931, wasn’t it? A work of genius. Done anything half as good since?”

Carey thought this was too impertinent, even from one who had had provocation; she was taking Paul’s arm to drag him away when he shook himself free and shouted, turning on Mitchell again: “I’ll answer you. The best thing I ever did in my life was in Paris in 1939—a picture based on the Book of Job—it was unfinished when the Germans invaded and I spent three years in a prison camp because I wouldn’t leave it—in the end it was mauled and butchered and ruined by others—my best work— a SUPREME work—and the goddamned French won’t even let me over there now to salvage the cuts! And when I fought and protested—from over here—what help do you suppose I got from writers? I contacted the big names—put my case to them—appealed to them as fellow-artists —fellow-ARTISTS, forsooth—”

“Paul,” Carey interposed, knowing from experience that ‘forsooth’ was always a danger-word in his vocabulary. “Paul, don’t you think… the scene’s ready… everybody’s waiting… Mr. Mitchell, let Paul tell you about it later…”

Paul never did; he avoided Mitchell from then on, but when later in the day, still brooding over the incident, he had to talk to Randolph he took occasion to ask abruptly: “By the way, that fellow Mitchell… who the devil IS he? Is he ANYBODY? SOMEBODY?”

“Mitchell? You mean the writer? Why, no, he’s—he’s just a writer. Reminds me, his option comes up next week. Think we ought to let him go?”

Paul was about to take a clinching revenge when his mind somersaulted to the nobler battlefield just in time. He answered insolently: “Sure, it might be the making of him. He’s one of the few intelligent people I’ve met out here.”

“I think we’ll keep him,” Randolph replied coldly.

But there was another incident that really caused most trouble of all. It concerned an extra scene that Paul flatly refused to have, even though it was he who had first suggested it. The sequence called for a German agent in New York to convey news of wartime ship sailings to offshore submarines (just another item in the bag of tricks that had made Paul dislike the whole story when he had read the original script); and Paul had been seized with his own special idea late in the afternoon of the day before the scheduled shooting. As the scene was written, a sinister-looking person worked a radio transmitting set on what appeared to be a waterfront roof-top; but Paul’s inspiration was that the German agent should send signals by having secret operatives among the janitors of a skyscraper, so that the apparently random arrangement of lighted windows after office hours could spell out messages in code. The notion intoxicated Paul as he improvised it quite sensationally on the set—“high columns of illuminated print in celestial newspapers” was his description of the New York skyline at dusk; and as usual he managed to communicate a rare excitement to others, so that Greg was soon in Randolph’s office pleading for the somewhat radical and expensive last-minute change. But Randolph, on this occasion, needed no persuading. For the first time he displayed full approval of something that had emanated from Paul’s brain, and by morning his approval had soared to enthusiasm. Unfortunately by that time also Paul had begun to discover flaws in his own idea. Surely enemy submarines could not approach near enough to see the high buildings, and wouldn’t it be fantastically difficult to plant a special set of janitor spies in one of them? These and other objections Randolph stoutly discounted, and the argument that ensued was an ironic reversal of the usual.

“But it was your own idea,” Randolph was driven to exclaim, in utmost bafflement.

“That gives me a special right to throw it out,” Paul retorted. The wrangle wasted an entire morning (and therefore several thousand of Majestic’s dollars), and in the end the producer’s only comfort was that he could probably use the skyscraper idea in some other picture. Which he did, in due course, and it is fair to add that nobody found much amiss with it.

Since the scenes had not been shot in consecutive order, it seemed that the whole job ended suddenly, almost unexpectedly. One day the scene being done was the last, and there followed a party on the stage during which Paul could think of nothing but the impending battle about cutting. This lasted for a week, and after the dust had settled it looked as if he had got rather more than half of everything he wanted. But from his attitude one would have thought him abjectly defeated. He sulked and gloomed and then acquired one of those migraine headaches. There was no doubt of its reality. In the small office which had been assigned him Carey found him slumped in a swivel chair, grey-pale with bloodshot eyes and icy hands. She called a doctor over his vivid protests; whereupon he diagnosed his own case as if he were dictating a new scene. The doctor, somewhat intimidated, agreed that probably it WAS a migraine headache. He added, however, that a check-up might be a good thing, since Paul looked as if he had high blood pressure too. Paul agreed to call at the doctor’s office the next day, and then, as soon as he had gone, assured Carey he had no intention of doing any such thing. “I’m all right,” he said, “if only those bastards would let me do my job without interfering.”

Carey then broke down. She saw this man, grey and worn and looking older than she had ever known him; she saw in him something worth everything and worth nothing, something singularly great and appallingly little and, in the deepest sense of all, pathetically helpless. She cried: “Oh, Paul, Paul, what can I do with you? Can’t you help yourself? Darling, is there no chance for you at all?”

“A couple of old crocks,” he muttered whimsically, touching her hand. “Isn’t that what you said we were? But we aren’t. You’re young, and I… well, I’ve still got that picture about children to do. You know my idea for it? The camera itself will be a child. And as the picture develops and the child grows up…”

But somebody came in just then with a message from Randolph, and afterwards, when she tried to get him back to the subject, he would only shake his head mysteriously. “Ah, I said enough. Wait till I do the thing. I will—one day.”

But the mere reminder of it seemed to have cured his headache; and a little later, apparently rejuvenated, he was ready for a final battle with Randolph.

This was about billing. He wanted Carey’s name to be given prominence equal to Greg’s, an absurd demand—first, because matters of that kind were none of his business, and second, because the Wilson name at the box-office meant so much more than hers. To her surprise Greg backed him on the issue, and she ascribed this at first to a charming though mistaken chivalry; but later she wondered if it were merely an extreme example of Paul’s influence over Greg. Randolph, who clearly considered her the only one with any sense, detained her afterwards for a few compliments. “You’ve been very co-operative, Carey. I do want to thank you and to say I hope we’ll be working together again.” He could not commit the studio, of course; it all depended on how Morning Journey turned out; but there was no harm in paving the way.

She was non-committal also in her reply.

He went on: “As for Greg, I don’t think I fully understand him these days. He used to FIGHT for top billing. What’s the matter with him… is he in love with that guy?”

Carey smiled. “Paul’s apt to do that to people.”

“To MEN?”

“Sometimes. You’re all for him or else you’re all against him.”