Rivals (20 page)

‘Shut up,’ said Johnny’s four lawyers in unison, who were listening to the opening package like hawks, in the hope of finding something defamatory.

As Daysee cued Declan in, as a concession to Cameron, he swung round to talk directly to camera. For a moment his throat went dry. He’s forgotten his first question, thought Cameron in anguish. Then he said: ‘I welcome my first guest in this new series with the greatest humility. He is simply the best actor to come out of America in the last fifteen years. But this is the first interview you’ve ever given.’ He turned to Johnny, ‘Why?’

‘I hate publicity,’ drawled Johnny. ‘If all journalists were exterminated life would be just fine.’

Up in the board room a howl of protest went up from the press, who stopped filling up their drinks and started listening.

‘The press detest success,’ went on Johnny, ‘and they screw up your sex life. However much you try not to get fed up, it pisses you off when you read lies that your latest girlfriend’s been two-timing you with some Greek masseur. Every day, my exes are offered millions to tell all.’

‘How d’you cope?’ said Declan.

‘I don’t read press cuttings any more. I just weigh them; if they’re light I start worrying.’

‘By deliberately avoiding publicity, aren’t you actually courting it?’

‘Don’t give me that crap,’ said Johnny lightly.

And they were off, sparring, laughing, fooling about almost like two old friends discussing someone they knew and liked, but frequently disapproved of. Johnny was being absolutely outrageous now about his exploits with his leading ladies, but he drawled out his answers so honestly and engagingly that the press quickly forgave him for his earlier sniping. The lawyers were clutching their heads, but they were laughing and even the ex-Prebendary was looking moderately benign.

It’s going to be all right, thought Cameron. ‘Ten minutes to the commercial break, Declan,’ she said into his earpiece. Following a tip-off from Rupert, Declan then said, ‘And you’re about to face your greatest acting challenge . . .’

Johnny raised an eyebrow.

’. . . playing Hamlet at Stratford next year,’ said Declan.

Johnny looked startled. Upstairs the board room was in an uproar.

‘No one knows that,’ screamed the lawyers. ‘The god-dammed contracts haven’t been fucking exchanged yet.’

‘I figured I ought to have a crack at it,’ said Johnny. ‘Women don’t get taken seriously as actresses these days until they allow themselves to look ugly and sweaty and get raped on screen. Guys still have to play Hamlet. And I like the guy. I mean he had a stepfather problem. I don’t figure Claudius bumped off Hamlet’s father at all. That was Hamlet’s fantasy; he hated his stepfather. I hated mine.’

‘Why?’

‘He married my mother. I was jealous. He was a bass-tard.’

‘Why?’

Tony drew on his cigar; the lawyers fingered their calculators; even the press were still.

Declan paused, waiting unbearably long. On his pale-blue island in a sea of dark blue, Johnny suddenly seemed terribly vulnerable.

‘He groped my baby sister the whole time,’ he said. ‘So I quit. My stepfather called to say my mother was dying of cancer. I didn’t believe him, so I didn’t go home.’ Johnny put his head in his hands. ‘But she did die the next day. She topped herself. I ain’t never told no one that.’

‘Why did she commit suicide?’ asked Declan quietly.

Johnny looked up, his eyes cavernous. ‘She was jealous because my stepfather preferred my sister. Christ, what a mess.’

‘Out of order,’ screamed the lawyers apoplectically. The Prebendary was looking equally outraged.

‘Are you worried, being American, you won’t be taken seriously as Hamlet?’ asked Declan.

Relieved at a change of subject, Johnny fast recovered his poise. ‘He was a Dane, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t speak like Leslie Howard.’

In the bar James and the lady novelist exchanged caring smiles.

‘It’s the acting that matters,’ went on Johnny. ‘I could play him like JR.’

He launched into ‘To be or not to be’ in broad Texan; it was so funny, the cameramen could hardly keep their cameras still. Halfway through Johnny slid into Prince Charles’s accent, which was even funnier; then for the last ten lines, he played it straight and was so good that Declan felt his hair standing on end. At the end, Johnny said, ‘That’ll be five hundred pounds, please,’ in a camp Cockney accent.

‘You’ll be taken seriously,’ said Declan.

‘I can switch moods, that’s why I’m a good movie actor,’ said Johnny. ‘But to be on stage four hours, that’s something else. But then I’ve always lived dangerously. . . .’

Declan took a deep breath. ‘Is that why you went back to America to face trial?’

‘That is definitely out of order,’ screamed the lawyers, positively orgasmic now at the prospect of lucrative litigation. ‘We agreed he wouldn’t talk about that.’

‘I went back because I missed the States,’ said Johnny. He still appeared relaxed, but his knuckles were white points as he gripped the arms of his chair.

‘Have you always fancied very young girls?’

‘Sure, if they’re pretty. Most men do. This one was very pretty.’

‘Did you know she was only fourteen?’

The Prebendary was about to have a seizure.

‘I think you ought to have a word with the control room,’ he spluttered to Tony.

‘Sure, I guess it was wrong, but she was so sweet, I really cared for her. I know I screwed her, but I don’t figure I screwed her up. She’s very happily married with a baby now.’

‘How d’you get on in prison?’

Johnny’s eyes were cavernous again. ‘It’s not a very nice place to be. But if you’re a famous movie star you’re trapped anyway; going to gaol is just exchanging one kind of captivity for another. And I learnt a lot. I could burglarize your place tonight, while you were in it. And I’m shit-hot at insider trading.’

Declan stretched out his legs.

‘Extraordinary coloured socks,’ said the girl from the
Mail on Sunday
, pouring herself another gin.

‘Did they give you a hard time inside?’ Declan asked Johnny.

‘Not really. One guy who couldn’t count – he thought the girl was four not fourteen – worked me over a bit, but I made some good friends.’

‘Have you never fancied older women?’

Johnny thought for a minute, then he smiled wickedly.

‘No, they have droopy asses. Droopy asses are so cold in bed.’

The telephone rang in the control room.

‘For Christ’s sake, get him off sex,’ yelled Tony. ‘The lawyers are going to take us to the cleaners, and Fergus Penney’s having a coronary. We’ll lose the franchise if you don’t shut him up.’

‘It’s a fucking good programme,’ said Cameron, and hung up.

Then she took the telephone off the hook.

‘Five seconds to the cue dot,’ intoned Daysee. ‘Five, four, three, two, one.’ She flicked the cue switch to warn people all over the network to get ready in sixty seconds to roll in the commercials, which were, after all, the life-blood of the station.

As the End-of-Part-One caption came up, Johnny shot out of the studio, saying he must have a leak.

‘You stay here,’ Cameron screamed at Daysee. ‘Well done, Declan.’

Johnny may not have been able to have Daysee in the break, but he had certainly taken something. In the second half he was even more outrageous, but utterly relaxed. Declan, in his wizard’s chair, had only to prompt him here, jog his memory there, and curb his amazing honesty when he looked like going over the top.

The floor manager thrust the back of his hand with splayed-out fingers towards Declan to indicate five minutes more.

‘I was on location in Texas,’ Johnny was saying as he waved his cigarette around. ‘Staying in my hotel was this glorious German girl. She gave me her room number, told me to come up in half an hour. I must have been looped. When I hotfooted upstairs later and banged on her door, someone let me in, but the room was in darkness.’

‘Oh Christ,’ thought Cameron. ‘What’s he going to say?’

‘Well, I undressed and got into bed, and I reached out, and I felt a boob, like a wrinkled fig. I figured this was odd. Then moving down I found I could play Grieg’s Piano Concerto on her ribs, so I groped for the light, and there were her teeth grinning at me from a glass beside the bed. I don’t know which of us screamed the louder. I mean, she must have been ninety, if she was a day. I mean, under-age girls are one thing, gerontophilia’s quite another.’ Johnny smiled helplessly.

‘Disgusting,’ spluttered the Prebendary and Valerie Jones in unison.

‘Anyway I shot down the bed as the security men broke in, and the old sweetie didn’t give me away. I sent her a whole roomful of flowers the next morning, and,’ Johnny paused wickedly – Oh Christ, thought Tony, as the Prebendary turned even more purple – ‘she still sends me Christmas cards.’

The floor manager was waving a couple of fingers at Declan for two minutes more.

‘Now you’re going to play Hamlet, have you got any ambitions left?’

‘I guess I’d like to make a happy marriage,’ said Johnny seriously. ‘I went to see my grandma the other day, she’s been married sixty years. Now that is achievement – like building a cathedral brick by brick, a real life’s work. I guess I won’t achieve it, but that’s what I’d like.’

‘Aaaaah,’ said Daysee Butler, so moved that she flicked the cue switch too early.

Now Declan was smiling and thanking Johnny for coming on the programme.

On came Schubert, jauntier than ever, up rolled the credits, but alas because of Daysee’s early cue, just as Cameron Cook’s name was about to come up at the end, the screen went royal blue and the Corinium television logo appeared, with the little red ram seeming to hold his horned head even higher than usual. A second later they were into the commercials.

Another great roar went up in the bar and the board room. Even the crew broke into rare spontaneous applause and crowded round Declan and Johnny. Upstairs, the press raced for the telephones.

‘I must talk to Declan about those yellow socks. I’m definitely going to do a fashion piece,’ said the girl from the
Mail on Sunday
, pouring herself another gin.

‘Great,’ said Freddie Jones, ‘really great. Congratulations.’

The lawyers came up and pumped Tony’s hand. ‘We were shitting bricks at the end, but Johnny came across great, a really nice guy, an attractive guy.’

Valerie Jones was nose to nose with the Prebendary.

‘Disgraceful,’ she was saying. ‘My daughter Sharon is only fourteen and when one thinks . . .’

‘Screw the Prebendary,’ said Tony five minutes later, as he came off the telephone in his office. ‘Lady Gosling thought it was terrific.’

‘It was,’ said Miss Madden. ‘Declan wants a word.’

‘That was a terrific programme. Well done,’ said Tony, picking up another telephone.

‘Thanks,’ said Declan. ‘D’you mind if we don’t come up? Johnny doesn’t want to see anyone. He’s reached a stage when he might go right over the top. I’m taking him home for a quiet dinner.’

Through the door Tony could see the press and even the lawyers getting drunk. The Prebendary was still nose to nose with Valerie. Corinium had walked a tightrope that evening and got away with it.

‘Understood,’ said Tony. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow, but congratulations anyway.’

As Cameron went into the board room, everyone cheered. Tony even forgot himself sufficiently to march over and hug her. His eyes were blazing with triumph.

‘Lady Gosling rang to say how much she liked it. She sent special congratulations to you.’

But Cameron felt utterly drained and despairing. Not just because of her lost credit, but because she had produced and directed a programme in which she’d had no part. It had lived and fortunately not died with Declan.

RIVALS

Declan’s first programmes for Corinium were a colossal success. The press agreed that Johnny Friedlander was the best interview he’d ever done, that the ones with Jackie Kennedy and the Princess were even better, and the ones with Mick Jagger and Harold Pinter even better than that. The programmes sold everywhere abroad, and there was even talk at the Network meetings of moving the series to seven-thirty on Thursday in an attempt to knock out ‘EastEnders’. Declan sweat shirts, mugs and posters were selling faster than bikinis in June and Schubert must have looked down from heaven and been surprised but delighted to see his Fifth Symphony galloping up the charts.

Once the first programme was over Declan was much less aggressive and uptight and even drank in the bar with the crew, but he was no less intransigent about wanting his own way. Cameron smouldered and bided her time. Tony was besotted with Declan at the moment, but, knowing the nature of the two men, Cameron realized it wouldn’t last.

Meanwhile, although the flood of resignations at Corinium had been arrested by Declan’s arrival, Simon Harris was getting nearer his nervous breakdown and the staff were muttering even more mutinously into their glasses of Sancerre at the Bar Sinister that Cameron was about to be put on the Board.

But, to stop Cameron getting smug, Tony, ever the bubble-pricker, finally invited the ravishing Sarah Stratton to lunch and arranged for James Vereker to interview her in the ‘Behind Every Famous Man’ series early in November. Cameron was livid and vented her rage on the rest of the staff.

The same week Sarah was due to be interviewed, Tony summoned Declan to his office.

‘How’s your cold?’ Declan asked Miss Madden as he walked through the outer office.

‘Much better,’ said Miss Madden, flushing. ‘How amazing of you to remember. Better hurry. Cameron’s in there already.’

Cameron was lounging menacingly by the window, wearing a black polo neck, black leather trousers and spiky high heels. Declan wondered if she walked all over Tony in bed in them. The room was full of cigar smoke. Tony was drinking a brandy, but didn’t offer Declan one.