Unity (4 page)

Somehow – don’t ask me how – the films get made. Deals are done, not always in the best of faith. Werner, one of the producers, told me that he had sold 150% of the distribution rights to
The Magic Mountain
. I only hope that
Unity
is more legit. I foresee the reels gathering dust in a vault while lawyers wrangle and I am robbed of the chance to deliver my Oscar-acceptance speech. OK. I confess I do have a few words up my sleeve. But, be honest now, wouldn’t you? Let me paint the scene. As my name is announced, the commentator’s rayon tones – synthetic silk, geddit? – rise above the roar of applause that indicates the near – no, let’s not mince words here, totally – unanimous approval of the hall. Exuding an air of bemused detachment (patented in Stratford), I make my way to the podium, pausing only to shake hands with Marlon and Jack, and fall straight into Sophia’s arms (or
whatever
). Then, before an audience of billions, I pay tribute to my best friend, Michael. Our minds are so in sync that we can’t even remember which one of us thought of telling the Mitford story first. ‘Here’s to you, Michael’, I say as I hold up the statuette. Cue music; an adoring Sophia; more applause.

I digress … I dream … I digress. The Serpent’s Nest – that’s what they call the house, but it’s a bluff on so many levels that it might as well be Chez Nous – is a throwback to an age when art was a collective endeavour. It reminds me of one of those
Renaissance studios, the schools of Raphael and Titian whose paintings fill Felicity’s uncle’s house, or else one of those medieval workshops that her father wants to revive. Not being in love with his daughter, you may have escaped his lecture on the last hope for England’s salvation. From what I can make out, it lies in a return to a pre-industrial society, complete with Lords of the Manor and maypoles, master-craftsmen and guilds. Although I found a lot of it distinctly dubious, and a lot more, incoherent (an occupational hazard when dealing with Papa), the part about restoring the dignity of labour made a good deal of sense.

Dignity is not the first word that springs to mind when you think of Wolfram – especially after watching him throw a tantrum (and I’m talking the full carpet-chewing works) the moment his will is crossed. To an outsider it’s deeply disconcerting, but to his friends it’s almost routine. There’s no doubt that it’s being surrounded by a team he can trust that has enabled him to be so prolific. Why, this month alone he’s doing publicity for
The Judge
, which is about to open in Berlin (Guess who’ll be squeezing into a rented tux for the premiere!), shooting
The Magic Mountain
twelve hours a day and then working on
Unity
every evening with me. After which – wait for it – he storyboards the next day’s scenes. When does he sleep? You may well ask. Remember what I said about pharmaceuticals. It’s not just the set that’s covered in snow. He keeps going on a lorry-load of coke. In case any customs officer opens this letter or Mr Squeers is reading it over your shoulder, I should like to make it clear that I’m talking about the drink that makes the whole world sing and not the drug that makes it sniff.

The Mann should be stunning. The entire action takes place in the Alps (‘No, really?’ I hear you say, ‘and I thought it would be under water.’). Heike, the designer has covered the set in a white tarpaulin, which, close-up, looks as tatty as anything we ever
hung at the ADC,
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but, under the lights, truly glows. The film is a co-production with German television, which surprised me since Wolfram recently described TV (there’s nothing like biting the hand that’s interviewing you) as a medium that ‘tells lies twenty-five times a second’. He gave the questioner the waggy-tail look of one who has brought off a successful allusion, but she failed to respond.
17
I find it strange that he should have embarked on a literary adaptation at all given his professed aversion to reading. He asks (rhetorically) who has the time to read these days and dismisses it as though it were a solitary vice, akin to
masturbation
– and equally damaging to the eyes.

Talking of which, can you confirm the rumour about Charlie Thynne? Fliss said that he’d gone to work for the Tories. Can this be true? Don’t they vet their employees? Did no one ask why someone tone-deaf should be so passionate about English choral music? Find out more.
18

I’ve been given my own (tiny) office. It doesn’t have my name on the door – this is
Bavaria
not MGM – but I’m thinking of
smuggling
in the letters and gluing them on, one by one, until Herr Dent becomes a permanent fixture. Do you have a study? I imagine it as oak-panelled, hung with yellowing Punch cartoons, and dwarfed by an ancient roll-top desk besides which a sprat of a boy stands quaking (see Charlie Thynne above)
19
. Mine is all glass
and chrome with a huge (locked) filing cabinet, which I’m convinced must be crammed with unmade scripts by untried Englishmen, a bright orange carpet, and a life-sized poster of Liza Minnelli in
Cabaret
(did you know that it was shot here?). Although it could never sell itself on its view (it looks out on a row of sound-stages), it boasts the most amazing acoustic. It’s directly above the cutting-rooms and, with the windows open, I can hear the editors at work on post-production. Every day, I’m greeted by a weird cacophony: snatches of music and dialogue, bursts of storms and gunfire and traffic, played at, alternately, Brand’s Hatch and State Funeral speed.

The studios are about twenty minutes away from home by car and forty by tram (it’s not all chauffeurs and champagne). Every time I walk through the gates, I hear the blast of a fanfare in my head.
20
I stroll to my office by way of one of the sound-stages, drinking in the romance of the dismantled, Dresden-like sets. After a morning at my desk, I try to escape into the surrounding woods for lunch (with no Fliss to complain, I can freely indulge my ‘fetish for fresh air’), although it’s become something of a running gag since I fell for Wolfram’s line that it was the Black Forest. Now everyone – right down to the security guards – thinks that they have carte blanche to suggest a different type of black food for my picnic. And, believe me, there’s a depressingly large choice. I’m subjected to constant digs along the lines of Renate’s ‘You can say it till you’re black in the face’ (their black is our blue). My glazed smile is wearing thin. It’s not true that the Germans lack a sense of humour. What’s missing is a sense of proportion. The moment that they find a joke, they bludgeon it to death.

Still, I wouldn’t want you to think that I sit here, planning meals and speculating on cultural differences, every so often
offering a sop to work as I substitute ‘cut’ for ‘curtain’. Wolfram wants hundreds of changes. And the more I research, the more I realise how lucky we were to get away with as much as we did. The angels who fear to tread must have been watching over us … I’ve spent hours in the screening-room looking at newsreels of Hitler. Count yourself lucky that you just had to listen to the tapes. The problem is that, in an age that values subtlety over sweat, I find it hard to take him seriously. It’s like the
Forbes-Robertson
Hamlet.
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I keep reminding myself that performance styles have changed and his original audiences wouldn’t have seen him as such a ham. And did you know that he also made
home-movies
(I mean, would you Adolf and Eva it?)? I don’t know which are the more sickening, his displays in public or in private. Seeing his bashful smiles and exaggerated chivalry towards his women guests, I am more convinced than ever by the feminist equation of courtesy and contempt.

Wolfram wants so many changes that I sometimes wonder why he didn’t simply hire someone new to provide a fresh perspective. As you know better than anyone, I’m not one of those writers who is as wounded by cuts as a haemophiliac. But I still bruise. I’m beginning to suspect that some of those callous things you said about his motives may have been true. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming you. I’m sure I’d have said them myself in similar circumstances. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t, but I expect that I would. When challenged, he claimed to find me indispensable. It was my story – my soul. He then went on to locate said soul squarely in the Home Counties, as he launched into his vision of an opening scene set at a hunt. It was the perfect image of
blood-lust
: a galumphing girl galloping after the fox, surrounded by a pack of snarling hounds.

This immediately posed several questions:

I’m learning to keep my own counsel. He picks up on the most casual remark. Last week, I happened to let slip that Unity’s second name was Valkyrie. At two in the morning, he rang with instructions to write a dream sequence in which the six Mitford sisters dressed as Valkyries (don’t ask), soar through the night sky and hover over the Nuremberg Rally. A few days later, that was, thankfully, forgotten when he became even more excited by my mentioning that Hitler’s favourite film was
Snow White
. Suddenly he began planning an animated sequence in which Snow Unity is rescued by Prince Hitler from the clutches of an as yet
unidentified
Wicked Stepmother, the principal candidates being Neville Chamberlain and Queen Mary.

On which note I’d better end. If Wolfram is right and no one has time to read any more, then I expect you feel intimidated by anything longer than a postcard. Besides, we’re off on a works outing to the
Oktoberfest
– that’s Munich’s annual beer festival. Did you know that half the world’s breweries were based in Germany? Perhaps that could be another project for your
geography
class? Or perhaps not. Do they have ‘moral turpitude’ in prep schools? It’s a mixture of circus acts (human and flea),
fairground attractions, ox-roasting and beer halls. What’s more, it’s been taking place every year since the early nineteenth century. How often do I have the chance to get smashed in the name of culture?

If I die of alcohol poisoning, I bequeath you my second-best bed (the first, naturally, goes to Fliss). If I survive, I promise to write again soon.

Yours, till the beer freezes over,

Luke.

8 München 40,

Giselastrasse 23,

West Germany

22nd Nov 1976

Wertester Herr Studienrat!

Many thanks for yours of the 8th. I loved the story of the Headmaster walking in when you were tied to the desk during your Robin Hood rehearsal. I quoted it to Wolfram, who was willfully obtuse. ‘What is a Sheriff doing in England? Why are the homeless men happy?’ It was doubly welcome after a letter from my mother, who doles out news the way that she doles out food, on the basis of what’s good for you rather than what’s tasty. So I was treated to half a page on the plans for a new road to Battle and two lines on Tim and Sheila’s separation. Of course, she didn’t say a word about my father. It’s as if they’re living on either side of the Berlin Wall. Fliss is convinced that it’s part of some kinky role-play: they pretend to be strangers in order to spice up their sex life. Yuck! I asked her to explain how being strangers could make sex more exciting. But she acted dumb, giving me one of those forehead kisses which always make me feel small, and singing the first line of her Footlights song: ‘Variety’s the spice of life, but my heart belongs to Basil.’

My heart belongs to her so completely that I sometimes wonder if it’s mine at all. Perhaps I was operated on in my sleep by
Christian
Barnard? Last week she paid me another flying visit, during most of which I was tied up (sorry!) at the studio. I can’t
understand
why she won’t stay longer. There’s nothing to keep her in London … at least, nothing she’s told me. But then she’s so secretive about the way she spends her time. I accused her of confusing mystery with mystique. ‘Do I demand an account of every minute of your day?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I said and proceeded to give her one, unbidden. The only thing I can think of
is that she’s scared that, if Wolfram sees too much of her, he’ll see through her and cast someone else. Which is crap. She is Unity! But she’s so insecure. Do you think you might investigate (discreetly)? And swear – on pain of death – not to mention me. I know it’s asking a lot, but she trusts you. She talks to you. I’ll admit that there’ve been times when, seeing the two of you together, I’ve felt decidedly spare. It’s weird. All the women in the novels I read are looking for the one man who will love and
understand
them, and yet all the women I know seem to be happiest with men who are gay. So is it the writers who are getting it wrong, or is it me?

It all boils down – doesn’t everything? – to sex. Fliss likes sex. Well, I don’t need to tell you. I still blush when I think of Naxos. From now on, when I book a hotel, the first thing I shall check is the thickness of the walls. On the other hand, she can be so coy, like that awful phrase she uses, ‘number threes’, as if it were a form of excretion…. I’ve just had a thought: do you think she may have overcome her armpit aversion and joined one of those women’s groups in London: the sort that tar us all with the same brush? She’s become so much less responsive (if this embarrasses you, skip to the end of the paragraph or, possibly, the page). It’s as though making love were a gift for her to bestow on me rather than something for us to share. She said, knowing full well that she was being unjust, that it was the only reason I wanted her to come to Munich. I explained that, without her, I felt like a child away from home. You and I (that’s ‘you’ Michael, not ‘you’ Fliss) can keep up our relationship on paper. We can swap ideas and impressions, although it takes an extra effort – and costs a fortune in stamps! But, with her, I need something more tangible. Of course, she totally misunderstood and said that I wanted her for her body and you for your mind. Thank God, I ditched the analogy of Wolfram and his cocaine.