Temporary Kings - Anthony Powell [60]
‘Louis – I shall call you Louis, Mr Glober – has come to Europe to look for a story to film. Of course, I hoped he would want one of my own novels – in default of one of yours, Nick – but we’ve been talking together, and he was saying the moment must have arrived for something nostalgic, something Edwardian. Then I had the brilliant idea that St John Clarke was the answer.’
This was rather a different story from Pamela’s statement that Glober was going to film something by Trapnel. What subject Glober should choose struck me at the time as a perfectly endurable topic, during luncheon in these fairly idyllic surroundings, not one to take for a moment seriously. The same applied to Pamela’s earlier words on the matter, in that case easing the way for Gwinnett. Commercial deals like selling stories to film companies are more likely to emerge from tedious negotiation undertaken by agents in prosaic offices. Such was one’s melancholy conclusion. Glober, if not a producer in the top class, had been quite a figure in Hollywood; he was therefore tough. No doubt his mood accorded with this sort of chit-chat. To conclude any true buyer’s interest had been aroused would be to misconstrue the ways of film tycoons. All the same, to be too matter-of-fact about such possibilities could be wide of the mark, as to be too susceptive to pleasing possibilities. With businessmen, you can never tell; least of all when movies are in question. On Ada’s part, this looked like declaration of war on Pamela. She sounded very sure of herself.
‘Perhaps you don’t know, Nick, that we control the St John Clarke rights now. Clapham got the lot before he died. Just for the sake of tidiness – but I forgot, you probably do know, because St John Clarke left the royalties to your Warminster brother-in-law, and of course they came back to Quiggin & Craggs in the Warminster Trust. JG secured our own interest before Craggs died.’
What Ada stated made sense. I had not known about the St John Clarke rights; at least never thought out that aspect. She was undoubtedly going to do her best to sell a St John Clarke novel to Glober.
‘A strange man I used to know in the army was devoted to Match Me Such Marvel. He’d worked in a provincial theatre or cinema, so he might be the right pointer for popular success.’
Bithel’s view, twenty years later, could represent the winning number. Ada was enthusiastic.
‘Match Me Such Marvel is the one I suggested. There’s a homosexual undercurrent. Of course, you Americans are so jumpy about homosexuality. It would be a great pity to leave that sequence out.’
‘Who says we’re going to leave it out?’ said Glober lazily. ‘We Americans are getting round to hearing about all sorts of things of that kind these days. You don’t do us justice. When were you last in the States, Ada?’
They were a well matched couple when it came to that sort of teasing, as cover for business negotiation. Tokenhouse, likely to disapprove of such levity, was ruminating on some matter of his own. Suddenly he joined in.
‘St John Clarke was a vain fellow. I never cared for such novels of his as I read. He behaved in a most unsatisfactory manner dealing with my firm. It was only quite by chance I came across a pamphlet he had written in the latter part of his life dealing with an interest of my own, that is to say Socialist Realism in painting. That pamphlet was not without merit.’
Ada showed herself more than equal to this comment too. Her policy was, I think, to ventilate in a general way the claims of St John Clarke; get his name thoroughly into Glober’s head, without bothering too much whether the impression was good or bad. When