The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [26]
″All sorts of reasons—one being that you won′t get them distributed. We have to make happy films, or exciting films. We have to take people away from their troubles for a few hours. Nobody wants to go to the pictures to see a film all about ordinary people having a hard time.″
″Maybe I shouldn′t be an actress.″
″So what else are you going to do? Be a social worker, and find you can′t really help people because you have too many cases to cope with, and anyway all they really need is money. Be a journalist, and find you have to say what the editor thinks, not what you think. Write poetry and be poor. Be a politician and compromise.″
″It′s only because everyone is as cynical as you that nothing is ever done.″
Joe put his hands on Samantha′s shoulders and squeezed affectionately. ″Sammy, you′re an idealist. You′ve stayed an idealist much longer than most of us. I respect you for it—I love you for it.″
″Ah, don′t give me all that Jewish showbiz crap,″ she said, but she smiled at him fondly. ″All right, Joe, I′ll think about this script some more. Now I have to go.″
″I′ll get you a taxi.″
It was one of those cool, spacious Knightsbridge flats. The wallpaper was a muted, anonymous design; the upholstery was brocaded; the occasional furniture antique. Open French windows to the balcony let in the mild night air and the distant roar of traffic. It was elegant and boring.
So was the party. Samantha was there because the hostess was an old friend. They went shopping together, and sometimes visited each other for tea. But those occasional meetings had not revealed how far apart she and Mary had grown, Samantha reflected, since they had been in repertory together.
Mary had married a businessman, and most of the people at the party seemed to be his friends. Some of the men wore dinner jackets, although the only food was canapes. They all made the most appalling kind of small talk. The little group around Samantha was in an overextended discussion about an unremarkable group of prints hanging on the wall.
Samantha smiled, to take the look of boredom off her face, and sipped champagne. It wasn′t even very good wine. She nodded at the man who was speaking. Walking corpses, the lot of them. With one exception. Tom Copper stood out like a city gent in a steel band.
He was a big man, and looked about Samantha′s age, except for the streaks of gray in his dark hair. He wore a checked workman′s shirt and denim jeans with a leather belt. His hands and feet were broad.
He caught her eye across the room, and the heavy mustache stretched across his lips as he smiled. He murmured something to the couple he was with and moved away from them, toward Samantha.
She half-turned away from the group discussing the prints. Tom bent his head to her ear and said: ″I′ve come to rescue you from the art appreciation class.″
″Thanks. I needed it.″ They had turned a little more now, so that although they were still close to the group, they no longer seemed part of it.
Tom said: ″I have the feeling you′re the star guest.″ He offered her a long cigarette.
″Yeah.″ She bent to his lighter. ″So what does that make you?″
″Token working-class representative.″
″There′s nothing working-class about that lighter.″ It was slender, monogrammed, and seemed to be gold.
He broadened his London accent: ″Wide boy, ain′t I?″ Samantha laughed, and he switched to a plum-in-the-mouth accent to say: ″More champagne, madam?″
They walked over to the buffet table, where he filled her glass and offered her a plate of small biscuits, each with a dab of caviar in its center. She shook her head.
″Ah, well.″ He put two in his mouth at once.
″How did you meet Mary?″ Samantha asked curiously.
He grinned again. ″What you mean is, how does she come to be associated with a roughneck like me? We both went to Madame Clair′s Charm School in Romford. It cost my mother blood, sweat and tears to send me there once a week—much good did it do me. I could never be an actor.