A Short Walk from Harrods (32 page)

To be fair, after a disgraceful effort on my part to break down the sisters' front door with my feet and fists (I was hysterical, you might gather, after a twelve-hour session of ‘Breeee – brrrop – brungg!' and lost my head completely), they kindly consented to stick foam-rubber under the keys and peace, more or less, returned. I was rebuked by another resident of the block for complaining. ‘After all,' she said at a tenants' meeting, ‘you are
new
here. No one else
ever
complained.' I did not point out that I lived
above,
and that the sound of two grand pianos in full spate raged up the chimney. I just accepted my reprimand but never attended another tenants' meeting. Best avoided at all costs. Very like a WI
meeting in Blakes Cross or Lacey Magna without lottery tickets, jars of pickled beetroot, coffee and biscuits, or appeals for Bulgarian babies.

Otherwise, amazingly, one almost never sees anyone at all. I never know quite how Fate, or whatever it is, arranges the timing. But whoever it was, or is, I am grateful.

Elizabeth, Frank and George moved me from the Doll's House one hot September morning. The van which brought my worldly goods was so modest that it almost took up no more room than a large Honda motorbike in the street below. A far cry from the twelve pallets at the XYZ depot. I kept only the things I needed: bed, chairs, particular pictures, chest of drawers and so on. All the rest was handed over to Maude's impeccable friend, who valued it, carted it about, stored it, and, finally, sent it off to auction. What Alain and Christine did not buy, what I did not keep, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Fulham, and assorted dealers bid for. I later saw a painting which cost me five pounds in a junk shop in Cookham, and which had always hung in every house I'd owned (it was too large for the staircase at the Doll's House), going for £85,000 in a shop in Walton Street. I got £2,000. My bad luck. But it would never have fitted into my new scheme of things.

Life was altogether simpler, I saved only the bits and pieces with which I'd always lived, some from my early days in a rented house in Chester Row and the carved stone figure of Bacchus who had always guarded the front door of Le Pigeonnier and who now stands sentinel on the balcony, staring blindly into the trees. He proves a comforting link with what was. Once speckled by the shade from the vine, he burns in the thin London sun or dribbles sorrowfully in the grey rain, but is staunchly my friend and familiar.

At first it was all a bit bewildering and difficult. I had given myself two years to continue, so it seemed wise to stop sitting on the balcony in the late sunshine (it was a wonderful summer that year) drinking whisky and watching the kestrel in the big plane tree and the silence of evening descend on my part of London. I had no incentive. Without that I knew that I would perish, to use the word the night nurse had used to me in the Hospital, rapidly. I'd just swig away at the whisky in the evenings – I was getting through a third of a bottle a night – and bash at the Heineken in the day. Otherwise, apart from a slightly hung-over drift to the grocer to get something cold (that is to say something that did not require cooking) to eat, or a visit to the chemist, or (very daring this) to look at the books in John Sandoe's bookshop, I did nothing whatsoever. All day. I couldn't possibly continue like this, even though I rather enjoyed it, because at the rate I was going I'd not last a year, let alone the two I had so generously allotted myself.

So, I bought some pots and tubs, some sacks of compost, and began to make a modest garden on the roof. Then I bought a paperback cookery book and learned, painfully, how to make corned-beef hash. I was so impressed by my work that I cooked and ate it every day for a week. Then, wearying slightly, I tried a packet of spaghetti and a bottle of vicious acidic red sauce. Pretty awful, but far better than squashed sandwiches soggy with mayonnaise and old avocado dip, and better by far than boil-in-the-bags. I knew the taste of them
all.
And the unrelenting flavour of monosodium glutamate had practically taken the roof off my mouth and blunted any tastebuds I might once have had. But I
had
spent time cooking. The most important thing was that I was
‘creating' something. Learning again. Even if it was something as humdrum as just cooking, it was a start. A reawakening from the immensity of loss.

Pots full of compost and some instant-gardening plants like asters and geraniums on the balcony, a cookery book and saucepans in the kitchen and, very gradually, a return to the typewriter to fulfil my duty for Mr Shakespeare – it was a cautious return to life. The press had seen to it that old friends knew that I had come back to the UK. I was, at first, in demand as a spare pair of trousers at many a dinner party, but that pretty soon wore off. I had been away and out of touch for far too long and simply couldn't hold my own at anyone's supper, or luncheon, table. I was as entertaining and fascinating as a pair of wet gloves.

Incentive gradually returned with Molly's extraordinary idea about an evening event to celebrate Saki. With the help of Amanda Saunders of the National, and three splendid volunteers to help me, Tim Piggot-Smith, Barbara Leigh Hunt and Zoé Wannamaker, I once again found myself in rehearsal for a stage performance and, after thirty years, standing stage-right before a full house at the Olivier. Hideous fear dried my mouth to pumice dust, made tremble my ‘wonky' leg, misted my glasses, and sent my voice ranging between basso profundo and high treble. But I did it. We were a success, and we all trolled off together to other dates.

Suddenly I was modestly back in the stream again, confidence so badly dented and dulled began to gleam. I almost enjoyed myself, even managed to stand up straight and stop the apologetic stoop which I had adopted since I returned to the UK – a useless form of concealment which never worked
anyway. There were offers to take the show on tour: to America, to Australia, around Britain. But I was not absolutely certain that trailing about doing exactly the same thing every night was really what I wanted to do with my life. But at least I was considering a future. It was a great deal better than sitting in stately solitude waiting for death, more or less. And the feeling of restlessness now engendered was rather exciting.

I decided to extend my expectations of life a little bit longer; there were obviously things to do, and things which I
could
do. All that was necessary was to branch out and try something absolutely on my own. Just to see if I could?

The chance came when Bea Gilbert, a friend of years, suddenly, literally out of the blue, telephoned to ask me for the private telephone number of Mr XYZ, an extremely famous actor. I refused: private is private. She found my pompous refusal irritating. Why, I asked, did she want this hallowed number? Well, Bertrand Tavernier, the French director, was about to make a new film and wanted to get hold of Mr XYZ. It was, she said, just in passing, a script which I had been offered years ago and turned down.
What
script? And when she told me I remembered instantly. I wasn't mad about it and it had arrived on one of the wretched days at Le Pigeonnier when Patrick was looking worried and anxious. The script was about a dying man so I had rejected it out of hand. Now I rather cunningly suggested that if it was
true
that Tavernier was going to direct it (he had not been associated with it before), and if he would consider me, I'd like to do it now. Bea said crossly that she was ‘not a bloody agent, you know' and three days later Tavernier, whom I so greatly admired, was sitting with a cup
of coffee before me in my own sitting-room. He said he was ‘absolutely delighted' that I would work for him. Shooting would commence in September.

This was the test. The biggest I had had to face on my own for years. Could I make it? All alone? Would I have lost my touch? Did I remember my French? It was all to be made in the South, only three characters, a not-quite-right script. But it offered me the chance to stand on my own two feet, to work with a brilliant director, and to try, finally, to eradicate the acute distress of the last two films I had made, I thought, for ever. I really didn't
want
to end a fair career with a dud routine war epic and a hacked-about movie called
Despair.
Give it one more try? Just one? I had gingerly inched back to the theatre with the Saki evening, now I must lay old ghosts, try again, see if I could cope.

I bought, for the first time since I burned everything by the pond on the hill, a diary at W.H. Smith's to record this singular event day by day.

Tuesday, 12th September

Airborne for Paris and the Hotel Lancaster, where we shall have the script conferences, wardrobe fittings, make-up. The first will be enormous, the second easy (I have all my old gear in the baggage compartment), the final nil. I never wear make-up, and as a ‘dying old man' won't need to. I'm ready as I am for the camera. Up here, crossing the Channel, I realize, with a start, that this is my first movie for over twelve years. I hadn't realized it was so long. Supposing I can't do it now? I may not just be dusty. Merely out of touch, out of date. Have I lost the trick? I'm playing a retired English (useful for my forgotten French) commercial traveller for Yardley's who has just had a double by-pass. All jolly fun. Most of
it will be in French. The fun ends there. Tavernier awaits me for luncheon at the hotel. Maybe I've bitten off a bit more than I can, actually, chew. Over Dieppe now. Too late to turn back.

Evening, 12th
Hotel Lancaster

Why did I think that he would look like Truffaut? Neat, agile, dark, intense. Until he arrived at the flat I had this vivid, inaccurate picture of him in my mind. At lunch today he was suddenly very tall, white-haired, eyes laughing behind thick glasses, perfect English and an hysterical laugh. He loves his food and wine. Very much his own master and knows it, expects one to know it too. I do, anyway. We have an instant bonding. My heart soars, fear almost lifts but the not-very-good script remains. A worry. Dinner tonight at Le Val d'Isére.

‘
A little late to say you don't like it! Why?' Pouring his Sauvignon liberally.

‘
Well, Bertrand. It's a bit, sort of, well … yucky. Sweet. Whimsy. You know?'

‘
Not at all. My ex-wife wrote it. She is
very
clever. Irish. I
adore it.'

I mentally ducked, and suggested that we'd all get it right during the playing. Somehow. We went on eating our
fruits de mer.
Jane Birkin was my ‘daughter' and Odette Laure, from the theatre, my ‘wife'. They were both adorable. Thank God.

Night, 19th
Hotel Lancaster

Just we three in a small villa in Cinemascope. Rather amazing. They usually use that for battle scenes and disaster movies.
Tavernier grins at my surprise, waves hands exuberantly.
That
is why! He chooses Cinemascope because it will be such a challenge composing three people in such a wide area. ‘Composing for the big screen will mean you will have to be very patient,' he says. I promise faithfully. This is obviously not going to be small-screen stuff, all of us jammed together in a row. Certainly not television. Tomorrow we leave for Bandol in the South.

The Lancaster held no ghosts for me. It was odd. Everything was just as it had always been: the red-lacquer lift, the blue carpets, marble floors, flowers, and the familiar and attentive staff. All as before. I even had my usual wing-armchair in the bar. The monkeys were still stealing fruit on the murals. That morning, on the way to pay my bill, two laughing women came out of the old suite. I passed them in the corridor, a haze of Shalimar, very chic, a good deal of gold. Clattering the brass key. Were the curtains still rife with parakeets and twirling ribbons? Anyway, no ghosts, no shades anywhere. It was exactly as if a slate had been wiped clean, leaving not a wrack of memory behind. I was setting off again. Amazed how I had managed to get myself to Paris all on my own, with baggage, tickets, travellers' cheques, passport. Never done that before. Well, not for over thirty years. Never had a cheque book, credit cards, carried money. You have to relearn everything. But I was most surprised by the lack of hurt. The Lancaster was simply an hotel. I had only ever been a client. It was all finished.

Thursday, 28th
Toulon. Rest Room

Flat on my back. No pillow, of course. Intensive-care ward in huge, new heart hospital. Glittering, vast, efficient, gigantic, terrifying.
Makes most London hospitals look like garden sheds, and this is in ‘the sticks'. Drip-feed, tubes of blood, a catheter (thank God! unattached), oxygen cylinder, mass of plastic writhing about me make me feel like Gulliver. Helpless. Fear catches my bladder, nags away.
Do
I,
don't
I? If I do want to pee the nurses (real, crisp, efficient) will take half an hour to unlace me and release me from this transparent spaghetti jungle. I lie still, dousing panic, trying to remember my first line in French in the script. ‘I'm going to die, aren't I?' Just how I feel.

Sunday, 1st
Bandol. Hotel Pullman

In my room here. A concrete slab of a place. Cardiff and the Holiday Inn again but with a glorious view across the sea.
Fin de saison,
so it's empty except for me, three waiters and a vaguely hostile woman in reception who won't smile. Rest of crew in humbler accommodation or have rented flats or little villas. Sensible. Lonely as hell up here. Now I
do
know what loneliness means. Now it hurts. Only a 40 watt bulb in the bedside lamp. Wrestle with the ‘cuteness' of the script, trying to eliminate the ‘Daddykins' and ‘Pussykins'. French to English is hard. We do not speak the same language. No French word for ‘naughty', no English word for
‘merde'.
Bertrand has closed the set up the hill, thank God, so no press or idiot interviews while you try to work and create a new world … I am beginning to enjoy myself, except on Sundays like today. No work. The crew off to the sea or beach, Jane with her children somewhere and I can't get the BBC World Service on my little tin transistor. Still, I'm beginning to like this …