‘Well, send in a boot,’ said Cameron. ‘We don’t want him banging her as well.’
It was five minutes to blast off. The four security men had taken up their positions in the studio. In the control room the production team sat at a desk like a vast dashboard, gazing at two rows of monitor screens. On four of the monitors which came direct from the studio, Cameron could see Johnny Friedlander’s carved, beautiful, degenerate face with its hollow cheek bones and Californian suntan. His fair hair was the red-gold of willows in winter, the irises of the deep-set Oxford-blue eyes were almost as dark as the pupils. Thin almost to the point of emaciation, he lounged easily in his three-thousand-dollar suit, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. But the air of relaxation was false.
‘Why the hell did I agree to do this shit?’ he drawled.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Declan, meaning it.
‘Aw that’s OK. I just don’t feel I’ve got proper lines when they’re my own. Rupert called, by the way. He said: “You can trust this guy, he’s one of us.”’
In his earpiece Declan could hear Daysee saying: ‘The pink strapless is more dressy, but my holiday tan’s nearly gone.’
‘Can we have some level?’ asked the Floor Manager. ‘What did you have for breakfast, Johnny?’
Johnny laughed. ‘You want to get me arrested?’
On Cameron’s left, Daysee was checking different stopwatches. The moment they were on air she would forget pink strapless dresses and become as cool as a computer, timing the programme to the second.
On the right sat the vision-mixer in a red T-shirt, hands at the ready over regiments of square buttons, lit up like spangles, ready to punch up the correct picture when Cameron demanded it.
‘Good luck, everyone,’ said Cameron, crossing her fingers. ‘Stand by Studio, stand by Opening Titles, stand by Music.’
‘One minute to air,’ said Daysee, clenching her stopwatch and glaring at the leaping red number of the clock. ‘Twenty seconds, ten, five, four, three, two, one and in.’
Schubert’s Fifth Symphony started on its jolly jazzed-up course. On the screen a rocket exploded in coloured stars above a night-lit Cotchester, and then cascaded down to form the word Declan. A great cheer went up in the bar. Tony puffed on his cigar.
‘I want another gin and tonic,’ said an already drunk reporter from the Mail on Sunday.
‘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.