“Don’t say anything,” Young interrupted quickly. “Think about it. My commitment to The Confessions is absolute, rock solid. But this is an opportunity we have to take.”
“But what about The Confessions?” I asked. “Karl-Heinz is coming over.”
“Superb, wonderful. There must be a role for him in Alfred. We’ll do The Confessions after.” He went to the window and spoke to the plane trees in the square. “Think, John, think. After Alfred … The whole world’s talking about that book. Think what we’ll be able to do with The Confessions.” He turned, his pale face was almost flushed. “And you’re the only man who can do it. You’re the only English — sorry, British — director who’s worked on this kind of huge scale. I saw what you did with The Confessions. You’ll have a million quid for Alfred.…”
He went on sousing me in statistics, predictions and the grossest flattery. I went home and thought about it for hours. I telephoned Leo and said I needed his advice. We met that evening in a quiet restaurant in Bloomsbury.
“There’s only one thing to do,” Leo said.
“What?”
“You have to stick with The Confessions.” He spoke with tense sincerity.
“I know.”
“Young’s trying to sidetrack you. He’s got this hot property. If he can persuade you to postpone The Confessions once, he’ll try again. You’ll lose his commitment once he sees yours can be diverted.”
“You’re right.” He was. “I know.” I smiled at him. “I think I just needed to hear it from someone else. Thanks, Leo.”
“Christ, we’ve waited long enough,” he said. “Let’s keep forging on, for God’s sake. What about another bottle of rosé?”
This was how events went. I telephoned Young the next morning. I said I was deeply honored to have been asked, but I had devoted years of my life to The Confessions and that to set it aside now just as it was reaching fruition would be, in my opinion, disastrous. Alas, I had to say no to Great Alfred. It had been one of the hardest decisions of my life.
“Thank you, John,” he said. “I’m sad, I wish you’d change your mind, but I think I can understand your position.”
We said good-bye. I said I was looking forward to seeing him and Meredith that weekend.
The next day in the Manchester Guardian I read that Land Fothergill’s Great Alfred was to be filmed by Courtney Young’s Court Films. The director was to be “the internationally celebrated film director Mr. Leo Druce.”
That afternoon I received a telegram. REGRET CONFESSIONS NO LONGER OF INTEREST TO COURT FILMS. They wished me luck.
That evening Leo Druce stood in the middle of my living room trying to lie his way out of a tight corner. He was agitated; he kept running his hands through his thick hair.
“You must believe me, John. I didn’t know. I swear. I had no idea when we spoke. I never dreamed he would ask me.”
“You fucking liar.” I had said this about twenty times so far.
“He rang me out of the blue. We met. He said The Confessions was off. Finished. Did I want to direct Great Alfred? You’d turned it down flat, he said.”
“You should have told him where to stuff Great Alfred.”
“What good would that do? Look, I’m broke. I’ve got no job. This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
“You stinking filthy scum.”
“I swear—” His voice cracked. “I never knew. The Confessions is over, Johnny. Put yourself in my place.”
“No, thanks.”
“Go back to him. Say you’ve changed your mind. I don’t care. You do it.”
“You’re vermin, Druce. I wouldn’t piss on Young’s grave, now. He’s filth. You’re a perfect match. I hope you’ll be very happy.”
“John, I beg you.”
I felt my face harden, as if it were being slowly frozen.
“I made you, Druce. I’ve given you every break. When I think—”
“John, please—”
“When I think what I’ve done for you. How many times I’ve helped you. This is what you do to me.”
“I’ll tell him I don’t want it. Say you’ve changed your mind.”
“You disgust me. Get out.”
“John—”
“GET OUT!”
I actually screamed. The dam broke. I called him every vile name I could think of. He stood there and took it for a minute or so, then left. After he had gone I sat down and plotted murder. I was going to kill Young and his wife and their children. I was going to torture Druce in unspeakable ways until he died. Then I was going to seek out their families and relatives and spring on them from the darkness. I was going to conduct my own private pogrom, cleanse the world of this worthless contemptible human bacteria.…
Well, this is the sort of thing you do — these are the words you say to yourself in such moments. It was the lowest point my life had reached. The darkest depths. The nadir. Only thoughts of vicious revenge kept me going. Eventually I began to calm down. The first thing I realized was that I had to get away. I had to leave London. So where did I go? I went back to Scotland.
I rented a small freezing cottage on old Sir Hector Dale’s estate at Drumlarish. Somehow the old chap was still just in the land of the living. He was bedridden and quite gaga 90 percent of the time. A grandson, my cousin Mungo Dale, ran the increasingly decrepit estate. Mungo was a big, fair, utterly stupid man in his early forties whose company I found oddly consoling. I never saw him wear anything but a kilt. From time to time he would come by the cottage and ask me if I wanted to participate in the life of the farm — repairing dry-stone dikes, feeding sheep and cattle, and so on — but I always politely declined. I have never sought solace in physical labor. My energies are purely mental.
Mungo was far too shy ever to marry, and in fact was quite happy looking after the estate and his ancient grandfather. None of the other Dales enjoyed living at Drumlarish and were all firmly established in Glasgow and Edinburgh in various easy jobs. Mungo would inherit the house and land when old Sir Hector finally passed away. Mungo lived with him in the big house (colder than my cottage) and said with some pride that he had slept in the same bedroom for over forty years. An old couple saw to their food and tried to keep dust and all types of encroaching decay in hand. Somehow, with the occasional help of the sale of a few shares, a good picture or a piece of furniture, the leasing of pasture and moorland, the place just managed to keep going.
I went into a kind of mental hibernation during the winter of 1936–37. I grew a beard. I did some token work on my script and tried to keep warm. My social life consisted of visits to Mungo and Sir Hector and the occasional trip to Glenfinnan to stock up on provisions and draw money from the bank. My finances were about as healthy as Sir Hector. I spent Christmas at my father’s with Thompson and Heather but returned to Drumlarish before New Year’s Eve. I avoided buying newspapers and listening to the radio. My only source of news was Mungo.
“There’s a war going on in Spain,” he said to me in January, as we drove into Glenfinnan to buy paraffin.
“Oh yes? What’s happening?”