picking on me like
this. And you don’t explain tonight because I have a prior engagement.” The
truth is, Alec, he’s madly in love with Rose and he’s so frustrated he screams.
Well, yes he started to yell but Rose just left the set. If he doesn’t calm
down to-day she’ll quit the movie. Do you blame her?’
‘I don’t
blame,’ said Alec. ‘But you know how it is.’
‘Rose
is so right for the part,’ said Mrs. Woodstock.
‘Oh,
she’s ravishing,’ said the dressmaker.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
It is time now to describe
what Tom looked like, six months after his accident, about the time when he completely
lost his head over Rose Woodstock, that actress who defied him about how to
accept an important present in a film.
The
fall had damaged Tom’s appearance but by no means ruined it. He was tall with
good, even features, wide-spaced long-shaped dark eyes surrounded by some
humorous wrinkles. Since his fall he had grown a grisly grey and black beard.
Although
it was often said that Tom had survived his fall by a miracle, several
realities had in fact contributed towards the accident being less drastic than
it might have been. The crane, for instance, was not at its full height but was
at that moment being lowered and the seat was possibly at no more than eight
feet when Tom fell; the tilt, moreover, pitched Tom on his side rather than his
back, and saved his head; he fell into a pile of packing-cases — actually empty
— in a scene depicting the back store of a hair-dressing salon, indeed narrowly
missing an arrangement of mirrors which would have given him trouble, or killed
him, had he crashed upon them. One way and another Tom had been lucky. All his
ribs on his right side broken, his right hip badly fractured and the shock had
taken up six months of his life. He still walked with a stick. He was as
attractive as ever; that is to say, very attractive and at the age of
sixty-three his passion for Rose Woodstock, a young thirty-eight, was in no way
out of place because of the discrepancy in their ages. He wanted her to be a
first-class actress and was furious because he knew she could never be in the
first class. She was a star, which was something different. She drove him mad
with her opinions of contempt for ‘elitism’ by which she attempted to rationalise
her own professional deficiencies. Tom only wanted to sleep with her
successfully.
But he
now made love too fast. He could not keep it going. Rose complained, without
embarrassment on her side, or the slightest delicacy, that he made love like he
was in a hurry to get home. Tom thought of the hamburger girl cooking on the
campsite. How tender, how charmingly French and patient she would have been.
Rose had wanted to be cast as the hamburger girl but she was not right for that
part; which in any case was a comparatively small one. Trained by an academy of
dramatic art, Rose was an academy actress from start to finish. Extremely
competent, extremely ‘Academy’. Any well-informed member of the audience could
detect the source of her training. She lifted a glass off the table the ‘Academy’
way; she received bad news in the ‘Academy’ style. She was nothing like the hamburger
girl of Tom’s original conception.
The
title of the movie had recently arrived at A Near Miss which Tom
secretly felt just about described Rose Woodstock’s performance. (But in any
case, the Gay movement, deeply misunderstanding the meaning of this title when
it was announced, had protested, so that the title had been withdrawn and
several new suggestions for the title were already being noised about.) Tom’s
passion for Rose increased as her acting got worse. The cast were losing
spontaneity with so many rows and arguments between the director and the star;
her performance deteriorated ever more in proportion to the limited time in
which Tom was able to maintain a workable erection when he went to bed with
her. She complained, too, about his
this. And you don’t explain tonight because I have a prior engagement.” The
truth is, Alec, he’s madly in love with Rose and he’s so frustrated he screams.
Well, yes he started to yell but Rose just left the set. If he doesn’t calm
down to-day she’ll quit the movie. Do you blame her?’
‘I don’t
blame,’ said Alec. ‘But you know how it is.’
‘Rose
is so right for the part,’ said Mrs. Woodstock.
‘Oh,
she’s ravishing,’ said the dressmaker.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
It is time now to describe
what Tom looked like, six months after his accident, about the time when he completely
lost his head over Rose Woodstock, that actress who defied him about how to
accept an important present in a film.
The
fall had damaged Tom’s appearance but by no means ruined it. He was tall with
good, even features, wide-spaced long-shaped dark eyes surrounded by some
humorous wrinkles. Since his fall he had grown a grisly grey and black beard.
Although
it was often said that Tom had survived his fall by a miracle, several
realities had in fact contributed towards the accident being less drastic than
it might have been. The crane, for instance, was not at its full height but was
at that moment being lowered and the seat was possibly at no more than eight
feet when Tom fell; the tilt, moreover, pitched Tom on his side rather than his
back, and saved his head; he fell into a pile of packing-cases — actually empty
— in a scene depicting the back store of a hair-dressing salon, indeed narrowly
missing an arrangement of mirrors which would have given him trouble, or killed
him, had he crashed upon them. One way and another Tom had been lucky. All his
ribs on his right side broken, his right hip badly fractured and the shock had
taken up six months of his life. He still walked with a stick. He was as
attractive as ever; that is to say, very attractive and at the age of
sixty-three his passion for Rose Woodstock, a young thirty-eight, was in no way
out of place because of the discrepancy in their ages. He wanted her to be a
first-class actress and was furious because he knew she could never be in the
first class. She was a star, which was something different. She drove him mad
with her opinions of contempt for ‘elitism’ by which she attempted to rationalise
her own professional deficiencies. Tom only wanted to sleep with her
successfully.
But he
now made love too fast. He could not keep it going. Rose complained, without
embarrassment on her side, or the slightest delicacy, that he made love like he
was in a hurry to get home. Tom thought of the hamburger girl cooking on the
campsite. How tender, how charmingly French and patient she would have been.
Rose had wanted to be cast as the hamburger girl but she was not right for that
part; which in any case was a comparatively small one. Trained by an academy of
dramatic art, Rose was an academy actress from start to finish. Extremely
competent, extremely ‘Academy’. Any well-informed member of the audience could
detect the source of her training. She lifted a glass off the table the ‘Academy’
way; she received bad news in the ‘Academy’ style. She was nothing like the hamburger
girl of Tom’s original conception.
The
title of the movie had recently arrived at A Near Miss which Tom
secretly felt just about described Rose Woodstock’s performance. (But in any
case, the Gay movement, deeply misunderstanding the meaning of this title when
it was announced, had protested, so that the title had been withdrawn and
several new suggestions for the title were already being noised about.) Tom’s
passion for Rose increased as her acting got worse. The cast were losing
spontaneity with so many rows and arguments between the director and the star;
her performance deteriorated ever more in proportion to the limited time in
which Tom was able to maintain a workable erection when he went to bed with
her. She complained, too, about his
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