Carnforth's Creation (9 page)

She looked at him steadily. ‘Would it matter to you?’

‘Not in the least,’ he replied, certain that if she had noticed the Hobbema’s absence, Paul would not have told her where it had gone. ‘You see, if the film sells heaps of records for Roy, I’ll still only be paid my salary.’

She showed such scant interest in his reply, that Matthew was unsure whether she had really been implying that Paul had persuaded him to make the film by promising a share of the profits. She was still staring aimlessly at the drawers of a grey filing cabinet when she said, ‘Remember that time when we were finishing dinner – the night before Paul’s jokey
evening
? You seemed so sure you wouldn’t do what he wanted.’

Matthew’s cheeks felt warm. ‘We all change our minds occasionally.’

Her lips were smiling but her eyes studied him intently. ‘Would it be awful of me to ask
why
you changed your mind.’

The silence started to get on his nerves. She was waiting; watching him with a half-amused, half-expectant expression. Why not tell her part of the truth? It’d cause Paul more difficulties than it’d cause him. Matthew said, ‘Have you ever noticed the way Paul thinks he’ll always get his own way? It was like that with the film … never crossed his mind
that he wouldn’t be calling the tune if we went ahead. So I thought why not try him and see. More of a challenge than refusing outright.’

She seemed bemused. ‘Aren’t you worried that I’ll tell him that?’

‘He knows already. Part of the fun for him …
overcoming
opposition.’

He noticed how pale and strained she had become. ‘And if it goes your way, he’ll end up looking a fool?’

Matthew shrugged. ‘Only if he is one. I want to tell the truth.’

She got up and walked towards the door. ‘You realize I’m going to try to stop it?’

‘You wouldn’t have come otherwise.’ Her determination touched him for the first time. He said gently, ‘If I were you I wouldn’t assume he’ll be discouraged by complications.’

Eleanor left without answering.

*

Two weeks later Matthew was becoming increasingly
perplexed
by Paul’s continuing neglect of the basics on which Roy’s success Would depend. Already two of the three days’ pre-production filming were over, and nothing significant had emerged. Just some run-of-the-mill footage shot in the street where Roy lived; a depressing evening filming him at a suburban dance hall gig; and half a day devoted to a
photographic
session, at which he had done some mildly amusing things with scale models of London landmarks; picking up Big Ben in one hand, while menacing Westminster Abbey with a massive Cuban heel. But of the songs that would become hits – nothing. Worse still – as far as Matthew knew, Paul had not recruited a single member of the backing group Roy would have to have.

Then, when least expected, Paul telephoned. Roy would be recording his vital single the following Monday, so could Matthew book a crew?

It was with a peculiar blend of scepticism and suspicion that Matthew entered the vulgarly opulent reception area of the recording studios on the appointed day. Almost at once
he was met by his disgusted cameraman and equally
indignant
sound recordist, who told him the house engineer had stopped them setting up. Matthew strode purposefully across acres of royal blue carpet to the gilded desk where a receptionist was busily filing her nails. With a brisk smile he gave his name, and added, ‘Lord Carnforth told me to have my crew here at nine.’

The girl gave a final dismissive rasp to a purple nail, and studied him from between mascara-caked lashes. ‘He shouldn’t’ve told you that, love.’ Her voice was thin and nasal, and made her sound like a deb pretending to be a Cockney (or, less probably, a Cockney pretending to be a deb).

Still clinging to the hope that Paul had not deliberately set out to make a fool of him, Matthew said very slowly, as though talking to a foreigner, ‘Is Rory Craig recording today?’

‘Course he is.’ She smiled encouragingly, and replied as slowly as he had spoken to her, ‘Now for the hard bit … Lord Carnforth and Exodus have hired out Mr Craig and the session lads to the agency who are doing the commercial.’ She left a pause for this to sink in. ‘Which means the advertising blokes are paying for the studio, right? So when their producer says he’s not having five bods clumping round with a load of gear while he’s trying to lay down a track for his telly ad, you’d better believe him.’

‘That’s great,’ muttered the cameraman, who was
fifty-five
, and had a well-deserved reputation for beastliness to young directors. ‘You know what time some of us got back from Newcastle last night?’

The worst problem with filming on odd days over a long period was that Matthew rarely got one of his favourite crews. He gritted his teeth.

‘So do we set-up or not?’ asked the sound-recordist, exchanging glances with one of the lighting boys, who was thrusting coins into a hot drinks dispenser. Knowing how much technicians enjoyed a chance of some piss-taking at the expense of inexperienced directors (which he felt insulted to be thought), Matthew replied quietly, ‘Let’s wait for our contact to show up, shall we?’

He sank down on a puce-coloured velvet sofa, with
reasonable
composure.

‘What a cock up,’ said the lighting lad at the drinks dispenser. He took a sip of coffee and made a retching noise.

‘You want to call the health inspector?’ asked the
receptionist
, with a practised blend of contempt and come-hither.

‘Not unless
you
need inspectin’, dahlin.’ He leered
suggestively
, and parked his bottom on her table. ‘It’s your lucky day,’ he announced breezily.

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Like I can getcher complimentaries for all the live studio shows.’ He started to list them with an encyclopaedic
thoroughness
that brought Matthew to the brink of screaming. ‘So what are you doin’ tonight, dahlin?’ he wound up.

‘Nothing.’ She gave him a cheese-cake smile. ‘Nothing with you anyway.’

Matthew held out for half-an-hour before telling them they could pack up and return to base. They were still engaged in humping out their extensive armament of boxes, cameras, tripods and lights, when Paul swept in. He hurried across and laid a sympathetic hand on Matthew’s shoulder. ‘If you
knew
what I’ve been through this morning,’ he groaned. ‘Sodding advertising men … I crawled; I grovelled, but their head office still wouldn’t budge.’ Having made sure the crew knew Matthew was not to blame, Paul turned to the receptionist. ‘Daphne, love, can you rustle up some drinks … champagne, scotch, beer … anything these gents want.’ He smiled at Matthew. ‘The least they can do for me. Exodus uses this hole whenever packaging for a record company.’ He sank down next to Matthew on the sofa. ‘Listen,’ he began softly, ‘you asked for a quickie in the charts before you’d lay out on a production. Knowing it was a plastic duck to a battleship I’d fail first time off, I decided not to risk a straight record. No point losing a bundle and the film too. So what I did …’

Before he could finish, Gemma, magnificent in purple hat and patchwork jacket, bounced in with Roy in tow – his all-black outfit suggesting (at least to Matthew) the simplified
Tudor kit worn by actors in pared-down Shakespearian productions. A large white tooth or claw, hanging round his neck, suggested something more futuristic. While Roy was meeting some of the technicians who had crowded into reception on his arrival, Matthew became more and more convinced that Paul had miscalculated.

Hardly any pop songs written for commercials made the transition into hit records – largely because only a handful of products were sufficiently glamorous. The process happened far more often in reverse: an established song being bought for an ad, and then selling more records as a result.

Going through to the control room, Matthew gathered from the engineer, that session men had come in the day before to record the instrumental backing. Though this solved the problem of Roy’s non-existent group, Matthew felt no less doubtful about the whole venture. When Paul and Gemma went into the studio with Roy and the record producer, a baby-faced balding man in a many-zippered anorak, Matthew wished he could hear what was being said. His wish was answered when one of the technicians flipped a switch. Gemma was complaining that Roy had never been given an idea of the visuals.

‘I was coming to that,’ claimed the producer. ‘Okay … we open on pages of an album flicking over. Black and white family snaps; old and fading. The mood’s a bit bleak; it’s all in the past; you can’t get back those parties and holidays … That’s why we’ve got the cello on sound.’

‘Sounds like a rip-off of
Rigby
?’ suggested Roy.

‘Can’t be bad,’ laughed the producer. ‘So, Rory, the moment we get to your line, “Better catch the moment, baby”, the mood changes … bang.’ He slapped a zippered pocket. ‘More like
Down
Town
than
Rigby.
We’re outside now. Bright light, classy shops; maybe King’s Road. Great chicks strutting by. And the actor who hears you sing that, is trying to pull these birds, but they keep walking past … You follow?’

‘Right on,’ muttered Roy. ‘Till I sing, “
Image
Man
can
trap
it
for
yo
u, baby”
. Then they all go goofy when they see his
sexy
Image
Man
camera poking at ’em …’

‘Okay, that’s one point,’ agreed the producer tetchily. ‘The other is, his camera can spew out instant pics so goddam fast he really
is
“catching the moment”. Every time he goes click, we freeze frame on vision, and that’s
his
picture too. Photos for
now
… unlike the album snaps.’

Matthew could only marvel at Paul’s ingenuity. How the hell had he managed to find
the
ideal product? That name! Possibly the company was a client of the merchant bank handling his loose change. Even if Exodus had spawned the idea, Matthew’s hunch was that Paul would have made it happen. One thing to find the right product, but quite another to persuade the company’s marketing department
and
their agency to play ball.

When Roy started to sing, Matthew wasn’t only impressed by his voice. It was the words that shook him. They fitted the commercial of course, but would be almost better on their own.

It
did
sound rather like
Eleanor
Rigby
; but the more Matthew heard, the more convinced he became that he was hearing a song and melody that would make the rare leap from telly ad to hit record. Schmaltzy without doubt; but that was no drawback.

After that, the sudden change in mood. Faster music;
excitement
.

When they broke to give Roy a breather, Matthew learned that the idea had first occurred to Paul when Gemma wrote a supplement piece on advertising whiz kids. One of her interviewees had just landed the ‘Image Man’ contract. The rest Paul modestly put down to luck and barefaced nerve in equal quantities.

When Roy went out to the ‘gents’, Matthew drifted after him. With Paul apparently able to work miracles at will, Matthew knew he would have to start sowing doubts quickly before Roy’s faith became unshakeable.

Roy was drying his hands as Matthew came in. He walked over to the urinals and asked blandly, while relieving
himself
, whether Roy had ever given much thought to the kind of documentary he was going to take part in.

Roy started combing his hair. ‘That’s your bag, man.’

Matthew zipped himself up and wandered over to one of the opulent marble basins. As he turned on a gilded tap, he said mildly, ‘Doesn’t bother you I might say you’d sold out?’

‘On what?’ asked Roy, still combing.

Matthew frowned. ‘Weren’t you quite keen on progressive pop?’ Roy put away his comb and moved towards the door. ‘Or I might write into the commentary that you hadn’t always agreed with everything Paul said.’

Roy paused and looked back at him with a smile Matthew disliked. ‘You know what?’ he said at last, with an impatient toss of his freshly combed hair. ‘You’ll do it how Lord Paul wants it. So let’s get on, huh?’

‘That’s what they’ve told you, is it?’

‘Aw, stop crapping.’ Roy flicked his tiger’s tooth talisman irritably. ‘First of all Paul’s got it sassed like nobody you’ve ever met. Second he’s given you some Goya or whatever, and …’ He paused, as if forgetting something; then
snapped
his fingers. ‘Oh yeah … you’re balling Gemma babe.’ He was turning the door handle when Matthew grabbed him with a soapy hand.

‘Swallow that lot and you’ll swallow anything.’

Roy removed his hand, and wiped his sleeve on the roller towel. ‘Give you a rough time, did she?’

Matthew drew in a long breath. ‘Was it uh Gemma babe, who mentioned the painting?’

Roy gave a passable imitation of Rodin’s thinker, and shook his head, ‘Wish I could remember, Mat.’

‘Then remember this. Nobody gave
me
anything.’

Roy raised a finger to his nose and winked. “Don’t worry, Matty boy.’

‘You don’t listen.’

Roy grinned. ‘Gave it to your missus, didn’t he?’

‘But
I
didn’t want it.’

Roy made a farting noise, and kicked the door open.