Part 14 (1/2)

'As good as. Anyway, it don't have to be over. Point is to show it. Thrilling.'

'The war's been on for more than three years. How long will your picture last?'

'I say five minutes, but my pal says we can't get that much film in the machine, so maybe it'll be two. I I think five would be a sensation. ' think five would be a sensation. '

'Makes the war a little compressed.'

'Well, the high points. You know.' Atkins cleared his throat again.

'We thought we'd borrow some uniforms here and there, pick up some rifles at the markets. Can't tell a Martini from a Baker at any distance, after all. Blank charges. Dozen men, maybe, let them run about, shoot off the rifles, they can be British troops one day, Boers the next - put the Boers in old clothes and Oom Paul beards and soft hats, can't beat that for convincingness.' When Denton said nothing, he added, 'We're looking for a cannon. Put a quarter pound of black powder in the snout, let the Boers run about, huge explosion - that's the siege of Mafeking. Well?'

'There's a reason you're telling me this.'

'I, mm, thought you might allow us to, ah, make use of the front door.'

'As what? Pretoria?'

Atkins chuckled the way adults chuckle at small children. 'As the scene of the housemaid and the soldier. Idea of my own. Stunned my pal. I said, let's put in something that the people watching will understand is like themselves. Well - The Soldier's Farewell, eh? Our front door - pretty housemaid - there's one up the street who'd be a marvel for it - soldier in his uniform - she waves - off he goes - eh? Then all the scenes of the war. Then - The Soldier's Return! Our front door - the maid, looking out - he appears! - has a stick - limps - embrace! I call it a frame - around the picture. What d'you think?'

Denton stared at him. 'You mean you're telling a story!' he said.

'We are? Well, now-'

'I'm impressed. I'm more than impressed. Atkins, you really thought of that?'

'Well-It isn't as if I haven't heard you talk about such things. A frame, I mean. Well, yes, I thought of it. Can we use the front door or can't we?'

It was both the daftest idea Atkins had so far had and the likeliest, Denton thought, to work. It was laughable - Hampstead Heath was to be South Africa - and neither Atkins nor his pal knew anything about acting or photography or saying things with pictures, but the 'kinema', so far as Denton could tell, was a rough-and-ready thing that was being shown in empty shops and rooms, the pictures projected on a bedsheet and the audience paying a farthing to stand behind a rope. 'Where are you going to show your picture, if it gets made?'

'We're looking at a butcher's shop that went bust in Finsbury. I say we ought to go south of the river - more people, less compet.i.tion - but my pal says closer is better.'

'You'd be wise to buy some insurance.'

'Whatever for?'

'Running around shooting off guns, things could happen. Not to mention some householder who says he was so frightened by what he thought was a Boer invasion that he fell off the stepladder and is suing for a painful neck.'

Atkins put his lower jaw to one side. After some seconds, he said, 'I'm glad we had this talk. Makes me think.' He started for the back, turned around, thanked Denton again. 'I'm grateful. The scales are falling from my eyes. You've got a head for these things. Invaluable.'

Denton thought he'd best take advantage of Atkins's mood. 'One thing.'

'Sir?'

'The lady who was here - Mrs Striker. A very private matter.'

'I never thought otherwise.'

'Not a word.'

'I'm hurt you'd think it of me.'

A little later, Atkins brought up an almost high tea, lavish by the standards he usually set. 'This'll hold you until you get to the Criterion or some such posh spot for dinner.' It was Atkins's way of saying that Denton had told him something useful.

It was in fact to the Cafe Royal and not the Criterion that he made his way. He liked the Cafe Royal, its rather disorderly Domino Room, whose high-styled decor was so at odds with many of the patrons. Gold and blue-green, with caryatids near the ceiling and gilded pillars that evolved into acanthus trees as they grew upwards, it expressed an already dated idea of French archness. Upstairs, the Cafe Royal was fairly grand; down here at ground level, it was part bistro and part Bohemian hangout. The chicken pie and the milky coffee were famous, as were the shouting matches, the models, the touts, the odd fistfight, the philosophizing and pontificating that came and went through the place like a tide.

The waiter knew him. Or seemed to know him. The waiters were mostly Italian, rather cynical, given to ironic facial expressions. He never knew what they were really thinking.

'Has Mr Frank Harris come in yet?'

The waiter eyed the room with one raised eyebrow, then shot out an arm. At the far end, towards Gla.s.shouse Street, Denton picked out the dark head of Frank Harris. Harris was an editor, the magazines changing every few years under him like post horses, his notoriety remaining constant - hard-drinking, sensual, bellicose. Denton kept looking at him until his moving gaze - Harris always seemed to be looking for something better than he had - came his way. Denton waved. He said to the waiter, 'The chicken pie and the red wine.'

'A bottle, sir?'

'A gla.s.s.'

The Cafe had been founded by a Continental. It had gone through a number of managers; the most recent, disgusted with the low tone of the Domino Room, had left it and opened what he thought a proper restaurant next door. The Domino Room, impervious to elevation, had gone its disreputable way.

'By G.o.d, you're back.' Frank Harris had a loud voice, a shrewd eye and a moustache almost as big as Denton's. He banged his own drink down on the table as he sat. 'Why didn't you join me up there?'

'I don't like that end of the room. Always seems cold.'

'Yah! I hear you made a lot of money on your trip to wherever it was.'

'Transylvania. Whoever told you that?'

'Writing about motor cars, really! I heard you cleared a thousand pounds on the American serial pub.' In fact, he'd got more than that for the articles, expected still more now that they were collected into a book, but he wouldn't tell Harris that.

The chicken pie appeared. Denton cut into it. Inhaled, ate. Harris said, 'I know that dish is famous, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I can see how hard-boiled eggs and chicken can go together. It's like an English idea of French food. Speaking of money, want to invest some?'

'No.'

'I've an idea for a new mag. Make a fortune.'

'I'm looking for a girl.'

'Who isn't? I could introduce you to Lotty over there - she's quite nice, if you don't let her talk.'

Denton, chewing, took from a pocket a photographic copy of the drawing that had been in Mary Thomason's trunk. 'That girl.'

Harris studied it. 'The ethereal type. Missed her moment - would have been perfect for the Pre-Raphaelites. Although you never know, sometimes it's these apparently angelic little females who just want to do it like rabbits. ”There is no art to find the c.u.n.t's construction in the face.”'

'Is that a quotation? You English are always throwing quotations at me.'

'I'm Irish, and it's Shakespeare. I know more about Shakespeare than any man in England, were you aware of that? Truth.' Harris put the photo of the drawing down. 'Who is she?'

'Student at the Slade.'

'Why didn't you say so?' He turned almost completely around and shouted, 'Gwen!' The room's growl of talk, counterpoint to everything that went on, continued. 'GWEN!' He turned back. 'Gwen John - know her? Her brother's Augustus, the rising star of English art.'

Denton allowed that he knew Augustus John by sight, had once had a desultory conversation with him.