Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (74 page)

To lunch at Odette’s with TG. Voluble, boisterous, endlessly full of ideas and opinions. He wants to create some sort of ‘corporate identity’ to embrace Python and post-Python and ex-Python solo efforts. He’s so restless – like a rubber band has been wound up in his formative years and has now been let go.

From Gilliam to the quieter dynamism of Richard Faulkner. I’d hoped to mention my feelings about retirement. More and more I’m becoming
convinced that chairing is not me, but as soon as I bring it up Richard skilfully side-steps it, referring to my ‘leave of absence’ next year. It will be more permanent than that, and one of these days I shall have to tell him and he’ll have to listen.

Back home – ring Tristram. London Film Festival have passed on
East of Ipswich
. Snobs. Bias against comedy? I just feel it’s a backward push after both ‘
Mish
’ and
Private Function
were at the Festival.

A sunny day in prospect. Late rising. Read Sundays. Martin Amis in the
Observer
reviewing
Speed
is fairly certain that being a nice guy is a positive disadvantage to a writer. This puts the wind up me. Perhaps I recognise a truth. My main problem is that I’m a lazy writer. Line of least resistance. There’s another title for my autobiography: ‘Lines of Least Resistance’!

Sit out in the unbroken sunshine over lunchtime and Helen and I work our way through stacks of old photos – ordering, albuming and ditching. They do present a view of a placid, gregarious, well-travelled, spirited and close-knit family of which I’m proud and for which I’m grateful. Dare I say a family with less than its fair share of troubles.

Steady, but unspectacular morning on the Victorian film, which I would like to call
American Friends
, though the Wim Wenders
The American Friend
niggles.

Reading a
Guardian
article on Eton College’s shabby treatment of their properties in London, when a very clear idea for a TV play occurs to me. The efforts to move a rather dignified and well-bred old lady from a house which the powers of commerce want to develop. Plenty of scope for little ironies, social comment and on a subject dear to my heart – greed versus dignity, coercion against consideration. Spend an hour writing the first couple of scenes, which flow easily.

The prospect of writing two new scripts before Christmas becomes a reality and an attractive one at that. After all the hopes and half-starts and
Limericks
and
Mirrorstones
and
Cyrils
of the last 18 months, I feel now solidly employed, stretching myself and enjoying a simple and satisfying return of writing appetite.

Tom is back from school and by his face and general uncommunicativeness I can tell all is not well. We talk for some time about his aversion to maths, his feeling of inferiority compared to the others in his class, and it’s obvious by the intensity of his feeling that he is finding it difficult. Is this because he’s faced with the realities of very hard mental study and concentration for the first time, or is it that he’s genuinely unable to understand the work? I think the former.

Out to have dinner with Jonathan and Kate, prior to his disappearing up to Stratford for
Macbeth
.

We eat at Zen in Hampstead, or Zen W3 as it’s cleverly called. The décor is chic black and white. It could be Beverly Hills or New York. An incredibly noisy table of Chinese businessmen passing Chivas Regal round the table with the speed of a Catherine wheel, turn out to be the management and owners.

No wonder they’re celebrating – the place is packed. It’s so self-consciously designed to attract the young, rich and successful that it’s acted like a magnet to the new Hampstead money – not money which lives in the village, but, I suspect, in the new villas of Finchley Road and Golders Green.

There are no traditional materials, London brick or timber. The wood has been removed and replaced by a giant weeping fig tree which stands two floors high. The food is delicate, beautiful and incredibly tasty; unlike the atmosphere.

Late to bed after we ask for the bill from six different waiters.

Receive photos from Mick Powell taken a week or so ago. I think I may be in for a W H Auden face – or at best a Michael Parkinson. A lot of lines appearing. The sight of them mentally ages me several years. Have noticed other signs recently – I hardly listen to pop music on the radio now – it’s talk or classical.

To Clare Latimer’s 35th birthday party at her shop in Chalcot Road. Slip over as I’m going in and crack my hip on the pavement. Not too seriously, but feel very foolish as a group of lads are passing the shop and mockingly surveying the noisy, middle-class guests clutching wine glasses within.

But there are some pleasant ladies there – always a much better prospect for small talk than men – and excellent food. I thaw out, but feel old and leave with the elderly and those who have babies.

I apply myself to the Victorian film, which has become
American Friends
. Writing, sometimes a little meanderingly, but writing all the same, and quite pleased with progress.

After lunch some letters and another short spell on the film, then across the Common for a run.

When I return a notice has been stuck across the windscreen of my Sierra – ‘Please move your car so we can park outside our house. Public car parks are provided.’

A visit to Julie Haythornthwaite (such a spectacularly different neighbour from Mrs Pratt). She pours me a scotch and ice and we talk. She’s most concerned about Angela, who was in to see her recently, and was, she thought, not at all well. We discuss some whys and wherefores and as Angela obviously finds it easier to open up to Julie than to Mother, then I don’t feel I’m betraying anyone. Julie has a number of friends in the same boat.

For no reason at all, other than there being no reason at all, I find myself unable to sleep, despite being too sleepy to read.

I’m at the desk by nine, though. There then follows a sort of re-run of the previous night, except that instead of sleep eluding me, this time it’s a story eluding me. Sense of the same helplessness, close to despair, as the minutes turn into hours and nothing comes. The little room and the cramped table, which once seemed so friendly, now conspire against me, as does the east wind moaning around the roofs and wires outside.

But I persevere with my four hours. Nothing to show at the end of it except frustration at the impasse into which I’ve lead the characters.

Back to some letters and then my great stand-by – a run. Running can never be anything but positive – that’s the joy of it.

Down to Bedford Square to collect
The Mirrorstone
from Tom Maschler. My first sight of the finished work. Tom gushes uncontrollably, unstoppably about its brilliance and genius and beauty and I grope around, like someone having a very bright light shone in their face, to try and find the source of this dazzling hyperbole.

Momentarily a squeezing of the stomach. The holograms are tiny and none of them work in the dull early evening light. Tom rushes to put on his old Habitat standard lamp. It doesn’t work at first. Then, with the help of the spotlights, some of the holograms come quite impressively out of the book.

I flip the pages. All sorts of negative thoughts. Brilliant draughtsmanship but blank faces. The whole book takes itself too seriously.

Complete four hours of good, steady progress on
American Friends
. Then a run and some calls – including one from the British Council asking me if I would like to go with TG, David Robinson of
The Times
and John Cartwright of the Council to the Moscow Film Festival.
Jabberwocky
,
Brazil
and
Private Function
are all represented. Very excited – another November possibility, if I can clear the book publicity dates.

To Visconti’s
Ossessione
at the Renoir. Few people there and, as it shakes into black and white life with dramatic music and the title large across the screen, I hear a voice behind observe in some surprise – ‘Oh, it’s Italian.’

I’m away by ten and, after a slow slog along busy roads, at Granny’s by one.

She potters out to see where I’m parked. I’ve brought lunch – some smoked salmon and peaches. Conscious of having to make an effort every time I hear ‘Are you looking for something, dear?’ when I open a drawer or cupboard.

All I want to do after lunch is sleep in an armchair over the newspapers. I settle instead for sitting outside on the balcony. The light breeze and the grunts and imprecations of rugby players on the Common keep me
awake. The sun is soothing and we have a natter over all Granny’s worries – damp patches in the bedroom, bathroom window opening, income tax – nothing too serious.

It’s almost a year since she moved from Reydon, and as I kiss her goodbye at four and leave her waving from between the parked cars that concern her so, I feel very relieved with the way she has coped with the whole upheaval. And proud of her too.

To Norwich.

I’m welcomed by Kingsley Canham – slight, bearded administrator of the regional film theatre, Cinema City.

Even before a cup of tea or an introduction, I’m being talked at by two ‘young people’ from a group called Snowball. They want to use law against the bomb. Their aim is to get so many people to commit the ‘minimum’ crime at a nuclear base – cutting a strand of wire, etc – that they will clog the courts and eventually their view that a small crime committed to prevent a bigger crime is not illegal will be examined. The boy tells me proudly he’s been inside for 40 days. ‘But the police are getting wise – they’re not arresting us any more … we have to go and give ourselves up.’ Promise I’ll read their literature.

Collect Eric I and Tania by cab at Carlton Hill and we are deposited at the Royal Court Theatre at a quarter to eight. An audience of quality packs every seat for Bennett’s
Kafka’s Dick
. One feels that there are at least six reserve casts amongst us.

The play is based on the rather neat premise of a writer (Kafka) being magicked forward in time to the house of one of his greatest fans (an A. Bennett household complete with Alison Steadman as the unfulfilled, sexy wife, and an old father who is about to be put in a home – Alan plagiarizing
Private Function
surprisingly shamelessly). A lot said about the artist’s right to privacy and the grasping, twisting manipulation of money-grabbing agents, publishers and other lesser talents.

‘Woody Alan Bennett’ is how Eric sums up our views of the evening.

Like the mild and gentle weather, my writing goes on mildly and gently and my days fall into a settled and unchanging pattern.

A run, and then shopping for Tom’s birthday present. A couple of hours around Jermyn and Sackville Street. Buy him a rather fine razor, slim, black and beautifully weighted. When I get home I find it’s been used and I kick the cat and generally throw a fit, seeing as it comes from Oggetti and was not cheap. But it’s hard to complain to these new and fashionable ‘gift’ shops. Like their goods they feel themselves out of reach of the general public.

Taxi down to the Coliseum to see Eric in
The Mikado
. A splendid theatre inside, voluminous and impressive, with marbled columns and huge, gilded statues of lions and charging horses. A full house and curtain goes up on an imaginative and striking set – which has the effect of making the characters look like the occupants of a decaying white dolls’ house.

Very unsatisfied by the staging of the first half. Why is it in the ’30’s and why is so much of the comedy played like the Marx Bros? Eric keeps his end up well, but comes into his own in the second half and steals the show from under the noses of the fine, trained singers, because he, almost alone, is able to exploit the comic potential.

At work by half past seven. Quite a good morning. Tom is 18. We give him £84 towards a ‘boogie box’ (ghetto-blaster, Brixton briefcase) and a desk tidy (hopefully), his razor and a Chris Bonington climbing book.

Tom’s lifestyle and his expectations are so different from mine at 18 that I find it hard to empathise with him as he sits at the breakfast table surrounded by his cards and gifts. But the famous Tom grin is much in evidence, so I feel perhaps all’s well and we ease off our pressure on him to be a bit more like us.

His martial arts training shows in a fit, good-looking, lean body. Reading and writing don’t seem to appeal.

Meeting with Steve. He wants to tell me about the latest plans to protect all the other Pythons from the effects of Graham C’s impending bankruptcy. (Having said that, it’s been impending for at least a year.)

Anne and Steve propose a buy-out of GC’s share of Python – his directorships and everything else. Then, if he does go under, we shall not have his advisers on our boards, nor his liabilities either. It seems a more significant emotional moment (the first Python to go under, the first ‘legal’ break-up of the group) than financial.

Am conscious of letting the average slip back this week. The less time I spend, the less easy it is to maintain my commitment. Have lost sight of the whole work this week in a mad dash for the end. Now I am relying heavily on my three days in Yorkshire next week to get back in touch with the script, leaving me two weeks to trim, edit, order and make it presentable for November typing.