Wild Horses Part 16

'Can you catch gleams of sun in their eyes?'

'Close?'

'Heads, necks and manes in shot.'

'Thomas,' Ziggy said, the ba.s.s notes in his voice always a surprise from the slightness of his body, 'you ask for wild horses.'

I'd asked him the previous evening to picture them and to suggest where we might find some. The trouble with sudden visions was that I'd had no idea of the scene while we were at the pre-production stage, and so had not arranged a wild herd in advance. Wild horses didn't grow on batwillows.

Circus horses, Ziggy had said. Too fat and sleek, I'd objected. Moorland ponies no good, he'd said: too slow and stupid. Think, I'd urged him. Tell me in the morning.

'Thomas,' Ziggy said, as always emphasising the second syllable of my name, 'I think it must be Viking Viking horses, from Norway.' horses, from Norway.'

I gazed at him. 'Did you know that Viking ships once regularly raided this coast?'

'Yes, Thomas.'

Viking horses. Perfect. Where on earth could I get any? From Norway, of course. So easy.

I asked him, 'Have you ever worked with Norwegian horses?'

'No, Thomas. But I think they are not true wild. They are not ridden, but they are, I think, handled.'

'Could you ride one without a saddle?'

'Of course.' There wasn't a horse alive, his expression said, that wouldn't do what he asked.

'You could ride one in a nightgown and a long blonde wig?'

'Of course.'

'Bare feet?'

He nodded.

'The woman is dreaming dreaming she is riding the wild horse. It must be romantic, not real.' she is riding the wild horse. It must be romantic, not real.'

'Thomas, she will float float on the horse.' on the horse.'

I believed him. He was simply the best. Even Moncrieff stopped grumbling about our mission.

We ate our hot vacuum-packed bacon breakfast rolls and drank steaming coffee while the black sky slowly greyed and lightened and grew softly crimson far out at sea.

With adjusted eyes we watched the world take shape. Around us and at our backs the irregularly heaped sand dunes were revealed as being patches of scrubby marram gra.s.s, fringes of long dried stalks leaning in the wind. Slightly below us the sand remained powdery, unwashed by the tide, but blowing back to add to the dunes; and below that, hard-packed sand stretched away to distant white-fringed waves.

The tide, I reckoned, was as low as it ever went. Too low, really, for the best dramatic effect. One week ahead, the tide at dawn would be high, covering the sand. We needed, I thought, to arrange to film the horses on a mid-tide day: better, I supposed, during an ebb tide, as a flooding tide could race over these flat sands and maroon the cameras. Say ten days to the next mid-tide ebb at dawn. Too soon. Add two weeks to the next opportunity; twenty-four days. Perhaps.

I told Ziggy the time frame. 'We need the horses here on the beach twenty-four days from now. Or else fourteen days later; thirty-eight days. OK?'

'I understand,' he agreed.

'I'll send an agent to Norway to arrange the horses and the transport. Will you go with him, to make sure we get the sort of horses we need?'

He nodded. 'Best to have ten,' he said. 'Or twelve.'

'See what you can find.'

Moncrieff stirred, abandoning breakfast in favour of art. Faint horizontal threads of clouds were growing a fiercer red against the still grey sky, and as he busied himself with camera speed and focus, the streaks intensified to scarlet and to orange and to gold, until the whole sky was a breath-gripping symphony of sizzling colour, the prelude to the earth's daily spin towards the empowerment of life.

I had always loved sunrise: was always renewed in spirit. For all my life I'd felt cheated if I'd slept through dawn. The primaeval winter solstice on bitter Salisbury Plain had raised my childhood's goose pimples long before I understood why; and it had ever seemed to me that dawn-worship was the most logical of primitive beliefs.

The glittering ball rimmed over the horizon and hurt one's eyes. The brilliant streaks of cloud flattened to grey. The whole sun, somehow losing its magic, nevertheless lit a shimmering pathway across the ruffled surface of the sea, and Moncrieff went on filming, breathing deeply with satisfaction. Slowly on the wind, he and I became aware of a deep rhythmic humming that grew into a melody seeming age-old and sad: and as if of one mind we understood and laughed.

Ziggy was singing singing.

This was a dangerous coast as, flat as it looked, a few miles out to sea unrelenting sandbars paralleled the sh.o.r.e; underwater invisible hazards, shipwrecking the unwary. Graveyards in the coastal villages were heaped with memorials to sailors drowned before accurate depth charts were invented.

Too much background music, I decided, would ruin the atmospheric quality of this historic sh.o.r.e. All we would need would be the wind, the waves, the clip of the horses' hooves, and perhaps Ziggy's own distant song, or maybe a haunting plaintive chant from Norway. This was to be a dream: did one ever hear whole orchestras in dreams?

Fulfilled in all sorts of ways, the three of us were driven back to Newmarket where everyday reality returned to the hotel lobby in the unwelcome shape of our author, Howard Tyler.

Howard was not repentant but incensed. The round gla.s.ses flashed as if with their own anger. The prissy little mouth puckered with injured feelings of injustice. Howard the great writer could produce temper tantrums like a toddler.

Moncrieff, at the sight of him, evaporated into the woodwork. Ziggy, communing only with himself, loped off on foot towards the Heath and horses. Howard stood in my path, flushed with grievance.

'O'Hara says the company will sue me for breach of contract!' he complained. 'It's not fair fair.'

I said reasonably, 'But you did did breach your contract.' breach your contract.'

'No, I didn't!'

'Where did the Drumbeat Drumbeat get its opinions from?' get its opinions from?'

Howard opened his baby lips and closed them again.

'Your contract,' I reminded him, 'forbids you to talk about the film to outsiders. I did warn you.'

'But O'Hara can't sue me!'

I sighed. 'You signed with a major business corporation, not personally with O'Hara. The corporation has lawyers with flints for souls whose job it is to recover for the company any money they can squeeze from the most minor breaches of contract. They are not kind compa.s.sionate fellows who will pat you forgivingly on the back. They can imagine damages you never thought of. You opened your undisciplined mouth to some avidly listening ear, and whether you've done any real box-office damage or not, they're going to act as if you've cost the company millions, and they'll try to recover every penny they are contracted to pay you, and if you're really unlucky, more.'

It seemed finally to get through to him that his gripe would prove expensive.

'Then do do something,' he insisted. 'Tell them no harm was done'. something,' he insisted. 'Tell them no harm was done'.

'You as near as dammit cost me not just this job but any work in the future.'

'All I said was...' his voice died.

'All you said was that I was a tyrannical buffoon wasting the film company's money.'

'Well... I didn't mean it.'

'That's almost worse.'

'Yes... but... you've mangled mangled my book. And as an author I have my book. And as an author I have moral moral rights.' The air of triumph accompanying these last words made my next statement sound perhaps more brutal than I would have let it if he'd shown the slightest regret. rights.' The air of triumph accompanying these last words made my next statement sound perhaps more brutal than I would have let it if he'd shown the slightest regret.

With vanishing patience I said, 'Moral rights give an author the right to object to derogatory alterations being made to his work. Moral rights can be waived, and invariably this waiver is included in agreements between screenplay writers and film production companies. Often the screenplay writer is given the right to remove his name from the credits if he hates the film enough, but in your case, Howard, it's your name they're specifically paying for, and you waived that right also.'

Stunned, he asked, 'How do you know?'

'I was given a sight of your contract. I had to know where we each stood.'

'When?' he demanded. 'When did you see it?'

'Before I signed a contract myself.'

'You mean... weeks weeks ago?' ago?'

'Three months or more.'

He began to look bewildered. 'Then... what can I do?'

'Pray,' I said dryly. 'But for a start, you can say who you talked to. You can say how you got in touch with the writer of "Hot from the Stars". Who did you reach?'

'But I...' He seemed not far from tears. 'I didn't didn't. I mean, I didn't tell the Drumbeat Drumbeat. I didn't.'

'Who, then?'

'Well, just a friend.'

'A friend friend? And the friend told the Drumbeat Drumbeat?'

He said miserably, 'I suppose so.'

We had been standing all this time in the lobby with Monday morning coming and going around us. I waved him now towards the lounge area and found a pair of convenient armchairs.

'I want some coffee,' he said, looking round for a waiter.

'Have some later, I haven't got time. Who did you talk to?'

'I don't think I should say.'

I felt like shaking him. 'Howard, I'll throw you to the corporation wolves. And besides that, I'll sue you personally for defamation.'

'She said questions weren't libellous.'

'She, whoever she is, got it at least half wrong. I don't want to waste time and energy suing you, Howard, but if you don't cough up some answers p.r.o.nto you'll get a writ in tomorrow's mail.' I took a breath, 'So, who is she she?'

After a long pause in which I hoped he faced a few realities, he said, 'Alison Visborough.'

'Who?'

'Alison Vis '

'Yes, yes,' I interrupted. 'I thought her name was Audrey.'

'That's her mother.'

I shook my head to clear it, feeling I'd left my senses back on Happisburgh beach.

'Let's get this straight,' I said. 'You poured out your grudges to Alison Visborough, whose mother is Audrey Visborough, who is the widow of the deceased Rupert Visborough, known in your book as Cibber. Right so far?'

He nodded unhappily.

'And,' I said, 'when you read Rupert Visborough's obituary, and got the idea for your book, you did not not go to see Jackson Wells, whose wife hanged, but you go to see Jackson Wells, whose wife hanged, but you did did go to see the dead woman's sister, Audrey Visborough.' go to see the dead woman's sister, Audrey Visborough.'

'Well... I suppose so.'

'Yes or no?'

'Yes.'

'And it was she who told you about her sister having dream lovers?'

'Er...'

'Howard!'

'Look,' he said, with a recurrence of petulance, 'I don't have to answer all these questions.'

'Why ever not?'

'They wouldn't like it.'

'Audrey and Alison wouldn't, do you mean?'

He nodded. 'And Roddy.'

'Who's Roddy?'

'Alison's brother.'

Give me strength, I thought. I said, 'Is this right? Rupert Visborough married Audrey; they had a daughter Alison and a son Roddy?'

'I don't see why you make it sound so difficult.'

'But you didn't put the children in your book.'