Tony strolled down to see USBC, the deadly rivals of NBS.
At the plaza of the Seagram building tourists and office workers sat on the walls, eating sandwiches and pizza, trying to woo the blazing sun down between the office blocks on to their bare arms and legs. The flowers in the centre strip of Park Avenue wilted in the heat as Tony sauntered past General Motors and the Pan Am building with their thousand glittering windows, admiring the coloured awnings outside the houses and the beautiful, loping New York girls with their briefcases, who looked back at him with flattering interest. Maybe Cameron was right about the paucity of real New York men.
The Head of Co-Production at USBC and the Daytime Programme Controller were enchanted by the video of the honey-coloured houses and the Cotswold countryside.
‘This series,’ Tony told them, his deep, beautiful voice flowing on like vintage port glugging out of a priceless decanter, ‘will be a cross between James Herriot and “Animal House”, but in a way it’s much, much more. We intend to explore real friendship between real men; not homosexuality, but that Victorian virtue, comradeship. The hero, a poor boy from a deprived background, doesn’t inherit the earth or the girl, but he finds his integrity. The story, despite its depths, is simple enough to appeal to a Mexican peasant or to an Alabama black.’
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the extremely influential VPICDT Prog. (which stood for Vice- President In Charge of Daytime Programming) had just entered the room. Tony warmed to his subject.
‘In England,’ he went on, ‘we are sick of wimps who wear their sensitivity on their silk shirtsleeves. The guys in our story are kind to animals and women, but they shoot from the hip first and get in touch with their feelings later. Nor would they be seen dead in an apron. Let us have men as men again, and bring back dignity and chivalry to our sex.’
Thinking he’d gone slightly over the top, Tony switched briskly to finance. ‘We can do it for three-quarters of a million an hour,’ he said. ‘It’ll be thirty per cent cheaper if we make it in England; we’ll put up twenty per cent of the cost against Europe and the UK.’
Admiring the discreet blue coronet on Tony’s dark-green shirt, the VPICDT Prog., who’d just been bawled out on the phone by his wife for forgetting to collect the suit she’d had altered at Ralph Lauren, reflected that Lord B had real class. And he was right — it was high time men were men again.
‘Very interesting, Tony,’ he said. ‘We’d like to kick the idea around. You in New York for a few days?’
‘Yes,’ said Tony.
‘Showing it to other people?’
‘Of course.’
‘We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’
Outside it had rained. The trees had taken on a deeper greenness. The city had the warm wet smell of a conservatory. Park Avenue was a solid yellow mass of honking taxis. Quivering with the excitement of wheeler- dealing, Tony knew he ought to ring Ronnie and show him the treatment. Let him sweat, he thought, let Cameron sweat. He went back to the Waldorf, checked out and, without leaving a forwarding address, flew to Los Angeles.
Cameron lived in an eleventh-floor apartment on Riverside Drive with a glorious view of the Hudson River. She got home at about nine after a hellish day, punctuated with screaming matches which had finally culminated in Bella Wakefield turning up on the set wearing two-inch false eyelashes and half a ton of purple eyeshadow to play a Victorian governess. When Cameron had ordered her to take her make-up down, Bella had stormed out, presumably to sob on the Vice-President’s already sodden shoulder.
The moment she got in, Cameron played back her recording machine, but there was no message from Tony, not even a click to show he’d rung and hung up because she wasn’t there. He hadn’t left any messages at NBS either.
Cameron, however, had done her homework. As Tony had learnt from Ronnie that she was brilliant but unbalanced, she in turn had discovered that Tony was an unprincipled shit, much more interested in making money than good programmes, masterly at board-room intrigue, and so smooth he could slide up a hill. Convinced she could handle him, Cameron wasn’t at all put out by this information, and decided to accept the job.
She’d always wanted to work in England and track down her English relations. She admired British television, and she’d bitterly envied all those rich girls at Barnard who’d travelled to Europe so effortlessly on Daddy’s income. It would also give her a chance to get away from her mother and her mother’s appalling lover, Mike. Cameron gave a shudder; she had recurrent nightmares about Mike.
She turned on the light. She would be sad to leave her apartment, which was painted white throughout, with yellow curtains and rush matting on the polished floors. Furniture in the living-room included a grand piano, a dentist’s chair upholstered in red paisley like Tony’s tie, a dartboard, and a gold toe, one foot high, which had been surreptitiously chipped from the foot of a cherub in the Metropolitan Museum. Books lined most of one wall, but half a shelf was taken up with videos of the programmes she’d made. These were her identity. Cameron only felt she truly existed when she saw her credits coming up on the screen.
And now this English lord had come along and thrown her into complete turmoil because he hadn’t called. Denied a father in her teens, Cameron was always drawn to older men. She was attracted by Tony’s utter ruthlessness, and, despite her sniping, sexually it had ended up a great night.
Then why didn’t the bastard call? Lord of the Never Rings. Collapsing on the sofa, she gazed out of the window. On the opposite bank, lights from the factories and power stations sent glittering yellow snakes across the black water. Watching the coloured Dinky cars whizzing up and down the freeway, she fell asleep.
When she woke next morning, very cold and stiff, the Hudson had turned to a sheet of white metal, with the power stations smoking dreamily in the morning mist. Perhaps Tony had only offered her a job as a ruse to get her into bed, but she didn’t think he was like that. If he’d just wanted to screw her, he’d have said so. Yet when she rang the Waldorf to accept, she was outraged to be told that Tony had checked out, leaving no forwarding address.
‘This guy’s mighty popular,’ said the operator. ‘Everyone’s been ringing him.’
Nor would Corinium’s New York office tell her where Tony had gone, and, even worse, the morning paper had a charming picture of him coming out of the Four Seasons with Ali MacGraw.
In Los Angeles, when he wasn’t spreading the word about ‘Four Men went to Mow’, or finalizing the deal to buy the American distributors, which he’d had to acquire through a holding company so as not to upset the IBA, Tony thought about Cameron.
Back in New York, two days later, ignoring the increasingly desperate messages from NBS, he went to USBC and after screwing another quarter million dollars a programme out of them on the grounds that Disney were madly interested, he closed the deal.
He returned to the Waldorf, sweating like a pig, had a shower, poured himself an enormous whisky and rang Cameron. He had to hold the telephone at arm’s length.
‘Where the fuck have you been, you bastard?’ she screamed.
‘Busy,’ said Tony and, when she started to give him an earful, very sharply told her to shut up and calm down.
‘I’ve raised the cash for “Four Men went to Mow”.’
‘Who put it up?’ demanded Cameron.
‘USBC. The lawyers are thrashing out the nuts and bolts at the moment.’
‘Poor Ronnie. NBS aren’t going to be very happy — we didn’t even get to see it.’
‘Well, there you go.’
‘He probably will, right out of the front door, and never come back after this. Ronnie’s right — you are a shit.’
‘That’s no way to address your new boss.’
Cameron’s heart was hammering so hard, her palms were suddenly so damp, that the receiver nearly slid out of her hand.
‘Hullo, hullo,’ said Tony. ‘Have you thought about that job I offered you?’
‘You just fuck off like that. How do I know I can trust you?’
‘Give me the address. I’ll be over in half an hour and we’ll talk terms.’
Yet when he arrived at Cameron’s flat, armed with a bottle of champagne, he was outraged to find an impossibly handsome young man lounging in the dentist’s chair, holding a glass that definitely didn’t contain mouthwash.
