Snobs: A Novel

suffered from that common illusion among disappointed actors that it is good to be 'seen' at things. The truth is that it is good to be employed.

Whether one is seen at parties is immaterial. However, he had acquired a newsworthy mistress and he probably wanted to get some mileage out of her. If I'm honest and at this distance, I suspect Simon was sorry it had not all been managed without her leaving Charles. That said, since the breach had happened, he would have wanted to profit from the publicity.

Simon Russell was one of those actors whose initial progress had seemed to point inexorably toward a stardom that, somehow, the years had never quite delivered. In the early days he had been given the lead in a series opposite a popular female star but the show had failed. Then he had landed a good part in a Hollywood sequel, which had died at the box office.

And gradually the spotlight had shifted and slid away to those newer, younger, blonder men who seemed to arrive in such limitless supply. He was good — or good enough — and, as I have said, wonderful looking, especially when well photographed, and it could all still have happened for him but, by the point of our story, there was no time to lose. And now, most unexpectedly, his private life had put him into print. Edith had made him a topic.

As for his wife and children, I think it would be wrong to say he didn't worry about them. He did. As much as he was able.

She, Deirdre, had done her best for him and he really loved the kids, but I suppose it had all become a bit dreary over the last few years and so terribly the same. Besides, it was obvious when you saw them together (which we did a couple of times during the early days of the filming at Broughton) that Deirdre had ceased to think of him as a romantic figure and had begun to treat him more and more as a kind of overgrown, recalcitrant boy. He wanted worship and what he got was someone telling him to eat his greens. Of course, I wasn't sure how much unmixed adoration he would be able to count on from Edith. Or for how long.

===OO=OOO=OO===

'Darling, please… we must go…' It was quite unconscious but Simon had fallen into the habit of dealing with Edith in a wheedling tone, a cross between a lounge lizard and a travelling salesman. 'I hate to be naff but you have to get used to the idea that I earn my living. I'm not Charles swanning around giving orders at the Home Farm. I have to be out there. I have to remind people that I exist.'

She sat before the little dressing table in their dreary bedroom, frowning with concentration as she studied her reflection. It did seem rather naff really. Edith was hating her black celebrity. Every time some 'friend' rang her with the news that yet another journalist had taken a swipe at her ('I thought I ought to tell you, darling, before you read it unawares,' the voice would gloat), her heart would sink anew. She wanted fame in a way but fame that brought status and conferred glamour, not this awful washing of dirty linen. She even caught herself feeling sorry for her parents-in-law when she thought of the papers that were probably being edited by Charles or the servants before the Uckfields could set eyes on them. Poor Charles… how was he coping with it all, poor dear? And these frightful parties that Simon kept wanting to take her to. Could it be so necessary to keep chatting up these weird representatives from another planet? She had been too long a Broughton to be able to throw off (easily anyway) the notion that Simon's crowd was a sort of joke — useful to enliven a party but not quite right for every day.

'Why?' she said.

He watched her painting her face with care and artistry. He knew what she was thinking but he didn't much care. If she wanted to go back among her old world rather than spend all their time in his, well, that was fine so far as he was concerned.

In fact, he was becoming the teeniest bit impatient to get started on some of her gang. She had introduced him to a few Fulham Sloanes, but that wasn't what he had in mind as her contribution at all. Where she dreamed of shepherding him past the Press into his trailer on the Universal lot, he saw himself in tweeds, a gun on his arm, a welcome guest at other houses in the Broughton mould where he would flirt with other great ladies and be taken up by other great families. All of this his alliance with Edith would bring about. He did not grasp, perhaps because she did not yet either, that the great world was preparing to shut its doors on little Edith. From now on she would be condemned to the company of a few divorced wives of younger sons, eking out their alimony selling ugly jewellery or writing gossip columns for unread giveaway magazines.

She put down her mascara. 'Who is this woman tonight, anyway?'

'Fiona Grey.'

'Never heard of her. Have I met her?'

'No, I don't think so but you do know her. She was the girl in the film about the confidence trickster. When he fell off the train. On television last week. Michael Redgrave was the policeman.'

'Never heard of him, either.' Simon winced. 'She must be a thousand.'

'She's about seventy.' Actually Simon was very flattered to have been invited by Miss Grey. For this was the other side of his schizophrenic ambition. While part of him wanted Edith to get him into the world of the 'nobs', the rest of him, in almost direct contradiction, longed to be taken seriously as an actor, by the kind of actors that other actors take seriously, and just such a one was Fiona Grey. She had played Juliet opposite Gielgud in her youth and Lady Teazle opposite Olivier. Now, when she appeared on television it was usually some sort of an event — a series directed by Peter Hall or written by Melvyn Bragg — and she was invariably mentioned lovingly in English stars' autobiographies.

Theatre folk are much given to making claims for the classlessness of their world but the truth is that there is a rigidly structured class system within the business. It is only classless in the sense that this system is based on different values to that of the outside world. Birth may mean nothing but success is all. And not just success but the right kind of success. Simon Russell was acutely aware that, even when he had tasted his little helping of fame, he had never come close to doing work that was 'rated' by his fellow members of Equity and, secretly, it pained him.

When actors tell television interviewers that they don't mind what the critics say so long as the public enjoys what they do, they are lying. Few actors care anything for the public's opinion when set against the verdict of the critics and their peers. To be valued and given status behind the proscenium arch is their goal. If it can be accompanied by public adulation, fame and money — so much the better. At the core of the business is a clique whose pre-eminence in 'correct' work is unassailable, and Simon had ever longed to be included in it. The stars and directors, the writers and designers who count among this number patronise all but the most tumultuous public stardom. Their names may be linked to many causes, their interview manner and (certainly) their clothes may seem like a rejection of distinction, but the fact remains they form an elite whose exclusivity rivals that of the noblesse d'epee at the court of Versailles. Simon ached to be a member of this golden group who always get good reviews from Time Out and are never off the list at BAFTA.