"MAN:" "I've been working for most of the year in this big house in London." "I'm on the door." "It belongs to Elliot Graham, who, in the list of the richest people in Britain, was number eight." "Nobody lives here now." "Mr Graham himself lives across the street, in number 31." "All that happens in this house is that it's cleaned, every day, and people arrange flowers here." "There is always fresh flowers." "And then, when the cleaners all leave, I'm alone here." "From between six and nine, I am by myself." "Well, until the security guard turns up." "I have this whole place to myself." "Every day." "I'm not allowed to let anybody in, not permitted to open the front door to any stranger." "I never break this rule, ever." "Not without Mr Graham 's personal permission." "But yesterday I did break it." "The house shouldn't have been empty then." "It was only ten to three, but the cleaners had left early." "I really don't know why I broke the rule." "It was just something about her." "Yeah?" "Is Mrs Hopkins in?" "She don't work here any more." "Right." "I see." "I spoke to her on the phone a little while ago, and she was and she was kind enough to say if I was passing and would like to look inside," "I should just ring the bell." "And today I was passing." "No, she stopped working here two weeks ago." "I'll go, then." "I can let you in, though." "Can you?" "Please, come in." "Thank you." "Thank you." "That door!" "It's extraordinary, isn't it?" "Yeah." "It is strange." "You get used to it, though." "Was there something you wanted to see especially?" "I mean, apart from the door?" "No." "No, nothing, nothing I need to see." "No, I was just passing, as I said, I thought it would be fascinating to see inside after all this time." "I used to come here when I was young." "Okay." "Almost as young as you." "Right." "Well, I've got all the keys here, so if you change your mind, I can show you whatever you want." "Yeah, there's lots to see." "No, no, gosh, that won't be necessary." "I don't want to cause any bother." "It's no bother." "And I have another appointment." "Honestly, I can't be here long." "It won't take long." "No, I don't want to see the rest of the house." "I..." "I didn't come prepared for a guided tour, you know, that's what I mean." "It's beautifully kept, I must say." "Hmm, fresh flowers and everything." "My name's Mary, Mary Gilbert." "I'm Joe." "Hello, Joe." "Joe Dix." "Hello, Joe Dix." "Shall I get you some tea?" "I can do it quickly, very quickly, so you don't miss your appointment." "Yes, yes, that would be very kind." "Thank you." "It's beautiful tea, Joe." "Thank you so much." "And these are delicious." "Good." "I'll just drink this, then I'll be gone." "I have to get to my appointment." "Well, I'll be over here." "Don't worry about me." "I've just got to fill in a few things in this ledger, all the hours I've done this week." "JOE:" "Miss!" "Miss!" "Oh, I'm so sorry." "How clumsy of me." "It's okay." "Oh, my..." "Wait there." "Oh, I..." "I'm not sure I should have let this one in." "Here." "I'm so sorry." "It's all right." "This will do it." "Look, please, let me." "No, no, no." "You kindly ask me in here and I spill things all over the beautiful floor." "Don't worry." "It's only milk." "What happened here?" "What do you mean?" "Well, something happened to you here, didn't it?" "I mean, before, when you were young?" "Is that what you think, Joe?" "Yeah." "Just because I didn't want to see the rest of the house doesn't mean something happened here." "Why did you used to come here?" "I came as a guest." "What, to big parties?" "No." "Quite small parties." "Oh, small parties?" "Hmm." "They were very select." "MARY:" "It was amazing, this house, then." "I'd never seen anything like it." "Mr Graham 's father invited people here he considered important." "Once a week he had a little soiree, so when you came here, there were few guests, but nearly all of them were giants." "Great novelists, famous people from the movies, actors and directors, scientists..." "Politicians, of course, too." "Those were the only guests." "I mean, you'd crane your neck all night to try to get a glimpse." "Was that..." "Was that E.M. Forster that just walked past you?" "Is that figure over there in the chair Alfred Hitchcock?" "Is that the back of Evelyn Waugh 's head?" "I think that' s Ava Gardner over there, deep in the shadows." "Why were you there?" "How on earth was I invited?" "Me?" "A young woman who'd just lost her Manchester accent." "You wouldn't have guessed that's where I came from, would you?" "I hadn't thought about it." "I forced myself to lose my accent, at university." "I taught myself to speak like this." "I was there because I'd been very lucky and become rather well-known in my own right." "See, at Oxford, I wrote a lot of journalism, and one of my pieces got picked up by a Sunday newspaper." "Suddenly I was writing about movies and culture." "You really can't imagine what the world was like then." "It was a very class-bound time, of course, full of absurd rules and ridiculous prejudices." "Even about how you held your fork at meal times." "It was at Henley." "No, I..." "I'm sure, at the shoot." "I've never been to a shoot." "Well, suddenly, I had my own column and I wrote a book with a..." "It's a silly title," "Slicing The Apple, which caused a stir." "It was an attack against the male elite." "It was nothing remarkable, of course, Joe." "It was who was saying it that excited people." "I mean, this was before the Beatles and all that, of course." "Yeah?" "Oh, before the Beatles." "The confidence of youth." "YOUNG MARY:" "A month ago, regular readers of this column will remember I advocated a little more passion in our native cinema, that perhaps physical love was not best expressed by a small peck on our jaunty hero's cheek by his long-suffering wife," "as he sets off for work in the morning whistling." "I also ventured the thought that it was important that audiences were treated as adults, and therefore sexual love was clearly a proper subject for cinema." "And that, ultimately, we might see some representation of the actual sexual act in mainstream pictures." "I wrote an article saying there should be more sex in the movies." "I mean, all hell broke loose." "There I was." "I kept being invited, and I felt really alive, buzzing with ideas and the possibility of things." "JOE:" "Miss?" "Was it in here?" "In one of these rooms, the singing?" "Partly in there." "Come and have a look at it now." "Oh, no." "No, I don't need to do that." "Come on." "Someone die in here or something?" "It looks smaller." "The funny thing is, the person I found most interesting wasn't one of the living legends." "I found myself becoming really fascinated by this man who wasn't at all famous." "In fact, nobody there was quite sure what he did." "I noticed people seemed a little nervous when he approached, even Alfred Hitchcock." "And then I began to understand why, when I managed to eavesdrop on what he was saying." "He would whisper to these great writers and movie directors and actors," ""Your latest" ""doesn't seem to have caused quite such a stir as your last." ""It's still on, isn't it?" ""Well, I don't know, I liked it." "I don't know why I'm so alone."" "You must be so relieved." "People seem to be going despite the notices." "He seemed to weave a web round these famous people." "I think people are just a little confused, that's what I think." "But it won't have done you any harm, will it?" "People said he was in publishing." "That as a very young man he'd worked for Lloyd George on his papers, getting them in order." "Now he was doing the same for Winston Churchill." "He was very friendly with the great newspaper proprietors of the time." "So he knew everyone who mattered." "He was one of those mysterious people who seem to do both everything and nothing." "Sometimes," "I would see him thrash this ball about in the passage." "People said he knew so many secrets, but he never ever disclosed what he knew." "The other extraordinary thing he did, he brought these extremely young girls with him." "Gorgeous young things, but definitely underage." "On my fourth visit, there was this particularly glorious creature." "I don't know how he introduced her." "His niece?" "Friend of the family?" "I'd never spoken to him." "Not yet." "Occasionally, I would see him glance towards me in a slightly knowing way." "And on this evening, he was getting closer and closer." "Phyllis, how are you?" "MARY:" "I felt myself getting excited." "More excited, absurdly, than if Alfred Hitchcock had been coming to talk to me." "What did he say?" "Oh, sorry." "Sorry." "MARY:" "I'd just gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water." "It seemed absurd to ask a servant to do that." "I' m not disturbing you, am I?" "No, no, of course, not." "Both of us have escaped to the kitchen." "No, I just came to get myself some water." "Right." "Well, as for me, I'm really going to shock you, I think." "Oh, are you?" "I doubt that." "I've come here to make myself a salad." "I have." "One of my little foibles when it gets late." "The staff leave me the ingredients and I make myself a salad." "Does that shock you?" "No, of course not." "It is a little eccentric, I admit." "I haven't introduced myself, I'm..." "It is me who has to introduce himself." "I'm Greville White." "I know, of course, who you are, Mary Gilbert, because you are famous." "Oh, no, hardly." "Absolutely." "You are." "I hang on your every word." "I can quote whole paragraphs." "You're an "acid observer", isn't that right?" "Slicing people down to size?" "I do a bit of that, too, I suppose, though, of course, I don't write it down." "But I know a few things." "I bet you do." ""The Voice of Youth", isn't that what it says?" "Oh, please..." "Your by-line in the newspaper, "The True Voice of Youth"?" "That was awful." "I stopped them doing it." "What a fantastic opportunity that is, though, to be the voice of youth." "I would grab it if I were you." "I'm trying to." "You know, one thing I often do..." "Well, "often" is a lie, one thing I occasionally do is see myself as others see me." "Quite vividly, in fact." "Do you ever do that?" "No." "You sure?" "I'm not certain I know what you mean." "I'll tell you exactly what I mean." "When I think about myself, most of the time I see myself as dapper." "And maybe I've got a little more energy than some other people." "You have that, too, Mary." "And I've got a good memory and a reasonably lively mind, that's how I see myself." "But sometimes" "I conjure up the picture other people have of me, what they see." "They see me as quite a slimy, maybe treacherous fellow, sweaty, always with little beads of sweat on his brow, as if I'm working too hard to be charming, covering what's really going on inside and the effort shows." "Whatever the temperature of the room, whatever the season, they see the sweat." "Don't worry, a little party trick." "Hopefully not too many people see me like that." "I'm sure they don't." "Come on." "No need to be bland with me, Mary Gilbert, that's not what you're famous for." "I'm quite certain you, for a start, have viewed me like that." "No, I'm sure I haven't." "Don't worry." "I'm not offended in the slightest." "I can tell you, Mr White, I..." "Please, Greville." "Please, Bernard." "I promise you, I really promise you, I'm not offended." "And what's more, I'm going to prove it to you." "Now." "Prove it to me?" "By doing something I never normally do." "Telling you a few little things that might amuse you, since you are an observer yourself." "I never gossip as a rule..." "I'd heard." "Oh, so you do know something about me." "I'd heard that." "Yes, well, I never ever gossip." "I mean, too many useful things would be compromised if I did." "But for you, young Mary Gilbert," "I will make an exception." "My only exception." "He told me a few little titbits." "A famous politician who was having an affair with a minor royal was probably the only juicy revelation." "Yet they were mostly mild, harmless stories, like a civil servant who had an obsessive need to pick people's pockets." "Not just watches and wallets, but sometimes people's cough lozenges." "There was a funny story about a famous Hollywood star who'd come over to England to make a film and she was terrified of Pekingese dogs, regarded seeing them as a terrible omen." "So if she caught sight of one on her way to the film studios in the morning, she would refuse to film that day." "So the film company was reduced to hiring special dog walkers, all with great big dogs, to amble through the streets near her hotel each time she set off in the morning." "I met her once." "Apart from the business with dogs, she was rather nice." "She swore an awful lot." "She had a charming Southern accent." "It was fascinating, being deluged with gossip while he made his healthy-looking salad." "He was funny and charming." "But I had no doubt, as I watched him," "I was under no illusion that, though I was quite well-known then and nobody outside the elite circle knew who he was, here was someone who was far more powerful than me." "He does a jolly good haircut." "MARY:" "Someone I had to be extremely careful of." "I've had mine done by him more than once." "Oh, does he charge as well?" "No, quite the opposite." "You get a glass of sherry and some cheese biscuits." "Why is he telling me all this?" "He's more than just trying to get me into bed." "What's he really after?" "Where are you going?" "I'm going to see where it happened." "Are you coming?" "Do we have to?" "Well, what do you think?" "It looks terrific." "It's hardly changed." "Well, that's terrible." "It's like it's been preserved." "It should have changed more." "Yeah." "Did you get to eat his salad?" "It's funny you should ask that, I was just thinking that very second," "I never got to taste it." "It is beautiful, isn't it?" "You're right." "Yes." "Thank you." "And it is just for us two." "Just for us?" "We'll never finish it." "Shall we go and choose some wine to go with it?" "Oh, oh, you mean..." "From the cellar." "The cellar?" "Yes, I often do that." "Mr Graham has a fantastic wine cellar, though I'm not sure he knows his way round it." "He frequently asks me for recommendations, and he lets me take a bottle home, when I wish." "One of my little perks." "Do you want to come and help me choose?" "Ever written about wine?" "No." "I know absolutely nothing about wine." "So, there are some things you don't have an opinion on, then?" "Of course." "There are all sorts of things I don't know anything about, naturally." "Really?" "I can't believe that's true, Mary." "Well, it is." "I see myself very much as a beginner still." "I've been very lucky in my career." "It's good to have strong opinions." "I approve of that." "MARY:" "I realised he was most probably trying to seduce me, but, I don't know why, I wasn't the least afraid of him." "I knew he wasn't going to try to rape me." "And I knew instinctively there was something else he wanted to tell me." "And, of course, a bit of me was thinking maybe there's a story here." "Up until 20 years ago, the food used to come along here from the kitchens." "Can you believe that?" "I know it seems spooky down here, but it isn't." "It is, in fact, rather beautiful." "Beautiful?" "Maybe." "In a way." "Isn't this magnificent?" "Yes, it is." "Some of these bottles are over a hundred years old." "Mr Graham bought up other people's wine collections and stuck them down here." "There are some real treasures that are worth a fortune." "I persuaded him recently to do some better labelling." "I wrote some of these myself." "Great labels." "Thanks." "Yes, they are rather nice." "You know about films?" "Yes." "Well, this is a bit like something in that fat chap upstairs' movie, you know, Notorious, where they go down to the wine cellar." "Cary Grant, you don't know what he's going to discover, and then Ingrid Bergman joins him." "Well, I'm not sure we're going to find some uranium down here in one of these bottles." "And that's what Cary Grant found." "No." "Maybe not." "And here we have this." "We have a Chateau Latour 1900, one of the greatest wines of the century." "And little did they know, as they were drinking this what a great disaster was going to overcome them all, the fighting, the trenches, in just a few years." "I like doing this, imaging what was happening as certain wines were bottled." "A Chateau Haut Brion, often described as a very feminine wine." "I mean, 1929 was a truly great year." "Just as the stock markets of the world were collapsing and people were throwing themselves out of buildings." "Exactly." "And come here." "1943, the best vintage during the war." "I mean, the connoisseur's life very definitely didn't stop, you see." "You do know a lot about wine." "Well, I spend an awful lot of my time in country houses drinking the stuff, as I help them out." "Well, I wouldn't complain if I were you, it's a nice way to spend your time." "Was I complaining?" "I didn't mean to." "There's more." "Shall we, uh..." "Shall we choose a bottle, then?" "Maybe the one that's worth a fortune, that would surprise them." "If we went upstairs waving that around, having opened it." "I lied to you." "About what?" "The reason for us coming down here?" "No." "What do you take me for, Mary?" "I don't normally lure young women down into cellars to take advantage of them." "No, I lied about the stories I told you." "You mean they weren't true?" "No, they were true all right, but they were silly, unimportant froth." "They weren't the real story, Mary." "I should have been more truthful." "Do you want to hear the real story, Mary?" "As he said that, I could feel myself go cold." "Do you want to hear that?" "The real story, Mary?" "Yes." "Right." "And then he tells me a series of what I can only call horrific things." "He was very calm, very specific, the year, the exact location" "and, of course, all the real names." "At first I thought I could handle it." "It started with something fairly nasty, but it was not unbearable." "About an archbishop who thrashed little boys till they bled and were raw." "Continued even when he was a famous prelate." "He thrashed and thrashed them." "And then he moved on to a famous public figure who had apparently kept a young woman like a slave in his house." "Degraded her in the most horrible fashion, for year after year." "When it was over, her own sister didn't recognise her." "There was a story that particularly shocked me, one he himself had directly witnessed about a very senior politician, somebody who had helped lead us through the war, watching a documentary about the Holocaust and coming out afterwards and saying to Greville..." ""The fucking Jews, they were really asking for it."" "That's what he said to me, Mary." "That's..." "That's terrible." "Yes." "He seemed very surprised when I went rather quiet after he'd said it." "MARY:" "There were stories of cruelty to children." "There were one or two things so disgusting I've never been able to get them out of my head." "I find myself thinking about them nearly every week, even now." "Everything he told me was sordid, and sometimes unbearably sad, too." "And I believed every word." "I don't think he was making it up." "In fact, I know he wasn't making it up." "I mean, I know there are stories you can tell about the powerful in any age," "I'm sure you could collect awful things now, but hearing them pour out, all together, coming right at me." "It took me totally by surprise." "I liked to think of myself as being very sophisticated, unshockable." "But he really shocked me." "Nice life I lead." "There is a line of cruelty, Mary, that I've watched personally, running from before the war right through to where we are now." "I think I'm a great witness, the many things I've seen." "It's just I can never tell people." "Well, why are you telling me?" "I don't know." "I really don't know the answer to that, Mary." "Maybe you seemed a good person to tell." "The voice of youth." "And also perhaps I wanted to tell you because..." "I wanted to show you something." "Show me what?" "Show you that even though I know all these things, and in one or two instances have actually been in the house when they happened," "I still believe the alternative is worse." "What's the alternative?" "Reducing everybody and everything to the same level." "Letting the great unwashed run everything." "And suddenly, he's all bright and argumentative." "Do you agree with me, Mary?" "As if after telling me all these disgusting things none of it mattered, as if all he wanted was a little dinner party political ding dong, to take me on." "What's your view, Mary?" "You're going to run away now, aren't you?" "I think I'd better leave, don't you?" "No, I don't think you should leave." "Well, I'm going to." "We haven't chosen our bottle yet." "No, we haven't." "No, of course, everything you've told me..." "Yes?" "Will remain completely confidential." "Naturally." "I won't breathe a word." "Do I really believe that?" "Yes." "You do believe that." "If that is what you promise, Mary." "That's what I promise." "Oh, it still looks creepy, even with all this light on." "I suppose most basements are creepy." "Yeah, I've never seen a rat down here, so it must be clean." "Oh, don't!" "I suppose so little goes on in the house now, there's not much for them to eat." "All the wine, it's still here." "Nobody drinks it?" "No." "You're thinking I should never have come down here with him, aren't you, Joe?" "I weren't thinking that." "Would you have said no?" "No, I don't think so." "MARY:" "I told myself I would let everything go, you know, let it wash away, that by the time I got home it would be gone." "Of course, within minutes of me sitting there," "I realised that wasn't going to happen because, as soon as I was alone with my thoughts, everything he told me became even more vivid." "For some reason, I started seeing this newsreel footage, and I was thinking all these things he's told me are running underneath, underneath these events." "May I have a cigarette?" "MARY:" "And then something else dawned on me." "Because he'd been so specific, every date, every name, people that were still alive, when he came back into the room, I realised" "he's told me all these things which he might not have told anybody else, so he's not going to let go of me that easily." "Just running away from him in the cellar isn't going to finish the business." "Let' s get out of here, Joe." "I need you to lead me, Joe, I don't know my way out of this bloody place." "Oh, well, it' s this way." "Oh, thank you." "Oh, that's better, Joe, thank you." "I was just keeping out the winter cold." "Did you get away from him?" "Away from this man?" "Well, that was my intention, Joe, and for that to be possible, I knew I needed to see him again." "I would act so vague when I saw him, so forgetful, he'll realise he has no hold over me." "I mean, I knew he could still do me professional harm, if he chose." "It was the first time" "I'd been invited to spend the night here." "We'd been to Wimbledon to see the tennis." "In the morning, we were going down the river." "As always, there was a small group of guests, they were all very famous, but no Greville White." "Mr Graham's theme for the evening seemed to be Edwardian Music Hall." "The house was ringing with these old songs." "WOMAN: # Tick tock, it stopped" "# Short" "# Never to g o again when the old man died" "# It rang an alarm In the dead of the night... #" "MARY:" "I was feeling very excited, I remember." "I'd just been given an important assignment, a series of articles in America." "It would be my first visit there." "# Still the clock kept the time" "# With a soft and muffled chime" "# And we silently stood by his side" "# But it stopped, short" "# Never to go again when the old man died #" "Mr Graham, it's been a fantastic day, thank you." "I'm heading to America soon." "I'm going to do a few articles out there." "How wonderful." "Yes, a fantastic opportunity." "I'm only going for a short time, but I'm very excited." "Good night." "Good night." "# I have a song to sing, O!" "# What is your song, O?" "# It is sung with the ring of the songs maids sing #" "# Who loved with a love life-long-o" "# It's a song of a merry maid peerly proud" "# Who loved a lord and who laughed aloud" "# At the moan of the merry man moping mum" "# Whose soul was sad and whose glance was glum" "# Who sipped no sup and who craved no crumb" "# As he sighed for the love of a lady" "# Hey-di, hey-di" "# Misery me, lack-a-day-de" "# His pains were o'er and he sighed no more" "# For he lived in the love of a lady #" "Who is it?" "It's me, Greville." "I don't need to come in, I've just got something here for you." "I thought you might like some strawberries." "I missed the tennis, but I brought the strawberries." "It's clotted cream, do you want some?" "Thank you, that's very kind." "I'll have a spoonful." "It's all right, I don't need to come in." "You look really well." "Thank you." "I am." "I just wanted to say, Mary, about the last time we saw each other..." "Oh, yes, when you made that big salad." "Yes, there was the salad." "And then there was what I told you." "Oh, yes, was it something..." "Was it about a film star and dogs?" "Yes, that was part of it, amongst other things." "I just want to explain why I told you those things..." "No, no, you don't have to." "Please." "I just wanted to say I really didn't mean to upset you." "Was I upset?" "No." "No, I don't think so." "Right." "That's good." "I'm glad you weren't." "# The boy I love" "# Is up in the gallery" "# The boy I love" "# Is looking at me" "# There he is, can't you see... #" "Sorry, eating these like this just reminded me of something." "Since I didn't upset you last time," "I'll risk one more, one more little image." "Please, it's late and I'm..." "No, no, no, this is tiny." "It's funny, not like the other ones." "I was in a private room in a gentleman's club, the Beefsteak Club." "A group of us were trying out, for reasons I don't remember, a series of ghastly over-sweet Greek puddings, with names like "galaktoboureko", and they were so sticky." "It was like eating glue." "There must be a new cook, mustn't there?" "We've had the same six puddings for the last 20 years." "And as we were trying to unstick ourselves, these men were saying, very senior figures in the government," ""You know how I hate niggers," ""but we are going to have to give them something, especially in Africa."" "And somebody else was saying," ""The niggers will never be able to run anything." "It's madness."" "I mean, it was very standard stuff, but as they talked, they were all fiddling with their teeth." "Their mouths were literally being gummed up." "Why are you telling me this?" "Well, I thought you'd like that image, these men sitting around," ""I hate the niggers," all this syrup in their mouths." "And did you agree with them?" "I didn't say that, did I?" "Thank you for the strawberries." "I really must go to bed now." "Of course." "I just have one other thing I want to give you." "No, no, it's late, and I really..." "Please." "Just let me for a moment." "I know you think I'm a snob, Mary..." "I really don't know what you think or believe and I..." "I don't need to know." "I like taste, refinement." "I really value that." "I don't think that's a crime." "And the idea of everything being reduced to total mediocrity, to the lowest common denominator, that does terrify me." "I hate the common herd." "So, you must hate me then, mustn't you?" "Because that's where I'm from." "You really imagine I'd be here if that's what I felt?" "Is that what you think of me, Mary?" "I'd be really disappointed if that's what you thought of me." "MARY:" "I had my chance then." "I could tell him what I thought of him now." "I so wish I could have found the words, Joe." "I often think of that moment, imagine it again, in my head, and when I do that," "I really demolish him." "I'm incredibly eloquent." "But I was a very young woman, and there was this older man playing some strange game with me." "I don't think I did too badly." "You want to know what I think of you, Greville?" "Well, I think you're a bit sad." "Sad?" "In what way?" "For some reason, you see me as a threat." "You know, a threat to your nice life and your country houses." "Why on earth you should think that, I don't know." "You know, maybe it's because I'm young, and a woman, of course," "and you think I don't show enough respect or something." "And you want to stop me being a threat." "And that's rather sad, don't you think?" "Spending so much energy over somebody like me." "Thank you for the strawberries and um..." "and good night." "Right." "If that is what you feel, you probably won't want this then." "But I really would urge you to take it." "I don't want it, whatever it is." "Please, look inside, and then I'll go, I promise." "What is this?" "The key to the wine cellar?" "It's the key to my house." "To your house?" "Yes, and it doesn't mean what you think it does." "No, whatever it means, I don't want it." "And this isn't a trick or some cheap gesture." "I want you to have the imagination to accept it, the key to my house." "You can come there whenever you want." "You can visit just once or many times." "Just drop by, let yourself in, either alone or with a friend." "Why on earth would I want to do that?" "There are all sorts of things in that house that I've collected over many years, over my whole life!" "If I happen to be there when you come by," "I wouldn't try to touch you." "I would never attempt to be your lover." "Greville, that really is too strange." "I really would urge you not to refuse straight away." "How many of these do you hand out to girls each season?" "That is unkind, Mary." "I had that specially made for you." "And you won't believe me, but I've never done this before." "I thought we might help each other." "Help each other?" "In what way?" "In all sorts of ways." "What does that mean?" "Professionally, of course." "That goes without saying." "And in other ways, too." "Help each other understand the world." "Good night, Greville." "Don't give it back to me now, think about it overnight at least." "I've thought about it." "He didn't come bursting back in, did he?" "Or he didn't knock the door down, come rushing at you?" "No." "No, Joe, he was a bit cleverer than that." "I can still feel that night." "How warm it was." "How good I felt in that dress." "But I was bloody nervous after he'd gone, with that creepy key." "I thought, I'll leave very early, get away from this house, get on with my life." "Never come back." "WOMAN:" "Hello, Mary." "I've got a letter for you." "A letter for me?" "Yes." "From Greville." "It's very early." "Yes, it is, isn't it?" "Sometimes I love to get up early." "I don't think we've been properly introduced." "I'm Mary Gilbert." "And I'm Liza Henton." "There, now we've done it properly." "She looked so beautiful I couldn't help thinking," ""Does he have sex with this girl? "" "Does he keep several of them in his house?" "I mean, did it all start with them being given keys?" "Thank you." "He said that you should read it now, and that I should wait to see if there was a reply." "I'll read it when I get home." "He said if you could open it now." "And then, I suddenly thought, what if it's the key again and I have accepted it, you know, unwittingly?" "Why don't you just open it?" "No need to be nervous." "No." "I assure you, I am not nervous." "GREVILLE:" "My dear Mary, you disappointed me last night." "You should have taken the key." "Liza has handed you this letter, and just look at her." "Does she appear in any way frightened of me?" "Why don't you ask her about me?" "Please come out for dinner with me tonight, so we can settle our differences, and part friends." "It would be a much better way for us to end things." "Thank you for waiting." "There' s no reply." "No reply at all?" "No." "MARY:" "For a few days nothing at all happened." "I thought I'd got rid of him." "Life was going on as normal." "But then my trip to America was cancelled." "They said to me, my bosses, they'd decided the timing wasn't quite right." "And a few months later, my contract wasn't renewed." "I was told my style of journalism, you know, the voice of youth, was no longer in fashion." "I mean, I wasn't too disturbed." "I felt I could get a job on any national newspaper after the success I had but one by one, for a whole variety of reasons, they said no." "I heard that I was meant to be very difficult and unreliable and greedy!" "I realised Greville was behind it, of course." "He was friendly with the newspaper proprietors and knew a lot about their personal lives, too." "Well, didn't you find Greville, make him do something, or..." "No, I didn't, Joe." "I just thought, well, what the hell?" "I've saved a little money," "I need a break, you know, I'll go abroad..." "Travel." "And write another book." "And I did travel, Joe." "I had a few love affairs, one of which was great fun, but I wasn't doing much writing." "So, one day, I decided to come home." "And I came back here." "I was going out with a young painter at that time," "and he'd become very fashionable, and he was invited by Mr Graham, and my lover said to me, you know, "Why don't you come? "" "And I thought, why not?" "If Greville happens to be there, which seems highly unlikely after all this time," "I mean, what can he do to me now?" "He can do nothing." "And I thought, you know, maybe I could d o something to him." "Be devastating, you know, be witty, reduce him to a little heap." "It's so different!" "MARY:" "Mr Graham had torn out the beautiful conservatory and built this horrible modern room, you know, in an attempt to be with it." "Hello, how are you?" "WOMAN:" "I' m okay, how are you?" "Yeah, I' m fine actually." "MAN:" "You know, she used to write some really racy stuff, didn't you?" "What do you mean, "used to"?" "And some quite heavy stuff, too." "She can really write, this one." "Oh, that's good to know!" "See you in a while." "Okay." "Speak to you later." "WOMAN:" "Where have you been?" "Oh, I've been abroad." "In the sun, you know, working, of course, writing and planning." "WOMAN:" "And what have you been planning?" "Well, I'm planning a trilogy of books about now." "And what is the title of the books?" "The title, well..." "I think the title will definitely have the word "change" in it, something about change." "Or else, I was thinking..." "And there he was." "Quite suddenly." "Right there, all trussed up in a waistcoat, though it was summer." "He seemed like he was from another age, like one of his wines." "Trying to weave his spell as he worked the room." "And soon we will be nostalgic for glamour again, long dresses and the funny old conservatory that used to be here." "You don't see faces coming towards you any more, just an army of legs." "It's the same with these new movies." "People don't want their noses rubbed along the kitchen floor." "Who is that guy?" "Oh, that's just somebody I used to know a long time ago." "We once nearly shared a salad in this very house." "And we..." "We did eat some strawberries together, too." "With clotted cream." "Squalid piece of work." "I thought it was depressing." "Oh, God!" "Oh, God, it is an ugly room, isn't it?" "Didn't you go up to him at this party?" "Didn't you say something?" "You should have got hold of him, yanked him in front of people." "Did you do that?" "Did you say, "You fucking prick!" ""You done this to me, now you fucking do something about it" ""and get me my job back!"" "I didn't say that, Joe, no." "You didn't?" "I couldn't." "Well, why not?" "Don't get impatient with me, Joe, please." "Sorry." "I didn't mean to shout." "I just want you to get this fucker, that's all." "It wasn't going to be easy, Joe." "Everything had moved on while I'd been on my travels." "I was wearing the right clothes, of course, but inside..." "I felt a stranger." "It really pays to be in the vanguard of things, Joe, to be one of the first." "You' re superseded very quickly." "But much more important than that, I wasn't there in my own right." "I was just with my boyfriend." "I was thinking, I used to be invited here when I was a fashionable writer." "I just want to talk to somebody over there." "I' ll be back." "Don't be long." "Okay." "GREVILLE:" "People want fantasy and stories, beautiful worlds to escape to." "I mean, that's always been the case and always will." "And very sad, because writers tell us how to live our lives." "Can't go wrong with Turkish Delight, and probably Turks have never even heard of it." "Sorry, I'm just gabbling." "Excuse me." "Something happened at this party that had a big effect on me." "I mean, a lot of what they say is new about these movies has, in fact, been done loads of times before." "Greville likes to talk, doesn't he?" "GREVILLE:" "Done by people who were true artists, and that is why their work hasn't dated." "Unlike this new breed now, who are addicted to gimmicks and the latest fad." "MARY:" "And this man suddenly piped up..." "That's complete crap!" "Everything you said is just such utter bollocks!" "MARY:" "He'd no respect for this older man in a waistcoat." "He just gave it to him and went." "What a charming young man." "Fascinating that he wanted to share his opinions with us." "MARY:" "I thought, "I should have done that." ""Why don't I do that to Greville? "" "And then, of course, I realised" "I could never talk to Greville like that." "Brutal and rude, I don't know." "I just, maybe because I belonged to another time, I..." "I don't know why I couldn't." "Because I was afraid." "I couldn't even go up to him at that party." "He's looking for someone else to talk to, to engage with, and I'm almost hiding!" "And then, he looks at me." "He looks across at me, and though he didn't say anything, I could hear him saying..." "But you're still mine." "But you're still mine, aren't you, Mary?" "I tried not to run, not to look like I was fleeing his presence." "I didn't want to creep out of there either, but I got away from this house as quick as I could." "What, you left here without saying anything to him?" "That' s right." "I left him looking for me." "But you did speak to him again, didn't you?" "Go on." "MARY:" "For a few months, or maybe a year," "I sunk myself into my love affair with the artist." "He was getting really successful, almost famous." "But he was very careful with money, extremely mean, in fact." "So for a time we lived in this bedsit, and he disappeared for days on end to his studio." "When he wasn't painting, he was thinking deep thoughts." "He had an awful lot of deep thoughts, it seems." "None of which I ever got to hear." "And the room was just crammed with his things, as well as his thoughts." "And I started having a little tipple at various moments of the day." "I found it helped the creative flow." "Shit!" "Fuck!" "Oh, I nearly cut myself!" "Stepped on one of your bloody wine glasses!" "I told you so many times, don't leave glasses on the floor, okay?" "It's a real pigsty in here!" "You have to clear it all up, you understand?" "Yeah, I understand." "I'll write it down a hundred times, "It's a real pigsty in here."" "And then what are you going to do about it?" "What am I going to do about it?" "Yes." "Well, maybe I'll start by making a list of all the things of yours I'm not allowed to throw out." ""What are you doing, Mary?" "You've moved the cornflake packet."" "When have I ever said that?" "You always say things like that!" "I mean, just the other day you accused me of throwing out that stupid little green cloth you're forever wiping the gramophone with." "Just clean the place up, okay?" "After all, you've got the time, haven't you?" "What, unlike you, you mean?" "Yes." "I don't know what you do all day, Mary." "I was beginning to write again, another attempt at a novel." "Outside all sorts of new things were happening and I thought I should be able to catch them, describe them." "But the funny thing was it didn't matter whether I started the story on a train, or in the desert, or outside Buckingham Palace... it always, always led back to the cellar and Greville." "One day, I started to write directly on a typewriter." "Up till then, I'd always done the first draft in longhand." "It was a nice day." "There were church bells outside the window, somebody was getting married down the street." "And I was flying, absolutely flying with my story." "And then I wasn't flying any more." "Every time this happened, my confidence took a further little knock." "When you have success, without really thinking about it, when you're very young and you're not quite sure how you did all that," "your confidence can go amazingly quickly when things go wrong." "Escape wasn't proving easy, Joe." "I knew a lot of people, you know, friends, acquaintances, who'd become successful round that time and then destroyed themselves with drink and drugs." "And I decided I was definitely not going to be one of them." "Try my hard est." "Good." "I pulled myself together." "Great!" "Yeah, I started going out again, attending private views with my boyfriend." "Of course, I realised that there was a slight chance" "I might see Greville, but I was ready for it." "Well, yeah, because you ain't spoken to him about him getting you fired." "I hadn't, no." "Oh, you gotta speak to him about that." "That's right." "So at one particular private view, being held at a house in the country," "I was sitting there with my boyfriend." "We'd been breaking up for months, only we'd been doing it in slow motion, a little bit each week." "On this particular night, what we were saying to each other was..." "It was fairly terminal." "Maybe it's because I need more space." "I think I really do need a lot more space." "He was too mean to buy more space, so he had to kick me out instead." "Naturally, I wasn't slow in pointing this out." "You know what, Zach?" "The other day, I was trying to think of the last thing you bought me, any, any kind of present." "You know what it was?" "A single pink balloon to celebrate my birthday." "I don't believe in birthdays." "Never have." "Now, why doesn't that surprise me?" "But I know what you'd like." "What would I like?" "You'd like a crate of vodka delivered at the beginning of every week." "You'd wake up, there it would be at the end of the bed." "Once a week?" "That certainly wouldn't be enough." "So there we were, right in the middle of our break-up, and there... there was Greville." "Hello." "I saw you at the Glyn-Parrys, in August?" "You don't remember?" "I think we were sitting quite near each other." "MARY:" "He was dressed in his usual old-fashioned way, almost defiantly out of keeping with the times." "He keeps avoiding catching my eye." "I mean, he knows I'm there." "I know he's seen me, but he..." "He won't look at me." "You know, he's smiling and trying to gossip with people." "Did you enjoy the exhibition?" "T ell me, were they meant to be people or fruit?" "What?" "The shapes." "They looked like fruit to me." "But somebody said they were meant to be people." "MARY:" "And Liza was there as well." "She was dressed very oddly, too." "Almost like her mother might have been." "I' m having a party in my little flat in Kensington in a few weeks," "I do hope you' ll come." "MARY:" "She was still very young, and yet she looked so out of place." "Apparently, there are only 12 interesting people in London, and so it will have to be a very tiny gathering, as you can imagine." "But you are one of them." "Hello." "Did you get my letter?" "The post is terrible, isn't it?" "Well, I've had an idea for a book." "I was wondering if we could talk about it?" "It's a memoir, really." "I think it would make quite a lively read." "The time I spent with Lloyd George and Churchill." "Yes, I worked on Churchill's papers." "I got to know him quite well." "I got drunk with him, actually." "MARY:" "It was like their joke on the world, you know, this strange couple weaving some sort of spell." "I must take you out for a meal." "MARY:" "It wasn't really working any more." "I think you' ll be surprised, in more ways than one." "Give me a ring." "MARY:" "But it's like he knew his power was on the wane." "The great newspaper proprietors he was close to were now dead." "He didn't have nearly so many influential friends." "He was standing very straight, you know, like he was determined not to be engulfed by this new world." "This world he had first sensed, maybe, when he met me." "I was almost relishing watching him like that, and I was thinking about Liza." "Yes, yes, he was rather interesting..." "MARY:" "Was that what he'd wanted me to become?" "...an interesting person to my interesting party." "Was he one of the 12 most interesting men in London?" "Apparently, yes." "Yes." "What number does that make me, I wonder?" "Well, of course, you're number one, Greville!" "MARY:" "And then their car draws up and they both get in." "I'm feeling almost relaxed now." "They're going, and nothing has happened." "Nothing bad has occurred at all." "And I remember so clearly watching them together in the back of the car." "The car draws off." "And then, he stares straight at me." "He mouths..." "Help me!" "Help me!" ""Help me, Mary! "" "Help me, Mary!" "Help me!" "It wasn't a pathetic cry, Joe." "Quite the reverse." "It was terrifying." "Help me, Mary." "Help me." "And then I never saw him again, Joe." "What?" "You didn't?" "No." "You never ever said anything about what he'd done to you?" "No." "You didn't ring him up or anything and say," ""Why should I help you?" "You did this terrible thing to me."" "No." "I didn't see him again, Joe." "Until today." "Today?" "I saw him today." "But, well, he must be old, mustn't he?" "I mean, it's a long time ago." "He must be an incredibly old man." "You would have thought so, wouldn't you, Joe?" "What do you mean?" "Where did you see him?" "MARY:" "I often go for a walk in the park in the morning." "And usually it's all right, alone with one's thoughts, planning the next day." "GREVILLE:" "Mary!" "Mary!" "I didn't hear my name again, so I just got on with my walk." "And I'm dimly aware of this figure just a little further on, keeping pace with me, walking along another path." "He didn't seem to be looking at me." "I realised, you know, he must have been calling somebody else." "You know, I get to my usual spot." "I often sit there for a few minutes." "GREVILLE:" "Mary." "Mary." "And I thought, "Looks terribly like Greville." ""No, that's impossible, because he's not old."" "And Greville was much older than me." "No." "No, it must be somebody else." "Now, I know what you' re thinking, it was the drink." "This drink, in fact." "And, of course, you could be right, Joe." "Because this isn't a ghost story." "No." "No, this is worse than a ghost story." "For me, anyway." "Why?" "Well, what happened?" "Did he come any closer?" "It's very important, because of what happens next, for you to understand." "I don't usually sit in the park in the morning feeling sorry for myself." "I hate the idea." "I haven't spent all these years in self-pity." "Do you follow that, Joe?" "Yeah." "I mean, I had rebuilt, you know, a sort of career for myself after the setbacks caused by Greville." "You know, I've written for magazines about gardening and lifestyle and antiques." "I've been able to earn a reasonable living." "You know, many people would think I'd been lucky to lead such a life." "Do you understand me, Joe?" "Yeah, I do." "I thought it was you, Mary." "What are you doing here?" "All on your own?" "I always thought if I saw you again, it would be in this park, and you would be on your own." "MARY:" "I couldn't speak, but he seemed to sense what I was thinking." "I am not alone, in fact." "MARY:" "I peered at them." "Could one of them have been Liza?" "GREVILLE:" "How' s it been, Mary?" "Everything you hoped?" "Silly girl." "If it was an hallucination, it was a very sustained one." "Suddenly, he was close." "I kept looking for your name." "I could never find it." "I've had some painful things happen to me, too." "We could have helped each other." "Like I said." "All you could think was that I wanted to catch you, control you." "Where have you been all this time, Mary?" "Where is the bright young girl?" "I can see no sign of her." "No sign at all." "MARY:" "The very first thing I thought about after he'd gone, it was funny, it was I suddenly understood why he was always there at Mr Graham 's parties." "I realised right then it must have been because he knew something about Mr Graham 's past." "For a moment, I was quite excited to have worked that out." "But then," "I started thinking the worst possible thoughts." "What might have been." "How stupid I was to think I could take on that world when I was so very young." "If only I'd been 10 years older, or been born a few years later, when things were different." "A young woman in that house." "It shouldn't ever have happened." "And I've never been able to shake it off, all this time." "How idiotic is that?" "And I was thinking, too, have I used what happened with Greville as an excuse, my whole life," "for the loss of my talent?" "I remembered his party trick of seeing yourself as others see you." "And all the time, there was this sensation" "like the lights being turned down." "Things closing in, shutting down." "Suddenly, I found it difficult to breathe." "It was an utterly horrible feeling, Joe." "Anyway, it was disgraceful, Joe, my exhibition." "You know, crying for one' s youth." "What a useless thing to do." "I ran away." "I ran away from the park." "But at least that feeling" "of things shutting down, of it all ending," "I fought that." "He didn't manage that." "And somehow, I managed to come here." "Something I've been thinking about for years, to come back here, confront the place." "Today, after the park," "I just walked straight here." "It seemed the obvious thing to do." "And you were kind enough to let me in." "You came to see if he was here?" "To see if I could get rid of a ghost." "Which isn't a ghost, of course." "Not a proper ghost." "And have you?" "Have you?" "I'm sorry, Joe, I have to go now." "Well, you have, haven't you?" "Got rid of him?" "Yes." "Promise me?" "Yes." "Uh, don't bother to show me out, Joe, I know the way." "I've just got to get out of this house!" "Are you going to the park tomorrow?" "Yeah, I might do." "Can I come, too?" "See where it happened?" "See if he's still there, you mean?" "11:00, hope I turn up." "Which park?" "But you ain't told me which park!" "Kensington Gardens." "JOE:" "She'd given me the time and the park, but not where she'd be." "I looked and looked for her." "I didn't find her." "And then, at last, just when I was going, there she was." "Hello, Joe." "Here I am." "You didn't think I'd come." "JOE:" "We walked in silence." "She didn't seem to want to talk." "I don't know what she was thinking." "Oh, is this the spot?" "Yeah, this is the spot." "JOE:" "I still didn't know what to say." "So I didn't say anything." "You can go now, Joe." "Thank you for staying." "It's okay." "It'll be fine." "I'll be fine." "You helped me." "Right." "But I just need to be on my own now." "You can leave, Joe." "It's okay." "I promise." "JOE:" "So, I left her there." "And she did seem better," "I think." "She was sitting there looking quite elegant, reading a book, when I left her." "I keep thinking about her." "Things I still want to ask." "I'll go back tomorrow to the park, but I expect she won't be there." "There was something about her." "I like that lady." "I hope she never sees him again." "Subtitles by LeapinLar"