Page 52 of Safe Enough

“I don’t really know. I went out for a cigarette. He was OK when I got back. He said at first he thought I was nuts for not seeing his point, but now I had gotten him thinking maybe I was right and he was wrong.”

“What was his issue?”

“This has always been about the British Army in World War One. Am I right? Hasn’t it? Since the very first moment I got the idea. You were the very first person I ever talked to about it.”

“Actually I think that must have been a previous wife. Or several ago. The idea was already well established when I came on the scene.”

“Was it ever anything but the British Army in World War One?”

“Don’t they like that?”

“He said the studio asked if it was an English country house movie.”

“What was his answer?”

“He said maybe English country house people, but not in the house. Obviously. In the trenches, in France, or Belgium, or wherever else they had trenches.”

“So is it a problem?”

“He said the studio thinks the audience would relate better if it was the Civil War. With actual Americans involved.”

“I see.”

“I reminded him there was an essential story strand involving an airplane pilot. The infancy of technology. A huge metaphor. It could not be dropped or altered in any way. I reminded him that airplanes weren’t invented yet, during the Civil War.”

“I think they had hot-air balloons.”

“Not the same thing at all. A hot-air balloon is automatically a slow-motion scene. We need speed, and fury, and noise, and anger. We need to feel we’re on the cusp of something new and dangerous.”

“What did he say to all that?”

“He agreed with me the studio’s idea was bullshit. He said he only passed it on because it came from the top. He said he never took it seriously. Not for one minute. He was on my side totally. Not just because of the airplanes. Because of the ideas. They’re too modern. This all is fifty years after the Civil War. The characters know things people didn’t know fifty years before.”

“He’s right, you know. The ideas are modern. You got it through, even to him. That’s great writing, babe.”

“He said the same thing. Not babe. He said it was my best writing ever. He said I could say things in four words other writers would need a paragraph for. He said I could get things through, even to a cynical old moneybags like him, about how the thoughts my characters were having were building the postwar world right in front of our eyes.”

“Flattering.”

“Very.”

“He’s right, you know,” she said again. “It stands to reason. Obviously the postwar world was built from new ideas, and inevitably they were forged during the war itself. But to see history happen in front of our eyes is fantastic. It’s going to be a classic. It’s a shoo-in for Best Picture.”

“Except that the postwar world he was talking about was post–World War Two. The 1950s, in fact. He thinks the story should be set during the Korean War. With actual Americans. And foxholes, not trenches. He thinks foxholes are better. Necessarily more intimate. An automatic reason to shoot a scene with just one or two actors. No extras. No background hoo-ha. Saves a fortune. He said one or two guys alone in a trench would look weird. As in, who are they? Are they malingerers? Did they pull the lucky straw and get to stay behind on sentry duty? Or what? Either way, he figures we would need to burn lines explaining. At the very least we would need to have them say, no, we’re not malingerers. It would be an uphill task to get anyone to like them. But guys in a foxhole don’t need explaining. They’re taking refuge. Maybe there are two of them. They tumbled in together. Maybe it’s a shell hole. Maybe it’s a little small, so they’re resentful of each other right from the start. They have to figure out how to get along. He said the modernity and the futurism in the ideas made no sense in World War One. It had to be the 1950s. He said we could still keep the airplanes. Jet fighter technology was in its infancy. There were the same kind of stresses. All we would need to do was give the guy a more modern kind of helmet. The actual lines could stay the same. He said some things never change. Some truths are eternal.”

“How did you react?”

“I let him know I was very angry, and then I went out for another cigarette.”

“How long were you gone?”

“I don’t know. Ten minutes? Maybe more. It’s a big restaurant. It’s a long walk from his table even to the lobby.”

“You shouldn’t do that. Obviously they talk about you, at the table, while you’re gone. Him and his people.”

“Actually I think they mostly make calls on their phones. Like multitasking. Probably trashing other writers’ dreams. I saw them finishing up when I came back in, every time. They were looking kind of guilty about it.”

“You should watch your back.”

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