Beside me, Frank swore under his breath, then followed her into the saloon. Patrick climbed out of the other car, stretched his arms and yawned loudly, then ambled off towards the Gents. I went with Tina over to the riverside walk.
‘I don’t think I was very good,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t really want you involved with this anyway. Next week when we’re cutting the film, I’ll see if I can somehow lose the footage of you.’
‘Make sure it’s burnt, won’t you?’
We watched an ore-carrier moving up the river towards the china-clay depot. It blew its siren three times, and we could hear the sound echoing off the low hills on either side of the river.
‘Are you going to stay on here?’ Tina said.
‘I’ll be in the village until the end of the week. What about you?’
‘We’ve a couple more days yet.’
‘Feel like a trip over on the ferry this evening?’ I said, and she nodded.
Just then, Frank came hurrying out of the saloon.
‘Pat? Where’s Pat?’
‘In the bog,’ Ted said.
Patrick appeared, and at once Frank went over to him. ‘They’ve re-scheduled us, Pat!’
‘What?’
‘The programme’s been put back a week.’
‘They can’t do that!’ Patrick said loudly. ‘It’s been fixed for months.’
‘They’ve unfixed it,’ said Frank. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’
‘You’re putting me on,’ said Patrick.
Frank shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t joke about this, Pat.’
‘Jesus Christ! I need a drink.’
He turned and walked into the bar, and Frank followed.
Beside me, Tina said: ‘One week. That’s awful.’
‘So you’ve got a bit longer in which to shuffle your shots about,’ I said.
‘Don’t you understand? It’s the worst thing that could happen!’
‘The best thing that could happen is that they postpone the thing indefinitely,’ I said.
She smiled wanly. ‘OK, you don’t agree with the way Pat makes his films, but putting it back a week is a terrible thing to happen at this stage. We’ve almost finished shooting.’
‘But it’s only a week,’ I said. ‘The subject won’t go cold.’
‘Don’t say you haven’t heard of the Partiality Agreement?’
I stared at her blankly.
‘It’s the way television is programmed now,’ she said. ‘In the old days, everyone in television had to work to an unwritten code of impartiality. Well, they’ve dispensed with that now, because it was too much of a constraint. Everyone’s got his own opinion, and it made the programmes very artificial if the man behind it had to bend over backwards to be fair. And people like politicians never believed that anyone could be unbiased anyway. So the television companies drew up the Partiality Agreement. Now everything that’s broadcast is very right-wing and conservative one week; the following week, to maintain the balance, all the programmes are left-wing and radical. So you see-’
‘So Pat’s got to start from scratch!’ I said.
‘The whole film, all over again. He can’t just give it a different emphasis ... it’ll mean interviewing a whole new batch of people.’
I smiled at her. ‘I can’t wait to see what he makes of it.’
‘I’d better go and talk to him,’ Tina said. ‘He’ll be taking it very badly. He doesn’t like having to be radical.’
‘I’ll buy you a drink,’ I said.
Inside the pub, Pat was sitting morosely at the bar drinking what appeared to be a tumblerful of whisky. He ignored us.
I ordered a couple of drinks for Tina and myself, and we waited to see what was going to happen.
At the far end of the bar, Frank was on the telephone. Under the circumstances he looked remarkably optimistic.
‘...Is Jeff there? he was saying. ‘...Jeff, Frank here. Listen, we’ve got a problem.... Oh, you’ve heard. I think we can handle it.... Yes, but we’ve got to start all over. Look, I want you to fix a few things for me ... Yes, by tomorrow. Have you got some paper there? I want you to make a list. ... Right. I want a full breakdown on who is behind this entertainments complex, and what the vested interests are. The angle on that’s going to be exploitation by labour, spread of capitalism, and that stuff. And see if you can get a spokesman from the National Trust to talk to us.... Fine. And the usual statistics on pollution-levels. ... Yes, and a few more things. We’ll be playing up the permissive stuff as usual, so get on to a model-agency and see if you can get half a dozen girls down here. Standard contract: nude bathing and orgy. OK? ... And we’ve found a sci-fi writer. Good value. See if you can turn something up on sci-fi. No one here knows what the hell he’s talking about.... Yes, and another thing ...’
I swallowed the rest of my drink.
‘Count me out,’ I said to Tina. ‘I’ve done my bit for partiality.’
‘Frank will be terribly disappointed,’ she said.
‘But I don’t think Pat will mind. You’ll be on the ferry tonight?’
At least she knew what the hell I was talking about.
‘If Pat gets as drunk as I think he will,’ she said, ‘I’ll be on it this afternoon.’
‘Good.’
I hurried from the bar before Frank could finish his phone-call.