The Grin of the Dark

A white Volvo cruises onto the forecourt. I'm heading for the counter to activate the pump beside which the driver has halted when he opens his door. As he stands up to gaze at me over the unshadowed roof of the car my hands close into fists, or as much as they can on the plastic necks, and I almost drop to the floor, out of sight. He's what I've been dreading for months.

THREE - ENTITLEMENT

I shove the bottles into the refrigerator and slam the glass door and straighten up from my useless belated crouch. The driver meets my gaze and climbs into the Volvo. It backs away from the pumps as if he's trying to retract the sight of me, and then it coasts over to the shop. It vanishes beyond the window, and I'm able to hope that it's gone until the driver reappears around the building. He's Rufus Wall, and he was my film tutor.

His largely ruddy brow looks even more exposed than I remember, as if his shaggy mane and the beard that blackens most of his wide face from the cheekbones down have tugged his forehead barer. He's all in black: polo neck, trousers, leather jacket and gloves. Having tried the door, he leans his face towards the glass. 'Simon?' he says so conversationally that I decipher rather than hear what he's saying. 'May I come in?'

Mr Khan wouldn't like it – won't, if he checks the security recording. I'm tempted to use this as an excuse not to admit Rufus. A wind lifts his mane, and I imagine the chill on his nearly pensionable neck. I can't leave him standing in the cold, however awkward our conversation is going to be. I unlock the door, and he sticks out a hand that feels plump with leather. 'Sorry to take you away from your task,' he says. 'I was told you'd be here.'

My reputation has sunk even lower than I thought, then. 'Who told you?'

'Joey, was it, or just Joe?' He waits for me to lock the door, then folds his arms and gazes at me. 'What do you think you're doing here, Simon?'

'Shall we call it resting?'

'In the actor's sense, I take it. Do you know where you're going, though?'

He's as persistent as ever. In tutorials that helped me clarify my ideas. Other students weren't so comfortable with it, and I no longer am. 'I don't know if I ever told you,' he says, 'you wrote the best thesis I've ever had to mark.'

'Well, thank you,' I say, and an insecure bottle lolls against the inside of the glass door as if I need reminding of my job. 'Thanks a lot.'

'What a beginning, I still think. I read it to some of my colleagues, how you'd asked all your film buff friends about poor old Polonsky who was once hailed as the greatest filmmaker since Orson Welles and every single one of them thought you meant Polanski. I can't imagine a better way of showing how reputations get lost.'

'Maybe I'm doing that myself now.'

'It wasn't your fault your magazine was sued.' His gaze drifts to the glossy ranks of two-dimensional breasts on the topmost shelf of magazines. 'Wouldn't you rather be writing than selling this stuff?'

'If you know any editors to recommend me to, you can be sure I'll be grateful.'

'I don't think I'll be passing your name on to any of those.'

I adjust the bottle in the cabinet, but turning my back on him doesn't hide much of my bitterness. 'I'd better get on with the job I'm paid to do, then.'

'Could I borrow some of your attention for just a few minutes?'

I shut the cabinet and fix my gaze on Rufus. 'Here's all of it.'

'That's more like my old student.' He clasps his beard as if he's testing it for falseness and says 'Have you heard of the Tickle bequest?'

'Sounds like a joke.'

'Not as far as you're concerned, I hope. Charles Stanley Tickell,' he says, and this time I hear the spelling. 'One of our students between the wars. Very much an arts man, books above all. Apparently nothing upset him so much in the war as seeing a library bombed. Now he's left really quite a lot of dosh to the university. We have to use it the way he wanted, to publish books.'

'Don't you already?'

'Not many of the kind he liked. Books on the art of the last century, and of course that includes the cinema. I've been asked if any of my students have it in them, and you needn't wonder whose name I told them. That's why I won't be mentioning you to any other editors. If we can make this work, and I'm several hundred per cent certain that we can, I'll be editing our cinema imprint until I retire.'

Is he entrusting me with that responsibility? It's almost too much and too abrupt, but I can't afford to be daunted. 'Do you know, I've been thinking of books I could write.'

'Tell me.'

'Final Films, that would be about the last films people made and what they show us about the cinema. Dying to be Filmed, about death scenes, of course. We're in the Movies, that would look at how the cinema feeds into everyday reality so much everyone takes it for granted. And maybe there's a book in how films send up other films and rip them off. I might call it Haven't We Seen That Before?'

By now I'm improvising, since Rufus is gazing at me as if he expects more or better. 'Maybe one about dubbing,' I say in some desperation. 'I could interview actors who've dubbed films and call it, call it Speaking for Ourselves. Or how does this sound, a book about films that were never made? Did you know the Phantom of the Opera Hammer made with Herbert Lom, they'd written it for Cary Grant? And Hitchcock nearly filmed Lucky Jim. Who knows how much unmade stuff there is if I can track it down.'

'If anyone can, Simon, I'm sure it's you.' Rufus is petting his beard, a gesture that used to indicate that he was waiting for a student to add to a presentation. 'Right now we need whatever you can turn in quickest,' he says. 'I think you should publish your thesis.'

I open my mouth to enthuse, but perhaps I'm assuming too much. 'You mean you'd pay me for it?'

'Handsomely, so long as you revise it enough that we can call it a new work. May I suggest how you could?'

'Go ahead. You're my editor.'

'If you can make it more entertaining, don't hesitate. I'm not saying it isn't already, but the bigger the audience we can net the better. Expand wherever you see the chance if you have the material. I'd love to read more about – who was that silent comedian who's been written out of the film histories?'

'Tubby Thackeray, you mean. I couldn't even find a footnote.'

'That's the man. I thought your paragraph on him was fascinating, especially how he may have suffered from the Arbuckle case. People took against him just because they thought he sounded like Fatty, you think? There must be a chapter in him at least.'

'I'm not sure how I'd find out more than I did.'

'However you have to. Whatever you need to spend will be taken care of. Mr Tickell isn't going to question your expenses.'

'Would I have to spend it first and claim it back?'

'That's the usual way, I believe.' Rufus searches my expression while I try not to look too mendicant. 'But you'll see an advance as soon as the contract's signed,' he says. 'What would you say to ten thousand now and twenty when the book's delivered?'

It's more than I would earn in two years from both my present jobs. 'I'd say thank you very much.'

'Maybe we can raise the stakes for your next book,' Rufus says, perhaps a little disappointed that I wasn't more effusive. 'I don't want to go too mad too soon. Give me your email and I'll attach a contract to you tomorrow.'

He produces a pen and notebook from inside his jacket. Dozens of wiry hairs spring up on the back of his hand as he tugs off his glove. 'It's simonlest@frugonet.com,' I tell him. 'Would you like me to use a pseudonym on the book?'