Dearest Kath -
I have just received your mammoth-thing on a postcard which clearly states that you have not heard from this side for a long time. And thats maddening: because I wrote you a long letter in July. A glorious, hot, rain-less summer... we lived outside all the time and ate and drank vast quantities of food and wine, which seemed to cost the bloody earth. And did!
Filming has faded away, thankfully. I really do detest it and the uglies who surround it... the last thing I was asked to do... was the 'Emperor of Iran' or 'The Shah's Story'... unbelievable. With Claudia Cardinale as the ruddy Empress... I went through the whole thing in tight bandages, as far as I could see, and when they were finally removed, in the last 10 minutes of the script, guess what? It was just me, all the time underneath. I ask you.
And now that I seem to be making some loot from sitting up here on my arse and bashing away at this machine, I really, on the whole, prefer it all. I dont have to trail about from Hotel to Hotel... or fuss about a ghastly script... or the New Young Director... or the New Young Leading Lady or, finally, the critics. Attenborough is breathing fire about his forthcoming 'Ghandi' and I walk in dread that he'll ask me to read 'the first draft'. I know there is a middle aged clergyman lurking about in the pages which is 'a simply marvellous part, Dirkie'... the idea of India, Jane Fonda, Jack Nicholson and Attenborough all beating it up for Ghandi makes me ill.
How to avoid reading and passing comment? Or accepting! By getting on with the second 'buke'. The second 'buke' is two chapters long and reads like sub Evelyn Waugh. So THAT wont do. I search desperatly for an alternative plot... thats the hardest part. Every time I think I have a perfectly super original idea I read a cross review for it in the Sunday Observer. And have to start again. Ah well...
Tote is well... after HIS bout of 'flu. (The air up here is too rarefied I think.) ... and is busy writing his memoirs. Having seen how I can make a bit of scratch from just sitting up here for the day he has reverted to his machine. At lunch time he arrives at the bar staggering, glassy eyed, and reaches a trembling hand out for the Campari... it is beginning to dawn on him that it aint so easy!
I think I've said all there is to say on this dullish day... rain and low cloud and ham and mushrooms and eggs and baked beans for lunch. That do? Wish you were here to share them really.
You are missed, you know... and loved.
As ever, in every way -
Dirk
XXXXXX
