When I got back to the cottage that night Peggy met me at the door and she saw at once that our luck had turned. Her face lit up. We laughed together over the strangeness of it all and went out to celebrate, spending money without thought for the first time in months, planning the script I should write. The fact that we were to be separated again didn't seem to matter. It was for a short time and we were people with a future if we could grasp hold of it.
So it was that, two days later, I found myself sharing a carriage with Joe Wesson. Engles' description of him as 'a fat, sluggish ape' was cruel, but not inappropriate. He had heavy features. The skin below the sockets of his eyes was dragged down by great pouches. His cheeks swept in ample folds to his splendid chins and flapped like dewlaps as he talked. He weighed, I should guess, over fifteen stone. He was, in fact, one of the most impressive figures I have ever seen and to watch him fitting himself into his sleeping berth was as good as a visit to the panda's cage at the London Zoo.
He was in a furious temper when he joined me on the platform at Victoria. He had a hangover and obviously hated travel. 'You're Neil Blair, are you?' he said. He was panting, but for all that he was quick enough on his feet. 'I'm Joe Wesson. We've been had for a couple of mugs, blast Engles' God-damned soul! Why couldn't he convince the Studios himself without sending us to shiver on a Dolomite, taking pictures and writing scripts?' He heaved his gear on to the rack. 'The Studios will do what he says anyway. He could just as well talk them into it. He's got a tongue, and 'tisn't as though it's rusty. But he must have the whole circus running around full of the same idea.' He fitted himself into a corner seat facing the engine and, as though to bear out Engles' theories, brought out a stack of Westerns, picked up the top one and settled himself to read.
He worked his way steadily down through that pile of Westerns as we crossed the Channel and the train rattled across France and through Switzerland — that is, when he wasn't taking on food or drink, both of which he did noisily and in large quantities, or when he wasn't sleeping, which he did even more noisily, snoring with a strange series of grunts that ended in a slight long-drawn-out whistle.
He didn't talk much. But once he leaned across in a 1C friendly way and said, 'New to the K.M. set-up, aren't you, old man?' He had a queer way of jerking his sentences out as though he were always short of breath. When I told him I was, he shook his head so that his cheeks quivered. 'Good firm when you're on top, but God help you when you're not. They're a hard lot. Can't afford to make a mistake with them. If you do—' he snapped his fingers expressively — 'you're finished. Engles is their big man at the moment. He may last one year. He may last five. Worked with him before?'
I told him what my previous association with Engles was. 'Ah!' he said. 'Then you probably know him better than I do. Get to know men when you live with them like that. He can be charming. And then again he can be a devil. Most ruthless director I ever worked with. If a star doesn't toe the line, they're out — he'll get a new star or make one. That's how Lyn Barin jumped to fame in The Three Tombstones. The original star was Betty Carew. She threw a fit of temperament — wanted scenes played her own way. Engles chucked her off the set. His language was a poem in Technicolor. Next day he had the Barin girl there. No one had ever heard of her. And he made her a star right there on the set. He got the acting he wanted and the film was the better for it. Betty Carew had done good work for K.M. But she's washed up now.' He heaved a sigh. 'Why you blokes ever come out of the Army, God knows! You're safe there. Nobody can throw you out unless you do something stupid.' Then he suddenly smiled. His smile was quite delightful. His face, for all its loose flesh, was strangely expressive. 'Still, I admit I wouldn't change places with 'em. Life's a fight anyway. There's no fun in knowing you're safe whether your work is good or bad.' And he returned with a deep sigh of contentment to his Westerns.
It was dark and the snow was falling when we arrived at Cortina. Once out of the lights of the station our sense of pleasure at having finished the journey was damped by the blanket of steadily falling snow. The soft sound of it was audible in the still night. It hid the lights of the little town and muffled the chained wheels of the hotel bus.
Cortina is like all winter sports' resorts. It is a veneer of civilisation's luxuries planted by hotel-keepers in the heart of a wild country of forests, snow and jagged peaks. Because of the lateness of our arrival, we had arranged to stay the first night at the Splendido and go on up to Col da Varda the next day.
As soon as we passed through the Splendido's swing doors, the glittering palace lapped its luxury round us like a hot bath. In every room central heating thrust back the cold of the outside world. There were soft lights, dance bands, and the gleam of silver. Italian waiters, with a hundred different drinks, threaded their way through a colourful mob of men and women from a dozen different countries. Everything was laid on — ski instructors, skating instructors, transport to the main runs, ice hockey matches, ski jumping. It was like a department store in which the thrills of the snow country can be bought at so much a yard. And outside the snow fell heavily.
I picked up a pile of brochures on Cortina whilst waiting for dinner. One announced it as 'the sunny snow paradise in the Dolomites'. Another became lyrical over the rocky peaks, describing them as 'pinnacles rising out of the snow and looking like flames mounting into the Blue Sky'. They spoke with awe of fifty-eight different ski runs and, referring to summer sport at Cortina, stated, 'it is almost impossible to be tired at Cortina: Ride before breakfast, golf before lunch, tennis in the afternoon and a quick bath before dressing for dinner — still one is ready to dance until the early hours.' Nothing out of the ordinary could happen here, I felt. They had made a playground of the cold snow, and the grim Dolomite bastions were pretty peaks to be admired at sunset with a dry Martini.