BOOKS

Script Without End

By JOHN MORTIMER

nN a foggy March morning, in the basement VI of a house scheduled for demolition, the Writer sits confronting a virgin bit of paper headed 'The Cold War and the Income Tax: A Protest. By Edmund Wilson.'* The telephone rings. The Writer answers eagerly, delighted at the interruption. His spirits sink at the sad sound of Mr. Cork, his accountant.

ACCOUNTANT: Good morning. Inspiration ' flowing along nicely today, is it?

WRITER: Not especially.

A: Well, we need a bit of inspiration today. We've got no money.

W: Well now, Mr. Cork. Whatever makes you think that?

A: I worked it out.

W: And what conclusion did you come to?

A: That you haven't got any money.

W (bravely): Well that's fine. That's very stimulating. That makes me feel free and happy. Like four years ago when I wrote the play with- out decor for Leatherhead and the Sunday Times said, 'Brushed with a magic wing,' and The Times said, 'Small play has a few moments of ex- tremely muted pathos.' (Nostalgic) I was happy then.

A: You were well off then. W: Nonsense, Mr. Cork. I was poor. We used to go on the tube and queue for the Every- man, and share one small beefburger between two in the Wimpy and . . .

A: And you didn't owe thirty-two thousand Pounds, nineteen and six.

W: Well. I don't now, do I?

A: I hid a bit of time to work it out, being laid low with 'flu. That's all you owe, until April.

(Long pause. Then the Writer says): What the hell did you want to go and get 'flu for? A: Surtax, supertax, profits tax and Pay As You Earn. Only trouble is you didn't. W: Thirty-two thousand? A: Nineteen and six.

W: Then it can't be serious.

A: Ho! Ho! Ho! Very neat that. Very light and witty. Sort of thing one reads Oscar Wilde having said En route for Reading Gaol. W: How did it happen? I mean . . .

A: Well, there were the three films, and the trip to Hollywood and the film rights of the play, and then that money your wife went and made got us into terrible trouble. Couldn't you have selected some woman without earning capacity? Or at least live in sin. Other writers manage it. La Vie de Boheme. I should have thought that might have appealed to you. W: For God's sake! We've got eight children. A: Well, no one's going to ask for their birth certificates. W: That's the trouble with accountants. No :Ilse of morality. (Pause.) I didn't want to do those three films, anyway. A Can you manage to do three more? Before April 5.

W: Of course I can't. You know what that is? W. H. Allen. 12s. 6d.

It's artistic blackmail. The Government can't do that. They can't shell out all that money on Brecht and the Halle Orchestra and the Tate Gallery and touring lutanists and make me write three rotten old films in six weeks. Protest!

A: You want me to protest?

W: Certainly. That's what Mr. Edmund Wil- son's doing. In this book. He says the Govern- ment's got no right to income tax. He says they only spend it on ridiculous nuclear devices that go out of fashion every two months, and ill-con- sidered trips to the moon, and planning to trans- mit various forms of fatal fever to the non- existent enemy.

A: What fever?

W: Rocky Mountain fever, Spotted fever, Dengue fever, and Rift Valley fever. The Ameri- can Government apparently spends its revenue on finding out how to spread those around the world.

A: They can have my 'flu, for nothing.

W: You've got no conscience! These people in Edmund Wilson's book have consciences. Miss Robinson, a Negro athlete of great distinc- tion from Chicago, refused to pay her Federal taxes as a matter of principle . . .

A: What happened to her?

W: They forcibly fed her, through the nose. A: Well, you see!

W: And Walter Gormly, a pacifist from Iowa, refused to pay tax.

A: Did they feed him?

W: They sold his station wagon. By public auction. The bastards!

A: We've been trying to get rid of that old station wagon for years.

W: Be serious. I'm getting a conscience about income tax.

A: About time.

W: I mean, what's it going to be used for? Submarines in Loch Ness'? Some idiotic minia- ture nuclear weapon I can't afford? Fodder for the Windsor Greys? Archaic and dangerous de- vices like Mr. Quintin Hogg? Wages for hang- men's assistants'? Rope? What do they spend my money on, why not ask them that?

A: Probably it all goes on the National Theatre.

IV: Then I want it back. Look. Have you ever met a man of principle? Let me tell you about Mr. Edmund Wilson. He's a most distinguished American Writer who's studied the Red Indians and been married to Mary McCarthy and done many courageous things, and from 1946 to 1955 he just filed no income tax returns. None at all.

A: Why was that?

W: He'd started to make some money. He thought he could spend it better than the govern- ment.

A: I've got a client like that. In the garment trade . . .

W: He's not a bit like your client. He's got ideals.

A: Is that why he didn't file any returns? W: Not exactly. The ideals seem to have hit him rather later: about 1958 when the Inland Revenue started to write him unpleasant notes. He's very frank and honest about that. When they tried to impound his future earnings it became clear to him that income tax was the curse of Western civilisation. The revenue officials were prejudiced against him.

A: Why?

W: He says it was because he'd had four wives and studied the Russian Revolution. And because he bought a cushion for his dog.

A: Perhaps they were prejudiced because he didn't file any income tax returns.

W: They treated him like a dog, without a cushion. • A: I suppose he ended up in gaol?

NV: No, actually . .

A: What?

W: They settled his claim in the end.

A: Don't let that encourage you.

W: God, you're all the same! Do you realise there are 60,000 income tax officials in America and 80,000 accountants. What chance has a poor honest writer got?

A: Your friend Edmund Wilson seems to have got away with it for nine years.

W: Got away with it! That's an extra- ordinary description of a writer who wants to keep, the money he earns. He's right. The Inland Revenue's terrible to writers.

A: Not to garment-makers?

W: Not so bad. You can go on making gar- ments. Year after year. Your profits are going to be about the same. A writer takes ten or fifteen years to be able to make any money at all, and by then he's in grave danger of having nothing left to say. It's ridiculous to expect him to be able to plan and pay tax like a business- man. Wben a writer earns money he needs to spend it. He has to drink and travel and meet women and . .

A: Businessmen don't like women?

W: I'm not saying that! I'm just saying you can't expect artists to be cunning financiers, and when they've got money ask them to keep it care- fully for two years and then give it back. What's the literary history of the future going to be, the rise and fall of investment companies? What are writers? The eternal debtors, scroungers, outcasts of history. You find one that pays a bill and keeps a copy for his accountant, and you know his talent's died.

A: If you feel like that, why stay here? Go and live in Switzerland. They've got authors on every crag.

W: Do you imagine I want to spend all my evenings in Zurich and have the children edu- cated by nuns? I need to know more than three exiled Americans and one friendly Swede. I want to feel intensely about Kilburn and the Bakerloo line and hear the language I write in spoken all day. So, leave me alone, Mr. Cork, will you?

want to write a short piece in praise of this illogical, dishonest, grumpy and disgracefully truthful book by Mr. Edmund Wilson.

A: What are they paying you in'?

W: Pounds and not very many.

A: Incurring any legitimate expenses, are you? W: Just living. A: Well, you are not going to be able to, keep on at that unless you write three film scripts by April 5. At this point Mr. Cork sneezed loudly and rang off. The writer crossed out the words he had written and instead began to type quickly,

'FADE IN MAIN AND CREDIT TITLES. UNDER THEM,

the figure of a man running in terror, across the Dome of St. Peter's. . . .' No one could be found to review Mr. Edmund Wilson's book.