‘As himself. It’s something big all right.’

‘Jesus. Well I hope he’s not working with the British fuckwits I’m having to work with.’

‘What, your Scottish bride murder thing?’

‘Yeah. Ah – the Brits are so picky. Just because it’s based on a true story. I keep telling them – forget the true story, make them all beautiful people, but they talk about the sensibilities of the people involved, all that crap. What makes them think a murder in Scotland is different from a murder in –’ he waved his arm about indiscriminately ‘– Wyoming? Only the accent is different. Makes me wanna regurgitate, the way they talk, this is show business not life and people wanna see beautiful people not dandruffed losers,’ and Waylon leant away from the air to light a cigar, pulled on it, puffed on it till it was alight. Cigar smoke spiralled upwards. ‘Finished casting your movie?’

Bud Martin refilled their glasses from the wine in the ice-bucket, signalled the waiter for another bottle. ‘Except for one part,’ he said. ‘I got everybody I wanted –’ he mentioned an old distinguished English actor he’d been in London to persuade to work for him, and several American stars, ‘– but I still have to find an actress in her mid-fifties.’

‘Jesus plenty of them around,’ said Waylon, ‘all panting for work.’

‘This has to be someone who still looks good, and still...’ and he stared at the wine in his glass for a moment, ‘...wants it. Sex. I’m having real trouble finding exactly what I need.’

‘I’d say they’d be fucking grateful to get it, in their mid-fifties,’ and Waylon laughed.

Bud Martin grunted. ‘Plenty of actresses available of course, I’ve seen literally hundreds, I saw someone here who might do and I’ve got at least another fifty lined up for me to see this coming week when I get home – but really I want...’ and he sighed ‘...one of those wonderful women. Barbara Stanwyck.’

Waylon puffed on his cigar. ‘They don’t make them like that any more,’ he said. ‘What’s it about?’

‘Well the main plot’s the usual stuff,’ and Bud stretched his legs out in front of him again, ‘power, money, corruption. But the sub-plot’s something new.’ He turned his head, looked at the long dry grass reaching back as far as the eye could see along the side of the river. A butterfly, orange-winged, fluttered there. And then he said, ‘Age and desire.’

Waylon looked at him. ‘Come on Bud, what’s new about that? That’s not new, there’s been a hundred films about that: Limelight, Gigi, Pygmalion, The Misfits, Lolita – and every time Humphrey Bogart fucked Lauren Bacall in fact…’

‘In women Waylon,’ drawled Bud Martin. ‘Age and desire in women.’

‘Jesus,’ said Waylon Jones. ‘Why?’

‘Whaddya mean why?’

‘Why would anyone do a film about that?’

‘That’s the story.’