Incarnate Read Online Free PDF

polemical,” he said.
    Something had occurred to Molly. “You were saying you valued your independence and yet you’re going to work for MTV.”
    “Well, because they’re giving me total freedom. That’s what won me over, and also I needed to work outside America.”
    “Really.”
    “Absolutely,” Leon said, a little sharply. “I had to fight for it. I knew we wouldn’t get him otherwise.”
    “No,” said Molly, “I meant I wondered why you feel the need to leave America.”
    “Because I feel too close to my material. Here maybe I can stand back a ways, not get so worked up about things all the time.”
    “But feelings are what your films are about,” Molly said. “That scene in The Unamericans where the peace march was attacked, I felt angry for days because I couldn’t do anything.”
    “A film about peace made you want to beat up those cops, right? That’s what I mean. I got so angry I made too much of that incident, kept cutting back to it, remember. Well, I’ve made better films since then.”
    It seemed to distress him, or perhaps it reminded him of something that did. Sensing so much about him so soon made her feel uneasy, on the edge—of what, she didn’t know. “So what do you plan to make for us?”
    “Well, that’s what I have to find out.” He moved a loaded ashtray to another table. “One thing I’d like to look at is how your country has become Americanized. It’s changed a lot in just a few years.”
    “You’ve been here before?” she asked.
    “For a while. I wasn’t looking for subjects, I just had to get away.”
    Again she sensed distress, again she wanted to touch him. “It’ll be good to get away from American subjects,” he went on. “Sometimes I think all I do is take the lid off America’s garbage.”
    “So he comes over here to do it to ours,” one of the workmen said.
    Martin blinked at the table by the fire. None of the workmen was looking at him, so he wasn’t sure if the remark had been about him. “Well, I didn’t quite mean that,” he said, and sneezed.
    “Finish that Scotch and I’ll get you another,” Leon said, breaking his untypical silence at last. He lingered when Martin had drained his glass. “If you need someone to show you round,” he said, “it ought to be whoever assists you on the series. You’ll need a production assistant on the team.”
    Martin smiled wryly. “I can use someone who’ll keep an eye on me when I get out of hand.”
    “Here she is,” Leon said.
    So that was why he hadn’t told her sooner that Martin was to work for MTV. He must have been planning this for weeks, a surprise to make up for Ben Eccles. Martin gazed at her, and she couldn’t grasp what she was feeling, she was growing so tense. “That’s fine with me,” he said.
    “Drinks all round,” Leon said, and stood up. “To the start of a fruitful relationship.”
    All the workmen burst out laughing, not with humor. “Queer and a pimp as well,” one said.
    “I don’t think I care for this pub,” Martin said.
    Still the workman, a stocky youth whose hand left muddy fingerprints on his glass, didn’t look at him. “Then fuck off back where you came from.”
    A piece of coal exploded in the fireplace. “Let’s find somewhere else,” Molly murmured. Leon nodded, Martin picked up his gabardine and slipped one arm into the sleeve. “Let’s do that,” he said.
    “Let’s do it,” the stocky workman said, “before I have to show you ladies where to go.”
    “It’s okay,” Martin said to Molly, but she saw he was trembling. “We have these in America too.”
    The workman swung round, and the fireguard clanged on the bare boards of the overheated room. “What have you got in America, honeybunch?”
    “Assholes. Arseholes, you’d call them. People, who, when they open their mouths, shit comes out because that’s all that’s in their heads.”
    The workman stood up with a thud that shook the boards. His stool fell like an echo. Martin