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Chapter 17 THE WRITER AND HOLLYWOOD
The tall man in the drain-pipe trousers with the haggard face and the glass of whisky clutched in his hand — as if he were a schoolboy having his first illicit drink — was, as I had suspected, Mr. Graham Greene. I had not been absolutely sure when he first arrived at the cocktail party; he is not easy to recognise because he rarely submits to being photographed, and he does not have the immediately identifying air of a celebrated author. He did not seem to know anybody at the party and was wondering about making an elaborate pretence — as one does in such circumstances — ■ of studying a view through the windows and examining the interior decor.
Knowing of his great affection for peelingwallpaper and his penchant — on the printed page, at least — for luxuriating in the sleazier establishments off Wardour Street, I felt he must have found the penthouse suite at the Dorchester in a depressingly good state of repair. Perhaps it was for this reason that he looked ill at ease.
Though I have never had any great liking for what Mr. Greene has to say in his books I have always been enchanted by the way he says it. However, knowing that he was not very sympathetically disposed towards journalists (understandably, perhaps, since he had been one himself), I felt hesitant about forcing my company upon him. But it seemed likely that he would welcome talking to somebody, even a journalist, and so I went over to him and introduced myself.
I suppose I had expected him to talk as he writes,
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