Final Cut : A Novel (2020)

by Watson, S J

  ‘Right,’ he says, standing up. ‘How’s your car?

  I step back over the creature’s smeared remains. I wonder what he thinks of me. That I’m helpless, just waiting to be rescued, clueless about the car to which I’ve entrusted my safety? I watch his face but can read none of that there. Only a willingness to help.

  ‘Screwed, I think. I just need to ring the breakdown service. As soon as I get a signal. I’ll be fine.’

  He shakes his head. ‘Look, I know a guy who’ll help.’

  ‘He can fix it?’

  ‘Or tow it. He’s got a Range Rover.’

  A Range Rover? I think of the vehicle I thought I saw earlier. I could see nothing in the glare of the headlights: the driver was invisible and I couldn’t even tell what make of car it was. Something big, some kind of four-wheeler.

  ‘He wasn’t here?’ I say. ‘Your friend? About half an hour ago?’

  Gavin laughs. ‘No. I just left him. Why?’

  ‘There was another car,’ I say. ‘It looked as though it was going to pull up, but then it drove off.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes. But it doesn’t matter.’

  For a second I think he’ll ask more, but he seems to change his mind.

  ‘Where you headed?’

  ‘Blackwood Bay.’

  He smiles. ‘Hop in. I’ll give you a lift.’

  He drives in almost complete silence, cautious in the snow. I wonder what he’s like and look for clues. The car is spotless and completely devoid of the kind of junk that litters my own; the only evidence it’s not brand new is the packet of liquorice sticks in the cup-holder between our seats. My stomach growls.

  ‘It’s lucky you came along,’ I say, more to puncture the quiet than anything else.

  He smiles. I look out, towards Blackwood Bay, the constellations clear above. There’s a flash in the distance, the lighthouse on Crag Head strobing the low cloud. I was nearer than I thought. Again it occurs to me that I was a fool to come in winter. Not that I had any choice. After a minute or two he accelerates a little. The headlights pick out something, a brightness pricking the blackness, the glimpse of an eye, but it disappears as we pass. Another sheep? A rabbit? A deer? It’s impossible to tell its size; the perspective is unknowable. Gavin cranks up the heating.

  ‘You still cold?’

  I tell him I’m fine and ask where he’s from. ‘Not Blackwood Bay?’

  He looks puzzled. ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘The accent. Or lack of.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he says sheepishly. ‘My folks are from Merseyside. But we moved down south. London.’

  ‘And now you’re here.’

  ‘Yes. I felt like a change. I was working in the City and I’d just had enough. The commuting … pressure … you know how it is.’

  I, I think. Not we. I say nothing. I’ve already clocked that there’s no ring on his finger, though I’m not sure why I looked. Habit, perhaps.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Oh, wow. About a year now.’

  He whistles under his breath as he says it, as if he’s surprised it’s been so long, as if he came intending to stay a fortnight and then got stuck.

  ‘You like it?’

  He tells me it’s okay. He keeps busy.

  ‘How about you? Where’re you from?’ he asks.

  I keep my answer vague. ‘London. You’re not married?’

  He laughs. ‘No!’

  He slows to take a blind bend. ‘You’re not from London originally, though?’

  So he’s picked up on my accent, too. No surprise. It’s mostly gone, but some things will never change. A temptation to use ‘were’ instead of ‘was’. The way I pronounce ‘glass’ to rhyme with ‘ass’ not ‘arse’; ditto ‘castle’, ‘bath’, ‘class’. Not that I’ve used any of those words, as far as I can recall, so I guess he must’ve spotted other, more subtle, clues.

  ‘Near Leeds,’ I tell him.

  ‘Oh, right. Come for a visit?’

  Now I’m faced with the question, I’m not sure how to respond. I’d wanted to stay under the radar. After all, it was never my plan to come here. But this isn’t an ideal world, and I can’t stay hidden for ever.

  ‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘I’m here to work on a film.’

  He laughs. ‘Thought you might have something to do with that! So how do you fit in?’

  ‘Oh, I just help out. You know?’

  He drives on. A minute later he coughs.

  ‘So what’s it about, anyway?’ He pauses. ‘Zoe?’

  My breath catches in my throat at the mention of the vanished girl, but he doesn’t notice.

  ‘Not exactly,’ I say.

  ‘You know about her, though? And Daisy? Yes?’

  I tell him I do. I think of the research I’ve been doing, the conversations I’ve been having with Dan. I know too much, if anything.

  ‘But really the film’s about village life,’ I say breezily.

  ‘So why here, if it’s not about the girls?’

  ‘No particular reason,’ I say. ‘You’d have to ask the producer, I suppose. He makes all the decisions; I just do the work.’

  He laughs, but there’s an undercurrent of disappointment. I remember Jess telling me about him. Lovely guy, she said; asks lots of questions, though.

  I think back to how the project started. I’d met Dan at the festival in Amsterdam, and he’d told me he loved Black Winter but thought my second film – Adam, Alive – was ‘worthy, but not what you should be doing’. I admired him for that; he was probably the only person who’d been honest. He asked me if I had anything in the pipeline.

  ‘A few things,’ I told him, although this wasn’t true. He gave me his card and a few months later I invited myself to his office. It was all white furniture and glass partitions, ergonomic chairs and chai lattes. His awards glowered down at me from the wall behind his chair and my mind went to the night I won mine. I’d bought myself a new outfit – a trouser suit with a white jacket – and felt good. Even so, by the time they came to the Audience Award the last thing I was expecting was my name to be called out. The announcement came as if through a fog and I felt like everyone’s eyes were boring into me. I stood up, feeling suddenly drunk and regretting the heels I’d bought on a whim. I stepped carefully to the front of the room and at the podium made a dry-mouthed speech before threading my way back through the smiles and claps. As I did, I thought of all the girls I’d filmed and put into my documentary. They were just a few miles away, those who’d survived. Shivering on the same streets, their world and mine now so far apart the distance was incalculable. I felt the champagne begin to rise and strode past my table, only just making it outside before vomiting on to the pavement. No one saw, but that didn’t make me feel any better, and as I crouched, staring at my own disgust, I thought that at the very least I had the decency to feel guilty. I vowed to go back, to find the girls I’d filmed, to give them the money I’d just won.

  ‘Alex?’

  I looked up. Dan was waiting for me to begin. ‘Well, what I thought is … let’s do a film about ordinary life. About community. Mortality. Change. I mean, nowadays, what does “community” even mean? People are more likely to find it online than they are next door, or that’s the popular myth anyway. But is that really true, once you get out of the city? I thought we could look at life in a small village in Britain. One with a dwindling population, or whatever. See what life’s really like.’

  He nodded. He was about to speak, but then his eyes went to my arm. My sleeve had ridden up; my scar was visible. I froze, holding his gaze, resisting the urge to tell him the story, and folded my hands neatly under the table. He shifted in his seat.

  ‘It’s very different from Black Winter. And I can’t see what would make it unique.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it could be mostly observational, self-shot by its subjects on their phones, digital cameras, iPads, or whatever. That way we’ll get people’s own per
spective – everyone can contribute.’

  ‘So, sort of Three Salons meets Life in a Day, then?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He smiled, and I wondered whether he’d been testing me. Though a classic, Three Salons at the Seaside came out in ninety-four, or something like that. Long before my time, and – with its focus on northern women getting their shampoo and set – is, on the surface, the last thing anyone would think I’d be interested in.

  Unless they knew me. And he did. He knew I’d done my GCSEs late, had gone on to do a diploma in Film-making and Photography. He knew I’d come to this with the passion of someone who has finally found their direction after a long time drifting, someone who found the guts to pitch her first film – uninvited, and despite her northern accent and shitty clothes – to one of the guest lecturers.

  ‘The important thing,’ I continued, ‘would be that the film finds its own stories. Then all I’d need to do is amplify them. I thought I’d set up a website, people could upload their contributions, anonymously—’

  ‘You’ll get dick pics.’

  I stared at him. If only he knew the things I’ve seen. If only he had the barest idea of just how many tiny, shrivelled pricks I’ve witnessed in my life, of how little a few more will bother me. ‘You think I’m worried about that? Anyway,’ I went on, ‘I’d have administrator access. That way I can go through the submissions and delete any that are clearly no good. And any that I’m not sure about but might want to use I can mark Private, keep them out of the general pool. The rest would be public. People would need to sign up, but once that’s done they could watch what other people are uploading.’

  ‘Could be interesting. Have you thought about consent?’

  ‘Yes. There are a few options. We could bury it in the Ts and Cs, for a start. When people log on for the first time, you know?’

  ‘When they’ll click on anything …’

  ‘Exactly.’

  He shrugged in agreement. These were all details we could work out, along with the ease with which people could upload their contributions. I knew it’d have to be as simple as clicking a button.

  ‘How about a location?’

  ‘Not sure yet. I could do some research … scout around.’

  That was my mistake. I should’ve done my research first, found a location, presented it to him on a silk cushion tied up with a bow. Then I wouldn’t have ended up in Blackwood Bay.

  I didn’t know that then, though.

  ‘I think I could really do something here, Dan. Something fresh, and interesting.’

  ‘You know I love your work,’ he said, after a pause.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s just … I think it needs more.’

  ‘More?’

  ‘Yes. I think you should find somewhere with a story. Not something major, just a focus, something that people can talk about.’

  I hesitated. I was broke, living in a shared flat, working behind bars whenever I got the chance, serving at tables, looking for admin work, trying my hand at a bit of journalism, though that paid next to nothing now. I had no parental funds to draw down, nobody I could go to, cap in hand.

  ‘Okay,’ I said, and he smiled and said he’d make some calls.

  It was a couple of weeks before he invited me back into his office. ‘So I heard from Anna at Channel Four,’ he said as I sat down. Hope rose like a bruise.

  ‘And?’

  He grinned. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘They’re going for it?’

  ‘Well, they’re offering three grand. They just want a taster. A few minutes. Ten, tops.’

  A taster, just to give an idea of what I wanted to do. Then they could decide whether to expand it into a series, a one-off, or drop it completely.

  But three grand? It wasn’t much.

  ‘They want it by the end of the year, and Anna wants to know about location asap.’ He paused. ‘Drink? To celebrate?’

  For a second, I was tempted, but who knew where it might end up? And I’d promised my boyfriend I’d be back early; I couldn’t let him down. Not again.

  ‘I’m sorry, but I need to get on,’ I said, gathering my things.

  Was he disappointed? I couldn’t tell. He walked me to the door.

  ‘You’ll have to make it amazing, Alex. But I know you can do that. You did it once, you can do it again. And don’t forget,’ he added, ‘you need a story.’

  ‘I’ll find one,’ I said. I had to. My second film had failed. This was my last chance.

  4

  My last chance. The car rounds a bend and I catch sight of the sea, a cluster of lights in the distance, nestled at the water’s edge.

  Blackwood Bay. Tiny, tucked into its cleft in the hills; beyond it, cliffs and the endless coastline, shrouded in the gloom. The moonlight shines white on the rooftop snow. It looks beautiful but treacherous; it’s not hard to imagine the smuggling that used to go on here, clandestine activities in the filthy night. My body tenses in the seat, as if preparing to open the door and leap out, to take my chances in the wilds.

  It was never the plan to come here. At no stage did the list of possible locations for my film feature Blackwood Bay. I knew exactly the kind of place I was looking for. One that had that indefinable something; like the feeling you get viewing a new flat when it already feels like home. Or the feeling of meeting someone in a bar, eyes across the room, nothing really, but as soon as you speak you know there’s something more, that you’re going to fuck. I looked at various places, but nothing grabbed me. Then a card arrived at Dan’s office and everything changed.

  I was at home when he called me, researching some place in Oxfordshire with little to recommend it. He launched straight in.

  ‘I’ve never heard of it, but if you’re sure, then I’m sure.’

  By now I knew this was typical Dan, to begin as if we were already mid-conversation. No doubt he had his phone on hands-free and was typing an email as he spoke, an intern hovering at the door with an urgent message from another hungry director.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The postcard.’

  ‘What postcard, Dan?’

  ‘Blackwood Bay.’

  At first I thought I’d misheard him.

  ‘What?’

  He repeated himself, his voice reverberating thickly down the line, and this time I knew what I’d heard.

  ‘Blackwood Bay? What about it?’

  My own voice echoed.

  ‘The card,’ he said. ‘It’s not from you? Weird.’ The word sounded like a shrug, and pointedly didn’t answer my question. ‘Anyway, you know it?’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I said, failing to hide my tetchiness.

  ‘I’ve had this card,’ he said, ignoring me. ‘Picture of a harbour on one side. Blackwood Bay. The message is How about here? I just thought it must be from you.’

  My hands shook as I took a swig of coffee. It was too hot, and my throat began to burn.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’

  But it does, I thought. It does matter. I could feel myself begin to panic and forced myself to count my breaths. ‘No one else knows about the project, do they?’

  ‘Well, Channel Four do, obviously.’

  ‘They’re not likely to send postcards, though.’

  ‘True, but maybe it’s someone they’ve asked to sniff round. Anyway, this Blackwood Bay. You’ve been there?’

  I considered lying, telling him I’d never heard of it.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Spent some time there as a child. I wasn’t impressed, to be honest.’

  ‘But it’s a possibility?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why? That bad?’

  ‘It’s just … I mean, it’s a long way. If one of us does end up having to go up there.’

  ‘The channel are keen for the location to be in the north. So—’

  ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘Pretty sure I did. Too
much southern bias, apparently.’

  ‘It’s small. Maybe too small. I don’t know how many people we’ll get submitting films in a place that size. It’s just … it’s not the right place. Okay?’

  I thought I heard him sigh. For a second I thought he’d suggest we pulled the plug, try something else or give the money back to Channel Four, along with our apologies and the tattered remains of my career.

  ‘Have you still got the card?’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Keep it,’ I said, my laptop already open, Google up. I typed in Blackwood Bay. If Dan was going to argue, I’d need to have to have a pretty solid reason not to film there. I wanted to see the same pages Dan would look at. I wanted to be prepared.

  My eyes danced over the articles as I clicked through. I was relieved at first: it was mostly banal, ordinary stuff. Restaurants that’d closed their doors for ever; prettiest village in Yorkshire for the third year in a row, although that article was years out of date; a campaign to prevent the closure of the local lifeboat service that looked about to fail. I began to feel hopeful, but then I saw it. A missing teenager – a girl called Daisy – her suicide now confirmed beyond any real doubt.

  There’s no way Dan would miss that. No way he wouldn’t seize on it as my story.

  ‘We need to talk,’ I said. ‘I’m coming in.’

  I arrived later that afternoon. The postcard was on his desk, a photograph of Blackwood Bay taken from the cliffs. It was faded, as if it’d been out in the sun. I held it but felt nothing.

  I turned it over. Those three words in black ink. How about here? The postmark was smudged and illegible.

  He handed me a coffee. ‘Weird, huh?’

  ‘You’re sure it’s not from someone in the office?’

  He tipped his head. ‘Well, I’ve asked. No one’s owned up to it. But …’ I knew what he was going to say. ‘Why are you so bothered?

  I couldn’t answer that. In any case, it was obvious he couldn’t care less.

  ‘You’re certain this wouldn’t be the right place?’ he said. ‘I looked it up. Population’s low, but it’s not tiny, and it’s going down. Seems to be what you were looking for. Small enough to have a community, but I don’t think it’s so small you have to worry that only a handful of people would do any filming.’ He turned his monitor towards me and began to scroll through a Google Image search. ‘Pretty, too. Look.’