by Fiona Leitch
He nodded. ‘Yes, they were lovely people but I think the repairs had just got on top of them. It’s very expensive, running a place like this.’
‘But worth it.’
He turned and looked proudly at the house. ‘Yes. Yes, it is.’
We all admired Polvarrow House for a moment, then—
‘Nosey!’ We turned to see my oldest friend in the world, Tony Penhaligon, standing in the doorway of the tent, clutching a piece of paper. He waved it at us. ‘Come to put your name down?’
‘Don’t tell me your mum dragged you along here too?’ I said, as Germaine rushed over to him, tail wagging. She was always pleased to see him. He dropped onto his haunches and started to make a fuss of her.
‘Nobody dragged me,’ he said, laughing as Germaine snuffled at his hand, then at his pockets. ‘I’m sorry, gorgeous, no treats for you today.’
‘I wasn’t expecting any,’ I said. He straightened up, eyebrows raised.
‘You do know I was talking to the dog?’
I sighed. ‘Yes. I’m used to her getting more attention than me. So what, you really want to be in this film?’
‘Yeah!’ Tony nodded enthusiastically. ‘I always wanted to be up on the big screen. Don’t you remember, all the school plays…?’
‘Ooh yes!’ said Mum. ‘I remember. You did The Wind in the Willows.’
‘Guess who I was?’ Tony turned to Daisy, who was trying to calm the dog down.
‘The wind,’ I murmured.
‘You were just jealous because I got the lead role and what were you? Oh yeah, the old washerwoman!’
‘You did have to go on stage in front of everyone with your face painted green,’ I pointed out.
‘So jealous…’
‘Do we have to audition?’ said Daisy. ‘Do they make us do a screen test, like you see on the telly?’
‘No,’ said Tony. ‘You just fill in the form and wait for them to call you. They give you a once over to make sure you look right—’
‘Look right?’ I asked.
‘It’s a period drama, innit? No tattoos or nose rings.’ Tony winked at Mum. ‘Better cover up them tattoos of yours, Shirley!’
Mum giggled. I rolled my eyes. Tony had always been able to wrap my mum round his little finger, much more so than I could, which was hardly fair.
‘And that’s it?’ said Daisy. She’d been excited but a little nervous at the idea of having to get up and perform in front of everyone, I thought, and she looked relieved. Tony nodded.
‘That’s it. Nothing to worry about. Here.’ He led us into the tent. Just inside was a long table covered in forms and mugs full of biros. A bored-looking woman sat behind it, scrolling through her phone. She barely looked up as we entered. Along the side of the tent were a couple of rows of seats, most of them full, while at the other end stood another table, this time with a man and a woman seated behind. He called, ‘Next!’ and the occupant of the seat nearest to them stood up and handed over a completed form, then waited awkwardly in front of them. Everyone in the seats stood up and shuffled along to the next chair.
Mum and Daisy both took a form and went to sit down while they filled them in. Tony looked at me expectantly but I shook my head.
‘Nope. I have no desire to see myself on the big screen.’
‘Really? I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t!’
‘You just don’t want to get cast as a washerwoman again.’ Tony grinned and I aimed a slap at him, which he dodged easily. ‘No, look, think about it. It’s really easy. All you have to do is stand around and go ‘rhubarb, rhubarb’ or whatever. They pay you a hundred quid a day and feed you, just for standing there in a costume.’
‘A hundred quid?’ It was tempting, but … no. ‘You don’t need the money, though, do you? The shop’s doing all right?’ Tony ran the town’s only department store, which had been owned by his family for several generations.
‘The shop’s doing fine, I just want to be a movie star. Good job I’ve got a nice boss.’ He looked at me seriously. ‘How much work you got on at the moment?’
‘Enough,’ I said, but I didn’t actually have any. My catering business was slowly picking up, but it was the wrong time of year for weddings or outdoor events, and Christmas party season wouldn’t start for another couple of months yet. Truth be told, I was living off my savings, and they wouldn’t last for much longer.
‘Really?’ Tony lowered his voice. ‘Come on, Jodie. This is easy money. I worry about you…’
‘You really don’t need to.’
‘Yeah, I do. I don’t want you running out of money and moving back up to London; I’ve got used to having you around again.’ He smiled. ‘I need you here to bail me out if I get into trouble. Not that I’m planning another disastrous wedding or anything.’ My first job back in Penstowan had been catering for Tony’s nuptials with his then-fiancée Cheryl, and to say it hadn’t gone according to plan would be an understatement. His ex-wife’s body had turned up in the venue’s shrubbery, and Cheryl had done a runner in fright, making it look like Tony had done away with both of them.
I looked at him. ‘You’d better not be. I don’t think Nathan would want me under his feet on another murder investigation.’
‘Oh, I dunno. I think he enjoys it…’ Tony looked around as the man behind the table called, ‘Next!’ again. ‘All right, at least come and sit with us.’
We joined Daisy and Mum. They were excited and chatted with Tony but I sat there thinking, a hundred quid a day, just for standing around in a costume? I could actually use a hundred quid a day. It was Daisy’s thirteenth birthday in a couple of weeks and I knew what I wanted to get her, but wasn’t sure if I could really afford it. And the Gimpmobile – my catering company van, so called because of its previous owner’s, um, interesting retail business – had developed a clanking noise that couldn’t even be drowned out by having the radio on full-blast, which was normally my go-to repair strategy. I hoped it was just a temporary malaise and not a death rattle, but I feared it was the latter.
I nudged Tony. ‘Are you sure that’s how much they’re paying?’
‘Yup. I asked.’
‘How many days will they need us for?’
‘I dunno, but they’re only here for two weeks. Apparently they’ve already shot most of the film up in Scotland.’ He chuckled. ‘I thought you weren’t interested?’
‘I wasn’t.’ I lowered my voice. ‘But Daisy needs a new computer, so I wanted to get her a fancy one for her birthday. She’s getting into photography and I want to get her all the software, and it’s really expensive.’
‘Then do this, for God’s sake! It’ll be fun! We’ll get to hang out together!’ Tony jumped up and grabbed another form, then sat down and thrust it into my hands. ‘Fill that in and stop being daft.’
So I stopped being daft – how could I turn down that amount of money, just for putting on a posh dress and standing around looking posh in a posh house? – filled in the form, and waited my turn. The casting people finally got to us, looked the four of us over, nodded, and sent us away with a promise that they’d be in touch with a shooting schedule. Even Daisy was told she’d get a call, although they’d probably only need her for one day.
‘So that’s that, then,’ said Mum. ‘I’m ready for my toasted teacake, Mr DeMille.’
Chapter Two
It was just over a week later that I got the call. Daisy was at school and Mum wasn’t needed on set (I was already getting the lingo down), so I left her dog-sitting and made my way to Polvarrow House.
‘YES!’ My friend Debbie pounced on me the minute I got out of the car. She was a loud (very loud) Mancunian, and she’d married my high-school crush (who was still a lovely bloke, although not quite the stud muffin at forty that he’d been at sixteen), but she was a lot of fun and I’d been very happy when she’d moved down to Penstowan with Callum and their two children after Tony’s ill-fated wedding a few months ago.
‘Tony sai
d you were signed up for this,’ she said, pulling me in for a quick hug and then releasing me, smoothing out the material of her dress. ‘This is gonna be a right laugh, innit? What do you think of the threads?’
She gave me a quick twirl. I had to admit she looked amazing in her costume. It was a long silk gown in a peacock-blue-green shade – my favourite colour. It was an Empire cut, the type that fits tightly under your boobs and then flares out, hiding any chubby bits. And it enhanced a couple of areas that on Debbie really didn’t need enhancing. I nodded towards her impressive cleavage.
‘You could park a bike in that,’ I said, and she giggled.
‘I know! Good, innit? I sent Callum a selfie and he was all for rushing over here and loosening me corsets.’
‘So when’re you getting into costume?’ I said, and she laughed again.
‘Mate, we are going to have so much fun… Go on, go and get your frock on!’ She pushed me towards a large trailer that was parked next to the old stable block.
The trailer was a scene of organised chaos. The wardrobe mistress, a woman in her fifties with a mass of frizzy hair, tiny glasses on her nose, and a tape measure around her neck, ploughed through a crowd of extras who were all squirming into their dresses and zipping each other up.
‘Don’t tug at it; you’ll rip the fabric,’ she said to one woman, whom I recognised from the local supermarket. ‘Breathe in.’
‘If I breathe in any more I’ll turn blue,’ muttered the woman under her breath. I smiled at her sympathetically.
‘Then at least you’ll match the dress,’ said the wardrobe mistress. She turned to me. ‘Name?’
‘Jodie Parker,’ I said, reaching out for a dress that was hanging on a rail near me. She snatched the dress away.
‘Hold on…’ She consulted the clipboard in her hand, then looked me up and down with a thin smile. ‘Ah yes, you’re not with this lot. Over here.’ She led me away from the rack of beautiful silk dresses to another one that looked like a rail of potato sacks.
You have got to be kidding me, I thought, as she handed me my outfit…
‘Oh dear Lord!’ Tony was the last person I wanted to see while I was in this get-up, so of course he was the first one I met when I left the tent. I scowled at him.
‘Don’t say a word,’ I growled. He wiped the smile off his face, but it didn’t stay off for long.
‘I’m sorry, I just… I can’t believe you got the washerwoman part again!’ He laughed, but it was more sympathetic than mocking.
‘It’s not fair,’ I grumbled, fully aware that I sounded like Daisy being told she couldn’t stay up past 9 p.m. on a school night. ‘I mean, have you seen Debbie? She looks gorgeous. That dress of hers—’
‘I didn’t think you were a dress person?’ asked Tony reasonably enough, as he’d only ever really seen me in jeans and T-shirts, as an adult anyway.
‘I’m not. I’m not a flipping potato-sack person either, though.’ I flopped down on a bench. ‘I am never going to live this down. All you lot are the aristocracy and I’m a maid.’
Tony smiled and sat next to me. ‘If it’s any consolation this isn’t the most comfortable outfit I’ve ever worn.’ He tugged at the neckline of his shirt. It had ruffles on it.
‘That is a smashing blouse you’re wearing,’ I said, giggling.
‘Yeah, I can see this style really catching on down the King’s Arms on a Friday night. All the lads coming in for a pint after being out fishing all day, they go wild for a frilly shirt.’ He smiled at me and I felt better, even though the fabric of my horrible brown dress felt like hessian and I could already feel it chafing under my arms.
‘You do realise I’m going to take loads of photos of you in that blouse – and those trousers! How tight are those trousers?’
‘My meat and two veg feel like they’ve been vacuum-packed,’ said Tony, getting to his feet to show me exactly how tight they were. Good Lord, they were rather tight. I swallowed hard. What had I been saying? Oh yes.
‘I’m going to take loads of photos of you in that get-up and whenever you annoy me, a new one’s going online…’
We sat and watched as members of the crew scuttled back and forth across the grounds, darting in and out of the trailers that were parked along the gravel drive. Tony pointed to one.
‘See that big one there? That’s Faith Mackenzie’s trailer.’
‘Faith Mackenzie? I didn’t know she was in it. Who else?’
‘Well, Zack Smith’s the main draw, isn’t he? I bet you knew he was in it.’ I nodded vigorously and he grinned. ‘From what I can make out he’s the young pretender to the throne or the rightful heir or something – you know how these things work. Faith is the evil queen, and she’s married to Jeremy Mayhew.’
‘Who’s that? The name rings a bell.’
‘He was in that cop show years back, Bagnall. The one up North. Last seen in Game of Thrones, where he died a hideous death.’
‘Didn’t everyone?’ I said. ‘I know who you mean. I thought he’d died of alcohol poisoning or something years ago.’ Mayhew was a Liverpudlian actor, handsome in a craggy-faced kind of way, what they used to call a ‘man’s man’ – basically, a heavy drinker with a short fuse and a sexist attitude to women. Faith had reached that age where she had officially been declared a National Treasure, having started life as a model, then acted in a few minor Hollywood movies in the Eighties before becoming a staple of British television and, more recently, a long-running cast member on an even longer-running soap opera. ‘How do you know all this, anyway? This is only our first day on set.’
‘I talk to people.’
‘You mean you’re as blooming nosey as I am!’
Tony grinned and shook his head. ‘I ain’t nosey, I’m a people person. And then there’s the love interest, because you’ve always got to have a love interest. Another one I’ve never heard of, Kim Tacky-something. Japanese, I think…’
I thought hard. ‘Kimi Takahashi? She was in that superhero movie a couple of years ago, with the machines that turn rogue.’
‘Terminator?’
‘No, no, much more recent than that, it was a kids’ film. Daisy was obsessed with it. She played a toaster or something.’ Tony burst out laughing. ‘I’m being serious! She was like, the soul of this four-slice Breville sandwich press—’
Tony put his hand on my leg to steady himself as he laughed hard. I normally wouldn’t even have noticed, but those snug breeches had had a rather disquieting effect on me. ‘Stop it, you’re killing me,’ he gasped. ‘Oh God, these trousers are so tight. One big sneeze and this crotch is toast.’ And that started me off too.
We got a few strange looks, this weirdly dressed couple having hysterics on a bench while all around us were people getting on with their jobs, but if anything, that made it harder to stop.
But we did stop – eventually – and Debbie came to join us, looking at our red faces and watery eyes curiously. Not long after, we were called onto the set – the grand ballroom.
Polvarrow House hadn’t had a grand ballroom when I’d last visited, but it did now.
‘Wowsers…’ I said, as we were herded into the room, and even Debbie, who wasn’t easily impressed, whistled through her teeth.
‘Bloomin’ ’eck!’
The room was light and airy, with huge windows along one side that looked out onto the grounds. The last time I’d seen this room it had been in dire need of a repaint and had been crowded with furniture. Now it had all the period details I’d been hoping for: a huge marble fireplace at one end, with white plaster cornicing and decorative mouldings on the ceiling. There was a massive mirror over the fireplace and someone had gone crazy with the gilding, but when I looked closer I could see that a lot of it was just gold paint; the film crew had done a few temporary alterations to make the room even grander than the bones of it suggested. There were heavy gold velvet drapes at the windows, and lights and candles everywhere, reflecting off the white marble and the gilding; the room fe
lt dressed for night-time.
‘Right, hello everyone!’ A businesslike but smiling young woman stood in front of the assembled extras. ‘My name’s Lucy. I’m the first AD’ – a woman in the crowd of extras raised a hand – ’first assistant director. I’m kind of the liaison between our director, Sam Pritchard, and everyone else.’ The woman put her hand down. Lucy smiled again. ‘Okay, so as you can see, we’re at a ball. We’re going to meet our handsome young pretender to the throne, the lovely Zack, in this scene. There will be some dancing going on but all you lot have to do is stand around and mingle. Look like you’re having a good time, but remember, this is set in a kind of parallel eighteenth century, so nothing too rowdy.’ She fixed Tony with a mock-stern look. ‘Remember, you’re not down the pub with the lads!’ Everyone laughed politely and Tony gave her a little bow, grimacing slightly as his trousers creaked under the strain. She turned to look at me and my fellow housemaids; there was also a tall, gangly lad in a tight footman’s uniform who was squirming about uncomfortably. Chafing, I thought to myself. ‘Now, you guys just have to stand around the room, as if you are ready to serve at a moment’s notice. So be alert, but don’t stare directly at anyone; you’re the help, remember.’ I nodded along with my fellow servants, but the rebellious little voice inside me didn’t feel very agreeable; I was still sore about the costume.
The walkie-talkie clipped to Lucy’s belt crackled and she answered it, holding up a hand to stop us talking as she listened.
‘Okay, if you can all just wait here…’ she said, hurrying away.
We stood and waited. And waited. My feet started to hurt and the room was beginning to get hot. Everyone else seemed to have important things to do – playing out cables and taping them down with duct tape to prevent trip hazards, fluffing up furnishings and moving them a tiny but significant couple of centimetres to the left, then back to the right, then, no, back to the left, adjustments to the camera – but we extras just stood there. Waiting.
‘Flipping ’eck, this is boring,’ said Debbie, yawning. Tony tugged at the crotch of his trousers. Some crew members want around and turned off the big spotlights to stop them overheating. And then they all just stood there waiting too, chatting, and I got the impression that all this hanging around wasn’t an unusual occurrence.
