Fame

by Tilly Bagshawe

‘And what, live in a hotel in my own home city? Schlep Saskia around some freezing-cold film set like a piece of excess baggage? No thanks. I’m not interested in following you round the world as your little woman.’

  Dorian realized he couldn’t win. He’d offered her the part of Cathy months ago, but as usual she’d turned him down flat, a mask of anger and fear falling over her face like a security grille. ‘Our daughter needs at least one parent,’ she’d told him bitterly. It was almost as if she wanted to be unhappy, but still Dorian felt like a failure. Things had not improved between them before he left for LA. He’d been in town for five days now, and Chrissie had yet to return one of his calls.

  Angry and anxious, he needed a vent for his frustration. When Sabrina Leon showed up late to this morning’s script read-through, he found one.

  The rest of the day was not a rehearsal. It was a bullfight, a gladiatorial combat to the death, and Sabrina was the bull. While everybody else was allowed to get through their scenes, with Dorian commenting on their performance only at the end, Sabrina was picked up on every line. She was sloppy. Her delivery was too fast. She failed to react with enough emotion to Viorel’s lines. She was too emotional.

  Over and over again, Dorian hit her with the same three words, words Sabrina came to loathe like poison:

  ‘Do it again.’

  By the end of the day, even the most die-hard Sabrina-haters in the cast were beginning to feel sorry for her. Spoiled she may be, and attention-seeking and entitled. But you had to admire the stamina with which she ran back at each scene, over and over and over and over, determined to get it right, switching from her two parts as both the older and younger Catherine with consummate professionalism. As older Cathy, she’d be reading a passionate love scene with Viorel one minute, then jumping straight into a painful scene where, as the younger Catherine, she was being tormented by Heathcliff, forced to live as a common servant in her own childhood home. Even without Dorian’s bullying, the emotional rollercoaster was intense.

  At five o’clock, Dorian finally called time on the battle.

  ‘All right everybody. We’re done for the day. Does anyone have any questions?’

  I do, thought Sabrina. When are you going to drop dead?

  No one spoke. They all wanted to go home. Just watching Dorian shred Sabrina’s performance had been exhausting.

  ‘I have a question.’ Viorel Hudson’s sexy British drawl rang out through the silence. ‘Do we know when filming’s actually going to start?’

  Dorian’s eyes narrowed. ‘Soon. Anyone else?’

  ‘Is that really all you can tell us?’ Viorel pressed him. ‘I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but I don’t understand the need for all the secrecy. I mean, I haven’t even been told where the location’s going to be. Has anyone else?’

  Everyone shook their heads.

  ‘Whether or not you understand it, you have all signed confidentiality agreements,’ snapped Dorian. ‘All details – all details – about the production of this movie remain confidential, and logistical information will be released to you on a need-to-know basis only.

  ‘In the meantime,’ he went on, ‘I hope I don’t have to remind any of you that you are all under contract. I can call you in to work at any time, for any reason, and I will be doing so in the near future. You should expect to be asked to travel at extremely short notice, so I suggest you all go home, pack your bags and wait.’ Dorian closed his script and stood up, a clear signal that the matter was now closed.

  Sabrina was the first to leave – she couldn’t wait to get out of there. The rest of the cast swiftly followed her lead. Only Viorel remained behind.

  ‘Is there something I can do for you, Mr Hudson?’ Dorian’s tone was less than friendly. He was in no mood to be interrogated by his leading man. Considering what Viorel was being paid, he expected him to put up and shut up along with everybody else.

  ‘I know it’s not my place to say so …’ said Viorel.

  ‘Then don’t,’ muttered Dorian.

  ‘But don’t you think you were a little rough on Sabrina in there? Every time she opened her mouth, you practically ripped her throat out.’

  ‘I did nothing of the kind,’ said Dorian. ‘I directed her performance. Last time I checked, I believe that was considered a key part of my job description.’

  Viorel looked troubled. Dorian softened slightly. It wouldn’t do to alienate all his cast before filming had even started. ‘Look. I wouldn’t cry too many crocodile tears over Miss Leon if I were you. The young lady can look after herself. She has a lot to learn, as an actress and in life. If my set is where she has to learn it –’ he shrugged –‘then so be it.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t learn?’ asked Viorel. ‘She might just end up hating you for it.’

  Dorian smiled. ‘I rather suspect she hates me already. But I’m not in this business to make friends, Mr Hudson. Are you?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Viorel with feeling. ‘I’m here to make movies.’

  ‘As am I. In future, show up on time to rehearsals, please.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Do your own job properly, Mr Hudson, and I assure you, I will do mine.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tish Crewe gasped for breath as the cold water from the shower splashed onto her bare back. She’d turned the heating off at Loxley six weeks ago to save money, and only had the hot water running for an hour in the mornings. Usually, she was able to sneak a hot shower during this window, before she drove Abel to school. But today she’d overslept – after hours of lying awake, tormented by dreams of Michel and his new girlfriend – and missed it.

  The girlfriend had a name now (Fleur) and a job (news reporter for Canal Plus, disappointingly impressive). Tish had seen her picture on Facebook, and been alarmed by how badly she wanted to reach into the computer and wipe the smile off her pretty, happy, accomplished face. Bizarrely, it had hurt more that the girl was not the physically perfect superwoman of Tish’s imagination. Fleur was attractive, but in a very girl-next-door type of way: shoulder-length brown hair, long, slightly horsey nose, smooth skin, adorable smile. She wasn’t a bimbo, or a bitch. She’s actually a lot like me, thought Tish miserably. She felt as if she’d somehow made a terrible mistake. As if she’d allowed Michel to slip through her fingers and into this other woman’s arms, by not saying quite the right thing, or wearing the right dress, or being in the right place at the right time. Worst of all, Michel had taken to calling her semi-regularly ‘as a friend’ and pouring out his happiness. ‘I’ve never felt like this before,’ he gushed, each word burning into poor Tish’s heart like acid. ‘I truly didn’t think I would ever fall in love. But you were right, mon chou. There’s someone out there for everyone.’

  During the days, Tish was so busy – between the estate repairs and the finances and taking care of Abel (who’d begged to be enrolled in the village school and was having the time of his life) – that she usually managed to push Michel out of her mind. But at night he haunted her like Banquo’s ghost at the feast. As the weeks passed, the cumulative exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her. At breakfast today she’d snapped quite unnecessarily at poor Abel, who once again seemed to have lost everything he needed for school, from his lunchbox to his reading book to his (constantly disappearing) cap. By the time she’d got him ready, dropped him off and made it back to Loxley, it was already half-past nine. By which time, of course, the water in her shower was arctic.

  ‘Fuck!’ she shivered, hopping from foot to foot and rubbing soap under her arms at lightning speed. Turning around, she let the icy jets pound down on her face before turning the water off and jumping into the nearest towel.

  At least I’m awake, she thought, rubbing herself dry and feeling a surge of physical energy as her tingling limbs began to defrost. She needed something to get the adrenaline flowing. As usual, there was a mountain of work to do today.

  It was May now – she and Abel had been here six weeks already – and though the w
eather remained cold, spring had belatedly sprung, carpeting the valley in a cheerful burst of yellow primroses and daffodils. After the daily bleakness of Oradea, it was wonderful to be able to open her window every morning and smell crisp, clean, country air, and see greenery everywhere. The sadness over Michel never left her, but she tried to take comfort in the small pleasures of life at Loxley: decent tea, bacon, McVitie’s biscuits, apples that didn’t taste like they’d been made out of wool. It helped that Abel had taken to English country life like a duck to water, running around Loxley’s grounds building forts and camps, skipping off to school in the village every morning with a grin so wide you might have thought he was heading to Disneyland. Which, compared to the life he was used to back home, in a way he was.

  Yesterday, he’d announced to Tish matter-of-factly, ‘Actually, I’m going to stay here forever.’

  They were up at Loxley’s Home Farm, a handsome, L-shaped house with stables and outbuildings just over the top of the fell. Bill Connelly, the gruff old Loxley-lifer who had managed the farm for almost forty years, had agreed to let Abel help him feed some of the new lambs, in anticipation of which treat the little boy had worked himself up into such a frenzy of excitement he’d refused to eat either breakfast or lunch.

  ‘Mr Connelly says I’m a excellent farmer and a excellent helper.’

  ‘Well, Mr Connelly would know,’ said Tish.

  ‘He says I can stay as long as I like.’

  Tish would have to have words with Bill. He meant well, of course, and hopefully Loxley would always be a part of Abel’s life. But they also had a life back in Romania. They’d have to go back eventually. There were other matters she needed to broach with Bill too. Like most small Derbyshire farms, Home Farm was losing money. But only in the last week had Tish discovered just how much it had been costing Loxley to keep the land going, and for how long. They were a mixed farm, which meant they had both arable and livestock, but because of their position and exposure to the elements, as well as the fragmented nature of the land (the entire estate was punctuated with pockets of ancient woodland, so none of the fields was of a decent commercial size), they had suffered more than other local concerns.

  The Connelly family had been tenants at Home Farm since before Tish was born. There could be no question of abandoning the farm, or of asking them to move on. But with the maintenance and running costs of Loxley Hall itself easily topping eight hundred thousand a year, not including big-ticket items like roof repairs or fixing the internal damage wreaked by Jago’s friends, it was hard to see just how they were going to support a failing farm as well. Tish’s father, Henry, had already remortgaged all of the smaller properties on the estate during his lifetime, including Home Farm. Short of the not-to-be-considered sale, this left Tish precious little wiggle room. At the very least she needed to sit down with Bill Connelly and go through the numbers.

  Three weeks ago, Tish had asked George Arkell, a financial advisor and family friend, to come up to Loxley and to help her devise a plan for getting the estate back on an even keel. George’s prognosis was less than heartening.

  ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ he asked her.

  ‘Good news,’ said Tish.

  ‘The good news is, the National Trust will probably contribute to repairs in the public wings of the house. That could end up reducing your projected deficit for the year by as much as thirty-five per cent.’

  Tish brightened. ‘That is good news! So how much money is that, then?’

  ‘Around half a million pounds.’

  ‘George! That’s wonderful!’

  ‘Yeeess,’ said George. ‘Except that it leads us on to the bad news.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘You still need to find approximately nine hundred and sixty thousand pounds just to cover your current costs, interest payments on the loans, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes. Oh. And your projected income for the year, from visitors, farming and other revenue combined is …’ He paused, flipping through the notes on his lap ‘… ah, here we are. Eighty-five thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight pounds and sixty-two pence. Before tax.’

  Tish looked suitably crestfallen.

  ‘You have to raise some capital,’ George told her firmly. ‘That means you must sell some land, property, paintings, or most likely a combination of all three. Once you’ve done that, we can work on consolidating your various debts. Then, with any luck, we find some reliable tenants to pay market rates for all of the remaining properties.’

  ‘I can’t evict the Connellys,’ Tish protested.

  George ploughed on. ‘And finally, we come up with some sort of long-term strategy for the future. Something that will turn Loxley into a going concern that pays for itself.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘It could be tourism-based, holiday lets or what have you; it could be organic farming, conferences, shooting parties. Dirt bikes. I don’t know.’

  ‘Dirt bikes?’ said Tish. ‘Are you mad? In our peaceful little valley? The village would be up in arms, and quite rightly too.’

  ‘I understand,’ said George, who did. His own family had lost their ancestral pile fifteen years ago, casualties of the collapse of Lloyd’s of London. He knew how heartbreaking it was to be the generation who broke the chain of trust, who lost it all after hundreds of years of careful estate management. Times were changing, though. All over England, estates far grander and wealthier than Loxley were going under. ‘But I’m afraid if you don’t find large amounts of ready cash in the coming months, and come up with a radical rethink about the estate’s future, you’re going to have to sell up. You know, the National Trust are cash-rich at the moment. They’d take excellent care of the place.’

  ‘No,’ Tish shuddered. ‘Never. Loxley stays in private hands. In Crewe family hands, if I have anything to do with it. My God, if Daddy could hear this conversation he’d be spinning.’

  ‘Actually,’ said George, ‘I suspect none of this would have surprised your father in the least. Henry knew which way the cookie was crumbling. That’s why he mortgaged everything to the hilt and changed his will to cut out Jago. But he should have warned you how tough it would be.’

  Tish couldn’t bring herself to blame her father. He’d done his best. Day after day she sat slumped over his papers, praying for inspiration to strike, for some solution to present itself that did not involve turfing out her tenants or – horror of horrors – selling her soul to the National bloody Trust.

  There must be a way to make Loxley profitable. There just must be.

  Once she was dry, she pulled on the same jeans and holey red sweater she’d been wearing for the past three days, and made her way down to the kitchen. With its constantly lit log-burning stove, it was by far the warmest room in the house. As such it had become the nerve centre of Operation Find A Miracle, as Tish now called her efforts to revive Loxley’s finances, taking over from Henry’s cold, draughty office, at least until the weather warmed up.

  ‘You look terrible,’ said Mrs Drummond with motherly concern when Tish walked in. ‘You’re no good to anyone if you don’t sleep, you know. Or eat. Let me cook you a proper breakfast.’

  Tish sighed, but did not protest. Mrs D’s idea of a ‘proper’ breakfast was a fried calorie bomb so fat-drenched it could probably fatally block one’s arteries just by looking at it. But feeding people up was Mrs D’s vocation, and it applied as much to Tish as to Abel, who must have gained half his bodyweight since he came to Loxley, but whom Mrs Drummond still invariably referred to as ‘that poor little mite’ or, sometimes, ‘skin and bone’.

  ‘Not still pining over that Michael, are you?’ Mrs Drummond asked, cracking three eggs into a sizzling pan full of butter.

  ‘No,’ lied Tish.

  ‘Good. Because you know what I always say about the Frogs.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs D. I know.’

  How Tish wished she had never confided in Mrs Drummond about Michel. Afte
r a few too many glasses of red one night, it had seemed like a good idea to open her heart. But ever since then she’d been subjected to daily lectures on how one could ‘never trust a Frenchman’ because they were ‘all cowards’. The xenophobia was entirely well meant, but Tish found it draining.

  ‘Oh, no fried bread for me please,’ she protested. ‘It gives me dreadful indigestion.’

  ‘Nonsense, lovie. You’re just eating it too quickly,’ said Mrs D, cheerfully dropping two battered slices of Hovis into the heart-attack pan. ‘I’m going into Castleton later. Do you need anything?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Tish. This was good news, though. She had a string of begging phone calls to make this morning to Loxley’s various creditors, and was relieved Mrs D had errands to run. These things were even harder with an audience.

  Just as Mrs D plopped Tish’s mountainous breakfast down in front of her, the doorbell rang. Both women looked surprised.

  ‘Are we expecting anyone?’ Mrs Drummond sounded faintly accusing, as if Tish were still a teenager and had invited friends over without asking.

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Tish, getting up. ‘It’s probably just a delivery.’

  ‘Ah ah ah!’ Mrs D held up an admonishing finger. ‘You sit right there and eat, madam. I’ll get the door. Running yourself ragged,’ she muttered, shuffling out into the hallway. ‘It’s no wonder you look like you’re half dead.’

  Tish had taken only two bites of fried egg before she heard the raised voices. One was unmistakably Mrs D’s, shrill and strident, the way she always sounded when she was rattled. The other was also a woman’s voice, but younger, and conciliatory despite the volume. From her nasal tone, it sounded to Tish as if she might be American.

  Tish moved to the door so she could hear what they were saying.

  ‘If I could just speak to the owner,’ the American girl pleaded. ‘I’d only need a few minutes of his time.’

  ‘I’ve told you.’ Mrs Drummond was practically shouting. ‘The owner is busy. And even if she weren’t she would not be interested.’