by Cate Andrews
‘Cool kid, what’s his name?’
‘Lucas.’
‘As in George?’
She blushed again. ‘Actually it was my father’s name.’
‘Oh?’
When she refused to elaborate he didn’t push it. He liked chicks that kept their cards firmly tucked into their bra straps.
‘You’ve worked with GBA for a while, right?’
‘I have. Close to six years.’
Michael whistled. ‘Gee, that’s a long time to be putting up with their shit. Ain’t that right, Joe?’ But Joe was far too busy watching a stunt horse treat the dolly track like the glistening water jump at Badminton and go careering into the lighting set-up.
Lily smiled and said nothing as Stephen started motioning furiously at Joe to get the floor ready for the next scene. Frowning heavily, Joe heaved himself out of his chair and raised his walkie-talkie to his mouth.
‘OK guys, next up is 13A. Danny, can we have the cast in place please, over?’
‘What’s up with him?’ murmured Michael, watching Joe. He was walking over to the set like he was being dragged to the gallows. ‘Did he and Stephen have a bust-up?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ admitted Lily, ‘but I’ve never heard him talk like that before.’
Michael was silent.
‘Is Maisie on set today?’ she asked him suddenly. Lily was in no rush to let their conversation dwindle, even if it did make her look like a total incompetent. Scripts and schedules were usually burnt into the retinas of script supervisors.
Michael grinned. ‘Nope, but she’s down here hanging out with other actors. There’s some kind of impromptu rehearsal going on back at unit base. She’s pretty dedicated.’
‘Yes she is, and so talented,’ lied Lily, crossing her fingers underneath her script. Maisie was a pain in the bum. Her presence on set always made for a spectacularly unproductive day and it was embarrassing how often the actress fluffed even the most basic of lines. But Michael just beamed at her making her insides melt faster than the ice creams being dished out over by the craft services table.
‘Danny it’s me, over, can you bring Zach out, please, over,’ crackled Joe’s voice over his walkie-talkie. A few minutes later he was calling for final checks.
Michael and Lily watched as the stand-by art director and his assistants made their last minute tweaks and the costume and make-up teams stepped up to apply their final expert touches. Stray lashes were lightly brushed away, hanging threads snipped and a little more green foundation applied to tone down flushed, sunburnt cheeks.
Stephen flounced from actor to actor, sharing last minute tips and motivationals. The next scene would see Zach Robert’s character preparing to ride into his enemy’s village to rescue his kidnapped lover. Ordinarily, such a simple tracking ‘walk and talk’ shot wouldn’t have been particularly troublesome, but for all his steamy testosterone-loaded antics on screen, the actor was a complete wuss when it came to horses.
‘Equine phobia, more like macho phobia,’ murmured Danny as three hefty-looking prop guys hoisted the whimpering actor into the saddle. Zach was on target to clock up a disgraceful number of takes today. It might even beat Maisie’s all-time record of ninety-five from Mutinous Pirates 3. Her lisping, stuttering attempts to deliver the mawkish: ‘Remember me Pirate Robert and love me always,’ had been rivalled by the crew’s gasps of glee at the amount of overtime stacking up. Paid at time and a half, Danny had afforded a five star trip to Ibiza on the strength of that day alone.
Meanwhile, over in the monitor’s tent, Michael was just asking Lily if Lucas’ father worked in the industry too when he watched her eyes dart over his left shoulder and widen in panic. Moments later, a dark shadow appeared behind him, completely obliterating his sunshine.
‘For fucks sake Joe, speed it along. I want this shot in the can before lunch,’ bellowed Vincent, collapsing into the chair vacated by his tense-faced 1st AD. The black canvas bowed and squeaked under his weight. An unattractive man at the best of times, the heat had turned Vincent’s wispy, balding head an ugly tomato colour and there were spreading sweat patches like pee stains under both arms. He was clutching a coffee in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other and the waistband of his shorts was threatening to give up and take the first flight home at any moment.
The guy’s a walking, talking, or rather shouting commercial for bad health, thought Michael, flicking through the dialogue for the next scene as he watched him lean in to Lily and whisper something. She immediately recoiled as if set upon by a swarm of angry bees. At the same time, Vincent looked up and caught Michael staring.
‘Shame the camera department can’t set up a second tent,’ he snarled.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Michael politely. ‘Are you having trouble fitting under this one?’
‘Get bent, you piece of …’
Just then, Stephen arrived to take his place by the monitor.
‘Quiet please. Stand by everyone, we’re going for a take,’ yelled Joe, following close behind.
‘Sound rolling,’ shouted the Sound Recordist.
‘Cameras rolling,’ bellowed the Camera Operator, as his clapper loader leapt out from behind him to snap his boards. ‘Scene 13A, Take One.’
‘ANNNND ACTION!’
As predicted, Zach’s scene dominated the rest of the day’s shooting and by the time Wrap was called, the production was already three hours over schedule and running on generator fumes.
Joe collapsed into his jeep exhausted, having just supervised the toughest job of all - the kick, bollock and scramble of distributing tomorrow’s call sheet before everyone scarpered back to the hotel. Resting his head briefly against the window, he heard Danny jump in beside him, arms full of spare call sheets to slip under the doors of all the actors not on set today but due on set tomorrow.
‘What was up with Polly earlier?’ asked Danny, pretending to fiddle with the radio.
Joe frowned and started the engine. He had temporarily forgotten that fiasco in the ensuing drama of delinquent stunt horses and panic-stricken lead actors.
‘Stephen bawled her out and she got upset.’
‘Seriously? Polly doesn’t strike me as the type of girl to burst into tears over spilt telephone transfers.’
‘Look, mate, I’m knackered. Can we save the inquisition until later?’
Danny shrugged and gazed out at the first sprinkling of stars up above. It looked like the FX crew had ripped a couple of holes in their blue screen then held it up to a spotlight. Would Polly think him romantic if he named a star after her? There were those kits you could get online for twenty quid…
***
To: Lucy Richards
Subject: 1 shoot day down, too many to go.
Attachments: Photo of me in boiling hot production office, dubbed Sauna de desert.
Hurrah, hurrah! It may be the desert but it’s finally raining Internet connections out here. No sexual favours needed, just a steady supply of duty-free cigarettes. Am working my way through your encyclopedia of emails now… Things are tough, the hours are crazy and Stephen still seems hell-bent on making this experience as miserable as possible. Silly me, I shouldn’t be so indiscreet, not when I know you’re going to be a super-star journalist one day.
Lots of love, Pol x
The following morning, Lucy was just gearing up to scream at the mail-boy for savaging her fake Prada with his parcel trolley again when she noticed Polly’s email sitting at the top of her inbox. Clicking on the message, she was crushed to find something as crisp and perfunctory as a holiday postcard and not the lengthy, scandal-laden Jackie Collins novel she was expecting.
Skimming through the sentences, she sat motionless at her desk for a long while after, ignoring her phone and her flapping editor, and when the smirking mail-boy returned to have another go at her fake Prada, this time she barely heard the leather rip.
Chapter Fifteen
Michael raised one sleepy eyelid and glared at the curtains. Th
e delicate fabric was charmingly chintzy but as see-through as cling-film. He could make out every feathery detail of a group of boisterous birds perched on the telephone wire outside, their joyful chirps in sync with the metallic chinks of breakfast knives and the strangulated groans of the bathroom pipes. It was 5:30am. Power showers were being revved up all over the place and the antiquated hotel plumbing system was a single pressure dial notch away from blowing the proverbial gasket.
His eyelid snapped shut again. Breakfast could wait. The appeal of a few extra minutes in bed, even with that goddamn caterwaul and the sunshine pelting through the gossamer curtains was a dead cert over soggy cereal.
Alas, the hot white rays only grew hotter and whiter. Before long, they were as conducive to slumber as a Fakir’s bed of nails, with a mega-wattage output to rival any of his Pa’s sound stage lighting rigs. How actors put up with this sizzling intensity day in, day out was beyond him. He wouldn’t be surprised if their perma-attached wraparounds concealed whopping great cataracts from extreme light exposure.
Ho hum, when in Rome, or rather Morocco, he muttered, reaching for his Ray Bans, but they proved as elusive to him as his lie in. They weren’t on the bedside table, jeans pocket, or that mysteriously odd-shaped compartment in his laptop case that was too shallow for a pencil but far too protracted for a business card.
He was just scrabbling around under the bed when he heard a woman scream. Most likely another lost sunglasses victim reflected Michael sourly. Then another scream sounded. This time he froze, half-in half-out of bed, lower torso cocooned in a crumpled up sheet as the noise bounced off the corridor’s terracotta tiles like waves from a tuning fork. After a few seconds it trailed off to a whimper and then started up again. Michael was out of bed in a flash.
Yanking on jeans and a shirt, he flung himself through the door and immediately collided with a white-faced Lily beetling past in the opposite direction. She was clad in the briefest of towels with inches of soft white skin spilling out all over the place like fistfuls of squeezed silly putty. The impact sent her cannoning into the outside balcony opposite and more gorgeous skin was exposed.
Averting his eyes, he grabbed her arm to steady her. Her skin felt smooth and warm to the touch like a piping hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day. Stripping off his shirt, he draped it across her shoulders, extinguishing her smoking cleavage in pale blue Lacoste.
‘You ok, honey?’ he asked her anxiously, as a flash of toothy whiteness distracted him. Several feet away, an open-mouthed Lucas was gazing up at him in wonder.
‘Oh Mr Wilson,’ she sobbed, ‘you have to do something, he’s horrible, horrible, truly awful!’
Michael tore his eyes away from the boy. ‘What is? What’s happened? Has someone hurt you?’
‘He’s enormous. Horrendous!’ Salt water mingled with the soapy drips from her fringe to form white lathered splodges on her cheeks.
‘Which one’s your room?’ he barked.
‘Two doors down on the left.’
‘Right, stay here.’
‘Oh do be careful, Mr Wilson.’
Lily looked fretful as he barged on in regardless. Moments later, he reappeared with a bemused look on his face.
‘Uh Lily? This intruder wouldn’t be small and hairy would it?’
Lily bit her lip and nodded as she pulled his shirt closer. The soft material smelt of sleep, aftershave and his trademark self-assurance.
‘But, uh sweets, that scorpion ain’t even lethal.’
‘I think it’s cool,’ piped up Lucas.
‘Darling no! They’re evil, horrible creatures!’
Michael looked at Lily, meditatively. The poor chick was terrified. Her teeth were chattering so loudly it sounded like freeway maintenance was going on in there.
‘Shall I get rid of it?’ he offered politely.
‘That would be wonderful! Do you mind?’
‘I’d be happy to.’
Lily’s lower lip wobbled with gratitude as he gently coaxed her back into the room. Lucas skipped on ahead with no such reserve. Once inside, he scanned her things for a suitable bug removal device. It wasn’t difficult. Lily’s desk was a trashcan of loose papers, folders and Roald Dahl storybooks.
‘Gee, you weren’t kidding about your work space yesterday, were you?’
‘A place for everything and everything in its place, that’s what my father used to say,’ said Lily quietly.
‘Used to?’ Michael looked up sharply. ‘I take it he’s not around anymore?’
‘You must be the only person around here who isn’t terrified of scorpions,’ said Lily, changing the subject quickly. ‘Vincent nearly steamrollered straight off his balcony last week when he found one in his shoe.’
‘Too bad he stopped. I’da bought the wrap party celebrations forward three months if he had.’ Picking up an enormous manila script envelope he advanced on the critter.
‘Are you sure you’re ok about this?’
‘You bet. I grew up in Cali, remember, so i’m immune to their ‘nefarious’ charms.’
Lily glanced at his hand in confusion. Envelopes had never seemed particularly wicked to her.
‘Scorpions,’ he said patiently, following her gaze. ‘You asked why I wasn’t scared of them? Back home they’re always stalking our swimming pool vents or scurrying underneath our Porsches.’
No such supercars in my garage, thought Lily wistfully. Any scorpion would probably think twice before sheltering under her manky old Astra. She felt a tug at her towel. Lucas was staring up at her with eyes the size of two-pound coins. He tugged again, more urgently this time, and her towel started to unravel.
‘Mummy, mummy, can we go see them?’ he stage-whispered to her.
Lily caught the towel right before her boss was treated to a sight far more undignified than her messy desk. ‘Maybe, darling, maybe,’ she murmured.
‘Like bugs then do ya, kiddo?’
Lucas nodded, his tight blonde curls bobbing about like harbour buoys.
Michael grinned. He loved kids. He couldn’t wait to start a family but Maisie regarded them the same way she did carbs - yummy little figure-wreckers best suited for those who didn’t live and die by haute couture.
Tipping the offending creature onto the envelope, he catapulted it neatly out of the open window.
‘Oh thank you!’ gasped Lily, handing him back his shirt. ‘And i’m so sorry if I woke you earlier.’
He glanced down and then quickly glanced away again. Her tits were amazing. Too bad her face was more Charlie Brown than Charlize Theron. Still, that body was much too va-va-voom to be tucked away underneath all those plus sized t-shirts.
‘You didn’t. Maisie was up hours ago with an early make-up call.’
‘Well, err, thanks again. I’ll see you on set later then, shall I?’
‘Yep, see you.’ He paused in the doorway and began taking an unusually keen interest in the magnolia paint splashes coating the top hinge. ‘Hey, um Lily, can I ask you a personal question?’
Lily froze. She dreaded that opener. It was often a pre-curser to a clumsy enquiry about Lucas’ parentage and she was willing to divulge anything other than that.
Michael watched her face carefully, sensing he’d overstepped some invisible mark.
‘I don’t mean to pry,’ he said hastily. ‘I was just wondering, well what i’m trying to ask is who watches Lucas when you’re working?’ His question plopped out like ketchup sat too long in the fridge.
‘Oh. I have a nanny, Charlene.’
‘Full-time?’
Not even close, thought Lily. Charlene was a law unto herself most days.
‘Your silence is speaking volumes, honey,’ said Michael, teasingly.
‘Is it? Well, she is somewhat capricious,’ admitted Lily reluctantly. Bitchiness didn’t come as naturally to her as it did to most people on set. ‘Particularly in the evenings….’ As she said it, she inched towards the hairdryer on her bedside table. It was fast approaching six
and she had exactly three minutes to get volume into more than just her silences. To her surprise, Michael continued to hover in the doorway. Having scraped off most of the paint on the top hinge, he would be starting on the bottom one in a minute.
‘But doesn’t that get kinda crazy when you’re trying to finish script notes in the evenings? You can’t be getting to bed much before 2am.’ Michael had dated a script supervisor once and remembered how tough it was churning out a daily production report on top of a twelve hour shoot, as well as keeping the master continuity script up to date with props, sets and costumes used.
His concern knocked Lily for six. She felt the tears welling up again and focused on the dryer’s heat control button. She was a non-stop dripping tap of emotion this morning. Perhaps the hotel plumber could fix both her and the leaky showerhead when he popped by later on today.
‘Listen, if you ever need a hand just let me know,’ she heard him say. ‘I’d be happy to help out for an hour or so. Maisie’s got this thing where she likes to rehearse late with the other actors so I’m alone most nights. Just give me a holler, or better still one of those scorpion shrieks from earlier.’
‘Are you sure?’ gulped Lily. ‘I mean are you really, really sure?’
‘Uh-huh, but only if you’re willing to spike Vincent’s diet cokes for me. You’re so well placed sat next to him and that monitor all day. All it’ll take is a couple of laxatives, then he can spout as much crap from his ass as he does from his mouth.’
Lily stifled a smile as he turned to Lucas.
‘We’d have a riot, wouldn’t we buddy?’
The young boy looked up from decapitating his Star Wars figures and beamed at him. Two seconds later Darth Vader’s head, complete with miniature black plastic helmet, came rolling across the floor. Michael caught Lily’s eye and winked.
There were still a few birds chirping away outside as Michael kicked his door shut. The rest of the flock appeared to have upgraded themselves to a much grander telecommunications perch on the other side of the car park.
