by Cate Andrews
‘I take it you’re interested in joining our little GBA refugee assemblage then?’ said Joe, recovering his balance.
‘I prefer to think of us more as glorious pariahs,’ she said, sealing the deal with a smile.
‘Not to be confused with piranhas,’ drawled Michael.
‘Oh I don’t know. I’d be more than happy to sink my fangs into Stephen’s ball sack.’
Both men winced.
‘Oh relax,’ she tutted, reaching for the car door. ‘I’d rather flambé my darling Coco than go near THAT again. Now are you boys coming? Or do I have to make this movie myself?’
Christine wasted no time in stoking the smoldering embers of their script with enough rocket fuel to fire them straight into pre-production.
Establishing the back seat as a makeshift office, she was soon dialing her accountant to register the business with Company’s House. Next was a call to her PA, and by the time Michael had dodged another potential wildlife massacre two miles down the road, they had a list of reputable insurance brokers and another viewing for an office in Soho. Michael and Joe sat in the front, winking at each other and grinning like idiots. At this rate their movie would be done and dusted in time for a Premiere at Cannes.
‘Michael darling, take the next left, that’s the entrance to my little house over there,’ she shrieked suddenly, as he mistook third gear for first. The car screamed in protest and Christine rubbed her neck. Flicking through her Rolodex, she quickly dialed Carman, her masseuse.
Meanwhile, Michael was struggling with her concept of size. There was nothing remotely ‘little’ about the house. The gates had swung open to reveal a magnificent oak-lined driveway bordered by emerald green paddocks and fat, greedy ponies in matching red halters. Glinting in the distance, like a magpie’s cache, lay a very regal Renaissance-era mansion.
‘I didn’t realise you were the Queen, Christine?’ he drawled.
‘Silly-billy, Queenie’s down the road,’ she replied airily, waving her arm in the direction of Windsor. ‘Hello, Carman darling, it’s me. Can you fit me in for a sesh tomorrow morning?’
Joe, who had seen the driveway a billion times before but had always likened it to the road to hell, or rather the road to a hellish evening of put-downs, could finally sit back and admire its beauty. With Carman booked and Michael too in blissful awe, spirits were sky high for all three as they approached the grandiose front porch. It quickly soured when they came across a large removal van and four burly men loading an expensive-looking sideboard into the back of it. Christine was out of the car in a flash.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing with my Sheraton?’ she shrieked, scaring the bejesus out of them. ‘That’s been in my family for two hundred years. I suggest you take it back to my drawing room at once!’
‘I don’t know what yer on about, love!’ yelled a baldie in glasses as he jumped down off the van. ‘We’re just following instructions, see?’ He thrust a sweaty, creased, collection note into her trembling fingers.
‘What’s going on?’ panted Joe, arriving on the scene.
‘Stephen’s out for his pound of flesh again,’ said Christine, furiously. ‘The little toe rag’s wasted no time ransacking the place whilst I’ve been “indisposed”. Look,’ she cried, pointing to a line of writing at the top of the collection note. ‘Trip nine of ten. I’ll be lucky if I have a bed to sleep in tonight!’
‘But he can’t just empty the place,’ said Joe, aghast. ‘Don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ll get it all back. Give me your lawyer’s number and I’ll give him a bell.’
And so it went that a fruitful morning turned into a rotten afternoon. The rest of the day was taken up with numerous phone calls to a snooty London Lawyer and a very tense stand-off with the removal men and their superior who arrived on the back of his moped sometime after lunch. But in the end there was only one victor, and as dusk cast long dark shadows across the ponies in paddocks, an empty van and a dirty white moped could be seen trundling dejectedly down the drive.
Michael flashed his middle finger at the departing vehicles before turning back to admire Christine’s house. ‘Shame we can’t set up production here,’ he murmured to Joe. ‘This is one classy property.’
‘Not close enough to London,’ said Joe, as Christine shot off to see what other family heirlooms Stephen had swiped. ‘Listen, whilst we’re on our own, I wanted to run something past you. How do you feel about offering Christine a role in the movie? I know she can be a tad, umm, melodramatic, not to mention that the thought of directing her is making me break out in cold sweats…’
‘I think it’s a great idea,’ interrupted Michael excitedly. ‘Her rep will generate us publicity and make a distribution deal much more feasible.’
‘Cynical bastard. For once I wasn’t actually thinking of that.’
‘She’s Christine Lavelle, for Christ’s sake! She may be up to her fake eyelashes in baggage and bullshit but she’s still the best actress of her generation. Period. This could be the break she needs to get her career back on track. She’s Florella all over.’
Florella was the lead character in Memoir, a multifaceted and vivacious older woman who had gobbled up gullible young men before succumbing to age and addiction. The parallels were frightening. All of a sudden, neither man could imagine anyone else in the role.
‘I’ll go and speak to her now,’ said Joe, heading back into the house. ‘In the meantime make yourself useful and dig us out a decent bottle of red. You’ll find the cellar by the kitchen.’
‘What happens if Stephen’s passed that way already?’
‘Then there’s an off-licence down the road. But don’t murder any more wildlife. And make sure you get something soft for Christine. We don’t want her falling off the wagon on her first day out of rehab.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Joe found Christine in Stephen’s study. She was on her hand and knees in front of the fireplace, prodding the cinders with a poker.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve cremated Stephen already!’ he joked.
‘Pah! He should be so lucky. A shallow grave in the middle of the Hammersmith Underpass is more than he deserves.’
Joe laughed and picked up the dustpan and brush. ‘Then budge up and let me do it. You’ve far too much dirt on that Chanel as it is.’
Christine looked at him in amazement then hooted with laughter.
‘Oh, i’m not cleaning the fireplace, you silly boy! I flung my marriage certificate in there the night I left for Serenity. I was just making sure the thing had been completely incinerated.’
Joe promptly dropped the dustpan and brush and gazed at the charred debris in the hearth. ‘In that case, I think it’s safe to assume that its gone the same way as my GBA contract.’
‘Then its splendid news for the both of us!’ cried Christine, leaping to her feet in delight. ‘Fa-la-la,’ she trilled. ‘Now, Out of the ash I rise with my red hair, she quoted happily.
‘Gee, nothing says optimism more than a bit of Sylvia Plath. Just don’t go sticking your head in the oven anytime soon. Michael and I have been talking and we both agree you should be more involved with the film.’
Christine’s smile faltered. ‘But I don’t understand,’ she stuttered. ‘Am I not pulling my weight? Surely, my considerable financial pledge has demonstrated my commitment to this project?’
‘No, no, that’s not it at all,’ said Joe. ‘To have a sole, financial backer who is this passionate about our script is phenomenal, miraculous even. But it’s not enough. Not when the financial backer happens to be one of the greatest actresses in the world.’ He looked her dead in the eye. ‘Christine, we want you for the lead.’
The bronze poker slipped from her fingers, ricocheting off the coalscuttle and landing with a clatter on the ashen tiles below.
‘I can’t, Joe, truly I can’t,’ she cried, clutching her face with her sooty hands. ‘I’d be terrified. I’d make such a fool of myself. The role’s too good. You should ask Me
ryl or, or Diane whatserface, Diane Keaton!’ she shrieked, recalling the surname. ‘They’re far more talented than I.’
‘Bullshit! Now, i’m not denying the thought of Meryl isn’t tempting,’ he admitted, leaning over to prise her hands away from her face, ‘but why have American rib-eye when you can have prime British fillet?’ He tenderly wiped away a smudge of soot from her cheek. ‘We want you, Christine, we really, really do.’
‘But why?’ She looked genuinely baffled. ‘I’m hardly beating off casting directors with a stick? My last role was as a Dead Corpse with Bloody Fingernails.’
‘And your first was an Oscar-winning performance in that hot European flick,’ he replied, recalling her triumphant performance from three decades ago.
‘Oh Joe, don’t make this any harder for me,’ she wailed. ‘A few years ago I would have jumped at the role, but now…’
‘A few years ago you didn’t look half as good as you do now. My brother’s a fool.’
‘I doubt he agrees when he’s snuggling up to Maisie’s perfect Peaches every night.’
‘Not perfect at all. Her surgeon botched it. One nipple is so off-centre, it’s hiding in shame under her left armpit. Besides, you have more than two brain cells which easily makes you twice as smart.’
Christine smiled, despite her misgivings. ‘Do you really think I could pull it off?’ she asked him anxiously.
‘Yes I do, and remember i’ll be there every step of the way. Think how satisfying it would be to celebrate the anniversary of your divorce decree with another Oscar nomination.’
As he said it her eyes took on a far-away glaze.
‘It would be rather lovely to win another,’ she murmured. ‘My chap looks so lonely up there on that shelf dwarfing my BAFTAs. Alright then, Joe, I accept.’
Over the next five days, the time it usually took Polly to negotiate safe passage through Bucharest customs for Stephen’s special Kenyan coffee beans, Harper Films acquired a spanking new office, half a dozen hastily bought desks from IKEA and a top of the range printer that Joe had spent all morning trying to install. Fed up with his yelps of frustration, Michael had just dispatched him off to the sandwich shop in the hope that an order of chocolate elevenses would help sweeten him up.
Scowling down at the triple-layer-mega-choc-fudge-monster-cake on the counter, Joe reflected that he must be the only person alive who wasn’t instantly cheered by the sight of it. Fucking computers. You needed an instruction manual just to change the ink cartridge. He was about to place an order for the cake when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
‘Joe?’ The voice was hesitant but endearingly hopeful.
‘Janie! My god!’
The sight of her, or rather the fright of her, pulled him out of his techno-fug instantly. Janie looked terrible. A pale woman at best of times, her skin had taken on perilously translucent tinge and the bags under her eyes looked more like bruises. Not surprising sharing an office with Vincent, he thought darkly. The man’s idea of an employee reward scheme was a punch in the face.
‘I’m so sorry to hear about well, you know…’ she said, trailing off in embarrassment. ‘It must have been devastating for you.’
Joe shrugged. He’d had the feeling lately that the Cassie-shaped dagger lodged in his heart was slowly beginning to retract.
‘Has the fall-out been very bloody?’ he asked her.
The answer was written all over Janie’s face. ‘Pretty horrific,’ she confessed, ‘but we’re hanging on in there. Polly’s been a god send.’
‘Oh really? And er…how is she?’
‘Baring up but having a rough old ride in Bucharest.’
‘Bucharest? What the hell’s she doing out there? I thought the next production on GBA’s slate was in Oz?’
‘Stephen and Vincent shunted it at the last minute for some script Walt Wilson sent them.’
‘Excuse me sir, would you like some of that chocolate cake?’ asked the shop assistant, butting in.
‘Oh yes, sorry. Can I have the last four slices, please?’
This was greeted by howls of outrage from the queue behind.
‘Don’t look now but there are half a dozen sugar-starved business women baying for your blood,’ murmured Janie. ‘Sales in chocolate have hit the roof since the price of cigs went up. What do you need four slices for anyway?’
‘Long story. So tell me more about this script,’ he said hastily, ‘what’s it called?’
‘Love letters from Romania’
Joe grinned. ‘Sounds right up Vincent’s street.’
‘It’s not even in the same post code,’ admitted Janie, ‘but even Vincent is prepared to shelve his million dollar action sequences for a shot at the silverware, or rather goldenware in this case. They’re convinced this’ll net them Best Picture at every award ceremony from here to Timbuktu.’
‘How interesting. So when do they wrap?’
‘Christmas, then straight into a four month edit.’
‘Just in time for Cannes as well,’ said Joe, without thinking. Fortunately Janie was far too preoccupied with a mini phone explosion going off in her Mulberry.
‘Crap it’s Vincent. I better take it…Hi Vincent, are you ok?’
Clearly he wasn’t. Joe could hear the abuse from two metres away, and so could the grumbling ladies behind him. He should direct them over to GBA as a way of conciliation. Vincent was bound to have a stockpile of chocolate cake in his filing cabinet.
‘But I did send it,’ he heard Janie say. ‘No of course not, of course it’s my mistake...I’ve just popped out for some lunch…Yes, I’ll head back straight away via Fresh n Wild for your cheesecake.’ She snapped her phone shut with a resigned sigh. ‘I’ve got to go. Vincent needs a revised costing for some scene.’
‘Surely Rachel can help with that,’ said Joe. Stay and have a coffee.’
‘Rachel’s gone. She quit the day after you.’
Joe was horrified. ‘But who’s helping Polly on location?’
Janie looked at him thoughtfully. Was it her imagination or had he just engineered the conversation straight back to Polly?
‘Some god-awful girl Gillian hired the day before they left,’ she replied, chucking her phone back in her bag. ‘Bella’s more petulant twin. Hey, perhaps we can meet up again when we wrap?’
It was a nice idea in theory.
‘Sounds good,’ smiled Joe. ‘Take it easy ok, I’m worried about you.’
Janie smiled tightly. ‘I’ll survive, I always do. I’ll tell Polly you said hi.’
Before he had a chance to reply, she had bolted from the shop and been swallowed up by a pack of tourists wielding brightly coloured guide books and cameras. Joe hovered in the shop’s entrance for a minute clutching his chocolate cake then shot through a blue door to the left.
‘You’ll never guess whom I just bumped into,’ he cried, bursting into the office.
‘Mr Happy,’ drawled Michael, relieved to see him in a better mood. ‘By the way I fixed your printer.’
‘Oh nevermind that.’
‘Ok then, Santa Claus. Come and look at this press release mock up our PR lady wants to place in Screen Buzz.’
But Joe wasn’t deterred. ‘Santa Claus, Shmanta Claus, this is far more fantastical. I just had a very interesting little chat with Janie Reed, GBA’s Office Manager.’
‘Oh my god, she’s not still there is she?’ cried Christine, aghast. ‘She was chained to that desk before Stephen and I were married.’
‘I’m not sure it’s doing her any good,’ said Joe tactfully. ‘But it’s reassuring to know that not all GBA staff want our heads on sticks. Apparently, GBA have shelved Pirates 5 and are holed up in a studio outside Bucharest pinning their Oscar hopes on some low-budget nonsense. I smell another turkey,’ he grinned jubilantly.
‘Does it have a working title?’ asked Michael quietly.
‘Love Letters From Romania or something. Bit flowery, isn’t it? Who knew Vincent was such a romantic? He must have been h
iding his Barbara Cartlands under his FHMs for all these years.’
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. My fucking father!’ howled Michael suddenly, putting his head in his hands.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ cried Christine exchanging worried looks with Joe.
Michael groaned as if he’d been shot. ‘Letter’s was my baby. Sorry guys, but it’s really good. When Pa kicked me out I had to give up every GBA script I was developing. Love Letters was my coup d’état, my raison whatsit, so I emailed him begging for the rights. I figured that if I had that script, I had a shot at making it on my own.’
‘I take it you never heard back from him,’ finished Christine gently. ‘Nevermind, the damage is done. We just have to hope Stephen screws it up which, let’s face it, is more than likely. His idea of a fulfilling romance is a long-term subscription to the Playboy Channel.’
‘Is it better than Memoir?’ asked Joe.
‘Not better, just different.’ Michael closed his eyes in dismay. His father had known how he felt about that script. Things must be far worse between them than he thought.
‘Can I have a look at our PR lady’s article, Christine?’ asked Joe hastily.
‘Yes it’s over here,’ she said, tossing him a copy. ‘It’s a solid start but she still needs a few more confirmed cast and crew. I suggest we start approaching agencies. I know a particularly good one off Shaftsbury, so I might pop down there now and set up a meeting. We also need to think about Heads of Departments and production office staff. Speaking of which, who was that lovely girl I was so wretched to in Morocco? You know, the slim, pretty, incredibly sharp one?’
‘Polly,’ they answered in unison. Michael didn’t dare look at Joe. The guy had never fully opened up about what went down with Polly but he didn’t need a PhD in Complex Relationships to get the gist.
‘Can’t we entice her away from GBA?’ asked Christine. ‘Polly’s much too capable to be putting up with their twaddle. We could promote her to Production Manager and hire a decent Line Producer to oversee. Good people like that deserve to do well.’
