by Cate Andrews
Pausing by a post box to let a woman with two hoity-toity Pekinese pass, he suddenly spotted a long line of scruffy, languid, chain-smoking individuals, that looked suspiciously like the GBA Prophand gang, loitering outside the sandwich shop. They were chatting amongst themselves and eyeing up the pretty post-production runners as they zipped past with loaded trays of Starbucks. As he watched, Simon and the rest of the GBA camera team, minus Dan, came strolling out of the newsagents with Playboys and other more salubrious top shelf publications stuffed under their arms. Seeing him gawping at them like a goldfish, and completely oblivious to a Pekinese peeing all over his trouser leg, a great cheer erupted.
‘Here comes sleeping beauty!’
‘Bloody hell Joe, we fly halfway round the word for you, mate, and find you’re still in bed!’
‘Slacker!’
Hearing the jubilant heckling, Sally came bustling out of the sandwich shop with her team of costume assistants waddling behind her like obedient little ducklings. She too let out a squeal of excitement.
‘Joe-ey, my darling! We’re all SO excited to be here! Harper is the best thing to happen to film since 3D glasses went designer.’
Joe was still struggling to process it all as Roger, Karen and the rest of the art department team exited the private art gallery opposite and waved at him.
‘To paraphrase that delightful Mr Grossman,’ added Sally, kissing him on both cheeks, ‘after some careful deliberating, cogitating and ah…’
‘Masturbating?’
‘Oh shut up Simon, you cretin.’
‘Basically, we ditched the shits!’ concluded Karen, rushing up to give Joe a hug. Secretly, she was delighted. A GBA production tended to cultivate more grey hairs than childbirth and she was fed up of spending a fortune at the hairdressers. ‘It was pretty unanimous as well, all except for…’
‘Listen,’ said Simon interrupting, ‘Vincent can shove his stupid email up his big fat arse.’
‘If he can still find it…’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t take a machete to your passports when he heard you were leaving,’ gasped Joe.
Suddenly, there seemed to be an awful lot of shoe-gazing going on.
‘Now, i’m not saying that I’m proud of our behaviour,’ said Sally, shiftily, twiddling the dayglo-green frills on her cardigan sleeve, ‘but we may have been a tad unforthcoming on that front.’
‘To put it another way,’ said Simon, grinning impishly, ‘they’re planning on shooting scene four this morning but they’ll soon find that backlot is as vacant as their Oscar shelf!’
‘To hell with them,’ stormed Roger, whose beloved set plans and drawings had been ripped apart by Stephen more often than Maisie’s acting skills had by the critics.
‘Too right.’
‘Well said Roge.’
‘The stroppy strumpets deserve it!’
All around him people were nodding in agreement but all Joe could hear was the sound of nukes detonating in his head. So much for staying Switzerland. Still, Stephen and Vincent had dished it out for years without reprisal. It was high time they got a severed horse’s head, or rather a hundred severed crew contracts in their bed. Besides, this was a wonderful, wonderful thing to happen. Humbling, even. To have all these talented people risk their livelihoods for him was awe-inspiring, terrifying! All of a sudden, he felt the crushing weight of their expectations dislocating his shoulder blades.
‘My god, I don’t know what to say, how to thank you all,’ he stuttered.
‘Now, now, don’t go getting all emotional,’ chided Simon sounding rather choked himself. ‘Having said that, if you do insist on showing us a bit of gratitude then mine’s a bacon buttie with extra ketchup.’
The promise of good grub tends to seal deals quicker than handshakes and once Joe had placed a very substantial order with the flustered sandwich shop assistant, he made his way up to the production office. It was painfully slow going. Everywhere he turned there seemed to be another Best Boy or Set Dresser arriving en route from Heathrow, anxious to shake his hand, pledge their allegiance and submit their breakfast order. By the time he reached the first floor landing, his voice was croaking like a frog’s and he was down fifty quid.
‘Isn’t it fantastic?’ whispered Janie, popping up beside him. ‘They started turning up around seven. I’m run off my feet printing scripts for everyone!’
Joe nodded in a daze as Michael fought his way over. The Producer opened his mouth to say something deeply profound about renewed faith in providence but he quickly closed it again when he saw Joe gazing expectantly over his shoulder.
‘He’s not here. Danny wasn’t interested. Nor was Lily,’ he added, glancing away to hide his own disappointment. Lily hadn’t even bothered turning up to the meeting. ‘But they’re easily replaceable,’ he lied. ‘With word spreading about the great GBA mutiny, it seems we’re suddenly more popular than Christmas.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
The following Monday, whilst Harper Films continued their countdown to production with renewed gusto, Vincent was smoothing out the creases of a newspaper cutting less than half a mile away and devouring the article like a second breakfast. It was the same one the editor at Screen Buzz had faxed him, a single paragraph dedicated to the Harper trio announcing their ‘exciting’ new business partnership. That, in itself, was nauseating enough, but something else was causing his stomach to churn. Something he couldn’t quite put his fat finger on.
Vincent stared down at the cutting again. Harper Films. Harper Films. Harper… For the last few months, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that an unpleasant memory was threatening to resurface, one that had been tucked away yonks ago and purposely forgotten about. He had tried and tried to remember it, but, after all the drug abuse, his brain was more sliced, diced and pickled than a jar of Branston’s.
Losing his temper, he screwed the cutting into a ball and attempted to drop kick it out of the window. Alas, having not engaged in any form of exercise since 1976, he ended up booting a hovering Gillian in the kidneys instead.
‘For god’s sake, Vince, stop obsessing with that thing!’ she shrieked, thumping him back with her Ugg boot. ‘For all we know, they probably picked the name out of a phone book.’ As she said it, she chucked a pile of CVs at him. ‘Can you please turn your attention to the roomful of interviewees outside? The sooner we hire a new crew, the sooner we can finish Letters and get Fuckwit Wilson off our backs.’
Vincent glared at her. As if he needed reminding that they still had two weeks shoot time left on Love Letters but no crew, a girlfriend who was suddenly about as appealing to him as mouldy bread, and a boss who had hit the roof so many times this week, his studio was now structurally buggered. Walt’s reaction had been made all the more vicious by his sizzling Sicilian blood and the fact that his estranged son appeared to have masterminded the entire coup. After another disastrous crisis conference call yesterday, Walt had made GBA liable for all downtime costs until the cameras started rolling again.
Vincent hated taking abuse from anyone, much less the most powerful man in Hollywood. He had always relied upon his office juniors to buffer the crap from above. This time, with nothing but an empty production office to hide behind, the Wrath of Walt had smacked him square in the jaw like a killer left hook. Vowing to skewer Walt’s treacherous son’s eyeballs with a blunt pencil the next time their paths crossed, Vincent barged Gillian out of the way and marched into the production office.
‘You!’ he screeched at an Art Director, lurking by the water cooler. ‘Get in here now!’
Not needing to be told twice, the man shot past him and into his office. ‘This lot better be decent,’ he hissed at Gillian, as he turned to follow, ‘if I’m inundated with timewasters then you can forget that lunch at The Ivy.’
‘He’s come straight from the Harry Potter set so I doubt he’s a novice,’ she retorted, disgusted by the sweat glistening on his pasty-white forehead. ‘Besides, I’ve lost my appeti
te.’ And you’ve lost your charm, added Gillian privately. His muted, gelded reactions to Walt’s tongue-lashings this week had turned her right off.
Casting her eye over the room, she was drawn to a big bald man with wild bushy eyebrows that looked like two hamsters glued to his face. I bet he knows how to handle himself, she thought excitedly, as a loud commotion sounded from Vincent’s office. Two seconds later, the interviewee was ejected.
‘GILLLEEEAN!’
Blowing a kiss at hamster features, she sauntered slowly into the room then shrieked. Vincent’s face had completely lost its colour. Even the underground map of broken capillaries crisscrossing his nose had vanished.
‘You look awful, babe,’ she said with calculated compassion. She may as well stick with him until hamster features made his move. Vincent did own a penthouse after all. ‘I told you not to drink so much diet coke before lunch. Shall I go and usher in the next victim?’
‘This has nothing to do with drinking coke, and if anyone else so much as crosses that threshold in the next thirty minutes, I’ll rip their bloody heads off!’
Gillian eyed him coolly. These days, his temper was about as arousing to her as arthritis.
‘What’s this all about then, babe?’
Vincent scratched at his face leaving a bright red weal across one stark white cheek.
‘It came to me when that boring little shit was banging on about his wizards, not that wizards have anything to do with it. For fucks sake, I don’t even like wizards.’
‘Vincie, you’re rambling.’
He jumped up and grabbed her by the arm.
‘D’you remember that guy I ripped off years ago?’ he hissed, his eyes darting about her face like a loon. ‘You know the one, the drunk dead-beat with the scripts.’
‘Not really,’ she whimpered. Vincent had swindled so many people over the years. He could be referring to a thousand faceless individuals.
‘Think you stupid bitch, THINK!’ he screeched, shaking her so violently that her four morning cappuccinos sloshed about uneasily.
‘Jesus, Vincent, what the hell’s got into you?’
‘The bastard died, the bus, he died. I heard he died,’ he muttered, collapsing against her, but thirty stone was no match for an indifferent eight and they both crashed to the ground in a heap. As Gillian scrambled to her feet, he reached up to pull her back down again.
‘Don’t you understand Gillian,’ he groaned into her bony shoulder. ‘If they have evidence, if this gets out, i’m finished!’
Gillian stayed very still but her mind was racing.
‘Don’t worry, Vincey-poo,’ she crooned, stroking his head with one rigid palm. ‘You’ll find a way to fix this, whatever it is. You always do.’ She pushed him off gently and started wriggling towards the door. ‘Remember tiger-bear, you’re the ring master-waster…the General-weneral, the ….’
‘Shut up Gillian and let me think.’
‘Suit yourself. Now where does this writer fit in?’ she asked as she inched further and further towards the door.
Vincent righted himself with a grunt and slumped against his filing cabinet.
‘If you tried engaging your brain for once you might remember something other than E’s top twenty worst dressed celebrities.’
She stared at him stupidly.
‘The story I told you years ago,’ he prompted impatiently, ‘the one about me nicking those scripts.’ That was the problem with Gillian, he reflected darkly. The dossier of dirt she had on him could fill Wembley Stadium twice over.
Gillian stopped wriggling for a minute.
‘Oh, umm Trevor Hooper?’ she offered up tentatively.
‘Tommy Harper,’ corrected Vincent icily.
Still Gillian didn’t click.
‘HARPER Films’ he screamed at her. Even then, it took a further ten seconds for the penny to drop.
‘Oh My God!’
‘It’s one hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?’
‘But you said the guy died,’ she said accusingly, ‘you said there was no way he could be traced back to you, that no one else knew about the scripts. He used some old type-writer to bash them out instead of a laptop with a hard-drive…’
‘There was one other person,’ admitted Vincent, ‘some BBC ponce he was on his way to see. But he didn’t have a synopsis, a working title…nothing!’
‘Then the name’s a fluke, a coincidence, nothing more,’ bluffed Gillian, re-doubling her wriggling. She was only a metre from the door now. ‘Listen, Vincey, I’ve been thinking about taking a little break from the industry,’ she said, reaching for the handle. ‘It’ll do us some good to have some distance, make our hearts grow fonder, get some perspective…’
Vincent lunged for her foot.
‘That’s what I detest most about you, Gillian,’ he snarled pityingly, as she wriggled and writhed like a fish in his grip. ‘You’re so disappointingly predictable.’
‘Let go of me!’ she mewed.
‘No chance. If I’m going down then you’re coming too.’
‘Like hell I will. I wasn’t the one who stole those scripts and passed them off as mine. I’m just the dumb deluded EX-lover.’
‘Keep on dreaming and scheming, Gillian, ‘cos it’s never ever gonna to play out like that. We’ve been as thick as thieves for years. It’ll be difficult for the press not to find ways to implicate you. Who knows, with a bit of digging around they might just might uncover whose idea it really was to steal those scripts.’
‘You bastard! You liar! You wouldn’t dare!’
‘Try me.’
Gillian screamed in frustration. Kicking him off, she bolted from his office.
Vincent sat back down at his desk. Scooping up the cutting from the floor, he fingered the cheap lighter in his pocket. A flick of his thumb and the scrape of metal was all it took to free the flame from its purple plastic casing. With a maniacal expression, Vincent lowered one corner until the newspaper caught light and the spicy, amber glow was racing towards his fingers. Letting go at the last minute, he watched it spiral to the floor, but as the flame flickered and died he couldn’t help thinking that it might be his career he was watching turn to ash.
It was a fleeting moment of weakness. Vincent hadn’t lied, scammed and cultivated the sort of reputation that made grown men snivel to be snuffed out like tomorrow’s chip wrapping. Michael and Joe knew damn well he owned the copyright to those scripts, yet he still found himself wondering how the fuck they had found out about Tommy.
As he mulled it all over, the memory that he had been searching for all week suddenly pierced his brain like a poisoned dart. At the same time, an excruciating pain exploded deep within his chest and he crashed to the floor, cracking his head against the side of the desk. Somewhere in the distance he heard Gillian screaming for an ambulance, but all he could see was Samantha Harper’s angry face, and all he could taste was panic.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Six Months Later
Gradually, the biting frosts of winter gave way to crisp, spring dew, and it wasn’t long before the sleepy Pointe Croisette on the French Riviera was once more playing host to the annual Festival de Cannes. As the world’s media readied itself for another visual feast of billowing white canvas, million dollar movie stars and the arrival of the International film community to peddle their wares and party the nights away, PAs were run off their kitten heels booking private jets and yachts and applying for festival accreditation in the countdown to May.
Along the beachfront, and posing like modern day bastions of The War of Independence, stood the American Pavilion and the UK Film Centre, each providing a sanctuary of calm for their sweaty, beleaguered nationals.
On the second day of the festival, Michael was seeking umbrage from the carnage of the palm tree-lined Croisette outside in the American counterpart, or the ‘AmPav’ as he and other seasoned vets liked to call it. With a biro in one hand, and a copy of the festival’s official Market Guide in the other, he
was circling potential film sales agents and sipping away from an ice-cold Ricard perched on the table in front of him.
Lifting his glass to neck the dregs, he locked eyes with a group of young film executives at the next table. ‘Cannes Virgins’ he deduced quickly, as an ice cube collided with his nose. Their hangdog expressions were more revealing to him than any resume. Festival regulars knew better than to burn themselves out on the opening night. Still, having counted himself among them not so long ago, he put his glass down, beckoned them over and prepared to impart a few choice festival survival tips. The execs had other ideas, however. They scarpered like frightened rabbits in all directions as if his gaze was a hunter’s trigger finger.
Michael’s hands started shaking. It was no less than he expected but it was fucking humiliating all the same. Ever since Christine had suggested bringing Memoir to Cannes to land a decent Sales Agent, he had been dreading his return to the film circuit. He was the infamous bête noire of the Walt Wilson Global Empire, a man more ostracised by his peers than Mel Gibson.
De-camping quickly to another table behind an enormous pot plant, he got stuck into his second Ricard. He could hear the whispers circulating the festival bars now. Have you seen Wilson’s kid? His ex-colleagues would murmur over bottles of mouth-watering St Emilion. The man’s totally gone to seed. Looks like he couldn’t survive without Daddy’s money and connections after all…
With a strangled groan, Michael smashed his glass down and a passing member of bar staff squealed in fright. What a difference this experience was to the last time he had attended Cannes. There had been no bumpy budget flight into Nice Cote D’Azur then, just an ultra-smooth landing at the private Cannes-Mandelieu airport, courtesy of the Global Studios jet. With Maisie by his side he had enveloped himself in a bubble of luxury and entitlement, lurching from exclusive all-night yacht parties to the biggest Out of Competition Premieres, and never once sparing a thought to the intricacies of the big money deals taking place in the booths and casinos all around him. Michael was a man who lived without regret, but he wished to god he had spent a little more time attending the Global Acquisition Executives’ Cannes morning debriefs.
