by Andy Jones
‘Is everything okay? Where’s Eileen?’
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ says Doug. ‘Unless you think you’ve earned a brandy.’
Doug fetches a couple of brandy balloons and a bottle from the kitchen. ‘You must have been bored,’ he says, holding up the glasses to the light.
‘Idle hands,’ I tell him, pulling off my Marigolds.
Doug pours two generous snifters and passes one to me. ‘Good health.’
‘Good health. So . . . why are you back so soon? Eileen tire you out?’
Doug sighs. ‘Did you water the herbs?’
‘Of course,’ I tell him. ‘What kind of woman do you take me for?’
Doug laughs gently, tilts his glass towards mine. ‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘They were Mary’s.’
‘The herbs?’
Doug nods and sips his brandy. ‘Aye, it started with a few pots o’ herbs, then the allotment. Cabbages, tomatoes, courgettes. Strawberries some years but not for a guid bit now.’
‘I always thought the allotment was your thing.’
‘That’s sexist,’ says Doug, smiling.
‘Touché, sir.’
Another tip of the brandy balloon. ‘She had a proper green thumb,’ he says. ‘Always wanted a big garden. We thought one day we might retire to the countryside, but . . .’ Doug shrugs, tops up his brandy and my own.
‘My mum always said she’d retire by the sea,’ I say. ‘Her grandfather was a fisherman in Cork. Seawater in her blood, she liked to say.’
‘Aye,’ says Doug. ‘You never ken the day.’
‘Can I ask you something, Doug?’
Doug turns to fully face me and rests his glass on the arm of his chair.
‘Is that . . .’ I nod at the pots of herbs ranged across the kitchen surfaces. ‘Mary . . .’ I say. ‘Is that why . . . why you and Eileen are, you know . . . why you’re here with me and not there with her?’
Doug smiles at me with something like paternal affection, lifts his glass and takes a drink. ‘No,’ he says after a while. ‘See the chilli plant?’
‘I’ve cooked with them.’
‘Aye, of course you have. Mary planted that. All the others, they died a while back – the others are just replacements. But that little bugger, though, that’s hers, still going strong.’ Doug swirls his brandy in the bottom of his glass, but doesn’t drink. ‘Mary was irreplaceable,’ he says. ‘So I’m not trying to replace her. Eileen is . . . she’s different. She’s Eileen.’ He smiles fondly. ‘If that makes any sense.’
‘I think I follow,’ I tell him.
Doug nods. ‘Aye, you will,’ he says. ‘One day you will.’
Chapter Twelve
Before cameras roll there is the pre-production meeting. And before the pre-production meeting is the pre-pre-production meeting. Ben says he knows a guy that once attended a pre-pre-pre-production meeting, but that’s just silly.
The receptionist at Splash Advertising informs me that my colleague is waiting for me, and escorts me to a meeting room called Bob. Whether this is a reference to a famous Robert, or simply what passes for irony in an advertising agency, she doesn’t say.
Ben is alone in the room, facing a corner, mobile phone pressed to his head. He turns and nods; I return the gesture and Ben turns back to the corner. The chairs, upholstered in orange and brown stripes, are arranged around a solid wood table the size of a trampoline. I take a seat facing the wall-mounted clock and watch three minutes tick by before Ben hangs up his call. He walks up to the table and has to stretch onto tiptoes to reach the silver coffee pot in the centre.
‘Coffee?’
It’s the first word he’s spoken to me since Friday night.
‘Cheers.’
Ben pours two cups of coffee. ‘Good weekend?’
‘Quiet,’ I say. ‘You?’
‘Nothing much. Just a bunch of boring baby shit.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘Sorry about that. I was, you know . . .’
Ben adds milk to my coffee. ‘Yeah, well, likewise.’
‘I didn’t mean it,’ I say.
‘About me being tedious, or me needing to’ – he searches his memory for the phrase – ‘climb on top of my wife for five minutes?’
‘The first one,’ I say behind a laugh.
‘Fair enough.’ Ben takes a step back from the table and spreads his arms wide. ‘Come here.’
‘What?’
‘Come to Ben.’
‘Don’t be soft.’
‘I’ll be gentle,’ he says.
‘They’ll be here in a second.’
Ben beckons with his outstretched fingers.
‘Fine.’
My friend wraps his arms around me, pats my back twice and says into my ear: ‘I’m sorry I called you a cunt.’
‘Even if I am?’
‘Even if you are.’
‘Oops,’ says a female voice from somewhere behind me. ‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘Verity,’ says Ben, releasing me from his embrace. ‘How’ve you been?’
Ben kisses Verity on one cheek and then the other.
‘Been good, thanks,’ says Verity. ‘Busy busy. But good, yeah.’
Verity is wearing a satin bomber jacket over a pink vest top, and denim shorts. And at the bottom of a pair of pretty fantastic legs – lithely muscular, showing shadows of definition as she bounces lightly on her toes – a pair of pretty fantastic stripy socks. There’s a lot going on and it could almost distract you from her hair, but not quite. Parted dead centre, and flowing east and west in wild blonde waves, Verity’s hair brings to mind the American heroines of ’70s TV; women with deadly hands and powerful hairdryers. It’s not so much that she looks bad (she looks great, in fact), but that she’s in the wrong decade. Ben doesn’t comment on Verity’s get-up, so I assume this is our production designer’s default look. She’ll be overseeing the art department, including everything from set design to hair and make-up, so a certain amount of creative eccentricity is no bad thing. I know Ben and Verity worked together years before, but I’ve never had the pleasure.
‘You haven’t met Tom, have you?’ says Ben.
‘Haven’t had the pleasure,’ says Verity. ‘Pleased to meet you, Tom.’
I offer Verity my hand at the same moment she reaches up on tiptoes for a kiss on the cheek. I withdraw my hand and go for the kiss, but Verity has withdrawn her cheek and stuck out her hand.
Verity throws both hands in the air. ‘Awkward!’
‘Who’s awkward?’ says Kaz, walking into the room with a guy who – chin beard, checked shirt, thick-framed glasses, Converse – I assume is the creative behind the Little Horrors scripts.
‘That would be me,’ says Verity. ‘Verity.’
Kaz introduces herself and the creative. ‘Like the look,’ she says, taking in Verity’s outfit.
‘Thank you. Bit mad, though, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘Little bit,’ says Ben.
‘Date night,’ says Verity, and Kaz flicks me the very briefest of glances. ‘Bloody roller disco! And I can’t even roll.’
‘Can you disco?’ I ask.
Verity laughs. ‘He’s a dry one, isn’t he?’
And I have to wonder what kind of guy takes his girlfriend to a roller disco on a Tuesday night. The sort of guy who dates the sort of girl who’d go, I suppose.
‘Honestly,’ says Verity. ‘I felt like a right wally on the tube, but I’m going straight from here so . . . get in character, hey.’
Ben, standing behind Verity, grins and crosses his eyes to indicate, I assume, Bonkers.
‘And how are you, trouble?’ Kaz presses herself close to my side as she kisses my cheek.
‘Oh, you know me,’ I say, and I make a stupid duck and dive gesture.
‘I certainly do,’ says Kaz. ‘Right, shall we talk Little Monsters?’
‘Horrors,’ says the creative, whose name I can’t seem to retain.
‘Whatevs,’ says Kaz.
At this stage, my role is largely that of an observer and arbitrator. This is Ben’s meeting, where he presents his treatment for the four commercials to the agency. Production design, in particular hair and make-up, will be important on the shoot, and so Ben has invited Verity to present some initial concepts.
Doug and I stayed up a little too late drinking brandy last night, and I’ve had a particularly busy morning, so while Ben goes through a mood board of reference material, I zone out and doodle a pair of roller skates on my notepad. I’m just adding a pair of lightning bolts to the sides when my mobile vibrates with an incoming text message.
I slip my phone from my pocket and read the message under cover of the tabletop.
Thinking naughty thoughts xxx Yvette.
Yvette: a stranger to me four hours ago, now my estate agent, now sending me suggestive texts.
I write the number 96 on my pad, fattening out the digits and turning them into three-dimensional figures extending backwards along a line of perspective.
Three days ago I texted Sadie:
Got shoot, need car. Can I collect today? Hope work easing off. T.
Next week I’ll have to scout up to a dozen locations all over London, and I’d like to do it in my own car. Otherwise, what’s the bloody point in having one, right? I tried again on Sunday morning. And Sunday afternoon. And Sunday suppertime.
Nothing, nothing, up yours, Tom.
She calls at ten thirty Sunday bedtime.
‘I’m on hands-free,’ says Sadie, ‘so I’ll have to be quick.’
‘Where are you?’
‘M25.’
‘Been away?’
‘No, Tom, I’m driving around the M25 at ten thirty-three on a Sunday night for the fun of it.’
‘Well, whatever turns you on.’
Sadie coughs, only it doesn’t sound like Sadie. It sounds more . . . male? Some album I’ve never heard is playing in the background.
‘Good weekend?’ I try.
‘Yes, thank you very much,’ says Sadie, and she sounds more than a little smug about it.
‘Nice weather?’
‘I’ll leave the car on Highbury Terrace,’ says Sadie.
I collected the car at eight this morning. The paintwork was mud-spattered in brown plumes around each wheel arch. Sods of earth in the alloys. Muddy smears on the velour floor mats, both sides. The discarded wrappers from a packet of six mini pork pies, a mouthful of Coke in a two-litre bottle, thirty-four individual Opal Fruit wrappers like fat confetti, Silk Cut cigarette ends in the ashtray. I didn’t even know Sadie smoked. A Mars bar wrapper, a Twix wrapper, a single Scotch egg wrapper. Flecks of chocolate matted into the upholstery. A greasy white paper bag from Debbie’s bakery. The car smelled like the inside of a pub. A footprint above the glovebox. A big one. Pastry flakes on the floor. Grease of unknown origin on the leather fucking gear knob.
Two hours later, I’m standing on the pavement outside my flat, elbow-deep in suds, when a Foxtons Mini Cooper parks in the space directly in front.
‘Yvette,’ I say as the estate agent climbs out of her car. ‘Thanks for coming over.’
‘That’s my job,’ she says. Her legs are slim and bare beneath a narrow skirt. Barely a head taller than the Mini, Yvette is diminutive in every regard other than her smile.
I dry my hand on my jeans and offer it to Yvette.
‘Snap,’ she says, nodding at the Mini. ‘Dirty weekend?’
‘Ahh . . . something like that.’ I motion towards the flat. ‘Shall we?’
There is no deliberate seduction, no obvious play. We walk from room to room, Yvette asking questions, me answering. What do you do for a living? Do you meet lots of famous people? Does it pay well? In a wine bar, I’d say she was hitting on me, but we’re drinking water and this is simple professional courtesy. In a nightclub we’d talk movies, jobs, music. Yvette asks about plumbing, cupboards, floorboards. She comments on the colour scheme. Do you live alone? Why are you selling? Did she break your heart? She touches my arm. I have nothing to lose. Is this the bedroom?
The small talk as we hunt for socks and underwear is more stilted.
Neither of us smoke, so I make coffee. Yvette asks what music I’m into. I ask if she likes her job. She laughs, ‘Today I do.’ And then she bursts into tears. What must you think? I’m an idiot. I could lose my job. It doesn’t appear to be an act, and I give all the appropriate reassurances. It feels as if it would be rude – callous, in fact – not to retain her services in a professional capacity. We’re grown-ups, I tell her, and if she’s as good with buyers as she is with sellers, she’ll have an offer by the end of the day. The latter, obviously, being entirely the wrong thing to say. And then I’m backtracking through more tears:
Of course I don’t think you’re a slut. What would that say about me? Of course I think you’re pretty. But, no, I’m not ready for a relationship just now. I’m still getting over Sadie. I’m very busy with work. Perhaps it’s best if, for now at least, we keep this professional. It’s not you, it’s me.
I give Yvette the option to decline the job, but she doesn’t take the bait and I give her a set of keys to the flat instead.
I’m a good lover. I think.
I have nothing to compare me to, but I read magazines, watch chat shows, talk to people. I know how a woman’s body is put together; I’m attentive, unselfish, intrepid. My stamina is good, my equipment sound. I enjoy sex; I get involved. The women I sleep with have, generally, as far as I can tell, a good experience. Didn’t I put a smile on Yvette’s face? Didn’t she buck and thrash and scratch and octave forward and back through the vowels? Didn’t I brighten her otherwise mundane Tuesday morning?
I wish someone would brighten my mundane Tuesday afternoon.
The Little Horrors pre-prod is still a long way from halfway finished. Kaz distributes copies of a timing plan.
Set out in calendar format, it begins last Friday with Approve Budget, and concludes six weeks later with Deliver finished films. In today’s square I write the number 96. Counting the squares forwards it is now forty-four days to what El calls Cherry Day. Forty-four days to score four more cherries. That’s a DPF of exactly eleven . . .
‘Tom?’
‘Uh, sorry?’
‘And he’s back in the room,’ says Kaz.
‘Sorry, just . . . checking the . . . the dates.’
‘And do they meet with your approval?’
The four shoot days are spread over two weeks: a Thursday and Friday followed by a Monday and Wednesday.
‘Yes, they look f—’ I begin, but then I focus on the dates, on 24 June in particular, and my stomach folds in on itself. ‘I can’t do the Monday,’ I say.
‘Something more important?’ says Kaz.
‘Family stuff.’
The Sunday before the Monday in question I’ll be at Dad’s, commemorating the anniversary of my mum’s death, and I have no intention of leaving early to drive back to London. For a start, I won’t be sober enough.
‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘it’s . . .’ I look at Ben, and he knows.
‘We can shift everything back a day or two,’ he says, sparing me from having to explain myself any further. But perhaps Kaz is more perceptive than I might have given her credit for.
‘Sure,’ she says, smiling in my direction. ‘Not a problem.’
Kaz is a tricky one to figure out; occasionally caught up in her perceived self-importance, but not without a sense of humour. Alternately cold then flirtatious, antagonistic and gregarious, she’s a riddle for sure. Not someone I’d want as a girlfriend – even if she were single – but after this small moment of understanding, she’s definitely on my Christmas card list.
‘Okay,’ she says, turning to Verity. ‘Prod design.’
‘Right,’ says Verity, clapping her hands together. ‘Can I just start by saying, I think these are such good scripts.’
They’re really not, but the creative takes the compliment at face value.
‘I’ve alwa
ys loved horror films,’ says Verity. ‘Not that torture nonsense, but zombies, vampires and all that lot. There’s such a rich tradition, so many visual tropes and conventions, we’re spoiled for choice.’
Again the creative nods, and you get the sense that Verity could lead him anywhere now.
‘I’ve talked to Ben, and my instinct is go goofy. I don’t mean toothy goofy, I mean daft goofy, you know. After all, we’re not trying to scare anyone, just give ’em a giggle and send them down to the shops for a packet of Skittles, right? Keep it light. Wonky fangs, big hair, a couple of warts and maybe a pair of coloured contacts. The last thing you want is for the make-up to overshadow the performances. Less is more and all that. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think the trick here is in the casting, not the make-up. Same with set design – locations first, moody lighting, Dutch the camera a bit. But be sparing with the cobwebs and whatnot – keep the camera on the kiddies, right? God, listen to me going on. I’m talking myself out of a job here, aren’t I?’
‘Not at all,’ says Kaz.
‘Spot on,’ says the creative, looking like he’s fallen a little in love with our production designer.
‘Why don’t you show them the sketches, Vee?’ says Ben.
Verity opens up a small portfolio case and sets out four A3 boards on the table, one for each of the scripts.
‘Did you draw these?’ asks Kaz.
Verity nods modestly.
‘Bloody hell,’ says the creative, ‘you could flog these.’
And he’s right. Rendered in a variety of styles from graphic-noir vampire to cross-hatched Frankenstein’s monster, to Japan-pop werewolf and movie-poster zombies, every single one is good enough to hang on a wall.
‘Keep ’em,’ says Verity, as if she were giving away a doodle on a napkin.
I look down at my own notepad, the clumsy sketch of roller skates, the ridiculous number 96. And I feel all of a sudden very tired and thoroughly deflated.
It takes a further fifty-seven minutes to tick off the remaining items on the agenda, and I’m cross-eyed and brain-limp when we get to the handshakes and goodbyes. The creative asks if any of us are going to some production company’s summer party on Thursday – although it’s clear he’s asking Verity, even if she does have a boyfriend who takes her to roller discos on a Tuesday night.
