by Amanda Coe
She really couldn’t do this. Not on weak coffee and aspirin alone. And she didn’t even have those yet. That would have to be rectified. What she really wanted was an espresso and a joint, with a couple of Valium humming their magic beneath. And those other pills, the ones that cute but sadly married anaesthetist from LA General had introduced her to, rounding out the strings section for that full Mantovani chord of bogus well-being. The way we were …
Outside, beyond the door to her room, there was a sudden shuffling. Quentin recoiled. Hugh, come to reproach her. No, to upbraid her, to remonstrate with her: take your pick of stuffy, unsympathetic verbs. A newspaper appeared, sliding under the gap at the bottom of the door. Quentin’s panic subsided. Just the newspaper, then. It was one of those weird British tabloids – only Hugh contrived to get the London Times delivered to the hotel – and Quentin barely read it, although it was faithfully shoved under her door every morning. It had close, aggressive type, and girls bizarrely flashing their tits. Today, there was a strident headline: ‘Call Girl Attack’. Quentin didn’t want to know. She had her own worries. One of which, she remembered, when she had a pee and wiped herself, was that she probably had cancer. Cervical cancer, surely, despite a clear PAP test in the spring. She was diseased within. Rotten. It had to be working inside her, and one day a gust of wind would collapse her, like a termite mound. Maybe she could get hold of her gynaecologist and get a referral to a doctor here, just to check?
Quentin moved around the room, dressing, putting on makeup. She was supposed to be meeting with Mike and Hugh to talk about an extra location Mike felt he absolutely needed. She doubted she could make it out the door, let alone sit across a table from Hugh and hold the studio’s line on the budget. Not with the cancer and all. It wasn’t the sex, of course not – who hadn’t done things they were a little embarrassed about in their time? Quentin carefully applied some green eyeshadow, decided it looked trashy, and removed it. It was just the cancer. They’d all cut her some slack if they knew, although it might make Hugh feel a little weird to know he’d fucked, however inconclusively, someone diseased. It would freak her out if she were him. The lipstick was more of a success. Colouring herself in often helped. She yelped when the phone by her bed rang, decided not to answer it, then on the fifth ring, did.
‘Hi, darling, we’re waiting for you downstairs. Everything OK?’
Hugh’s voice spread solidly over the words, like butter. There were several ways she could play this.
‘Small fashion problem. I’ll be right down.’
She seized the moment and stepped out the door, before she could think and stop herself. Her heart rate had gone up, but she was definitely breathing. She had learned not to wait for the elevator, so she set off down the stairs, and was alarmed to be hailed, a flight before the end, by Lallie’s mom, with Lallie in tow.
‘We’ve been looking for you!’
They were craning over the banister from a floor above. Quentin formed the impression of matching outfits. She continued to flee.
‘I’m running late – catch you later!’
And she was out into the lobby before Katrina could reach the end of her sentence – something about plane tickets. It was probably only a short-term escape, but if she could get going with Mike and Hugh, she might be able to fend off interruption.
They were sitting around one of the low tables near the door. Hugh looked perfect in a summer suit, Mike shifty, with his shirt unbuttoned too far. The door was propped open to circulate some air, admitting instead a block of apocalyptic light. Already, at barely nine o’clock (how late was she?), it was hot. The men rose as Quentin approached. Ordinarily, there would be social kisses, très European, but today Quentin sketched a wave and preemptively dropped into her chair, not even waiting for Hugh to pull it out for her with his customary flourish. Determined to emanate angular self-control, Quentin invoked Katharine Hepburn for a blithe couple of seconds before she crashed into The Philadelphia Story again. Shit. She reached for the coffee pot.
‘Allow me.’
Hugh got there first, and poured. She couldn’t tell if the fine manners were his retreat, because he was always like this, wasn’t he? Taking a leaf from Hugh’s book, she apologized graciously to Mike for being late. Hugh held up the cream jug, the bastard.
‘I take it black.’
‘Sorry to interrupt—’ It was Katrina and Lallie again. Hugh popped up from his chair, obliging Mike to follow. Quentin stayed put.
‘I was just saying, Quentin love, I need to have a word because I’m seeing the travel agent today, like. About flying over.’
Hugh and Mike were extremely and instantly curious. Quentin would happily have ploughed Katrina in her vampirically lipsticked kisser. Leave me alone, bitch.
‘The LA office will take care of that, you don’t need to worry.’
Quentin hadn’t, in fact, said anything to LA about Lallie and her mommy visiting. Her shrink, if she still had one (now there was a badly judged blow job for you), would say she was ambivalent on the matter. Genius, childhood, a mother thing: whatever it was, it was causing her a problem. But she was definitely going to fix that, right? Definitely going to talk to Clancy and tell him what she thought, even if it was two things at once. She’s perfect for the movie. We shouldn’t use her for the movie.
‘But we’re booking a holiday. Like you said.’
Had she said that? She must have done. Katrina looked to Lallie, a fake appeal not to upset the kid, who cooperated and looked concerned.
‘OK, well, you go right ahead with that, and I’ll talk to my office about the flights, OK? Just let me know the dates …’
‘It’s the twenty-third of September till the—’
‘We kind of have to get going on this, Katrina, could I catch you later?’
‘Why don’t I …’
Hugh intervened with his handsome notebook and silver pencil, transcribed dates. Take it away, Jeeves. Mike smirked at her, lying low. Quentin wondered why she disliked him so much, then glimpsed his exposed chest hair and was reminded. He flourished the extra script pages at her, which she took, concentrating on the yellow paper so that Katrina would get the message.
It was a bare half page. Lallie’s character, before she meets Dirk’s weirdo, is exploring a derelict house. After a few rooms she happens on a teenage couple having sex. The boy catches her watching, exchanges ‘a look’ with her, they continue. Quentin read it twice.
‘We have a fantastic location,’ Mike told her. ‘There’s an old bomb site near the place we were shooting the car scenes.’
‘Was this the writer, or you?’
‘I managed to squeeze it out myself – can’t you tell from the typos? No dialogue …’
‘See you then –’
Katrina was moving off, with Lallie. Quentin was gratified to see she looked tentative. She realized Katrina had never witnessed her doing anything really connected with her job before. She probably thought she was just some chick, like her, hanging around the set and making nice.
‘Bye, hon!’ Quentin smiled, prepared to be friendly now they were going.
The woman and girl dissolved into the sunshine. Hugh sat. Mike continued to talk.
‘I was just looking round it the other day when we wrapped, and it’s so perfect. It could be such a powerful scene because we know then exactly where she’s come from, that she’s alone, and her milieu isn’t innocent, and she’s curious …’
‘Half a day?’ Quentin asked, brutally.
‘At least half, I’d say.’
Mike started at Hugh’s intervention. Quentin could see he’d been expecting support.
‘If you’re going into every room,’ Hugh pointed out.
‘We’re not lighting it, except for the sex,’ said Michael.
Quentin ignored this. ‘You’ll still need a second unit, unless you really want to be in on the action,’ she said. ‘I mean the action action.’
She neither looked Hugh’s way nor blushed
. Adults could casually refer to sex in conversations, particularly when in Europe.
‘I’d prefer to do it myself,’ said Mike. ‘We were talking about scheduling it in on Sunday.’
‘Aren’t there union rules about working on days off?’ Quentin asked. ‘Isn’t it called overtime?’
‘Double bubble,’ said Hugh, mysteriously. Then, to Mike, ‘You’ve got to think about Lallie as well, Mike – they take a dim view of her working on her days off.’
Mike slumped, sulking. Where his hectic shirt gaped, Quentin got an unwelcome view of flaccid pink man-nipple.
‘I just think it’s a scene we’re really going to miss when we get to the edit, if it’s all the big bad man taking the little girl. Katrina will turn a blind eye, you know what she’s like, especially if you bung her, I don’t know, fifty quid.’
Hitching his trouser legs to prevent creasing, Hugh leaned forward in his chair and steepled his fingers low between his open legs, as though cradling the large, fragile sphere of Mike’s ego. ‘I have a suggestion.’
He’d worked it all out: they could use the school. Mike began to object, but Hugh fended him off until he’d got to the end. The fucking couple (necking and fondling perhaps, instead) could be the teacher (no extra actor fees) and another teacher used in a playground scene (non-speaking, a genuine bargain). They’d tag the scene on to the end of a day already in the schedule – no extra set-up, job done, time and money saved. Then, before Michael could voice his artistic objections, Hugh segued into his opinion that this would perhaps be a less conventional and more unexpected view of adult sexuality, compared with the humping teenagers, which he felt as though he’d seen – and he appealed to Quentin here – before. Oh, Christ, he was good. Why hadn’t he come? It was the least she could do.
‘I love what you’ve got here, Mike,’ said Quentin, with maximum sincerity. ‘This is just a way to build on it. Because what you gain with the teachers is the girl seeing kind of adult authority compromised by, uh, sexuality. The violation of a really crucial boundary. Which helps with the Dirk stuff, maybe.’
This took all of them by surprise. She appeared to be talking Mike’s language. Fluent artistic bullshit. Who knew?
‘Why would she see them,’ asked Mike, as a last resort. ‘In the school?’
‘She drops something, leaves something, goes back for it …’
Hugh suggested Mike sit with it until the end of the day, when extra pages would have to be issued. Quentin admired the provision of this small pit stop for Mike’s dignity. By now Mike’s driver was hovering in the dazzling doorway, ready to take him to the set, so they said their goodbyes. Alone, Quentin and Hugh sat back and exchanged smiles of professional complicity.
‘What a team,’ said Hugh.
Then Quentin had another thought. It came on her like nausea. Three barrels.
‘Wait up, hasn’t he railroaded us anyway? We’ll still have to pay overtime on that shooting day, even if it isn’t Sunday and a whole different set-up and all.’
‘Darling …’
Of course, what kind of schmuck was she? It was a set-up: Mike and Hugh waiting for her, the boys together. The pages were the pup they’d sold her so she’d jump at the second option, which was actually their first. She could imagine the conversation, Hugh’s languid assurances that he could play her, she was crazy about him, poor girl … Quentin’s father took over.
‘We don’t have room in the budget to go over, you know that, not even a couple hours. We’re really not going to move on that, Hugh, I mean the guys in the studio. No deal. It happens, it’s coming out of your pocket somewhere, OK? Or you can talk to the Wops and see if they’re feeling generous.’
He palmed that hair of his. Had he gone into detail with Mike? Mike would love the detail, she knew. Fucking shitty bastards. You put a guy’s cock in your mouth, he thinks he can put his cock in your mouth.
‘Oh, absolutely. Received and understood, darling. But as long as Mike sees it’s in the schedule, he’s happy, and we know that makes everyone else happy. When it comes to it, I very much suspect it’ll drop off the end of the day, don’t you?’
God knows, she wanted to believe him. He was another producer after all, one of her tribe, on her side, the side of restraint. If it was true, she could be herself again, maybe. She ventured a look straight at him. Right here, right now, Quentin knew she needed to take something for this goddamn hangover. He gave her the old Hugh smile, the one you could eat with a spoon. She couldn’t make any calls before she felt better, that was for sure.
I GO TO see my dad the day I know Pauline is meeting Lallie. I walk out of the door, telling Mum and Ian that I’m going out to play, and keep walking all the way back to our real house. I don’t catch the bus. I want to feel the distance. Getting to our street, fear clenches that the house won’t be there, that I’m walking in a dream that is going to turn bad, but of course the house is itself, unchanged. Dad still lives there. If everything was normal, I would have approached from the backs and gone through the garden gate and in through the kitchen door, which is the one everyone uses, but because nothing can ever be the same again I take the longer route to the official street, with its parched gardens, and knock at the front door. There is a bell, but as far as I know it has never rung.
It’s Thursday afternoon, which is Dad’s half day from work. Sure enough, his face appears from behind the frosted glass of the porch, sleepy and wary. He is pleased to see me, I think, although there is the briefest moment of some large and unfamiliar emotion before he builds on his usual expression and ruffles my hair and one-handedly hugs me so that I tip into his tummy, almost non-existent after Ian’s.
‘What’s this in aid of then? Does your mum know you’re here?’
Since I don’t want to lie, I ignore the question.
‘Can I come in?’
Inside, the house is dark and cool and, even I can see, much more untidy than it ever was before. We go towards the kitchen. Everything is the same, and everything is different. When Dad sits down I see he is wearing his usual slippers, but no socks. His cigarette is burning in a saucer, a long worm of ash. There’s a nearly empty milk bottle next to his tea mug, with a sequence of slimy yellowish rings showing the bottle has been kept out of the fridge. A few old papers on the floor. A mangled packet of butter next to the empty metal dish, ordered by mum from a catalogue, whose scrape against the knife has always made him wince. I stay leaning into him as he inhales his cigarette, inhaling him. He hasn’t shaved, and the stubble is grizzled white and grey. I sandpaper my fingers against it in devotion. He almost laughs. Uneasy.
‘You haven’t run away, have you?’
I immediately wish that I had. It’s hard to speak, now. I burrow my face into his neck.
‘Eh, come on. You’ll start me off.’
I manage to breathe, but the end of each long breath produces a sob somewhere in my abdomen. We could stay like this for ever. Dad pats my back to warn that he’s going to move me away from him, but I refuse to take the cue. I burrow deeper, cling.
‘It’s not that bad, is it?’
I shake my head, furious with myself. I don’t want to be a baby.
‘Just, just wanted to see you.’
‘Do you want a drink of squash?’
Glad to be busy, he makes me a cup of lemon barley from the same bottle I was drinking at the beginning of the summer. As he runs the water to get it cold, I read the paper where it’s open on the table.
‘What’s a claw hammer?’ I ask, imagining an animal claw sprouting from the metal, shredding scalp and skin. Dad moves the paper away, on the pretext of giving me the squash. But it’s too late to stop me seeing the photo of the woman who’s been killed, staring emptily at the camera. She has striped hair and cruel eyebrows. You can always tell in photos that someone is dead. They go blurry.
‘You shouldn’t be reading that.’ He puts the paper on top of the dirty pots on the draining board.
‘What’s a vice g
irl?’ I ask.
‘Bloomin’ ’eck, Missis … a lady who isn’t very nice. How are you getting on at school then?’
‘We’ve finished. On Friday.’
‘Lucky you!’
He leans back against the sink, ankles crossed and hands spread behind him, clamping the Formica in a cowboyish way I recognize and didn’t know I missed till now. We’re not used to talking for its own sake.
‘I saw Lallie Paluza,’ I tell him.
‘Oh aye?’
His lack of interest isn’t sharp, like Mum’s.
‘She’s dead small.’
‘Did you get her autograph?’
I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. People who ask for autographs aren’t the same as people who become friends of famous people. If I asked her for an autograph, I’d always be rubbish, like a little sister but worse.
‘Ooh, reminds me …’
He uncrosses his ankles and goes out of the room, returning quickly with a book of some kind, which he hands to me.
‘They’re giving them away at the garage. You collect them.’
It’s not a book but an album full of empty discs that you put coins in. The coins are silver and look like money but have footballers on them, Leeds United. This is Dad’s team and mine. Although I’m not really interested in football, he and I have spent many Sunday afternoons with me on his knee watching matches, drowsy with roast beef and Yorkshire pud, while Mum does the washing-up. For his sake I have learned the names of some players, and the fact that there is a goalie and a centre forward. Billy Bremner is already in the album, and handsome Norman Hunter. I only recognize them from the names printed below, because their outlines are cartoonish and not nearly as good as the Queen’s on proper money.
