by Lissa Evans
‘Leyg zikh,’ he said to the dog, over at the sand-pile. Gracelessly, Cerberus obeyed, lolling on to his side in a way that would afford the camera a splendid view of his under parts.
‘Rehearsal,’ shouted Kipper, ‘and then we’ll light with stand-ins. Mr Best and Pilot Officer Lundback, could we have you on the dune please, rehearsal everybody, let’s have some quiet. Quiet!’
For the first time, Lundback seemed a little nervous. He cleared his throat a couple of times, and glanced at the assembled crew. ‘You can’t see the audience when you’re on stage in the theayter,’ he said, sotto, to Hadley, and his speech had a gentle, homespun rhythm, like the beat of a butter-churn, and Hadley replied, ‘Oh, don’t worry, they’re fearfully good chaps,’ and then Kipper called for action.
When the dialogue began, Ambrose was watching the dog and wondering idly how Mrs Greenbaum might respond if he went back to the shop and requested the Yiddish for ‘stop licking your cock’, and a couple of exchanges went by before he realized that something was very wrong. It was like hearing a piece of music scored for two pianos, in which one of the parts was being played on a washboard. He glanced sharply at Lundback, and then at Hadley; the latter was looking a touch panicky.
‘Why’s that?’ asked Hadley, in character.
‘BECAUSE I WAS JUST SITTING IN A NICE LITTLE BAR I KNOW AND BETTY GRABLE WAS BRINGING ME AN ICE-COLD BEER,’ said Lundback, delivering the line as if to an audience of stone-deaf half-wits seated forty yards away, the rhythm no longer gentle, but reminiscent of a navvy with a sledgehammer.
Hadley paused, and flapped his lips a couple of times. ‘I’m sorry . . .’ he said. ‘I’ve dried completely . . .’
There was a moment’s silence, heavy with portent, and then Kipper said, ‘We’ll go again in just a moment. It’s only a rehearsal, remember,’ and then huddled with the director for at least a minute before issuing an inaudible instruction to the third AD that sent the boy scurrying out of the studio.
‘Let’s take it again from the top of the scene,’ said Kipper. ‘And, er . . .’ he took a couple of paces up the dune towards Lundback, and lowered his voice, ‘the director says to remind you that, of course, all the men on the beach would almost certainly be speaking quite softly.’
‘Enemy all around,’ added Hadley, encouragingly.
‘And, of course, when we shoot the scene there’ll be a microphone,’ added Kipper.
Lundback nodded. ‘I see. Thank you, sir.’
‘And off you go again,’ said Kipper.
It was slightly worse the second time. Though he spoke more quietly, Lundback added a number of illustrative gestures, helpfully illuminating such words as ‘drink’, ‘look’ and ‘small boat’ for the benefit of observers who might have only a rudimentary grasp of English. A discreet word from Kipper followed, and then a third rehearsal during which Lundback appeared to have lost the use of his arms entirely. The producer arrived in studio halfway through the fourth run-through, and was therefore able to witness a bravura melding of all the techniques so far displayed, so that Hadley Best appeared to be having a conversation with a stentorian tic-tac man, and then a break was called ‘for lighting’ and Ambrose turned away.
He could hear, through the clatter and hum, the cruel laughter of the gods. Fool that he was, he had dared to hope. He had been so close, so close to being in a half-decent film, and then the hand of disaster had clamped around the slender throat of promise, and if they adjusted the lighting till doomsday it would all be to no avail, for even pitch darkness could never disguise the presence of an amateur.
*
When the call for the emergency meeting came, late in the afternoon, Buckley collected his fags and his hat, woke Parfitt by rapping his knuckles on the desk just beside his head and then, apparently as an afterthought, looked at Catrin and jerked his thumb towards the door.
‘Me?’ she asked.
‘About time you came to one of these.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Don’t know yet.’
‘Who’s going to be there?’
‘No idea.’
‘Am I allowed to speak?’
‘No.’
‘I could take notes.’
‘Parfitt does that.’
‘So why am I going?’
Buckley regarded her for a long moment. ‘Educational purposes,’ he said, enigmatically. ‘Besides, I bet you weren’t doing anything else this evening, were you?’
‘No,’ she said, reluctantly.
‘Well, then.’
They found a taxi at Piccadilly, and arrived at the studio just as dusk was thickening. Parfitt paused outside the entrance, and looked east along the river towards Battersea, where a crescent moon dangled between the chimneys of the power station as if slung on a wire.
‘Do you think they’ll be over tonight?’ asked Catrin.
Parfitt shrugged. ‘Maybe. They’re tricky bastards.’
She hung back as they entered the little office next to sound stage two. Edwin Baker was already there, and the director, Alex Frayle, the latter sitting with elbows on knees, his head bowed, and there was tension in the room, the air thrummed with it.
‘Come on in, come on in,’ said Baker. ‘Sit down, Parfitt. You too, Mrs Cole.’ Catrin was startled that he knew her name. He was a short man, in his sixties but broad-shouldered and strongly built, his tone hearty yet deliberate – she could just see him behind the counter of his butcher’s shop, cleaver in hand, one eye on the queue and the other on his profits. ‘We have a problem to solve,’ he said, slapping the desk with both hands. ‘First day in studio’s always a chancer, but we got off to a top-notch start this morning, didn’t we, Alex? Two pages completed?’
There was no response from the director. Baker hammered on. ‘And of course, we showed the rushes at lunchtime, and they were first-rate, went down a treat, all credit to you, Alex, and then we ran into a bit of difficulty in the afternoon. I’m laying some of the blame on the scheduling, I’ll have to have a word with Kipper. If we’d started with a nice, short scene then the fellow might have got into his stride, but as it was he didn’t er . . ’ For the first time, he hesitated. ‘He couldn’t er . . .’
‘Act,’ said the director, very quietly, still addressing the floor. ‘He couldn’t act.’
‘Who’re we talking about?’ asked Buckley.
‘The Yank,’ said Baker. ‘Lundback.’ He tapped the ends of his fingers together, suddenly thoughtful. ‘Of course, his screen test was excellent.’
‘I wasn’t there,’ said the director, his voice a tiny steel thread.’ ‘I was in Norfolk.’
‘Granted you were in Norfolk, but I was there, and pardon me for only having produced five dozen films, and the American Ambassador was there as well, and a couple of admirals, and a chap from the Air Ministry, and another from the MoI, and Laurie Silverman from United Artists, and what we all saw was potential, enormous potential. And believe me, when someone like Silverman uses the phrase, “He looks a million dollars”, then you don’t start arguing. And do you know what? Do you know why I was so blinking confident about tapping that potential? I was confident because I knew that the director of our film was in documentaries before he came to us, which means he’s had years of working with amateurs.’
‘Non-actors,’ said Alex Frayle. ‘I’ve had years of working with non-actors.’
Baker grimaced at the delicacy of the point. ‘I saw you in Norfolk doing twenty-odd takes with that fisherman chap and it looked perfect in the rushes.’
‘He had one line,’ said Alex, ‘and he was playing a fisherman.’ He raised his head for the first time, his pale gaze sliding in the direction of the producer, but stopping short of meeting his eye. ‘If I’d had some rehearsal time with Lundback, then—’
‘Look—’ said Baker, sharply, and then stopped and took a breath; when he resumed speaking, his voice was steady, his expression grim. ‘The RAF said they’ll release Lundback for five weeks and
that’s our lot, and we’re lucky to get it. What I need now are solutions, not more misery. I’m not denying that this afternoon was poor, the boy was nervous, and he’s even more nervous now. We can move the schedule around, push his scenes back until he’s had a bit more time to get used to the part, and we can make some changes to the script. What do you say, Buckley, cut a line or two?’
‘Cut them all,’ muttered the director.
‘We’ll have a think,’ said Buckley. ‘Do you want him out of some scenes altogether?’
‘Do I heck,’ said Edwin Baker. ‘We could get US distribution on this, the more they see of their man, the better.’
‘So keep him centre stage, but shut him up.’
‘That’s the ticket. And don’t for pity’s sake alter any of the main plot, or the Ministry’ll be on our necks again – we’ll have to run it past them, anyway. Can you get us something by Wednesday?’
Buckley nodded easily, as if he’d been asked to tweak a couple of commas. ‘We’ll get stuck in,’ he said.
Parfitt, who always seemed to know of a little place just round the corner where you could still get a decent drop of wallop, led them down a steep flight of steps near Hammersmith Bridge and into a cellar tap-room, and though the ceiling there was low, and the air chill and smoky, and the other drinkers hard-faced men with liverish complexions who studied Catrin over the rims of their tankards as if they were anthropologists who’d caught their first glimpse of a fabled tribe, there was a sense of safety in the vaulted brickwork, and when the siren began its dreary call, just as Buckley was ordering a round of drinks, it sounded muffled and irrelevant.
‘Chin chin,’ said Buckley, settling himself on to a stool. ‘You can say it now,’ he added, in Catrin’s direction.
‘Say what?’
‘That we can’t possibly change Hannigan’s lines at this late stage in the proceedings.’ His attempt at a Welsh accent was dreadful.
‘I wasn’t going to say that, actually.’
‘Weren’t you?’
‘No.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘What were you going to say, then?’
‘Nothing, yet. I was still thinking.’
‘Well God forbid that I should disturb that process. Parfitt, your thoughts?’
‘Nice drop of ale, this,’ said Parfitt, taking a pull at his glass.
Catrin was thinking about Hannigan’s dialogue, crisp and cynical – about how it had been inserted into the original structure of the film like a pickled onion into a sandwich. It could be removed again – she knew it could – but the tang of it would be missed and Hannigan himself would become a bland cipher, drifting about with his reporter’s notebook and occasionally venturing the odd, heavily directed remark. The character’s gradual shift from hands-in-pockets American neutrality to rolled-up-sleeve support for his British rescuers would be utterly lost. The whole point of the character would go.
‘How would it be,’ she asked, suddenly, ‘if we could see the pages of his notebook? On screen, I mean. We could see him writing about what he’s thinking.’
Buckley shook his head. ‘Too slow. Besides it’s a well known fact that audiences won’t read.’
‘Picture house, not a library,’ added Parfitt.
‘You might be barking up a useful tree, though,’ said Buckley. ‘Keep thinking. In fact you can think all the way to the bar and back if you like.’
‘I’ve only drunk a quarter of mine.’
‘And there’s your trouble, you’d write it quicker if you drank more liquor. A fresh idea with every beer.’
‘Work it out with a pint of stout,’ added Parfitt, as Catrin made a hasty escape. ‘Make it shorter when you sink some porter.’
She was served by the only other female in the pub, a wan adolescent who gave Catrin the same look of guarded speculation as had the male drinkers.
‘Two shillin’ an fruppence,’ she said, in a voice like the cheep of a baby bird, and for a second, Catrin was back in Whiting Walk, listening to Rose Starling speaking to her from behind a broken front door.
‘Two shillin’ and fruppence,’ repeated the girl; that same tiny doll’s voice, but issuing from someone quite different.
‘I’ve had another thought,’ said Catrin to Buckley, edging the glasses on to the table.
‘Fire away.’
‘In the Ministry, we were always using shots of the back of people’s heads and then putting new voices on them and I wondered if we could find an actor who sounded just like . . .’ The idea seemed to crumble away even as she spoke; no one would pay money to see the back of Carl Lundback’s head, however good the lines.
‘The peculiar thing is,’ said Buckley, ‘that while you were away at the bar, Parfitt and me have been edging towards much the same solution.’
‘Voice impersonator,’ said Parfitt.
Buckley nodded. ‘Not for dialogue, though. We’d use him as a narrator. Hannigan can say the odd line in shot, plenty of our flyboy looking pretty, but we’ll save all the good stuff we’ve written for the voice-over.’
‘It could be Hannigan’s newspaper story,’ said Catrin.
Buckley was still for a second, and then gave her a look, a nod, a finger pointed in approbation. ‘Bang on. Have his finished article as a framing device. Yankee perspective, they’ll like that, and it means we can use the voice long before we see him – “I wasn’t there at the beginning of the story but it all started in a liddle Briddish seaside town where nuthin’ much ever happens.”’
‘Enough coverage for it?’ asked Parfitt.
‘Well, there we’ve struck lucky,’ said Buckley. ‘No one shoots more unneccessary bloody footage than a documentaries director. I’ll bet there are yards of seascapes and village rooftops to stick the narration over.’ He lit a fag and leaned back. ‘Good. I’ll talk to Edwin Baker first thing tomorrow and then we can get started. Some long days ahead, mind.’
Parfitt checked his watch, then sank his second pint in a couple of swallows, swiped a hand across his mouth and stood up. ‘Got to get home to Dilly,’ he said, and made for the stairs, head lowered bullishly. As he disappeared behind the heavy curtain that covered the door, there was a distant crump, a faint shiver of the cellar walls.
‘They’ll be after Battersea,’ said Buckley. He took his drink more slowly, sucking the suds through his teeth.
‘Who’s Dilly?’ asked Catrin. She thought of a tabby cat, nose pressed to the window.
‘Parfitt’s wife.’
‘Parfitt’s married?’
‘Thirty-odd years.’
‘Have you ever met her?’
‘No, she doesn’t go out. She’s an invalid. Her sister looks after her until Parfitt gets home, but he and the sister can’t stand the sight of each other, so when he gets there he gives six knocks on the front door, and the sister leaves through the back. They haven’t spoken since 1926.’
‘Why not?’
‘They had an argument about the General Strike. She said they should shoot the lot and Parfitt’s a communist.’
‘Is he?’
‘And a pacifist. You know, he was a conchie in the last war. Served four years in the Scrubs.’ He grinned, pleased as usual to have shocked her, and she thought of Parfitt with his marbled complexion and sparse conversation, Parfitt whom she’d come to regard as not so much a person as a rusty-hinged box containing no more than a scattering of punchlines and a little peppery dust.
‘Hotting up outside,’ said Buckley, as the floor shuddered again. His grin had faded, but he was still looking at Catrin, smoke climbing from the cigarette between his fingers. ‘What are you doing next?’ he asked, abruptly.
‘Going home on the tube,’ she said.
‘Next after you finish on the film, I meant.’
‘Oh. Back to the Ministry of Information, I suppose.’
‘You’re staying on in London, then? All by yourself?’
‘Yes.’ Although she couldn’t remember actually having arrived at the de
cision; it seemed to have slid into place when she wasn’t looking. ‘Yes, I am.’
Buckley was silent for what seemed a very long time. ‘So, do you want to hear about the new commission?’ he said, at last.
‘What new commission?’
‘MoI have asked Baker’s for a sixty-minute supporting feature about air-raid wardens, full cooperation from civil defence, a star name or two if we can get them. Do you want to write for it?’
‘Me?’
‘No, Uncle Joe Stalin. Yes, you.’
‘Of course I do. Is there slop in it, then?’
‘Might be. They want a dash of comedy, but I daresay they’ll go for some glamour as well. Glynis Johns in a tin hat making cow-eyes at a fireman. Besides . . .’
‘What?’
‘It’s possible that at a pinch you might just about be able to come up with an adequate line or two of non-slop.’
‘Oh . . .’ She found herself smiling; she had never been offered a compliment that she valued more. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘Good,’ said Buckley. ‘I’ll square it with the ministry. Yacky dar.’
‘Iechyd Da.’ She took a couple of gulps of beer, trying to swallow without tasting its sour soapiness. ‘Do I get a proper desk this time?’
‘You stick with your card-table and be grateful. Another toast—’ He raised his glass, ‘Hitler’s haemorrhoids, may they blossom and flourish.’
‘Hitler’s haemorrhoids!’
‘My round this time,’ he said, and was on his feet before she could protest. She was beginning to feel rather tight. He was back within seconds, it seemed, with too many glasses.
‘I shouldn’t have any more,’ she said.
‘Another toast won’t do any harm. Your turn.’ He looked at her expectantly.
