by Lissa Evans
He lowered himself, at Kipper’s request, into the tank beside the stern of the Redoubtable. He stood listening to a ten-minute discussion of the minutiae of the lighting rig while up to his nipples in water that was only just tepid. He submerged himself and mimed dexterous knifework before bobbing to the surface, alive but gravely wounded, and then did so a second time when there was discovered to be a hair in the gate, and a third when a bulb blew, and a fourth when something unspecified went amiss with the sound. He was hauled out of the tank and offered an upturned bucket to sit on. He was asked to climb back into the tank again. He held the knife towards camera for a close-up. Another bulb blew. He was hauled out for a second time and given a towel the texture of a doormat and a cup of cold cocoa and he endured the entire catalogue of ineptitude and negligence with nary a syllable of reproach; indeed, he scarcely noticed it at all.
Detachment. That was the word. It was as if he had never descended from the tower, and were still viewing the business of the studio from a great height. How petty it all seemed, how pointless – the scurrying crew, the gimcrack sets, the posturing and the strutting, the vastness of the enterprise, the vapidity of its purpose. This morning he had stood above it all and had felt the flimsy edifice tremble beneath his feet, and had glimpsed its paste-board heart. What did it matter, this play of shadows? What did any of it matter?
‘Hilly, are you OK?’ asked Lundback, when he too was summoned to the floor, and Ambrose, instead of objecting to the over-familiar contraction of his name, simply nodded.
‘Rehearsal shortly, end of Scene 312,’ called Kipper. ‘Mr Hilliard, could we have you in the tank, please?’
Once again, he obeyed without demur. The camera was being lowered on its mechanical arm so that it hung just a yard or so above the water. Ambrose looked across at his reflection in the lens. A probable close-up, then, for Uncle Frank’s final scene. Not that he cared two hoots.
‘Say Hilly, can we practise the lines again?’ asked Lundback, looking down at Ambrose from the rail of the Redoubtable. The deck behind him was packed with bodies: the sound-recordist; the woman from wardrobe; Cerberus curled on a piece of sacking, one anxious brown eye fixed on Ambrose; the continuity girl with her stool and clip-board and stop watch; the second and third ADs holding Uncle Frank’s safety rope; Kipper in muttered conference with the director.
‘Oh, very well,’ said Ambrose. ‘On “action” you’ll climb down into the tank and support my head above the water, and then I’ll say, “I’ve dropped the knife.”’
Lundback nodded. ‘And I’ll say “You’ve done a FINE job, old timer.” Only I’ll say it real quiet, because I’ll be close beside you.’
‘Yes indeed,’ said Ambrose. The loudest sound, by all the laws of drama, should be the rasp of Uncle Frank’s breathing, the painful staccato of his next words: ‘But I’ve not . . .’ He could put a wince in there, he thought, the merest tautening of the features; not that he gave the smallest fig about the scene. ‘But I’ve not finished yet.’
‘OK,’ said Lundback. ‘And then I’ll say “You’ll just have to leave it to ME.” Only faster than that. And not saying the “me” so loud. And then there’s only your lines left.’
‘Forgot you were an expert,’ supplied Ambrose – and perhaps at this point, for the transition from tragedy into humour which provided the climax of the scene, he could lift a hand above the surface and grasp, with feeble determination, Lundback’s shoulder. ‘Typical . . .’ a shuddering breath, maybe, and then just the hint of a wry smile, possibly captured in extreme close-up, though of course they could film the whole thing on a box brownie from the canteen for all he cared, ‘. . . typical Yank.’ And then the bowline would tighten under his arms and he would be lifted out of the water, and that would be the end of the shoot for him, and he could walk away, he could shake the dust of artifice from his garments and learn to breathe a freer, truer air.
‘Quiet, everyone,’ shouted Kipper. ‘Quiet. The director wants a script change, just a little tighten. We’ll be cutting the last three lines, so after Hannigan says, “You’ve done a fine job, old timer”, Uncle Frank will be pulled straight out of the water and Hannigan will start on his repairs of the propeller. All right? Everyone happy?’
And Ambrose felt suddenly winded, as if he’d received a blow to the solar plexus. He stared upward at the continuity girl, who was calmly crossing-out almost half a page of script, and he heard himself say ‘No’, and again, more loudly ‘No.’
Kipper peered over the rail, and Cerberus’s nose appeared between his ankles. ‘Sorry, Mr Hilliard, did you say something?’
And the distance between Ambrose and the studio seemed to telescope, and he was no longer an impassive observer but a participant, and he understood his task, he understood that he couldn’t simply walk away from a quarter-century of knowledge and skill, he couldn’t allow the wanton destruction of a well-shaped scene. He had to speak – he had to speak for the good of the film, for the cinema, for audiences everywhere. Effortlessly, he raised his voice to theatrical levels.
‘I said no, it is not “all right”. And no, I am not happy. And I demand to speak to the director about the proposed script changes.’
Catrin watched the third AD, half the age and a head taller than most of the crew, make a hesitant circuit of the studio floor, apparently looking for someone. It wasn’t until he started heading straight towards her that she realized that the ‘someone’ was herself.
‘You’re the writer,’ he said, his voice an uncertain waver, barely broken.
‘I’m a writer,’ she amended.
‘Deny everything,’ said Buckley, looking up from his Daily Mirror. He was sitting on a coil of rope, cup of tea beside him. ‘Who’s asking for writers?’
The youth glanced back at the water-tank, and lowered his voice confidentially. ‘There’s a bit of a row going on between Mr Hilliard and the director. Mr Hilliard is getting awfully worked up about line changes, and he’s threatening not to do the scene at all unless something’s done about it, and the continuity girl said that seeing as how one of the writers was actually in the studio for once, then perhaps we should make use of the fact, and Kipper told me to hurry off and fetch you.’
‘What’s the row about?’ asked Catrin.
‘Well, the director wanted to take out some dialogue because he says it interferes with the visual tension of the scene, and Mr Hilliard says if he does that, it’ll affect the integrity of the story and—’ He looked enquiringly at Buckley, who had given a snort.
‘I shall translate,’ said Buckley. ‘The only time an actor ever uses a phrase like “integrity of the story” is when his own lines are being cut, and the words “visual tension” are a director’s term for “you’re spoiling my lovely pictures by overacting all over them”. All we need now is for the cameraman to chip in about “the texture of the image” which means that he wants all the characters to blunder around in semi-darkness, and we’ll have the full deck.’
‘Well, anyway . . .’ said the youth, rather desperately, turning to Catrin. ‘. . . I was told to see if I could get a writer to come up with a compromise.’
‘I see.’ She nodded, trying to appear willing; lodged in her memory was the previous ghastly occasion on which she’d spoken to Ambrose Hilliard about a script change. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘No, I’ll do it,’ said Buckley. He waved a hand at her half-hearted protest. ‘I’ll do it’ he repeated, more firmly. ‘This type of situation needs a bit of quick thinking – which you’re perfectly capable of delivering – and a lorry-load of brazen, filthy, deceitful flattery, which you’re not. You’re a clever girl, but you can’t tell a lie to save your life.’
‘That’s what you think,’ said Catrin.
‘So you fancy giving it a go?’
She grinned and shook her head. ‘Not really. Thank you, Buckley.’
He gave her a wink, affectionate and more than a touch filthy, and ambled off, pausing beside the high wall o
f the tank in order to pat his pockets.
‘Did I leave my Woodbines?’ he called back to her, and she looked around towards the spot where he’d been sitting. There was no sign of his cigarettes. She turned back again, and as she did so, a movement caught her eye, and for a fraction of a second she thought that someone was diving from the very top of the scaffolding tower, and then she saw it was the lamp, the huge carbon lamp on its metal stalk, and it was gently, elegantly keeling over, the vast head swooning forward, the stalk leaving its socket, the whole of it dropping like a swollen rosebud on a stem, and it was so quiet, so quick, so graceful, that Catrin had hardly opened her mouth, had hardly begun to understand what she was seeing when the lamp hit the starboard bow of the Redoubtable with a noise like a bus exploding, and there was the groan of wood and a cracking sound, and the whole deck lurched forward and sideways and all the occupants, apart from the dog, fell off into the water, and a wave bounced across the width of the tank and slapped at the wooden wall and suddenly there was no wall on that side and a river was pouring through the breach and where Buckley had been standing there was nothing, there was no one, there was no one there at all . . .
FORTHCOMING ATTRACTIONS
The day was so warm that someone had prised away the boards that blocked one of the glassless windows of the twelfth-floor room. There was nothing to be seen through the narrow gap but the blue sky above Bloomsbury, and a pigeon who settled on the sill, keeping up a loud and persistent cooing.
Beside the contingent from Baker’s, there were three Ministry of Information officials around the table, and a stenographer, and a tired-looking naval officer, the skin under his eyes like crumpled paper.
‘Take no notice of me,’ he said, when introductions were being made. ‘I haven’t the foggiest idea why I’m here,’ and he gave Catrin a vague smile.
Rather than have to return it, she looked down at her hands. They were cold; they’d been cold all week, despite the weather. Her whole body felt chilled. She looked up again at Roger Swain, who had interviewed her nearly a year ago and whose hairline had retreated an inch or so since then.
‘Let me just say,’ he said, ‘before we move on to the subject of this particular meeting, that I’ve taken a look at the initial report on the accident and whilst, obviously, it was a frightful tragedy, it seems to me a matter of extreme luck that it wasn’t a great deal worse. Any number of people could have been standing at that end of the tank when the wall collapsed. Any number . . .’ There was a pause; he looked towards the open window. ‘Dreadful, all the same, an absolutely dreadful loss. Anyway, to the subject of the hour. Mr Baker?’
‘I’ve just come from the cutting-room,’ said Edwin Baker, grim but business-like, ‘and they say they can’t get around it, there’s a hole in the story and at the moment there’s nothing to fill it with – that propeller’s got to get mended somehow.’
‘Yes,’ said Swain. ‘The words “ha’p’orth of tar” do rather spring to mind. And have any ideas been forthcoming?’
‘Not yet, no,’ said Baker bluntly. He glanced at his writers, without reproach but without much expectation. Somewhere within the icy sludge of Catrin’s brain, a half-thought stirred.
‘And do we know the director’s opinion?’ asked Swain.
‘I’ve been to the hospital . . .’ Baker hesitated, his jaw moving from side-to-side in visible dissatisfaction. ‘He’s not making a great deal of sense at the moment. Bang on the head and all that, it’s only been a few days . . . said he wants to re-shoot the whole thing with a different cast.’
One of the Ministry officials gave a huff of laughter, and Swain looked at him pointedly, before turning to Baker again.
‘And you can’t, for instance, shoot the missing scene in the lido with doubles of the characters?’
‘We can’t double both of them. Not at the same time. Lundback won’t be off crutches for a month.’
‘And the . . . what’s his name? The old actor?’
‘Hilliard. Another six weeks in plaster.’
Roger Swain sighed. ‘I know that our chief’s awfully keen about getting this picture ready for release. And of course, it’s received a quite extraordinary amount of advance publicity over the last week. I know that may sound callous but it can’t be gainsaid . . . Could you make use of the narrator again, perhaps?’
Baker nodded unenthusiastically. ‘It’ll probably come to that. Not an ideal ending to a thrilling picture though, is it? Distant shot of a boat and someone telling us what happened. Can’t see punters queuing down the street for that.’
‘Would it be . . . excuse me just a moment.’ Swain stood and walked swiftly across to the window and clapped his hands, and the pigeon flew off with a clatter. ‘Can’t bear the creatures,’ he said, returning to his seat. ‘And it’s very strange, there seem to be even more about than there used to be. God knows what they’re eating.’
‘Lime,’ said Parfitt, loudly and unexpectedly. ‘Lime in the exposed mortar.’
‘Ah . . .’ Swain paused, as if further pigeon lore might be forthcoming, but Parfitt’s face had closed again.
‘You were saying,’ said Baker.
Swain shrugged. ‘Oh, I was just wondering if we should bring a few more heads into the meeting. There’s always a writer chappie or two hanging around the offices. Horribly ironic, isn’t it, that the one person that we really need here is the one person we definitively can’t have?’
And everyone except the naval officer looked at Catrin and Parfitt, or, rather, at the small gap between their chairs, as if the shade of Buckley might be hovering there, and if he were, thought Catrin – and she felt as if she’d been given a sudden sharp shove or an elbow in the ribs – if he were, then she could just imagine how he would react to the idea of Swain dragging a couple of random hacks into the discussion, a brace of weak-chinned varsity boys interfering with his script. She felt another jab of the elbow; go on, Mrs Taff. The half-thought thawed. She found that she’d raised her hand.
‘Mrs Cole?’ said Baker.
‘I do have an idea.’
‘Go on.’
‘Rose could do it. Rose Starling could mend the propeller.’
Baker narrowed his eyes, as if perusing a balance sheet. ‘Rose . . .’ he said, doubtfully.
‘After all, it’s the Starling sisters’ story, isn’t it?’ said Catrin. ‘And she’s on the stern already. She could call her uncle’s name and climb into the water and – we could use a double for the uncle if he kept his head down, couldn’t we? And he could be hauled out and then she could do the repair. And she’s wearing a hat and dark clothes, isn’t she, so it might not be too noticeable that she’s not wet in the next scene . . . and maybe in another shot you could see the back of Hannigan’s head too, maybe you could see her looking up at him and saying something.’
Beside her, Parfitt stirred. ‘A gag?’ he suggested. ‘It’ll need a gag.’
Baker looked at Swain, and then back at Catrin.
‘We should go and talk it through with the cutter,’ he said. ‘See what he thinks.’
The naval officer remained at the table as everybody else got up to leave, and he caught Catrin’s eye as she lit a cigarette.
‘I’m afraid I wasn’t very much help,’ he said. ‘I think I was supposed to be the maritime advisor.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She held out the packet to him and he took one absently and let it droop between his fingers.
‘So there was an accident, was there? In a film studio?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘There was a lamp up near the roof, and it got loosened. It dropped on to a boat and one of the legs gave way.’
‘The legs of the lamp?’
‘The legs of the boat. It wasn’t floating, you see, it was on stilts. And then one of the sides of the tank fell down.’
‘A German tank?’
‘A water-tank.’
He examined the cigarette, turning it over between his fingers as if he’d never seen one b
efore. ‘I thought the boat wasn’t floating,’ he said.
‘It wasn’t. But it looked as though it was floating.’
He nodded without comprehension.
‘And someone was killed?’ he asked.
She found that she couldn’t answer that one.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘A friend of yours, then?’
And she couldn’t answer that either – couldn’t frame the words, couldn’t think of how to define Buckley. She’d received no especial commiseration at his death, had merited no particular status in the mourning; what status could she have claimed? ‘Buckley and Parfitt’ had been an entity for twenty-odd years, and would last as long as their pictures were shown; ‘Buckley and Catrin’ had almost existed for twenty-odd minutes and had gone, now, for ever. Parfitt – poor Parfitt – had wept when he’d heard about the accident. Catrin had studied her own face and seen only bewilderment and a kind of outrage. She’d thought that her life had begun to follow a plot, but it had only been another incident in a series of incidents, one thing happening and then another, a romantic prologue jammed randomly between farce and tragedy.
‘Are you coming, Mrs Cole?’ called Edwin Baker from the corridor.
‘I’m coming.’ She nodded awkwardly at the naval officer.
‘What’s the title of your film?’ he asked. ‘So I can go and see it.’
‘It doesn’t have a title yet.’
‘But is it a comedy? Or an action picture? Or a romance?’
She thought for a moment before she replied.
‘It’s a true story,’ she said.
*
When he’d turned his ankle during the jousting sequence of My Lady’s Favour (1924) Ambrose had been given his own room in a convalescent home beside Richmond Park. The bay window opposite his bed had afforded a view of rolling greensward, of groups of watchful deer among the spinneys.
