Starstruck

by Cathy Hopkins

  I am a dead man, I thought. How will I ever be able to tell Mum and Dad?

  I left the shop and went to look for Mac, who had taken off to another street to buy some oil pastels from an artist’s supply shop. He wants to be a cartoonist when he leaves school. I reckon he might make a name for himself – he’s good. He can paint, draw, do illustrations, but really cartooning is his thing. He can capture anyone with just a few strokes of his pen. Takes talent, that does. You need an eye for the absolute essentials. It’s a bit like photography, you have to have an eye for that too. It’s one of the things we have in common as mates. We might go to the same college if we can find one that does film studies as well as cartooning and animation.

  I crossed the road and as I went round the corner, I spotted Mac looking in the window of the art shop. He looked up and beckoned me over to him.

  ‘Hey, come and look at this,’ he said, then he saw my face. ‘Not good news?’

  I shook my head. ‘Think I’m going to need a small miracle this time. It’ll cost a fortune to fix. Guy in the shop said I may as well get a new one, but no way can I afford one and I can’t go to Cousin Ed or Jo to get it repaired, as word will get back to Dad.’

  ‘Maybe you should just bite the bullet and tell him,’ said Mac. ‘Accidents happen. He’ll understand, won’t he?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And that’s exactly why I don’t want to tell him. Him being understanding would make it even worse. I know Mum and Dad really went out on a limb to get me that camcorder. I don’t want to disappoint them. Let them down like a stupid kid who breaks his toy on Christmas morning. No, what I’ll do is get a Saturday job. I’ll work in the Easter holidays. I’ll sort it.’

  Mac started grinning like an idiot.

  ‘It’s not funny, Mac.’

  ‘I know. I’m not smiling because of that. I’m smiling because someone up there must be looking after you.’

  ‘Yeah right. And where exactly were they when I tripped over Rupert the Bear?’

  ‘Look in the window,’ said Mac.

  ‘What at?’ I asked.

  ‘At the notices,’ said Mac pointing to a noticeboard on the left of the window. ‘One small miracle, I do believe.’

  There were loads of notices on postcards: flat to rent; bicycle for sale; cleaner needed.

  ‘What?’ I asked. ‘You suggesting I leave home and become a cleaner? I suppose I could sell my bike. Yeah. I guess that’s an option . . .’

  Mac shook his head and pointed to a notice to the left of the others. ‘There, you dufus.’

  Then I saw it.

  Ever wanted to work in the movies? Now is your chance.

  Needed: extras, drivers, runners, cleaners, caterers.

  Must be local.

  Must be available between April 14th and May 5th.

  Want to know more? Call 07365 88921 and ask for Sandra.

  The answer to my prayers, I thought. ‘That’s in the Easter holidays,’ I gasped. ‘I wonder where exactly they’re going to film.’

  I turned to Mac, but he was already on his mobile asking for someone called Sandra.

  ‘TRANSPORT?’

  ‘Yes, I have a bike,’ I replied.

  ‘Mobile?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I also have a mobile phone.’ I was in Millbrook in a tiny office that the film’s production team had hired for a couple of days to use for interviewing staff for the shoot.

  The guy doing the interview gave me a ‘don’t try to be clever with me’ look. ‘Availability?’

  ‘Twenty-four hours a day for the three weeks over Easter.’ I meant it too. I was keen. Double keen. The chance to work in the movies was a dream come true for me.

  My interviewer didn’t look that old. Maybe early twenties. Whatever, he sure was full of himself. He was leaning back in his chair, wearing a pair of Police sunglasses, even though we were inside and it was a gloomy day. I guess he thought it made him look cool. I thought it made him look like a dick. He’d introduced himself as Roland, third production assistant (whatever that meant). Licence to arse around like he was somebody – that much was clear. Still, no matter. I could put up with eejits like him if it meant the chance to work as part of a film crew for a few weeks.

  Talk of the production had spread through the village the same day that Mac and I had seen the advertisement, and everyone was up for getting involved in some way. The production to be filmed was Great Expectations. Some guy I’d never heard of – Charlie Bennett – was directing and the producer was Jason Harwood. Apprently it was a musical version of the book. Sounded a bit naff to me, and personally I don’t think anyone will ever top David Lean’s version but I wasn’t going to argue. Naff or not, this was happening on my doorstep. Nothing as exciting had happened in this area since five years ago, when Tom Cruise was spotted in a B&B in Kingsand. Allegedly – I still don’t believe it was him. But this was for definite.

  News of the production was buzzing all round school on the last day of term and everyone wanted to be in on the action. Holiday jobs were a rarity round our way, particularly before the summer season began in mid-May, so the chance to earn some extra cash earlier in the year was an opportunity not to be missed. Cat and Becca had already been down to the makeshift office in Millbrook and signed up to be washer-uppers and helpers in the catering trailers. And both had got a promise that they could be extras in any crowd scenes. Mac wasn’t going to miss out on his chance of earning some extra dosh, either, and had got himself hired as car-washer for two days a week. Me, I wanted to get right into the heart of it. I wanted to be a runner.

  ‘What do you know about the book?’ asked Roland.

  ‘Dickens classic. There have been many film versions but I still reckon David Lean’s is the best.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He was the master of lighting.’

  ‘Yes, I guess,’ said Roland. ‘And Robert de Niro is brilliant as Magwitch.’

  ‘That was the later version. The one with Gwyneth Paltrow.’

  ‘Yeah. So?’

  ‘In David Lean’s version, Magwitch was played by Finlay Currie. Jean Simmons played Estella as a child and Valerie Hobson played her as an older woman.’

  ‘Quite the little know it all, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Sixteen.’

  Roland peered over his shades. ‘You’re wasting my time, kid,’ he said, as he pushed the glasses back up his nose.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  I didn’t like this guy but I was determined to stay polite. ‘And why might I be wasting your time?’

  ‘Runners have to be eighteen.’

  ‘Where does it say that?’

  Roland pointed to his chest. ‘It’s me who’s doing the hiring here.’

  ‘Yeah, and you wouldn’t regret giving me this chance. I know this area like the back of my hand. Know everyone. Have bike will travel.’ I gave him what I hoped was my most winning smile.

  ‘Next,’ he called and turned away to make a phone call.

  I was dismissed. So much for my first job interview. Fired before I’d been hired.

  ‘Oh bad luck,’ said Lia. I’d arrived at her house an hour later and told her the whole story. ‘We’re in the kitchen. Come and meet, er . . . Mum’s friend.’

  ‘Yeah, major bummer,’ I said, as I followed her through. ‘Lesson number one in going for jobs: never let on that you know more than the dufus who’s doing the hiring. Oh, hi, Mrs Axford.’

  Mrs Axford was sitting on a stool at the counter, chatting with another woman about the same age as her. ‘What’s that?’ she said, looking up. ‘You didn’t get the job? Why not?’

  ‘Squidge knew more about the film than the guy doing the hiring,’ said Lia. ‘He thought Robert De Niro was in David Lean’s version of Great Expectations.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to be smart or anything,’ I said. ‘Although the guy was a bit of a prat. I was just stating the facts
: Magwitch was played by Finlay Currie in the Lean version.’

  Mrs Axford’s friend raised an eyebrow as though I’d said something amusing.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mrs Axford, beckoning me to sit next her friend. ‘Sit down. Meet a friend of mine from London. Mrs – ’

  ‘You can call me Charlotte,’ interrupted her friend, in a husky voice. She looked nice. Attractive. Shoulder-length red hair. Slim. Probably an ex-model like Lia’s mum – she had the same cut-glass cheekbones.

  ‘And I’m Squidge,’ I said.

  ‘Interesting nickname,’ she said.

  ‘We call him Squidge because he’s always looking through a camera with his eye squidged up,’ said Lia.

  ‘Partly that. And also because my name is Squires, Jack Squires, so the nickname came easy. Squires – Squidge . . .’

  ‘Sounds like you’re interested in movies, Squidge,’ said Charlotte, looking at me closely.

  ‘And some. I want to be a film director one day. That’s why it’s a real pisser – sorry, I mean bummer – that I didn’t get the job.’

  ‘And why didn’t you?’

  ‘Guy hiring said runners had to be eighteen.’

  ‘Oh did he?’ said Charlotte. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’

  ‘Neither have I. I don’t think he liked me. It was one of those classic, hate-at-first-sight scenarios.’

  ‘Well that’s a shame,’ said Mrs Axford, ‘because you’d have been brilliant. No one knows this area better than you.’

  ‘That’s what I tried to tell him,’ I said. ‘Bummer, huh?’

  Charlotte smiled. ‘Yeah, as you say, bummer. And it sounds like they could do with someone like you around. Someone who knows the area. I . . . er, I read that they’ve run into trouble finding locations already. Apparently they need a place for the scene where Magwitch leaps out on the young Pip at the beginning. Some deserted graveyard maybe.’

  ‘The one on the way up to Rame Head would be perfect,’ I said. ‘It’s overgrown and spooky up there. But David Lean used a graveyard in his version. They ought to use somewhere different. I know where! The ruin out at Penlee Point would be better. Brilliant in fact. It would be a great hiding place for Magwitch as no one can see the ruin from the road or the top of the cliff. Even some of the locals don’t know that it’s there. Yeah, and it would make sense as the sea’s down below and Magwitch was supposed to have escaped from a ship carrying prisoners. It’s all rocky and deserted out there. Plus in the mornings, it’s often good and misty round that side of the peninsula. It would be really atmospheric if the light was right.’

  Charlotte looked at me steadily for a few moments and I felt myself beginning to blush. I wasn’t used to this kind of attention from older women.

  ‘I can see film really is your passion,’ she said.

  I nodded. ‘Yeah. And locations are such a hugely important part of it. That and the light. That’s what I love about film. Unlike video, where what you see through the lens is what you get, you never know with film until it comes back from the lab. The light can change. You send your film off to be processed and bite your nails until you get it back. God, I wish I was doing locations on this movie. There are so many brilliant ones down here but you have to know where to go and at what time of day to get them at their best.’ Suddenly I felt self-conscious. Charlotte was still staring at me. I’d probably got a bit carried away, rabbiting on without drawing breath. I can do that when I get going about film making.

  ‘Er, Squidge,’ she started to say, looking at her watch. ‘Oops! Got to get moving. I’ve got a million things to do.’ She got out her mobile and dialled a number, listened then sighed. ‘It’s switched off. What a nuisance.’ She looked up at us. ‘Someone was supposed to pick me up.’

  ‘Where do you need to go?’ I asked.

  ‘The Edgecumbe Arms pub at the Cremyll ferry.’

  ‘My uncle Bill runs the local cab company,’ I said. ‘He could take you. I can call him if you like.’

  Mrs Axford smiled. ‘Told you Squidge was a useful man to know.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Charlotte raising an eyebrow again. ‘I’ve realised that already.’

  I was definitely feeling nervous now. This woman fancies me, I thought. She was giving me another of her probing looks. I got a sudden urge to go cross-eyed or pick my nose. Anything to break the intensity of her gaze. Strangely, Lia didn’t seem phased at all by this woman staring at me. Neither did her mum, in fact she had this weird smirk on her face.

  ‘Charlotte,’ said Mrs Axford, ‘don’t you think you ought to tell Squidge who you are?’

  Lia nodded.

  ‘I guess,’ she said, grinning. Then she turned to me. ‘I should have said, really. I’m Charlotte Bennett . . .’

  I nodded politely. Was I suppose to know the name? Clearly the answer was ‘yes’. Maybe she’d been some really famous model on the pages of Vogue in the sixties? I mentally scanned pages I’d seen in photography books. Chrissie Shrimpton. Marie Helvin. Jerry Hall. Nope, Charlotte Bennett wasn’t ringing a bell. Charlotte Bennett. Charlotte Bennett . . .

  It took a moment for the penny to drop, then I slapped my forehead. ‘As in Charlie! Oh, peanuts. I thought he, you, were a man!’

  Charlotte smiled. ‘Most people do,’ she said. ‘And seeing as I’m coming clean here, I think it’s also only fair to tell you that the guy doing the hiring – he’s my nephew Roland.’

  Great galloping gonadias, I thought, as my whole conversation with her played back through my head at high speed. I’d insulted her nephew, called him a prat, and carried on about movies as though she was an outsider, when, all the time, she was Charlie Bennett, the director of the film. ‘Major major bumroll,’ I said. ‘Didn’t realise. Excuse me while I go outside, dig a hole and bury myself in it.’

  But Charlotte was laughing. ‘No need for that,’ she said. ‘In fact, one of the things I have to do this afternoon is check locations. So . . . I was wondering, if it wasn’t too much trouble, could you get me that cab and maybe come with me and show me that ruin at Penlee Point?’

  ‘Me? Really? Yeah, you betcha.’ I quickly pulled out my mobile and dialled my uncle’s taxi firm.

  On the way out to Penlee Point, we drove down through Kingsand village. As we passed the pub at the bottom of the hill, I spotted Roland sitting on a bench outside. He had a beer in his hand and was talking into his mobile.

  Charlotte rolled her eyes as we drove past. ‘He’s supposed to be my personal assistant as well as third production assistant, which between you and me means ‘general dogsbody with a posh title’. One of his jobs is to ferry me about but I can never get through to him – he’s always on his phone! So, lesson number one on a film set, Squidge: if you’re on a personal call, for whatever reason, keep it short. Better still, don’t take or make them when you’re on duty. And always keep your phone switched on if you’re a runner. I’m forever getting Roland’s answering service.’

  ‘You just give me a call if ever you get stuck, love,’ said Uncle Bill, from the front. He glanced at me in the rear-view mirror and winked. I gave him a huge smile back. Like the rest of the village, he wanted to be part of the production.

  ‘Don’t worry, Bill. I’ve already put your company’s number into my phone,’ said Charlotte. ‘It’s always good to have back-up.’

  After that, she didn’t speak for a while. She was obviously taking in the landscape as we wound our way along the main street, round the top of the village and out through the wood towards Penlee Point. I knew not to disturb her thoughts. She’d be seeing things in her mind as though through the camera’s eye, imagining which backdrop would work in which scene and which wouldn’t. As we reached the end of the wood, the road became a track then opened out into a clearing. Bill parked the car and settled down to read his newspapers. Charlie and I followed the rest of the path until it led up on to a grassed area and meandered off to the right.

  ‘Wow,’ said Charlotte, as she took in the
view that suddenly opened up to us. ‘This is beautiful.’

  There was sea as far as the eye could see. On the left was the cove of Cawsand with the coast beyond stretching out to Mount Edgecumbe then, in the distance, you could see Plymouth. On the right, the landscape was untamed. Fields of grass along the cliff face stretching out for miles to where Rame Head jutted out into the sea.

  Charlotte, or as she now insisted I call her, Charlie, looked well impressed. She looked around, at the rocks, at the wind-torn landscape and nodded her head.

  I led her out towards the edge of the cliff.

  ‘Absolutely perfect,’ she said. ‘This place will be great.’

  ‘Ah, but there’s more,’ I said. ‘We’re actually standing on the roof of the ruin, though you’d never know it.’ I led her down a narrow path on the cliffside a little way to the left. There, concealed below the grassy knoll, was a hiding place in the cliff face. Carved out of stone, it was a cave in the rocks and made the perfect shelter.

  ‘Magwitch’s hang out, don’t you think?’ I asked.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Charlie. Chuckling, she pointed to the charred remains of a fire and a couple of empty lager cans in the corner. ‘In fact, it looks like he’s been here already.’

  We sat in the ruin and gazed out at the scene for a while then Charlie took some photos and notes. I wish I could see inside her head, I thought enviously. I bet she’s working out what angle to shoot from, what time of day to film, where to do close ups, where to film wide angles.

  When she was finished, she looked well pleased.

  ‘Back to Cremyll, miss?’ asked Uncle Bill, when we got back to the car.

  She nodded. ‘But can we pass through Kingsand again?’

  ‘Anywhere you like,’ said Bill.

  She’s going to pick up her nephew, I thought. I was still feeling bad about having slagged him off so I decided that when we got into the car, I’d say something to apologise.

  ‘I really am sorry about, you know, before,’ I said, as Uncle Bill drove us through the wood and back towards the village. ‘I didn’t realise Roland was your nephew.’

  Charlotte smiled. ‘He’s my step-sister Janie’s son. Only child, may I add. We’ve never been close as I’ve been in the States for years. I’m only just getting to know him. When Janie heard that I would be over doing this film, she asked if I’d give him a job. He finished his degree in media studies last summer so this gives him a chance to see if he wants to work in this area of the industry. You don’t know until you’ve worked on a real film set what it’s like and it can come as a shock to some people. It’s much harder than you imagine. But he’s been doing a good job so far.’ Then she grinned. ‘Apart from not ever answering his phone. But I believe in giving people a chance. How else is anybody ever going to learn?’