Lucky Break (22 page)

‘Right,' the director approached them. ‘Take her in your arms, move in against her, hand under her shirt. And thrust.'

Thrust? He pressed his body against Alice. She felt cold, her flesh retreating. Nervously he fumbled with her jacket. It wasn't so easy. Not the fluid movement of desire he had imagined. ‘Faster. Right. Great. We'll go for a take this time.'

Alice's make-up woman dashed forward and dusted her with a coat of powder, while Hilda gave a quick tweak to Dan's moustache.

‘Ready. Quiet on set.' Dan felt his heart thumping. He swallowed, tried to put the terrible thought of an erection out of his mind, although never in his life had he felt less aroused. But then the lights needed adjusting, and in a burst of sudden noise and movement everything came to a halt. ‘Are you all right?' he whispered to Alice, the cold feel of her skin still lingering. Alice nodded, and took out a can of breath spray. She squirted some into her mouth. ‘Bloody hotel,' she whispered as she offered it to him. ‘I tried to sleep this afternoon but there was a fucking baby crying.'

Dan made a sympathetic face. Did Alice know it was the director's baby? His wife had arrived a couple of days before and he'd seen her, hovering on the edge of the set, the baby in a pink bonnet against the sun, a dummy in its mouth to keep it quiet. Twice she'd approached him and asked when Jemma would be arriving, and he'd admired her baby, asked how old it was, what it was called, information he'd immediately forgotten and then failed to pass to Jemma in adequate detail in his calls home. ‘Honestly,' Alice shivered, ‘I can't wait for this job to be over. Bloody awful goddamn place. What are you up to next?'

‘Not sure.' Dan looked around. He wanted to use this lull to make a plan. Strike up a deal with her. Should I grab your breast under the jacket? When we kiss, will we use tongues? But Alice kept on talking. ‘I'm going to fly from here straight to LA to try out for pilot season. Have you ever tried it? I mean, LA?'

Dan shook his head. He'd heard too many stories of British actors lost out there in a sea of castings, demoralised, desperate, working as doormen, scrabbling together the money to survive. ‘Great,' he smiled. ‘Good luck. Have you got somewhere to stay?'

‘OK. Ready to go. Silence.' The assistant director spread his arms and Alice's make-up woman was between them again, dusting and preening in the gloom.

‘And . . . Action!' For a second Dan's eyes met Alice's and he moved in for a kiss. He held her head and pressed her backwards, the new moustache tickling his own nose, the spearmint flavour of their saliva mingling together as he fumbled with her jacket. Belt, he remembered, belt. He had his mouth still glued to hers, as he tugged at the belt, almost ripping the buckle off in his need to free himself and get through all the moves before the director called ‘Cut'.

‘And cut.' Gasping, Dan pulled away.

‘Bloody hell,' Alice put a hand up to her face. ‘When did you last shave?'

‘This morning.' Dan hoiked his trousers up and re-fastened the buckle.

The make-up woman was patting the skin around Alice's mouth, blotting it with foundation. Dan put his hand up to his own face. His chin did feel rough. Of course. He should have waited and shaved this afternoon. Idiot – he cursed himself. But before he could apologise the set fell silent.

By the time they next broke Alice's poor face was blotched with red.

‘What does your girlfriend say about that moustache?' She eyed him sceptically.

All he could remember was Jemma laughing as the sharp hairs tickled her face.

‘I could never go out with a man with facial hair. Really.' Alice rolled her eyes. ‘I'd have to give up my career.'

They broke for supper, although now it was one in the morning, and after a quick dash to his caravan to brush his teeth, Dan prepared himself to film the scene from T.P. Miller's point of view. The cameras were behind him now and Alice's eyes were lively in the light. Her hand went up and caressed his cheek, her leg slid between his and he realised momentarily before he was subsumed by his tasks how much easier everything was now that she was responding. Kiss, jacket, fumble. Her flesh was warm and willing. She even smiled as he jolted her up against the wall. He tugged at his belt buckle, ‘Thrust', he heard the director in his ear, and aware of the camera, trained on his backside, he lifted Alice off the ground and holding her tight he moved in, grinding against her narrow camouflaged pelvis, eyes closed, panting, waiting for that most magical of words, ‘Cut.'

Alice pulled away from him. ‘Good work.' Her gaze was steady.

‘Great,' the director called. ‘Five minutes and we'll go again.'

 

‘Did you get an erection?' Jemma wanted to know, and he told her in all honesty that it was the un-sexiest night of his life. ‘I can't wait to see you,' her words soothed him down the line, ‘I wish I was there,' and he closed his eyes and imagined her warm, yielding body, the smell of her, the fine gold chain that creased into her skin as she slept. ‘Oh Jem,' he could have cried for something that was real. ‘I wish you were here too.'

 

‘So when's your family coming out?' Hilda asked him. She was still working on his scar.

‘Today.' Dan looked at his watch. ‘They'll be here about seven. They're flying now.'

‘You've got a baby.' Hilda smiled, indulgent. ‘How old?'

‘She's . . . I think about twelve weeks now. All I know is that I've been away for a third of her life.'

‘Wait till they get bigger.' Hilda shook her head. ‘That's when travelling gets really tough.'

‘Have you got kids?' He looked at the make-up woman with new eyes. Friendly, middle-aged Hilda, always ready for a chat.

‘I've got a boy of twelve. It's bad timing for him, this job. I'm away his entire summer holiday. But I had to take it. A big film I was meant to do earlier in the year fell apart.'

‘What happened?'

‘Some of the investment disappeared, and the studio let it go. They'd already spent half a million on pre-production. It's beyond belief. And it would have been so perfect. All in London. Anyway . . .' she shrugged, ‘I'm doing this.'

‘So who's he with?'

‘My sister. And a few weeks on one of those Woodcraft camps. He'll be all right. He's a good boy.'

Dan nodded. He wondered where the boy's father was, but he didn't like to ask. Jemma would have asked. She would have opened her blue eyes in compassionate inquisition and found out everything there was to know. He smiled. By this time next week he'd be privy to the most intimate secrets of the entire cast and crew.

‘Right,' Hilda straightened up. ‘That's you done.'

‘Thanks. See you later.' He moved along the trailer to where Pam from Hair was waiting to check his moustache against a batch of Polaroids to see if it had grown.

 

That morning involved relentless hours of surveillance. Dan and two soldiers stood with binoculars, looking out over the glaring sand. The other actors had been out drinking the night before and the alcohol wafted off them poisonously. They talked between takes about a feud building up between the British and South African actors, about a local girl, Chantelle, who was throwing herself at Steve, who played an officer. In lowered tones they discussed Matt Wilkinson, who was up at five every morning, lifting weights, doing press-ups, and when he had to make an entrance, he insisted on running twice around the perimeter of the set so that he could arrive genuinely out of breath. ‘Drama Arts,' one of the soldiers scoffed, and Dan secretly worried that Matt, who'd been two years below him at college, would transpire to be the real star. Matt had remained loyal to Patrick and Silvio's teachings, and when Dan watched him he could see the spark of genius – or was it madness? – in everything he did. There'd been one scene where he and Dan had had to fight, and as they'd wrestled, Dan had looked into his eyes and seen nothing there but hate. ‘Pervert,' Matt had hissed once he'd pummelled Dan's character unconscious to the ground, and eyes closed, breath still, Dan had felt a gob of spit land on his cheek. A searing heat rose up in him. ‘You fucking moron,' he'd leapt up, cursing himself for accepting the more passive role, and he'd grabbed hold of Matt Wilkinson's shirt and punched him in the ear. Matt responded no less viciously, in or out of character, Dan never knew, and they'd grappled and thrashed, and thrown punches at each other until three members of the crew had had to wrench them apart. They'd avoided each other since then, much as their characters were inclined to do, and the night before when things began to get raucous, Dan had slipped off back to the hotel. It wasn't just Matt, Dan told himself, he didn't want to risk being hung over the day Jemma arrived, and he imagined her now, getting off her plane in Johannesburg, Honey up against her shoulder, the pushchair folded into mechanical knots. His heart tightened. He hoped they'd be all right. He glanced at his watch to see how long it would be before he could get back to the trailer to check his mobile phone in the unlikely event that she would have called. He'd only bought a mobile a few months before in case Jemma went into labour when he wasn't there. But now he couldn't imagine how he'd managed without one. No more dashing in to check the answerphone, no more calling his agent at the end of every day. It was a liberation and he loved it. But Jemma was against one, for herself. We can't afford it, she insisted, and anyway she wanted to be left alone, to work on her Russian coursework – she was in the second year of a degree. ‘And who would call me anyway?' she challenged. ‘I don't have an agent, remember?'

‘I would,' he told her.

‘Sure. Call me at home. I'm usually there.'

But when Dan did get back to the trailer just before lunch, to his surprise there was a message. She must have negotiated the myriad complexities of a foreign phone box, changed money, found the right coins.

‘Hi darling. We landed. All fine. I'm at . . .' there was a pause while she turned to talk to someone, ‘I'm somewhere in Johannesburg, on the outskirts. Don't worry. I met this nice man on the plane and he said we could spend the day with him. I was just so tired. I had to find somewhere to lie down. He's going to drive me back to the airport later when I've had a sleep. Don't worry.' There was a small muffled shriek from Honey. ‘I'd better go. See you later. Bye love. Oh dear.' There seemed to be some kind of scuffle. ‘Bye.'

Dan's heart beat so hard he had to double over.

He flicked to missed calls to trace the number but it hadn't registered. No number, it said. He pressed it anyway, hoping that it might connect, but the line was dead. Fuck. He stared at the phone. He felt like throwing it down and stamping on it. It was only twelve o'clock and he'd have to wait another seven hours to know if they were ever going to arrive. He replayed her message. ‘Hi darling . . . All fine. I'm at . . . Somewhere in Johannesburg. On the outskirts . . .' What was she thinking? Going off into one of the most violent cities in the world, with a
nice
man. He sat down on the floor. Kidnappings. Car chases. Honey's neck jolting dangerously as Jemma fled down an empty road.

‘You all right?' It was the runner, come to fetch him for his next scene.

‘Sure.' Dan smiled grimly. He'd forgotten, momentarily, they were about to do the stunt. At least he had no lines. He splashed his face with cold water and then remembered make-up and stared into the mirror. The water ran off the greased surface of his skin, dampening his collar, distracting him, if briefly, from thoughts of Jemma.

Dan had offered to do his own stunt. ‘Are you sure?' the director asked him, and Dan insisted he knew what he was doing. They'd done a fight workshop at Drama Arts in their second year: flinching away from the point of contact, working with your partner to make the moves convincing, rolling and reacting as the boot went in. He remembered Pierre's thin arm shooting out and catching Eshkol on the nose. There had been blood and foundation and some hysteria, and the fight teacher who'd been drafted in for the day had stood back amused as girls ran to and from the toilets with tissues.

Dan mimicked what the stunt man had done in rehearsal, standing on the flatbed of the lorry, jumping forward, twisting, landing on his back, while three extras moved in for the attack, kicking the ground around his body, their boots stopping just short of his groin. ‘Great.' The director nodded, and Dan stood up, and waited while wardrobe, hair and make-up dusted him down. ‘We'll go for a take.' The cameras rolled, the truck started and Dan leapt to the ground. But this time there was no holding back. The first man got him in the stomach. Bloody hell, Dan was too winded to protest, and anyway he was down now, his face in the dirt, and the kicks were coming at him quick and sharp. Fuck! A boot caught him in the arse, and another, sharp across his shin, but he didn't dare raise his head to call for help. ‘All right, boys. Cut. I said CUT.' A murmur of chatter broke out around him. ‘You all right?' Someone was bending down.

‘Yeah, sure.' He tried not to wince as he stood up. ‘I think so, anyway.' He looked over at the men, smirking as they leant against the truck.