Their Finest Hour and a Half (6 page)

‘And by the cast?'

‘Only if the director's the sort of wet lettuce we have today. And if the actor's a pompous old fool who doesn't realize that he should be grateful for any scraps that are flung his way. Do you recognize him?'

‘I'm not sure. Did he play a detective in something? Quite a long time ago?'

‘The Inspector Charnforth Mysteries. He didn't play Charnforth, he played the professorial type that Charnforth went to for advice – chin-stroking and so on. How old are you?'

‘Twenty.'

‘God, is that all? Well, when you were stumbling around in pinafores he was a bit of a matinee idol. Ambrose Hilliard. He was known as The Man with the Glint.'

‘With the what?'

‘With the Glint. In his eye, I presume. Now he's just a BF who hasn't grasped that the world has changed and that we simply don't have time for his sort of nonsense. Walking off set, I mean,
honestly
 . . .' She rolled her eyes.

‘So what's going to happen?' asked Catrin. ‘Is he really going to alter those lines?'

‘Absolutely not,' said Phyl, her jawline granite. ‘If he starts on that before lunch on day one, then by tomorrow afternoon he'll think he's the producer. No, the director's backbone just needs a little reinforcement – I'll mention the words ‘overtime' and ‘budget' and ‘Ministry money'. I suppose I'd better get on with it before the old goat comes back.'

Catrin watched round the edge of the painted flat as Phyl hurried across the floor towards the director. The space was full of people, and none of them, apart from Phyl, seemed to be doing very much. There were occasional bursts of hammering and the odd incomprehensible shout; a rope was lowered from the ceiling and left dangling; three men very slowly wheeled a colossal lamp from one side of the Browns' living room to the other, and then, after a short consultation, wheeled it back again; a man with a dustpan picked invisible bits of fluff from the upholstery of the two armchairs. ‘Get yourself down to the studio,' Buckley had said to Catrin, ‘take a look at the action.' In her excitement, she had missed the sarcasm.

There was a sudden movement over by the door, and she turned to see Ambrose Hilliard strolling back towards the Browns' living room, cigarette in hand, smoke wreathing the baggy, disdainful face. He was, she thought, no more than a decade older than Phyl – not actually old, but somehow
dated
, a piece of art deco in a utilitarian world. He skirted the brindled bull-terrier that was sitting directly in his path, paw outstretched, and gave a generalized and well-simulated smile that made him look almost handsome.

‘Are we all ready?' he asked. ‘Decisions made?'

Briggs and the director came to meet him, scripts in hand. Catrin stayed behind the flat, attempting – and failing – to eavesdrop, and watching the gradual drift of personnel towards the camera.

The serenity was broken by the blast of a whistle. ‘Final checks, please,' shouted Briggs in a surprisingly manly voice. ‘Going for a take on the first set-up of
The Letter
. Over shoulder single Mrs Brown.'

Briggs and the director took their places beside the camera; Ambrose remained where he was for a moment or two, his shoulders rigid. ‘Make it Chinese,' bellowed someone, and there was the thud of a giant switch and a sudden buzzing blast of yellow light, turning the living room into a gilded tableau. Mrs Brown wound the wool around her fingers and picked up her knitting; Ambrose shrugged off the attentions of a woman with a powder-puff and seated himself opposite Mrs Brown. From his jacket pocket he took out what looked like a brand new pipe. The standard lamp in the corner flickered a couple of times and then steadied, and Catrin suddenly found herself staring at the opening image of the script – of
her
script, as she couldn't help but think of it, although she'd been allotted a pre-existing storyline and every draft of the dialogue had been tweaked and filleted, stuffed, carved and garnished by at least a dozen other people. ‘Too many cooks,' Buckley had said to her during one of his fleeting visits to the Ministry. ‘Too many cooks and most of 'em can't even boil an egg.'

‘But what shall I do?' Catrin had asked him, clutching a copy of the fifth draft. ‘Most of the notes I get are actually contradictory – it's impossible to act on them all.'

‘Do nothing. That script's all right; it's not going to get any better. Write a memo. Tell them their comments are invaluable and that you've made all the requested changes and then enclose exactly the same script.'

‘I can't.'

‘Try it.'

‘They'll notice.'

‘They won't.'

And he had been right; the untouched version of draft five had passed from associate producer to script editor, from ideas conference to Home Security Propaganda Department Committee, subdivision 4/b (films) and it had been universally accepted as an officially-approved final draft. And here, now, were Mr and Mrs Brown, very nearly as she had imagined them (if a little too old), sitting together in the comfortably worn surroundings of their front room, a vision of suburban domestic harmony.

‘Let's have some quiet,' called Briggs. ‘Going for a take.'

‘One moment.' Ambrose was packing shag into the pipe bowl with his thumb.

‘Darling, you're not really going to, are you?' asked Cecy.

‘What's that?'

‘You're not going to smoke that filthy thing, are you?'

‘I was going to, yes. I feel it's appropriate to the character. If someone as irrelevant as myself is allowed to have any opinions whatsoever about such an issue,' he added, glancing at the director.

‘Couldn't you just mime?' said Cecy.

‘I can mime smoking but I can't mime smoke.'

‘I suppose not. It's just that my chest isn't what it was.'

‘I'm using a bronchial brand.'

‘Besides, I always thought it was a continuity problem.'

‘In what way?'

‘Well, in the way that great puffs of smoke keep popping up at odd times.'

‘You may possibly be thinking of actors who don't understand the concept of continuity, as opposed to actors who possess an innate technical awareness.'

‘I'm sorry, darling, I didn't mean to . . .'

‘Excuse me, Mr Hilliard.' It was Briggs, bending deferentially over the armchair. ‘The director says that he'd prefer if you didn't have the pipe.'

‘Oh, does he? May I ask why?'

‘He feels it may distract the audience from the dialogue.'

‘Oh, how
ridiculous
.'

‘No, Ambrose, I think he has a point,' said Cecy, jerking her needles for emphasis and knocking the ball of wool on to the floor. She reached out a hand, waggled it ineffectually in the general direction of the wool, and then looked around for help. ‘Could someone . . .
so
sorry to be a trouble.'

‘Everyone happy?' called Briggs to the floor.

‘Perhaps I should read my dialogue from another room,' said Ambrose, putting the pipe away. ‘I wouldn't want to distract the audience with my presence.'

‘Settle down, everybody. Going for a take on
The Letter
, first set up.
Quiet
please.' Briggs glanced over to the camera, where the clapper boy was standing, board in hand. ‘Rolling?'

‘Rolling.'

‘Speed?'

‘Speed.'

‘Sound?'

‘Yup.'

The clapper snapped shut.

‘And
action
.'

Mrs Brown clicked her needles for a moment or two, and then looked up with a wifely smile.

‘
I had a letter from April today
,' she said. ‘
A nice four-pager
.'

‘
What's she on about this time?
' asked Ambrose. The camera was behind him, shooting part of the back of his head and the whole of Cecy's face. She had angled herself towards the lights, as a sunflower swivels towards the sun.

‘
She says she and Tony have made up ever such a clever code so that he can write to her about what he's doing without anyone being able to guess
.'

‘
Oh yes?
' Of course, one always continued acting even if one's own face wasn't in shot, it was simple professional courtesy, but since Cecy was barely bothering to glance at him between phrases, he allowed his eyes to wander.

‘
They've thought of a word that means “overseas”
,' said Cecy, ‘
and a word that means “leave” and a word that means “France” and another that means “England”
.'

‘
I see
.' The garrulous young Welshwoman was standing in the shadows at the very edge of the set. She was looking down at her script and Ambrose treated her to a speciality glare, the one he liked to think of as ‘twin venomous orbs that poison darts doth send'. He'd developed it during the silent era for long moments of speechless antipathy.

‘
And a word that means “troop train”
,' continued Cecy, ‘
and a word that means “regiment”, and a number that means the date, and a word that means “embarking”
.'

‘
Uh huh
.' Catrin looked up at Ambrose as he uttered the syllables – it might possibly have been the tone in which he spoke them that attracted her attention – and catching his gaze, she flinched visibly and dropped her script. It was only a small noise, a whisper of paper across the cement floor, but a crew member glanced at her, accusingly.

‘Sorry,' said Catrin. There was a horrible, extended silence and then the sound recordist took off his headphones and twenty-five faces looked in her direction.

‘Cut!'

She tried to make herself very small, and then decided that she might look even smaller if she moved towards the exit.

‘Oh dear,' said Ambrose, as he watched the doors close behind her. ‘I do hope we're not going to overrun the morning session. I have an awfully important lunch date.'

Sammy had reserved their usual Monday table beside the window at La Venezia. He had specified one o'clock, but by ten past had still not arrived himself, and Ambrose ordered a second gin and stared out at the street. A sandbag from the pile on the corner had burst, the hessian rotted from a year of rain and dog urine, and one of the waiters was sweeping the grit into the gutter. Mario – or perhaps it was Angelo – applied himself listlessly to his task, stopping frequently to look along the road. A pigeon walked behind him, bobbing and halting and dodging, like a child playing at spies. Ambrose ate an olive and looked at his watch again. A minute had gone by.

It seemed to him that time passed very slowly at the moment. There was a war, of course, but so far all it had really meant was that he could no longer eat the food he preferred, or buy his favourite drinks, or drive his motor car whenever he wanted, or walk about after dark without barking his shins every ten yards, or travel abroad or even, for God's sake, keep a bloody housekeeper. Three in ten months! Mrs Parsons, who had been with him for years, had moved to Plymouth to be with her daughter; Madame Lefevre had started well, but since the invasion of France had developed the habit of breaking into bouts of loud weeping during the dusting and he'd been forced to let her go; and Betty Clive, a plain but strapping girl with a chin like a spade, had lasted eight days before announcing that she was off to join the FANYs in order to meet, drive around, and eventually marry an officer. Now he was scraping along with the help of next door's char and a washerwoman so old that he had to help her up the stairs. There had been times, lately, when he had looked back with something approaching nostalgia on the heel-clicking efficiency with which his ex-wife had run the household. It had been hell at the time, but at least he'd never had to cook his own breakfast or shine his own shoes – at least he'd never found himself sitting on the first-floor lavatory with nothing but the current copy of
The Times
with which to wipe his arse. Sammy, at least, had a sister for all that sort of domestic flim-flammery; he really didn't know how lucky he was.

Sammy, at this moment, rounded the corner opposite the restaurant, spotted Ambrose in the window and gave a little wave with the two remaining fingers on his left hand. His right was toting a large, stained canvas bag, the cloth straining over some ill-defined mass. He negotiated the curb (always difficult for someone of his bulk), gave the broom-carrying waiter a covert and obviously admiring glance, and squeezed himself through the door.

‘I have to be back at two fifteen,' said Ambrose. ‘I've already ordered.'

‘Veal?'

‘Off. Cutlets Milanese and semolina pudding.'

Sammy sighed, and leaned the bag against the table leg. One of the cloth sides drooped down, revealing a bloodied row of teeth and a lidless jelly eye.

‘Sorry,' said Sammy, hitching up the side again. ‘Half a sheep's head for Cerberus. I had to walk all the way to Beak Shtreet for it, but he simply can't live on potato peelings and bread shcraps, whatever this government may say. Sophie says she'll boil it up and make him some brawn, lucky fellow. Is this for me?' He took a sip of his favourite, loathsomely sweet dessert wine, then belched delicately, holding one finger in front of his mouth to stem the noise. ‘I beg your pardon. How's the filming?'

‘Slapdash. Amateurish. You realize that half of these shorts are played during the intermission and the other half when the only people in the cinema are the cleaners. Did you know that I'm co-starring with Cecy Clyde-Cameron?'

‘No, really? Dear Cecy – how is she?'