Read Nanny McPhee Returns Online
Authors: Emma Thompson
Nanny McPhee Returns (4 page)
Yes – the car was two colours! Plum and Cadbury purple! And the chauffeur had a pale grey uniform with a purple stripe down the leg and a peaked cap. The children stared and stared. The Rolls-Royce purred up the lane like a big metal cat, and pulled into the yard. Megsie was the first to realise what had happened.
‘It must be the cousins,’ she breathed.
‘But they’re not due until tomorrow,’ said Norman.
All three of them raced up to meet the magnificent vehicle as it pulled up by the farmhouse. Vincent was so awed that he couldn’t close his mouth. He just stood there like a goldfish, staring. They all expected – well, I’m not sure what they expected – the cousins to jump out, shouting ‘Hello!’ and ‘I’m So-and-so!’ or ‘We’ve brought presents from London!’ or, even more likely, ‘Where’s your loo?’ – all the normal things that people say after a long journey. But there was a deathly silence from the car. Only the chauffeur, his face set like stone, hopped quickly out (straight into the mud) and opened the passenger door, standing smartly by it like a soldier. As the door opened they all heard a strange, high, shrieking noise. Vincent went to look in at the window and the shrieking became a sustained scream, which made him jump back in fright.
Norman and Megsie stared as a boy with yellow hair stepped out gingerly. I say ‘boy’, but he looked far more like a perfect miniature adult. His hair was flaxen (which is another word for yellow) and flopped over his forehead in an ‘I’ve got posh floppy hair’ way. He was wearing a yellow check suit, belted at the waist, and proper leather lace-ups. He was also carrying a copy of
The Times
newspaper and a large bar of chocolate, which he was busy munching.
As soon as he clapped eyes on the chocolate, Vincent gasped.
‘Is that a Fry’s Triple-Layer Chocolate Bar with Cinder Crunch Topping?’ he asked breathlessly. There was nothing Vincent didn’t know about Fry’s chocolate. Before the war he’d got into the habit of saving his pocket money (tuppence a week when times were good, a penny when they weren’t – I know it doesn’t sound like much but these were the days when a penny would buy you four enormous toffee chews that could prevent speech for hours and once pulled out one of my uncle’s molars) and investing in a chocolate bar that he ate immensely slowly, sometimes over a period of several weeks.
Raining. Dark. It’s summer in England all right. We are doing what is known as weather cover. This is when you are supposed to be shooting something in glorious sunlight or even just plain old daylight and there turns out to be neither of those things available and you have to go indoors and shoot something else. It’s a bit like wet playtime. I rehearsed with the jackdaws this morning, which was bliss. They really are very clever. They haven’t seen me for a while and yet remember everything. I think it will be possible to shoot most of the scenes with me and one of them in a Two-Shot (see Glossary) and then Pick Up (see Glossary) what we don’t get afterwards with Singles (see Glossary). Olly, one of our Props Artists (see Glossary), has just walked by carrying four white Foam Piglets (see Glossary – sorry, lots of Glossary, but there we are). Not a sight you see very often. The chickens have proved a little disappointing today. Instead of skittering about as the car arrives, they seem to just stand there as if stapled to the ground. The fact is, of course, that they are indeed pegged to a bit of wood, which is then covered with mud to hide it. Prevents them from escaping, see. Oh dear, this weather. Everyone’s damp and exuding a warm animal smell. It’s like being in a wet stable. Anyway. Back to Cyril and his chocolate bar.
Vincent, eyes out on chapel-hooks, trotted up to Cyril to get a closer look at the confectionery.
‘Since you ask,’ drawled Cyril, draping himself elegantly over the shiny bonnet of the Rolls, ‘it
is
a Fry’s Triple-Layer Chocolate Bar with Cinder Crunch Topping. Would you like some?’
His vocal chords paralysed with desire, Vincent could only nod so hard that his head nearly came off.
‘Thought so,’ said Cyril, airily popping the last square into his mouth and dropping the empty wrapper into Vincent’s upturned palms.
‘Pity there’s none left,’ he added, sauntering round to look at Megsie and Norman, who had been watching the exchange with horror.
‘That was rotten,’ hissed Megsie, and, let’s face it, she was right.
I suppose I’d better explain a little bit about Celia and Cyril before you begin to hate them too much. What you have to bear in mind is that their parents were useless. Lord Gray (the person Prunella had made the beeline for at the Garden Party) was always being Very Important in the War Office and had never once been a normal dad at home. He’d also never recovered from being detested by his wife and had taken refuge in work virtually day and night. He even had a little camp bed in a broom cupboard at the War Office, which he slept in whenever he couldn’t face being ignored in his own home. Prunella we know too well already. Disgusted by her choice of husband, she spent her days making purchase after purchase in London’s most expensive shops. She was so well known to the staff at Harrods that red carpet was laid down for her entrances and exits and champagne served upon her arrival in each department. Only the really top staff were allowed to look at her. Everyone else had to keep their eyes lowered and remain silent unless addressed. Poor woman. She really hadn’t turned out well at all.
As for being a mother – you can imagine what a disaster
that
was.
This was a woman who changed her outfit five times a day, thus:
Breakfast – silken flowing robes, matching turbans and monogrammed slippers.
Elevenses – brocaded jackets and skirts, jaunty little hats with feather trim.
Lunch – exquisitely tailored suits with matching coats, shoes, gloves and handbags.
Afternoon tea – tea gowns in taffeta and tulle, delicately stitched soft shoes in complementary shades and feather fascinators in her hair.
Dinner – long evening dress with train, vast rubies or diamonds or sapphires, high heels encrusted with precious stones, and tiaras or ostrich-feather head-dresses and velvet capes that flowed around her like water.
Stains were simply not an option.
Babyhood, as you may remember, is a pretty stain-heavy phase of life. Poor Celia had the great misfortune to be brought one morning to her mother by the nurse, just for a brief visit. Lady Gray was in a coffee gown and little Celia in a delightful concoction of rosy ruffles and frills. As Lady Gray raised up the gurgling babe, Celia threw up in spectacular fashion, liberally spattering her mother and several nearby attendants. As a result, Lady Gray refused to touch her until she was seven. This probably accounts for Celia’s difficult character. Cyril was sent to boarding school when he was two and a half and only saw his parents fleetingly on school holidays when there was some sort of ‘do’ and both children had to be dressed up in scratchy clothes and wheeled out for inspection by a lot of grand people they didn’t know. Cyril called his father ‘sir’ and, as far as he knew, had never been kissed or hugged by either parent or anyone else, for that matter. So. Have a little sympathy.
Weather-cover scenes triumphant. Asa Butterfield, who plays Norman, and Eros Vlahos, who plays Cyril, acted wonderfully. Asa has been in lots of other things, like
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
and stuff, so he’s used to filming. Eros is a stand-up comic – he writes his own material and performs it in places, like at the Edinburgh Festival. He’s fourteen. I am amazed. They are both extraordinary. All the crew are very impressed. Beryl the cow is back on set with her giant googly eyes and psychological issues. I’m in what we call ‘stage three nose’ (large) but no warts. We’re hoping to get a shot of me in silhouette tonight. After eleven hours in the damp, I feel as though I’m covered with a very fine layer of mould. Horrid. And possibly true. Such a good day though. Home to eat lemon meringue pie for Greg’s (see Glossary) forty-third birthday. I met him when he was twenty-eight. Good grief.
There stood Cyril, watching as the chauffeur, whose name was Blenkinsop, got into an increasingly violent struggle with Celia, who was refusing, absolutely, to get out of the car. She clung to the luxury interior as a drowning person clings to a lifebelt, screeching all the while:
‘No! No, Blenkinsop! Take me home! Take me away from here!! It’s not nice!’
‘Let go of the drinks cabinet, Miss Celia,’ pleaded the hapless Blenkinsop, who might have had a very smart chauffeur’s uniform but was paid very little for driving the Grays around whenever they wanted and wherever they wanted at all times of the day and night.
Finally, of course, Celia did let go, and without any warning, with the result that poor Blenkinsop went careering over his own shoulders into the duck pond. Meanwhile, Norman and Cyril had been exchanging insults and enraging each other to such a degree that the inevitable occurred – Norman rushed at Cyril, who bought himself some time by grabbing Celia’s boxes of new clothes and throwing them at him. The boxes opened and broke, spilling all the exquisitely fashionable items into the mud, which then got ground in by Megsie and Vincent running after Norman and Cyril to join in with the fun. Seeing this, Celia’s screams doubled, startling a flock of pigeons several miles to the west.
‘No! Not my Chanel tea gown and matching slippers!’ she shrieked. ‘Not my Lucien Lelong silk jersey pyjama pants and wrapper!’
She picked up each bedraggled article and gnashed her teeth and yelled, finally running after the others screaming, ‘I’ll kill you for this!’
Blenkinsop, finding himself briefly alone, decided to make his escape. Just as he was lowering his dung-smeared rear on to the pristine leather of the driver’s seat, all the children came roaring around the side of the barn, slapping at each other. Blenkinsop started the engine.
‘NOOOOOOOO!!!’ screeched Celia, so loudly that everyone had to stop and put their fingers in their ears and several people in the nearby village thought it was an air raid and hid under their kitchen tables. Celia ran to the car. Blenkinsop, about to pull away, saw the desperate look in her eyes and stopped.
‘Let me go now, miss,’ he said gently. ‘You know how Her Ladyship will be if I don’t get back in time.’
Celia knew.
‘Promise me you’ll tell her how awful it is here!
Promise
me!! Tell her she has to come back and get me tomorrow!!’
Poor Blenkinsop. He was a kind man and had all sorts of private thoughts about his employers and how they treated their children. But he was a servant and not allowed anything private at all, especially not thoughts. In those days, servants were expected not to have any feelings at all but just to do as they were told and to do it immediately. I expect, because of that, Blenkinsop understood Celia and Cyril rather well.
They
weren’t allowed to express their feelings either. So Blenkinsop gave Celia a sad smile and simply said, ‘I’ll tell her, Miss Celia. I promise.’
And off he drove. The wheels of the Rolls skidded in the mud, thoroughly splattering Celia. As the noise of the engine died away she took in a huge breath. Cyril took evasive action and ran into the house. All the Greens rushed into the barn as Celia let out the biggest yell of all. Even Mrs Green heard it on her headlong rush down the lane to her work.
‘What on earth was that?’ she said to herself before running on, worrying.
