Nocturne (33 page)

‘
They liked it?
’

‘
Bigtime, they liked it.
’

‘
So what happened?
’

‘
We
’
re in an auction situation, one
against the other.
’
He grinned
a
t
me
.
‘
Whatever happens, we
’
re definitely looking at a co-production.
’

‘
I
thought we already had a co-production?
’

‘
I
mean three ways.
’

He
’
d done a little research. Australia, it turned out, had a modest
special forces outfit. They tended to avoid the limelight but lately
there
’
d been threats of budget cutbacks.

‘
Meaning?
’

‘
They want publicity. Of the right kind, of course.
’

He
’
d talked to some people in the Ministry of Defence in Canberra.
The notion of hoisting dead-end kids onto prime-time TV had caught
their imagination. A deal was more than possible. How did I feel about
producing
Home
Run
down under?
’

I said it sounded lovely. I was trying to coax him back to bed.
Without the sheet, the breeze through the French windows felt cool
against my body. Brendan was trying to decide between a denim outfit
and a beautiful shirt in a cotton print I
’
d bought him a couple of weeks
back. I rolled over, stretching out a hand for him. He sat on the side of
the bed for a moment, rubbing his face, preoccupied.

‘
One thing I forgot to mention,
’
he said,
‘
but I
’
m sure it won
’
t be a
problem.
’

‘
What
’
s that?
’

‘
We
’
ll have to bring the production schedule forward, a couple of
weeks at least. Otherwise the shoot times don
’
t work out.
’

I gazed up at him. What had I
done to
deserve such a perfect
morning?
First Brendan, back in one piece. Then this abrupt change of
birthplan for
Home
Run
.
Bringing the location forward to - say -
September would be the answer to my prayers. Not only would we be
shooting in sensible weather but I
’
d have ample post-production time
to get the thing into some kind of shape before the real baby arrived.

‘
What do you think? Can do?
’
Brendan was looking anxious.
Obviously he
’
d made promises only I could
fulfil
.

I lay back, taking his hand again and guiding it downwards. En
route, as warm as ever, it strayed across my belly. Was now the time?
Should I tell him our news? Break it gently? Make his day?

I reached up, cupping his face in my hands.

‘
I
love you,
’
I told him.
‘
And everything
’
ll be just fine.
’

Advancing the shoot,
though
, gave Gary and me a pretty savage
deadline. It was already June. By September, we needed to have the
kids sorted, a month
’
s worth of training in the can, and all the
production assets in place for the Brecon Beacons shoot. So far we
’
d
drawn a blank on the kids and the Brecon Beacons, as far as I was
concerned, was no more than a name on the map. And that, of course,
was only the UK end of the shoot. What about the US operation? The
fabled Green Berets? Fort Bragg? All that?

I
’
d been in touch, off and on, with Everett, and with the PBS
station in Washington DC that Brendan had roped in as
co-producers. To date they
’
d been making good progress - better,
certainly, than us - and when I phoned again Everett had some good
news.

‘
Found the kids,
’
he told me,
‘
and you won
’
t believe how good
they are.
’

He
’
d started by looking in Washington, assuming that a
Home
Run
team from the capital city would give the show the right profile.
If anything, though, Washington had been too far gone. Most of the
problem kids were up to their eyes in hard drugs and he
’
d had to
widen the trawl first to Baltimore, and then south to Richmond, and
finally out to the coast. Norfolk, Virginia, he said, was perfect. There
was a big naval base, a sprawl of inner city projects, and a suburb
called Portsmouth where he
’
d found exactly what the show needed.

‘
Like?
’

‘
Like the right kind of kids. Bright. Sassy. On-line.
’

‘
Poor?
’

‘
Poor?
’
He echoed the word.
‘
You want to talk poor? Serious
poor?
’

He ran through the statistics, the bare minima on which these
families had to survive. By themselves, the figures meant very little
(I
hadn
’
t a clue how many groceries
$93
worth of food stamps would
buy fo
r a week)
but I could tell by his voice that he was excited and
that was enough for me. What I
’
d seen of Everett in New York I
’
d
liked a great deal. I could trust this man. He had integrity, and the
way he was talking about the kids proved it. Big Duane. Skinny
Calvin. And a little dynamo known as The Mouth who, he
’
d bet
serious money, would nail the Brits to the wall.

I was scribbling notes to myself while he talked. Mention of
Portsmouth had triggered one or two thoughts of my own. Maybe
Everett was showing us the way. Maybe we were heading up a blind
alley by restricting ourselves to London. Why not look elsewhere?
Why not, for that matter, try our own Portsmouth?

The call to Everett over, I phoned Gary. He was on the payroll
now, waiting at home in Ross-on-Wye until I came up with a
masterplan.

‘
What about Portsmouth?
’
I suggested.
‘
Why don
’
t we look there?
’

I explained about Everett. He
’
d already settled on Portsmouth,
Virginia. Twinning the two cities would be clever. I knew our own
Portsmouth from my Petersfield days and I was certain it had exactly
the right profile.

‘
It
’
s big,
’
I told Gary.
‘
And it
’
s poor. And it
’
s full of high-rise council
estates. It
’
s bloody rough, too. How about it?
’

Gary and I met next morning at Portsmouth and Southsea station. The
heat wave was over and a thin drizzle cloaked the
surrounding
tower
blocks. They looked grim and forbidding, gaunt echoes of my
undergraduate video, and the group of crop-haired truants loitering
by the taxi rank broadened my grin. The place was perfect. I knew it
already.

I
’
d arranged to meet a women from Social Services. Later, we
’
d be
talking to the city council PR people. Before we got on the train for
London I wanted Pompey - as the locals call it - in the bag.

Our Social Services contact turned out to be a rangy Essex
University graduate called S
arah. She was very bright and - I
sensed -
very ambitious. She had lots of front-line experience with problem
kids and I think my pitch on the phone must have fired her up because
she took us at once to an area near the naval dockyard. Portsea, she
told us, had always been a slum, home for the poorest families and the
toughest kids. Lately, the local authority had been spending a fortune
tarting up the acres of council housing and even in the rain the place
looked half-decent, but there wasn
’
t a budget big enough to wipe the
poverty off the faces of the kids we met.

They looked, in a word, excluded. They seemed to come from
another planet, another age. Their trainers were old. The bottoms of
their jeans were frayed. They looked shabby, and neglected, and - best
of all - deeply pissed off. Sarah had bribed half a dozen of them into
joining us for lunch at a community centre. They sat around the table,
silent at first but increasingly vocal once we
’
d established what we
were about. It was Gary, naturally, who set the pace. He told them a
bit about his days in the SAS, and described one or two of the
operations he
’
d been on, operating behind enemy lines in the
Falklands, stalking suspected terrorists in Belfast, and finally gearing
up for a
high-altitude
parachute
drop
behind Iraqi lines
after th
e
invasion of Kuwait. It was the latter adventure that really broke the
ice. One of the kids had been reading
Bravo
Two
Zero
,
the Andy
McNab book, and the realisation that Gary came from the same
mould was quite enough for him.

‘
Fucking well hard,
’
he told his mates, with an approving nod.

That single comment seemed to do the trick. The rest of the lunch
hour they spent trying to find ways they could use Gary to sort out
the hated Scummers, rival football fans from Southampton, the next
city west along the coast. When I pointed out that the
Home
Run
opposition would be coming from across the Atlantic they took no
notice, and by two o
’
clock the Scummers fate was sealed. Gary
would sort
them some Semtex. And then they
’
d blow the bastards
away.

Gary and I were still laughing when we turned up at the council
offices to meet the PR people. Sarah was still with us and she briefed
them on progress to date. Portsea seemed to have taken our fancy.
She thought there
’
d be no shortage of volunteers. The training period
would take place during the summer holidays and she didn
’
t foresee
any problems with parental consents. Most of the kids, in any case,
would be over sixteen and if there were any younger than that then
she suspected that their mothers would be only too pleased to get
them off their hands. The PR people, both ex-journalists, obviously
thought it was Christmas. An hour
’
s prime-time TV exposure had
fallen into the city
’
s lap and we set off on another tour, this time with
a view to showing us the nicer bits.

As I
’
ve said, I already knew Portsmouth but I wasn
’
t prepared for
the way the city had changed since I
’
d last had a proper look round.
Over the last couple of years, thanks to a string of commemorative
occasions, Pompey had put itself well and truly on the map. The
world
’
s media had descended for the fortieth anniversary of D-Day,
and weeks later the city had hosted a stage of the Tour de France. A
brand new university had supplanted the old Poly and the naval
dockyard now boasted the finest collection of historical ships in the
world. Everywhere we looked, there were fabulous pictures to
brighten the documentary bits of
Home
Run
and what was especially
pleasing were the historical links with the States. Emigrants had
sailed from Portsmouth, back in the n
ineteenth century, and elements
of the US fleet - Virginia-based - still made regular visits.