The Perfect Hero (14 page)

‘Lack of thought,’ Gemma said quietly.

‘Pardon?’

‘Nothing.’

Beth sighed. ‘Louisa is the forgotten heroine of English literature,’ she went on. ‘I’m really very surprised that she hasn’t got more lines. I must have a word with that screen-writer person. What’s his name?’

‘Adam.’

‘Right. I think he’ll see sense when I explain things to him. I was thinking that there should be a scene between Louisa and Wentworth when she’s recovering in bed. It could be very romantic. I think it would work really well.’

Gemma hadn’t bothered to reply. Whatever she said would have been ignored unless it fanned Beth’s own opinion, but how ridiculous she was to think that she could rewrite Jane Austen to suit her own selfish needs.

Beth clearly wasn’t going to let the subject drop, though. At the breakfast table, Gemma had watched as Beth had whispered in Teresa’s ear and couldn’t stop a tiny smile from playing around her lips at Teresa’s expression.

‘What?’ the director said, almost choking on her coffee.

‘Don’t you think that would make more sense?’ Beth said, fluttering her eyelashes.

‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,’ Teresa said, scraping her chair back and standing up. ‘If you’re not happy with the role as it is—’ Teresa continued threateningly.

‘Oh, I’m happy,’ Beth said, knowing when she was defeated.

‘Good,’ Teresa said. ‘Then I’ll see everyone at the Cobb in twenty minutes.’

Once she’d left the room, Beth tutted. ‘You have to wonder with some directors,’ she said. ‘They really have no insight at all.’

Chapter Seventeen

It was time, Gemma thought – time for, perhaps, the most famous scene in
Persuasion
: the scene where Louisa Musgrove insists on jumping from the Cobb steps into the arms of Captain Wentworth but instead flings herself from its heights before he is ready and lands on the hard ground beneath. Everyone knew it was a key scene to get right and that the fans would be watching very carefully. All the main actors were there and Beth Jenkins knew that the scene was all about her and was prancing around like a prima donna.

‘This dress is too tight!’ she complained. ‘How am I meant to launch myself into Oli’s arms when I can barely breathe?’

The costume girl rushed forward and disappeared behind Beth.

‘And my hair?’

‘What’s wrong with your hair?’ the girl dared to ask.

‘I don’t know – it feels uncomfortable. Fix it.’

The girl, who’d finished fiddling with Beth’s dress, now examined the wig Beth was wearing. ‘It’s just the same as it’s always been,’ she said.

‘Well, then it’s always been on wrong. Do something!’ Beth all but screamed. ‘I can’t have wrong hair, can I?’

Gemma caught Oli’s eye and he winked at her before rolling his eyes at Beth’s performance. Gemma smiled back. If only she had the courage to go up and speak to him, but what would she say? He didn’t want to talk to her. No matter how tender and intimate the scenes they would share together as Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, they were unlikely to make the same connection in real life.

If only it was as easy with Oli as it was with Adam, Gemma couldn’t help thinking. Why did things never work out like that? Why did one always fall for the one who wouldn’t even notice if you stopped breathing?

Deciding to make the most of her surroundings, Gemma walked a little along the Cobb as everybody fussed around Beth. Lyme Regis really was a very pretty town and it was easy to see why it had been attracting tourists since Jane Austen’s time. Its harbour was full of colourful boats, its rows of bay-fronted cottages and candy-coloured beach huts looked jolly and welcoming even in the most unpromising of weather and she loved the wooded cliff which rose up behind the town, wishing she could pack a rucksack and lose herself in the famous Undercliff.

It was one of the curses of filming that one never had much time to see anything – not if you were in most of the scenes as Gemma was. There was usually a lot of hanging around but never quite enough time to go off and see something interesting. That’s why Gemma always had her knitting nearby – she hated wasting time and her knitting projects filled it beautifully.

Gemma stopped walking and looked out at a stretch of grey-blue sea towards the hills that lined the coast. Somebody had told her the name of the big one – Golden Cap – and it was pyramid-like in shape. The rest of the cliffs undulated along the coast like sleeping dinosaurs, making Gemma remember that it was known as the Jurassic Coast. She’d love to walk along them with the sea-tossed wind in her hair and no thoughts about scripts and lines, but she wasn’t being paid to take off into the hills, was she? And what would her mother say if she knew how often her daughter thought about running away? She was lucky to get this role – she’d worked damned hard to get it so why wasn’t she happy now she was here? Why did she keep thinking about abandoning it all? So many of her friends from drama school would kill to get this role and yet it only seemed to fill her with dread.

‘I’m in the wrong job,’ she said to herself. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought that but it only seemed to be dawning on her now. Here she was, the lead character in an adaptation of a book she adored, starring opposite a man she’d had a crush on for years and she still wasn’t happy.

She leaned up against the cold Cobb wall and gazed out to sea. Her whole life had been invested in acting. Right from the age of three when her mother had taken her to that audition for the soap commercial. She hadn’t got it; she’d cried through the whole audition process. Maybe she should have taken that as an omen but her mother hadn’t given up. There’d been a whole string of auditions after that and Gemma had – at the age of six – been chosen as the face of Sparks Knighton – a very upmarket version of Mothercare. She’d been photographed in denim, gingham, cords and florals and her image had been blown up larger than life and placed in stores, magazines and on the sides of buses. Her mother had been so proud but Gemma had been mortified. People were pointing at her and she didn’t like being pointed at. So what on earth had propelled her towards acting? Well, her mother had encouraged her, of course, and she must have inherited some of her mother’s acting genes because she’d been accepted into drama school without any fuss at all and had done well too. But there’d always been that niggling feeling that it wasn’t quite right for her. She knew that stage fright and first-night nerves were the norm – they were what drove a performance and gave an actor that edge but Gemma had felt it all the time, even in the tiniest of groups when she had nothing more to do than walk through a scene and say a couple of lines.

She’d asked her mother about it once and she’d shaken her head. ‘You’ve just got to get on with it,’ she’d said. ‘What else are you going to do?’

And that was the crux of it really. What else was there for Gemma to do? Acting was the only thing she’d ever known and it seemed too late to change things now.

She started walking back before Teresa sent a search party out for her and, as she neared the cast and crew again, she heard Beth’s voice ringing out across the harbour.

‘It’s still itching me!’ she cried. ‘Honestly, what do you make these wigs out of – steel wool?’

Gemma rolled her eyes.

‘She’s a case is that one,’ a male voice suddenly said.

Gemma turned round to come face to face with a man with smiling eyes and thick dark hair. It was the same man who’d been eyeing up her bosom the other day.

‘That Beth,’ he said, nodding towards her.

‘Oh, yes,’ Gemma said.

‘There’s always one,’ he said. ‘In my experience.’

‘One what?’

‘Case,’ he said. ‘On every film set, you can guarantee you’ll always get one headcase.’

Gemma grinned and then wondered if she should. Surely there should be some sort of solidarity between actresses but she didn’t feel any kinship with Beth and couldn’t help agreeing with the man.

‘I think she just likes all the attention,’ Gemma said. ‘Like most actresses?’ the man said. It was a question but his eyes glittered as if it might be a naughty statement.

‘We’re not all the same, you know,’ Gemma said.

‘I hope not,’ he said. ‘You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?’

Gemma’s eyes narrowed, not sure how to respond to such a question.

‘I mean, I’ve seen a lot of quiet actors too. They’re perfect to work with. They come on set, do their bit – no fuss, no grief.’

‘I hope I’m not the sort to cause grief,’ Gemma said sincerely.

The man shook his head. ‘Absolutely not! Just the opposite, I’d say.’

She smiled at him and then wondered who on earth he was.

‘Oh,’ he said, as if realising himself, ‘I’m Rob.’

‘Gemma,’ she said.

‘I know,’ he said and gave a little smile. ‘We keep missing each other, don’t we?’

‘Do we?’

He nodded. ‘Our timing never seems quite right,’ he said. ‘I’ve been trying to speak to you.’

‘You have?’ she said, remembering the times their eyes had met across the bar and their brief encounter by the Cobb wall the other day.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Did you know this is our second film together?’

‘Really? You were on
Into the Night
?’

‘Yep.’

‘I didn’t know, I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘I tend to blend into the background.’

‘What is it you do?’

‘I help take care of the lights. You could say that – wherever I go – I just light the place up.’

Gemma smiled and, as his eyes crinkled in merriment, she couldn’t help thinking that that was exactly what he did.

As Adam parked his car, he couldn’t help thinking of what Nana Craig had told him before he’d left. He’d got up early to get her shopping before heading into Lyme for the filming, dropping it off at her cottage. Like most retired people, Nana Craig was up at first light even though she had nothing to get up for. She was out tending her garden when Adam arrived, bending over her pots and plants in a manner that alarmed Adam.

‘Should you really be doing that, Nana?’ Adam asked as he walked up the little path.

‘I don’t like the look of those black spots,’ Nana Craig said. ‘Look!’

Adam bent to look. ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know but it looks like trouble to me. I’ll have to pull them up.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ he said. ‘Leave them for me. I’ve told you before to leave the gardening to me.’

Nana Craig tutted in annoyance. ‘If you stop me gardening, you might as well shoot me where I stand.’

‘Come on and get this shopping inside before the ice cream melts down my leg,’ Adam said, not really wanting to get into the whole gardening argument so early in the morning.

‘Raspberry ripple?’ she asked as they walked into the kitchen.

‘No. Er, mint and chocolate.’

His nan pulled a face.

‘Of course raspberry ripple!’

Her smile returned. ‘Time for some now?’

‘It’s not even nine o’clock!’

‘Oh, yes,’ Nana Craig said.

‘Anyway, I’ve got to get to Lyme for today’s shoot – they’re trying for the Cobb scene. Do you want to come along?’

Nana Craig shook her head. ‘Not for me, dear. Lyme’s always so busy these days. Besides, I wouldn’t want to get in the way.’

‘You won’t get in the way,’ Adam said.

‘But you’ll be with that nice girl.’

Adam frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

Nana Craig flapped her hands. ‘You know – that nice girl who was here.’

‘Kay? Well, she might be on the set.’

‘So you should be talking to her not looking after your old nan.’

Adam shook his head. ‘She’s not got eyes for me, I’m afraid. If she’s on the set, there’s only one person she’ll be interested in.’

‘Then it’s your job to make her interested in you, isn’t it?’ Nana Craig said.

Adam helped put the shopping away, packing the raspberry ripple ice cream into the tiny freezer and placing all the jars in the cupboards, loosening all the lids first so his nana wouldn’t struggle with them when he wasn’t around.

‘And how am I going to do that?’ Adam asked, leaping back as a bright red wave of beetroot juice flooded over a jar lid.

Nana Craig shoved her hands in the pockets of her primrose and violet cardigan. ‘Do you like her?’

‘Of course I like her.’

‘How much?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘How much do you like her?’

‘A lot!’ Adam said. ‘I like her a lot.’

‘Well, then. You’ll find a way. Men usually do, although you sometimes take your time about things, I have to say. Only don’t take so long about it that somebody gets there before you do.’

Adam’s eyes widened in surprise at her words. ‘I’m just saying,’ Nana Craig said.

As he parked his car in Lyme, he thought of his nan’s words of warning. She was right – he knew she was right – but what could he do when he knew that Kay was besotted with Oli? Not only that but Kay had it in her mind that he fancied Gemma. Honestly, you couldn’t invent such a muddle, could you?

Walking towards the Cobb, he saw the crowd of cast and crew and there was a gathering of onlookers too. Word soon got around when Oli Wade Owen was in town, Adam thought as he pushed his way through a group of girls who were all squealing, holding their mobiles up in the air to take photos.

And then he saw her. She was standing up against the Cobb, her long hair streaming behind her in the wind, a big smile on her face as she watched the actors coming and going.

‘Don’t take so long about it that somebody gets there before you do.’

The words of Nana Craig echoed in his head and, taking a deep breath, he walked up to Kay.

‘Hello,’ he said.

She turned round to face him. ‘Hi!’ Her eyes darted away from him in an instant and Adam didn’t need to follow her gaze to know who she was looking at.

‘Gosh, this is so exciting!’ she said, her eyes bright. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. I mean, this is one of my favourite scenes.’

Adam looked at her. She was shivering. ‘You’re cold,’ he said, noticing that she was wearing a thin dress with very insubstantial sleeves.