Their Finest Hour and a Half (24 page)

‘Good morning,' said Ambrose.

‘Oh, hello. Er . . .' The man put on his spectacles, adjusting them with stubby fingers, taking several seconds over the task as if it were a complex and skilled procedure.

‘Arthur Frith,' he said, at last, extending a hand.

‘Ambrose Hilliard.'

There was no hint on Arthur's face that he might ever have heard the name before.

‘And in what capacity,' asked Ambrose, ‘are you joining our merry little band?' He placed his mental bet on accountant, and then nudged it towards cashier. Accountants could afford a decent barber.

‘I'm the special military advisor,' said Arthur, re-adjusting his spectacles all over again. ‘I only found out yesterday.'

God help us, thought Ambrose, no wonder we're on the road to defeat, he looks about as bellicose as a currant bun. ‘You're from the War Office?'

‘The War Office?' Arthur looked amazed. ‘No, no, I'm a lance-corporal storeman in the East Surreys.'

It was Ambrose's turn to slacken his jaw. ‘So what exactly are you supposed to be advising us on?'

Arthur cleared his throat, paused and then cleared it again. ‘I'm not altogether sure,' he said. ‘It was one of those “You over there, one pace forward” jobs. Someone said something about a film . . .'

‘That's right.'

‘Is it a training film?'

‘No.'

‘Oh. I thought it might have something to do with the new field paraffin stoves we've been issued with.'

‘No.'

‘Well, perhaps it's a mistake. That sort of thing does seem to happen quite often.'

‘It's a feature film,' said Ambrose. ‘It's the true story of a cockle-boat captain who took his boat to the Dunkirk beaches.'

‘Ah.'

‘And his nieces came, too. Were you at Dunkirk?'

‘Yes. Yes, I was.'

‘Then I expect they want somebody who was actually there to check on the accuracy of the film portrayal.'

‘Really?' He looked disconcerted. ‘Well, it was all a bit of a muddle.'

‘What was?'

‘The evacuation. It was all rather . . . Which bits do they want me to remember?'

‘No, no, you don't have to remember anything.'

‘Don't I?'

‘You simply sit and watch. And if something doesn't look right then you tell someone.'

‘Do I? How long will it all take?'

‘Three weeks here, and then five weeks in a studio in London. With a fortnight's gap in-between.'

‘My goodness . . .' Arthur scratched his left ear with his right hand and then, after a short pause, his right ear with his left. The second gesture knocked his glasses askew, and for the third time he began the fussy process of re-adjustment. ‘It makes a bit of a change, I suppose. I'm not much of a picture-goer myself, more of a hobbies man.'

Stamps, thought Ambrose, sprinting to the bookies. Fretwork. ‘What sort of hobbies?' he asked.

‘Fretwork,' said Arthur Frith. ‘And I have quite a large stamp collection. Or rather I did have. When the night blitz kicked off I put it in the bank for safe-keeping and then Jerry blew the bank up. I had a ten-centime four-colour Mauritian peacock with a bi-wheel watermark.'

There was a note of yearning in his voice. Ambrose nodded and then, stuck for a verbal response, took a stroll over to the window. Clapboard houses, a wedge of greensward, rooks wheeling above a row of elms – the view was almost absurdly idyllic, marred only by an ugly brick-built shelter in the middle of the grass. The miracle was that, with front-line troops of the calibre of Arthur Frith, the German tanks weren't already grinding past the duckpond. Although of course, one always thought that the enemy soldiers must surely be tougher, crueller, altogether more
military
than the jug-eared schoolboys on one's own side; somewhere across the North Sea, blinking nervously at the icy water, there would be other Arthur Friths, battalions of them. Ambrose had a sudden memory of a German dugout, unoccupied, abandoned in a hurry – a jar of warm coffee still on an upturned box and a rat scuttling away with the remains of a black loaf – and trodden into the mud, a bird-identification book, the section on finches marked with careful pencil notes.

‘So what is it that you do?' asked Arthur Frith. ‘Are you the fellow who works the camera?'

‘No.'

‘You're not in catering, are you? Because in civvy street that's my own line of . . .'

‘
Actor
,' said Ambrose, crisply. ‘I'm an actor.'

‘Oh.' Arthur looked completely nonplussed. ‘But I would have thought an actor . . . I mean to say . . .'

Ambrose waited, fatalistically. He had obviously missed the exact moment when open season had been declared on his career, but it was clear that anyone, these days, felt free to take pot shots. An ex-wife, an unqualified agent, a man who counted giant tins of sausages for a living – all were happy to load the ammunition and let fly.

‘. . . I would have thought,' said Arthur, hesitantly, ‘that you'd be staying somewhere a bit more . . . important. Not sharing a room with someone like me.'

The louring clouds of Ambrose's current existence parted momentarily. ‘I think you'll find that we're all mucking in together on this production,' he said, warmly. ‘Just as we're all mucking in together to defend our country.' Not a bad line, he thought; one to remember for the publicity feature.

There was a knock at the door. ‘Ten to seven, Mr 'illiard, Mr Frith,' said someone in a soft, hoarse voice that seemed somehow familiar. ‘Breakfast is downstairs and then Mr 'illiard to make-up by seven thirty.'

‘Ooh, breakfast,' said Arthur Frith, visibly cheered. ‘Nothing like a good breakfast. Fresh eggs, perhaps, since we're in the country.' He took off his spectacles for the fourth time in as many minutes, and began to polish them on his pyjama jacket – left lens, right lens, right lens, left lens. ‘Three weeks by the seaside,' he said, reflectively. ‘It's almost like being given a little holiday, isn't it? I can't think why on earth they picked me.'

The louring clouds stayed parted for most of breakfast. There were no eggs, but the porridge was hot and the bacon crisp, and it was pleasant to share a table with someone so engagingly ignorant of the whole business of film-making. One could teach so much that was of value.

‘That tall man at the corner table,' he said to Arthur, very quietly, ‘is called Alex Frayle and he's the director.'

‘And he calls “action”, does he?'

‘No, more usually that's the job of the first assistant director.'

‘So what does the director do?'

‘That all depends. A truly great director has a vision of precisely how the film should turn out, and by nurturing the skills and experience of his cast, will endeavour to convert that vision into a reality.
That
man, on the other hand, is a jumped-up little camera assistant who's apparently been given this job on the strength of three years spent making films about fishwives and coal heavers with Grierson's lot.'

Arthur looked mystified. ‘With . . . ?'

‘Documentaries,' said Ambrose, expelling the word like a foul-tasting lozenge. ‘Never happy unless the screen's filled with slag heaps. The man next to him is the first assistant director. He ensures that the daily schedule is adhered to.'

‘Do you know him, too?'

‘No, but first assistants tend to divide into Hitlers and toadies, and he strikes me as a toady.' It was the deferential way in which the man was listening to his director, like a coolie awaiting orders. ‘The fellow next to him is the writer, I spoke to him in the bar last night, he's a northerner, not quite as much of a fool as he looks, and I'll concede that his script isn't entirely without merit. And this—' he added, as a stringy red-head approached the table, ‘is our continuity girl. We've worked together before, haven't we my dear?' She was apparently impervious to charm, for she merely nodded and slapped a sheaf of paper in front of him.

‘Today's scenes,' she said.

‘I received those last night.'

‘All changed, I'm afraid. Someone misread the tide chart and we'd prefer not to drown half the cast on the first day. You're up second, incidentally – just the one set-up.'

She turned to leave and realized that Arthur was standing, his hand outstretched.

‘Arthur Frith,' he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.'

‘Phyl. Likewise.' She shook his hand briskly and whisked away again.

‘I think you'll find that a film set's more informal than most workplaces,' said Ambrose to Arthur. ‘First names and so forth—'

‘Mr 'illiard?'

And now Ambrose knew why he'd recognized the voice behind the door; it was the third assistant director from the Home Security shorts, the one with the ridiculous name, the one built like a bollard.

‘They want yer in make-up, Mr 'illiard.'

‘I shall be five minutes,' said Ambrose. ‘I have
just
received a completely new shooting script, and I'd be grateful for the chance to cast an eye over it.' He smiled wryly at Arthur – it was good that a neophyte should glimpse the daily difficulties and demands that an actor encountered; so many people seemed to think it an easy job – and then noticed that Chick was still standing by the table.

‘Five minutes,' said Ambrose, with a smile of dismissal. Chick took half a step backward, his face impassive.

‘You begin to see the essence of filming,' said Ambrose, sotto voce to Arthur. ‘Never Enough Time. Now, let's see what we have here . . .' He turned to his scene. It was short.

‘Many new lines to learn?' asked Arthur.

Ambrose looked at him sharply but there was no sarcasm in the man's tone, merely innocent enquiry. ‘No,' he said. ‘You'll find that most of the dialogue scenes will be recorded in studio. It's far too expensive to—'

He stopped abruptly; he could hear something – he could hear that damned noise again, that tiny, distant clock, that slowly-approaching tick-tock, tickety-tackety, up-the-dark-corridor, toenails-on-parquet, and for one wild and chilling moment he thought it must be Sammy's dog, Sammy's dog still searching for his master. He twisted round in his chair towards the source of the noise. Through the dining-room door came Sammy's dog.

‘Cerberus,' said Ambrose, his voice guttural.

‘Chopper,' said Chick, and clicked his fingers. The dog dropped to its belly as if shot.

‘Are you feeling all right?' asked Arthur, peering at Ambrose. ‘You're looking quite pale.'

‘I thought I recognized the dog,' he said. ‘I know a bull-terrier who's the spit of that one.' Though, now that he thought about it – now that his heart had started to beat again – he remembered that Sammy's dog had a white patch on its nose; this one was uniformly brindled. It lay at its master's feet, ears flattened servilely.

‘He's very well-trained,' said Arthur.

‘Die,' said Chick, pointing downward. The dog rolled on to his side, and lay with its eyes closed. Chick shifted his heavy gaze towards Ambrose.

‘Shall we go?' said Ambrose. ‘I think I can hear the greasepaint a-calling.'

*

Everyone had been awfully friendly to Arthur. He'd been given a cup of tea and a canvas stool to sit on, the camera chap had demonstrated his light meter, rather in the manner of a schoolboy showing off his birthday penknife, the two young lady actresses had shaken his hand, the director had looked briefly in his general direction, and a talkative man with a pair of scissors had offered him a haircut. ‘On the house,' the man had said. ‘Honestly, I'd be grateful for the activity, I'm kicking my heels here, the director wants everyone looking wind-blown and natural, and besides, they're all wearing woolly hats.'

‘Perhaps later,' Arthur had said. He was supposed to be at work, after all.

He had found a nice level spot on the sand-bar for his stool, and after dusting the seat, and removing a few scraps of driftwood and weed that were cluttering up the immediate area, and sweeping away a cluster of worm-casts with a rolled-up newspaper and giving his glasses a quick polish, he was ready for action. Or ‘action', rather, as these film-people would have it.

Nothing happened for a good hour. The tide began to creep in. Chopper the bull-terrier passed by, busily sniffing, and one of the young lady actresses stepped on a jelly-fish and screamed a great deal. Arthur found a bigger piece of driftwood and occupied himself by drawing a perfect square in the sand around his stool while remaining seated; it was more difficult than one might think. Round about ten o'clock, a light wind began to pluck at the water and the young lady actresses were helped into a rowing-boat and taken across to a thirty-foot white-painted tub anchored a few yards off-shore. Both actresses were wearing trousers, which was just as well since they had to climb a fixed ladder and swing themselves over the gunwales. The director shouted something through cupped hands, and one of the young ladies positioned herself in the bows, a hand shading her eyes, while the other took the tiller. The director gave a ‘thumbs up' sign and strolled away to speak to the cameraman. A few minutes later, a boy holding a bucket and brush waded out to the boat and started to daub the side with what looked like muddy water. The tide crept in still further. Arthur erased the perfect square and replaced it with an equilateral triangle.