Their Finest Hour and a Half (5 page)

Where on earth, he wondered, were the studios finding the current workforce? Call-up had skimmed off the cream, and the industry was clearly awash with rancid curds. Of course, the third assistant director (the title was laughable, really, since the job was actually that of a messenger boy), came in many different guises, ranging from effete movie-mad youngest sons of the gentry to whom one had to remain courteous in case their next incarnation turned out to be that of director, all the way down to wizened ex-music-hall acts desperate for a crust, but it was usual for them to resemble human beings rather than items of street furniture. It was usual for them to have
names
. ‘Chick' was the type of soubriquet Ambrose associated with electricians who, when not holding cast and crew to ransom with their private version of the Soviet manifesto, addressed each other by a host of oafish nicknames: ‘Moose', ‘Spud', ‘Dixie'.

The commissionaire at the studio nodded him through, and Ambrose stopped just inside the double doors in order to light another cigarette. It was obvious from the amount of activity on the floor that the crew was nowhere near ready: the camera was in pieces, yet again, the electricians were still playing poker, and his fellow-professional, Cecy, was sitting on an upturned packing case at the back of the flat, drinking tea from a tiny spoon in an effort not to smudge her lipstick.

‘Fun, isn't it?' she said, catching sight of Ambrose. ‘Marvellous to be back in front of the camera. I've missed it dreadfully, I simply can't pretend I haven't, and when I hear that whistle blow – well, my
heart
!' She mimed a little flutter above her breastbone, and then returned to her tea-spooning, enabling Ambrose to release his facial muscles from the polite smile into which they'd braced themselves. Cecy Clyde-Cameron. He'd almost turned round and left when he'd seen her sitting in make-up this morning, those great teeth clattering away as she recounted the lean theatrical years since her last celluloid appearance. She'd let out a great shriek of recognition at the sight of him, however, and he'd been forced to exchange kisses and pleasantries, and to sit beside her as she reminisced about their last professional encounter. How dreadfully she'd aged! She'd always looked like a horse, but in fifteen years she'd slid from racing stable to brewer's dray, everything wider, heavier,
lower
than before. Extraordinary to think that they'd exchanged a twelve-second screen kiss in
The Door to Her Heart
in 1925, and that he had actually suggested a second take because he'd enjoyed it so much. Extraordinary – hideous – to think that she'd now been cast as his wife. No kisses in the current script, thank Christ, just fatuous dialogue. He finished his cigarette and cleared his throat; his vocal chords felt coated with Turkish filth, and he spat discreetly into a handkerchief and strolled on to the floor just as Briggs, the first assistant director, was opening his mouth to call for the actors.

‘Scenario Two,
The Letter
, Mr Hilliard, Mrs Clyde-Cameron,' said Briggs, who wore a coloured tie in lieu of a personality. ‘Would you care to run through the lines before we light?'

‘No,' said Ambrose, just as Cecy said, ‘Oh
yes
, dear,' and he found himself sitting beside her in The Browns' Living-Room, a two-wall set papered with cabbage roses and furnished with what looked like the sweepings of a junk shop.

Cecy pressed her features into a simper and began to act.

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

‘
What's she on about this time?
' asked Ambrose.

‘
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?
'

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

‘
I see
.'

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

‘
Uh huh
.'

‘
It's ever so clever
.' Cecy sat back and began some imaginary knitting.

‘
And does she have a word for “careless talk”?
' asked Ambrose, ‘
and another for
– there's a dog on set, could somebody get rid of it, please –
another for “putting soldiers' lives in mortal danger”
?'

There was a long pause. ‘You've thrown me there, darling, talking about dogs,' said Cecy, putting down her invisible knitting needles. ‘I've lost my line.'

‘It's
“Oooh, I don't know”
, said Briggs. ‘And then Mr Hilliard says—'

‘When I wish for a prompt I will ask for one,' said Ambrose. ‘My final words are,
“Well, she'd better get thinking, then, hadn't she?”
That dog is still there.'

It was sitting quietly beside the boom, one paw resting on a cable.

‘Sorry, Mr Hilliard,' said Briggs. ‘That's our third AD's dog. It goes everywhere with him and it's never any trouble. Bit of a mascot, actually.'

‘Look at this, Mr Hilliard,' called the sound recordist. ‘Shake hands, Chopper.' The dog politely offered a paw.

‘Oh, that's
killing
,' said Cecy. ‘But, of course, the scene doesn't quite end with Mr Brown's line, does it? According to the script it ends with me putting a hand over my mouth in horror as I gradually and heartbreakingly realize the terrible consequences of gossip. Now, would it be possible for me to have a piece of knitting? My hands were aching for something to do during the end of the scene and it seems so right for the character. And the letter, of course – I feel I should have an actual letter in shot even if I'm not reading from it – oh, and is this standard lamp a practical, because I feel that if I was knitting I'd need a light on. Is it a practical, darling?'

There was a hiatus while Briggs went off to consult with the Bolsheviks about the lighting and Ambrose lit a cigarette and rested his head against the faded antimacassar. He had to give Cecy credit: thirteen years off-camera and her shot-grabbing tactics were as keen as ever. He could think of nothing that would enhance his own role apart from a greater number of lines; it had been the same with the first script of the day – Mrs Brown talking incessantly, Mr Brown nodding dumbly. He hadn't even been given his own close-up. ‘No time,' Briggs had said, though they'd somehow had time for a vast and no doubt unflattering one of Cecy. And the quality of the lines! ‘
Oh yes
.' ‘
I see
.' ‘
Uh huh
'. There was no characterization in ‘
Uh huh
', no substance, no clay with which Ambrose could fashion a human figure. It wasn't even an English word; with ‘
Uh huh
' as a line he might as well have been dining on seal blubber in a remake of
Nanook of the North
.

He made a decision. ‘Pippin,' he said, rising from the armchair. ‘Might I have a word?'

The director looked instantly nervous. He was a little, pink-cheeked pansyish fellow who, like so many others in this terrible era, had clearly been promoted far beyond his ability and experience, and who had spent the entire morning so far crouched on a tiny stool beneath the camera, his voice a powerless bleat, his comments otiose.

‘I wonder,' said Ambrose, ‘if I might adjust a line or two. There's no question, obviously, of diluting the message – I fully realize the national importance of what we're shooting – but I simply feel that Mr Brown might react a little more strongly to the idea of a letter from this April character. Might I just see—'

Gracelessly, the continuity girl slapped a script into his hand; she was long past the age of flirtation – one of the unmarried, angular types who ended up living in one room in a boarding house, solaced only by neat gin. ‘Thank you,' he said, with a freezing smile. ‘Now, if you look here . . .' he ran a finger down the page, ‘this line, my character's second line, which at the moment is “
I see
” – instead of this line I could say: “
That'll be the first time April's ever done anything clever in her life.
” It would add a humorous element early on in the script, and then further down, instead of “
Uh huh
”, I could perhaps say . . .' He was becoming aware of a figure hovering behind the director, a pretty young girl in a spotted blouse – nice clear skin, blue eyes, wavy brown hair, an air of gauche eagerness. With an effort, he switched his attention back to the script. ‘. . . instead of “
Uh huh
”, I could perhaps say “
Embarking mad, more like
”. As a pun on Mrs Brown's preceding line. D'you see? She says,“ . . .
and a word that means ‘embarking
”', and then I say, “
Embarking mad, more like
” . . .' He savoured the neat inventiveness of the line; of course, he wouldn't be paid for it. ‘Simple changes,' he added, modestly, ‘but, I feel, effective. Do you concur?' Pippin goggled up at him, indecision wobbling in every feature. He was clearly of the rudderless-ship school of direction, a hopeless, drifting wreck who required the efforts of a fleet of tugs to guide it to its destination. ‘We're in agreement?' asked Ambrose, twisting the wheel.

‘Er . . .' It wasn't Pippin who spoke, but the girl in the spotted blouse. ‘. . . I'm ever so sorry to interrupt,' she said, in a Valleys accent so thick that one could practically smell the coal-dust. ‘It's just that I thought I should let you know that the final caption on the film is going to be “Careless Talk – Not So Clever”. So if you were to say that new line about it being the first clever thing that April's ever done, then the caption might not work quite so well, and also Mrs Brown's next line won't make sense – and also, it was felt that Mr Brown's final lines would have more impact if he hadn't said very much up until . . .'

‘Do we have a new director?' asked Ambrose, looking at Briggs with feigned bewilderment. ‘I seem to be receiving notes from someone I've never seen before. Could you possibly clarify the situation?'

The girl had turned crimson. ‘Sorry,' she said. ‘My name's Catrin Cole, I wrote some of the . . .'

‘Notes from here, notes from there,' said Ambrose. ‘Perhaps this has become a
commune
– perhaps we're all allowed to throw in our comments. Perhaps there was a meeting at which this was decided, and I have only my own ignorance to blame.'

The girl shrank back behind the camera. ‘I think . . .' began Briggs.

‘Please, I've no wish to be the one dissenter to a glorious new regime. All I ask is to be kept informed, all I ask is that I'm allowed to pursue my craft in full possession of the facts. If the decision on lines is to be thrown open to the floor then simply let me know. Come one, come all . . .' He spread his arms wide, and Pippin pursed his little mouth, and looked anxiously at Briggs.

‘A brief pause to marshall our thoughts?' suggested Ambrose. ‘A chance for you to consult the new constitution of the people's collective of the Albany Road studios? I shall take ten minutes, then.' He stalked towards the heavy double doors, enjoying the silence, the singular, crackling,
theatrical
silence that invariably signalled the end of a powerful scene. Chick, standing beside the exit, opened one of the doors for him, and Ambrose inclined his head in thanks. Grace and power, he thought, grace and power, an invincible combination; there was no doubt who would win this fight, no doubt whose lines would be spoken when filming resumed. The door closed behind him with a dull thud, and he checked his watch. Ten minutes. Just about enough time to get to the tobacconist's on Clipstone Street and back.

Catrin's face felt like a great flaming disk, the skin emitting so much heat that she could almost feel her eyebrows crisping. After the actor playing Mr Brown had walked out, she had been told off – in succession and in front of anyone who cared to watch (and there had been people hanging from the rafters) – by the plump actress, the man with the tie, and the director, who had given her a hissy little speech about undermining his authority. After that, the woman with the stopwatch round her neck had taken her into the dark canyon between the high wooden set and the studio wall and told her she'd been a damn fool to open her mouth on the floor.

‘But what was I supposed to do?' asked Catrin. ‘He's ruining the script.'

‘If you had anything at all that needed saying, you should have spoken to the first AD.'

‘The who?'

‘The first assistant director – Briggs, the one with the ridiculous tie. You shouldn't even have come on to the set without asking him, it's not etiquette. And secondly, you shouldn't have been here at all. There's no point in the writer coming to the studio.'

‘Why not?'

‘Because no one takes any notice of you and you simply get in the way.' It was stated matter-of-factly and without malice. The woman was in her mid-forties, spare and dry-skinned, her sandy hair pulled back into a bun from which a fan of brittle loose-ends radiated like a sunburst. ‘I'm Phyl, by the way,' she said. ‘Continuity.'

‘So most writers don't come to the filming?'

‘They stick their heads in and wince and then go and drink tea somewhere. Occasionally they'll be called in to re-work a scene. That's if there's even a script in the first place. Half of these short films seem to be made up by the director as he goes along.'