Catch a Falling Star (The Silver Bridle Book 3)

by Caroline Akrill

  The belt began to move. At once I felt terribly insecure.

  “Relax, Grace. You don’t have to do anything. Just concentrate on staying on top.”

  I was concentrating. The belt began to speed up. The Raven broke into a trot. Now I really did have a problem. My knickers were slippery nylon and his coat was as close and as smooth as silk. I felt myself moving backwards, then sideways. Abruptly The Raven dropped back into a walk and the belt stopped, but if I imagined it was because I had been in difficulties I was mistaken. Apparently the nightdress had risen above my knees and now must be strapped to my calves with adhesive tape. Adhesive tape was a long time coming. About fifteen minutes. But eventually the belt was started up again.

  The trotting was perilous. It was all very well for Anthony to shout instructions, calling out for me to relax my knees and let my legs hang loose, but he didn’t recognize the difficulties. Angel had been wearing suede chaps when she had done the riding-in, not slippery knickers and a frilly nightdress. I lurched and slithered and dragged myself back into position by means of The Raven’s blessedly ample mane. I prayed I would not fall, imagining myself dragged by the nightdress between the rollers before anyone could rescue me, hearing the Director say “Sure, we got insurance, but I’m left with a crew to pay, a studio costing two hundred a minute, and a female lead flat as a pancake.”

  Mercifully, cantering was easier after the first bunching lurch as The Raven bent his glossy neck and bounded forward. But as soon as I had got into the rhythm of it we were back into a trot and the belt stopped.

  “This time I want you to get him to lead with the leg nearest the cameras.’ Anthony instructed. ‘Just feel the left rein slightly before the transition.”

  Kevin jumped up on to the belt with his clapperboard. And this time, anticipating the transition from trot to canter I applied a light pressure to the left rein and The Raven obediently struck off on the leg nearest to the cameras. We seemed to have been cantering a long time before the belt finally slowed and stopped.

  The AD lifted me down off The Raven and set me on the studio floor.

  “Is that it?” I enquired.

  “You are joking, dear heart,” he said. He explained that the Director thought it would be more romantic if he could see the horse’s mane. This meant that The Raven had to canter in the opposite direction, the belt had to be reversed and the ramp moved to the other end. Removing the ramp took quite a long time, about thirty minutes. Coffee was ordered but as it took thirty-one minutes to arrive, by the time it appeared I was back on The Raven on the conveyor belt. My stomach was caving in and I was feeling faint and I forgot to change the leading leg which necessitated yet another take. This time I got it right but too soon the belt slowed and stopped. The Director liked being able to see the horse’s mane, but it looked disappointingly static. It didn’t flow in the way he expected. He ordered a wind machine.

  The wind machine took forty minutes to arrive which gave me time to drink the coffee, cold and filmed with an unpleasingly metallic skin, but then Angel had to remount in order to familiarize The Raven with the blast which had to be adjusted many times to give exactly the right amount of lift.

  By this time, union rules dictated lunch. We had wasted a lot of film, and all of the morning in a studio costing two hundred a minute. Faces looked rather strained. I was beginning to feel distinctly light-headed and was heartily sick of being lifted up and down like a piece of human scenery. The Raven was fed up as well and showed it by pausing at the foot of the ramp and lifting his tail. This wasted further time whilst an argument ensued about who was responsible for clearing up the resultant pile of droppings, because apparently it was not anyone’s job as laid down by union rules. Luckily, Angel had encountered this kind of difficulty before and had come prepared with her own shovel and bucket.

  There was to be one more take before lunch and it was quite beyond me to make any effort to look ethereal and dream-like, but lack of food and sleep produced a floating sensation which must have looked very similar and clearly pleased the Director who came out of the fish tank shouting “Cut! It’s a wrap! What took you so long, boys?” I wasn’t the only one who could have murdered him.

  That evening in the dining room of the Sow and Pigs, we had just been served coffee and were looking forward to creeping upstairs to catch up with some sleep, when the Director held up a restraining hand.

  “Now let’s not go dashing off, fellas,” he pleaded, “I’ve got something I want you to listen to.”

  We all groaned. The Director, who had wisely positioned himself in front of the door to discourage any potential escapees, poked his head outside and addressed an invisible assistant. “Do we have sound? Well, come on, come on, we don’t have all night in here!”

  “That’s a relief anyway,” Camilla said in a sour tone. “Come on, Melvyn, I’ve got a date tonight.” Camilla had not been needed at Television City and had stayed in bed until noon. Now she was squeezed into a fiendishly tight leather miniskirt, lace tights and a transparent blouse my mother would have thought suitable only for use as a jelly bag, ready for a night holding court with a gang of admiring local youths.

  The Director fixed her with a stern eye. “If you leave these premises, young lady, you better remember to be back by ten o’clock sharp. It’s in your contract and I’m keeping you to it.”

  “Hell fire,” Camilla muttered. “I haven’t been in by ten since I was at nursery school.”

  The Director gave her a severe look. After a further consultation with the person outside the door, he beamed at us. “OK fellas, this is it. The recording studio sent along the tape of the theme song and I know you’re all dying to hear it.”

  Whilst this was not quite true, we were a captive audience and in no position to argue. The AD had long ago closed his eyes. He looked grey with fatigue and his head drooped towards the tablecloth.

  “Jesus Christ Superstar, you are going to love this!” The Director rubbed his hands in anticipation. His confidence was total but everyone looked doubtful. Most of the crew were not of an age to identify with Jonathan Sly even if they had heard of him, and those who had were not overly impressed. In resignation I waited for the usual racket, beginning with a hectic opening beat, followed by violently aggressive discord over which Jonathan Sly would yell meaningless lyrics.

  But the sound, when it came, was totally different, completely unexpected. What happened was that a thread of violin music seeped from the corners of the room, gathered strength, became orchestral and poured itself into a hauntingly beautiful melody over which Jonathan Sly, proving he actually had a voice when all the world doubted it, sang simple and appropriate lyrics.

  Everyone stopped fiddling with coffee cups, spoons, sugar, and listened. The AD lifted his head. Camilla stopped scowling. Even Joanna, the widowed landlady of the Sow and Pigs stood transfixed with her tray.

  I’m riding in my dreams,

  I close my eyes and long to sleep;

  The silver bridle gleams,

  The secret is my own to keep.

  I’m riding in the dark,

  I grit my teeth, I’m holding tight;

  I’m frightened of the dark,

  But everything will be alright.

  I’m riding through the sky,

  I’m heading for the stars so bright,

  I’m learning how to fly;

  There’s nothing I can’t do tonight.

  I’m riding through the sea,

  I’m jumping over waves so high;

  Don’t worry about me,

  There’s nothing I’m afraid to try.

  I’m riding over land,

  I gallop over hill and dale;

  The silver rein is in my hand,

  I’m jumping every hedge and rail.

  I’m riding over strife,

  I’m trampling my doubts and fears;

  I’m riding through my life,

  I’m cantering across the years.

  When the music died away
there was a silence in the room you could have pricked with a pin.

  The Director spread his hands. “Well say something fellas! Tell me what you think! Do we or do we not have a hit on our hands?”

  By a general consensus of opinion we did.

  The following day we had a light shooting schedule at a house in the village, the owner of which was being paid a facility fee for its use, complete with contents.

  I had got up early in order to go over my lines because this would be my first time in front of the cameras as an actress and I wanted to be word perfect. This time I made sure I did not miss breakfast. Someone else did though.

  The AD looked odd when he came into the dining room. His face was white apart from two spots of colour which burned high on his stubbly cheeks. His hands trembled as he held his coffee cup and after two gulps he staggered to his feet and passed out cold. Joanna dropped her tray and by a nifty piece of footwork just managed to catch him before he hit the rush matting. The prone figure in its matted jersey was transported back up the staircase to bed and we knew that ‘the bug’ had hit the set.

  ‘The bug’ had been introduced by the bit-part actress who had played the fatality in the accident scene. That night she had taken to her bed with a fever and had not been seen since.

  “You have had flu injections, Grace Darling?” the Director wanted to know.

  I shook my head.

  “Holy Moses,” he said gloomily. “If this isn’t all we need; a flu bug on the set.”

  “Maybe it’s the Black Death,” Camilla suggested in a spectral tone.

  From her gang of admirers she had learned that the population of the village had been practically wiped out in the Middle Ages by the bubonic plague, and the upper floor of the Sow and Pigs, then a manor house conveniently situated next to the church and communal burial pit, had reputedly been where the unfortunate victims had been laid in extremis. As a primitive insurance against the return of the plague, a carved wooden cross was set into the oak door at the foot of the staircase, but it obviously didn’t work against the flu.

  “You got a note of the symptoms, young lady?” the Director enquired.

  Camilla grinned. “Same as influenza to start with. High temperature. Swollen glands.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “The spores can probably survive outside the body for centuries. Think of anthrax.”

  “Right now I’d rather think about making a move.” The Director pushed back his chair. “Better get yourself to Make-Up, girls. You got just twenty-five minutes.”

  “Twenty-five minutes and we’ll know if you can act, Grace Darling. I hope you know your lines.” Camilla gave me a sly look. “Still, at least Anthony won’t be on the set to see you make a fool of yourself. You’ll be spared that embarrassment.” She pranced out of the dining room adding as a parting shot, “Don’t be late. It’s very unprofessional to be unpunctual on the set especially when you’re a complete greenhorn.”

  It was also unprofessional to purposely try to create friction just before a shoot out of jealousy, but that was typical of Camilla. She was a bitch and it didn’t help that she made no secret of the fact she would have vastly preferred my part to her own.

  Even her worst enemy would be forced to admit that Camilla Cook was pretty. She had thick fair hair cut level with her jaw, regular features, freckles and clear blue eyes. She was small-boned and not very tall which was why she was playing my fourteen-year-old sister, Melissa, although she was eighteen. Even at this tender age Camilla was already an experienced actress with several films, television plays and even some highly-paid commercials to her credit. She had side-stepped drama college owing to the fact that her doting, stage-struck mother had enrolled her at a stage school when she was eight. My own mother disapproved of my wanting to be an actress, thinking it a frivolous, precarious career, one that could only end in heartbreak. The announcement of Richard Egan’s engagement to Marcia Cunningham had only reinforced her opinion. I would need to be a brilliant success in the serial to convince her I had been right to be single minded in my efforts to succeed.

  Make-Up was housed in a caravan at the back of the Sow and Pigs car park where Sheila, the regular make-up girl gave me an anaemic look which took fifteen minutes. She then pulled my hair back off my face, braided it into a single plait, and added a padded velvet Alice band which was supposed to emphasize the delicate bones of my face but just made my ears look prominent. The result was not attractive and did nothing for my self-esteem, but it certainly achieved the required effect which was to make me look sickly.

  Costume was a simple matter of jeans, a couple of sizes too big to help the illusion that my legs inside them were useless and wasting, topped by a blue and white striped jersey, just one size too big to give the impression of frailty.

  The road outside the location house was choked with vehicles, a generator, the lighting unit, and the scanner – a mobile video control room in which the Director would monitor the output of the cameras filming inside the house on a row of flickering screens.

  A trail of fat cables led through the open front door, along a carpeted hall and into a dining room which was packed with people, cameras and lighting equipment. I squeezed my way through to the set which was a dining table laid with three places, for Camilla, a middle-aged actor called Alfred Pears who was playing Douglas Grant, our father, and myself.

  The room was claustrophobic, hot, and full of cooking smells owing to the fact that through a serving hatch was to be delivered a lunch which had to be steaming and authentic. Cooking smells are all very well when one is hungry, but quite offensive after a large fried breakfast.

  “Can’t we have a window open?” I said.

  “The window’s already open, Grace Darling,” the Director informed me, and it was. Through it beamed a ten light and a camera that couldn’t be accommodated inside, effectively blocking the passage of any fresh air.

  Camilla introduced me to my screen father in a typically annoying manner. “This is Grace Darling. She hasn’t done anything before. I hope she can cope.” She turned to Kevin who was wedged in front of the table with his clapperboard. “I hope you’ve got an idiot board for Grace.”

  “Not as far as I know,” he said.

  “I don’t need an idiot board, thank you,” I said tartly. “I know my lines.”

  “Well, we’ll soon see if that’s true.” Camilla gave me a sweet smile and sat down at the table. Alfred Pears, probably convinced that I was an inexperienced halfwit and anticipating a hundred takes to shoot twenty-five lines of dialogue, gave me an anxious look. I gave him a firmly confident smile and sat down in my wheelchair.

  I was familiar with the wheelchair by now, having spent hours speeding round the carpark behind the Sow and Pigs and manoeuvring it around the parked vehicles. The only difficulty was in keeping my legs floppily arranged like those of a rag doll whilst using the top half of my body in a normal manner. Often I forgot and moved my legs. It was fortunate that for this shoot they would be hidden by the table.

  I was trying to be calm, but my heart was thumping as the boom carrying the microphone was raised above the chandelier and a flower arrangement was replaced because the silver bowl containing it reflected the camera crew. I was determined not to let Camilla upstage or rattle me but as I tried to run through my lines, I found I could not remember a single word. My mind had gone completely blank. I had heard that this could happen but I had never experienced it before and I was absolutely panic-stricken. I felt myself grow hot and perspiration broke out under my arms and beaded my lower lip. I knew Camilla’s clear blue eyes would be taking it all in and something must have shown on my face because the Director inched his way between us and leaned over the wheelchair. A reassuring hand gripped my shoulder.

  “Just relax, Grace Darling. It’s going to be OK. We’ve got a board outside all made up with your lines on it but we’ll only bring it on if you need it. Right now it’s out of sight.”

  The Director st
raightened. “OK. This is a dry run just for dialogue and camera angles.”

  But my lines came first and still I could not remember a word. I looked up at him in desperation. The Director fixed me with a beady eye. He knew exactly what had happened. I was not the first actress to have dried on him and would not be the last.

  “Away you go, Grace Darling: Douglas, can people …”

  “Douglas, can people who can’t use their legs ride horses?” It came out in a rush and it was too loud, but at least the prompt had worked and the lines were now back in my head.

  Alfred got up from the table and took a steaming serving dish from the hatch. He put it down quickly. “Hell, that is hot!”

  “Use the bloody cloth to pick it up with then!” shouted the cook from the kitchen. None of this was in the script and everybody laughed. Immediately the atmosphere on the cramped little set lightened. In the dry run I remembered my lines. The Director gave me the thumbs up and beamed.

  “OK fellas, the next time’s for real.” He went out to the scanner.

  The serving dishes were returned through the hatch. We straightened our place settings. Kevin squeezed in front of the table with his clapperboard. The crew clamped on their headphones.

  “Standby.”

  “Turn over.”

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.”

  “Douglas, can people who can’t use their legs ride horses?”

  Alfred got up from the table to collect the steaming dish. This time he was careful to use a cloth. As the recently widowed father of two teenage daughters, one of whom had been crippled in the crash that killed her mother, he gave the character exactly the right amount of paternal concern and anxious uncertainty. Camilla was sickeningly good, utterly professional and totally convincing. She now launched into an explanation of the Riding for the Disabled Association, one of whose centres she passed by coach on her way to hockey matches with a neighbouring school.