by Gil McNeil
After sorting out his school uniform for tomorrow, making his packed lunch, doing school reading, having a dispute about watching a Star Trek video, and countless other diversionary tactics including a mammoth Random-Chatting Routine, Charlie is finally settled into bed, hair washed, teeth brushed, and pyjamas on. And I am totally knackered.
‘Mummy, we had a lovely day, didn’t we?’
‘Yes, darling, but now it’s sleep time, it’s a school day tomorrow.’
‘Yes. I love oysters, Mummy, and lobsters. And Leila. Don’t you, Mummy?’
‘Yes, darling,’ I say, backing out of the doorway.
‘When I grow up I’ll marry Leila in a box office, and she can bring her pink sandals and we’ll have oysters for tea. And you can come and do the cooking.’
‘Oh, thanks very much, Charlie. Now go to sleep.’
‘Yes. But we won’t have crab, because that’s cruel. Mummy, can I have one of my special Charlie the Crab stories, where he goes on an adventure with a whale and meets a mermaid with pink sandals?’
‘No.’
‘Tomorrow night, maybe?’
‘No.’
A heated argument develops, involving lots of hurling the duvet about. Finally I get him to agree that the crab stories will not be resurrected, and Pink Sandals will remain Leila’s special territory, but an extra-special video from Blockbuster’s might be possible tomorrow night if the silly behaviour stops and his duvet returns to his bed. I wish I could find a way of winning arguments without using bribery, but without resorting to the use of an electric cattle prod my chances seem slim. I can foresee a bitter dispute tomorrow, while I hold out for Disney family entertainment and he insists that The Spy Who Shagged Me is perfectly all right. Go back downstairs, wondering just how ‘bad’ The Spy Who Shagged Me really is, and who can I ring to find out without appearing a total fool.
Chapter Four
Sex, Lies and Videotape
I leave home very early to drive down to Cornwall for the porridge shoot. Edna’s looking after Charlie until this evening, when Mum and Dad will arrive. The journey is pretty but exhausting. The signposts are all particularly unhelpful, and I manage to get on to a succession of small roads going in entirely the wrong direction. Sunlight streams through the trees lining the road, so shafts of light almost blind me every few seconds, like a sort of ecological strobe-lighting effect. Wonder if there’ll be time for me to pull over before I find myself in the midst of a tricky neurological episode due to the unaccustomed effects of flashing lights on my brain.
I finally find my sunglasses at the bottom of my handbag, but they have only one arm, as the other one has mysteriously disappeared. I balance them on my nose very carefully, and achieve a kind of Rayban meets Retard look. I’m singing along to Aretha Franklin, and every time Aretha and I reach a really belting bit my glasses fall off.
Eventually I manage to locate Cornwall and the hotel, which turns out to be one of those hideous modern types with lots of grey concrete and an enormous car park, which is full. I finally find a space but have to walk miles back to the hotel entrance carrying my bags, because I just know that this is the kind of place which takes six hours to get your bag from your car. And then delivers it to your room just as you step into the bath.
The hotel is packed with financial services people on a conference. They are all quite excited about this. I’m sure Lawrence booked me in here on purpose, knowing it would be full of delegates. Barney and the crew are staying in a much posher hotel at the top of the hill overlooking the bay, but Lawrence claims there were no single rooms left, and either I had to share with the crew or stay here. Reception is awash with men, and a few women in navy suits, shouting greetings to each other and swapping business cards. I plan to have a peaceful night of uninterrupted sleep, and then do a last-minute run-around before Barney turns up tomorrow afternoon with the crew. Then we’ll have just enough time to start setting up, but not long enough to get into any serious trouble. I hope. The combination of a film crew and water is not a good one. I wonder if I should have put the local coastguard on standby.
My room is very bland and plastic, but child-free so I promptly fall asleep. Wake up starving, and feel sure room service will take hours and be horrible, so I rush downstairs in old jeans and a jumper to find that the restaurant is full of financial services people in cocktail outfits. I beg a waiter to find me a table, and he finally relents and says he will ask ‘the gentleman’ if he minds sharing. Before I can stop him he has shot across the room and asked a man sitting on his own by a window. Brilliant.
I walk over to the table feeling sure I’m doomed to spend the entire meal being given a lecture about pensions by a conference delegate who’s so unpopular nobody will sit with him, but instead an incredibly gorgeous man stands up. I thank him profusely for allowing me to share his table, and wish with all my heart I was not wearing such tragic clothes. He says that perhaps I should wait until I’ve tasted the soup before thanking him too much. He says this in a marvellous Scottish accent, a sort of cross between Sean Connery and Mel Gibson in Braveheart. I smile and study the menu, and decide to avoid the soup. The financial services people are getting very loud, and begin telling each other that there’s going to be a film shot in the harbour over the next couple of days. There’s rumour that Tom Cruise will be turning up. I’m not sure he actually does commercials for porridge, but I bet he’d be marvellous if he did. Might blow the budget a bit, though.
Everyone gets very excited about the prospect of rubbing shoulders with stars, and they all vow to rush down to the harbour the minute filming starts to see if they can make friends with Tom. This is going to be great. Barney is so patient with people trying to get their five minutes of fame. My dining companion introduces himself as Mack – I’m not sure if this is his first name or his surname and don’t like to ask. He asks me what I’m doing in Cornwall, and I decide not to mention anything about my work mainly because I feel sure the men on the next table will overhear me and launch into their audition pieces. I say I’m having a little holiday and he tells me he’s an art dealer, down looking at a few local artists.
The food arrives, and is fine, though Mack has clearly tasted better and is deeply amused by his carrots, which have been cut into flower shapes. I have given up on a first course and gone straight for steak and chips and salad. The conversation dribbles on; the other diners are getting very rowdy and have started doing impressions. Mack is not happy, and suggests we have coffee in the bar. His accent is divine, and I go off into a fantasy where he’s wearing a kilt, and then I’m wearing a kilt and he’s wearing nothing at all. I must get a grip or I’ll make a total fool of myself. We get our bills and the waiter gives me a sickening smile and a sort of wink as we leave the restaurant. The bar turns out to be full of more conference people, and one of them is trying to liven things up a bit by standing on one of the tables dancing.
Mack asks if I’d like to have coffee in his room, no strings attached, as it would be nice to talk some more. I agree very happily, and then think I should have been more reluctant. I’m secretly hoping there’ll be lots of strings attached, but not before I somehow manage to get back to my room and change out of my disastrous old underwear. Mack is even more gorgeous standing up, very tall, and he smells divine, which reminds me I have no perfume on. He also has the most amazing grey eyes and dark curly hair which is the perfect length. Not even a hint of a ponytail, or earrings, or any other art-dealer-type accoutrements – though, to be fair, I don’t actually know any art dealers, so the lack of a ponytail may be totally understandable. We get to his room after a rather embarrassing silence in the lift, and I discover it is in fact a suite, with three sofas, and acres of pale-blue carpet. There’s no bed in sight, but there are two sets of doors off the main room, as well as a balcony overlooking the sea. Mack explains that as the business is paying he thought he might as well get a decent room. Quite agree, and only wish I could make Barney follow this kind of logic.
We sit about chatting for ages, the coffee arrives, with little biscuits which almost count as petits fours, and brandy is discovered in the mini bar and turns out to be rather nice freezing cold. Mack tells me he got divorced last year, and has two children, Daisy and Alfie. He shows me photographs and they look very sweet. Alfie looks just like him, only smaller and with more amusing hair, and wearing a Batman outfit.
In the midst of general chatting he suddenly blurts: ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry. But I’m crap at this sort of thing, and I really want to kiss you, quite badly actually. So would that be OK, because I don’t want to make assumptions, or get a black eye or anything. So would that be OK?’ He finishes with a special pleading look which I know he knows is irresistible. This makes me laugh so much he is almost offended, until I manage to say that I can’t think of anything nicer. Then he says he’ll wait until I have stopped laughing, if I don’t mind. Which makes me stop instantly.
It’s marvellous how quickly you get back into the swing of kissing, and I’d be quite happy to stay on the sofa all night but Mack seems keen to move to the bedroom and then the pace really hots up. My appalling third-division underwear proves no major impediment to the proceedings, although Mack does give my tired old grey bra rather a quizzical look. I explain that I do have girly satin ones, but was not expecting a high-performance-bra sort of an evening, and anyway I prefer comfy ones. Having your chest forced up under your chin is no laughing matter, and plunging cleavages are all very well but tend to trap biscuit crumbs if you are not a very careful eater. Mack is highly diverted by the concept of plunging cleavages and requires a demonstration. He then goes on to say all sorts of very rude things in his marvellous accent. I fall asleep exhausted at some point and wake up at five am completely disorientated. I’m about to creep out when Mack wakes up and demands to know where I’m going. I say I really need to get back to my room so that I can sleep without distractions, which he reluctantly accepts, but then we spend ages saying goodbye and I don’t leave the room until six thirty.
Feeling very smug and gorgeous, I collapse into bed in my room after deciding to try to sleep for an hour before attempting to work out how I’m going to summon up the energy to get through today. But I discover that I can’t get to sleep, as I keep having an action replay of last night whenever I close my eyes, which is most unsettling. I order breakfast and have a shower. Nearly drown in the shower as weird partial paralysis seems to have set in, my legs have gone like jelly and my back is killing me. I feel about ninety-five, and my hair has gone into a massive tangle at the back of my neck which will require scissors to sort it out. I’ve got the start of a huge bruise on my shoulder, where I fell off the bed at some point last night and landed on my shoes.
Huge quantities of coffee and toast arrive and I start to feel slightly more human, and less like someone who has just survived an earthquake. I’m about to call Leila for a therapy session when my mobile rings. It’s Barney, in a foul mood, asking me to run down to the harbour and make sure the bloody boat is still there. I end up with a huge list of little jobs to do. I can’t work out what to do about Mack, but the hotel phone rings and it’s him, to say thank you for a lovely night. And he’s found one of my earrings in his shoe, and would I like it back because it doesn’t really suit him. Wonder how he got my room number, but I’m glad he did, although it’s not very inspiring on the hotel security front. I say it was my pleasure, and we flirt for ages and agree to meet up again tonight in the hotel bar. Mack says he’s going to look at some pictures in St Ives, and should be back around nine. I’ll just have to hope I’m actually back at the hotel by then, and not stuck down at the harbour fending off audition pieces from over-excited conference delegates.
I’m not quite sure what to do about the fact that the crew will be floating about tonight and I will be meant to be keeping an eye on them, but decide to worry about that one later. Maybe I’ll just explain to Mack and blame last night’s subterfuge on understandable caution. I make a quick call to Charlie, who announces Nana is being very stupid and has made him eat Shreddies, so he might have to be sick at any moment. Nana grabs the phone and points out that he asked for them specially; in fact he refused point blank to even consider eating anything else. I say he often does this, and we both agree it’s very annoying. She suggests I follow her example and buy only one type of cereal, so there’s no choice. This reminds me that I still hate Weetabix, and we agree that really there is no answer. I rush off to the harbour to try to persuade the man with the boat to hang around all day, and surreptitiously check how many life-jackets he has.
Barney and the crew arrive just after lunch and generate the usual mêlée of equipment and shouting, but gradually we work out what we’re going to do tomorrow. Barney wants to start at dawn so we get the early-morning light, which he says will be Magic. The crew aren’t keen. The man who owns the boat is definitely not keen, and keeps asking me if Barney really means he has to be there at four am. Sadly, yes he does. Just as we are about to call it a day, a huge black Mercedes drives down the harbour road and heads towards us. I’m about to send a runner to tell them to fuck off, when we realise it must be the Agency, turning up early. Typical. The car stops and Lucy, the agency producer, gets out. She’s followed by an odd-looking man who is bound to be the client. Barney looks on the point of apoplexy, and the client looks nervous, but determined.
We knew Lucy was coming, but no one said anything about the client. Barney hates it when clients turn up, because they always ask lots of stupid questions and need to be made a huge fuss of. They also often come up with ‘ideas’, which are always crap, and want their product to be in sight constantly, preferably slap in the middle of every shot. In fact Barney is notorious for telling clients to fuck off. And agency producers too, come to think of it, if they start coming up with ideas. On one famous occasion, luckily before my time, during a shoot on a beach, he actually drew a line with a stick in the sand and said if anyone, agency or client, stepped over it he was going home. They thought it was a joke, and stepped over the line. He went home.
With a sinking feeling, I realise that this is bound to be another Lawrence moment. Lucy rushes over and says, ‘Look, I’m sorry about this but he insisted on coming down early, and Lawrence said he’d told you all about it and it was fine,’ and Barney glares at me and says, ‘Did you forget to mention it, or what?’ Great. I’m about to explain that Lawrence didn’t tell me anything, as usual, when I see that the other passenger door of the car has opened, and a man is getting out who seems oddly familiar.
It’s Mack. He goes pale, and hesitates by the car, but then walks over and starts wittering on to Barney, who seems to know him, and then they wander off to look at the boat. I chat to Lucy and the client, who has had a major personality-bypass operation somewhere along the line, and generally try to work out how to handle this unexpected turn of events. Lucy says that that Mack is the new creative head of the agency who gave us this job, and he decided to come down unexpectedly because he wanted to see Barney in action. Perfect. I’m tempted to share with Lucy quite how unexpected things are turning out to be for me in particular, but resist because the client is telling us how he wanted to come down early so he could really get to grips with things, and see how on earth we’re going to spend all that money. Lucy and I spend an anxious ten minutes persuading him that getting to grips with Barney would not be wise, and then Lucy risks taking him over for a quick chat while I make frantic signals behind her back telling Barney to be nice.
Mack sidles over. ‘Who are you waving at?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Christ, Annie, I’m sorry about this. Look, let’s just get on with it and we can talk about it tonight.’
‘Fuck off, and buy some paintings, why don’t you?’
‘I hope you won’t mind me saying this, but I find your vocabulary rather limited, sweetheart.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Charming. So tell me, how are you enjoying your little holiday by the sea?’
‘Fuck. Off. I had a better reason to lie than you did. You could have been a nutter. Well, actually you are a nutter, so I was right. Do you have any idea what Barney will do to me if he finds out? This is so unprofessional. And as for the crew, if they get wind of this I’m doomed.’
‘Yes, I know. Which is why I suggest we just keep cool and then we can talk about it tonight. Nine pm, hotel bar, don’t be late.’
And with this the bastard walks off and starts steering the client back into the car saying that they’ll explain everything to him back at the hotel, and they will see us all tomorrow morning, bright and early, ha ha ha.
Barney knows something is up, but frankly he doesn’t care because a vital bit of kit has gone missing and he’s in the midst of throwing a major tantrum. I rush about sorting out the crisis, and try to stop the crew pretending to push one another into the sea because sooner or later someone will fall in. They ignore me. Someone falls in – Dave the electrician – and has to be fished out by our boatman who does not think it is funny at all. Dave stands wringing out his pockets and emptying water out of his hood. The crew, and Barney, think this is fabulously funny. Everyone cheers up hugely, and we finally finish dithering about and Barney is happy that we can start tomorrow with the camera pointing vaguely in the direction where the sun rises, so we all troop off back to the posh hotel and start running up a major bar bill.