It Started at Sunset Cottage

by Bella Osborne

  Chapter 12

  Kate was first up on Monday morning. She felt like a child on their first day at school; very excited, a bit worried and completely unsure what to expect. Marcus had explained that most directors don’t have the screenwriter on set, let alone the author, but Che was different and he liked to change things on the hoof, so he wanted Marcus on hand most of the time. Marcus wanted Kate there in the hope that she would get caught up in the excitement and enjoy herself.

  Kate put on the dress she had got out the night before, but she was now trying on different cardigans and jackets to see what went with it best. She was just adjusting the sleeves on a cream cardigan as a dishevelled-looking Sarah put her head around the bedroom door.

  “Hey, gorgeous, fancy a shag?” grinned Sarah.

  “Delightful! You look as though an inexperienced bird has made a nest in your hair.”

  “They do that, the little sods,” Sarah said, smoothing it down with both hands, but to no avail. “I was just trying to get you acclimatised to the film industry. They’re all at it, you know. You’re bound to get offered sex or drugs – or both!” exclaimed Sarah excitedly.

  Kate turned away from the mirror to give Sarah a hard stare.

  “I was just saying.” Sarah plonked herself down on Kate’s bed and had another attempt at her hair before giving up and straightening Kate’s cardigan.

  “What is it with you and cardigans?”

  “I like them! They stop you getting cold.”

  “You’re not 90!” Sarah protested and straightened Kate’s necklace. “I’m really proud of you. I know I don’t really have any right to be and that it’s all down to you, but I am proud of you.” Kate knew that Sarah wasn’t just talking about the film.

  “I know. I wouldn’t be here, in this cardigan, if it wasn’t for you,” she said, and Sarah stuck her tongue out at her.

  At the rehearsal hall, Kate was ushered into a meeting room to wait. A short woman with dark-brown hair in a neat bob cut popped her head around the door. Kate guessed she was in her early thirties. She wore a smart grey skirt and a pink cardigan and Kate took an instant liking to her.

  “Sorry, I didn’t know anyone was here yet. I’m Pippa, Timothy Calder’s PA. Have you seen Che Beynon?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know who he is,” said Kate, wishing she’d written down the names Marcus had reeled off.

  “He’s the director. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” said Pippa, diplomatically, as she came into the room.

  “I’m Kate Marshall.” Kate offered a hand and Pippa shook it warmly.

  “Very pleased to meet you, Kate. I’m a big fan. When’s your next book out?” gushed Pippa, looking genuinely starstruck.

  “I’ve been a bit slack on the novel front, what with the script,” said Kate, feeling rather guilty that there might be more people waiting for her next book, which she’d failed to deliver.

  “Of course, of course.” Pippa sat down next to Kate, “I think Love.com is brilliant. Tim is going to be amazing as Patrick.”

  “You think?” said Kate.

  “Definitely. Once I knew about the film, I read the book a second time and I could picture him as Patrick.”

  “That’s nice to know. Thanks,” said Kate “Is Tim going to make it today? What with being called away to hospital.”

  “He’s on a flight now – should be landing soon. He’ll be later than planned. Hopefully he will have slept on the flight, so he shouldn’t be too grumpy,” she laughed. Kate gleaned from this that he must be flying long-haul from somewhere.

  “That’s good. Do you know if they’re okay… the person in hospital,” asked Kate, knowing she was being a bit cheeky, but curiosity was getting the better of her.

  “As far as I know. Right! Can’t sit here gossiping. Do you want to come and meet a few people? We won’t be in here until everyone’s arrived; then we’ll agree the plans for the day and then off we go!”

  Kate picked up her handbag and followed Pippa. In between answering calls she gave Kate a full, guided tour and a run-through of how the day would most likely pan out.

  “This is where we’ll be doing the run-throughs,” said Pippa, as they entered something that resembled a school hall. There were a couple of cameras set up, some chairs in rows and quite a few people milling about.

  “Darling girl, here you are!” boomed Marcus, as he kissed her cheek. “Tim’s late, Lumina’s having some pooch crisis, Che’s gone AWOL and we’ve got a lighting engineer down with flu. Other than that, welcome to the film industry!” he said, giving her another hug and appraising her. “You look terrific! It’s lovely to see, really lovely.” Marcus had a way of making you feel good about yourself with just a few kind words.

  “Right, let’s do the guided tour!”

  “It’s okay, Pippa showed me around earlier.”

  “Righto! I’ll talk you through what usually happens on a rehearsal day.” Kate didn’t have the heart to tell him that Pippa had done that too, so she picked up her drink and followed him dutifully. Marcus was more thorough than Pippa and also had a writer’s view of what would be happening, when they would be needed and what would be interesting to them.

  Marcus introduced Kate to an older man called Dennis, who was the assistant cameraman. He was very happy to chat to Kate and explained the differing roles of key grips, dolly grips and other sorts of grips. Kate spotted Tim out of the corner of her eye. He was striding across the rehearsal room with Pippa at his side – she was passing him pieces of paper and talking very fast. Kate tuned out of what Dennis was saying and found herself checking her hair. Dennis was still talking, so she nodded earnestly at him.

  “Thank you. Would you mind if we caught up again later, so that I could ask you some questions?”

  “Of course, anytime,” smiled Dennis, which made her feel a little guilty, as he was clearly a kind person. Tim was now heading straight in her direction, looking lightly tanned and completely gorgeous. He was wearing dark-blue jeans and a crisp, white shirt and all Kate could do was stare, the easy relationship they had at the cottage forgotten as Timothy Calder, the film star, headed her way. As he got to within a couple of metres of her, she smiled at him and opened her mouth to speak, just as someone yelled. “Tim!” Tim completely diverted off and walked straight past Kate, without appearing to notice her at all. She closed her mouth, took a deep breath and went in search of Marcus.

  Pippa came scurrying round and herded everyone into the overcrowded meeting room. The director, Che, stood up, introduced himself briefly and then asked everyone else to do the same in turn. It was a slow, creeping death of introductions that was getting closer and closer to Kate and she could feel her palms starting to sweat. Marcus was next.

  “I’m Marcus Leonard, script writer,” and he turned and looked at Kate. Kate had been expecting him to say more, so was taken by surprise.

  “Oh, I’m Kate Marshall, I’m a writer. I wrote the book that the film is based on and I helped out with the script, too.” She received lots of smiles and nods in response, which made her start to relax. Tim had entered the meeting late and was standing near the door. When it came to him he stepped forward, giving a warm smile before speaking.

  “Hi, I’m Timothy Calder, male lead. I’m excited about this project and to be working with you.” And just for a second Kate thought he was speaking just to her.

  There were some finance people and quite a few actors for the other key roles, but there was no sign of Lumina. Che then gave a speech about what he felt he brought to the film, a bit about his style and how he liked to work. He then ran through the plans for the next couple of days, reminded them of the date for the start of filming and handed out a draft schedule.

  The meeting went well and Kate felt that she understood more than half of what was said, which she thought was good for day one. They were now all grouped in the rehearsal room and Pippa was animatedly explaining the Love.com story to a lighting technician.

  “It’s about Pat
rick and Marianna; they were childhood sweethearts. They lose touch when Marianna emigrates to New Zealand. She contacts him through a website when she hits 30, to find that he’s a very successful man with a string of companies and an equal number of failed relationships. But the other reason she gets in touch is because she’s dying, but she doesn’t tell him that. After she dies, her sister Marcie carries on emailing Patrick, signing off as ‘M’, and they fall in love. Marcie keeps putting off meeting Patrick, for obvious reasons. Eventually Marcie meets him as herself and there’s a connection, but Patrick is confused because he thinks he loves Marianna. Then Marcie has to face him and tell him the truth, for fear of losing him, because he’s being faithful to Marianna. Patrick’s furious when he realises what she’s done. He’s also sad about Marianna’s death. Anyway, eventually he realises that it was really Marcie and her emails that he fell in love with and then they get together at the end. It’s brilliant really.” The lighting technician looked slightly confused and just nodded. Kate was quite pleased with Pippa’s summary of the story; she would have struggled to have been that succinct herself – she’d never been very good at perfecting a synopsis.

  A door slammed and in walked Lumina. Everyone turned to watch her as she walked confidently across the room carrying a large, red designer bag in the crook of her arm, with a small dog’s head poking over the top. Kate assumed both were real. Lumina had impossibly high-heeled shoes on in a matching shade of red, skin-tight trousers and the biggest sunglasses Kate had ever seen. Her blonde hair was professionally curled and it bounced around her shoulders as she walked. Pippa ran from person to person like a human pinball, then took Lumina’s bag containing the dog and went off again. Kate settled herself down next to Marcus and waited excitedly for rehearsals to start. After a bit of a discussion, the scene and line numbers were announced and Kate turned to that page in her own pristine copy of the script. The room fell silent and the lights beamed on to a spot on the floor.

  Tim took a sip of water and strode into the middle of the puddle of light. Lumina joined him, still wearing her sunglasses and clutching her script tightly. Tim went to air-kiss her and she turned away. He leaned forward and quietly said something that made her scowl in his ear. Someone called “Quiet on set, rolling, action” and, as Tim started to speak, Kate found herself transfixed. She was looking at Patrick. Lumina started off okay and then fumbled her second line, even though she was reading directly from the script. Tim tensed and glared at her, but she carried on. After two more attempts and two more fumbles from Lumina, Tim was turning red and jerking his hands about in frustration.

  “Just stop!” said Tim. He turned to Che. “This is pointless, she has no change of pace to her words, there’s no character!”

  “It’s a cold read, for Christ’s sake, Tim!” screeched Lumina. Che quickly corralled Tim and Lumina into a corner to talk it through.

  “What does she mean by a ‘cold read’?” Kate whispered to Marcus, a little concerned that it was an insult to the writing.

  “She means that at run-throughs you just have to read, you don’t have to act. It’s just that different actors approach a read differently.”

  “Okay, so she is kind of right, then?”

  “Yes, but Tim won’t see it like that.” After more discussion and arm-waving from the actors they all retook their places and started the scene for the third time. This time, Tim was stronger with his delivery and Kate found she was staring at him without blinking, which probably wasn’t good for her eyes. She’d only seen a couple of the Agent X films, but she decided she was going to order them all when she got home. Lumina stumbled again on her lines and Tim stepped in front of her and splayed out his arms.

  “What’s going on, Mina?” he said. Lumina threw her script on the floor and ran out as best she could in her skyscraper heels. Tim then turned and did a theatrical style bow to Che as if he was doing a curtain call before walking off in a different direction.

  “Great start,” grumbled Marcus. “I knew there would be a problem. Why can’t Tim just keep it in his pants?” And he went off after Tim, leaving Kate on her own, thinking that it was probably going to take years to complete filming if every piece of dialogue was going to take this long to perfect.

  “There you go,” said Sarah, standing back to admire the flowers she’d arranged in a jug. She’d failed to find a vase in Melanie’s tiny kitchen.

  “Thanks, Sarah, they’re lovely, but I’m not sure about putting vinegar in with them,” said Melanie, who was curled up on the sofa, huddled up under her duvet.

  “Vinegar is a florist’s secret tip; it kills the bacteria.” And hopefully it would make these fading flowers last a few more days, thought Sarah, who’d got them free from Back to the Fuschia.

  “It’s kind of you to come round.” Melanie pulled the bright-red duvet nearer to her chin. Sarah wondered if the rest of her bedroom matched the bright duvet, but sadly the door was closed.

  “Your eyes are turning wonderful colours,” said Sarah, with a twitch of her eyebrows. “Have you heard from Shaun?”

  “No, but I didn’t expect to,” Melanie said, looking at Sarah, “I’m so sorry for everything. I know I was never that nice to you.”

  “Never mind that now,” said Sarah patting the duvet. “What was it that made you change your mind about Shaun? Was it the drink-driving?”

  “No, that was me getting my revenge, really, but that back-fired,” she said, pointing to her own face. “He spun me some story about you being a mess and that was why he’d moved back in with you. I wasn’t happy about it. He promised me that you weren’t back together; he made out he was worried for Amy’s safety.” Sarah bristled but kept quiet because she wanted to hear more. “But each time I saw you at work, I struggled to believe that you could be so completely normal there and yet such a mess at home. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, carry on,” said Sarah forcing a smile.

  “So I started following you and the more I watched the more I saw someone very much in control who loved and cared for her daughter. Then I saw you and Shaun together, just for a moment. He was leaving one night as you came home from work.” She paused and hung her head for a second before taking a breath and continuing. “He was due to meet me that night. As you passed in the doorway he kissed you and you pinched his bum and he… he promised you a good time when he got in.”

  “Ever the romantic is Shaun!”

  “I felt sick. He was sleeping with both of us, Sarah. Taking us both for fools.”

  After Sarah and Melanie had bad-mouthed Shaun a bit more, they ran out of things to talk about, so Sarah made her apologies and headed home.

  Sarah was dismayed to see the familiar sight of the dirty-white transit van outside the house. And what, from a distance, looked a lot like Ronald MacDonald’s mum sitting at the wheel. Sarah sighed and prepared to face the inevitable, as Irene clambered out of the van and stormed along the pavement to meet her.

  “Where is he? Where’s my Shauny?”

  “Hello, Irene, lovely to see you, as always. Can I help?”

  “You deaf? Where’s Shaun?”

  “No, but thank you for enquiring about my health. I have absolutely no idea where Shaun is, as I have had the good fortune not to have seen him for quite some time.”

  “If you see him or you ’ear from him, you call me. Got it?”

  “So did you let him off his leash and he ran off? Tut, tut.”

  “If he did, he’s runnin’ away from you!”

  “I’ll give you that one, Irene. Safe journey now, you take care.” And, with that, Sarah walked past her and headed inside.

  As she heard the sound of Irene’s van revving furiously away, Sarah decided she’d make an impromptu picnic and call round to see how Andy was getting on with his house. She also had an ulterior motive as she was on the cadge for a babysitter. Amy really liked Andy and with the Shaun situation as it was, Sarah felt that Amy was safer with him than with a local teenage girl, however respo
nsible she might be.

  Andy was standing at the front door in his dusty work clothes, smiling at her as she pulled up outside. His hair looked as if he’d turned grey overnight, from all the dust. His white t-shirt was no longer white, but fitted him snugly and gave a good outline of the solid body underneath. Sarah bounded over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “Yuk, dust!”

  “Sorry, it’s everywhere. The plasterer was working upstairs and I’ve been sanding downstairs. There’s dust on everything, but I’ve had a wipe round, so the kitchen should be okay.”

  Andy led her into the small hallway, past a bare wooden staircase and into a show-home kitchen. The room was vast, as Andy had knocked through two of the downstairs rooms into one. There was a big window onto the garden and every other piece of wall space had a cupboard on it. She spun around a couple of times to take it all in; the gleaming black-granite worktops, the cupboards, the six-ring hob and the big oven, but, above all, the vast quantities of wood.

  “Did you do all this?”

  “Yeah, it’s what I do.” He gave a cheeky smile and hopped up to sit on the granite worktop. “This’ll be a breakfast bar once I get some bar stools, but I haven’t got around to that yet. Have a seat.” He indicated the shiny space next to him. But Sarah was still transfixed by the dream kitchen.

  “Did you make all this?”

  “Yeah, every door, every drawer, every knob. All my own work.”

  “What’s this wood?” Sarah said, as she ran her fingers across the very dark, wooden worktop until it joined the cool, shiny granite.

  “Everything is oak apart from the tops, which are wenge. It’s African rosewood; closest thing to ebony without the hefty price tag,” he explained, as he watched Sarah closely.

  “Andy, it’s all amazing. No wonder you make a living doing this. I’d buy this house right now, even in this state, just to have this kitchen.”

  “Thanks, Sarah. I’m glad you like it. So what’s for lunch?”

  “A smorgasbord of taste and texture from the supermarket discounted section – with some crusty bread!”