by James Runcie
‘You know what to do, Sidney?’
‘I think so.’
‘You do what I say. When I ask you to “scuttle” you “scuttle”. There is no negotiation. On this set, I am God.’
‘Then I can’t wait to get off it and talk to the one who is real and lives in the form of Jesus our Lord and Master,’ Sidney muttered to himself, half hoping that he might be heard.
Back in make-up he told Daisy Playfair that he didn’t think he was cut out to be an actor and that he should never have agreed to take part in the film.
She removed his foundation, rinsed out the grey from his hair and, as she patted it dry gently with a towel, she explained, ‘Professionals often think that too. I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Everyone’s so insecure. We’re all frightened. My job is not just about make-up. It’s to make people feel safe. I have to look after everyone, make them feel a little better, and not rush. Everyone gets tense. That’s why there’s so much hanky-panky on location. People feel they need to reward themselves after all the tension on the set.’
‘And is there a lot of that kind of thing? Hanky-panky?’
‘Well, there’s so much waiting about: and if you’re in a love story people often get a bit carried away. They’re not at home, there’s plenty to drink, and so there’s always a bit of corridor creep in the hotel. You have to remember that the business does tend to employ good-looking people, they tell great anecdotes, and they are very highly strung. It’s got to come out in the wash some time or another.’
‘I see.’
‘DCOL.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘“Doesn’t count on location.” You learn to put it behind you. As long as you don’t make the mistake of actually falling in love. And you just mustn’t take any gossip off the set. Like the crew say: “what’s said in the van stays in the van”. It’s the same in make-up. This room’s like a confessional, as I’ve told you. Don’t ask me why people tell me things. They just do. Every secret comes here in the end. I just have to make sure it never goes any further.’
‘I’m sure there’s nothing like that going on at the moment.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong, Vicar. You don’t think Veronica Manners is here to support her husband in a couple of scenes? Why would she do that?’
‘Loyalty?’
‘That’s a bit naive, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
Sidney did mind but said nothing.
‘She’s had what some people might call a horizontal career. I know I can’t talk but I’ve always stuck to the camera crew myself. But Miss Manners likes a bit of stardust. Now she’s realised that her husband isn’t going to make it she’s got her sights on what’s up and coming; and you don’t get much more promising than Andy Balfour, I can tell you. He’s always on the look-out too. A very dangerous man.’
‘I think I can see that. The set is full of temptation, Daisy.’
‘I used to sometimes have a go myself but I’ve got Darren back at home now and I’m too busy for any of that kind of carry-on. Some nights I don’t finish until ten and then I’m back in at five. I can’t go exhausting myself in the night as well. But it’s easier for the actors. They’re not on set all the time and only have to turn up when they’re called. Otherwise they’re just resting; and you know what that means.’
‘I’m sure that’s not the case with all of them.’
‘I’m not saying it is but there’s a lot of it goes on and Miss Manners puts it about with the best of them. At first I thought she was hired as the DF, but she’s getting on a bit and Nigel’s never been a wanderer. His interests lie at home. I don’t know how he keeps his hands to himself with all the actresses that come his way but he’s got a very nice wife. She’s Catholic, although in my experience they can be the worst offenders because all they have to do is confess and start again.’
‘DF?’ Sidney asked. ‘Is that another film term?’
‘Not exactly,’ Daisy Playfair explained. ‘It means “Director’s fancy-woman”, if you’d like me to put it politely. One of the perks . . . like the casting couch, if you get the idea.’
Sidney was certainly beginning to get the idea. It was another world, he thought, as Daisy finished drying his hair.
His next scene in The Nine Tailors was the discovery of the mutilated body of Deacon the jewel thief in the graveyard, disguised as a casual motor mechanic named ‘Driver’, who had come back to the village in order to find an emerald necklace that had been stolen and then hidden. Sidney had three lines:
‘A man’s corpse! What do you mean? Is it in a coffin?’
Followed by:
‘Who is this man? Do you know him?’
And:
‘This is a very terrible thing. I suppose there will have to be an inquest.’
Sidney thought that this was well within abilities. He only hoped that he wouldn’t have to do too many reaction shots during which he might be accused of over-acting. He still didn’t quite understand what Nigel wanted in terms of the subtleties of performance. Apparently it was all about being seen to be listening but whenever he raised a quizzical eyebrow and tried to look interested, leaning forward with his hand under his chin, he was told that he was ‘mugging’ and should cut it out. When he took a muffin and bit into it with vigour Nigel said that he should hardly touch it, but just make it look as if he was eating it, as he didn’t want to be filmed saying any lines with his mouth full.
‘I never speak with my mouth full,’ he complained.
‘Just appreciate it with your eyes,’ Nigel counselled. ‘The muffin is your prop. Use it. Don’t let it control you.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Dominate the muffin.’
Sidney was sure that he was either being teased or being asked for the impossible. The business of acting was more complicated than he had imagined.
The next day, Daisy Playfair explained that the discovery of the dead body in someone else’s grave was her biggest challenge. The corpse in the script was said to be unrecognisable, but the audience had to guess that it might also be Andy Balfour’s brother. There could, she had suggested to Costume, be some similarity in the clothing, just to give the audience a clue, but Nigel Binns was insistent that this discovery should be as mysterious and brutal as possible.
Daisy told Sidney that the director had ‘done his nut’ over the way the corpse should look, and asked her, ‘ever so rudely’, if she had seen Edgar J. Ulmer’s famous film The Black Cat? Or the nailed-down face in The Mask of the Demon?
‘“What do you take me for?” I said to him. “Some kind of mad person?”’
The part of Deacon was played by an actor called Lawrence Riding. Daisy Playfair described him as an ageing Peter Pan with halitosis. ‘You don’t want to kiss him after a party, even if you have had a few, but unlucky for me it’s my job to be all over him, mutilating his face with all kinds of gunk to make him look like he’s been battered with a blunt instrument.’
She had already dyed his hair grey and matted it with dirt, throwing in a fake worm that made him look like a latter-day Medusa. She put rope burn marks on his wrists and feet to suggest that the victim had been tied up. She applied skin wax over the left eye, brushing in blood-red colouring, then black and yellow for bruising, easing the edges with her fingers. Lastly, she added more skin wax and fake blood to a split on the edge of the mouth as if the victim had been punched, brushed in darkness round the lips, patted it in, and contemplated a slit-throat effect on the neck.
‘Have you seen any actual murder victims?’ Sidney asked.
‘I went to a mortuary just before I did a production of Titus Andronicus at Stratford. I wouldn’t want to do that again in a hurry, I can tell you. But even though Nigel Binns goes on about his documentary realism I reckon you want to go for a natural but really dramatic effect. Whenever I do this kind of job, what I need to know is first if it’s in black and white or colour and th
en how shocking to make it. Do you want an eye out, a smashed-in nose, or an ear off? People always need something done to the eyes. It’s what people are most afraid of. That and their genitals, but I’ve never had to do them. Well, only on the outside.’
Sidney remembered the dead that he had seen all too recently: Philip Agnew, Isaiah Shaw and Jimmy Benson. He heard their names as if he was in church, praying for the recently departed, and thought about the gap between the illusion of cinema and the reality of death. There was nothing sensational about reality. It went on. Cinema was entirely different; a lie, a fable, a fiction that might presume to tell the truth through allegory but was as far from it as any other story. Sometimes you had to look at life and death without colour or drama but with a cold eye. Horseman, pass by!
Sidney decided to view the rushes again the next morning. He wanted to see whether his performance had got any better and how to appear natural. How did someone ‘act’ naturally?
Warwick Lyons said that he had something to show him; the difference between being on and off camera. ‘This might be of interest to you,’ the editor began. ‘It demonstrates how people should never be off-guard. Perhaps the camera never lies after all.’
Nigel Binns had wanted a distant shot of Andy Balfour during the discovery of the dead body. Now, as the cameras were rolling but before the director had called ‘Action!’ Sidney could see that he was joined on set by the distinctive figure of Veronica Manners, holding on to his arm and arranging what looked like a later assignation, while a dresser stood by, carrying an umbrella and waiting to put on the actor’s raincoat.
As the cameraman checked focus, suddenly and in shot, Veronica Manners touched Andy Balfour on the cheek; a simple gesture that revealed their intimacy. It was meant to be discreet, but on screen it was nothing of the kind. It was picked up by the camera and no doubt by the dresser as well. Were secrets in the film business always so badly kept, Sidney wondered, and did anyone care about their discovery?
He tried to imagine what Veronica’s husband Robert would have thought had he seen such a gesture. Would he make a public fuss or let it go? Would he give his wife the benefit of the doubt, pretend not to know, or confront her later?
‘How do these film-star marriages ever survive?’ he asked himself, as his mind moved on to ponder the nature of romantic relationships, the meaning of fidelity and the rise and fall of passion.
It was time to get back to Hildegard.
There was a delay in filming the drowning scene later that day because Nigel Binns wanted a sombre light with heavy clouds even though he was behind on his shooting schedule. Producers had arrived from London to tell him to get on with it but he was unwilling to engage them in any serious conversation, and looked busy even when he was not. Sidney rather envied his ability to evade the blandishments of people whom he did not want to speak to; it was not something a canon in the Church of England was able to do in his work.
Sidney and Dickens waited patiently in Daisy’s make-up truck for the light to change. The Labrador was basking in adoration from the extras and costume assistants and Sidney felt a surge of renewed affection for his loyal and patient companion. He thought, not for the first time, how much he could learn from Dickens’s dignity and quiet acceptance of all that life brought him.
Finally the light was deemed adequate, the crew moved to the sluice gate near the Silver Street Bridge and preparations were made for the moment that was set to be Dickens’s finest hour.
His big break had come through personal recommendation from Mandy Cartwright, the dog wrangler on the film. Just over two years earlier, she had avoided becoming the victim of bigamy when her husband had attempted to marry Amanda Kendall for financial gain. Sidney had foiled the plot by going to King’s Lynn and seeking her out; after which the Norfolk breeder had promised to repay Sidney’s vigilance in whatever form he chose. Now that moment had come, and Mandy, having advocated Dickens being part of the film, was determined to do her best for the dog, ensuring his warmth, safety and suitable recompense.
‘He’s not getting any younger, is he?’ she remarked on their reacquaintance. ‘But he’s a fine-looking Lab.’
‘He is extremely good-natured,’ Sidney replied. ‘And he bears no grudges. He looks on each day as an opportunity for happiness. I have never known any creature so glad to be alive.’
Mandy was a small thin woman in a bulky red jumper, jeans and a well-worn waterproof. ‘I’m so grateful for what you did when we had that trouble with Anthony. All that quantum physics went to his head, thinking he could be in two places at the same time. What a liar.’
‘And is he well?’
Mandy looked surprised that Sidney should ask after the man. ‘He’s a good deal chastened. I’ve got him trained now. He’s not likely to go running off into the hedgerows with young women who should know better than to go after married men. But he’s slowed down a bit, in any case. He can look but he can’t touch. Age has some compensations.’
‘I am glad things have improved.’
‘We’ve both settled down. Sometimes people can have too many expectations about marriage and the future and what they can really achieve, don’t you think, Canon Chambers? You see it all the time in the film business, of course. I’m not saying we should accept second best.’
‘No . . .’
‘But sometimes that’s better than third, fourth or fifth. Not everyone gets the gold medal when it comes to marriage, do they?’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And how is that wife of yours?’
‘She’s very well, Mandy, I must say.’
‘A gold medal then, eh?’
‘Quite. And now if you’ll see to Dickens . . .’
‘Of course. I didn’t mean to be personal. She’s German, isn’t she? They’re always in the medals when the Olympics comes around; there’s that Armin Hary, Jutta Heine and that well-built girl Gisela Birkemeyer. I went to Rome to see them.’
‘I think there is a difference between a good sportswoman and a wife, Mandy.’
‘Canon Chambers, everyone who has met Hildegard can see that you are a very lucky man. But you took a risk in marrying when people still remember the war . . .’
‘Perhaps love is always a risk.’
‘I bet you were supposed to marry a Harriet or a Belinda . . .’
‘I think some people were surprised that I married at all. Shall we head off to the set?’ Sidney asked, determined not to develop the conversation further. ‘I am sure they’ll be wanting Dickens by now.’
Once they arrived, Nigel Binns explained the set-up. ‘It’s really all on the reaction shots but we need to get the basics right. I’ve heard that Hitchcock’s doing a drowning scene with Sean Connery later in the year so I have to get in first.’
‘That’s right, Nigel. Show him how it’s done, eh?’ Mandy encouraged.
‘There’s the drowning in Vertigo when Madeleine tries to commit suicide under the Golden Gate Bridge, and there are three in Lifeboat, but this is my chance for some showreel direction.’
He gave Sidney the storyboard for the sequence. The scene would start with an establishing shot of the weir, the sluice-gates and the keeper’s cottage and then cut to a close-up of the raging torrent.
‘We’re on the bridge. We pick up the gate-keeper on Laundress Green.’
‘Ah, yes, he’s played by Robert Vaizey, isn’t he? Veronica’s husband.’
‘Yeah, of course. To be honest, he wouldn’t be my first choice. We only cast him so that we could get his wife in the film. So . . . he’s walking with his dog to inspect the sluice-gates. We have a quick close-up of the dog and then cut back to the water. The dog barks . . .’
‘I’m not sure about Dickens doing that. He’s a reticent barker, aren’t you, old man?’ Sidney suddenly felt protective of his Labrador standing patiently by his side, his eyes never leaving his master’s face.
‘Don’t worry then. We can dub that on later. The sluice-keeper leans over.
We pick him up on a second camera from a boat on the water, the gate gives way, we’re underneath him now, he loses his balance and topples past camera. We use a dummy for the actual fall (it will be in silhouette) and then pick up the real actor in a safer bit of water downriver.’
‘Nigel, you’re a wonder,’ said Mandy.
‘Special effects are on the bank with the bubble machine for the final drowning. We cut back to the dog, we see the dummy in the danger area on a long shot and then we pick up Andy on the bridge camera. He runs along the bank, and we reshoot that hand-held, so the audience feel they’re with him.’
‘It’s going to be so exciting. I can’t wait to see it, Nigel.’
‘He jumps into the river and then we see him grapple with Robert; the boat camera captures the men turning over twice in the water as they pass through frame, we cut back to a close-up of the broken sluice-gate, the bubble machine does its stuff and then the two dead bodies float off into the distance, with a final close-up, perhaps, of the distraught dog.’
‘Dickens isn’t usually a distraught kind of dog, I’m glad to say.’ Sidney gave his Labrador a consoling hug. ‘Think you can do that, old man?’
‘We’ll have the sound of the water up high, mix in the music, end on the water and there you go: next stop the Oscars.’
‘I only hope Dickens is up to the job.’
‘All he has to do is stand there,’ Mandy reassured.
‘Can he look frightened?’ Nigel asked.
‘He can look startled and he can pace up and down, especially if someone is in the water. He might even jump in.’
‘We don’t want that. The audience will worry more about the dog than the actors. He’ll take all the sympathy.’
‘We could tie him to the bridge?’ Mandy suggested.
‘No, that’s too tame. Let’s risk it. We’ll do his reaction shots with the dummy first. Then we can see where the water takes it.’
‘But won’t the dummy be wet?’
‘We won’t dress it for the dog shot. We’ll only put the replica costume on when the time comes.’