by Fiona Walker
His wake-up note suggested that she roll up around midday, when the shooting of a long fight sequence was due to end and they would break to re-set the cameras for a closer shot. He told her to seek out the third assistant director, Mel, who would point her to the catering truck, Niall’s trailer, and some friendly faces. Tash quelled a childish desire to be pointed back to Berkshire.
The day’s shooting was taking place on a windswept stretch of Highland moor a few miles away. It was undoubtedly a breathtaking backdrop – a head-spinning mix of heather shag-pile, folding glens, barbed pine forests and distant, snow-tipped peaks jagging up into bleak, grey mist. All were being lashed by a hard, spitting rain that felt like schoolboys throwing pebbles. Half a mile to the left, a sheet-metal loch was being pitted and corrugated by the skin-stripping wind, and overhead the clouds were pressing down as though God was sitting on his suitcase, desperate to pack the contents down further. Savage and romantic, it was a spot guaranteed to get the Americans into their day-glo shorts and over the Atlantic in droves to buy novelty sporrans. Tash wondered if the film had been sponsored by the Scottish Tourist Board. It was the ultimate in product placement.
She, however, approached it from a less salubrious angle – behind the camera. Beside a tiny open lane, a muddy area had been cordoned off as the location’s base and was teeming with action as well as rain. At the base of a wooded hill, it was relatively sheltered from the wind, and groups of stressed-looking film types were clustered around sipping tea from steaming beakers, huddling beneath the hoods of their brightly coloured kagoules. Dozens of cars had squelched up the ground and were parked beside rows of pantechnicons, caravans and smaller transit vans. To one side was a logo-covered catering lorry with a make-shift tarpaulin cafeteria hitched up to the side of it.
Wheels spinning in the mud, Tash parked the design classic beside a remarkably clean Jaguar and headed towards the tented eatery, wishing she had ignored vanity and put on her wellies as her ankle boots sank so deeply into the wet mud that it seeped inside over the rims.
To her immense relief, Niall was already in there, sitting at a table around which were crammed a large number of assorted eighteenth-century Highlanders, some of whom were incongruously wearing Puffa jackets and waterproofs over their long, muddy plaids and sodden shirts.
He was laughing his head off as he munched his way through an enormous baguette. Bright-eyed and wild-haired, he looked utterly removed from the tortured, drunken soul of the night before.
Tash paused in the gloom of the tented entrance, breathing in the combined smell of cooking, cigarette smoke and damp canvas, a curiously reassuring mix which reminded her of the competitors’ tent at large horse trials where she would huddle with the Lime Tree team between phases, listening to the commentary, sipping milky tea and discussing all things equine as Gus nicked her fags.
Niall had polished off his baguette now and was helping himself to the large tag-end of one discarded by his neighbour. Tash caught her breath as she realised it was Minty Blyth, his corkscrew-haired co-star, huddled in a vast waterproof cape and sulkily smoking a Marlboro. Even dressed in scruffy Scottish garb, her glorious hair teased out like a furze bush, her face smudged with mud, she was exquisite – all curves and creamy skin.
As Tash watched her, she looked up, aware of the attention. Tash braved a smile, but Minty had already looked away, assuming she was some minor member of the crew or an extra fascinated by stardom. Turning back to Niall, she listened as he regaled the table with one of his raucous, exaggerated stories which rendered them all tearful with laughter as he hammed it up and acted out all the roles with grand gestures and big theatrical faces.
Tash moved forward, wishing that he would look up and welcome her to save her the embarrassment of general scrutiny as she crept up to tap him on the shoulder.
But he was far too absorbed in his storytelling to notice her. Minty did, however, watching Tash suspiciously from the corner of one big, dark eye, wary of the likelihood of a battered autograph book being thrust into their cosy clique.
As Tash approached the table, one of the assorted kilt-wearers said something that made the rest of them collapse in a delighted howl of riotous laughter. Tash tried not to feel a pang of worry as Niall’s head lolled on to Minty’s shoulder with familiar ease and he wiped away a tear of joy before stretching across her to extract a cigarette from her packet. Smiling a big, feline smile, Minty seemed totally at home with the gesture. There was something about the easy, tactile way that their bodies made contact which unzipped Tash’s chest with jealousy and she had mentally to slap herself down for being so suspicious.
Squelching up to Niall, she cleared her throat awkwardly.
‘Are we being called, darling?’ One of the kilts looked up at her, assuming her to be an assistant to a third assistant or similar.
‘Tash!’ Niall looked round and leaped up with delight, tipping Minty so acutely to the right that she nearly fell off the bench. ‘I thought you were never coming – great timing. We’re all waiting for the rain to clear. Come here.’
He enveloped her in a great bear hug and indulged her in a rather perfunctory kiss before spinning her round to face the table. He’d transferred mud on to her cheek with the kiss, and pushed her hair into her eyes so that she was winking like a pervert in order to see, but she managed a hearty smile.
‘Here – meet a great bunch of people. This is Tash.’ He clutched her proudly, and she derived a certain amount of bolstering satisfaction from the fact that Minty was looking exceedingly huffy.
Various muddy faces peered up at her in fascination. Tash tried not to squirm around uncomfortably as she felt like a small child being eyed up by a new batch of classmates. Her eyes were still full of hair and watering madly, and she had the disconcerting feeling that she was something of a disappointment to them.
‘Tash!’ One of the kilts got to his feet and stretched across the table to shake her hand. ‘You’re the Tash, are you? Delighted to meet you. I’m Brian.’
There followed a lot of names and pointers for Tash to remember people by – ‘He was in The Minister, remember?’ – ‘This is the one I told you about who fell off his horse twenty times on the first day’s shoot’ – ‘Played alongside Gere in that political thriller last year’ – ‘She turned down the latest Sharon Stone role’. Tash tried to follow them all, but after a couple of minutes she was completely lost. Some of the faces were extremely familiar, but the one she was drawn to again and again was Minty Blyth’s. Eyeing her through a cloud of hair and smoke, she seemed to take an instant dislike to Tash, and, with a sinking heart, Tash could guess why.
It often happened. In the secure, gang-like intimacy of a location shoot, actors who had to kiss and make eyes at one another daily on a film set were also eating together in the hotel at night, going through lines together afterwards in the bar, sharing a car ride together in the early hours of the morning, sitting in make-up together gossiping. Living in one another’s air pockets, it was inevitable that the love-affair on-set often carried on in extra-curricular time. Or, if not, the feeling between the actors was often so strong and visceral that it seemed to eclipse other long-standing relationships away from the shoot. Tash knew that Niall had an appalling habit of unintentionally encouraging his leading ladies to fall for him, with his friendly charm, patience, tactile warmth and occasional glimpses of a deeper, more brooding side that they ached to understand. His was a lethal, aphrodisiac mix of ingredients guaranteed to induce dizziness in all who fell under its spell. Tash should know, as she herself had fallen for it. And she had a shrewd idea that Minty had too.
‘So you’re the jockey?’ she asked, eyeing Tash’s thighs sceptically.
‘Eventer.’ Tash smiled back. ‘It’s a sort of equestrian triathlon.’
‘Oh.’ Minty clearly wasn’t interested enough to question her further.
‘I’ll get you some coffee, angel.’ Niall loped off, indicating for her to sit down in the tightly gath
ered group.
Squeezing into the space that he had vacated, Tash found herself pressed next to the smoky-eyed actress in an involuntarily close pairing. Minty leaned pointedly away and lit another of the endless stream of cigarettes that kept her voice so low and husky.
‘Is this your first visit on set?’ she asked rather condescendingly.
‘On this film, yes,’ Tash nodded, deciding that she had to try and make herself like Minty for Niall’s sake.
‘I’m afraid you’ll find it terribly dull.’ Minty fiddled irritably with her plastic cup. ‘Lots of hanging around and such.’
‘Oh, I don’t really mind that.’ Tash smiled as Niall made his way back to her, a great big grin tugging at his craggy face. ‘I’m here to see Niall, so the more hanging around the better. We can hang around together.’ She felt bubbles of warmth popping inside her as she looked at him.
‘You two not been together long, then?’ Minty watched Niall too as he paused at another table to have a chat with a harassed-looking costume lady who had noticed pickle stains on his shirt.
‘A couple of years.’
‘Re-a-lly?’ Minty’s arched brows shot up, and then she flashed a bewitching little smile. ‘Still keeping an eye on him then, huh? Very sensible – he’s a dreadful tart, isn’t he? I must check whether they’re going to keep us hanging on any longer. C.U.L.’
With a swirl of damp petticoat and plastic mac, she wandered out of the tent.
‘What’s C.U.L.?’ Tash asked one of the kilts.
‘Some crap she’s picked up in the States – stands for Catch Up Later or something.’
‘Oh,’ Tash said vaguely, still dwelling on the tart line. What had she meant?
‘Ignore her, she’s a complete bitch.’ The kilt winked kindly. ‘Cigarette?’
Tash took it gratefully, and relaxed as Niall settled in beside her and slung an easy arm around her shoulders as he pressed his face into her neck.
‘It’s great to see you, angel,’ he sighed.
‘You too.’ She breathed him in happily, but as he played with the zip on her jacket and smiled roguishly into her eyes, she was uneasily aware that he was in character; he was MacGinnen, the rampaging, womanising Celt with the heart of fire. The real Niall had been the one she had encountered the night before in his hotel room, and that had been an altogether darker character.
It was, as Niall pointed out delightedly, a typical wet day on location. For every two minutes of frantic action, there were twenty of toe-twiddling inertia.
‘And I’m being paid a fortune to drink tea and grope Tash!’ He howled with laughter. ‘Christ, but I love this job! It’s God’s own paradise this side of heaven, so it is.’
For the most part it rained, and Tash whiled away the time sitting in the tent with the others, swapping gossip, playing cards, reading the papers and drinking endless cups of tea. Niall was smoking in public again, she realised, as he worked his way through an entire packet of Marlboro in just three hours.
Despite this, he was on rip-roaring form, and gloriously attentive. When there appeared to be no immediate prospect of the next scene on the schedule being shot in the downpour, he whisked her off to his trailer for a bit of privacy.
It was a far drier and more luxurious waiting-room than the tent, but Tash knew why he preferred to hang around in the latter, which was raucous and friendly and full of stimuli.
The trailer would be uncomfortably cramped with more than four people in it. There was a small eating area with rather repulsive Dralon seats fitted around a plastic table. There was also a minute loo and shower, a small kitchenette with a microwave, and a portable television which was showing racing from an equally windswept Ayr.
Tash again found it familiar – it was just like the living accommodation of the horse-box she and the Lime Tree team travelled and lived in when eventing in two-and three-day events. It even had the same tendency to steam up on the inside during rain, and the same slightly chemical smell which came from exhaust fumes and plastic fittings.
Niall immediately headed for the kitchen area and located a bottle of Bushmills.
‘Can I just have a coffee?’ Tash watched him worriedly.
‘Sure.’ He flicked on the kettle and poured himself several inches from the bottle.
Tash longed to ignore the move, but she was worried about him. Close to, he was pale and drawn, his face pinched with tension, eyes darkly smudged from lack of sleep. He had also dropped an alarming amount of weight. The director had asked him to grow his hair for the part – a long, straggly mop of black ringlets, it hung round his head like Rembrandt’s beret emphasising the haggard look. The camera simply piled on weight, so Tash knew that with his broad shoulders and sculpted features in high relief, he would look impossibly noble and romantic on screen, but in the harsh neon lights of the little caravan kitchenette, he cut a pathetically gaunt figure.
Shooting her a cheery wink, he knocked back almost half a glass of whiskey in one gulp.
‘Shouldn’t you lay off that until you know the scene definitely won’t be shot?’ she asked, trying to keep her tone light and breezy.
‘I guess I should.’ He drained the rest.
Tash sat on one of the repulsive Dralon seats and fingered a pile of script pages awkwardly as she watched him making coffee. His movements were clumsy and impatient, and he cursed under his breath, revealing the rawness of his nerves. But still MacGinnen’s smile remained plastered to his mouth like a Band Aid holding back emotion.
‘They seem like a nice bunch,’ Tash started falteringly. ‘The rest of the cast.’
‘Sure – this lot are a great bunch,’ he agreed happily, pushing his hair out of his eyes. ‘Better than the Edinburgh lot, who were all a bit precious. D’you like Minty?’ He looked up from his task expectantly. ‘I saw you chatting away to her earlier.’
‘She’s very beautiful,’ Tash said carefully.
‘Bloody talented actress.’ Niall brought her coffee over. ‘This is only her third film since graduating from drama school, and she’s incredibly professional. She’s worked so hard on her character since being up here.’
Tash nodded, remembering. ‘Yes, you were going through lines with her once when you called.’
‘Was I?’ He looked blank.
Tash blew on her coffee and said nothing, realising that he had forgotten the call altogether. She could remember it almost word for word. She had told him she’d loved the Four Poster Bed script, not knowing that Lisette was producing it; he had promised to fly down to Berkshire the following weekend, which he hadn’t.
Smiling apologetically, he turned back for a nip of whiskey and then peeled off his oilskin. Beneath it, he was swathed in a vast speckled green plaid. It was wrapped around his waist beneath a thick leather belt before being hitched up over his shoulder where it was secured by a chunky brass buckle. Beneath it was a tatty, oversized cloth shirt, gaping at the front where the string had come unlaced. His lower legs were wrapped in what appeared to be long woollen bandages with cross-laced leather shin-pads on top. He wore the same ensemble on his forearms.
‘You’re soaking wet!’ Tash reached out to touch the damp cloth.
Niall shrugged. ‘This is my third costume of the day – the first got coated in mud in the battle scene, the second was soaked afterwards, and I had to put this on for the close-ups. Costume wanted to dry it off for me, but Nigel – the director – insisted I kept it on for the kiss.’
‘The kiss?’
‘That’s what we were supposed to be shooting before the rain really set in.’ Niall pulled on a huge Aran over the entire damp ensemble. It bagged in an extraordinary fashion over his costume, making him appear hunch-backed. ‘MacGinnen – fresh from battle – returns with his posse to the nearby woods, where his love is waiting – that’s Minty – and leaps off his horse to kiss her. Everything’s set up – we just have to shoot the bugger.’
‘I see.’ Tash gnawed at a nail uncomfortably. She wished he hadn’
t invited her on set on the day he kissed one of the love-interests. She wondered vaguely if he’d done it deliberately.
‘Don’t tell me you shoot the sex scene tomorrow?’ she joked.
‘No, that was last week. Although there’s one with Juliet Richards when we go back to Edinburgh in ten days’ time.’
‘I see.’ Tash turned over a couple of pages of script, noticing the copious notes Niall had made in the margins. One of them read: ‘Imagine she’s T dressed in her old jeans.’
She hid a grin as a warm wave of reassurance lapped her face. Then her smile dropped slightly as she noticed that the line read, ‘D’ye think I’d want you now, huh?’
‘Dialogue’s a bit hard to read, isn’t it?’ She scanned the page.
‘Hellish.’ Niall had poured himself another drink and sat beside her. ‘It was written by a Yank who thought he had a strong grasp of the vernacular based on three weeks’ touring the Highland distilleries on some package holiday. But the voice coach is shit hot, so all might not be lost. Come here.’
Prising the script out of her hands, he pulled her into a rather rushed and clumsy kiss. He tasted of whiskey and cigarettes and Tash fought an urge to ask him to clean his teeth. She hoped he wasn’t using her as a warm up for Minty. She just couldn’t shake off this feeling of paranoia, however ridiculous she told herself she was being.
The kiss was becoming more aggressive by the second and Niall was pressing down on her with some force now, pushing her back against the seating and hitching her leg roughly up his side with a strong hand as he tried to force her to lie back. Tash wasn’t enjoying it at all.