‘“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again,”’ said Savannah, quoting the opening line of the book. ‘That’s my all-time favourite film. It’s sooooo romantic. It was my grandmother’s favourite too. After I’d seen the movie with her, I read all Daphne du Maurier’s books, and that’s why, when I heard that I was going to be filming down here, I wanted to come and check out where she used to live. But I never dreamed that Manderley was a real place. And still standing. Can we go see it?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s privately owned and set in it’s own grounds. You can’t see much from the road.’
‘No matter,’ she said. ‘Let’s go when we get off the boat.’
When the boat trip was over, we drove out as close to Menabilly as we could. But, as I’d told her, we couldn’t see the house from the road. It didn’t dampen Savannah’s enthusiasm though. She asked the driver to stop on the road and she photographed the trees outside the estate. ‘Even a shot of the trees near Manderley, or Menabilly, or whatever y’all call it, will be awesome,’ she said. ‘Remember the scene in the film when you see the house for the first time, in the distance, in the mist . . . Fabulous.’
I could have cursed myself for not bringing a camera with me. Me, who travels everywhere with one. The one time I just happen to be hanging out with a superstar, and where is it? In the cupboard at home.
As the day went on, I felt like I got a glimpse of the real girl behind the public image. Beneath the showbiz trimmings, Savannah was an ordinary girl and, I reckon, a bit lonely from being on the road so much. She may be a mega-star, but she’s still only seventeen and she misses her home and her family. She treated me like an equal. And I felt I’d made a new friend. She told me all about living in New York and about how she first got started in acting. And I told her all about living in Cornwall and my ambition to be a film director. She was genuinely interested – I could tell. She wasn’t just being polite. Someone like her doesn’t need to be.
On the way home, she snuggled up against me and fell asleep on my shoulder. For a moment, I let myself imagine what might have happened if I hadn’t been going out with Lia and had responded to Savannah’s flirtation with a bit more enthusiasm. The thought of it made me shiver inside. If my friends could see me now, I thought, as we hit the A390 and made our way back to the Rame Peninsula and home. The driver dropped me off and I waved as the car drove away.
As soon as I got in, I phoned Lia. It was now six thirty and this time she was at home.
‘Hey,’ she said.
Amazing, I thought. Girls can say so much in one word. By the flat tone of the ‘hey’, I could tell she was miffed.
‘Sorry about before, Lia. Did Mac give you my message?’
‘No, what message? Where have you been?’
‘I called Mac’s mobile and asked him to tell you I’d call later. Bugger, he can’t have picked up his messages. I called unit base to try and reach you, as well, but I got Roland and – ’
‘Roland? He’s here. Hold on, I’ll ask him . . .’
‘No, don’t. I didn’t leave a message with Roland.’
‘But you just said you called him . . .’
This wasn’t going well. ‘Yes, I did. But I didn’t leave a message with him. What’s he doing there, anyway?’
‘He brought us back up to the house. Did you really call? You’re not just making it up?’
‘No, I mean, yes. Yes, I did really call. And no, I’m not making it up. I called this morning to say sorry I couldn’t meet you, but your phone was engaged. So then I left a message on Mac’s voicemail. Honest. He’ll tell you.’
‘But why didn’t you leave a message when you spoke to Roland?’
‘I thought he might not pass it on. You know he’s got it in for me.’
‘Why? You’ve never done anything to upset him.’
‘Tell him that,’ I said. ‘But he’d probably stir it if he knew we were going out. I know he fancies you.’
I waited for her to say she didn’t fancy him but she didn’t say anything.
‘Anyway, he brought who up to your house?’ I asked. ‘Who’s us? Cat and Becca?’
‘No, Charlie, Donny and Roland.’
‘Donny Abreck?’
‘Yeah, he arrived yesterday. Anyway, where have you been?’
‘To Fowey’
‘Why?’
‘Um, Savannah wanted to go.’
‘Ah . . . I thought you might have been with her.’
‘Yeah, it was good. She’s nice. We went to Jamaica Inn, too.’
‘You said you’d take me there.’
‘I will. Soon, I promise.’
There was a long silence at the other end of the phone.
‘You still there, Lia?’
‘Yeah.’
Another long silence.
‘So, what is it? Are you mad with me? I really did try and phone, you know, and I thought you’d understand . . . And oh, I did speak to your mum. Ask her. She’ll tell you that I phoned. On your mobile. You left it behind this morning. Yeah. See, I wouldn’t know that if I wasn’t telling the truth, would I? Ask your mum.’
‘She’s gone out to get her hair done.’
‘Ask her when she gets back.’
Lia went quiet for a few moments. ‘Everyone thinks that you and Savannah fancy each other,’ she said, finally.
‘No way,’ I said. ‘Hey come on, Lia . . .’
‘Look, got to go,’ she said, and I heard voices in the background at Lia’s end of the phone. It sounded like a crowd had walked into wherever she was. There was a lot of laughing and loud talking going on. ‘We’re taking Donny out to dinner. Apparently he doesn’t like the hotel where he’s staying. Charlie’s trying to persuade Mum to let him stay here . . .’
‘We? Who’s the we taking Donny out?’
‘Me, Mum and Dad, Charlie and Roland.’
Now it was my turn to be jealous. Donny Abreck staying in the same house as Lia. Going out to dinner with Lia. He was bound to fancy her. And he was a regular teen mag pin-up. I felt a dull ache in the pit of my stomach. My biggest fear about Lia was that she would want someone more exciting than me, someone who’d seen more of the world than I had. Someone exactly like Donny Abreck. Now she’d met him, she was bound to dump me and go out with him. Maybe she was already planning to, I thought. Normally she would have asked me to go out to dinner with them as well; she liked including me and her mates in whatever was happening. She was really generous like that. But not this time apparently.
Suddenly my great day didn’t feel so great anymore.
MAC AND I had a good heart-to-heart when I went to pick him up for work the next day.
‘Yeah,’ he said after I’d filled him in on my day out with Savannah, ‘sometimes the best bit about getting off with someone hot is the fact you can tell everyone about it the next day.’
‘I didn’t get off with her,’ I said, as he shut his front door.
‘Not yet, you lucky dawg, y’all,’ he drawled, in a terrible imitation of a Texan accent.
I tried to hit him but he was too fast for me.
‘Only joking,’ he said, dodging out of my way. ‘But still, way to go. One for the books.’
‘I guess,’ I said. ‘But it was all innocent. Not that Lia believes that.’
‘Yeah, sorry I didn’t get your message to her. I would have passed it on if I’d picked it up in time.’
‘Not your problem,’ I said glumly. ‘But maybe you could tell her that I really did leave a message.’ Part of me felt that Lia’s reaction had been unfair. OK, I had gone off with Savannah for the day; but I hadn’t cheated on her and I had tried to reach her.
‘Will do,’ he said, then I guess he must have noticed my miserable expression. ‘Hey, don’t get down about it. Girls, eh? Who knows what strange things go on in their heads sometimes. She’ll come round.’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe. Sometimes, though, you just can’t win.’
‘Don’t let it get to you. You
need cheering up, mate. Have you heard that joke about the bloke who gets stranded on a desert island?’
I shook my head.
‘A castaway called Pete had been all alone on a desert island for years,’ he began, ‘when he noticed another shipwreck on the horizon. There was only one survivor, a woman, and she was heading his way. He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw who was swimming towards him: Britney Spears. She’d been his pin-up back home before he was shipwrecked. She took one look at him and fell hopelessly in love.
‘They spent an idyllic few months making love and walking naked across the beaches. But then one morning, Pete became withdrawn and unhappy. Britney asked what the matter was. “I’ll do anything to make it better,” she said. “I know this might seem strange, but would you mind wearing one of my old suits?” he asked. “Course not, darling, whatever makes you happy,” she replied and went to put his suit on. This, however, was not enough. “Would you mind cutting your hair short?” he asked. “Whatever it takes,” she replied and went to cut her hair. When she returned, he said, “Almost there. Now, would you mind painting a moustache on your face?” She thought it a bit odd, but agreed, saying: “Whatever it takes to make you happy, darling.” When she returned, he said, “Perfect, but one final thing. Do you mind if I call you Bert?” “No,” she replied, baffled, “go right ahead.” Now, grinning from ear to ear and almost back to his happy self, he asked her to stand next to him on the beach and lean against a rock. “Bert,” he said. “Wanna beer?” “OK,” said Britney. “Bert. You catch the game last Saturday?” “No, I didn’t,” said Britney. “Bert,” he said, “you’ll never guess who I’ve been sleeping with for the last six months . . .”’
I laughed. ‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘I get it: men like to show off. But nothing’s going to happen between me and Savannah for me to boast about. We held hands, that’s all. Like mates. Anyway, I’m going out with Lia. I don’t want to blow that.’
‘Bec says that Lia was out with Donny Abreck last night.’
‘Yeah, but her parents were there as well. Did Becca say anything else about it?’
Mac shook his head. ‘Nah, she only had an earful for me.’
‘Why’s that? What have you done?’
‘She reckons I’ve been flirting with Julie and Chantelle from make-up.’
‘She’s right,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen you.’
‘Maybe they’ve been flirting with me.’
‘Haven’t seen you objecting, mate.’
Mac shook his head. ‘I have to admit it’s flattering. And it’s made me think. I mean, I like Becca, I really do, but I don’t know if I want to . . . you know, be so tied down in a serious relationship at my age. It’s like . . . Say Becca is an apple. Great – I like apples. But some days, I might fancy an orange or a melon or another fruit. Like, why stick to one fruit when you can sample the whole basket? It’s been great with Becca. It still is great, it’s just . . . I’d like to be free to flirt around a bit.’
‘Then tell her.’
‘Pfff. Easier said than done. Don’t want to hurt her feelings.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘But you never know, she may be feeling the same way. I remember when I was going out with Cat and it felt like our relationship had run its course. Neither of us said anything for ages then, when we finally did come clean, we discovered we both felt the same way but were too scared to say anything.’
‘I guess that’s a possibility,’ said Mac, looking unhappy. ‘Yeah, I will. I’ll talk to her. Are you going to talk to Lia?’
‘What about?’
‘You and her of course, you dingbat.’
‘I don’t want to break up with her, so nothing to say at the moment. I want to go out with her. End of story.’
As we rode to work, I wondered if it really was the end of the story. Lia and I had promised always to tell each other the truth and I hadn’t let on to her that Savannah had flirted with me. If it meant nothing, I’d have told her and we’d have had a laugh about it. She could trust me, couldn’t she? I’m not like Mac, wanting to try every fruit in the basket. Or am I?
As soon as we got to unit base, I reported to the production office to get my list of tasks for the day.
Roland didn’t even look up when I knocked on the trailer door. ‘Savannah wants to see you, pronto,’ he said.
‘Errands?’
Roland shrugged and began to dial a number on his phone. ‘Dunno, she didn’t say. Better get over there.’
I was dying to ask him about his evening out with Lia and the others, but I didn’t want to give him the slightest notion that I was worried. I had thought about phoning Lia and simply asking her how it had been, but then she might feel I was crowding her or acting desperate after our last uncomfortable phone call. Be cool, I kept telling myself. Be cool.
Five minutes later, I was anything but cool. My heart was beating fast in my chest and I got the distinct feeling I was blushing as red as Savannah’s hair. And I’m not a blusher normally. I was with her in her trailer, and she didn’t want errands running. Oh, no. She wanted to rehearse a scene from the film. With me taking the other actor’s part. And it wasn’t just any old scene she wanted to go through. It was a snogging scene.
Oh. My. God.
‘But why don’t you wait and do it with Donny?’ I asked.
‘Him? Hah! I’ve worked with him before and if you wait for him to show up, you wait all day. No, it’s a crucial scene. I want to get it right.’
‘Then . . . why don’t you get one of the other actors in?’ I stuttered. ‘I mean I . . .’
‘I tried Bill and I tried Jake but they’ve both got some kind of throat infection that’s going round. I can’t risk catching it. Why? Y’all got a problem with this, Squidge?’ She raised an eyebrow and looked at me with an amused expression.
‘Er, no, course not, er . . . just . . . How about Roland? He’s more senior than me.’
Savannah rolled her eyes in exasperation. ‘I’m prepared to suffer for my art to a certain degree, but, dahlin’, I ain’t prepared to go that far. Hey, come on. Some people would pay good money for an opportunity like this. What’s the problem?’
‘No problem. Honest.’
‘You worried about your girlfriend, Mia?’
‘Lia.’
‘Whatever. Hey, come on, Squidge, get real here. It’s only acting. It’s not like you’re being unfaithful.’
Hmm, not sure Lia would see it that way, I thought. But then, how can I say no? I’ll look like a total amateur. I want to work in films. If I was on my own set, I’d muck in where necessary. Plus, the idea was tempting, very tempting. It was a way of snogging Savannah without really being disloyal to Lia. It would be acting. I decided to be professional and detach myself from my feelings. It was only a job. I’d do the scene.
After I’d agreed, she gave me a copy of the script and I had a quick read through of the scene she wanted to go over. It was the part where Pip meets up with Estella in London when they’re older and she teases him and plays with his feelings. Great Expectations was one of my favourite books when I was younger and I’d read it a few times so I knew that the scriptwriter had used some poetic licence. I couldn’t remember there being an actual snogging scene in the book at that stage of the story, but then each writer and director interprets things differently. From a director’s point of view, I could understand exactly why a kiss had been written in. Savannah and Donny’s fans would expect it. And the producers would love it, as they could use the scene to promote the film.
‘Ready?’ asked Savannah.
I gulped, nodded and read my lines out loud. After a few moments, I got into it and it felt good. Then I came to the part of the script that read:
Estella leans forward, brushes Pip’s hair from his face and kisses him lightly on the lips. She pulls back, then Pip moves forward and kisses her more deeply, almost greedily.
Gulp. OK, I thought, get ready. God, I wish I’d known I was going to have to do this,
I would have sucked mints for an hour or two beforehand. I’d read in a magazine somewhere that one actress hated kissing her leading man as he always tasted of garlic or onions. What did I have for breakfast? Was it Marmite? People either love it or hate it. No, it wasn’t Marmite, it was . . .
Oh God, Savannah, I mean Estella, was leaning forward. My mind went into overdrive. It was like there was this mad voice gabbling away in the back of my head, telling me that I had to stay in character, as that way I wouldn’t be cheating on Lia because it wasn’t me kissing Savannah, it was Pip kissing Estella, and he’s not me, I’m not him and she’s not her. Oh God, oo oo – Savannah’s lips were on mine. A fleeting kiss. Gentle. My stomach did a backflip. Nice.
She moved back and looked at me, waiting. It was my turn. I am Pip; I am Pip. What’s my motivation? I am intimidated by Estella, I thought, trying to remember the story. Never mind Estella; I’m intimidated by Savannah. This is real. No, it’s not real. It’s acting. I glanced down at the script. Pip moves in and kisses her more deeply. OK. Right. I can do this, I thought. I took a deep breath. Swallowed. Looked up at Savannah. Grinned like an idiot.
‘No, no,’ she said, with an impatient wave of her hand. ‘Get in the mood. Pip wouldn’t smile. This is an intense moment. A moment he’s dreamed about for years. All his life, he’s adored Estella, put her on a pedestal. This is the moment he’s been waiting for.’
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Got you.’ Actually I can do this, I thought. What Savannah had described was exactly how I’d felt about Lia for months before we got together. I’ll imagine that I’m reliving that first kiss with Lia.
Savannah leaned over and gave me her fleeting kiss again then pulled back.
Think about Lia, I told myself. Imagine this is Lia and it’s that first time I ever got to kiss her. I leaned over, looked into Estella’s eyes, closed my eyes then kissed her.
And she kissed me back. But it didn’t feel like Lia kissing me back. No, of course it wouldn’t, I thought. This is Estella. Woah, a very passionate Estella. I don’t think it mentioned kissing with tongues in the script but I was definitely getting Estella’s, I mean Savannah’s, I mean Lia’s. Oh God, who am I kissing here? How long is this kiss meant to go on for? And woah, it feels really good.
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