Dirty Movies (3 page)

‘W
hat time shall I start tomorrow?’ she asked Rachel, faintly.

The co
ordinator clucked at her in sympathy. ‘I think you’ll find you’ve already started. Janie will chat to you about salary and stuff when she gets back, but in the meantime, do you mind copying that script for me?’ She indicated to a thick wad of paper on the desk. ‘I hope you’ve had lunch. I need ninety-eight copies bound and set for a meeting at two.’

Stephen had been pimping for work in the downstairs bar of his ultra-hip, members-only Soho
club when he first clapped eyes on Vincent Edwards. Choking on his cigar, he watched agog as a one-man hurricane charged through the mahogany doorway, effing and blinding at anyone stupid enough to get in his way. All around him people started sniggering into their brandies. Even Stephen felt the corners of his mouth twitch. There hadn’t been this much uproar at Sunset House since he was caught shagging the coatroom attendant in the bogs. 

‘By jove, is that Vincent Edwards?’ brayed a colleague suddenly, causing Stephen to choke on his smoke for a second time. That man couldn’t be the flourishing Independent Producer he thought incredulously, running his eyes over the sweaty, overweight stranger. For starters, he looked too out of place, too
ridiculous
compared to the well-heeled superficiality of the rest of the film industry crowd.

Vincent was decked out in a cheap, ill-fitting suit that barely covered his waist
and with turn-ups that hovered a good few inches above scuffed brown brogues. His face didn’t fare much better. His stubble, the colour of homemade marmalade, was patchy and scraggly as if a hungry moth had nibbled at it in the taxi ride over, and, when he opened his mouth to demand a bowl of peanuts, his teeth were as crooked as his budgets were purported to be.

Vincent had burst onto the scene two years previously with a series of astonishingly successful low budget
, east-end gangster movies that were rumored to bear more than a passing resemblance to his past. Such achievements were deemed unprecedented for a first-timer, especially one who didn’t appear to possess a single scrap of a producer’s understanding of a film’s appeal and marketability. What Vincent did have, however, was a super-human talent for squeezing every last bean out of a budget, whilst pocketing a cut on the sly. He was also a brute and a bully with a ferocious temper that terrified the life out of everyone. Industry insiders often commented that his success had more to do with production company bosses’ inability to say no to him rather than any discernible filmmaking talent.

Shoveling
up a fistful of peanuts, Vincent clocked the young director scoping him out. Neatly dodging the incoming swell of high-end production executives, he made his way over. Vincent wasn’t remotely interested in working for them anymore. He was fed up of being offered bore-fest Indie scripts with budgets less than this evening’s bar bill. Vincent had spent years compromising originality for financial reasons and enduring funny tummies from all the cut-price catering on set, and from now on he would only be considering movies with a minimum of eight car chases, like Stephen’s De Vries’ latest,
Gung-Ho in Guatemala
. Vincent’s exposure to the pulsating vein of success had stirred up a vampire-like obsession that had moved him beyond the narrow streets of Soho. His natural greed and competitiveness demanded more and he wouldn’t be satiated now until he was feasting on the big boys in Hollywood.

If Vincent had one fatal business flaw
, however, it was his fatal attraction to those with a similar blood-sucking ambition. He recognised a kindred spirit in Stephen almost immediately. In turn, the director was more than a little envious of the jaw-dropping acclaim that Vincent’s films were generating. Currently in post-production on his third Hollywood feature, which incidentally had more cheese than a margherita, Stephen was itching to set up his own company and forge a cracking first look picture deal with one of the major studios. This would give him the money and the freedom to pick and choose great scripts, as well as a fast-track to the Oscar podium.

Stephen wasn’t it for the dosh. He craved adulation
, like his wife craved Oxycontin, and he was desperate for his films to emulate the cinematic tour de forces of his idols,
Scorsese
and
Spielberg
. In order for this to happen, he needed a wily Producer to fund-raise and supervise, leaving him to run amok with his cameras.

B
y the time the pair stumbled out arm-in-arm later that night, after bonding over a shared admiration for Ridley Scott’s
Gladiator
and Sunset House’s magnificent Beef Wellington, Stephen knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Vincent Edwards was exactly the fellow he had been looking for.

The formation of this partnership
raised more than a few production office eyebrows, but, determined to succeed, they founded
GBA Pictures
before the year was out. At a time when many Hollywood Studios were cutting back on first look deals with small independent production companies, Vincent and Stephen’s growing notoriety caught the attention of Walt Wilson, the infamously mafiaesque boss of Hollywood power-house Global Studios. The resulting deal was a blinder. Not only did it promise GBA a pot of considerable developmental funds to misuse as they saw fit, it also bestowed upon them a very talented Development Executive to seek out the finest scripts around.

With Global’s marketing and publicity team on tap to promote their
pet projects, it wasn’t long before GBA had established bases in London and Los Angeles, a titanic reputation and several box office smashes to boast about on both sides of the Atlantic.

Six years later, Vincent wasn’t feeling quite so peachy about the whole deal. In the last few months, Walt Wilson had begun using their daily morning debriefs as his own personal target practice and Vincent’s left ear was developing tinnitus as a result. Alarmed by falling cinema audience figures, the studio boss had taken it upon himself to ensure profits continued by exerting his considerable authority and dabbling in as many creative decisions as possible.

To add fuel to an already blistering fire, Walt had
just promoted their Development Executive to Executive Producer in a thinly disguised GBA mole-planting exercise. Intensely irritated by this latest development, Vincent had set out to clash heads with the new Executive, the latest episode being the on-going debacle over the casting of GBA acting regular, Maisie Peach, for
A Desert Affair.

Fed up with being shouted at
by Walt, Vincent slammed the phone down and stormed into the production office in search of Gillian and a quick wank-job in the stationary cupboard. Instead, he found a deserted office, save some girl with long dark hair and obscenely tight jeans quivering next to the photocopier.

‘Where the fuck is everyone?’ he bellowed at Polly, his rage only heightened by
his latent sexual frustration.  ‘Bloody part-timers! I’ll can the lot of them! Where’s my finalised meeting schedule for Morocco?’

‘They’ve just popped out for a spot of lunch’ gasped the reply. ‘Let me have a look on Rachel’s desk and
i’ll see if I can find it for you.’

‘W
ho the hell are you, anyway?’ This was fired this more at Polly’s chest than her face.

‘My nam
e’s p-p-p-Polly, I’m the new r-r-runner, Janie’s just hired me,’ she stammered, quailing under the mega-wattage of his interrogation.

‘
Whatever. I need it on my desk in ten minutes.’

‘Yes, Mr Edwards’

‘Or else…’

Polly nodded frantically, ‘n
o problem, Mr Edwards.’

Satisfied for now, he stormed back into the corridor kicking a chunk out of the doorframe as he
went. Meanwhile, Polly had belted over to Rachel’s desk and was sifting through the mounds of paperwork. Oh, why did there have to be so many different versions of everything, she thought in a panic. Even if she did find his bloody schedule, chances are the dates and times of the various meetings would have changed already. Everything moved at such a terrifying pace in this office. Terror soon turned to relief, however, when Rachel appeared in the doorway clutching a half-eaten prawn sandwich.

‘Help
,’ whimpered Polly, diving forward to steady a row of lever-arch files that were threatening to condemn Rachel’s wilting pot plant to a revolutionary-style death at the jaws of the office guillotine. ‘Vincent’s been in here asking for some sort of meeting schedule and I can’t find it anywhere.’

‘Hang on, hang on, don’t stress. I printed it off before I went out
,’ said Rachel calmly, wiping a sliver of mayonnaise off her chin. ‘Here,’ she added, unearthing a piece of paper from the printer tray. ‘Now go and give it to him before he’s back in here screaming blue murder. He really, really hates asking for things twice!’

Smiling gratefully, Polly snatched the meetings schedule out of her hand and legged it down to Vincent’s office.

‘Mr Edwards, Mr Edwards, we found your meetings schedule! It was on…’ Without bothering to knock, Polly burst through the door then froze in horror. 

Gillian was perched on the edge of the desk opposite Vincent,
her legs akimbo, short denim miniskirt rucked up around her thighs and busily chomping her way through a plastic punnet of fruit. Ignoring Polly, she took her time to root out an extra-large strawberry before thrusting it at their Producer who gobbled it up like a hungry turkey. On the filing cabinet next to them, like some grisly fait accompli, sat an empty bottle of champagne, the gold foil of which was stained with cheap red lipstick. Averting her eyes, Polly tried not to gag. The whole scene had the mucky, unsavoury tinge of a porn set.

‘What the hell are you
gawking at?’ snarled Vincent, spotting her lurking by the door. ‘Leave it in my tray and get out!’ Half-eaten chunks of strawberry peppered Gillian’s leg and Polly watched her flick them off with a sigh.

‘So sorry to disturb you
,’ she gasped, slamming the paper down on his desk then colliding with the same waste paper basket that Rachel had knocked over earlier. As a result, her departure from the room was accompanied by the sounds of diet coke cans hitting the floor all over again.

‘Still alive’ observed Rachel dryly
, as Polly crept back into the production office a few minutes later.

‘Barely.
’ She paused as she struggled to come up with the words that wouldn’t make the whole scene sound quite so revolting.

Rachel studied her face for a
moment then chuckled. ‘Oh dear, you’ve either had a marriage proposal from Zach Roberts or you’ve witnessed the gruesome twosome at it. Considering Zach’s off shooting
Legend of the Dwarves
in New Zealand right now, my money’s on the latter.’

Polly gaped at her. ‘They’re an
item
?’

‘It’s the worst kept secret in Soho. Vincent’s been having it off with Gillian for years. He slots her in between his marriages like
dentist appointments.’

‘But how did they meet?’

‘Some film production years ago.’ Rachel started rooting around her desk for her cigarettes. She always found smoking a necessary accompaniment when sharing a particularly juicy piece of gossip. Nicotine helped deaden the guilt of dissecting her peers so liberally.

‘He never works with anyone else now
, which is a pain because Gill’s a tricky bitch,’ she said, pausing to take a drag. ‘And don’t ever let her hear you mouthing off about her precious Vincie-pooh ‘cos every little bit of gossip goes straight back to him…’

Taking her own advice
, she quickly shut up as Gillian flounced back into the room picking strawberry seeds out of her teeth. 

Two days later, Polly felt like one of those broken-down donkeys from the plea adverts on daytime TV. Her feet were killing her after darting up and down Oxford Street for last-minute plug adaptors and sun cream, and working fifteen hour shifts had left her light-headed with exhaustion.

Thank
god
it’s Friday, she reflected, trudging up the stairs with a fresh load of carrier bags, the plastic handles making mincemeat of her palms. Earlier that day, she had been dispatched across London on an errand for Vincent. Thinking it would only take an hour, she hadn’t factored in a brain befuddled by fatigue, nor a complex, unfamiliar London tube map, and in the end she had terminated in the Outer Hebrides of Zone 6 by mistake.

The core production
team was shipping out on an early flight to Casablanca first thing Monday. Rachel had assured her that things would be a lot less hectic then and Polly couldn’t wait. She needed at least a week to catch her breath.

Acting as a lifeline amidst the anarchy was the first tentative bud of friendship with
Rachel. In another stroke of luck, moody desk-mate, Bella, had been forced to accompany Stephen on a whirlwind of UK casting sessions all week so her appearances in the office had been limited to short-lived strops as she clomped through the door for some casting agent’s resume or Stephen’s dry-cleaning. Polly had yet to meet the fêted director but Rachel was making damn sure that his reputation preceded him.

‘Just stroke his ego. Whatever Stephen wants he gets
,’ she said, cramming a whole chocolate brownie into her mouth over lunch that day. ‘He’s talented, but oh my goodness does he like to throw his toys out of the pram!’

‘Tell me more!’ begged Polly, completely engrossed as she nibbled the edges of her custard cream.