Dirty Movies (33 page)

‘How perceptive you are Benito, dear,’ murmured Christine. ‘Still, it’s better than being wrestled to the ground in a headlock,’ she said in an undertone to Michael. ‘He’s just spent the last two days telling me what vile creatures all film producers are. I knew he’d adore you so that’s why I insisted on dragging you to meet us. Talking of beautiful new business relationships, is there any news from Romania?’

‘The doctor ok
ed Polly this morning. She and Joe are catching a flight home this afternoon.’

‘Is the little darling alright?’

‘Shaky but relieved to be leaving Bucharest. Stephen totally lost it. I’m glad he’s pissed but gutted Polly took the brunt of it.’

‘I
f she’s still refusing to press charges then we’ve all the more reason to make
Memoir
a success,’ said Christine briskly. ‘We need the best celluloid ammunition possible to blast my ex-husband right off his perch and send him squawking from that gilded cage.’

Christine’s call to arms proved not to be exclusive
to them, however. Stephen and Vincent flew home the very next week, equipped themselves with a great big sledgehammer and set about banging nails into their coffins all over town. Janie discovered just how many they had managed to hammer home one miserable afternoon, the following month. A day when the glum grey rainclouds outside blended flawlessly with the drab London skyline and the dirty pigeons down in Trafalgar Square.

Michael
flinched as his Line Producer slammed her phone down. Phone abuse was nothing new here. Indeed, with principal photography less than a few weeks away, their office was more hyperactive than a supermarket’s booze aisle at Christmas, yet something about Janie’s face made him instantly wary.

‘What’s up, honey?’
he called out.

‘That’s the third camera company to hang up on me this morning
,’ huffed Janie, pale cheeks puce with the injustice of it all. ‘Anyone would think we were cursed.’

‘Smells more like a GBA anti-Harper intervention to me
. Don’t sweat it; I have an old buddy back in LA who can swing us the gear. Chuck me a copy of Benito’s camera wish list and I’ll see what I can do.’

‘But that’ll mean humungous shipping costs
,’ wailed Janie. ‘There must be
someone
in London who can hire us a camera.’

‘
And find us a decent cast,’ added Joe bleakly, chucking his mobile away. ‘That was Marlene from
Casting Film Solutions
. The old bag’s just given us the business equivalent of the finger.’

‘But she can’t do that! W
hat did she say?’

‘Some piss-poor
excuse about over-extending her workload and not being able to give us the proper due care and attention.’

‘Utter tosh!’ interjected Christine from the next desk. ‘When I saw her back in September she was falling over herself to sign us up. Well
, it’s her loss. We just won’t bother employing her services next time round.’

‘Assuming there is a next time.
’

‘Ah hell. Brace yourselves,
people,’ exclaimed Michael, skim-reading the contents of his inbox. ‘Looks like every crew member worth his per diems will be giving us a wider berth than Vincent’s waistband. He and Stephen have sent round an email inferring that anyone caught trading with us will be dealt a red card from GBA.’

‘T
hat’s bang out of order,’ stormed Janie. ‘I’m calling
The Sun
. I’ll happily go on record and tell them exactly what working for Vincent entails; nerves of concrete and a fast-track to the nearest A & E.’

‘I get your anger
, honey, but that’s not something I’m ok with,’ said Michael quickly. If journo hounds came sniffing for stories, there might be a reveal about Lucas. A weeklong exposure as prime paparazzi fodder would finish Lily off.

‘I agree
,’ said Joe. ‘GBA will only counter-spin it and make us look stupid. Vincent’s got a pile of dirt on every redtop editor in town.’

Janie tried a new tact. ‘Well
, just because that email’s doing the rounds doesn’t mean people will automatically obey it. I bet if I called Sally and Roger right now they’d be on the first flight over.’ She picked up her phone again to show she meant business, but Joe just shook his head.

‘It’ll on
ly inflame the situation. Michael and I discussed this months ago.’

‘
Yes, but you’ll also recall that my views are the same as Janie’s,’ argued Michael. ‘That crew are far more loyal to you than they’ll ever be to Stephen. Make the call,’ he added to Janie.  ‘We’ll never convince him until we have the evidence on our payroll.’

‘But it
feels like we’re invading Poland,’ said Joe, sulkily.

Janie gritted her teeth
. Sometimes Joe was far too decent for his own good. It was a sentiment shared by every other person in the room.

‘Dearest Joe
,’ began Christine gently. ‘Don’t you think that the first declarations of war were deployed six years ago when Stephen slept with your wife?’

‘I know, I know, but can’t I be pacifist-neutralist-Switzerland-ish anyway?’

‘Oh for god’s sake, Joe, grow a pair!’ stormed Janie.

Michael threw his head back and laug
hed. He loved English chicks - they could be so direct.

‘So, am I dialling or what?’
asked Janie. 

‘Do it
.’ ordered Michael.

‘I need caffeine
,’ mumbled Joe, diving for the door.

When he didn’t return by 4pm, Michael wondered out to find him under the pretense of a chocolate-chip muffin run. He soon spotted Joe in the window of the nearby Café, picking listlessly at a meatball Panini and gazing into space.

‘Earth to De Vries
,’ he hollered, thumping on the glass. Joe jumped a mile high and so did his Panini, depositing a stray meatball in his neighbour’s Cappuccino.

‘It’s no good hiding away in here
, buddy,’ he chided, gliding through the door.

‘I’m not hiding anywhere
,’ said Joe, crossly, watching every woman pivot towards Michael like iron filings to a super-strength magnet.

‘Bullshit. You’ve more coffee pumping thr
ough your veins than O Negative.’

Joe shrugged. ‘I was trying to figure out a solution to the crew crisis.
And the camera crisis. And the casting crisis…’

‘Well you can cross the first item off your doom and gloom inventory. Sally accepted on the spot. What’s more, she’s planning
on holding a covert meeting in the hotel bar later to see who else is up for it. She’s pretty upbeat. There have been more than a few murmurs of dissent since the Polly incident. Oh don’t look so surprised,’ he tutted, as a look of delight swept across Joe’s face. ‘I told you months ago this would happen.’

‘So what now?’

‘We hold tight and see how tonight pans out. Sally didn’t go into any more details. She had to ring off. Maisie caught a pube in a zip.’ Michael tried folding his paper napkin into a swan but his origami skills were on par with his love life. ‘Just another heart-broken sucker.’ he murmured to himself, scrunching the napkin into a ball.

‘Huh?’
said Joe.

‘I said
, how great is it gonna be having the whole gang back together again,’ he lied.

Joe nodded, thinking of Danny. So far
, none of his apologetic voicemail messages had been returned.

‘So then Mr Fixit
,’ he said, taking a bite of his cold Panini. ‘What about our casting impasse, any thoughts?’

‘Right now
, i’ve got Christine flogging the crap outta her little black ‘great actors i’ve worked with’ book.’

‘Sounds promising.
And the camera?’

Michael straightened out the napkin again. ‘
Despite Janie’s inevitable meltdown, the Global Studios equipment store may just be missing a few key items come January.’

But they didn’t hear back from Sally that night, or the next night, or the following, and as the week rumbled on, Joe and Michael became increasingly snippy with one another. A film without a crew was no better than a kitchen without chefs, and with Vincent’s email infecting the industry like a nasty computer virus, it was looking increasingly likely that snaffling Sally and the rest of the GBA gang was now their only hope of getting
Memoir
made.

With this unhappy certainty looming over them like a dangling
piano, there weren’t many smiles to be had in the Harper production office that week. After another sleepless night, tossing and turning and pacing the hallway of his two-bed in Clapham, Joe was bug-eyed, dog-tired and running later than British Rail when Michael called him at 8am on Friday morning.

Having stormed off
in a huff last night, after Joe had pinched the last of his chocolate Hob Nobs, he was anticipating a grump the size of Sainsbury’s biscuit aisle. To his surprise, the American sounded amazingly chipper for a man deprived of sugar.

‘Joe! Buddy!’ he yelped. ‘Get your butt over to Soho. Something incredible just happened!’ 

‘Christine’s booked herself in for a facial,’ teased Joe, switching on the TV and thinking how much the presenter looked like an older version of Polly.

‘This is serious!’

‘So is Christine’s beauty regime.’

‘Well she cou
ldn’t give a fuck about it now. She’s beaming so hard, those wrinkles are busting right outta her face.’

Joe was so startled by this that
he switched the TV off immediately. Christine shot Botox like a junkie shot heroin.

‘Ok, ok I’m coming
,’ he said, climbing out of bed. ‘You in the office already?’

Michael confirmed this with a yawn. After pulling another
ninety-hour week, he was seriously considering turning his desk into a futon. At least then he’d be within fingertip distance of the coffee machine 24/7.

‘Ok, silly question
,’ said Joe, who wasn’t averse to smashing a few working hour guidelines himself. ‘Did you try Sally again?’

‘Not tell
ing’ said the American coyly. ‘It’s punishment for stealing my last Hob Nob.’

‘Oh for the love of…. you
hold more grudges than my brother. Alright I’m on my way.’

Thirty minutes later
, Joe was belting up the steps of Piccadilly Circus tube station. His brief stint underground had traded a cold, overcast Clapham Common for a crisp, bright Theatre District. Feeling the sunshine tickle his stubble, Joe’s fug melted into the gridlocked traffic, as his heart soared higher than the neon billboards above. The day was simply too glorious for another plummeting, corkscrew twist in their pre-production rollercoaster ride. He picked up the pace and reached the corner of Lexington Street in no time.

Pausing by a post box to let a woman with two hoity-toity Pekinese pass, he suddenly spotted a long line of scruffy, lan
guid, chain-smoking individuals, that looked suspiciously like the GBA Prophand gang, loitering outside the sandwich shop. They were chatting amongst themselves and eyeing up the pretty post-production runners as they zipped past with loaded trays of Starbucks. As he watched, Simon and the rest of the GBA camera team, minus Dan, came strolling out of the newsagents with Playboys and other more salubrious top shelf publications stuffed under their arms. Seeing him gawping at them like a goldfish, and completely oblivious to a Pekinese peeing all over his trouser leg, a great cheer erupted.

‘Here comes sleeping beauty!’

‘Bloody hell Joe, we fly halfway round the word for you, mate, and find you’re still in bed!’

‘Slacker!’

Hearing the jubilant heckling, Sally came bustling out of the sandwich shop with her team of costume assistants waddling behind her like obedient little ducklings. She too let out a squeal of excitement.

‘Joe-
ey
, my darling! We’re all SO excited to be here!
Harper
is the best thing to happen to film since 3D glasses went designer.’

Joe was still struggling to process it all as Roger, Karen and the rest of the art department team exited the private art gallery opposite and waved
at him.

‘
To paraphrase that delightful Mr Grossman,’ added Sally, kissing him on both cheeks, ‘after some careful deliberating, cogitating and ah…’

‘Masturbating?’

‘Oh shut up Simon, you cretin.’

‘Basically
, we ditched the shits!’ concluded Karen, rushing up to give Joe a hug. Secretly, she was delighted. A GBA production tended to cultivate more grey hairs than childbirth and she was fed up of spending a fortune at the hairdressers. ‘It was pretty unanimous as well, all except for…’

‘Listen
,’ said Simon interrupting, ‘Vincent can shove his stupid email up his big fat arse.’

‘If he can still find it…’

‘I’m surprised he didn’t take a machete to your passports when he heard you were leaving,’ gasped Joe.

Suddenly
, there seemed to be an awful lot of shoe-gazing going on.

‘Now
, i’m not saying that I’m proud of our behaviour,’ said Sally, shiftily, twiddling the dayglo-green frills on her cardigan sleeve, ‘but we may have been a tad unforthcoming on that front.’

‘To put it another way,
’ said Simon, grinning impishly, ‘they’re planning on shooting scene four this morning but they’ll soon find that backlot is as vacant as their Oscar shelf!’

‘
To hell with them,’ stormed Roger, whose beloved set plans and drawings had been ripped apart by Stephen more often than Maisie’s acting skills had by the critics.

‘Too right
.’

‘Well said Roge
.’