Their Finest Hour and a Half (20 page)

‘Flabby', Buckley had said, after she'd sweated over the Errol Flynn page for three and a half hours, mouthing the lines to herself over and over again, first as wide-eyed Lily, then as sensible Rose. ‘Look at it, every line's twice as long as it needs to be, your audience'll be dropping off, they'll start gossiping about last night's bomb. You only need to say everything once, you know, it's not a novel. Here—' He'd licked the end of a pencil, crossed out half the scene and added a word. ‘
Now
it's just about useable.'

‘And look—' he'd jabbed a finger at the text. ‘There's a possible title there as well.'

‘Which line?'

‘
Nothing Frightens Them
. Stick it down.'

Dutifully, she'd added his suggestion to the annotated list that she kept at the back of a notebook. ‘When we find the right one, it'll shout “Bingo”,' Buckley had said, but the list now ran to two pages and no one had done any shouting yet.

The last ashtray emptied, the last smear of Brylcreem wiped from the shift key, and Catrin took a pencil and opened the notebook. She would go by impulse, she decided; anything that looked like the type of film that she might actually be tempted to go and see would be marked with an asterisk.

Her pen hovered beside the last suggestion, but she couldn't, in all conscience, place a mark by it. Nothing,
nothing
, in the script so far bore the slightest resemblance to the actual events of Sunday, 2nd June. A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she added another suggestion to the list.

‘Got anything for me?'

It was Phyl, the continuity girl from the production office downstairs, peering around the half-open door; Catrin put down her pen. ‘Yes, come on in – only tell me, do you think you'd go and see a film called
It Happened on Sunday
?

‘Only if it starred Rita Hayworth.' Phyl picked her way across to Buckley's desk and lifted the piece of paper drooping from the typewriter. ‘Is he
still
on that page?'

‘Yes, but Parfitt's just finished the whole of the section where the engine breaks down. That's er . . .' Catrin scanned the floor. ‘. . . here.' She marked the spot with a scrap of newspaper, and handed the typed pages to Phyl. ‘That's three-and-a-half scenes,' she added, placatingly. ‘You will do it quickly, won't you, so I can replace it before they come back?'

Phyl nodded and glanced around the office; she was at least forty, but she stood like a fashion mannequin, her weight all on one hip, one hand elegantly adjusting the knot of sandy hair at the nape of her neck. ‘This morning,' she said, ‘the location manager wired me from somewhere near Cromer, I've had two calls from the casting office, two from the scenic department and one from someone who I think must be the director, although if I'm right then God help me since he's clearly one of the non-speaking variety. It goes without saying that the script secretary's in tears, and I've also had a rather menacing visit from the third AD, he's the same one we had on the
Careless Talk
shoot, the one with the dog – which reminds me, actually, I must speak to the casting director – and that pathetic little accountant Shipton has practically put up a tent in my office. Can you imagine what they're all begging for?'

‘A complete first draft,' said Catrin.

‘That's right. Not for putting in front of the camera, not for mass publication, just for issuing to all the poor so-and-sos who are trying to draw up preliminary lists, and book studios and build flattage and basically get the damn thing made. You realize that we're supposed to be filming the location scenes in March.'

‘I know, and I do try and nag them, Phyl, honestly, but . . .'

‘No, it's not your fault – it's just Buckley enjoying his little bit of power, he uses perfectionism as an excuse for brute laziness. I'm only grateful that there's someone in here who's on my side.' She gave a brisk smile and then raised her head sharply, like a pointer. ‘You know,' she said, ‘I can actually smell him. There's a Buckley-shaped scent hovering just above this chair – three parts ego to one part hair-oil. Tell me, does he ever try it on with you?'

Catrin hesitated. ‘You mean . . . ?'

‘Chase you around the desk? Pinch your behind?'

‘No. Not as such.'

‘Is that so?' Phyl gave her a long look, part-warning, part-disbelief. ‘Only he has a frightful reputation with pretty girls. Don't say I didn't tell you.'

She left with the pages of script, and Catrin sat for a while, twirling the pencil between her fingers. It was quite true that Buckley had never pinched her behind or chased her around the desk. He had, however, on her very first day in the office, tactfully choosing a moment when Parfitt had gone to the Gents, informed her that she was a very attractive young woman, that she must be awfully lonely during the many evenings when her husband was on duty, and that it was only the fact that Ellis was (in effect) serving his country that prevented him (Buckley) from Doing Something About It. ‘I'm shackled by conscience,' he'd said, managing, nevertheless, to imply that those shackles were on the flimsy side and might drop off altogether were Catrin to apply even the slightest pressure. At this point Parfitt had returned, and Buckley had snapped back, without any apparent embarrassment, to his usual persona, that of Escoffier instructing a trainee kitchen maid. It was a role with which Catrin was far more comfortable, and she was beginning, she liked to think – she was just beginning – to understand the basic elements, to learn which knife to use and when to use it. She hardly blushed at all, these days.

Mercifully, Buckley hadn't mentioned the shackles again, but sometimes, when they were alone in the office, he would extend his linked wrists towards Catrin, and look martyred, and she would say, ‘Don't, please', in as cold and collected a tone as she could manage. Far more tricky to cope with were his endless, nosy questions about Ellis.

‘Is he older than you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Forty?'

‘No.'

‘Sixty?'

‘
No
.'

‘Want me to go on guessing?'

‘He's thirty-four.'

‘So why hasn't he been called-up yet?'

‘He has a damaged eardrum.'

‘Stuck a paintbrush in it?'

‘Mortar-fire in Spain.'

‘Oh, he's got principles, then. And were you his student?'

‘
No
.'

‘His model?'

‘
No
. We met in a café . . .'

Silence on her part just provoked more questions;
answers
provoked more questions. Facetiousness, she had discovered, was the only way to shut him up.

‘So what does he paint, then? Landscapes?'

‘No. Industrial and urban subjects.'

‘Oh, he's a house painter.'

‘Yes, that's right.'

‘Does he do guttering?'

‘No, never.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's too specialized.'

‘Who should I get for that, then?'

‘Try Augustus John.'

Buckley had laughed at that – one bark, like a sea-lion spotting a fish.

Phyl returned the purloined scenes just a minute or two before the writers' tread was audible on the stairs.

‘I hope,' said Buckley, entering the room, ‘that we don't have a fifth-columnist in our midst. Only I could have sworn that that harridan downstairs gave me a smug look when we passed her office, and it struck me as the sort of look that might be worn by someone who's somehow got hold of a premature version of the script.'

‘What happened at the meeting?' asked Catrin, brightly.

Buckley dropped into his chair and swung his feet on to the desk. ‘Parfitt, tell her what happened at the meeting.'

Parfitt sat down more slowly, reached into his pocket and took out a hip-flask. ‘All rot,' he muttered, unscrewing the top and taking a long pull. He wiped his mouth, and then took another. ‘Bloody fools,' he added.

‘
I'll
tell you,' said Buckley. ‘We got there, and there were six other people in the room with fourteen jobs between them – under-secretary of this, advisor to the central committee of the military board of the propaganda arm of the civilian wing of that. Thanks—' he took the proffered flask, downed a mouthful and handed it back to Parfitt. ‘Thanks,' he added, more hoarsely. ‘So they sat us down and told us that we're doing a splendid job, but that they need our cooperation on a matter of extreme national importance about which they're getting a lot of ministerial stick. And Edwin Baker, being a fine and experienced producer, said that we would endeavour to help in any way possible provided that it was within our financial capabilities, and then some whinnying little civil servant cleared his throat and told us to put an American in it.'

Catrin stared at him. ‘Put an American in what?'

‘In the film.'

‘In this film? In the Dunkirk film?'

‘Yes.'

‘Put an American in this film?'

‘Is there an echo in here?'

‘But an American doing what?'

‘Do you know, that's exactly the question Parfitt asked. Wasn't it?'

Parfitt grunted.

‘He asked, “An American doing what?” and the man from the ministry said, “Encouraging other Americans to watch the film and to support the Allied cause”. It appears, you see, that American distributors aren't very keen on buying any of our recent films, mainly because they're full of British people with British accents being awf'ly British, and the Minister wants something done about it. The phrase used was, “We need to make a gesture”. So . . .' Buckley glanced over his shoulder at the rows of scene cards, ‘. . . we have somehow to insert a token Yank.' He stood up abruptly and caught his chair just as it tipped over. He looked, Catrin thought, less outraged than he should have – he looked, in fact, strangely galvanized by the idea of once again re-shuffling the pack.

‘But we can't,' she said. ‘It doesn't fit the story.'