Their Finest Hour and a Half (31 page)

Light dawned. ‘You've met a girl?'

‘Er . . .' The phrase seemed to unnerve Arthur. He reached over to the night-table for his glasses, and began the inevitable polishing. ‘. . . in a way.'

‘And you want to ask her out?'

‘Yes, I thought, perhaps, a walk . . .'

‘Is she on the crew?'

‘No. No, she's not.'

‘She's a local girl?'

‘I think so.'

Ambrose spread his hands in disbelief. ‘And you don't know where to take her?'

‘I thought, perhaps, a walk,' said Arthur, woodenly, as if repetition might make the prospect more enticing.

‘Good God, man,' said Ambrose, ‘take her on set.'

‘Really?'

If it hadn't have been for the hour, the throbbing hand, the empty flask, the chastening afternoon with Cecy, Ambrose might have laughed. ‘There is no phrase,' he said, ‘that thrills a female of the species more than “come and watch the filming”. We in the business may know that 95 per cent of it consists of sitting on our arses waiting for some inexperienced clown to make up his mind, but there's no need to tell the girl that. Glamour, man. Give her a glimpse, dazzle her, let her clap the clapper-board, look through the lens, try on the headphones, and then take her back to your . . . your . . .' He was getting carried away, whisky on an empty stomach. ‘Dazzle her, man,' he said again, leaning over to unlace his shoes. ‘What's her name, by the way?'

‘I don't know,' said Arthur.

‘Well . . .' Ambrose crushed out his cigarette, lay back on the bed, closed his eyes. ‘It doesn't matter. Turn out the light, will you?' Names had never mattered, all those little stage-door Sallies: Ooh Mr Hilliard, is this your dressing-room? So you reely do have bulbs all the way round the mirror . . .

Arthur turned out the light and listened to the huff and whistle of Ambrose snoring. ‘Would you like to come and watch the filming?' he mouthed, experimentally. ‘You may remember, I came into the shop on Wednesday.' He had stood in the dressmaker's porch and watched the rain sluice along the cobbles, and he'd looked at the sign again and thought idly, I wonder if they shorten sleeves? The bell on the door had jangled but there'd been no one in the shop, though he'd called twice, and had knocked tentatively on the polished wood of the counter, and after a while he'd followed the noise of a sewing-machine, and had peered around the edge of a heavy curtain and seen a woman at work beneath a glass roof, her foot busy on a treadle, her hands guiding a length of dark cloth beneath the needle.

He wasn't sure, afterwards, quite what had caught and held him for so long – some sense of recognition, a resemblance to a painting he'd once seen, perhaps, or a glimpse of a room bathed in that same shifting, watery light – but for a minute or more he had stood and gazed at the scene, at the bolts of cloth in their orderly towers, at the reels of coloured thread, at the pleasing neatness of the sewing table and the quiet intensity of the woman's expression, and then, reluctant to disrupt the picture, he'd let the curtain drop back and had tiptoed towards the door. The sewing-machine had stopped just as he'd set the shop bell swinging again, and he'd waited then, one hand on the handle, and she'd lifted the curtain aside and hurried in and said, ‘Hello, can I help you?' She'd looked rather anxious.

‘I was just wondering . . .' he'd said. He'd held out his arms in front of him, in mute demonstration.

‘Oh yes.' She'd pinched the cloth of one of his cuffs, turned it back and examined the stitching, her ringless fingers brushing his arm and hand, but impersonally – professionally – as if he were a shop-window dummy and she the dresser. ‘Yes, I could shorten them if you'd like, I can do a tuck behind the cuff, but not when the material's wet.'

‘I see.'

‘Can you bring the jacket back when it's dried out?'

‘Yes.'

‘We're open from eight in the morning, Monday to Saturday.'

‘Thank you.'

She'd nodded.

A brisk, clear conversation, information transmitted, information received, no awkward silences or dangling questions, everything squared off, stuck down, trimmed and sanded. When his jacket was dry, he was under instruction to return.

‘Would you like to come and watch the filming?' he mouthed to the whitewashed ceiling of the Crown and Anchor. He could almost imagine saying it.

*

‘Wondered which day you'd turn up,' said Buckley, when Catrin tracked him down to a window-seat in the Copper Kettle, a teashop just beside the harbour at Badgeham. He was sitting with a notebook in front of him, and an empty cup. He appeared to have put on weight. ‘Just got in?' he asked.

‘Half an hour ago.'

‘How's London?'

‘Quiet since last weekend.'

‘Quiet?'

‘Yes.'

‘So why do you look as if you haven't slept for a month?'

She shrugged, with an attempt at insouciance. ‘I was up at four to catch the train.'

‘And that's the reason?'

‘Uh huh.'

He gave her a long, shrewd look, and then flipped open the notepad. ‘Well, you're just in time. You can do the honours, pick the title. I've narrowed it down to three.' He cleared his throat, theatrically. ‘First choice . . .
Just An Ordinary Wednesday
.'

‘It wasn't a Wednesday, it was a Sunday,' said Catrin.

‘Sounds too religious. If it was identical vicars crossing the Channel we might get away with it. Second choice,'
Just An Ordinary Thursday
.' He glanced up at her. ‘No? Don't like it? Usual tiresome objections on the accuracy front? All right, third choice,
The Sterling Starlings
.'

‘I don't believe you,' said Catrin.

‘What, not even for a second?'

‘No.'

He shook his head, apparently disappointed. ‘It's a shame, really,' he said. ‘You'd have swallowed that when you first started.'

‘So what's the third choice?'

‘
Just An Ordinary Friday
.'

She gave a snort of laughter.

‘That's a bit better,' said Buckley. He glanced over his shoulder and beckoned. ‘Have something to eat,' he said to Catrin, ‘you're looking scrawny. And before you say anything about my own size, I've been taking advantage of a fortunate liaison. The natives are friendly, you might say . . .'

The friendly native was a large-breasted waitress who took their order and received a lingering slap on the rear by way of thanks from Buckley.

‘So how's the filming going?' asked Catrin.

‘Oh, the usual. Think of a snail's pace, and then halve it.'

‘What are the actors like?'

‘Vain, silly, overpaid.'

‘No, I mean . . .'

‘I know what you mean. They're not bad, just about able to walk and speak at the same time. God knows I've seen worse.'

‘And the director?'

‘Seems to know what he's doing. Says what he wants in as few words as possible and then expects it all to happen. Lots of grey-faced people running around trying to work bloody miracles.'

‘And what scenes are they doing today?'

‘Flipping heck,' said Buckley, ‘you don't want to know much, do you? It's quayside stuff this morning, and then the beach in the afternoon – big number with extras and the RAF supplying a couple of planes. No dialogue. Now, am I allowed to ask you a couple of things?'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘How's the propeller-fouling scene?'

‘Better, I think. Shorter.'

‘How's Parfitt?'

‘Asleep, mainly.'

‘How's your husband?'

She should have seen it coming. ‘He's doing awfully well,' she said. ‘He's been commissioned to travel all over the country recording air-raid damage.' And then she looked quickly out of the window, as if something on the harbour-side had caught her eye. There was, in fact, a modicum of activity there – the two girls playing the Starling twins were posing for a photographer, first smiling in gleaming unison, and then assuming a more serious expression, and shading their eyes against the imaginary glare of the sun.

‘Tell you what,' said Buckley, ‘they're much better at acting than you are.'

‘Don't,' she said.

‘Don't what?'

‘Be nosy. Because it's none of your business and I'm not going to tell you anything.'

‘I'll be the soul of discretion.'

‘And I'll be Eleanor bloody
Roosevelt
.'

She spoke more loudly than she'd intended, and one or two diners turned to look at her.

‘Oho!' said Buckley, admiringly. ‘Spitfire!' He ran a hand through his hair, examined the palm with apparent interest and then wiped it on the tablecloth as the waitress approached. ‘Lovely sight,' he said, as she stooped to serve them. ‘Double portion . . .'

Publicity photographers were men of very little imagination. Not for them the subtle, the surreal, or the oblique. Ambrose's character, Uncle Frank, could loosely be classified as an old salt, and therefore, for the purposes of advertising the film, Ambrose was required to stand on the harbour wall with a pipe in his hand and a rope slung over his shoulder. Vain for him to protest that this was a story of redemption and sacrifice, deserving of a veil of shadow across the face, a glimpse of anguish in the eye.

‘Big smile,' said the photographer, pressing the shutter. ‘And now point towards the horizon. And now put the pipe in your mouth and look thoughtful.'

‘How much longer do you think you'll be? I'm working this afternoon, you know, we have a very heavy schedule.'

‘Couple more poses, Mr Hilliard, and then I'm done. Can we get the dog in again? That's lovely. And can you take a pace back, Mr Hilliard? And now another? I want the dog foreground, you see.'

‘Oh what a surprise.'

‘And another pace back, please, Mr Hilliard.'

‘I'm clearly ruining the dog's shot. Would it be easier if I simply threw myself into the water?'

He was released at last, and lingered for a moment to watch Hadley being photographed. (‘And now shake hands with the dog. Lovely.') The wind was picking up, and the boats in the harbour rocked in synchrony, a marine chorus line. Ambrose felt a passing twinge of sympathy for those extras who were going to be spending the afternoon up to their waists in water.

‘You'll be needed at the next location at half-past one, Mr 'illiard,' said Chick.

‘Then perhaps you should have some Pepto-bismol standing by, since that will give me precisely thirteen minutes for lunch.'

‘You want me to getcher some at the chemist?'

‘No, that was merely . . . oh, never mind.' It was like trying to banter with a boulder. Ambrose reached for his cigarettes.

‘Er . . . Mr Hilliard.'

He turned to see Arthur Frith looking smarter than usual, his hair brilliantined.

‘Mr Hilliard,' said Arthur, ‘may I introduce you to Miss Edith Beadmore?'

So this was the local girl that Arthur had mentioned – except that she wasn't a girl, she was a woman well into her thirties, well-dressed but with owlish features and a worried air.

Ambrose took her hand. ‘Charmed,' he said, mendaciously. ‘Arthur showing you the ropes?'

‘Yes he is.'

‘Splendid.'

‘That's Hadley Best over there, Miss Beadmore,' said Arthur. ‘He's another of the actors, and that's a dog called Chopper who's also in the film, and that's Chopper's owner, he controls the dog with the use of various hand signals, it's really very impressive . . .'

Edith nodded, though she was beginning to feel fogged by detail. Over the past half hour she had been introduced to upward of thirty people. She had learned the definition of ‘gaffer'. She had looked through the camera. She had clapped the hinged baton on the clapper-board and she had spoken into a microphone and seen a needle quaver in response. ‘Would you like to meet one of the writers next?' asked her escort.

‘Yes, thank you,' said Edith, politely.

‘And then we should get back to the beach for the afternoon's filming. Are you able to stay and watch?'

‘I am, yes.' As she followed him into the Copper Kettle she found herself smiling. How marvellous, how truly marvellous, it had felt to say to Verna, ‘I've met the military advisor to the film, and he's invited me on to set.' With one stride she had vaulted her cousin's lowly connection, had transcended the pit of back-room button-filing to arrive as an honoured guest. And how sweet it had been to leave Verna (whose own stint on the picture had finished) sewing overalls at the back of the shop, to have her warn, ‘Now do be careful, remember that soldiers are only after
one thing
, if you know what I mean, Edith . . .' and to feel that she was doing something, for once, both unpredicted and unpredictable. Although, so far, the experience had been rather less like a dangerous liaison, and rather more like the junior prize in a film-fan competition.

‘And this is Mr Buckley, who's written the film,' said Arthur.

Edith shook hands firmly. ‘I'm very pleased to meet you.'

After consuming two helpings of cottage pie, Buckley declared his intention of going back to the hotel for the afternoon. ‘I'm warning you,' he said to Catrin, putting on his hat, ‘if you're set on watching, they're doing a mute choreographed shot. Do you know what that means?'