We had a really good time celebrating.
Nick hasn’t worked with Ana before – he hasn’t worked with me, come to that – and Felix hasn’t been on another project with her either, until now. But Ana and I have done a ton together; this will be our seventh movie, and I’d love to say I’m instantly at ease, being back in her company, but I feel as vomity as I used to, filming those scenes with Felix. Because, in all Ana and I have worked on, I’ve never before let her down, and the only thing I can think about as we head into the house, is how badly I’ve been doing that so far withThe Bomber Boys.
I follow her through a porch lined with National Trust pamphlets, and on into Doverley’s entrance hall, which has been artfully restored to its Georgian heyday, with a mosaiced floor, and gilt-framed paintings on its walls. At the far end, a staircase sweeps up to a landing which, I guess, leads to the bedrooms.
Normally, the National Trust let out the rooms here on a bed and breakfast basis, but through November, we’ve taken them over. The website promises 1,000 thread count sheets, underfloor heating, and rolltop baths. According to Nick, reality delivers.
Our characters obviously wouldn’t have been so comfortable, and they definitely wouldn’t have seen the house looking like this. There’d have been no paintings on the walls for a start. All of those were sold when Doverley’s owners fell on hard times at the end of the First World War. A lot of their furniture went then, too, and the family finally moved out in the 1930s, selling the estate to the RAF, who wanted it for its flat grounds, perfect for runways, and remote position. It was then that most of the house was locked up.
The RAF did make use of some of it, though. The desk-staff had offices here, and everyone’s meals were cooked in the basement kitchen. The library was given another lease of life too, as an officers’ mess, and a handful of personnel werebilleted inside. Not the airmen – they were all down at the base – but the women who supported them. The WAAFS.
I think about them, as I follow Ana to the stairs.
I think about Iris.
She walked across this floor,I tell myself.Breathed this air.
I pause, close my eyes, and wait to feel something.
But I’m distracted by a distant banging.
‘What’s that?’ I ask Ana.
‘What’s what?’
‘That hammering.’
‘I can’t hear it.’ She shrugs. ‘It’ll be the rigging crew, probably, getting a jump on lighting the library for tomorrow.’
‘Is that where you’re taking me?’
‘No.’ She throws me another smile. ‘I wouldn’t waste your time with that.’
‘Then … ?’
‘I’m not gonna say. It’ll be better if you see it. Now listen.’ She starts up the stairs. ‘The Sound of Musicwas showing on my flight … ’
‘Mine too.’
‘You watched it?’
‘No, I was going over the script.’ Again, and again. ‘I didn’t watch anything.’
‘Me either. I was trying to get my head around what the hell we should do about our ending. But I had a flick through the options, and as soon as I saw the thumbnail of Maria dancing her heart out in the Alps, it got me humming that song, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?”, only it became,How do I solve a problem like Claude?’
‘Wow, Ana, don’t pull your punches.’
‘You can take them.’
‘Can I?’
‘One hundred per cent.’ We reach the landing and headdown a plush corridor lined with numbered doors. ‘The thing I’ve realised about Maria,’ Ana continues, ‘is that as soon as she’s liberated from doing as she thinks sheshouldbe doing, she starts nailing life. It’s hit me. I need to liberate you.’
‘You want to marry me off to an Austrian naval captain?’
‘Not quite,’ she says, and talks on, telling me that the fact I spent my entire flight in the weeds with the script rather than do-re-mi-ing is exactly my problem; I’ve had a year from hell, got myself too caught up in my own sense of failure, lost any confidence to act with my instincts, which is only making me fail more. ‘Agree?’ she says, and, miserably, I nod, really hoping that we get to her solution soon, because actually I don’t know if Icantake much more of this candour.
‘You could keep doing as you are and we’d get away with it,’ she says, as we come to a halt at the end of the corridor. She extracts a key card from the waist of her leggings. ‘Your technique’s flawless, so we could shoot this with you all in your head, and it would be …fine.But you’re better than that. We need you to relocate those instincts. Find Iris.’
