‘This could really work,’ said Ana, finally dropping her pretence that last night’s attempts were anything approaching ok. ‘Check you out –’ she shot me a wink – ‘all Maria von Trapp. Hey Naomi, Jeff –’ she raised her arm, summoning them over – ‘I got another curve ball for you guys. I know how much you love them.’
They don’t love them, obviously, but they’re also among the best in the business at handling them and so got right down to setting everything up.
There at least wasn’t a huge amount for them to do logistically; we’re shooting in the control tower breakroom again, so nothing’s changed there. I didn’t consider proposing that we shift filming to Doverley’s woods, even though those woods will, for me, always now be where Iris and Robbie’s reunion belongs. I knew no one would agree to something so major. And besides, how could I have asked them to without giving away that I’d discovered Iris and Robbie’s cottage? I couldn’t, and, as Imogen herself said, all Tim Hobbs wants is for that cottage to remain hidden.
Sacred.
I want that too. Now that I’ve seen it, I couldn’t bear forit to be descended on, even if it is in ruins. All these years, it’s belonged to Iris and Robbie: theirs, just theirs.
I won’t rob them of that.
So, the line I’ve taken is that it was purely down to my call with Imogen that I’ve dreamt up the change we’re about to run with. I don’t feel great about deceiving everyone. I feel awful. Especially about lying to Nick.
‘Why did Ana call you Maria von Trapp?’ he asked me, once Ana, Jeff and Naomi had left us on the soundstage floor.
‘It’s just this thing she came up with on her flight,’ I said. ‘She thinks that to stop failing, I need to be more Maria.’
He frowned. ‘That makes no sense.’
‘It did the way she said it. And I have been failing.’ My voice faltered as I thought not about work, or this movie, only us, and our son, who we never named, because it hurt too much, only now I wish we had. I really wish we had. ‘I’ve been failing at everything.’
‘You’ve failed at nothing,’ he told me, his own voice softening. ‘And you don’t need to be Maria. You need to be you.’
‘On recent evidence, I’d say I need to be more.’
‘You need to be you, Claude,’ he repeated. ‘You can’t be any more than that.’
And I don’t know what it was about those words, coming from him, but they took a hold of me, deep in my chest, with an intensity that I’ve carried ever since. I’m carrying it still now as I stand here in my WAAF uniform, looking across at Nick on the opposite side of the set, feeling worse than ever for not having trusted him with the truth about the cottage. It already feels too late, though, to do anything about it.
Oblivious to my stare, he tips his head back, using the eyedrops that Ines from make-up has brought him.
‘Better?’ he asks her, tossing the bottle back.
‘Better,’ she pronounces, even though his eyes don’t look any different to me.
They’re still very red, and very puffy.
He’s exhausted. I don’t think he can have had more than an hour’s sleep last night, if he got any at all, and has, like everyone else, already worked twelve-hours straight today, getting three minutes and twenty-two seconds of air footage successfully in the can.
But he’s here.
He’s present.
‘Ready?’ he says, turning to me.
‘Ready,’ I say.
‘Reckon we can do it in a take?’
‘Just the one?’ It feels such an implausible suggestion after the debacle of last night.
‘Just the one.’ He clicks his fingers. ‘Bam. No looking down.’
‘All right,’ I agree. ‘No looking down.’
‘Super,’ says Ana. (Our mics are on again.) ‘Then let’s go.’
I take my position at the tea counter.
