Agathe picks her way through the rubble of another day on set. The film is an IP cash-grab, an adaptation of a superhero comic that bombed the last two times they tried to make a film out of it. Luckily, the project belongs to her colleague Gregg. Agathe is here for another reason. She dodges out of the way of platoons of PAs with walkie-talkies, skirts around the drill-sergeant reassembly of a residential street so that the same explosion can be run again before they lose the light. When she catches the director, she gives him a note he’ll ignore and he asks if she has a cigarette, though he’s well aware she doesn’t smoke. A spandex-clad actor in a body harness hangs despondently from a cable. Agathe heads straight for the first assistant director, who is deep in conversation with the gaffer.
‘Clara,’ Agathe says. ‘Can I have a word?’
But Clara’s phone has started ringing at that very moment, and something like panic comes over her face when she sees the name on screen.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. She’s already running away. ‘Five minutes?’
Agathe can’t help but laugh at the irony: being made towait around by the girl who used to book her taxis. Even as a runner, Clara was all over the place, but always happy to step in front of traffic for the sake of a good shot. She’s principled, has good instincts. She wouldn’t let Agathe read a script if she deemed it too formulaic. She wouldn’t be working on this film if the director wasn’t an auteur, albeit one who has sold out for a blockbuster paycheque and first-dollar gross. Clara would never compromise for such a deal, but she’ll happily do her best to make the best film possible, and learn all the relevant ropes while doing so. Back when Clara was just another assistant in a hamster wheel of assistants, it was easy to simply keep one eye on her. You can’t overestimate anyone in this business, because so many fall off the wheel before you’ve even learned their name. But at some point, Agathe had blinked. Clara had left Agathe’s office to work her way up the rungs to becoming an AD, and now Agathe and her former protégée are suddenly almost peers. Almost. One day, when Clara looks back on the moments that defined her, Agathe knows already that this conversation will be a pivot point.
Clara stands by the production office, talking quietly into the phone. Agathe walks slowly over, not wanting to look like she’s listening in, but also not wanting to give Clara an easy route of escape.
‘How’s Jasper?’ Clara is saying. ‘Give him a smooch from me.’
Seb. It’s a shame that his career never really took off. He was handsome, a hard worker, possessing a certain je ne sais quoi. What had he done since that film for Nils? A few TV cameos, a couple of blink-and-you’ll-miss-him roles in Britishindie dramas. And that godawful musician film, panned by critics and dumped unceremoniously on Netflix in a move still reminiscent of being thrown in the straight-to-DVD bargain bin. He’s going to be in a police procedural, apparently, although word is that ITV are already trying to sweep that one under the rug. This whole industry: hamsters and wheels. Seb has been falling off for a while now. His girlfriend is only just getting going.
‘Yes, I’m serious,’ Clara says, into the phone. ‘Just because I blurted it out doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot.’
A pause while she waits for Seb to answer.
‘I’m glad you’re happy,’ she says. She swallows. ‘I’m happy, too.’
On the other end of the line, Seb speaks for a while. He seems excited.
‘Hold your horses,’ Clara says, with a nervous kind of laugh. ‘I don’t mean, like,tryingtrying. We can just be a bit less… careful.’ She lowers her voice, covers her mouth. ‘I’m on set. You’ll have to use your imagination.’
Seb speaks again, more slowly this time.
‘When I’m back,’ Clara says. ‘There’s no rush, right? I don’t want there to be any rush.’
It’s not clear whether she gets an answer she wants. Either way, she tells Seb that she loves him, then she hangs up the phone and holds it to her chest. Clara is facing away, so Agathe can’t tell what her face is doing. When she turns, she flushes briefly, then quickly gathers her composure.
‘Oh, Agathe,’ she says. ‘Did you—?’ Those ice-blue eyeshaven’t changed in the near-decade they’ve known one another. ‘What did you want to ask me?’
‘Just a quick one,’ Agathe says. ‘How would you like to make your own movie?’
a pharmacist
The couple are acting shady in the way that couples only act when they’re buying one of two things. The condoms are a whole shelf away, and the woman is already stacking a second pregnancy test on top of the one that her partner is holding.
‘Get two,’ she says. ‘In case one doesn’t work.’
Her partner nods his head, then furrows his dark brow. ‘Well, if one doesn’t work, do we really want to go off just the other one?’ He crouches, picks up another. ‘We’ll get three.’
The woman, who is much shorter than him, bites her lip. She crouches, too. ‘Might as well make it four,’ she says. ‘Even number.’
They grin at one another, though the woman’s grin fades when the man isn’t looking. It’s he who pays, and the woman has collected herself by the time he does so. She looks back up at him, and he’s still smiling like he’s in the middle of a particularly pleasant dream. She nudges him, and he fumbles all four of the tests, and she cackles as they go tumbling to the floor.
the casting director
Nico doesn’t recognise Shoreditch any more. Her east London isn’t this one, with its mock speakeasies and its cereal cafés. The things that change while the real stuff remains, the nail bars and the barber shops and the offies with Western Union signs above the door. The meeting is at a fancy new restaurant on Hoxton Street, the kind of place that rolls in, turfs out a heritage business, then closes six months later, because that’s what restaurants do. She studies the list of natural wines, the corresponding list of inflated prices. Then a tall shadow appears above her, and she rises to meet him.
‘Seb Bonami,’ she says. ‘It’s been a while.’
Seb takes the seat opposite her. His beard is thicker than it used to be, his head covered by a beanie hat. There are bags beneath his eyes. His face is as serious as ever, but Nico knows that there’s a puppy dog lurking somewhere beneath his standoffish demeanour. There’s an actual dog lurking beneath the table. Jasper looks old, his moustache turned almost entirely white. He lowers himself on creaking legs, lies contentedly at Seb’s feet.
‘This is your old stomping ground, isn’t it?’ Nico says, as the waitress pours her one of those glasses of natural wine.
‘I lived on this very road,’ Seb nods, sipping a pint of Guinness. He frowns, looks towards the bifold doors. ‘Different, isn’t it?’
