101 Pieces of Me (4 page)

“And you are not?”

My embarrassment increased. I did not know what to say.

“Very well,” he said, “I will cease making you uncomfortable, and instead I will welcome you most humbly to David Penn Productions and Shepperton Studios. I trust you are being well taken care of?”

“Oh, yes! Very well, thank you.”

“Splendid.” He looked around the studio, then turned back to me. “Miss Hope, I promise you, by the time a few days have passed, you will feel you have been doing this your whole life. I am convinced you are a natural actress.”

“I am glad you think so,” I told him shyly. “I have no such confidence myself. And please, call me…” – I hesitated; it was the first time I had uttered my new name to anyone – “Clara.”

“Of course, and you must call me David,” he said quickly. “Now, Maria will show you to your dressing room, and someone will bring you whatever you would like to eat and drink, and then you will have your costume fitted and your hair and make-up done. We will be taking some more test shots, just to see how you look. And there will be a script conference with Aidan when he arrives. You have read the script, have you not?”

I nodded. The story involved my character, Eloise, a serving girl, falling in love with an aristocrat during the French Revolution. The aristocrat, Charles de Montfort, was beheaded in the end. “Who is Aidan?” I asked tentatively.

“It is not his real name,” said David. “I believe it is Irish, though he is not. He probably considers it exotic. You will get to know him quite well, my dear. He is playing de Montfort, your leading man.”

M
y leading man. Doubt and panic rose, silencing me. I could only smile faintly as David beckoned to Maria, who greeted me cheerfully. She was a gaunt woman of about forty, with a calm demeanour and a knowledgeable air. She had, I was immediately convinced, the measure of me and everyone else. “Will you come with me, Miss Hope?” she asked pleasantly.

“Oh please, do call me—”

“To Maria, and Jeanette, and Dennis, and the rest of the film crew,” David interrupted, “you are Miss Hope.”

He said it kindly, but as I followed Maria through a maze of corridors I felt a fool. I
was
a fool to think I could do any of the things these people expected me to do. Nausea gripped me suddenly. I quickened my pace. “Please, where is the ladies’ room?” I asked Maria urgently. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Maria waited, ready to help but not fussing, while I retched. But there was nothing in my stomach. “You’d better eat something,” she said. “Come and sit down, and take some deep breaths. You’ll soon be all right.”

Someone brought me a cup of tea and some toast, and then Maria and other members of the costume and make-up team worked on me for a long time, until David was satisfied that they had transformed me into an eighteenth-century French servant. I gazed in astonishment at my reflection. My eyes were enlarged by make-up, my hair thickened by false curls, and my figure was unrecognizably enhanced by a corset under flowing sleeves and a lace apron.

When I walked onto the film set I no longer felt sick. I was Clara Hope in the guise of Eloise. I did not quail at the thought of Mam and Da and Frank, and Mary and Flo, and everyone else in Haverth seeing me on the screen. They would not see me. They would see an actress.

“Clara, you look divine!” exclaimed David. “Aidan, where are you? Here is your Eloise!”

A man in eighteenth-century jacket, breeches and stockings picked his way through the tangle of wires on the studio floor. He was shorter than David, though slim and well-made, with an actor’s expressive eyes. Incongruously, the head that appeared from the collar of his lace-trimmed shirt sported short, twentieth-century hair and a tweed driving cap. “Got a cigarette?” he asked.

In Haverth, only men smoked. “No, I’m afraid not,” I told him.

“So…” He scrutinized me as attentively as if I were a horse he was considering buying. His expression was sombre; under the peak of the cap he was frowning deeply. “You are Clara Hope and I am Aidan Tobias. I’m really Allan Turbin. Who are you?”

“S
hut up, Aidan, and let’s get started,” said David. “Harry, Kitty, Bernard, get moving. I want Aidan and Clara sitting on this sofa. Maria, where’s Mr Tobias’ wig?”

David had taken off his jacket. In shirt sleeves and braces, he strode to his chair, sat down decisively and crossed his legs. I looked at him carefully. He was wearing checked socks and brown and white shoes of a type I had never seen before. Then, embarrassed, I turned away before he could catch me looking at him.

He was immediately surrounded by Dennis, Jeanette and people who I assumed must be Harry, Kitty and Bernard. Jeanette gave me an encouraging smile. Aidan and I sat down on the brocade sofa in front of French windows that looked out on nothing but a “flat”, as the temporary walls around the set were called. While David issued instructions, Aidan muttered to me.

“I’m
indescribably
fed up with being cast in historical romances.”

I did not reply.

“Don’t you think it’s outrageous that David Penn Productions is making yet
another
one?”

Again, I said nothing.

“I’m sure this wig they’ve given me is full of bugs.”

I was silent.

“Are you quite certain you don’t have a cigarette?”

“Please,” I whispered at last, “had we not better be quiet?”

“Why? Whatever we say must be a damned sight better than this script.”

“Please…”

“What are you doing here, anyway?” His eyes narrowed. “You are very young. Why aren’t you at home with your mother, living a decent life?”

I was unsure how to respond. He was impertinent, but he was my leading man, and I did not wish to be rude to him. “I am perfectly happy here, thank you. I have been given a wonderful opportunity any girl would envy me for. Now please, let us get to work.”

“Ah.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “I see. Very young. But not for long, Miss Clara Hope.”

His condescension irritated me. “What do you mean?”

But he chose not to reply, and soon Dennis called us to order, and the test shooting of my very first scene began.

T
he lights were hot; perspiration was evident beneath Aidan Tobias’ make-up, and my armpits and waist felt damp beneath my heavy costume. Perhaps, among all the innovations of the twentieth century, women’s light clothing was the truly revolutionary one. The thought made me smile.

“Lovely smile, Miss Hope, but unnecessary,” called Dennis. “This is only a lighting test.”

Admonished, I straightened my face.

“Oh, come on, Dennis, it’s her first day, don’t y’know.” Aidan seemed to be exaggerating his upper-class drawl. “Grant the poor girl a nervous grin if she wants one, can’t you?”

“I am not nervous,” I told him coldly. “Not in the least.”

“Why were you smiling, then?”

“That has nothing to do with you,” I said, gathering courage. “And since it was unnecessary anyway, as Dennis says, it is not worth discussing.”

He stood back and looked at me approvingly. “You’re quite plucky, aren’t you?”

“And you are very rude.”

“Er … Aidan, would you get back into shot?” asked Dennis plaintively. “I don’t want this to take longer than absolutely necessary.”

The test filming
did
seem to take a long time. David scrutinized us closely, sometimes looking through the camera, sometimes not, requesting that Maria change the make-up under my eyes and make Aidan’s eyebrows “more sardonic”. Although he complied without complaint with requests to turn, look up, look down, move to a marked spot, Aidan appeared bored.

“Can we have a clinch? See what you two look like together?” asked David. He turned to Dennis. “What do you think? On the sofa, or by the window?”

Dennis pursed his lips. “Let’s test a shot in front of the window, for the lighting.”

Aidan and I were positioned in front of the window, which wasn’t a real window, of course. Lit from behind, we also had to be lit from the front or our faces would be in shadow. We waited while lights were adjusted, me patiently, my leading man less so.

“God, this is tedious!” He wiped his forehead with the cuff of his shirt. “When will they invent a light that isn’t hot as well as bright? It must be ninety degrees in here.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” I said calmly. “And anyway, you must be used to it.”

He nodded moodily. “Too damned used to it, that’s the trouble.”

“Righty-ho!” came the call from the man whose name was Harry. I remained mystified by what his actual job was, though it seemed important. David and Dennis discussed each test with him before they filmed it, and it was Harry’s confirmation that everything was ready that started the filming.

“Now get together, you two,” instructed David. “You don’t have to look as if you mean it, but for Christ’s sake, Aidan, do try not to yawn.”

We stood close together, and Aidan put his arms around me. I had been expecting this, since we were playing lovers, and David had asked for a “clinch”, which every filmgoer knew meant a passionate embrace. But I did not expect Aidan’s hand to go to the back of my head and draw my face so close our cheeks were touching. His skin felt sweaty and sticky; I could smell smoke on his breath. My body felt tense, and weighted by my costume. It was not a passionate embrace.

David sighed. “Fine. Look into the camera, both of you.”

We did so, cheek to cheek.

“Look at each other.”

We drew apart, still with our arms around each other. I gazed into dark eyes, outlined with make-up but expressionless. Aidan’s nose and cheekbones, I noticed, were prominent. His face was that bony English type so sought-after by film directors. Not winningly open and handsome like David’s, but striking, especially in profile.

“All right.” Another sigh from David. “I suppose that will do. Maria, powder please!”

Maria dusted the powder puff over both our faces. When she saw the make-up smear Aidan had left on his cuff, she did not say anything but gave him a weary look. When we were powdered to his satisfaction, David took my hand and led me to the little sofa.

“Gorgeous, Clara,” he said. “Now, let’s try a rehearsal.”

B
y the time we had finished the rehearsal my head ached and my feet were balls of fire.