Dirty Movies (9 page)

Dominating the page was a Pap shot of the American actress
, Maisie Peach, snogging the face off a tall, blond and very suntanned man outside some infamous LA celebrity hotspot. The accompanying headline was suitably salacious.

Hollywo
od’s Golden Couple set to wed? 

As
Polly read the blurb underneath, she couldn’t help giggling. The whole article seemed to be based around the fact that Michael was seen loitering twenty feet away from
Harry Winston’s
front door. Probably waiting for a bus, she decided.

Rachel was making an odd gurgling noise in her throat that sounded very
much like ‘lucky cow.’

‘I can’t believe you haven’t met him before, what with Maisie being such a regular fixture for GBA
,’ said Sally searching through the magazine for more shots of the pair. ‘They’ve been together for yonks. I’m stunned he’s never flown out to see her.’

‘Maisie doesn’t like him hanging around during filming
, which makes my overly suspicious mind tick. I reckon she’s got a secret lover hidden tucked away in her million dollar trailer. Any ideas Sal?’

‘Not a dicky bird
.’

‘What’s she like?’ asked Polly
, gazing enviously at Maisie’s smooth, sculptured midriff. It was so perfect it looked painted on.

‘A proper diva
,’ confided Sally.

‘Any truth in the marriage rumours?’

‘Well his secretary
has
been overheard making lots of covert appointments on his behalf…’

Sally and Rachel continued to speculate on the stormy love lives of celebrities long into the night. When Polly found her eyelids drooping in protest over another A lister’s marital disharmony, she made her excuses and left. Truth was, she was still shattered from her run-in with Stephen earlier, and the thought of having to face him again in seven hours was more sobering than a triple espresso.

Weaving her way under the arches and across the courtyard, she smiled at the hotel porter scooping out handfuls of dirt, leaves and a grubby white bra clogging up the swimming pool
, before glancing wistfully at the empty woven sun lounges. There was no way she would be sampling them anytime soon. Not if today’s working hours were anything to go by.

Back
in her bedroom, she was just setting her alarm to the eyeball-busting time of 4:45am when there was a loud commotion from Gillian’s room next door. Must be Vincent popping round for a midnight feast, guessed Polly. Sure enough, the sheer brute of the thrusts coming through the wall, minutes later, were so ferocious, that her bedhead was soon rattling away in protest.

In a hotel room across the corridor, Lily too was banging away with equal fervor, but her partner tonight was no more stimulating than a second-hand laptop with a squeaky ‘return’ button and a hairline fracture running across the top half of the screen.

She had spent the
whole evening wrestling with a new script breakdown for the big production meeting tomorrow, creating endless synopses of scenes, characters and descriptions to ensure continuity in every element of the film. Whilst most of the crew would be dozing off by now, Lily was being kept awake by fear and willpower alone. Often the only link to the film’s chronological continuity, with scripts largely shot out of story sequence, Vincent loved to pick on her during these meetings and she was determined to make sure that he didn’t show her up this time.

Caught up in her page counts, Lily cringed as her left elbow lightly grazed an open folder and swirls of loose paper fluttered to the ground. She glanced over at her young son curled up on top of the bed covers. Lucas stirred but didn’t wake and the air whistled through her teeth in relief. Half an hour
of placating an overtired crosspatch would have put her way behind schedule, and once again, she tried valiantly to ignore the waves of resentment towards her errant nanny. Charlene had just embarked on a tempestuous relationship with Simon the Clapper Loader and was nowhere to be seen between 7pm and 5am. Lily was happy for Charlene, she really was. She just wished it were her enjoying some fantastically passionate affair instead. Not with Simon though. He looked a bit like a ferret with his overbite and beady eyes… She jumped as her mobile started vibrating.

Meet me in Room 21
.

Oh dear, that’s all I need
, she thought despairingly, scraping her greasy ash-blond hair into a ponytail and rubbing her eyes. Scribbling a quick note to Lucas, she picked up her room key and stepped out into the balmy night. A few minutes later, she knocked softly on the door to Room 21. Vincent opened up immediately.

‘Hello Lily
,’ he purred, running his piggy eyes over her body. Lily shuddered. The Producer repulsed her.

With his giant bulk blocking most of the doorway, she shot past him holding her nose, Vincent always smelt like singed cat hair, and hovered by the edge of the bed.
She could hear Gillian singing away tunelessly to herself in the shower.

‘What do you want Vincent? It’s late and I’ve had to leave Lucas alone
.’

‘Latest child-support payment
,’ he sneered, incensed by her weary apathy. ‘You can see yourself out.’ He chucked an envelope of cash at her feet. It skidded across the terracotta tiles and came to rest four inches away from her shabby blue flip-flops.

Blinking back the tears, Lily stared down at the torn manila. She had a sudden
, wild urge to throw the money back in his fat face, kick him in the balls and run off screaming into the night. Instead, she quietly picked up the envelope and left.

Michael felt like a zombie
extra from a Michael Jackson video as he rocked up to Erizo Studios’ dingy meeting room the following day. Crippling jetlag and sleep deprivation had transformed his healthy golden complexion into a pasty mushroom colour, and he had yawned so much in the car ride over that the right side of his jaw was stiffer than a Viagra mishap.

Pausing in the doorway to remove his sunglasses and pop a fresh tab of chewing gum into his mouth, he couldn’t help
but grin as forty pairs of eyes turned to gaze at him in wonder. Polly had to rise two inches from her seat behind Stephen to take a better look. She felt the breath catch in her throat. Those paparazzi photos hadn’t done him any justice whatsoever. He was more dazzling than the sunlight streaming in through the dirty windows.

Michael’s long blond hair,
still damp from a speedy thirty-second shower, was scraped back off his face, but damp tendrils kept escaping and drifting into his flawless blue eyes. Denim jeans hung low off lean, surfer boy hips and the sleeves of his navy striped linen shirt had been pushed up to display muscular, tanned forearms. Even the shadows under his eyes and his stubble seemed purposely cultivated to make him look more
rock god
than
exhausted Executive Producer.
Polly watched him slip quietly into the nearest empty chair and pull out a notebook and script. 

Picking up a spare meeting itinerary, Michael tried to focus on the first bullet point. There was no point exchanging pleasantries with Stephen and Vincent. Both men had taken up their positions at the head of an enormous oval table and were refusing to look in his direction. Disinclined to enter into a bitter confrontation this early on a Monday morning, Michael ignored the snub and reached for a bottle of water but the grooved blue plastic cap twisted too easily, surprising him, and the bottle slipped from his fingers. With his reflexes still hovering somewhere above the Atlantic, the bottle hit the table and the contents spilled out all over his neighbour’s notes.

‘Godammit!’ he hissed, jumping up and dabbing at the swollen paper with the tails of his shirt. ‘Sorry honey, hope that wasn’t anything important.’

But the pale blonde looked horrified. ‘Only my script notes
,’ she whispered, diving into her bag for her asthma inhaler. This was just the sort of thing that Vincent would punish her for later. 

Snatching up the top sheets of paper, Michael began to flap them about wildly.

‘Don’t worry, honey,’ he soothed, ‘in this heat they’ll all dry out in seconds’. Alas, the frantic movement only encouraged the rivulets of water to ping off in all directions, smudging the writing further. He changed tact and began blowing on the paper instead. Pursing his lips together, the first line caught his attention. A moment later, his face caved into a grin.

‘Jack and Jill went up the hill
,’ he read quietly. ‘Boy, I didn’t realise Stephen had demanded
these
kind of re-writes.’

The b
londe’s face flushed scarlet. ‘Oh my god, they’re my son’s. I must have scooped them up with my script notes by mistake.’

Michael laughed and flicked through the soggy pages of nursery rhymes.
‘No harm done. Fortunately my sense of humour travelled with me. Michael Wilson,’ he said, leaning over to grasp five trembling fingers.

‘Lily Moore
,’ she mumbled, ducking her head shyly at a handshake bursting with confidence. She went back to shuffling the huge stack of paper in front of her.

Michael mopped up the rest of the water and side-eyed her with interest.  Tangled hair and a flaky bottom lip couldn’t detract from a cute button nose and a pair of gentle grey eyes. Yawning, he fanned his face with his notebook. Where the hell was the air con
in this place? At this rate he’d be fast asleep and dreaming by the time Vincent took to the floor.

Arriving at the hotel late last night
, the air had been filled with the snores of crew and the chirps of cicadas, but he had been wide-awake and wired until 4am. Subsequently over-sleeping, he had missed breakfast, and an opportunity to meet his crew before this morning’s meeting. Judging by the number of quizzical looks in his direction (mixed in with some appreciative ones and several downright lascivious ones, that make-up lady looked a right minx), it was suddenly very clear that no one had the slightest idea who he was, or what he was doing here.

Michael scowled.
A veteran of GBA’s unscrupulous ways, he quickly chalked it up as an attempt to undermine his new authority. The bastards never did like a fair fight, he thought grimly, digging his nails into the palm on his hand and readying himself for battle. Their clashes over the next few months were shaping up to be dirtier than a mud slide into a strip joint. His suspicions of foul play were further confirmed when costume designer, Sally, waddled over to him wearing a humongous dark purple, tulip-shaped skirt that looked like a decapitated blackberry.

‘Michael!’ she cried, embracing him in delight, ‘how lovely to see you, darling! I had absolutely no idea they sent Development Executives on shoots these days. Surely your expertise is better suited to all that carry-on malarkey
before
our cameras start rolling.’

‘Hey Sally
,’ he said with an easy smile, recognising her from numerous pre-production meetings in LA over the years. ‘I decided to ditch the lunchtime business meetings for a while. Thought my personal trainer might appreciate it. I’ve flown over to Exec. Produce the final stages of pre-production and the shoot.’

‘But that’s wonderful news!’ Sally shot a puzzled look at the head of the table ‘Stephen
, you wicked scamp! Why didn’t you tell us this handsome, talented creature was our new mother superior?’

There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘I wrote a memo three days ago specifically detailing this,’ snarled Stephen, glaring at a pretty dark-haired girl sat next to him. ‘Polly, I’d appreciate a little more dedication in ensuring such important announcements reach their intended recipients!’

One look at the girl’s stunned reaction and Michael was under no illusions of the memo’s existence, or rather lack of it.

‘Well never mind, you’re here now to help preside over all our important decisions,’ chirped Sally happily, unaware of the filthy look from Vincent. Meanwhile, Michael had locked eyes with the young girl next to Stephen and was grinning at her in sympathy. She promptly dropped her notebook in surprise. Diving down to retrieve it, she narrowly missed a digit amputation as Stephen deliberately flung his chair sideways into her.

Enraged, Michael leapt to feet but found his path blocked by a tall, scruffy, familiar-looking man.

‘You must be Michael,’ greeted Joe reaching out to shake his hand, oblivious to the furor going on behind him. ‘I’m Joe De Vries, 1st AD. We’ve spoken a few times on the phone. How was your flight?’

‘It could’ve been worse
,’ drawled Michael, eyeing him warily. In his experience, a gracious De Vries greeting was usually followed by a smack over the head with a rusty club. He relaxed a little when he saw the pretty girl dust herself off and roll her eyes at a girl in pig-tails sat opposite.

‘Well hopefully the jet-lag hasn’t screwed you up too much
,’ said Joe cheerfully, ‘we need to get a few decisions made today.’

‘Some fucking hope with that American idiot in the room
,’ snapped Vincent, turning to whisper something inaudible but no doubt equally as unpleasant in the ear of the cranky-looking woman sat next to him.

Joe caught Michael’s eye. ‘I take i
t you two need no introductions?’

‘Once is more than enough with Vincent
.’

Joe grinned and a spark of camaraderie
flashed between them.

‘Come and meet the rest of the gang’ said Joe, steering him towards the opposite end of the table where the two eccentric-looking costumes ladies were nattering away to the girl in pigtails.

‘I gather you already know Sally and Nancy,’ said Joe, nodding at them. ‘And this is Rachel, our coordinator.’

The girl beamed up at him and thrust a newly revised set of storyboards into his hands.
‘Nice to finally meet you, Mr Wilson. Do let me know if you’re missing any vital paperwork and I’ll whip up a copy straight away.’

‘Gee thanks
,’ said Michael. At least this end of the table didn’t seem quite so free and easy with the insults.

‘Art Department Heads
,’ continued Joe, lobbing a spare unit list at a scruffy-looking couple pouring over a stack of set drawings. ‘Roger is our Production Designer and Karen our Art Director.’

Roger glanced up as they approached. With his grizzled grey hair, thick black glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and several chewed pencils sticking out of his shirt pocket
, he reminded Michael of his old High School Science teacher.

Roger
gave a terse nod in their direction before returning to his drawings. The Casablanca set designs were causing him major headaches and he was anxious to get them sorted before Stephen caught a whiff of it. Pre-production meetings were always a form of torture for Roger. With so little time before filming commenced, five minutes, let alone five hours away from his precious plans could mean the difference between a finished set and a collapsing catastrophe. Beside him, his much younger wife, Karen, was on the phone busily organising a timber shipment from England.

All of a sudden
, Stephen’s fist crashed down onto the table and echoed like a thunderbolt throughout the room. Karen hung up hastily. The director meant business. In truth, Stephen was desperate to get the meeting wrapped up quickly so that he could schedule in a quick fuck with Maisie before Michael found out she had arrived.

‘Welcome to Morocco everyone
,’ he began smoothly, sweeping a manicured hand through his hair; the diamonds in his wristwatch glinting like miniature blades in the sunlight. Polly gulped nervously. Perhaps a swift beheading was the punishment for anyone foolish enough to fall asleep in his meetings?

As if on cue
, Michael stifled another yawn and stared coldly at Stephen. The director was pointedly ignoring all the unattractive women in the room, including Freda Jacobs, the stunt artist. Though god knows how she’s gonna double for Maisie, thought Michael in alarm. With her bulging biceps and moustache, she looked more like a man than he did.

‘I appreciate that most of you have already had the distinct pleasure of working with Vincent and I
,’ went on Stephen, without a trace of irony, ‘but for all those who have recently, and may I say,
wisely
, ditched our lesser talented rivals, on behalf of GBA Pictures, I would like to applaud your good judgment and wish you the very best of luck. Here’s to a successful shoot.’

Once the obligatory half-hearted round of applause petered out
, he sat back down again and nodded at Vincent to take charge. The producer heaved himself to his feet, mopping his shiny forehead with a dirty white hanky as Polly’s pencil quivered expectantly. Her task today was to jot down all the minutes, and after ‘telephone-gate’ she was going all out to do an exemplary job.

Rachel had
already explained to her the vital importance of this production meeting in ensuring that all the Heads of Departments were in sync now that the script was finalised and the cast confirmed. With only a week to go until shooting commenced, it was also a perfect opportunity to raise any major problems before the cameras started rolling. Unfortunately this meant that every issue in the script had to be poured over, which often led to a ridiculously overlong meeting and a very stroppy, overtired crew.

Two hours later, and Polly wasn’t being nearly as thorough with her minute taking. The tensions in the room were proving far more compelling than noting down a solution for the clunky dialogue in scene eighteen. This was the first time that she had witnessed the De Vries’ sibling anomaly in action, and it was making her dislike Stephen more and more. Dismissive, patronising and unspeakably rude, the director was going all out to piss his younger brother off at every opportunity.

‘Of course
, there are far more unsettling rudiments to this scene than the dialogue,’ she heard Stephen say, after he had chewed Joe out for another infinitesimal spelling error in his schedule. ‘The props, for one, are entirely unsatisfactory…’

Polly
watched the whole prop department cringe as the angry red spotlight was turned on them.

‘I want far more pillows and drapes for this love scene
,’ he went on, ‘I don’t want Maisie catching a cold!’

Michael wiped the sweat off his forehead. ‘Not likely in this weather’ he murmured to Joe who was sitting next to him.

‘Speaking of Maisie,’ went on Stephen furiously, ‘which twit made the decision to park the cast trailers so far away from my trailer?’

‘That was me
,’ said Joe wearily, sticking up his hand again. ‘I thought it might save a bit of time parking them closer to costume and make-up.’

‘Well it’s a bloody stupid idea. What if I need to pass last minute notes to my actors? This is just another example of your shoddy, over-zealous planning Joe. If I were you
, I’d keep your silly ideas to yourself and stop wasting our time.’