Hearts' Desires (7 page)

             
Now he closed in and tapped at his hat in a mock salute. “M
a
dame General visits the
battlestations
! – You never take a break, Alison!”
             
“I can’t, Max. You know that. A lot of money is riding on this production!”
             
“Just as on every other one before.
How do you think you ever can get along without work?”
             
“Oh, I’ll be happy if this is over, believe me! Finally time again to read and … well, you know, doing all the things you can’t while working!” She laughed, but it was not heartfelt.
             
“You have changed a lot since we last worked together, Max! I remember you were the first on the set, even before I was up!”
             
He sighed. “Well… such a stroke can change everything! I
was
laying
in the hospital for months, and had a lot of time to ponder all kind of things… And I discovered sometimes it is better to miss something – you might find the opportunity you were looking for sitting right next to you.”
             
“This sounds very poetic! You should write a book!” Alison answered with a friendly smile; then she changed the unco
m
fortable subject: “Did you talk to the Rangers from the Natio
n
al Park about the hunting scenes in the Karoo?”
             
Max Dumont nodded and gestured to a place in the shade. “That’s why I was looking for you. - Let’s go over there! … They had some trouble because of some environmental protection guy. Now they want to have proof we won’t harm the game during the fil
m
ing.”
             
“I’ll talk to them.
Trouble
with environmentalists is the last thing I want!”
 

Everything was set up for one of the most difficult scenes on their entire schedule. It involved Lauren, Thabo and Vance and d
e
manded a complex emotional play, as Camilla
would
discover the pitiful truth about her alcoholic father. It was never easy to
play
a
drunk
. In a lot of cases,
it
could end up looking
like a sit com
. On the other hand, they had to avoid
it being
too dramatic
as well. The focus of the film was on first love, after all.

             
Alison
tugged
on her T-shirt
that was
already
sticking
u
n
comfortably
to
her back. Better to get up from the chair, sun shade or not! The camera assistants
signaled
ready. But Meredith from the
make up
team was still in the scene, fixing Lauren's hair. Wande
r
ing in and off, Alison waited for her to finish. Hadn't she told her this morning she wanted a braid? And guess what, Lauren had a
p
peared on the scene with a bun! If people couldn't focus their attention on such minor stuff, how on earth - ah, they were ready at last! The first take could start.

             
Arend
Marens
leaned
against the wall next to the
front
door, eyes
squinting
while he looked down at Camilla who had stopped in her tracks right in front of the porch, and Thabo, who stood a step closer as if
ready to shield her from wha
t
ever
was coming
.

             
Alison was satisfied with the positioning; the tension b
e
tween the characters was graspable even before any line of dialogue. Now everything depended on Vance's perfor
m
ance…

             
"You're here to remind me of my failure?!"
Marens
made a step forward and reached the balustrade with some effort. "I should've been with her that day! And it wouldn't have ha
p
pened! I just shouldn't forget, should I?" His voice was a mi
x
ture of anger and desperation. Camilla shrunk back, emba
r
rassed, and shot a nervous glance to Louis. The boy was up on the porch with three swift steps.

             
"Mister
Marens
, you want me to bring you into your --"

             
"Get your dirty hands of me!" he shouted, trying to evade Louis
’
helping arms and in that movement losing ground and stumbling on his knees.

             
Good,
Alison thought.
No:
Perfect.
That had been the s
e
quence worrying her most.

             
Lauren alias Camilla still stood petrified, watching the di
s
aster in front of her. Hopefully, her facial expressions, caught by the se
c
ond camera, matched the scene. Vance struggled to his feet again; an absolute convincing performance of a man who tried to save the last bits of his
crumbling
dignity
in front of the others. No doubt, she had underestimated his ac
t
ing skills…

It was shortly before sunset, the moment when the cool breeze of the evening already brought relief and the birds awoke. Vance had been wandering around, going
over
his dialogue for the upcoming scene tomorrow.
Now he sat down on the steps that led from the porch of the old farmhouse into the garden. He took out his cigarettes but then paused, watc
h
ing two fighting Cape-Sugarbirds. Their long tail feathers brushed through the sand and swirled
up
tiny sand devils.
             
Only when the birds flew up, Vance discovered Alison stan
d
ing next to him on the porch. The last sun rays painted everything in an orange – red, even her hair. As if it was set in flames…
             
“Wonderful evening…” Alison said, more to
herself
than to him, and folded
her
arms over her chest. The wind moved the leaves of the oaks and the rose bush. Some old, dry ones sailed down to the ground peacefully. She had not had time to
notice
such things for years. And she hadn’t thought about her father that much
in
a very long time either. Vance’s perfo
r
mance had forced her
to
face things she did not want to deal with again. But now she discovered a lot of missed colors
b
e
neath
the grey shroud
where
she had buried the time before her emigration.
             
“It’s as if… the land itself opens and spreads beauty… as a ba
r
rier before nightfall… I love this hour of the day,” Vance murmured; the un
lit cigarette still in his fingers and looking over the slowly darkening view in front of him.
“
I
’
ve
sensed
this only here in this part of the world, nowhere else. ’Course this is sentimental no
n
sense! Don’t pay attention.” He snorted.
“Seems I’m still hom
e
sick!”

             
Some minutes passed in silence. Alison realized that Vance still played with the new butt. “You may smoke, if you want. I’m not allergic.”
             
“And you won’t give me a sermon?” He smiled saying this, and she thought it did not sound as rude as she might have considered it under other circumstances from other people.

             
“My wife says I’m a total addict! But that’s not true. I could stop, if I wanted.”
             
“That’s what they all say.”
             
“No. I mean it. But why should I?” Vance lit the cigarette. “I’ll celebrate my 50
th
birthday soon and –
“
He
stopped shortly before he could add ‘who the fuck cares’.
Silence settled again. Even the birds had gone by now.

             
“I’
m not sure that you
’
re not portraying your character as too sympathetic,
”
Alison said after a while.
“
Marens
is a self centered tyrant, hating the world and everything in it.”

             
„I don‘
t think so,
”
Vance answered, simply eager to co
n
tradict her.

             
And Alison felt unprofessionally annoyed to hear his di
s
agreement.
”
His whole world has crumbled right in front of him. The politics, the ideals, and the truths he believed in
–
everything changed almost overnight when the new gover
n
ment came to power. He even thinks his wife had betrayed him and worked for the ANC. This made him full of grief and bitterness. But he
‘
s not a bad man. He
doesn
’
t deserve to be portrayed as such, in my opi
n
ion.
He just doesn’t want anyone to see any emotion inside him; he wants to be the patriarch in control of everything, even if he has lost this very control a while ago. He has emigrated to himself. But it’s all there, you
know!
He is a really interesting character
… I start to… well… like him.”
             
Alison listened to his explanations, given so v
i
vidly and intense that the excitement spilled over to her.
So far, she had avoided giving
Marens
more than a superficial thought.
The
character reminded her
too much
of her father.
Vance words were doubly unwelcome because he had pointed out her weakness and brought the past back.
She had stopped thinking of her father with any sort of emotion at the age of 14. In his aloofness he was the unreachable goal she had to strive for, and at the same time feared to become.
She did not want any emotion sneaking into the picture now via the backdoor, after she had closed the front door so firmly! Of course that was not something she could possibly
admit in
front of
anyone from
her team. It would have looked like she was a stubborn teenager struggling with puberty!

             
“Seems you’
ve
dug yourself quite deep into that chara
c
ter.
”
             

             
Vance was slightly amused
by
her
–
barely visible
–
su
r
prise. Did she think he
was
not
capable of such sophisticated
thoughts?!

             
“
That
’
s what I always try to do,
”
he answered.
“
In case there is something to dig
into
, of course. There are a lot of character se
t
tings which are as flat as a table cloth.
”
             

             
The comparison made Alison smile. “That’
s true.
” She took a deep breath. “
Well, Vance, I always had a policy on my set: if an actor comes up with an idea for his or her character, I
’
ll
give it a try. So, go
with it
and we will see after the next scenes if it fits in or not. It will be my decision in the end.
”

             
“Of course.”

             
Before they realized it, it was dark and they still stood there talking about scripts and character settings – until Alison asked the one question that had been on her mind
since the beginning
:

             
“
What happened on the set with Robert
Harker
back then?
”

             
“Afraid of Van Sorel
the troublemaker?”
Vance asked
startled by the change of subject that seemed rather abrupt to him. He turned his gaze away from her. “I’m sure you know the details. No one could miss the bad press.”