* * *
That night, while Hale was attempting to dress for dinner, his cousin let himself in. Fflytte stopped dead.
“Christ, Geoffrey, what happened to you?”
“Impressive, isn’t it?”
“Looks like the time just before the War when that bloody mare tossed you into the stream. What was the creature’s name?”
“Thumper.” Hale prodded a small patch of his torso that was not black or blue, and winced: even that hurt. “So long as you’re here, help me with the plasters? I don’t want to bleed all over another shirt.”
Fflytte took the packet of plasters and began to cover the open wounds Hale had trouble reaching – all minor, although an alarming number of them. As he worked, he asked, “Have you decided how we should pair up the constables?”
Unlike the girls and the pirates, who would be matched up by their respective heights, the smaller number of constables required a more deliberate pairing to get the full effect of the fight scenes. And where the girls were for beauty and the pirates for masculinity, the constables (with their tall, thin Sergeant) had been chosen for humour. Short, bald-headed “Clarence” in his brass-buttoned uniform would be perfect battling Samuel, as sixty-year-old Frank with his protruding ears and missing teeth was going to look absurd facing handsome young Benjamin. Trying to ignore his cousin’s none-too-gentle ministrations, Hale ran over his pairings. “-and the Sergeant with Lawrence, who comes up to his belt-buckle. The only one I’m none too sure about – ow, watch it! – is Bert.”
“Which one’s Bert?”
“The dark Cockney.”
“The pretty one. Yes, I meant to ask about that: I thought we were going for odd with the constables?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s pretty. Not exactly. Though I’ll admit, he’s prettier than I remembered.”
Fflytte made no comment, which was comment enough. Hale opened his mouth to defend himself against the unspoken charge of a personal interest, but decided there wasn’t much he could say. He didn’t recall hiring an actor with good looks – indeed, if anything, he vaguely remembered a runt with a twisted nose. But he had been rushed at the time, and then the problem with Lonnie came up, and in any event, here was Bert, with nothing particularly odd about him. And if he wasn’t pretty, exactly, his looks were interesting enough that his attentions to Annie were reassuring.
Hale was abruptly called back to himself by a prod in a tender zone. “Was there something you wanted, Randolph?”
“Oh yes – it’s about the ship.”
Hale stood, watching in the big cheval glass as Fflytte slapped on plasters while waxing lyrical about Harlequin. However, he’d known two things the moment his cousin came in the door. First, that whatever the director had in mind, Hale wasn’t going to like it (and Fflytte knew that Hale wasn’t going to like it). And second, Randolph had already made up his mind.
Eventually, Fflytte ran out of wounds and Hale retrieved the sticking plasters before he ended up bound head to toe. “Let me look at the papers before you sign anything,” he said sternly.
With a look of pleased surprise, that the job of convincing Hale had not been harder, Fflytte dropped a distressingly thin envelope onto the table.
Hale stifled a sigh. “I’ll read it, and be down for dinner shortly.”
Fflytte bounced out. Hale finished his drink, painfully threaded his arms into a formal shirt, and picked up the day’s suit-jacket, intending to hang it in the wardrobe. However, when he held it to the light, the lovely wool had a lace-like quality that would have given its tailor the vapours. He quietly dropped it into the dust-bin, and poured himself another drink.
Tuesday they spent at the Botanical Gardens, learning how to stab, pummel, bash, and impale a man for the camera.
On Wednesday, cursing as he extricated himself from his bed, Hale decided that his pirates could now be trusted to avoid committing manslaughter. That morning, he brought in his six police constables and their sergeant, a Paris-born, Irish-accented Englishman named Vincent Paul. The previous day’s ease went instantly stiff-legged, with both sides bristling at each other far too convincingly. After separating one pair – Edward-the-Constable and Earnest-the-Pirate – for the third time, Hale ran his hand through his hair and contemplated cancelling the entire project: Fflytte Films really did not need a homicide on its hands. That headline might not be so easy to shake.
“They need to eat together.”
Hale was startled, not having noticed the cat-like Samuel at his side. “Oh, a great idea – let them sink the cutlery into each other’s throats.”
“They are boys. Boys wrestle, then become friends.”
“They’re grown men.”
“Not in their hearts.”
“You can’t guarantee me that your … boys wouldn’t lose control.”
“I can.”
Hale looked at the big man, and after a moment admitted, “You probably could. Well, if you want to try, I’ll have a talk with my men. Maybe I can convince them that if they get into a serious fight, they’ll never work for Fflytte Films again.”
So they broke for lunch and trooped in two separate groups to a nearby restaurant. The men sat at opposite sides. Once they were seated, Samuel went around and lifted every other man up by his collar, pirates and constables alike, rearranging them until the tables were mixed. While the diners glared at each other with hackles raised, he went to the back of the restaurant, and returned with a waiter carrying a large tray covered with bottles of beer.
“Hey,” protested Hale, but Samuel just held up a hand and went through the tables, placing a bottle before each man.
One bottle, each.
They ate, in silence. The cutlery remained in the vicinity of the plates.
When they left, they resumed their separate groups. Hale, following behind, could not decide if the additional degree of relaxation was a good thing.
Apparently, neither could Samuel, because when they got back to the grove where they had been practising, he lined up the men and walked along, hand held out to every third or fourth one – and not just the pirates. The first few turned innocent faces on him, but when his great forefinger pointed to a pocket, an ankle, or in one case the back of a collar, the man would sheepishly retrieve the weapon he had kept back and hand it over.
Nine more knives.
Then he turned them loose.
Ten minutes later, Hale was sure it was a severe miscalculation. Five minutes after that, his heart climbed into his throat, and he pulled two flailing men off of each other. Three minutes more, and a dogfight erupted. A tangle of enraged males threw themselves body and soul into the struggle, roaring and cursing in many languages – only to break apart when tall, handsome Adam, contorted into such a furious knot with the gargoyle-faced Donald that it was impossible to tell which leg was linked to which arm, gave a shout of laughter. In seconds, a dozen separate struggles-to-the-death broke apart, leaving the men filthy and dotted with scrapes, bruises, and future black eyes, but also leaning back on their hands, laughing until the tears came.
Samuel looked sideways at Hale. “Boys.”
Not one of them needed to be carted off to the morgue, or even the hospital. And after that, they were indeed like lads who had tried each other’s muscles and found friendship.
On Thursday, with Will stuck in Cintra because of a flower-loving goat, Fflytte tore himself away from his ship long enough to help Hale and Artie film the pirate-constable battle scenes. The pirates and the police had no need for Maude-the-Make-up, although their groans may have been due more to the drinking they’d done together during the night than from the previous day’s brawl. Fflytte sat in his folding chair. Artie, bursting with pride, turned his hat-brim back and cranked the second-best camera. Hale did everything else: checking the costumes and adjusting the reflectors and reminding the director of what the men had rehearsed.