‘Yes,’ she chuckled, ‘but I find that conscripts are best.’
Ricky looked across at Liam Matthews; the wrestler was standing beside Masahi Katayama. Before the briefing had begun they had been speaking in Japanese; Liam spent a few years on their sports entertainment circuit, which can be very bloody indeed. ‘I hope you don’t feel left out, Mr Matthews,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you cover while you’re here if you’d like it, but I assumed you can handle your own security.’
‘But, sir,’ Liam replied, at his most Irish. ‘Didn’t Oz tell you? It’s all faked.’ That got a laugh, but I’ve seen my friend in real action; I know what he can do.
‘When the crew is at work,’ Ricky continued, ‘our people will be there. We’ll work in co-operation with the police of course, and between us we’ll see to it that you can work without interruption.
‘Any questions?’ he asked. I stuck my hand up.
‘If we are harassed by a persistent member of the public, what will your people do?’
He looked at me, dead-pan. ‘Deal with it.’
‘How?’
‘By whatever means is appropriate, within the letter of the law.’
‘Okay, suppose my sister visits me one day and has a go at me, as she often does; I’m concerned about the form of your reaction. Will you do anything without my say-so?’
‘Absolutely not, Oz.’
‘Thank Christ for that; you don’t have enough people here to handle my sister. I wouldn’t like to see any of them getting hurt.’
Ricky gave me a weak smile; Mandy O’Farrell shot me a look that said, ‘I could take your sister any time.’ I doubted that, but I grinned back at her.
‘Okay,’ said Miles, seizing the moment to move on. ‘That’s security; now the rest of the team.’ He went on to introduce Ben Cain, the production designer, Dario de Luise, the chief cameraman, Phyllis Baxter, the unit publicist, who’d been given a reprieve after the dropped ball over the Scotsman story, and Gail Driver, his and Dawn’s personal assistant. I knew all of them from previous projects, and so did most of the cast.
‘The rest of the people on the team you’ll meet on Sunday.’ He paused and looked around us. ‘Yes, folks, Sunday; that’s the big day. Filming begins at seven a.m., in Advocates’ Close, off the High Street. Those of you who are involved. . that’s Ewan, Dawn, and Oz. . who don’t know the layout should familiarise yourselves with it before then.
‘Tomorrow, we begin rehearsals, scene by scene.’ Ewan Capperauld frowned. ‘Rehearsals?’ he boomed. . without a trace of a Scottish accent. I thought of Dame Edith Evans, and handbags.
‘That’s what I said. That’s the way I plan to do it; I’ve hired a first-floor auditorium in the Assembly Rooms in George Street for the purpose. I want everyone there tomorrow at nine. No excuses.
‘Now enjoy the food and the fizz. . especially the fizz. It’ll be the last you see for a while. Anyone who’s worked with me before will know that all my sets are dry.’ As he finished he looked at our star, then, beckoning him to follow, moved towards the window, where Scott, Rhona and I were standing.
‘Here,’ the actress whispered. ‘Have you read the script?’
‘Yes,’ I replied.
‘What about our scene, where we get up close and intimate? That’s not in the book.’
‘True.’
‘What’ll the author think?’
‘The money he’s getting, he won’t think a fucking thing.’
Rhona chuckled. ‘I’m looking forward to it, mind. We can rehearse in private if you want.’
‘Would that make me a conscript?’
‘It might.’
I thought about that for a while. When I looked down again, she wasn’t there; I hadn’t seen any signal, but I guessed there had been one, for she was off, heading for Dawn, Bill Massey and Masahi Katayama, leaving Miles, Ewan, Scott and me in a group.
I’ve never seen Miles Grayson lose his cool but that doesn’t make him any sort of a soft touch. When he was younger, in his pre-acting days, he did some stuff with the Aussie special forces, and he is a very tough guy indeed.
‘Listen, Ewan,’ he said, very quietly, but in a way that got my attention straight away. ‘We’ve had this argument once before; let’s have it again, one last time. I do not believe in going to sleep on a grudge, far less going into a multi-million dollar project on the back of one. So if you’ve got something to say, spit it out.’
All three of us looked at Capperauld. He stared out of the window for a few moments, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘Okay, Miles, if you insist; I believe that film should be spontaneous. I do not think that professional actors necessarily need to rehearse every minute scene before they step on to the sound stage, and I regard the suggestion that we do as mildly insulting. .’ He paused. ‘. . To Steele and me, at least.’
‘Hey boy!’ Scott bristled, but I put my hand on his sleeve to stop him. ‘Whereas for a fucking amateur like me, it’s okay, yes?’ I asked.
The way Ewan looked down his slightly crooked nose at me, I thought about bending it some more, to really make him look the part. ‘If you put it that way, far be it from me to contradict,’ he exclaimed, loud enough for Ricky Ross and Glen Oliver to look in our direction.
‘Okay,’ said Miles. ‘Now that shit’s been dumped, let’s flush it away, okay. The last thing I’m going to do, Ewan, is tell you how to act, so you afford me the same courtesy. In three out of the last five years, I’ve directed the world’s top grossing movies; that indicates, to me at least, that I know what I’m doing. So if I say we rehearse every scene, that’s what we do.
‘Furthermore. .’ A big word for an Aussie, I thought. ‘. . I’ve cast every featured player in this project personally. Forget what it’ll say on the credits; the agency found the bit players, that’s all. You might be getting more money than anyone else, Ewan, but every member of the cast has equal status in my eyes, and. . this is the really important bit. . in each others’ eyes as well. When we worked together before, you were in and out in a couple of days, so maybe you weren’t there long enough to get to understand what I’m about. My father’s a socialist politician in Australia, and that’s how I was brought up. There’s no class system in my life or on my sets; I’ve never hung a star on a dressing-room door in my life, and when it’s been done for me, I’ve ripped them down.
‘For the record, Oz is here because he’s fucking good, just as everyone else is. He can play Andy Martin better than you or Scott, just as you can play your parts better than him, because you’ve each been chosen specifically for them.’ He fixed Ewan with a steady eye. ‘So, mate, this is how it is. I wouldn’t have started this project if you hadn’t agreed to do it. Now I’m committed, but I won’t do it with a star who’s disrespectful to his fellow actors, or who tries to undermine me, as producer or director.
‘If you can’t live with that, I’ll negotiate the terms of your withdrawal with Margaret.’
I felt Scott stiffen beside me; I held my breath. I could barely believe it, but Britain’s number one A-list movie actor had just been threatened with his P45.
‘And who’d play Skinner?’ asked Capperauld, icily. Clearly, he didn’t believe it at all.
‘The biggest name in movies,’ Miles replied, ‘Miles Grayson. I’ll make an early script change to account for the accent, and I’ll do your part myself.’
I think Ewan was about to tell him that he couldn’t do that, when he realised that he could. In the event he stopped himself at, ‘You. .’
We had one of those long silences, the kind in which you swear you can hear people’s brains whirring and clicking. Miles stood there, straight-faced, with his back to the window. Capperauld looked at him, then through the glass, at the Scott Monument, then at Scott Steele, who can be a bit of a monument himself at times. Finally he did something that took me by surprise. He turned to me and offered his hand.
‘I’m sorry, Oz,’ he said; the Scottish accent was back. ‘I guess I’ve been living in London too long; sometimes I forget myself and turn into a real fucking lovey. That was an insult, and I apologise; to you too, Miles.’