Episode 5: Up The Captain

Episode 5: Up The Captain

    Older and wiser heads would probably say—and in my saner moments, which are few, I actually say—that I’m doing it all in an effort to show John Haworth. Show him what, exactly, totally obscure, even to me. Um, that I can geddalong without him? “Goddalong without ya before I met ya, gonna geddalong without you now…” We’ve all been boning up madly on Fifties anything; I think that creeps into the period. Bloody Mark Rutherford thinks I’m doing it all for The Book, what planet’s he from? Yep, Planet Sociology, you got it.

    Anyway, what happened was this:

    I’m sitting in the bath moodily contemplating my toenails and wondering why the Christ I let Rupy paint them bright Fifties scarlet, when the phone rings. I leap out and rush to answer it. It’s Joanie, terrifically Up, Seve’s ditched the wife and bought the bar, and she’s not coming home, they’re redecorating it and they need to be on the spot—

    I manage to croak out congratulations. She laughs and thanks me and admits he has actually bought her a ring though goodness knows when they can get married! (Or if, is divorce even legal in Spain? I don’t say it.) And as the sub-lease of the flat’s got ages to run I’d better see if Rupy or someone can stay on permanently, but we’ll leave it in her name, etcetera. And can I send her her good black suit—I gulp, but she doesn’t mean that one—and the turquoise trouser suit—I turn pale, I haven’t seen that jacket since Rupy wore it for The Big Night Out—and she will definitely be over some time before Christmas, she’ll collect her heavy overcoat then, but it doesn’t matter about the rest! Yes, of course I can keep all that old junk from Miss Hammersley, merry laugh.

    “The pink satin evening dress?” I croak.

    “Yes, of course! It looks miles better on you, anyway!”—It doesn’t.—“And Seve doesn’t want me going round in second-hand gear!” Merry laugh.

    “Yeah, um, what about the play?”

    She’s rung Derek. That’s just as well, because he rung us sizzlingly ropeable the other day to say if she doesn’t come back RIGHT AWAY he’ll give the part to the understudy.

    “Oh, good. Um, there’s the audition, too. For Up The Captain. Um, the Fifties thing.”

    “Oh yes, of course: the second round!” Merry laugh. “I must say I never thought you’d get that far: well done, Rosie!”

    “Thanks. Um, well, I can’t go on being you, obviously.”

    “Why not? Serve them right!” She goes into a merry trill of laughter, boy is she Up. Them, of course, being the entire British dramaturgical Establishment. With brass knobs on, yep. “No,” she says weakly, I can hear her blowing her nose, “there’s nothing to stop you doing whatever you want. Um, didn’t you say at one point,” she adds vaguely, “that you’d like to follow through a series in production? Well, this is your Big Chance!” This time she goes into positive hysterics, obviously she thinks I’ll never do it because I’m not a Real Actress. I don’t think I’ll ever do it, either, but—

    “I can’t go on being you, what if you ever wanted to come back? I know you won’t, but what if you did?” (Thinks: what if Seve drops dead? Well, he’s not that young, it has been known. Or he could drop her for a younger dame, that’s been known, too, especially when the hair’s receded even more and that delish pointed Spanish chin is really starting to show the sag.) She’s pointing out that she won’t, again, but agreeing that she is quite well known in London, it’s quite on the cards that someone who knows her could— Exactly. Yeah.

    Finally we settle it that if Brian Hendricks offers me the part—she obviously thinks it’ll never happen—I’ll admit I’m not her. And with renewed congratulations to her and Seve on my side, and thanks to me and loving messages to Rupy on her side, she doesn’t know about The Mystery Of The Disappearing Turquoise Jacket yet, we ring off.

    Should I give Mark a bell and let him know that it might be a goer? Um, no, that’d be dumb, raise false hopes. Um, only he’s been nagging me again… Anyway, I’ll see him next week, we’ve got a Strategic Planning Meeting… No, it’d be dumb to get his hopes up only to dash them.

    I ring Mark. He’s over the moon. But can I bring it off? I don’t know, frankly. It might help if Derry Dawlish was there, at least he liked my tapping (or bottom), but he seems to have vanished from the scene.—Who?—Ma-ark! The movie director! That crapulous South Seas Midsummer Night’s Dream with Adam McIntyre in a pearl— GEORGY HARRIS AS TITANIA! He’s got it, thought he might. He gets all hopeful but then he gets very dashed because I inform him coldly that even if Derry Dawlish does his thing of picking on a total unknown to star in his next epic and launching her into fame and fortune followed rapidly by total obscurity (except that Georgy Harris has got talent, so the total obscurity didn’t happen in her case), it will not be me, because (a) I am not an aspiring actress and (b) I am not a nit and (c) I have got a life. He mutters a bit but grudgingly concedes that it’d read like an exposé and that I do have a life.

    Rupy does a dance around the room and hugs me, he wants to ring Joanie back but I remind him what a phone call to Spain costs, and there’s only two of us, now, to split the bills. So he actually sits down and writes her a little note. I didn’t know he could write. The fact that he hasn’t got a clue what happened to the turquoise jacket might just be a factor, true…

    Of course I have to be Totally Marilyn in the suit for the second round of auditions. This time he concedes I can wear the black stretch-lace thing over the black lace bra, plus the black rehearsal pants and the sheer tights. He’ll take me to the hairdresser! I was shaking in my sneakers, I’ve seen Rupy’s mates after the hairdresser, and let me tell you, talking of turquoise, turquoise spikes in amongst the platinum spikes are the least of it. But she turned out to be Miss Hammersley’s hairdresser, absolutely thrilled to be able to trim my Shirley Temple cut. And duly admired the way the hair falls into natural ringlets, grr. It’s such an asset, dear! In almost the Year 2K? Get real! I didn’t say it: she’s a very nice, well-meaning lady. (I did bring my laptop bag but I didn’t get much, what with Rupy and her blahing on about Fifties versus Thirties looks and the radio in the background and the noise of the drier.)

    So now we’re all set! Yes, both of us, natch. Rupy’s wearing the white drill daks he scored off Miss Hammersley, a navy blue blazer with brass buttons that he actually went out and bought with his own money, a plain white shirt, and instead of a tie Miss Hammersley’s red, white and blue Sixties silk scarf with CD on it. He hasn’t got one of the hats, yet, but give him time. He looks like Leslie Phillips in his younger days, but I’m gonna let someone else tell him that. And stand well back, yeah.

    This time it’s at the production studios. Not the BBC, no. Or that other one, um, ITV? Rupy happily explains. A private company, blah, blah. I can see that, it’s got “Henny Penny Productions” emblazoned all over it and this dumb logo of a chook. It all sounds bonkers to me, but I’m only a Wild Colonial Girl. –Stand up straight! And suck my tummy in! Marilyn Monroe had a tummy, that was partly the point, but what the Hell. I suck my tummy in.

    We’ve gone up in the world, this time it’s an actual waiting-room with real armchairs, cor. Not orange… Not tan… Tangerine! Tangerine wool, sort of chunky. Horrible. Behind us the wall, believe me or believe me not, is pale turquoise to about the top of my head, or shoulder-height on Rupy, and then sort of airbrushed out into cream, I never saw a whole wall airbrushed before. With the chook logo in tan and “Henny Penny Productions” in navy. Yuck. The carpet’s navy, too. Um, actually so’s the ceiling, it’s got these little down-lights all over it, totally yuck.

    After a bit a door opens and a French-rolled blonde actress in a narrow dark grey suit comes out. Still the waif-look type of thing, but designed to keep the bod relatively warm, she’d need to, as, though she’s quite tall, she must weigh about six stone. “Didn’t we see her before?” I hiss.

    “Don’t spit! Um… oh, yes. First round. Um… Amanda Grey! –What’s up?”

    “Nothing, um, I think she was the lady that never turned up for the auditions for Bridget’s part.”

    Happily he recalls that of course, she used to be a brunette!

    We go on waiting. Shit, Country Life, I haven’t seen one of those since my dentist’s waiting room in Sydney… “Rupy, who’s your dentist?”

    He’s got lovely teeth and I now know he takes very good care of them. He’s only careless about sexual morality and fidelity and other people’s clothes and make-up, he’s quite prudent and sensible in most other spheres of life. Like, he always takes precautions, thank God. –I asked him, geddit? Jesus! If it hasn’t dawned by now I’m not his type and he’s not mine—

    He tells me who his dentist is, earnestly recommending him… Yeah. Maybe I will.

    “Darling, not toothache?” he hisses in horror.

    “No, I’ve got strong teeth. But I’m due for a check-up.”

    “Oh, well!” He outs with a mobile phone.

    I gape at it in horror. “Whose is that?”

    “No idea. Someone left it behind…” he says in a very vague voice, getting the number. He dials, and has a lovely chat with his dentist’s receptionist before handing her over to me. Limply I give her the details. And the usual grovelling thanks for being able to fit me in to pay her boss megabucks for a five-minute check-up, yeah.

    “Behind where, Rupy?” It was at Tony’s rehearsal. Jesus, in that case Lucasta Grimshaw or someone’s gonna be up for megabucks when the bill comes in, because believe you me, Rupy’s not gonna hang back! To prove it he immediately offers to let me ring Joanie. But I can’t, I’m too nervous. I agree to ring her after the audition. Then he offers to ring Australia. “It’s the middle of the night, there, you birk,” I say without bothering to work out if it is.

    “Oh. Well, name a time, dear!”

    Who do I want to tell a string of lies to over there? Joslynne? Mum and Dad? Bloody Kenny? None of them will want to hear about the sociology, well, none of them are capable of taking it in, except Dad, and he’s really not interested, though he pretends to be. And they’ll all have kittens and assume that I’ve gone off my rocker and want to be a fillum star if I breathe a word of the rest. This in spite of having known me for twenty-seven years, yeah. Eh? Yes, okay, we’ll work out a time, Rupy.

    He’s ringing Edinburgh Castle, just to see if you can, it’ll be the Tokyo Tower next, when they ask me to go in. They can’t keep him out, they haven’t got any wild horses handy. Added to which, of course, he’s now In It! Boy, will they rue the day. Especially as he seems to see Commander as a sort of latter-day Sparkish. I admit he may possibly be a social climber, but— Oh, well, sufficient unto the day.

    Shit, this time it’s like a mini studio, with lights, they must be serious.

    They’re sitting at a table, again, and it’s basically the same crowd. Clipboard Mandy with the horn-rims, she’s wearing a brown skinny-rib and black slacks, for a change. Thinner than ever, with big black shadows under her eyes. Maroon-Blouse Lady has still got the oval steel-rims and the light brown French roll and it’s still wispy. But this time she’s in a fawnish tweed suit, ugh, with a dull tan blouse and a little gold necklace. She’s got that great pile of scripts and writing-pads and God-knows-what again. Brian Hendricks must like shades of brown and tan, he’s in a brown pin-striped suit that is totally Yuck. Again with a scratch pad and a Parker in front of him. Silver-Grey Varley’s still in silver-grey; heavier gear, though. Probably still Armani, mind you. Plus and the oval steel-rims. Young Round Face is in another suit, dark grey with a blue tie and pale blue shirt, he’s got rather red cheeks, I wouldn’t say blue was his colour. This time he hasn’t got such a big pile of manila folders but he’s got several lever files, those big black cardboard jobs. Rupy’s trendy acquaintance, who I now know is the director, Paul Mitchell, is in a black heavy-knit jumper and black slacks—working clobber, right. However, he’s wearing his Blues Brothers shades, so he must be feeling more than a little provisional about yours truly. As well as them there’s a middle-aged man in a to-die-for charcoal grey suit and an untrendy hairdo but oval steel-rims—“Management” engraved on his forehead, you got it—and, gee, right next to Brian Hendricks, just fancy, Derry Dawlish!

    “Same suit,” notes Silver-Grey Varley before I can even breathe.

    “Yes, it’s my Marilyn suit,” I say in the little cooing voice me and Rupy have worked up for the occasion, him having explained very tactfully, forgetting I’m not a real actress and have no feelings on the subject one way or the other, that the Australian accent won’t go down well, dear. Not as a first impression.

    “Delicious. Haven’t we met before, dear?” says Derry Dawlish before anyone else can breathe.

    I don’t remind him about me in the silver topper and grungy parka bawling out him and Adam McIntyre for not saving a seat for Bridget, I don’t think it’d be tactful, on the whole. “Um, sort of. Um, you saw me dance The Good Ship Lollipop at—”

    “That’s it!” he cries, snapping his fat fingers and plunging into low-voiced confabulation with Brian Hendricks and Silver-Grey Varley. Is he trying to convince them it was all his idea in the first place and that it was my tapping that gave him the idea in the first place? I reach casually into my laptop bag…

    Rupy’s grabbed a director’s chair and pulled it up by Paul Mitchell. He winks at me, and mouths “tummy”. I suck it in obligingly.

    After Brian Hendricks has been driven to say, very loudly: “We’re going to try her out, Derry!” they get down to it. First I have to read the same thing, this time Round-Face does the cues, he’s awful. According to Rupy I improved during his relentless drilling of me, so maybe I’m better. They have another low-voiced confab. Then Clipboard Mandy gives me another script and says perhaps Mr Maynarde will read this with me? Rupy rushes forward all eager. They let us read it through to ourselves first. It’s a really dumb scene, Commander’s telling Daughter why white gloves would be appropriate to view the Coronation. Not in the Abbey, from a window somewhere on the Route.

    “What’s up, dear?” asks Derry Dawlish kindly, looking at my expression.

    The thing’s so dumb I nearly forget to coo, help, Rupy would’ve killed me! “Um, wouldn’t she, like, know this from her cradle? I mean, didn’t they, in those days?”

    “See? I told you so!” cries Former Maroon-Blouse Lady loudly.

    “Nothing of the sort,” retorts Silver-Grey Varley, that got right up his nose, good. They shout at each other. Paul Mitchell and Brian Hendricks join in. Derry Dawlish is bored, he gets up and comes over to me.

    “Bring your tap shoes?”

    “Yes, I did, actually, Mr Dawlish.”

    “Good. Take that jacket off, dear. …Ah! –Look, Varley, have you seen her?” he says loudly.

    “Yes!” snaps Former Maroon-Blouse Lady crossly.

    Silver-Grey Varley barely glances up from the fight. “What? Oh. Yes. She’s the type, if that’s what we’re looking for.”

    “Of course we’re looking for it!” cries Derry Dawlish. Somehow his hand’s got onto my bottom. Somehow I manage not to kick him in the goolies. “Take your skirt off, dear. …Ah, hah! Look, Brian, thighs as well!”

    “Good ankles,” says Clipboard Mandy unexpectedly, goodness gracious, I’d have put her down as totally anti-Me.

    “Exactly,” says the great director deeply. No-one seems to be listening to him, so he adds to Rupy: “You would not believe the number of knock-kneed, bandy-legged washboards we’ve auditioned.”

    “I know, Derry, darling, it’s the Nineties syndrome!” he agrees eagerly. “But she’s totally Fifties, isn’t she?” Gee, thanks, Pygmalion.

    “Of course. –Shut UP!” he bellows, waving his arms, it’s like seeing a giant black haystack suddenly come to life. “She’s going to read! –Go on, dear,” patting the bottom absent-mindedly.

    So Rupy and me read the scene, me all breathy and cooing and Dumb Blonde, him all social climber.

    “Good. Now, do your Good Ship Lollipop, dear,” says Derry Dawlish before anyone else can breathe.

    Rupy and me didn’t rehearse that, we look at each other in horror, but fortunately they’ve got a real pianist, he appears from nowhere and sits down at the piano. I have got the music, it lives in one of the pockets of the laptop bag. “That,” I explain. “Um, can you sight-read?” He’s a thin guy in, guess what, oval steel-rims. He just nods. I’m not placing any bets and actually he looks anti-Me, and if he’s gay, which I think he is, the busty blonde Marilyn type will not appeal, so maybe he’ll fuck it up to spite me. Silently making up my mind to stop him and tell the lot of them just what he’s doing wrong if he does fuck it up, I move out into kind of the centre of the floor and say: “Go on, then.”

    “Stop!” shouts Dawlish before the poor man’s fingers have hit the keys. “Have you brought the dress, dear?”

    “Um, what? The sailor dress? The baby-doll? Um, no, they never told me to, Mr Dawlish.”

    “What? Didn’t they tell you anything at all about the part?”

    This is a rhetorical question, but I answer it anyway: “Um, no, Mr Dawlish.”

    He rounds on them and tells them they’re a pack of idiots, but eventually lets me start. Gee, the pianist’s really good, not as thumping as Heather, the way she marked the beat used to make my head buzz. I finish with the backwards bow, since D.D. probably expects it, but as I haven’t got the frilly knickers on it won’t have such an effect. He claps anyway and says proudly to the others: “See?” Gee, two Pygmalions in one day, lucky me.

    Then he comes up really, really close and fondles the bottom and says: “Isn’t she lovely?” Mmm, he smells very expensive.

    “Derry, we haven’t decided on anything yet!” says Brian Hendricks in an exasperated voice. Suddenly it dawns. It’s not one pecking group, it’s two, and Derry Dawlish is a Leader from an outside group! But he’s also an Alpha Male, geddit? So they have to kow-tow to him to a certain extent, the more so as they may want to join his pecking group at some time. But he can’t totally Lead their group, because Brian Hendricks is its Leader and they all have to kow-tow to him. And, this is significant, are used to doing so. With the possible exception of Silver-Grey Varley. I haven’t worked out his rôle and in fact I don’t think Mark’s got a rôle for him. Ah, hah! I muse on the relative fluidity of human social groups as opposed to the—

    “What? –Sorry.”

    They’d like to try me in front of the camera. Just for the Look. Here Former Maroon-Blouse Lady says something urgent in a low voice, let’s hope the tape recorder picked that one up, because I sure didn’t. I have to go off and be made up, but I can leave the bag here, dear. No, I— On second thoughts, I can, and I just hope that mike’s as sensitive as ruddy Rutherford claims. Mandy will take me. Actually the famous Derry Dawlish takes me, arm round the shoulders and all. Rupy scoots after us. Predictably he drives the nice make-up lady mad. Him and Derry Dawlish have a big fight over whether to retain the Hat. Rupy yes, D.D. no. The way the hair falls into natural ringlets is duly admired. The hairdresser, that’s a different lady, she can’t believe it and thinks I must have had it permed. She explains this more technically but only the make-up lady and Rupy understand. Me and Mandy haven’t said anything for quite a long time. Eventually I look cautiously at her. She tries to smile. I wink. She breaks down and grins… About fifteen hours later we go back to “the floor”—huh? Okay, Rupy, you’re the expert. They’re still fighting. The words: “I envisaged it as centred on the character of the Captain!” hover angrily in the air as we come up to them. I think it was Former Maroon-Blouse lady. She glares at me. Encouraging. It’s not my fault if your producer and his mates are a load of male wankers, Lady.

    Then I have to stand under the lights while they point things at me. It takes ages. I don’t have to say anything. –Screen test! It is, isn’t it? Goodness me, if five thousand of Rabbit’s friends and relations back home in Oz could see me now. They make me turn round and walk and stuff. Eventually I have to say a few lines from the first bit of the script we did. Then Rupy’s allowed to come and stand with me and we say a bit of the dialogue.

    They must’ve used videotape, because then a dogsbody wheels in one of those giant TV screens, help, and they show it.

    “That was quite nice, dear,” says Brian Hendricks when it seems to be over. “We’ll have to see, of course…” He rubs his chin.

    Round-Face puts in: “She’s not exactly slim, is she? Sometimes the camera can be very fattening, Brian.”

    “We’re not looking for a Twiggy,” he says dismissively. “Come over here, dear. Pull up a chair, let’s just talk, mm? Now, what is your name?” He smiles nicely at me as I get back into my skirt, it isn’t cold but there’s a bit of a draught, and pull up a chair opposite him.

    “Marshall.”

    “Brian, for God’s sake, you must have all that on file!” puts in D.D. impatiently. He doesn’t go round the table and sit in his old place, he pulls up a chair next to me. Well, this means he’s on my side, but on the other hand, do I want this sort of clear demarcation at this stage? Especially since he in fact doesn’t belong to their Group? “What is your name, dear?” he adds, muscling in, whether unconsciously or not, on Brian Hendricks’s territory.

    Round-Face was very crushed that B.H. didn’t immediately agree I was too fat. He fumbles busily in his folders. “Sheila Bryant sent her. Ah… Here.” He pronounces the dread words: “Joan Marshall.”

    “It doesn’t suit her,” says Derry Dawlish definitely.

    “No, and I’m not her!” I say desperately.

    There’s a short silence.

    “You’ve got the wrong folder, Damian, you idiot,” says Former Maroon-Blouse Lady, but quite mildly, for her.

    “No, I—" He starts to sort frantically through his folders.

    “You have got me down as Joan Marshall. She’s my cousin, I came instead of her.”

    There’s another short silence and then they all start shouting at once except for the Management type, he just looks disapproving. He’s been looking disapproving throughout except at the instant when I removed my jacket. At that point he looked eager, he must be a tit-man.

    Interestingly enough, it’s Silver-Grey Varley’s voice that eventually dominates the hubbub: “I don’t give a fuck if she calls herself Joan Marshall or Queen Nefertit! She’s got the Look we want, for God’s sake!”

    They all stare at me. Derry Dawlish helpfully puts his arm round my shoulders.

    Paul Mitchell’s actually taken off the Blues Brothers shades, blimey, when did that happen? “Yes, she has. If you’re sure that’s what you want, Varley?”

    “Yes!” he says impatiently. Who is he? What’s his rôle? I don’t mean in the Group, I mean in life. “If she can do the Dumb Blonde convincingly on screen, she’ll do. We’ll centre the whole thing round her. Thick-witted lovers, Gib, the Med, the bloody Coronation, the lot.”

    “They didn’t have lovers in the Fifties, Varley,” says Former Maroon-Blouse Lady dubiously. Is she actually starting to come round to the whole idea? Whatever it is, yeah.

    “Not in the clinical sense, Paula, for God’s sake! Have a bit of nous!”

    “All right!” she snaps back, very red. –Paula. Yes, it does quite suit her, I don’t think I’ve ever met a Paula, before.

    “Just a moment,” says Brian Hendricks, sounding grim, oops. “Before you all get carried away, I’d quite like to know, if she isn’t Joan Marshall, who she is, and what she’s done before.”

    They all stare at me again except Derry Dawlish: he just pats my shoulder reassuringly.

    “I haven’t done anything. I’m Joan’s cousin. Um, she had to go abroad, so I came to the first audition instead of her. Um, sort of a place-holder, if you see what I mean.” Oh, dear, I think D.D.’s about to laugh, I can feel him shaking, I don’t think that’ll help. “Um, but then she decided not to come home, so—um—I came,” I end miserably.

    “No experience at all?” says Brian Hendricks grimly.

    “No, um, not on TV. I have been in a tap show.”

    “Of course you have, dear!” cries Derry Dawlish, fortunately forgetting to laugh and getting all enthusiastic again. “She was lovely: you remember, Brian!”

    “Uh—mm. Look, Derry, it’s all very well, but casting a complete unknown? We haven’t got your sort of budget to play around with, you know—"

    Everybody immediately joins in, even Mandy and Damian down there at the bottom of the pecking order, and the Management guy, budgets are a topic close to his heart, you betcha, and it goes on for ages and age and ages. We use these special long-play tapes, but all the same… I have to restrain myself forcibly from looking at my watch.

    They don’t come to any conclusion, but finally Silver-Grey Varley gives me an angry look and says: “Well, can you sing?” I think, expecting the answer No.

    “Look, I know that was in the original concept, Varley—” begins Paula.

    “Shut up! –Well?”

    “Yes.” I go over to the piano and ask him if he can play My Heart Belongs To Daddy, I haven’t got the music. He can. “Like Marilyn Monroe or Carol Channing?” he asks unemotionally. I have to gulp a bit but admit: “Much more like Marilyn.”

    He plays, and I sing. I don’t imitate her, I’m not that much of a nong, and no-one in the whole world could ever do it like she did. But I lean to that side, sure. More fausse naïveté, if we’re gonna get technical. And plenty of voice production, Signorina Cantorelli would be proud of me.

    At the end of it Derry Dawlish bounces up and claps like fury. So does Rupy, bless him. Brian Hendricks doesn’t clap but he’s actually smiling. And he says: “That does put a different complexion on things! Come and sit down again, dear. Now, what on earth is your name?” –laughing a bit. Even Silver-Grey Varley’s actually smiling, I didn’t think he could. Management’s a bit pink: he’s a tit-man, all right, and my version of that song, hitherto not seen further abroad than the local RSL club of a Saturday night when they haven’t booked a proper act, certainly shows them off to their best advantage, if ya see what I mean. ’Specially in that black lace thing of Joanie’s, like they are.

    “I’m Lily Rose Marshall,” I say, sitting down.

    “Lily Rose! Ah!” says Dawlish, putting an arm around me again. “Drop the surname, mm?”

    “Passé,” says Paul Mitchell with a shrug. “I’m certainly not opposed, mind you, but I thought some of us had decided against singing?”

    “Rubbish, dear boy,” returns Derry Dawlish loftily, as from a great and superior height, but kindly with it. “That was when we assumed we’d only find a bleached washboard with no tits and no bum to do it.”

    “And no singing voice, presumably?” adds Paula drily.

    D.D.’s not put off. “Precisely, Paula, dear. What a find!” He gives me a bit of a hug. “I still don’t like the Marshall, though.”

    “Change the surname,” says Varley with a shrug. “Who taught you to put it over like that?”

    “Um, the song? Um, no-one, I sort of worked it up myself.”

    “That’s one mercy,” he mutters.

    “Varley,” says Paula with a sigh, “I’m quite sure no-one else will have pre-empted our brilliant concept.”

    “Let’s hope not. –Was anyone else talent-spotting at that thing you went to?” he suddenly demands of The Great Director.

    D.D. flounders, I’m glad to see. “Uh—no. Don’t think so. –Brian?”

    “Well, you got the tickets, Derry. I don’t think so. And tap isn’t essentially Fifties, is it?”

    D.D. tries to tell them it is, it was all the rage of the amateur scene in the provinces, blah, blah, and his concept is, centre it round a Production! One of those gruesome kiddies’ tap dancing competitions he remembers from his youth—

    “Pardon me if I mention the words Ken Russell yet again, Derry,” notes Paula.

    Rupy’s agreeing with her, good on him. “Now, what you want to consider, Derry, darling,” he tells him impressively, “is Dirk Bogarde.”

    “N—Uh, not A Postilion Struck By Lightning, surely?” croaks Paula.

    He doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “Doctor In The Captain’s Anything, dear,” he explains clearly. “White drill, lovely caps, lovely bellbottoms!”

    Paula eyes him drily. “Mm. Well, that is the essential inspiration: yes.”

    “Yes. And this is not a meeting for ideas,” says Brian Hendricks clearly. “I think we were discussing Miss Marshall’s name?”

    “Lily Rose Marshall,” I remind them in a small voice.

    “Lily Rose Ruh—,” Derry Dawlish tries it on for size. “Ah… Reid? No—mundane. Well, think of something, dear! Starting with R!”

    Me? All I can think of is the suburb of Sydney where Dad started his Brilliant Career. No-one in their right minds would wanna be called after it, it’s a slum. “Redfern?”

    Dawlish tries it out. “No-o…” His eye alights on my discarded tap shoes. “Ah! Rayne! R,A,Y,N,E,” he spells out laboriously, largely for the round-faced Damian’s benefit, he’s frowning and has written, we can see it clearly even though it’s upside-down to us, RAIN on his notepad.

    “Lily Rose Rayne. Sweetly pretty,” notes Paula. I’m beginning to quite like her.

    “Exactly!” the Great Director cries with horrible enthusiasm. “Lily Rose Rayne! Total Fifties, utterly floral and pure, complete ingénue, not an innuendo about it! Darlings, we can build from it!”

    Clearly he’s forgotten it isn’t his show. So at this point Brian Hendricks says: “I quite like the image. It’ll do.” He adds something in a snide aside to Varley about the Queen, and they all laugh. I’m not laughing, I can see I’m not supposed to understand.

    Paul Mitchell’s looking quite pleased but he says on an anxious note: “She has got the Look, Varley, but is it enough? Can you build the series round that?”

    Silver-Grey Varley gets up, and stretches. “Yes. I must say, initially I thought that you’d fallen out of your tree, Brian, wanting to give Heartbeat a run for its money with a Fifties show. But I can work with this. Don’t bother with any of the rest of the skinny cows Damian’s lined up. And we’ll keep Lily Rose Rayne as the name, I think, Brian, don’t let Derry talk you into changing it again. Oh—look out our early concept sheets, Damian, and check what songs we listed.” He wanders over to the door but pauses to say to me: “Don’t do anything about clothes or scent without consulting Brian. And don’t dare to touch that hair, I want it.” And on that he goes out.

    “Who is he?” I say weakly to the famous Derry Dawlish.

    “Varley Knollys, dear, the writer. Simeon’s Quest—no?”

    I shake my head dumbly, it goes with the Lily Rose Rayne bit, though I have read it. Very Pommified, I didn’t think it was funny, but then I never think Pommy books about naïve young men finding their feet, or not finding their feet, at their hugely expensive and exclusive universities are funny. But the scene where he tried to get a job in an estate agent’s office was good, he shoulda stuck with that and left out the Varsity crap.

    Eagerly Derry Dawlish tells me about all the screenplays Varley’s written, eagerly Rupy joins in. Brian Hendricks and the Paula lady have a lowered-voice confab. Damian writes busily on his scratch pad. Management’s doing sums on his. At long last Brian Hendricks looks up at me and smiles. “Well, I think so, Lily Rose. We’ll talk to your agent, dear. But at this stage—yes, I think so.” And Rupy seizes his cue, bounds up, tells them a big fat lie about Sheila Bryant being my agent, makes sure that Damian and Mandy have all of our phone numbers, and at long, long last we stagger out past the chook logo and the tangerine furniture, and into the street. Help, it’s still daylight!

    We blink dazedly at each other.

    “You’ve done it,” he says in a wobbly voice. –Didn’t think I could, see?

    “Yeah,” I agree in a wobbly voice. –Didn’t think I could.

    “Golly,” he says.

    There’s a short silence.

    “I mean!” he croaks. “Even if Derry loses all interest before it ever gets to the big screen, and he is like that dear, no denying it— But still! The lead! After one amateur tap show!”

    “Yeah.”

    “I could do with a nice cup of tea,” he croaks.

    Me, too, my throat feels like a very old ashtray and my knees have gone all shaky. There’s a little untrendy tea shoppe just down the road. We totter into it and collapse at a table featuring a plastic blue gingham tablecloth and a bunch of real mauve chrysanths, the scraggy sort people grow in their own gardens, and order a nice pot of tea. I’m so stunned I don’t even think of turning off my tape recorder until the lady in the gingham overall brings the tea.

    Shakily Rupy raises his cup. “Cheers, Rosie, darling. To the part!”

    Shakily I raise mine. “Up the Captain,” I agree.

    Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, probably, though I haven’t had time to look, Joanie’s due to pop over and collect her overcoat very soon, and we’re rehearsing madly for the pilot which has to be ready to go in the New Year.

    Huge, I mean HUGE rows have been going on between Varley Knollys (that is how you spell it but it’s pronounced Knowles, I reckon he made the whole thing up and his real name’s something humiliating like Dick Short), between him and Brian Hendricks, Paul Mitchell, and Paula O’Reilly, I’ve found out she’s the one that has to actually knock Varley’s ideas into shape, i.e. real dialogue that actual people might, with a great leap of the imagination, have said to each other in the Fifties. –If the Fifties were as bad as we’re all assuming and as Derry Dawlish has swept in a couple of times with a train of hangers-on and fawners carrying clipboards and extra scarves and his giant fur-collared overcoat to assure us they were. Brian thinks he’s still keen but as he’s filming in Prague we won’t be seeing much of him. (I already knew he was filming in Prague because Euan’s in it. I don’t know why Prague is supposed to look like Moscow in the nineteenth century, though. No, I don’t know why they didn’t go to the actual Moscow, nobody does, it’s all in Dawlish’s head, great film directors are like that, whaddareya?)

    Today’s a typical rehearsal day, except that instead of working in a big rehearsal-room place we’ve moved up a step to the actual production studio’s building. Rupy’s already explained carefully that they don’t need the huge sound stages for television that they do for film, it’s a more intimate medium, dear. But that doesn’t mean we’ll be doing it with the cameras yet. Though Paul Mitchell, who’s the sort of very careful director that Brian Hendricks likes to hire, that always works out his shots very carefully in advance, may work out the camera angles as we go. Boy, that’ll help.

    By now I’ve realised TV acting is feebleized crap, almost as pathetic as film acting. We both had a free morning last Tuesday, and to help me realise it, Rupy took me to a very obscure little cinema way out in the suburbs that was re-running Derry Dawlish’s Scotch film, one of his earlier efforts, I didn’t see it when it first came out but I saw it on SBS and I thought it was lovely. The object of the exercise wasn’t to point out how lovely it was, it was to show me exactly how many teeny-weeny, minute shots of the lovely Scotch girl it took to actually get one small scene. It was a shattering experience. (Fortunately the theatre was almost empty: us, a man in a raincoat, two grannies in raincoats over twinsets, one uniformed schoolgirl clearly wagging it, and another man in a raincoat.) That, evidently, is typical of how D.D. works, because he is the auteur and the actors do what they’re told, especially them as can’t act. I did ask faintly why Rupy was torturing me, but he told me sternly not to be silly, it was to show me that one mustn’t expect too much. I didn’t say I didn’t expect anything at all from D.D., I just nodded numbly. –Do not ask what happened to the Scotch girl, boy is that an object lesson in not allowing oneself to be carried away by Hollywood hype! I had to admit I’d been expecting a bit more from Paul Mitchell once we got in front of the cameras, but the answer was a lemon. All right, Rupy, dear, I won’t expect anything. As a reward he called me Rosie for the rest of the day. When we’re at rehearsals he usually calls me Lily Rose, it’s what the TV people all call me—either because, as claimed, we don’t want any muddles, dear, or because he wants to fit in with the telly crowd. On the whole I’m quite glad: it does sort of separate the Joanie’s cousin, slash Euan’s girlfriend persona from the Lily Rose Rayne, aspiring telly actress persona, from the L.R. Marshall, Ph.D. persona, doesn’t it?

    No, Euan doesn’t know anything about the Lily Rose Rayne shit and I’m hoping, though this is a vain hope, that he never will. Because the last thing I want is for him to think I want to be part of his bloody profession. But perhaps we’ll have busted up before the series comes out, if it ever does: we had a row when I wouldn’t come to Prague with him. In case you’re wondering if it was an instance of the “woman’s work is less than man’s” bit, yep, too right. He couldn’t see why I couldn’t pack up my notes and bring them with me: after all, I’ve got a laptop, haven’t I? And I don’t have to teach, it isn’t as if I’m a don. I didn’t mention the tutorials, I just refused point-blank to go. Because if he can’t take a word I say seriously, up his. Not even mentioning points such as on-going field studies and my tape recorder not speaking um, whatever they speak in Prague, I get those old Communist-block cities mixed up. Czech or Polish, one of those.

    He’s since calmed down and rung me loads of times, hope it isn’t costing him a fortune. He thinks it would be nice if we could manage to meet in Paris just before Christmas. It would, except that Mark’s scheduled a Progress Report Meeting for the 23rd. Mark’s like that. And even though there is plenty of time to change it, yes, Euan, he won’t. Why not? Because it involves a large number of other people! When he’d calmed down he decided I could easily come over on the 24th. Yeah, if I can even get to the airport, everyone’s told me the roads’ll be choked. So I’ve left it up to him to book me a ticket. If he can do that efficiently, which I sincerely doubt, I’ll do my best to get to the airport. Maybe he’s got an “Assistant to Mr Keel”, like they put in the credits, that’s got enough nous to do it.

    “On the goo-hoo-hood ship, Lol-li-pop…” After five million rows, Varley, Brian and Paul decided that the song—and the dance—could be in the pilot. What it is, the ship’s crew’s getting up a little Production, and Daughter, she’s been asked to be in it. Some of us thought it was always sailors in drag, never mind. The totally notional ship isn’t called H.M.S. Lollipop, it’s called H.M.S. Regardless. Some of us think that’s Varley Knollys being snide. Paul was really ratty because at first the dress, it’s just like the one I wore in the tap show, they had another row about that, was too long and I had to really bend over to show the frilly knickers off. The rat reduced poor Ruth, she’s the Wardrobe lady, to tears, but actually, I don’t think it was her fault, it was the Costume Designer’s. She’s a very up-market lady and she never takes the blame for anything, so of course she didn’t say anything. I should have said something but I was too chicken. Anyway, Paul would never listen to anything I say. Dumb blondes can shut up unless they’re actually speaking their lines.

    “Goo-hoo-hood ship—” Breathe, tappety, tappety, tap! Pause while Paul shouts at the man who’s pretending to play the accordion, dressed as a sailor, he’s really an actor, and then at the man who’s really playing the accordion, he’s a musician, he’s dressed in a pair of grungy old jeans and one of those grey hooded sweat-shirts. He winks at me, totally poker-face, once Paul’s taken his terrible eye off him. It has actually dawned by now that Paul isn’t musical. Well, it has on me, Rupy, all of the sound men, and the accordionist. Plus and the very nice man who’s doing the theme.

    I really like the black patent ankle-strap shoes they’ve given me. I never had any shoes like that when I was a kid, they must’ve been Out. Mum’s got a picture in the album of her wearing a pair, that was really in the Olden Days, I think it was about 1953. She said they were murder to wear and Grandma did her nut when she wore them to school one day. They were for best. These ones have got taps on them, of course. Bob Goodrich, one of the sound guys, he’s been testing this morning, he says most directors would just dub the taps in afterwards but Paul’s a fanatic. I said, so the shoes wouldn’t have taps on them, then? But he said yeah, Lily Rose, they would, only they’d still dub them in after. That seems mad to me. They fit really, really good, it’s great being in a show that can afford everything of the best, but boy, you can see why the Management types go on and on about keeping within budget and why Brian, who, I’ve worked out, is Henny Penny Productions (Hendricks, and his wife’s Penny—Penelope, like Miss Hammersley, geddit?) is so anxious about the whole bit. Because if the people they show the pilot to, I think they’re like the networks, Rupy’s tried to explain it, but it’s different from Oz and he hasn’t got any other frame of reference, so he can’t clarify it—anyway, if they don’t like it, it’ll be an awful lot of money down the drain. What you see on the screen’s only the tip of the iceberg. No wonder Brian hires the sort of directors that like to work it out to the Nth degree before they start shooting and wasting film and paying all the salaries of the sound men and the lighting men and the cameramen and the technicians that look after all the equipment and the touch-up scene painters and all of those.

    That’s without even going on location! If the first series goes over big we will go on location for some of the next series, but for the first lot it’ll be stock shots of the Med and Gibraltar and distant views of ships, and bits of ships built in the studio with real sky back-projected onto the screen behind us. Brian’s had researchers on the job, that’s more salaries, and they’ve come up with some lovely old B&W shots from old movies and old documentaries of the Fleet, in and out of Gib, all that’ll be in the titles. With on top of it the credits and the dread words “The Captain’s Daughter.” Because that’s who she is, um, who I am, see? And after the six millionth row they agreed that that’s what they’ll call it. The Captain’s Daughter. Yikes.

    Hard though it is to imagine, it’s going to be a one-hour show. It’s now dawned on some of us that Brian’s stable’s gonna run the Daughter against Heartbeat next season and if her nose isn’t first past the post certain jockeys won't ever be offered another ride. So to speak. Well, I am a bookie’s daughter. Mind you, at the moment my money’s on the favourite.

    Breathe again, make sure they heave under the baby-doll, tappety, tappety, tap! You sure don’t need to think about a part like this, so it’s just as well I’ve never been under the illusion that I’d have to, eh? Maybe the blokes think I don’t notice them watching when I'm dancing, but I do, because once you’re on top of your routine, even with Paul Mitchell interrupting it all the time, it just comes naturally. The sailors are supposed to be watching at the moment, true. Sort of slavering, only I can see most of them really are, it’s not just pretending. But most of the other guys are watching, too. Kind of beyond where the cameras’d be. With hard-ons, there’s a preponderance of hetero guys working for this show. If Paul notices he’ll probably say something really awful to them. There’s not many ladies here, they didn’t have female crew on ships in the Fifties, protecting the future mothers of the race, geddit? But what there are of them, they’re glaring, they don’t like me. Gee, fine, I don’t like them. Well, if I was being me I might quite like Paula O’Reilly. But she doesn’t think much of Lily Rose Rayne, you betcha. She’s got that look on her face that says it’s all too painful for words. Mind you, she has a lot to bear: Paul’s always making her re-write stuff. Last week he said in front of all of us that she was a competent re-write girl but she isn’t capable of original thought. Which was a bit mean, really, because it’s her that writes most of the funny lines; bloody Varley, real writer or not, only dreams up the ideas. And she hates being called a girl. Only she’d hate it worse if he called her a re-write man, because she’s one of those Women’s Lib ladies that in real life always have a permanent bloke and a nice settled middle-class lifestyle to support it on.

    Tappety, tappety, tap, breathe, turn, show knickers, tappety, turn: “–Lollipop!” And thumb in mouth à la lollipop, and sideways smirk, not too knowing. Phew! That’s it! Now, giggle and throw the arms round Lieutenant Welwich. Tiptoe, smirk, pout with the bosom and the bum. Luckily Welwich is really keen to get his profile in shot and it’s real hard to do that and give you the tongue at the same time, so he doesn’t. And here’s Daddy! Captain Harding in person, feeble old creep that he is. “Oh! Daddy Captain!”

    “What the Devil are you doing with that worthless—” Blah-blah and so forth. Gee, Paul’s let him get through it. Then he rounds on the ship’s crew, and they all hurriedly disperse. Them and their hard-ons. Will they show more or less when they get their bellbottoms on, an interesting Thort, eh? Pout, wriggle bust, and sulk while Daddy Captain tears a strip off… And then Paul does yell: “All right! Stop! –I said, Cut, dammit! That’ll DO!” And we all stop.

    Daddy Captain gives me an extra leer for good measure. I give him an extra flutter of the lashes for good measure. Ugh. Thank heavens the script’s made him my dad and not my sugar daddy. Can we have lunch, please, sir? Or is Our Master gonna think up more stuff we mighta done wrong the first time or coulda done different, or— Phew, he isn’t. Or at least, he’s remembered that We Demand A Lunch Break. Henny Penny Productions is quite shit-hot on that, actually: I think they mighta had a run-in over it with Actors’ Equity at one point. Or maybe the technicians’ union, more likely. Whatever, it gave them a fright.

    Lieutenant Welwich comes over looking hopeful. Daddy Captain gives him a filthy look. Welwich gives him a languishing look, he’s not gay, but he sucks up to Daddy Captain because he’s a Household Name. Those almost blue-rinsed silvery waves and the way he crinkles the eyes apparently go over really big with the viewing public. If they had to act with him, they’d know better. That aftershave of his is enough to drop you in your tracks. Not to mention the tongue, a million times worse than little Welwich’s. Paula O’Reilly reckons all his fan mail’s from old biddies. Actually I can well believe it, because guess who Daddy Captain is? Yes, God’s Gift to the twinset set, Michael Manfred in person!

    I couldn’t believe it when I found out they’d cast him, but evidently “he appeals to a certain demographic”, round-faced Damian’s got the statistics to prove it in one of his big lever files. Yeah, right, the twinset set. I don’t think anybody asked if he might put off all the remaining, and larger, portion of the viewing public. He didn’t recognise me, of course, why should he remember a tousle-haired sociologist cousin of a supporting rôle in a baggy black jumper and old jeans? Especially as when he was introduced Lily Rose Rayne was wearing a tight little pink wool suit, a pale pink jumper that if it ain’t part of a twinset somebody in Wardrobe’s bombed, the Shirley Temple cut, and a silly simper. Varley Knollys and Brian Hendricks between them have taken my appearance firmly in hand. It won’t be their fault if The Captain’s Daughter isn’t the hit of the new millennium and Lily Rose Rayne a household name before we hit June 2000. So far they haven’t managed to get any media interest but give them time, PR’s on the job. Two of them, the head one’s Timothy and he oversees it all, and the one specially deputed to look after our show’s Barbara, fortunately her idea of Fifties suits seems to gel with Brian’s, Varley’s and, incidentally, Rupy’s.

    I’ve got all the stuff about who pays for what garments and who keeps what in black and white in my contract, you betcha. Joanie’s agent, Sheila Bryant, is pretty much on the ball and frankly, L.R Marshall’s even more on the ball when it comes to not having anything put over on ya by up-themselves Pommy production companies that can actually believe a dumb blonde, Marilyn Monroe type can exist in the acting world of the almost-21st century. Sheila’s not taken in, of course, but she doesn’t give a shit, she’s only interested in her percentage, and thrilled to have something that’s been offered a contract drop into her lap. And made sure that if it goes international, I (i.e. we) get royalties. You betcha. And from the repeats. (“Residuals”—ya didn't wanna know, right.)

    Rupy comes up and elbows Welwich out of the way. He outranks him, of course, being a Commander, but in the acting world he also outranks him because everybody knows him. Whereas Welwich, his real name is Darryn Hinds, is a virtual unknown. He had a small part in that awful Scotch mist telly thing, and then quite a good little part as a constable, or was it a cadet, anyway, a learner, in a cops show that they’ve just finished filming the second series of. Not The Bill, no, luckily for him, that’s the Black Hole of British telly, like, you go into it and— You got it, huh? Darryn’s got an oval face, big dark eyes, a very straight nose, short straight dark hair, left over from the cops thing but just right for the Fifties, and a very sweet expression. Very good-looking, and Derry Dawlish has already Spotted him, though not going so far as to offer him an actual part in anything. He is sweet, actually, and if only he’d stop trying to give Lily Rose Rayne the tongue (he thinks it’s manly, ya see, added to which he grew up on those Eighties films where the tongues are even more athletic than the rest of the bods), I’d quite like him.

    “Lunch, darling?”

    “Yes, let’s, Rupy,” I agree thankfully.

    “Can I come, too?” asks Welwich, I mean Darryn, wistfully.

    “Darryn, dear, we have a prior arrangement,” says Rupy sternly. This is A Big Fat Lie, we don’t usually make arrangements for lunch because Tony might turn up after his morning’s barre practice, or The Youngest Sailor (his part) might decide Rupy’s adorable after all, or the boy from the sandwich shop (not a part, he’s real) might look twice at him instead of, oh, dear, ogling Lily Rose Rayne’s tits. I haven’t encouraged him, I swear, but Rupy’s told me sadly I don’t need to.

    I might break down and let Darryn come, even though it’d mean being Lily Rose all over lunch, very tiring, only Michael Manfred says with a leer: “I thought you might care to join Coralee and me, Lily Rose?”

    What a ghastly thought! Sweet smile: “No, I can’t, thanks, Michael, Rupy and I have got a lunch meeting.” And we escape, leaving poor little Darryn looking all crestfallen and ruddy Daddy Captain’s hard-on all lonely.

    I might have mentioned Coralee Adams before, Joanie knows her quite well. She’d be, at a guess, six years or so older than Michael Manfred, but terrifically well preserved, she plays terribly forceful and knowing ladies that are totally up with the play even though in their late forties. Always very well dressed and beautifully made-up with gorgeous hairdoes that are never the In style. In short, one of what Paula calls sourly “Daddy Captain’s ageing paramours.” It’s a guest spot, evidently Varley’s decided he’ll have a string of them, ageing paramours, I mean, not guest spots, though it’s the same thing. She’s always well dressed even at rehearsals, well, so is Michael Manfred, he’s been indoctrinated by all those years of working with Gaynor Grahame, of course. As for Coralee, I think it’s partly image and partly her age. Well, work it out: it’s nearly the end of 1999 and she’s about sixty. In other words, practically a contemporary of the Captain’s Daughter. Today she’s wearing a very pale camel-hair suit, the jacket’s the longer look so she is up with the fashion to that extent, but open over a jade green fine-knit jumper and a very pretty silk scarf in shades of jade and tan on white, with a big gold scarf clip on it. Her hair’s toffee coloured, quite a few shades darker than the suit, but it tones beautifully. I’ve refrained from saying it’s the same shade as Gaynor Grahame’s in That Symington Woman but Rupy hasn’t, he loathes her. And she’s got big gold clips in her ears, not dinner-plate ones, they’re really Out even for ladies like her, but quite big ones. And a lot of rings, real, I think. Really lovely legs, and the skirt’s quite short to show them off. I always enjoy her outfits, even though I can see they’re not quite in fashion. And even though she’s a total bitch and treats Lily Rose like dirt. Well, she’s jealous, poor thing.

    We only go to The Tea Shoppe down the road, we’re quite safe here because it’s too untrendy for the actors to patronise and the meals aren’t nearly as solid as what the canteen provides, so the crews never come. Occasionally we see Karen, she’s Brian’s actual secretary as opposed to the loads of PA and EA persons that surround him, all male, and Linda, she does reception. Together, usually, they’re friends, they more or less have to be, no-one else at Henny Penny is in their socio-economic group: the actors, even, no, especially the ones that earn less than them, think they’re not intellectual enough to associate with; the crews are all male and won’t associate with them, though they might try to get up them, that’s totally different from having lunch with them as if they were human beings; and the keen-faced females in semi-executive positions in Management and Personnel and Public Relations that dress in the waif-look suits think themselves far too good for them. It’s just like home, none of the academic staff at uni ever associated with the secretarial staff or the ladies from Accounts. –I never got to know that until I was a Ph.D. student and sometimes got taken to the staffroom as a great favour because the staff in question were too mean to shout me a drink in the bar. Or in the case of the male ones also afraid their colleagues might tell their wives, yeah. Possibly here the British class system makes it all slightly worse, or slightly more rigid, to put it less emotively—yeah, I’ll grant you that.

    Me and Rupy eagerly associate with anybody, but it’s too full today, even though it’s drizzling, to have a chat to Kathleen, she’s the lady that owns it, so when Karen comes in by herself looking shy we wave eagerly at her. She’s quite glad to join us, otherwise she’d have to sit with the middle-aged grannies in twinsets and raincoats. They’re certainly not from Henny Penny Productions, but there’s a branch of a large department store and a big carpet shop round the corner, and a little cinema complex over the way.

    Karen won’t notice if I’m not doing Lily Rose, so I don’t bother much. After she’s told us about her Mum’s ingrown toenail, and Rupy’s told us about his friend Steven’s ditto, and she’s reported on her sister Wendy’s affair with the guy from her, Wendy’s office, not going anywhere very much as he’s still living with his mum, oh, dear, Rupy lets me have a sausage roll as a special treat—Karen goes into a giggling fit, she thinks he’s a riot—and gets her onto the subject of Brian and the gossip from the TOP.

    And Karen innocently imparts the Awful Truth that explains why Brian’s so edgy about The Captain’s Daughter. Him and Varley between them have pre-sold it, conditional on the pilot’s being okay, to be shown next spring. In a prime-time slot!

    We goggle at her in horror, me with my sausage roll suspended and Rupy with his second cappuccino suspended. They must have done a real snow job! Evidently they did: selling it on the strength of Brian’s previous successes and Varley’s reputation. Plus and, the backing of Double Dee Productions. Financial backing? croaks Rupy, the cappuccino shaking. She doesn’t think so, she thinks it was only the name. Though Derry Dawlish is really interested making a film of it.

    Being as we’ve heard that one before the expressions of frozen horror on our faces don’t melt.

    After quite some time I manage to stagger off to get us all another round of cappuccinos, Kathleen doesn’t manage table service too well when the place is full, and Rupy a pink cakey, he needs it. I’m not too sure what falls within the definition but I buy something with pink icing on it and he leaps on it, gasping. Karen gets half her cappuccino down her and reveals the Real Truth, that is, they had two Really Big Names lined up to play the female lead and the Captain’s son, only they dropped out. And the august clients don’t know.

    Rupy’s got a sugar belt from the pink cakey and a caffeine belt from the cappuccino and so can croak, while I’m still sitting here with my mouth open: “Captain’s son?”

    “Yes, but Euan Keel said he wasn’t interested in tying himself down to a series after all. Brian was furious, he said he’d—”

    We don’t hear the rest of it. We’re just staring at each other, our mouths open, transfixed.

    “They’ve changed it quite a bit, you see!” she ends happily, putting her cup down. “I think it’s miles better, I think you’re really good, Lily Rose!”

    “Thanks,” I say numbly. Rupy isn’t even capable of asking coyly doesn’t she think he’s really good, he’s just sitting there numbly.

    Karen then has to dash back: she’s holding the fort this afternoon because Linda’s off with a bad cold.

    “Euan Keel?” he croaks.

    I gulp. “Don’t look at me, the subject’s never come up.”

    “Does he know you’re— No.”

    “The subject’s never come up,” I repeat lamely. “Um, who was the lady that was gonna be me? Lemon something?”

    “Lenora Galsworthy! Umpteen telly movies on the Beeb! That Dickensy thing!”

    “Oh.”

    “She’s a serious actress, she was in that thing of Adam McIntyre’s. –Not that, dear,” he says scathingly, “the Shakespeare! Not Rosalind, the other one.”

    “Oh.”

    He thinks about it. “She’d have been a disaster, darling. No flair for comedy at all.”

    I try to smile.

    “I can’t imagine… The Captain’s son?” he croaks.

    We look limply at each other.

    “I tell you what, Rosie, darling,” he says feelingly at last: “I’m going to go back to the studio and mug up my lines in that horrid little room nobody ever uses that they tried to claim was the greenroom.”

    I nod numbly. “Me, too!”

    We do that.

    In the afternoon’s Paul’s quite pleased with us and concedes that it might work, after all. But Rupy and me are still too numb to react. Pre-sold to Them? All depending on little us? Euan Keel? Captain’s son?

    We share a taxi home, we often do, the weather’s been beastly and otherwise we’d never get back much before eight. After a long silence I quaver: “Rupy, what if they don’t like the pilot? Will they—um, can they cancel it?”

    He shudders. “Not if it’s pre-sold, dear—scheduled, you see.”—I shiver, nodding.—“Yes. But what they can do is shut it down after four episodes. Plus and, blacklist Brian Hendricks, Henny Penny, and bloody Varley Knollys and his bloody Simeon’s Quest that he thinks the Beeb’s going to turn into the telly hit of the new millennium, forever and a day! See?”

    I do see. That was pretty much what I’d thought, in fact. Yikes.