a suite, as Hugh explained – had been cleared of its bed to make a viewing room. There was a projector on a chest of drawers and a decent-sized screen at the far end of the room, slightly askew on its tripod. The curtains were drawn. Another man, youngish, with a corpse pallor suggestive of the hours he spent in these shaded rooms, was threading film into the projector as they arrived. Hugh introduced him as Bri. He nodded, paying no attention to Quentin. She totally knew the type. Nothing personal, because a guy like him just didn’t do personal.
‘Do …’
Having tweaked the screen straight, Hugh waved to one of the armchairs placed in front of it, economically adapting the end of his gesture into an indication for Bri that he should start up the film. They both sat. The dry-leaf skittering of the reel feeding through the sprockets began, calming to an automatic whirr as the countdown flashed up on the screen, the numbers huge in the middle of their target-shaped cipher. 4, 3, 2, 1. There was no sound, of course. Hugh jabbed a cigarette into his mouth and lit up, first proffering Quentin the packet, which she declined. His chair was at a slight angle to hers, so that the definite edge of his profile teased her line of vision to the left. He inhaled as though the smoke was essential to the continuation of breathing.
‘Sorted out some of the earlier stuff for you to see …’
The screen flashed an apocalyptic white, then it began. A clapperboard, mutely snapping. This dipped from view, revealing muddled activity which dissipated into a suddenly empty frame. Now there was just an expanse of parched dun grass, surmounted by a flat grey stripe of sky. The shot held, second upon second, waiting in thick light like the view through a dirty window. A smudge appeared on the line of the horizon.
‘Lawrence of Arabia,’ remarked Quentin.
‘I think we’re calling it an hommage,’ Hugh told her.
The smudge grew, and resolved itself into the figure of a child. The kid. Lallie. Our heroine. She came erratically closer, running, then walking. Her distress was immediately readable, as was the fact that she was a child unwilling to accommodate her distress.
‘Titles here. Plenty of room.’ Hugh gestured to the space to the right of the approaching figure.
‘What about the fight with the mother?’
Hugh shot her an appreciative grin. See, Hugh, I’m on the ball, Hugh.
‘Pre-title. Haven’t got it yet, of course. Means we can just jump straight in.’
The little girl had almost reached the camera. Her hair snaked unkempt around her face, her clothes were slightly too small for her. Not, it was clear, a kid to whom anyone paid much care or attention. She palmed furious tears from her face, then swerved off to the left and disappeared behind the silhouette of Hugh’s profile. A second, then the girl’s face poked back into view, confronting the camera. Now she was grinning, although her cheeks were still streaked with tears. Lallie’s lips clearly formed the shape of ‘OK?’, before she was nuked by the flash of light at the end of the shot.
‘That was OK,’ said Quentin. There it was; a whole new world, right there. She watched two more takes, one marred by a lurch of the camera as it pursued Lallie across the barren grass.
‘It looks good,’ she told Hugh. It was the truth. And she felt good. It was fine, she could do this job. The movie was going to be more than fine, maybe. Her name on the credits. She basked in the moment as Bri threaded the next reel of film and Hugh leaned to stub out his thoroughly smoked cigarette in a crowded ashtray.
‘It’s going to be great,’ she told him.
Hugh arched into his seat and palmed back his lively brown hair. ‘I do hope so.’
‘But I guess every film’s a masterpiece in the dailies,’ she added, because it was something her dad used to tell her, along with ‘There are no rights or wrongs in this business, baby, only opinions’, and ‘Never put an actress in silk after thirty’. She didn’t believe it or anything. At this moment, noting the pristine band of shirt cuff which divided the flesh of Hugh’s hand from the pressed linen of his jacket, at this exact moment, she felt as though she’d flushed that paternal brand of cynicism away at LA airport, along with the Ludes and Valium. Yay for her.
IT HAD HAPPENED,