volcano. There’s no doubt he passionately meant what he said to Alison Visborough. He stirred her up enough to relay his gripes to her friend on the Drumbeat and what he said to her, that’s how he still feels.’
‘But,’ O’Hara protested, ‘he wouldn’t want the film actually stopped, would he?’
‘His full screenplay fee became payable on the first day of principal photography – the first day of filming in Newmarket. It’s normal, of course, and it’s in his contract. Finished or abandoned, the film can’t earn him more money, unless it makes unlikely zillions. And I think he still wants me sacked. He’s still convinced I’m butchering his bestseller.’
‘Which you are,’ Nash smiled.
‘Yes. You don’t get good meat without a good butcher.’
O’Hara liked it. ‘I’ll tell Howard that.’
‘Better not,’ I said resignedly, knowing that he would.
O’Hara’s mobile phone buzzed, and he answered it. ‘What? What did you say? I can’t hear you. Slow down.’ He listened a brief moment more and passed the instrument to me. ‘It’s Ziggy,’ he said. ‘You talk to him. He goes too fast for me.’
‘Where is he?’ I asked.
O’Hara shrugged. ‘He went to Norway yesterday morning. I outlined what you wanted to an agent, who whisked him off at once.’
Ziggy’s voice on the telephone was as staccato as automatic rifle fire, and just as fast.
‘Hey,’ I said after a while, ‘have I got this straight? You’ve found ten wild Viking horses but they must come at once.’
‘They cannot come at twenty-four days, or at thirty-eight days. They are not free. They are free only next week, for the right tides. They are coming on the ferry on Monday from Bergen to Immingham.’
‘Newcastle,’ I corrected.
‘No. The Bergen ferry goes usually to Newcastle, but for horses it must be Immingham. It is better for us, they say. It is on the River Humber. They will leave Bergen on Sunday. They have a trainer and five grooms. They are all coming in big horse vans. They will bring the horses’ food. They can work on Wednesday and Thursday and on Friday they must return to Immingham. It is all arranged, Thomas. Is it good?’
‘Brilliant,’ I said.
He laughed happily. ‘Good horses. They will run wild without bridles, but they are trained. I have ridden one without a saddle, as you want. They are perfect.’
‘Fantastic, Ziggy.’
‘The trainer must know where we are to go from Immingham.’
‘Er… are you meaning to travel with them?’
‘Yes, Thomas. This week I work with the trainer. I learn his ways with the horses. They get to know me. I will practise with a blonde wig and a nightgown. It is arranged. The horses will not then panic. Is it good?’
I was practically speechless. Good hardly described it. ‘You’re a genius,’ I said.
He said modestly, ‘Yes, Thomas, I am.’
‘I’ll arrange where the horses are to go. Telephone again on Saturday.’
He said goodbye excitedly without giving me a number where I could call him back, but I supposed the agent might help in an emergency. I relayed Ziggy’s news to O’Hara and Nash and said we would have to rearrange the following week’s schedule, but that it shouldn’t be much problem.
‘We have the hanged-wife actress working next week,’ O’Hara reminded me. ‘We have to complete all her scenes in fourteen cays.’
I would take her to the beach, I thought. I’d have the nightgown diaphanously blowing against the sunrise. I’d have her standing on the shore, and have Ziggy galloping for her on the horse. Insubstantial, Unreal. All in her mind.
Pray for a sunrise.
‘Sonia,’ I said.
‘Yvonne,’ O’Hara corrected. ‘We have to call her Yvonne. That’s her name in the book and in the script.’
I nodded. ‘Howard wrote the usual hanging cliche of legs and shoes swaying unsupported, with onlookers displaying shock. But I’ve ideas for that.’
O’Hara was silent. Nash shuddered.
‘Don’t get us an NC-17 certificate,’ Nash finally said. ‘We’ll have to cut that scene, if you do.’
‘I’m to make it tastefully horrifying?’
They laughed.
‘She did hang,’ I said.
Downstairs again, one of the first people I saw was Lucy Wells, who was arguing with a man obstructing her way. I walked over and asked what was the matter.
‘This man,’ Lucy said heatedly, ‘says he has instructions not to let anyone near you.’
O’Hara’s order, the man explained. I reassured him about Lucy and bore her off, holding her arm.
‘I thought you weren’t coming today,’ I said.
‘Dad changed his mind. He and Mum are both here again. So is Uncle Ridley. Wild horses wouldn’t keep him away, he said.’
‘I’m glad to see