night to look after her for ever and never let her be hurt. After, that is, I’ve broken her heart by revealing my black treachery. But she’ll understand, won’t she? I mean surely.
Dear Sam
Things are moving at an incredible pace on the film. One of the good things about it being produced by a television company is that they’re not afraid of tight schedules. And with Ewan set to begin pre-production on his first US feature in only five months, the schedule could not be tighter. It’s all cast now; Carl Phipps as Colin (my God, fate has a sick sense of humour) and Nimnh Tubbs as Rachel. Nimnh is not as big a star as Carl but she’s very highly regarded, having played most of the younger Shakespeare totty at the RSC and recently a
Dear Sam
Whatever I may think about Ewan casting Carl Phipps, I can’t fault him with Nimnh Tubbs. She’s wonderful. Beautiful and heart-breaking. She was going through some of the stuff I pinched from Lucy’s book today and you could have heard a pin drop. She manages to make it funny and sad at the same time. When she read out that stuff about praying and feeling guilty for only believing in God when she wants something, people clapped, as indeed did I.
And I suppose if I’m absolutely honest, Carl Phipps isn’t bad either. He does seem to have a kind of natural intensity which doesn’t look forced or anything. When he does the lines it’s possible for me to almost forget it’s me talking. They were looking at the part where Colin tries to explain to Rachel about what she thinks is his indifference towards the idea of kids and he admits that in the abstract sense he doesn’t want children…
“‘But as a part of you, as an extension and expression of our love, that I do want and if it happened, I’d be delighted. No, I’d be more than delighted. I’d be in Heaven.’” Phipps sort of paused here and looked into Nimnh’s eyes. I swear they’d both gone a bit teary, both the actors, that is, not both Nimnh’s eyes, although that as well, obviously. I’d heard that actors achieve the watery-eyed look by pulling at the hairs in their noses but if they did that they did it bloody slyly because I didn’t notice. Anyway, then Carl took Nimnh’s hand and said, “But if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t. That’s how I see it. If we have children it’ll be another part of us, our love. If we don’t then we’ll still have us and our love will be no less whole.”
Well, it’s
After that Ewan called a short break and went off to sit in magnificent, moody isolation while cute girls with spiky hair and yellow-tinted glasses brought him coffee. All the actors and crew made a beeline for the tea and biscuit table as actors and crew always do. I decided to introduce myself to Nimnh who, being an actress, was holding a cup of hot water into which she was jiggling some noxious herbal teabag or other.
“Hi, I’m the writer. I’m so glad you’ve decided to do this, Nimnn… Nhimmn… Nmnhm…”
Of course it was only then that I realized I’d forgotten to check up on how to pronounce the woman’s name and that I had absolutely no idea. I think she was used to it. Well she would be, wouldn’t she?
“It’s pronounced Nahve. It’s ancient Celtic,” she said and there was a delightful hint of Irish in her voice which I could tell she was rather proud of. “I feel my Celtic roots very deeply. My family hail from the bleak and beautiful Western Isles of the Isle of Ireland. My blood is deep, deep green.”
Well there’s no answer to that, as they say. As it happens, I didn’t need one because just then Carl came up, all blokey and matey.
“I’m Carl. You’re Sam, aren’t you? I know your wife slightly. She works at my agency.”
Yes, you know her slightly, mate, I thought, and slightly is as much as you’re ever going to know her, you lying sneaking bastard.
“Tremendous script, mate,” Carl continued. “Really tremendous.”
I thanked him and then when his back was turned managed to surreptitiously put ketchup in his tea. A small but important victory. Then the PA called the company back to rehearse. As Nimnh passed me she pointed to the script and the speech Ewan wanted to look at.
“I cried when I first read it,” she said.
The terrible thing is, so did I.
I’d only just put it into the script that morning. I couldn’t put it in earlier because Lucy hadn’t written it. She takes her book to Spannerfield and if the queue’s long, which it normally is, she sometimes jots down her thoughts.
Nimnh sat on a chair in the middle of the rehearsal room, with a pen and a book in her hand (I’ve even used that device in the film. It acts as a sort of narration), and read the speech.
“‘I don’t know. As we get closer to the day that will either see me reborn or on which I’ll just die a bit more, the longing inside me seems to become almost physical, as if I’ve swallowed something big and heavy and very slightly poisonous. A sort of morning sickness for the barren and unfulfilled. Do I dare to hope that perhaps soon the longing will end?’”
I could hardly bear it. Nimnh was reading the speech (and reading it very well), but all I could hear was Lucy. All I could see was Lucy, sitting in a crowded waiting room all alone. Scribbling down her thoughts, thoughts I was now making public.
“‘… every mother and child I see begs that question, a simultaneous moment of exultation and despair. Every pregnancy is a beacon of hope and also a cruel reminder that for the present at least there is nothing inside me except the longing. And perhaps there never will be. I don’t know why it is that women feel such a deep need to create life from within themselves, to yearn for a time in which their own flesh will bring them comfort, but I know that they do. That’s the one experience that women who have children easily miss out on in life… The intensely female grief which accompanies the fear that those children might never exist.’”
Everyone was very positive about the speech. Ewan loves the way I’m “building the script in layers”, as he calls it. George said that he really felt I’d cracked the female protagonist.
