Becky kicks through a messy pile of plane tree bark and fuzz balls on the pavement outside the office, a red-brick townhouse on a square just south of tourist-choked Oxford Street. Her tired eyes itch with pollen and pollution, her nerves still jangling after Maisie’s disgruntled departure for the school bus.
Over the years she has worked for Matthew, she has perfected the art of placating him, knowing whether his grumps are down to hunger or thirst or aggravation with a bullish agent who is fighting for more money and more rights. She takes satisfaction in the feeling that she is somehow unique, being both soother and gatekeeper for a man as special as he. But being the cause of Matthew’s problems? That’s new to her.
How will he raise it with her? ‘Last night, as I was shagging a young woman on my rug …?’ Will he take her aside and say they like rough sex? What is the etiquette here?
Siobhan is standing at the bottom of the staircase ready to greet her, clasping a telephone in each hand. ‘Am I glad to see you? Yes, I am,’ she says. ‘He’s been on my back and now he’s locked himself in his office again and I’ve got about forty things that need his attention. I’m going to make him an extra-milky coffee and slip a beta blocker in there.’
Becky likes to think that Siobhan is still mostly pleased for her about Medea going on the slate, because they went to the pub a few days after it happened and drank too many pints and Siobhan proposed a toast of congratulation before going on to say how much she needed to change her life so she didn’t feel such a failure. She came in with white-blonde hair the next day and that seemed to settle it.
One floor up, their office is painted white, with a little exposed brickwork to lend texture, and a nice long-leafed palm all tangled in fairy lights at the entrance to the fireplace, done for Christmas one year and then left because Matthew liked it. Only three of them are full-time but many more desks stand ready for production requirements. One such desk serves as a surface for stacked scripts and another as a place to lay out headshots of potential cast: long necks, long hair, high cheekbones, big eyes, soulful looks.
Matthew’s own office at the end of the floor is screened with glass walls and blinds. Becky looks at it anxiously. Matthew is inside it.
Siobhan grabs the phone on her desk before the door to the stairs has even swung shut. ‘David, I’m sorry, I did tell him you’d called. Yes, yes, I know … hold on.’ She presses her hand to the receiver. ‘It’s David Barraclough from Total Agents. Matthew’s been avoiding this call all morning. David is like, fever pitch angry.’
‘Really? But he’s so nice.’
DB, they call him: the linen-suited, salt-and-pepper-haired agent to a scrolling list of A-list actors whose careers he has launched and whose offspring he later calls godchildren. Becky recently took him for lunch at a tapas restaurant on Dean Street to discuss Medea casting ideas over half a carafe of red, chorizo and squid which she only occasionally sipped and picked at while he did most of the talking. He told lots of stories, some about the days he and Matthew were junior agents together, and she had encouraged it all by laughing along. Their lunch finished without any real business done but with DB feeling the warm fuzz of having been listened to, and that was everything that lunch needed to achieve. A success, by all accounts.
Siobhan throws up a hand as the voice on the end of the line rants on.
‘Hand it over, I’ll give it a go.’ Becky takes the phone from her, smiling. ‘Hello, DB! It’s Becky. I’m so sorry you’re having to chase Matthew. It’s crazy with Cannes at the moment. Is it anything I can help with?’
‘He needs to call me.’
‘He definitely will. And while I have you, in terms of Medea I think we’re closing in on our lead actress. Hoping to pin her down at Cannes, and then we’ll have someone for your men to cast against. You’ll be top of the list, of course.’
‘Matthew knows what I’m calling about. Tell him to stop avoiding my calls and get him on the phone to me.’
He hangs up and Becky holds out the receiver. She feels ants under her skin – scared, perhaps, that she may have somehow made things worse.
‘What’s that about?’ Becky says to Siobhan.
‘I dunno but he’s having a bad day about something. Maybe one of Matthew’s little lies about shooting schedules caught up with him. So anyway, listen to this. I emailed a new idea to Matthew over the weekend.’
Something feels off. It’s a small office and they are all aware of which calls need avoiding, delaying or returning within the hour. Aware of any conflict over contracts, pressure on production, egos, fallings-out, ground to be made up … And DB and Matthew have never had a falling-out before. At least not as long as she has worked there.
‘So it’s kind of Beaches but funnier, but really more like The Hangover only sadder, with really upbeat yet emotional music, actually probably more like if Watership Down was actually happy?’
‘Sounds good.’ Becky is biting her fingernails, one so much it stings.
‘Two female leads so, you know, on trend, pretty topical. I’m thinking Aniston. Go big, or go home. And then I’m thinking Emilia Cosvelinos. More classical, but she is bankable now with the Scorsese film coming out and I think she’ll add real weight to the crying scenes. What do you
