I smiled to myself and kept walking. I might have a crappy costume but I was mates with the lead.
So yeah, I did still have a crappy costume, but at least today Debbie had the dubious pleasure of wearing a stupid Pound Shop tiara that was too big and had to be pinned into her hair with about eleventy billion hair clips to stop it slipping over her eyes. Apparently, director Sam, who as far as I was aware hadn’t even made it into the ballroom yesterday, felt that the scene needed ‘more sparkle’, so every woman and her dog was having their outfit blinged up. Everyone except the downtrodden domestics, of course. We left the caravan, both grumbling about chafing and with her clutching onto her tiara to stop it falling off. She looked like a little girl dressed up as a Disney princess. It might have been mean-spirited and petty of me, but her daft headgear made me feel a lot better. I hoped it would look more realistic on screen.
‘Morning, ladies!’ Tony looked very chipper. I wondered what he’d been up to last night, when I’d been having dinner with Nathan. I’d half expected a knock on the door, or at least a text, telling me about his afternoon with the stars and asking to be fed.
‘They mended your trousers, then?’ I snorted.
‘That wardrobe woman with the frizzy hair did start having a go at me about the split, but then Faith waded in and told her I was her hero, so…’ Tony grinned. I ignored the little voice that said, her hero??? It was pathetic and didn’t deserve any attention. But it still wouldn’t shut up.
The sound of raised voices across the gravel courtyard made us all look over towards the stars’ trailers. It was a young female voice that held the unmistakeable trace of an American accent mixed with something else that I couldn’t quite pin down… A hint of Japanese, maybe? What I could pin down, however, was that the owner of that voice was very, very angry.
‘I give you one job, that’s all, just one job, and what do you do?’ There was a pause when presumably the person being shouted at answered back, probably in a cowed tone of voice. ‘You left her locked up in here? Then where is she? Where’s my –’ there then followed a stream of terribly unladylike but quite inventive cussing – I mean, I worked on the mean streets of South London for nearly twenty years, so if it shocked me it had to be bad ’– baby? Where’s my Princess?’
‘Oh God, has Zack been dog-sitting again?’ I said, shaking my head like the two of us were besties and this was a common occurrence. Tony should know he wasn’t the only one who was friends with the stars. Tony looked at me, puzzled, then turned to Debbie, but she didn’t answer because the door to the trailer burst open and out flew a harpy – a young and beautiful one, yes, but a harpy all the same.
‘And that’s Kimi Takahashi,’ I said. We watched her stride across the courtyard, calling, ‘Princess! Princess! Momma needs you!’ ‘So, she seems nice and not at all unbalanced…’
Kimi, dressed in a flowing silk wrap and with her hair scraped back from her face, disappeared around the corner of the building. Behind her, in the doorway of her trailer, stood an almost identical but somehow less glamorous version of her – a sister, I guessed, maybe even her twin. She saw me looking at her and stared back, waiting for me to look away, so on principle (of course), I didn’t. She gave up and let out a big sigh – I could tell by the exaggerated way her shoulders shrugged up and down – and then followed Kimi.
‘So,’ I said, enjoying the fact that Tony still looked confused at the casual way I’d mentioned Zack, like we were besties, ‘I suppose we should find Lucy and see when we’re due on set…’
We wandered about for a bit, nodding to the other extras who were all hanging around looking lost, until we came across Lucy, who was looking harassed. Tony opened his mouth to speak but she interrupted him.
‘You haven’t seen a dog, have you?’ She sounded like she was incredibly fed up but trying hard not to show it.
‘Kimi’s dog? No,’ I said.
‘It’s a Pekinese.’
‘I know. We haven’t seen her.’
‘We’ve seen Kimi though,’ said Tony with a grin.
‘And heard her,’ said Debbie.
‘Everyone’s heard her,’ muttered Lucy, who obviously felt that the young star was being a bit of a diva. ‘Why she had to bring the blasted dog with her anyway… Never mind, keep a look out, will you? And we’ll be filming in the ballroom today. Twenty minutes, please.’ She spotted someone over the other side of the yard. ‘Glen! Hold up.’ And off she went.
‘Might as well head over to the ballroom,’ said Tony. ‘Faith reckons she might be able to persuade Sam to give me a line.’
‘Who?’ I asked pettily, because I knew who he meant.
‘The director.’
‘Oh right. A line of what?’ I said, thinking, Faith reckons, does she? Which was proper daft, seeing as I’d just made it sound like me and Zack were BFFs now. Tony gave me a look, which might have genuinely meant why are you being petty with me? or might just have been guilt on my part. ‘Sorry, I know what you mean, I was trying and failing to be funny. I hope she does. Let’s walk round the long way, shall we? We’ll be doing enough standing about as it is.’
We followed the course that Kimi and her sister had taken, round the side of the house to the front where the beautiful facade was somewhat spoilt by the shoot’s ramshackle collection of marquees and trucks; the whole production had given rise to a kind of middle-class shanty town. But if you looked
