London Noir - [Anthology] Read online

  ‘Actually, something did come in today. Not terribly interesting, but worth a bit of money.’ Jonathan was a practical man. Having delivered his standard speech he would now attempt to perform some kind of positive deed that would help his boy. They were all his boys and girls. He hadn’t much hope for Peter, though. He’d pegged him as one of the bitter ones, an actor who resented success in others and bore the fatal flaw of being unable to acknowledge his own faults. Actors were supposed to see things more clearly. You couldn’t trip blindly through life always blaming the director.

  He moved back to his desk and undipped sheets of fax paper from a chrome letter rack, checking through them. ‘I had a call from a company called VideoArts. They make corporate promos, and they’re looking for featured extras. The first call is Hampstead Heath on Friday morning, early start, dress in your own clothes.’

  That means 6.00 a.m., thought Peter, have to book a cab there, stand around freezing in the pitch dark waiting for the director to show up.

  Jonathan was watching him, waiting for his reaction. It was a test to see if he would show willing.

  ‘Well, do you want it?’

  Time to be a good boy. Reluctantly, he agreed to go along. ‘Good, now we’re getting somewhere.’ Jonathan’s smile only affected the lower part of his face. He waved the sheet of paper, ineffectually fanning himself. ‘The company produces ten promos for the same client every year, and they like to keep their cast consistent. It’s just extra-work, but they might take you on permanently, which would mean a regular monthly cheque.’

  And a regular percentage for you, thought Peter. Another dead-end job that would advance him nowhere. He’d see how it went, but after this perhaps he wouldn’t need an agent at all. He had recently heard of a more interesting proposition, a casting call which hadn’t come through his agent and had far greater possibilities than a god-awful boring sales promo.

  At the Fulham Road gym the following morning Peter checked out the details with Fanny, who worked in the coffee bar. As far as she knew, the rumour she had heard a few days ago was true. One of the actors using the free-weight room had told her - she couldn’t remember who. He’d casually mentioned a feature film that was due to start shooting in less than a week. It was being produced by a Dutch, or perhaps a Belgian company, a thriller set in present-day London, but she hadn’t been able to understand the title. Filming would take place in central locations for a minimum six week period, and because of casting problems a number of male speaking roles were still to be cast. She remembered the name of the contact, but had no telephone number. It would take a bit of sleuthing to find that out.

  Fanny was happy to pass on a professional tip, partly because she still hoped that Peter might find her attractive. She was an actress, but had been disabled by a childhood illness, and only took roles that allowed her to appear in her wheelchair. The rest of the time she worked at the gym, running the bar, strengthening the upper half of her body with weights and waiting for a man like Peter to ask her out. She had once thought that working here would make her more independent, but the male patrons arrived with inflated egos that pushed her own flimsy sense of courage back into her wheelchair.

  Peter tried not to look too excited about the tip. The gym was full of actors who might overhear and get there first. ‘You mean it’s being shot in English?’ he asked, lowering his voice.

  ‘I suppose so. A lot of these people dub or subtitle according to the territory, don’t they?’

  ‘Was this guy up for one of the parts? Did he have a script?’

  ‘God, Peter, I don’t know. I’ve only ever seen him a couple of times before. I imagine they’ll give the script out to anyone who auditions.’ Fanny reached her hand along the counter, hoping he would absently take it. No such luck. She could tell he was already planning his audition piece. She wrote down the name of the production company for him, and Peter headed for the phone booth. At least the kiss of thanks he blew her seemed genuine enough.

  Directory enquiries failed to find the name listed, and suggested that he wasn’t looking for a company but a specific building. Had he tried the Yellow Pages? He was surprised to find the address registered to a fruit and vegetable market. The woman who answered the number explained that they were indeed auditioning in rooms above the stores. She had an unplaceable European accent, admitted that the film was soon to start production, and agreed to check out his Spotlight photograph. If she was interested, she would bypass his agent and call him at home to discuss his c.v. before making an appointment.

  She rang him at seven o’clock that evening and they talked for a full half-hour. Peter exaggerated a little about his recent work, and was officially invited to audition on Friday afternoon. Fighting to contain his excitement, he wrote down the address and agreed to be there. For the first time, he could feel the spotlight shifting toward him through the darkness.

  * * * *

  As he entered the southern corner of the park, Peter spotted the other extras. They were standing huddled together in the gloom, like sheep preparing to be attacked. Instantly he wished he hadn’t accepted Jonathan’s proposal. In a few hour’s time he would be auditioning for a real film. He walked over to the nondescript group and stood a little way off. Actors, that is those performers with speaking parts, do not mix easily with extras, whom they consider to be little more than unskilled fans. He knew that they would be forced to speak to each other, though, as there seemed to be no one else around. In the distance bare elms stood on the brow of a hill, thrusting up blackened bones like the spine of some half-buried animal. A sour pink glow edged the sky, the first intimation of dawn.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked, breath clouding around him.

  ‘The director’s gone with the first AD to sort out payment with the park-keeper,’ said a small man in a brown raincoat. Shooting on the heath cost two hundred pounds an hour, and had to be paid in advance. ‘They’ve already had us rehearsing. There’s a lot of mud about. I’ve already ruined a pair of trousers. Make sure you put in a dry-cleaning bill.’

  This was typical extra conversation. They were obsessed with dry-cleaning. Too bad he’d lost the frozen lasagne commercial. At least he’d have had some national exposure in that. Corporate videos never really saw the light of day. Perhaps that was a good thing, though. He wouldn’t want some embarrassing early performance turning up to hamper a successful film career.

  After a few minutes the director appeared and explained how he wanted them to move. Lack of enthusiasm dulled his instructions, as if he was being forced to describe the least interesting part of the day’s filming. He simply wanted them to move this way and that. Peter’s questions were cut short. If actors were cattle, the director made it clear that extras were plants.

  Half an hour later, Peter could no longer feel his feet. The temperature was hovering around zero. He and the other extras had been running back and forth along the ridge of the hill while the camera recorded their movements from a hollow two hundred yards below them. He was taller than the rest of the group and deliberately hung back a little, so that he would at least stand out. Occasionally a microphone would crackle and the first AD would warn him to keep up with the others. Apart from commands to go again, there was no other way of telling that they were even being filmed.

  ‘I hate early starts,’ said one of the extras suddenly, as if Peter had shown signs of valuing his opinion. ‘I live in Barnet, and the travelling does me in. There aren’t many showbiz people where I live. You can’t buy The Stage in Barnet.’ Then they were off again, running up and running back down. No one had told them why they were running, or where they were supposed to be running to. None of the extras had seen a script. Only the main actors were given copies, and they were waiting inside a warm pavilion at the bottom of the hill. Peter could feel resentment building within him. How could the director see them if they couldn’t see him?

  ‘Could we go again, quickly please,’ called a disembodied voice, as if their movements
were being orchestrated by the trees themselves. He broke away from the group as it prepared to run once more, and set off down the hill holding his arms high, like a surrendering Indian.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ he called, ‘I have a question. Why are we doing this over and over? You can’t possibly see us from down there.’

  A bearded man rose from behind the camera and stood with his hands against his thighs. The rest of the crew impatiently dropped their arms to their sides, siding with the director.

  ‘I’m trying to get you lot silhouetted against the rising sun, Mr Who ever-You-Are. Can you go back up at once please.’ It wasn’t a question.

  ‘I appreciate that,’ called Peter, continuing nearer, determined to make his reasoning understood. ‘You could bring the camera a lot nearer and still have the sun rising in the background. At least that way you’d be able to see us a bit better, give us a bit of identity.’

  ‘I don’t want to see you any better.’ The director separated himself from his assistants and walked up to meet him, ready for a fight. ‘You’re just a group of generic running people. You don’t have identities. You could be anyone. That’s the whole point.’

  ‘Well, nobody explained that

  ‘Because the sun rises fast and we wanted to get the shot quickly.’ He looked up at the hill. ‘But that was our last possible take, and now the sun is too high. I think you’d better go, don’t you?’

  It was humiliating, having to walk away from a group of people who were so obviously angry with him. Upsetting the extras didn’t matter, but he hated falling out with the crew in case he found himself working with them again. Clapper loaders, first assistants and sound men freelanced in each other’s crews, and turned up all over the place. Sound crews were usually men because of the weight of their microphone booms, which had to be constantly held aloft. Peter liked crews and got on well with them. They were professionals, like him. Extras were nothing, starstruck spear-carriers who got paid a tenner a night for standing behind a throne through two acts.

  He hoped Jonathan wouldn’t hear of this latest fiasco too quickly. The misunderstanding could jeopardize his film audition. It would be easy for someone to put in a call and spoil his chances. All work was supposed to go through the agent. Peter was expected to call at the end of the morning shoot, so he went to the public library at Hampstead and hung around until lunchtime, then rang from a pub callbox. He assured Jonathan that everything had gone well, and the agent’s replies were relaxed and pleasant, as though the day’s first bottle of gin was already improving his view of the world.

  Back out in the street it had begun to rain hard. Shoppers loitered disconsolately beneath shop awnings, waiting for the downpour to ease. Peter kept a beret in his pocket, and pulled it on to keep his hair dry. It would have helped to know something about the role he was going for. He checked the address he had written down, and headed for the tube station.

  The afternoon was already darkening when he arrived in the Edgware Road, skirting filthy puddles to locate a small turning between the kebab shops and falafel bars. Walking to the far end of the street, he found himself in the remains of a cobbled road facing an old Victorian warehouse of the kind beloved by film location managers. Heavy steel shutters sealed what had once been entranceways for horses and carts. The base of the graffiti-stained building was steeped in rubbish and chunks of rotting vegetable matter, swept in from the market which operated inside during the day. Several small windows had been shattered, but all were barred and topped with spikes. For any normal job interview, the building would have sparked feelings of anxiety and revulsion. Peter knew better than to be alarmed. He could see the fierce yellow light shining behind the broad first floor windows, light that could only be thrown by the 10K lamps of a film set.

  As he searched for a door, he marvelled at the extraordinary manner in which film business was run. A pretty girl could be picked from the pages of Spotlight, her agent called and an appointment made. She could then be sent along to an abandoned farm, a lunatic asylum, a den of rapists, and she would happily go along in the hope of landing a film part. It seemed so obviously dangerous he was surprised no one had put a stop to the practice. But that was the way the system had always run. Casting agents were tucked above tube stations. Rehearsal rooms sat behind strip clubs and chip shops. Dressing rooms were converted toilets. But not for the ones at the top. And not, he hoped, for him.

  Peter found the notice pinned across a narrow doorway set in the end wall. It read, simply; AUDITIONS 1ST FL. As he climbed to the top of the unlit stairs, he passed a man of his own age coming down. The other actor threw him a cold smile before passing back into the street, a sure sign that auditions had started. Pushing open the landing door, he found himself in a vast wood-planked room that ran the entire length of the building. At one end the windows had been whitewashed over, and a simple screen-test area had been constructed. Before it, half a dozen people sat in plastic chairs softly questioning a nervous-looking young man. Peter approached, and was waved to a bench against the wall. After a few minutes the actor ahead of him was dismissed, and the team made notes, consulting with each other. Then he was beckoned to the vacated seat, like a patient customer about to receive a haircut. One of the men rose, shook his hand and introduced himself as Mr Ostendorf. Behind him stood a collapsible plywood table with a single sheet of paper on it. He consulted the typed list. ‘You must be Mr Tipping.’ His voice bore the trace of an accent.

  ‘That’s right.’ Peter beamed a smile at the assembled group and shifted in his chair. It was hard to tell which one was the director. Ostendorf ticked his name on the sheet before reseating himself.

  ‘Allow me to introduce everyone. Miss Deitch I think spoke to you on the telephone.’ He gestured along the line of chairs, starting first with an attractive young woman who turned out to be the producer’s assistant, then pointing to the director (why did all directors have little beards?), the cinematographer, the writer and an arrestingly beautiful woman of middle years, the costume designer. ‘I myself,’ Ostendorf explained, tapping his chest, ‘am merely the producer.’ Everyone laughed politely. ‘In my own country I have much experience in casting, but here it is more difficult, and you must be patient with me. So -’ He gestured about himself with a friendly shrug. ‘We are casting now only one role, and we shall perhaps tell you a little of this character and his story. Then we have you read a page from the script, yes?’

  ‘Fine,’ agreed Peter, trying to see how many other names there were on the page Ostendorf had consulted. Christ, it looked like they had seen fifteen people already. All eyes turned to the director. He was an elderly tanned figure in an immaculate Italian suit, and reminded Peter of photographs he had seen featuring Bertolucci’s cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro. Could it even be him? But no, the old man introduced himself as Joachim Luserke, and had a strong, almost comic German accent. As he spoke, he paused to draw on a heavy, wet cigar that appeared to have burnt itself out.

  ‘We are a Netherlands company,’ he began slowly, ‘releasing feature films through Columbia Tri-Star in Europe. This film is a modern-day thriller entitled - in your language - Hour Of The -’ he looked around for help, unable to translate. ‘Jackals’ said the writer, an exhausted-looking man in his late twenties.

  ‘There is already a film called Day Of The Jackal,’ Peter interrupted, then stopped himself from saying more. Better to take Jonathan’s advice and get the job first before offering his opinions.

  ‘This was long ago, yes?’ Luserke waved the problem aside with his cigar. ‘It does not concern us. People go to the cinema for only seven years of their lives, that is the average, and the film you mention is more than seven years old I think.’ Peter was impressed. He was not used to having someone listen to what he had to say.

  ‘I explain the plot to you now because not all of the script is translated to our satisfaction. It concerns a wealthy businessman whose son, Jack, is kidnapped one night while working late in his office. He sea
rches for the young man - here, there - but he does not find him.’

  The others were watching the elderly director’s gestures with amusement. They clearly enjoyed seeing him act out the story. It was probably the sixteenth time he had done so this afternoon. ‘Then he discovers the truth. Jack has been taken by -’ He checked with the others for the approved designation of the phrase. ‘Social terrorists - who plan to keep him imprisoned as an example to the complacent business world. They will use his capture as a propaganda weapon that will bring them great power. The police - pooh! they do not believe our hero. He alone must come to the rescue. He finds out where Jack is being held, but it is too late. One of the terrorists argues with the young man about his privileged position in life, secured for him by his father, and kills him in a fit of fury before he can be rescued. Now they will come after our hero’s wife, and he must convince the police of the conspiracy -’