Free For Those Who Dream Monsters by Anna Taborska Page A

plastic machete at Clive, so what was the problem?
    Minutes
went by, then hours. Then it was time for lunch. As usual, the caterers put on
a good spread. Sylvia followed the others to the catering van, then took her
tray onto the coach that had been turned into a mobile dining room, complete
with tables and seats. She was convinced that the crew were giving her funny
looks. And she could swear that even that gay-looking pathetic piece of shit
Clive – or whatever his stupid name was – smirked at her as she walked past.
She wondered how fast that smirk would disappear if she stuck his head down the
portable toilet – or ‘honeywagon’ as it seemed to be called around here.
Eventually she found an empty table in the corner and settled down to her
three-course meal, glaring at anyone who ventured close.
    “ Bon
appétit , everyone!” Eli had entered the coach with Graham. He spotted
Sylvia sitting by herself, murmured something to the Director of Photography,
then came over to the actress.
    “Mind
if I join you?” he asked, sitting down.
    Sylvia
shrugged, not bothering to look up from her plate.
    “Look,
Sylvia, the first day of shooting is always the hardest.” Eli was doing his
caring, empathetic director routine again, and Sylvia cast him a cynical
glance. “Once we’ve all eaten, everyone will be in a better mood, it’ll be
easier to concentrate and everything will be fine. You’ll see. You just need to
follow my directions to the letter and everything will be okay.”
    But
everything wasn’t okay. Eli tried to be patient, taking Sylvia to the side and
calmly repeating over and over what she needed to do. But nothing worked.
Sylvia’s acting went from very bad to atrocious; she came in at the wrong
times, fluffed her lines, dropped the machete and was unable to follow the
simplest instructions. What’s more she didn’t seem to care, and it was her
attitude more than anything that was driving Eli to distraction.
    “Am
I speaking English?” he finally burst out. It was six p.m. and they still
didn’t have any useable takes. “What is it that I’m saying that you don’t
understand? How can you call yourself an actress if you can’t follow directions?”
    “Oh,
fuck off, you stupid old fruit!” And that was it. Eli sacked his leading lady
in front of the entire crew. Sylvia let off a tirade of obscenities at the
director, then stormed off set, pushing aside anyone who didn’t move out of her
way fast enough.
    Eli returned home exhausted and humbled. He’d had to swallow a whole lot of
pride where Mark was concerned. After they’d wrapped for the day, with footage
in the can which came to a shocking total of probably no more than one screen
minute, Eli had had to phone the producer, apologise for his lack of judgement
and ask Mark to help him re-cast the female lead. Luckily Mark had behaved like
a gent.
    “Of
course,” he’d said with a logic-defying lack of smugness that Eli appreciated
greatly at that particular point in time. The young producer had then taken Eli
back to his place, where he’d fixed him a stiff drink, and the two of them had
sat together for four hours, reviewing the audition tapes until they’d picked
out an actress they could both live with.
    “I’ll
phone her straight away,” Mark told Eli.
    “Thanks,
old boy,” Eli relaxed into Mark’s leather sofa and took a sip of Scotch.
    “I’ll
just get the casting file and check her number.”
    Fortunately,
not only was the actress still available, but she agreed to learn the
minimum-dialogue scene that Sylvia had massacred – overnight – and start work
the next day.
    “I’m
having the script couriered to her right now. She’ll be in first thing in the
morning and we won’t even have to rearrange the shooting schedule.”
    “A
helpful producer,” Eli raised his glass to Mark and smiled at the younger man.
“That’ll be a first.”
    Mark
had called him a cab and Eli staggered up to his front door, a little