Well Groomed by Fiona Walker

Author:Fiona Walker [Walker, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 1997-06-21T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

* * *

SALLY WAS NOT GETTING on at all well with Matty. She had tried to ease his load by enrolling Tor in a local nursery for three afternoons a week and arranging for a neighbour to look after Linus most mornings, but Matty remained sullen and uncommunicative.

He thoroughly disapproved of her renewed friendship with Lisette and made no secret of the fact. As she devoted more and more time to mugging up on the film industry and helping Lisette set up the first May shoot for Four Poster Bed, he had become increasingly detached and sulky, burying himself in work. That was not in itself a bad thing as he’d done precious little of it in previous months, coasting along on the odd bit of project consultation without getting a good new film of his own underway.

But with work came the age-old, brooding resentment that he was still trapped producing low-budget commissions from satellite channels and, if he was lucky, Network television, whereas Lisette was now whooping it up within the luxurious echelons of the film industry.

‘The British film industry is a charity, Matty,’ Sally protested, stealing a line that Lisette was always using.

‘Not if it’s co-produced with Americans, it isn’t,’ he sneered, ‘which is where Lisette’s little piece of porno trash is coming from.’ He liked to refer to the film as some sort of blue movie because, stealing a look at the script when he thought Sally wasn’t looking, the only bit he had managed to read was a rampant sex scene between Niall and an as yet uncast actress whom Lisette wanted to be American but the casting director and director, David Wheaton, wanted to be a Brit.

‘And what exactly is your job on this film?’ he wanted to know.

‘I’m assisting Lisette.’

‘So you’re the production assistant? That’s quite a responsible role.’

‘No, not that. I’m just sort of helping out.’ She wished she knew herself, Lisette was being infuriatingly vague about it, just promising lots of fun and a fat salary. So far all Sally had done was sit around Sleeping Partners’ plush Marylebone office, gossiping and getting in the way.

‘You spend more time lunching with her than working with her.’ Matty was deliberately scathing.

‘I came up with that publicity idea,’ she pointed out hotly.

‘Which Lisette hasn’t taken up, thank God.’

‘She’s working on it!’ Sally protested furiously. ‘We’re drawing up a proposal.’ She thought that sounded sufficiently grand. Emboldened, she added, ‘And I’m doing a lot of PR liaising for her.’

‘But why does she need you on location?’ he persisted, still sceptical. ‘She won’t need to be there much.’

‘She’s the producer, of course she will – she’ll need to see the, er, rushes and dailies and things,’ Sally blustered, trying to remember the lingo. ‘And talk to all the, um, different directors and stuff.’

‘Rubbish. That’s the production manager’s job – Flavia Watson. Lisette’s role is much more hands-off than that.’ Matty’s eyes sparked suspiciously. ‘If she wants to be hanging around the location shoot so much, she’s up to something.

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