What Red Was by Rosie Price

Author:Rosie Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2019-08-26T16:00:00+00:00

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Later that day Kate called to thank Zara and to tell her that she had called one of the helplines and was going to be in touch with the therapists as well as the directors on the list. The conversation felt to Kate less like a crisis talk than she had been expecting, and she could hear Zara running a bath as she spoke, the radio on in the background.

“You really must get in touch with Georgina,” Zara said. “She’s a dream to work for. And she’s got the most fantastic imagination. You’ll learn a lot, even if you are only running for her.”

“I will,” Kate said.

“And Frieda, too. Brilliant woman. Do send her my love when you talk to her.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen any of her films.”

“No, darling, Frieda is one of the therapists. You know she saved Issa’s life after her mother died.”

“Issa as in Issa Moore?” said Kate, incredulous.

“She was in a terrible state. Wouldn’t I make an awful therapist, Kate? I’m so indiscreet.”

As well as Frieda, Kate contacted both directors whose names Zara had given her. Neither of them had any work until spring, but one gave her the details of a production company she knew was looking for runners, and Kate managed to get work on the set of a film they were making in south London. On her first day, the set manager gave Kate an industrial-strength Hoover and a pair of padded gloves, and told her that her priority was not to step on any nails when clearing the remnants of the car crash they were shooting. They were in an empty warehouse, filming the final few shots of a climactic chase scene through an indoor meat market.

“Trash,” Zara said gleefully when Kate told her what her job entailed. “Pure trash. Exquisite. I dread to think what the budget is for those vans. What’s the film called?”

“Gristle,” Kate said.

“Exquisite,” Zara said again. “It will be tough work, though, Kate. Exhausting, and repetitive.”

But this kind of work was exactly what Kate wanted. It took them hours to set up the crash scene: each market stall aligned at the correct angle for the seven waiting cameras; huge hunks of plastic fake meat hooked in the back rows of each stall, bloodied steaks, boards and knives on the work surfaces; then real lamb shoulders, strong with the smell of blood, hanging at the front.

“These have to be real,” the set manager said to Kate, “because we want them to really splatter the side of the van.” For emphasis, he smacked the back of one hand against the palm of the other, then began adjusting the angle of the carcass closest to him ever so slightly. He stepped back to admire his work. “I’m actually a vegan,” he said ruefully.

The two white vans would take less than fifteen seconds to come hurtling through the market, plowing into the stalls lined up along the middle of the warehouse. Because she wasn’t involved in

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