The grip
‘Action!’ calls Clara.
Both Seb and Jacob look like they haven’t slept, which is kind of the point of the scene.
But Seb is lethargic, mumbling his lines, and Jacob is jumpy, bouncing off walls that aren’t there.
The first take is a dud. Clara is clearly stressed, sweating through a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
When she cuts, both actors immediately turn to her.
‘He’s off,’ Jacob says.
Seb shakes his head.
‘You’re both off,’ Clara replies.
And the grip can’t help but see her as he saw her late last night. Wandering the halls of the chateau, alone and in tears. Jacob finding her, comforting her, taking her to the next balcony along, away from prying eyes.
‘Seb said we’re done,’ he’d heard her say, between sobs.
Jacob, stroking her hair and shushing her. ‘You deserve better.’
Another take. Another dud. Jacob is overacting.
Seb, under. But whenever they’re not rolling, the energy is all Seb’s.
He paces like a rodeo bull, snorting and stamping his feet, muttering lines under his breath.
Jacob grins manically to himself, lost in some private joke.
When he locks eyes with Seb, the smile disappears.
They each look to Clara, two attention-starved kids battling for their mother’s affection.
‘Let’s dial it back this time,’ Clara says, careful not to look at either of them.
The grip knows what she’s thinking. They’re all thinking it. It might be the last day, but if they don’t have this scene, they don’t have a film.
‘Roll sound,’ Clara says, as she wipes her brow. ‘Roll camera. Action.’
They go again, Jacob toning it down just enough to avoid a telling-off, but still chewing enough scenery to get under Seb’s skin. It’s better – but they can do better still.
As soon as the cameras have stopped rolling, Jacob huffs in frustration. ‘Give me something,’ he says to Seb. ‘Anything!’
‘Fuck off, Jacob,’ says Seb.
‘That’s it,’ Jacob says, with a grin. ‘That fire in your belly.’ He comes close, prods Seb in the gut. ‘Use it.’
‘You’re not the director,’ Seb says, like a broken record, batting Jacob’s hand away.
The real director looks nauseous. ‘Guys, cool it,’ she says. ‘We’re almost there.’
‘No, we’re not,’ Jacob says, his voice edgy. ‘He’s coasting. He’s had one foot out the door the whole time.’ He throws his arms up. ‘His bags are already packed, for god’s sake.’
Seb’s eyes, which had been trained on the dry lawn beneath him, snap to Jacob’s face. He furrows his brow. ‘My bags?’
Jacob meets his glare. He glances deliberately towards the window above Seb’s head.
The window of Seb and Clara’s room.
The grip knows that Clara slept in that room last night. He also knows that Seb didn’t.
Clara is scrambling to begin another take.
The grip can feel sweat running down the back of his neck, seeping into his black T-shirt.
He watches Seb turn his eyes from the window and back to Jacob.
Then, finally, to Clara. It’s not hard to see the wheels in his head starting to turn.
Why would Jacob have been in their room?
Seb’s eyes dart this way and that, as if he’s trying to think of some other explanation, as if he doesn’t actually want to know the truth.
But Jacob is already stepping towards him, angling his face away from the cameras.
It’s hard to make out what he says – unless you’re a grip with a direct feed to the boom mic swaying over their heads.
‘I forgot how loud she is.’
Seb’s face drops.
‘Action!’
The grip had shrunk back into the shadows when he’d heard them approaching.
So, he’d seen it all. Jacob helping Clara to her room, whispering something into Clara’s ear, planting his lips on Clara’s mouth.
Clara pushing Jacob against the wall of the corridor, tearing open the buttons of his shirt, then dragging him by the wrist through the door before slamming it shut.
Now it seems that Seb is seeing it, too, playing out behind his glassy, bloodshot eyes. His mouth repeats his lines, but he is somewhere else entirely.
‘Cut!’
The garden is unnervingly quiet, the fountain dormant so as not to interfere with the sound.
The grip is watching on the monitor of the B camera, the wide shot, which catches both men as they stay rooted to the spot.
Clara is watching footage from the A camera, close on Seb’s face.
Seb looks at Jacob. Jacob looks at Clara.
Clara looks back at Jacob, then at Seb on the screen, as if she can’t look directly at him.
She relents. She looks up. He’s staring back at her.
‘No,’ Seb says, as if only he and Clara are here, as if he’s begging her to tell him that he’s got it wrong.
Clara simply makes a little choking sound, which is enough of an answer for Seb.
As he moves, the triumphant look vanishes from Jacob’s face.
He flinches, loses his mark, takes a few fumbling steps backwards.
But Seb isn’t aiming for Jacob. He’s passing back through the curtains, through the hall. Up towards that room, those bags.
‘Seb,’ Clara shouts, all professional instinct left behind on the lawn. ‘Wait!’
But nothing can change what’s already happened.
Upstairs, a blazing argument echoes out of the flung-open windows.
By the time the taxi arrives, Clara is in floods of tears.
The grip stands frozen with the rest of the cast and crew, staring silently from the lawn as Clara pleads for Seb not to go, as Seb throws his things into the boot.
He gets into the car. He doesn’t look back.
The taxi disappears towards the wrought-iron gates. Clara steps out on to the gravel driveway to watch it go.