An
Gregg arrives on set as he does everywhere: in a hurry.
He leaps over someone laying cable, refuses to be deterred by the runner who runs after him, suggesting he might be more comfortable watching the next take on a small screen somewhere else.
He has places to be, someone to see. Agathe told him off for coming today.
No one wants a studio bigwig hanging around.
You’re a bigwig, too, he’d told her, because he knows when people are trying to fob him off.
He swerves a swinging camera rig, ducks under a dipping boom mic, thinks about dodging bullets.
Clara’s new script is ambitious. He isn’t entirely sure it will work, but then, one person’s favourite film will be someone else’s hate-watch.
We can only see the world through one set of eyes, and Gregg’s eyes have been rolling with dollar signs ever since that email pinged into his inbox.
When Clara Cowan sends you an email, you sit your ass up and listen.
Or, you read. That’s how Gregg had felt, that day Agathe’s assistant had forwarded his assistant the email she’d been sent by Clara’s assistant.
He’d drained his adaptogen tonic, made a call to send an email to set up a call.
Gregg thought Clara had given up on directing.
But one blip wouldn’t make anyone forget the veritable sack of awards won by The Sons, or the fact that An Enormous Mind has gained even more of a cult status since it’s been rediscovered on streaming.
Even Malcontent has its fans. Gregg would have given Clara the rights to whatever IP she wanted, if he thought it would bring her back into the fold.
But that’s not how Clara works. When she turned up out of the blue, she already had an entire script, already stamped with a name.
That was months ago, and now they’re here, Gregg’s carte blanche written large all over this hard-to-secure slice of central London.
Clara insists on shooting on location, in natural light, even though Gregg would rather have built a replica of this square on the backlot.
He might already have one. He asks a script supervisor if she’s seen Clara, but she’s already shaking her head, so he frowns, carries on, tries to peer over a gaggle of schoolchildren who might just be extras dressed as schoolchildren, dodges out of the way of an animal handler getting a semi-famous dog in the zone for his big scene.
‘There she is!’ Gregg says, to no one in particular.
A set-dresser gives him a strange look. One of the grips takes a few cautious steps away.
Clara is at the centre of it all, talking to Agathe. Neither of them have seen him yet, and they remain deep in conversation.
‘I guess I’m just waiting for him again,’ Clara is saying. ‘I don’t know what he thinks. It’s more complicated with Nora in the picture.’
Gregg reaches them, neckline damp, struggling to catch his breath. The two women raise their eyes, then their eyebrows.
‘Clara,’ he says, cheerily. Then, less cheerily, ‘Agathe.’
Clara and Agathe share a look, then Clara smiles. Gregg is mentally preparing his notes.
‘We’re just finishing up,’ says Clara, taking Gregg’s elbow. ‘Let’s walk.’
So, they walk, and she lets him talk, and she nods along with a thoughtful expression as she steers him back the way he came, the crowd parting for them this time. It’s only when they near the edge of the square that her expression changes, her face brightening in the fading light.
‘So, what do you think?’ Gregg says.
Clara is looking at a random man crossing the road with a ginger-haired little girl.
‘It’s perfect,’ she says.
Gregg beams. ‘You think so?’
‘What?’ She looks at him. ‘Oh, yeah. It’s really useful. I’ll need to think about it, obviously.’
‘Of course,’ Gregg says. ‘Of course.’
She gives him a million-dollar smile, and he gives her a billion-dollar smile, and then she opens his door, and it’s only then that he realises that she’s led him back to his car. Halfway to the airport, he’ll begin to wonder if she was even listening at all.