Chapter 6
Finn
‘Is that comfortable?’ Kathy, his costume standby, asked as she adjusted his braces.
Finn looked down at the braces buttoned onto his rough woollen trousers and swung his arms.
‘Yes, that seems fine, thank you.’
He was almost fully dressed in his first costume now. Brown wool trousers, dirtied and aged by the costume breakdown team, ended just above heavy hobnail boots, topped with an off-white linen shirt with a floppy collar and braces to hold his trousers up.
‘Great.’
Kathy smiled and was reaching for his matching brown wool jacket when there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in!’ Finn called.
Weak winter daylight briefly filled the doorway until it was partially blocked by a diminutive frame swamped by an oversized coat, topped with a mop of unruly hair.
Violet.
‘Hi,’ she said, glancing from Finn to Kathy and back again. He could see the cogs turning as she took in what was going on and calibrated her tone accordingly. ‘I’m Violet,’ she said to Kathy, raising a hand. ‘I’m the trainee AD, but I’m covering for Chloe at base until she gets here.’
‘Hi, good to meet you.’ Kathy smiled as she gestured for Finn to turn so she could slip his jacket on. ‘Do you want Finn?’
Finn hid a smirk as Violet’s eyes widened at the phrasing of the question, but aside from a momentary tightening around the mouth, her face stayed composed.
‘Yes. He’s needed on set for rehearsals.’
Finn, still not quite used to being the subject of such conversations rather than a participant, obediently fed his arms into the sleeves of the jacket Kathy was holding out for him.
He turned, keeping still as Kathy adjusted the fit of the jacket over his shirt, and stared at Violet, who held his gaze without blinking.
Kathy was tugging his collar up, so it showed above his jacket.
Violet shot him a saccharine sweet smile.
‘Looks great!’ she said brightly, more to Kathy than to him.
‘Doesn’t he?’ Kathy said, standing back to admire her handiwork. ‘And we’re not quite there yet.’
‘It looks so authentic,’ Violet continued, smiling at them both.
Violet appeared to sense that, in that moment, Kathy’s presence granted her licence to speak freely without fear of immediate reprisals.
‘I know that some fans of historical dramas watch the shows as much for the costumes as the actors, don’t they?’ she said, an innocent lilt to her voice.
Was she seriously suggesting he couldn’t out-act his own costume? He opened his mouth to reply when Kathy jumped into the space left by his hesitation.
‘Oh yes. Some people will examine the costumes in intense detail, checking over every aspect for historical accuracy, down to the fabric and colour choices!’ She smiled as she looped a necktie around Finn’s neck.
‘Our costume designer has even had letters on previous period shows from fans saying that they loved the costumes, but the dyes to make that particular shade of red were not available until such-and-such a date!’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘I love how fastidious they are.’
Violet gave a tinkling laugh he had never heard before. ‘But of course, I am sure everyone will be looking at our lead cast!’ she said. ‘They’ll be sure to steal the show!’
Violet’s eyes glinted at him, and he glared in response but said nothing. Her voice was bright but clipped. If you didn’t know her, it might not give you pause. But Finn did know her, and that was not Violet’s normal voice.
‘Absolutely they will!’ Kathy said, stepping back to admire the finished effect and holding out a hat for Finn to take. ‘There. That’s you done.’
‘I’m sure we’ll all do our part,’ Finn rejoined, not wanting to belittle the work of any member of the crew, least of all the costume designer.
He shrugged on a big, padded overcoat for the walk to the stage.
‘I need to grab a couple of things for the quick change later,’ Kathy said. ‘I’ll see you on set.’
She waved and was gone, leaving Violet with him in the trailer.
He wished he were alone now. Alone and quiet with the mental space he craved to get into his role and settle into character.
He sucked in a slightly shaky deep breath, not caring that Violet was there.
Above all else, he needed to settle now.
He needed to be present and focused. The scene switch around on the first morning had unsettled his equilibrium, and he needed to run the lines in his head.
Violet could have taken that opportunity, when it was just the two of them, to pick a fight or snipe some more. But she didn’t. She took two steps towards him and faced him. She suddenly exuded an oddly calming and authoritative energy.
‘Do you have the sides with you, the script pages for today?’ she asked in a low, clear voice.
Her expression was neutral, waiting, no hint of scorn or argument. He reached across to the table and picked up his sides, glancing to be sure they were in the right order. He held them up.
‘Yes.’
‘Do you need to grab anything else before we go?’
He nodded and reached into his bag for his marked-up script. He rolled it and slid it into an inside pocket of the coat.
Violet turned, one hand on the door handle, then glanced back. ‘This is it then.’ She hesitated for a second. ‘Break a le—’
He held up a hand to stop her. ‘That’s only for theatre!’
She looked startled and then broke out into a genuine laugh.
Violet’s real laugh was not sweet and ladylike.
She cackled, a rich and life-filled sound that seemed almost too big for the package it came in.
It lasted just a second, then she checked herself and pressed her radio.
Her eyes on his, she flashed a small, tight smile then into the radio, she said, ‘That’s Finn travelling. ’
Weaving through the trucks at unit base, Violet led them towards the pedestrian walkway that ran alongside the exterior of the stages.
‘It’s this way,’ she said. Her voice was confident, but her head was bent over.
Finn glanced across and saw she was consulting a map hastily sketched on the back of her call sheet. He said nothing, running his lines in his head.
He followed her at a leisurely pace, her shorter legs taking two steps for every one of his.
He had forgotten how wild her hair was. There was no ordered curl to it - instead, ringlets and waves jetted off in different directions as if trying to get away from each other or escape her scalp.
It seemed to be almost every shade of blonde, from ash to honey to caramel.
It bounced gently in the breeze, and he watched her pull her scarf tighter.
Violet led them around a corner towards the pedestrian entrance to Stage Four, pocketing her scrawled map and straightening up as the sign came into view.
Pausing outside the door, she turned to face him, hair fanning out around her head.
The chill wind whipped inside the open front of his padded coat, but he resisted the urge to shiver in front of her.
Finding Violet working on this show wasn’t as unpleasant as he had made out.
Much as she railed against him, there was something oddly comforting about the familiarity of her being here, even if that familiar thing was a nemesis who would argue that black was white and shove him under a bus given the chance.
The TV he had done before was not at this scale. He had been a day player, not top cast. This was a whole new level of exposure and pressure. It all felt a little unreal, like he was floating just outside himself, looking on. Violet being there somehow made him feel anchored to who he really was.
‘Here we go,’ Violet said, pulling open the heavy door and walking inside.
As Finn stepped from the bright morning light into the pitch-black space, he was momentarily blinded as his eyes fought to adjust. He was trying to follow Violet’s outline as she disappeared into the darkness when he nearly crashed into a spark carrying a huge coil of cable.
‘Oh, sorry mate,’ the spark said, grabbing him by the shoulder to stop him careening forwards.
Great. Actor crashing about on set.
He stopped and looked about, eyes still adjusting.
Huge wooden walls extended more than twelve feet in the air, just a few feet in front of him.
From the back, the flats were held up by scaffolding, but he knew from a studio walkabout the week before that on the inside, the room looked like the parlour of a stately home.
Around the edges, heavy cables snaked across the floor, pinned under even heavier trackway, and wheeled trolleys with shelves piled with tools, camera kit, and sound equipment lined the black-painted walls.
Overhead, enormous lights hung from trusses suspended above the set’s interior, and another light hung outside the wooden walls, angled towards the windows into the parlour, with a soft filter to create a daylight effect.
This morning, they were shooting in the drawing room of the manor house.
In the scene, Nathanial and his father had gone to meet Lord Hawarden, owner of the estate and much of the land in the area, to discuss issues for tenants in the village.
While they await him in the drawing room, his daughter Beatrice finds them in the room, and she and Nathanial clearly have chemistry.
A buzz of voices sounded from inside the set, then a shout, then a beeping sound reverberated as a massive shutter loading door across the other side of the stage was slowly lowered, and the faint, distant daylight it had let in was gone.
There were a few cheers and claps as the shutter clanked closed.
The stage was nearly ready for shooting.
Excitement roiled in his belly and mixed with a powerful urge to turn and run. His stomach flipped over, and the line between healthy nerves and blind terror blurred. He glanced over his shoulder. The door was temptingly close.
A tap on his arm made him jump.