Chapter 19
Violet
Violet knocked again, but there was no answer.
‘Finn, you’re late!’ she called through the closed door.
There was a pause, then muffled swearing.
‘Sod off, you’re not my keeper!’ Finn shouted back, but she heard footsteps, then the latch clicked, and the door swung open.
‘Would you speak to anyone else like this?’ Violet asked as she climbed the steps and followed Finn inside.
‘Certainly not,’ Finn said, pulling the cord tight on his breeches. ‘That would be rude.’
It was the last day of the Hampshire shoot, and the week away had felt like a month.
The days had been even longer than at the studios, as the AD team juggled large cast numbers, rapidly changing locations and last-minute schedule changes around the two main estates they were shooting at for the week.
Violet was reluctantly rolling out of bed around 5am each day and collapsing back into it by 9pm, feet sore and legs aching.
Last night, she had faked a phone call to get her out of a second round of drinks in the hotel bar so she wouldn’t seem antisocial. She didn’t have the stamina for it.
Finn had been particularly chatty the past couple of days.
He had twice insisted on accompanying her when she went to craft to get cast drinks.
Yesterday, when she had miscalculated how cold it was and was trying to make her coat collar stand up against the wind, he had tried to force her to take his scarf.
He wouldn’t need it all day while in costume, but she had refused.
She told him it didn’t feel right, and privately, she worried that a member of the crew would recognise it and wonder what she was doing wearing a cast member’s clothes.
She was also worried about spending all day with Finn’s aftershave wafting up her nostrils, like some sort of potion.
Finn was now rolling his shirt sleeves up over his forearms, the muscles and tendons flexing beneath the lightly tanned skin. Violet swallowed and dragged her eyes up to Finn’s face.
‘Uh, we need to go,’ she said again, taking sudden interest in the fire evacuation instructions beside the door. ‘You’re needed on set.’
Over the back of a chair was a waistcoat and necktie. Finn shrugged on the waistcoat, and all it did was emphasise the breadth of his shoulders.
She cleared her throat. ‘It’s a ten-minute walk to the location.’
Finn was turning the neckerchief over in his hands.
‘Can you help me with this, please?’ he asked, stepping towards her and holding out the piece of fabric, aged to look old and dirty.
The thought of wrapping her hands around Finn’s neck a few weeks ago would have elicited all sorts of dark and homicidal thoughts.
Now, she was afraid that being in such close proximity would induce a very different effect, and he would be able to tell that something was up.
Finn was undeniably attractive. That fact had never escaped her, even when they had been at loggerheads.
But her intense dislike of him had protected her from going gooey over his tousled hair, crinkly-eyed smiles or broad shoulders, like all the other girls at college had, and plenty of the women on the crew.
As their frostiness had thawed, so her awareness of his attractiveness had amplified in equal measure.
Her previous fantasies about Finn, both as a teenager and at the start of this job, had involved him being shamed in front of his peers, being revealed as a charlatan, generally being taken down a peg or ten.
In recent weeks, she had lost interest in such idle daydreams, and then a couple of nights ago, she had had an entirely different kind of fantasy about him.
She had woken from a dream that felt so real she had checked the other side of the bed to see if he was in it.
Violet was so embarrassed by the dream that she could feel her cheeks were hot, even in the dark privacy of her hotel room.
Checking her phone, she could see it was 04:11.
She lay awake, staring into the darkness, unable to sleep until her alarm went off at 05:15.
Now, the erotic dream still burned into her brain as if it had really happened, she was worried that no matter how hard she worked to keep her face neutral, her body wouldn’t behave.
If she were standing that close to him, her neck would get all flushed, and she wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye.
And being caught lusting after the guy she so recently hated, who also disliked her, was a level of humiliation she didn’t have the resilience for right now.
‘Um, won’t costume sort that for you on set?’ Violet said, taking a step back towards the door.
‘I usually do it, and Kathy checks it,’ Finn said, advancing one more step. ‘I just can’t get it to sit right under the waistcoat collar.’
He proffered the fabric again. He was less than two feet from her.
‘Umm, okay then.’ Violet took the grubby-looking stock and, without stepping closer, stretched out her arms to loop it around Finn’s neck. She could barely reach, but her feet wouldn’t move. Finn stepped closer and bent his knees slightly so she could reach, and murmured, ‘I won’t bite.’
No, Violet thought. But I’m worried I might.
He was so close now that he filled her vision. From his stooped position, his face was inches from hers. She could feel his eyes on her, and she kept her gaze locked on the terrible knot she was tying.
‘It needs to be tied over the shirt collar,’ Finn was saying in a low, husky voice that was doing awful things to her belly. ‘But under the back of the waistcoat collar.’
‘Mmm hmmm,’ Violet managed, as her fingers, which had all turned into thumbs, tried to settle the fabric as Finn instructed. She could feel his breath soft on her cheek as he exhaled.
It looked awful and hung longer on one side than the other, but Violet couldn’t take it anymore. She was afraid her fingers might stray from the outside of the shirt and dive into the opening to start exploring that tanned skin and the scattered hairs at the base of his throat.
‘All done!’ she squawked and stepped back into the door, one flailing hand leaning on the handle, springing the latch free. She grabbed at the frame to stop herself from falling out as the door swung open.
Finn was glancing down at the loose ends of the fabric, brows furrowed.
‘Really? Are you sure? It seems like—’
‘Yes! Looks great!’ Violet said, gesturing for them to leave. ‘Standby costume can double check it on set.’
Violet spun on her heel to go, stepped out and careered down two steps before she realised her coat sleeve was hooked on the door handle. It wrenched her backwards, and she half-hung, half-stood on the steps.
‘Fuck.’ She tugged at the sleeve, but it wouldn’t budge. She had to climb back up the trailer steps, her face now level with Finn’s midriff as he tried to exit the trailer.
‘Vi, what are you doing?’
‘My sleeve,’ she hissed, trying to yank it free, her face on fire. Finn reached over and unhooked the cuff, and Violet, now freed, stumbled back down the steps.
‘Are you okay?’ Finn asked, as he followed her, his longer legs eating up the ground as they started walking.
‘Absolutely!’ Violet said, unable to look at him. Her voice came out embarrassingly breathy like some 1940s starlet in a black-and-white movie. ‘I’m fine,’ she added, her voice now sounding like she was doing an impression of a man.
Spring was showing off today. The estate where they had been filming all week was lush green in every direction.
Sunlight glinted off the dew on the green fields which peeled away before them, clusters of primroses and daffodils popping up at intervals, making little yellow spots all over the landscape.
The pathway they followed, lined with little stakes and occasional little arrows reading Set kept them on track.
The little track slowly left the open fields behind, and woodland built up on their right.
A few early bluebells were blue-purple dots in amongst the fallen foliage of last year’s leaves.
The air smelled like someone had scrubbed it clean.
It was still chill enough at this hour of the day to prick your lungs if you drew a long, deep breath.
‘Last day,’ Finn said as they walked. ‘Back in the studios next week.’
‘Yes,’ Violet said.
‘Lots of people around then,’ Finn said. A twig cracked under Violet’s foot. ‘I won’t get to see you on your own so much.’
Violet nearly fell over a trolley case that had been left near the entrance to the little clearing they were shooting in. She must have misheard.
‘I’ll miss our little walks,’ Finn said with a soft smile, as he strolled towards the green room.
Violet assumed she was hallucinating. Or whatever the word was for an auditory illusion. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising, given how sleep-deprived she was. Had he really said he would miss their walks and meant it? She waited for the follow-up wisecrack, but none came.
‘Uh…Okay…You will?…Yes, me…’
Okay, so complete sentences were beyond her. Good to know.
They reached the easy-up.
‘Any chance of a coffee?’ Finn asked.
‘Coffee?’
Violet was still trying to process what she thought he had said.
‘Yes. A drink made from beans, typically served hot.’
Finn was grinning widely enough for the crinkles around his eyes to show up.
‘Yes. Right. Coffee.’ She backed away. ‘Understood. Coming right back. Up. I mean, I’ll be right back with your coffee.’
Violet stumbled off towards catering, shaking her head at herself.
After delivering Finn his coffee without further self-humiliation, Violet was called on the radio to lock off at the edge of set.
From her position, she could see the action but not hear what was being said.
She knew it was a scene where Beatrice and Nathanial talk about doing the right thing, ending their relationship and never seeing one another again, but then find themselves caught in a passionate embrace, unable to resist one another.