‘Is my help not good enough now?’ Murray looked slightly miffed.
‘Some things need a woman’s touch,’ I said.
‘And I’m afraid you won’t love me anymore if you understand how cutthroat I can be,’ Julia said. ‘Cheers.’
We clinked our drinks. Julia spluttered as she took a sip. ‘What is this?’
‘Oh, shit, sorry,’ Murray said. ‘I ordered on autopilot.’
‘There was only one pub out near where we were shooting this season,’ I explained, taking a sip of my own. ‘This was the best beer they had on tap.’
‘It’s disgusting.’
‘Only at first,’ Murray said. ‘You get used to it.’
Julia shook her head. ‘Sometimes it makes me really sad to think of you out there in the wilderness, eating and drinking absolute garbage,’ she said, taking his hand and pressing her lips to his knuckles. ‘Without anyone taking care of you.’
‘How sad?’ he asked, looking hopeful. ‘Enough to make osso bucco for me?’
She laughed. ‘You never miss an opportunity, do you?’
‘I try not to.’
‘Fine, fine,’ she said. ‘Because I love you, I will set aside the better part of a day so I can feed you –andI will even watch you ruin my masterpiece with an obscene amount of pepper and not say a word.’
He grinned devilishly, and leaned in to kiss her, just once, sweetly, gently. ‘Love you too, darling.’
I took a swig of my beer, swallowing the unwelcome flash of jealousy down. ‘This?’ I said, gesturing to them. ‘All this cutesy, cuddly, lovey-dovey business? All these feelings, right in front of everybody’s salads? Disgusting. Just so you’re both aware.’
7Murray
The sun was almost up by the time I trudged back towards the Villa. My joints were aching. The downside of shooting perfect television like Romeo-Dylan’s hero march down the hill was walking back up the hill afterwards.
I briefly considered radioing one of the PAs to swing down in a golf cart and pick me up, but discarded the idea almost immediately. I’d instructed Suzette and Carrie to send everyone to bed as soon as possible. We had a tight turnaround between the end of the First Night Party and our group date today. No one was going to be well-rested, but there was a marked difference in performance between a-bit-rested and not-at-all-rested.
I looked at my work phone. It was five to seven in the morning, and I had thirty-three unread messages.
I scrolled through them quickly. They weren’t urgent, but if I didn’t deal with them, they were going to snowball.
No rest for me, then.
The hotel pillows danced through my mind as I made myself coffee in the Villa kitchen. What I wouldn’t give for one of those pillows right now, to put my head down and let it swallow me up for a while. To put the reins down, and let my thoughts and my emotions catch up to one another, and to have a minute to figure out what to do next.
My stomach growled. I found a muesli bar in my utility belt and took a bite, coffee in one hand as I headed for the war room. Once Tim and Tom were up, I’d have to get one of them to bring some food from craft services into the nine-thirty production meeting.
‘Took you long enough.’
I paused, second bite of the muesli bar halfway to my mouth, coffee mug burning my fingers.
Lily looked like a ghost, sitting there at the conference table in one of her satin dressing gowns, her own coffee cup in front of her. If it wasn’t for her ringless hands, I might think that I’d time-travelled in my own life, walked from the kitchen back into a time when things were normal.
‘You should be in bed, Lily.’
‘You should take better care of yourself. Your eye twitch is never going to go away if you keep mainlining caffeine and sugar and nothing else.’
Like clockwork, my eye started twitching again.
She noticed. ‘Sorry.’
