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I nodded. He nodded.
I’d never see him again, anyway. I’d have to change gyms. Hide under the duvet for the rest of my life.
It didn’t matter.
“See ya!” That was me.
He walked away. Out of my life. Forever.
At least I had work to do. And I’d just stop at the corner shop and get myself a Pot Noodle on the way home. Maybe Mrs Wu’s would agree to deliver across the car park so I’d never have to show my face there again. Another place I could never go back to then. Ugh. Anyway. Whatever.
Con
Todaywasmybirthday.Today, I officially turned twenty-five. Not that anyone had noticed.
I tell a lie.Ihad noticed because my mum had, as always, called me at the arse-crack of dawn and sung Happy Birthday to me. It hadn’t actually been that early, as I’d been standing by the catering trolley downing the first of many early morning cups of coffee, and the girl manning it today had joined in and sung along. A cheerful dawn chorus to set me up right for the day.
I was going to go see Mum this weekend. Have a good night’s sleep in my own bed. Wake up to familiar sounds and smells. Freshly brewed coffee and toast in the garden. Small things that had once seemed mundane but now meant everything.
I missed normality. The girl wrapping my croissant in a napkin seemed to miss it too.
“I can’t stand getting up at three in the morning,” she moaned. “But then, once I’m here, in the middle of a giant set and getting get paid to feed you lot—you guys are even more insane than me, by the way, and the security people have been here all night, so I don’t know why I’m complaining…” She paused and smiled. “Anyway, once I’m here, I actually like it.”
I nodded in agreement. I felt very much the same. The early mornings would never agree with me, but I’d got used to it. I’d had a forty-minute run on the treadmill at four this morning before I got picked up. Now it was just gone six, and I felt like I’d done a full day’s work already. I had a meeting with the scriptwriter, and the intimacy coordinator was currently waiting for me outside my trailer.
Happy birthday to me.
“Con-Con. Good stuff. The guy we were supposed to be filming with today…Toby. He’s called in sick, so we’ve had to draft in a new guy.”
“Ah.” Fun times. Also I hated that she called me Con-Con. Like I was some kind of performing monkey. Happy birthday to me indeed. I’d spent most of Monday afternoon rehearsing with Toby, so whatever he had…
“Please don’t tell me you’re coming down with something too. The hair team were all sneezing this morning, and Peter has the flu. We were going to delay, but we can’t. It’s only a short sequence. They’re swapping the schedule around, so we need to prep you both and go over the choreography.”
We were filming part of an action scene today and a nude intimate scene that turned nasty in the end. Some fight moves in the buff, nothing too complicated, and Toby had been good. We’d worked through the scene a few times and both been comfortable with the set-up. Now I had to go through all that again with someone new.
“This is Alex.”
I shook hands with the guy in front of me, and we exchanged polite nods. He looked nervous. Star-struck. I got that sometimes. Most of the extras were pros and knew the ins and outs of these small jobs, but many were brand new, and this guy looked greener than green.
“Con,” I said, taking a step back and folding my arms. It was too early for this shit.
“Now,” the intimacy coordinator said. “I want to start with some simple moves, just to get the two of you comfortable.”
Her name was Sally. She was a nice enough woman, but this wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d shagged on camera since my very first role. I’d been sixteen that time. The scene had been a school disco quick fumble in the toilets, and I’d almost wet myself with excitement. The girl playing my counterpart had been older and intimidatingly experienced to my totally frazzled nerves. I’d had an intimacy coordinator then too, who’d choreographed our moves down to my facial muscle movements. By the time we’d actually filmed the scene, I’d been yawning between takes.
Istillyawned between takes and had a habit of getting a couple of minutes shut-eye in between scenes. Most of the time, we filmed these things on beds or in showers, wearing fluffy bathrobes in between takes to keep us warm in the sometimes-arctic conditions they made us work in. Erect nipples and goosebumps looked good on film, but it was actually near frostbite masquerading as arousal.
I didn’t get aroused doing these things. I was working, and as fun as it sounded getting down and dirty with your co-stars, it was anything but.
“Hey, Con.”
“Hi, babe.” I raised my hand in a little wave as Caroline—aka Inspector Stella Rubin—rushed past, bright and cheerful with her hair in rollers, making her way towards the line for those croissants. She always made me calm, a small, steady presence in my chaotic life. I’d known Caroline since I was barely eighteen, which meant we’d worked together for seven years now, and she knew me. Intimately, but not inthatway. We’d always been close, but not like that.
Cass Powell and Inspector Stella Rubin knew each other intimately, though, having been workmates with benefits from the start of season one. They’d shagged numerous times, their on/off relationship a big part of the show’s success. We were so used to being nearly naked around each other that I knew the pattern of birthmarks on her back. She knew all the places where I was ticklish. It was a comfortable relationship as actors. As characters, those heated passionate scenes had won awards, our awkward attraction palpable on screen. Something today’s scene would no doubt lack, looking at my partner for the day, loitering in the early morning sunshine, hyperventilating and treading muddy footprints into the grass.
“Calm down, mate,” I said as Sally took another phone call. “It’s only a quick scene. Do you want to go over the moves? Has someone gone through the full scene with you?”
“Yeah,” he huffed. “OK then.”
