In the Still of the Night

The director this morning was Henry Walpole, a short, bristly man with a lot of hair and a low boiling point.

‘I wondered when you were going to get here!’ he said, scowling at Annie.

‘Sorry, am I late?’ she asked, consulting her watch and seeing that she was five minutes late. ‘Oh, come on, Henry – only just!’

‘I don’t like clock-watching! I wanted to talk the scene through with you and Derek before we had a run-through.’

They were working in one of the usual sets the series used, an interior shot in the City police station. Derek Fenn was already in position, leaning his elbows on the desk, in uniform, watching her take up her own position for this scene, which they had rehearsed midweek.

Harriet in a black leather jacket and black jeans, came along after a couple of takes. ‘How are things going, Henry? OK?’

‘Bloody awful, Derek keeps forgetting his words and Annie seems to have five thumbs on every hand this morning, she keeps dropping things,’ he growled, his face resentful because he thought she was checking up on him.

Maybe she was? thought Annie. Harriet was getting just like Billy Grenaby – she had a hundred different jobs to do but she still checked up on everybody who worked for her and made sure they were doing their

job properly. She couldn’t delegate easily.

‘I’m sure you’ll get great performances out of them, Henry,’ said Harriet soothingly, and went over to talk to the gaffer, Jack Wilkins, and his best boy, little Jim. They went into a huddle while Henry watched them sulkily.

‘We’re discussing next month’s schedules,’ Harriet reassured him as she came back. She handed him a printed sheet of schedules. ‘It goes up on the board tomorrow, everyone!’ she told the rest of the crew. Harriet was popular with the technical people; she always treated craftsmen with enormous respect – she took their advice before every scene, standing with them, studying every angle of the picture framed in the camera’s eye, before they made up their minds where to position a camera, earnestly discussing noise levels with the sound man, frowning over cables with electricians, watching closely as the lighting people worked.

She’s very ambitious, and she’s going places, Annie thought, watching her and Jack, but she is so clever in the way she manages people.

Mike Waterford and Annie had a short scene later that morning. Mike was in a playful mood; the scene required him to bend over her while she was seated at a desk, so, while they waited for the lighting to be adjusted he curled his hand upwards to fondle her breast. She smacked his hand down, but a few seconds later it was back, squeezing her nipple.

‘Keep your bloody hands to yourself!’ she snapped at him.

He turned a wide-eyed look. ‘Sorry? What did I do?’

She glared back. ‘As if you didn’t know!’

Henry interrupted with a bellow like an angry bull.

‘Shut up, the pair of you! Mike, stop touching Annie up, for God’s sake. Everyone, ten minutes for coffee, OK? And be back promptly.’

Annie drank black coffee, glaring at Mike’s back as he chatted up one of the studio staff, a lithe little blonde in tight jeans. Mike’s hand strolled softly up and down her back, over her smooth buttocks. She giggled.

Silly little bitch, Annie thought. Why do women fall for men like him? The very idea of his hands on her made her sick. She couldn’t understand her own sex; they must be deaf, blind, dumb. Most of all dumb. Or so many women wouldn’t climb into Mike Waterford’s bed. He didn’t even have to use bribery or blackmail, the way Roger Keats had done. Women fought to let him use them.

‘OK, people, let’s have you!’ Henry yelled, and Annie put down her empty paper cup. Mike gave the little blonde a last, confident pat on the behind, and walked back on set. Annie followed, imitating his swagger.

There was a smothered chuckle from some of the lighting men. Mike swung round, gave her a narrow-eyed, suspicious look. She didn’t meet his eyes, her face innocent, calm as a glass of milk.

‘What are you up to?’ Mike asked.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Come on, come on,’ Henry snarled. ‘Stop brawling and do some fucking work, will you?’

Trudie Lang hated the night time on the ward. She had been there for days now; she couldn’t remember how many but it seemed like a lifetime. They gave her a sleeping pill every night, with her cocoa, but sometimes she didn’t take it, she just pretended to, holding it under her tongue until the nurse had left and then slipping it out and hiding it in her secret place, a hidden pocket in her plastic-lined toilet bag.

Who did they think they were? Hardly out of their teens, some of them, girls of eighteen or nineteen, ordering her about and treating her like a crazy person.

‘Now then, Grandma, got to take your pill,’ they said. ‘Open your mouth and show me it’s gone. I don’t trust you.’

‘D’you think I’m running a drugs racket in here? Selling sleeping pills to all the old loonies?’ She stuck her tongue out at them, and then they switched off her light and went away.

Trudie was saving the pills up. If it got worse she would take them all and get away from here while she was still herself. One day she knew she wouldn’t even remember who she was and then it would be too late. The pills were her safety exit to a kinder oblivion than the one waiting inexorably for her along the line.