Shadow Play

‘Sounds right.’ But Ben was still frowning abstractedly. He took a swallow of the coffee but then put down the mug and stood up, his hands thrust into his pockets. He took a couple of paces round the room, head bent, then turned to frown out of the window again.

‘Hasn’t your crisis resolved itself?’ Nell asked sympathetically.

‘My what?’

‘You said you were late because of a domestic crisis,’ she reminded him.

‘Oh—yes. I mean, no, it hasn’t resolved itself.’ His face changed, grew bleak, the lines at the corners of his mouth deepening and becoming bitter. ‘Sometimes I don’t think it ever will.’ Before Nell could say anything, he glanced at his watch, picked up his briefcase, and said, ‘Look, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to leave. Why don’t you make a start and I’ll catch up with you tomorrow?’

‘But you can’t just...’ Nell’s voice tailed off as the door swung shut behind him.

CHAPTER TWO

NELL had wanted to do the book adaptation herself, but, perversely, when Ben abandoned her to it before they’d even got started she became indignant and angry. The word processor was pounded rather hard the rest of that day and quite a lot of work got done.

She expected him to be late again the next morning and was both surprised and irritated to find Ben there before her. Not only there but sitting at her desk and going through the work she’d done the previous day. ‘My, my, aren’t you the early bird,’ she greeted him sarcastically, dumping her bag on the desk.

Ben glanced at her. ‘Talking of birds; are you an owl or a lark?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you up with the lark in the morning or a night owl who never wants to go to bed? A morning person or a night person?’

Nell thought about it. ‘A night owl, I suppose.’

‘That would account for it, then.’

‘For what?’

‘For your bad temper,’ he said evenly.

She hung her jacket on a peg. ‘I think I’m entitled to be annoyed after the way you took off yesterday. You’d only been here a couple of hours and we hadn’t even got started on the book.’

‘For which I apologised and came in early today,’ he pointed out.

But Nell had met that male trick of trying to put you in the wrong and make you feel guilty before. ‘It was extremely unprofessional,’ she said shortly.

‘I’m a writer, not a clock-watching clerk,’ Ben told her, his voice hardening.

‘Yes, but you’re still a professional writer. You are getting paid, aren’t you?’

She had expected that to needle him, but to her surprise he grinned, and said in a schoolboy voice, ‘I’m very sorry, miss. I’ll try to do better in future, miss.’

The grin, and the mimicry, were captivating. Despite herself, Nell smiled in return.

‘That’s better. I was beginning to think I’d got to work with a dragon.’ That took her aback a little, but before she had a chance to say anything Ben tapped the screen with his finger. ‘What you did yesterday was good, but you’ve written it for the ear and not enough for the eye.’

‘I tried to write it visually,’ Nell said defensively. ‘I’ve read books on writing for television and studied other scripts.’

‘Yes, and you’ve had a good shot at it, but you haven’t gone into enough detail. You have to see and describe every emotion, almost every gesture. And you have to allow the time it will take the actors to show the emotions, make the gestures.’

Nell pulled up a chair and sat down beside him. ‘Show me.’

His mouth crooked a little at the command in her voice, but he went back to the beginning of her script and began to go through it with her. By the end of an hour Nell was realising there was far more to television script-writing than she’d ever imagined.

‘I think it would probably be best if we wrote the script as you did it yesterday and then went through each scene together putting in the camera and actors’ instructions,’ Ben suggested. He sat back and ran a weary hand over his eyes. ‘How about a coffee?’

She didn’t argue this time but got up to make it, taking some packages from her holdall-type bag. ‘I brought some biscuits. Would you like one?’ She opened a tin and offered it to him.

Ben raised his eyebrows. ‘They look home-made,’ he remarked, taking one.

‘Yes, they are.’

‘By you?’

She nodded.

‘It’s good. The coffee tastes different, too.’

‘I bought some decaffeinated. And a carton of real milk. I don’t like that powdered stuff.’

‘You sound like a girl who likes her creature comforts,’ Ben remarked.

‘Of course. Don’t you?’

‘Oh, sure—when I can get them.’ For a moment the bleak look was back in his face, but then was gone as he said, ‘Are you married, Nell?’

‘No. Career-girl.’

‘Does that mean you live alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you actually bother to cook for yourself?’

‘Yes, why not?’

‘Most people who live alone seem to exist on frozen ready-made meals. From the supermarket to the freezer to the microwave. There doesn’t seem to be much point in doing the shopping, spending so much time in preparation, and creating so much washing-up just for oneself.’

‘You seemed to stress the washing-up,’ Nell smiled.

‘I don’t like it, I admit,’ Ben grimaced. ‘But you must enjoy cooking. How did you learn?’

‘My mother taught me,’ Nell replied, her face and voice calm, betraying none of the inner swirl of emotions that memories of her mother always aroused. Yes, she taught me to cook, she thought bitterly. Just as she taught me to be clean and tidy, and punctual, and polite, and deferential, and come straight home, and not to make friends or talk to boys, and to be obedient, always obedient. And—

‘You’re lucky, my mother didn’t teach me a thing,’ Ben said, breaking into her thoughts, for which she was grateful. ‘I never even had to boil an egg before I went to university. And the first one I tried was so rock-hard I gave up and ate out the whole time.’

‘And now you exist on ready-made meals?’