Showstopper

18

It was already dark when Greg Deans finished work at Milroy Court. As he had foreseen, the bedroom scene had put the entire schedule out. He should have been firm with George and insisted on filming it in a studio set at Bottle Yard. Directors come in with fancy ideas and you have to indulge them a bit, but this had been unwise. By the end of the day, they were running two hours over. All work outside contracted hours counts as overtime and plays havoc with the budget, not to mention the extra work for the producer.

Greg’s car was one of the last on the drive. The de-rig was done and nearly everyone had left. Before starting up, he called his partner, Natalie, hoping her hands would be dry enough to pick up her phone.

He waited for her soft, “Yes?”

“Still at Trowbridge, I’m afraid, but just about to leave. I’ll pick up fish and chips on the way home. I hope your day was better than mine.”

“I got through as much as I wanted,” she told him.

“Nice work, love. You must have enough for a firing.”

“Not until next week. Today’s little fellows have to dry properly. How long will you be?”

“Depends if there’s a queue in the chippie. Fifty minutes max.” The pottery was a converted farmhouse on the slopes west of Bath. “Put the oven on in half an hour, would you? The fish and chips will need warming up.”

If he’d been home earlier, he would have cooked. This was their main meal of the day. He never ate much at lunchtime.

He’d first met Natalie before he’d started his career in TV, when he was struggling to find regular work of any kind in Bristol. He’d put a man-with-van card in a newsagent’s window. The van part wasn’t true at the time. His plan was to hire one if anyone came up with a worthwhile offer. Natalie had seen it and phoned him. She already had her ceramics business and was making it pay, with a wholesale contract supplying souvenir mugs, microwave-safe and with a durable glaze that didn’t fade, to various outlets in the area. Her last driver wasn’t reliable and she would pay well for someone who would make several trips a week.

Her location was really remote, up a lane hardly anyone else used. She joked that if he could find the place, he would get the job, so he splashed out, hired a van with a sat nav and drove straight there.

That morning in the pottery she’d made him coffee in one of her Royal Crescent mugs and shown him the address list of her clients. He’d agreed to start right away. Even in her work apron splashed with clay, hair tied up and covered with a scarf, she was enchanting, small, pretty and vivacious. It wasn’t love at first sight, but there was a physical attraction from the beginning — on both sides. He saw the spark of interest in her eyes and was happy to encourage it. She was fully fit when they met, divorced and living alone, working long hours. The first signs of her MS didn’t appear until two years after.

She had her own website that brought in steady sales of the work she really enjoyed, making much larger pieces. He’d spotted a sensational blue vase out in the yard that she’d rejected because of some flaw in the glaze and he knew straight away he must have it for his flat. She’d let him take it for nothing.

They both appreciated the arts and had good conversations about creative people they admired. In addition to the mugs, he’d started delivering what Natalie called her “specials” to some high achievers in big houses in Bath and Bristol who were paying hundreds for them. One was Saltus Steven, the TV executive. It was Saltus who later invited Greg to work at Bottle Yard studios.

The chippie was not far off, in Church Walk, and regularly won the “Best in Wiltshire” competition. The Codfather, a name that made people smile, groan, or do both, had been found by the riggers before the first day of shooting and quickly become popular with others in the Swift crowd. Tonight Greg wouldn’t have been surprised to find one or two already in there. As it happened, three people he didn’t know were ahead of him. His turn didn’t take long. “Two plaice in batter, please, and one portion of chips. No salt or vinegar.” They always added their own at home.

Everyone chatted while the frying was going on. The locals already knew about the filming at Milroy Court. They didn’t say so, but they were clearly disappointed he wasn’t a familiar face. If you’re looking for appreciation, it’s better to be an actor than the producer.

He was on the road again in ten minutes. There was no fast road if you wanted to avoid the centre of Bath. He had a route along unlit roads and lanes that kept well south, by way of Wellow and Combe Hay. The worst of the evening traffic was over.

His relationship with Natalie had soon become more than a business one. After two weeks, she had invited him for an evening meal and he’d stayed over. The sex was the best he’d experienced. Next day she’d suggested he move into one of the empty rooms in the farmhouse. He didn’t hesitate. He was still struggling financially and she didn’t ask him to pay rent, and of course there was a saving in petrol. Even better, she continued paying him for delivering the pots. He drove back to Bristol, told his landlord he was leaving, stacked his few worldly possessions into the van, including his lucky blue vase, and made the move.

When Saltus offered him the chance of being a runner at Bottle Yard, he couldn’t turn it down. At the beginning, he had tried doing both jobs, making Natalie’s deliveries on his day off, but she soon saw it was too much for him, so she suggested hiring a new driver. Greg stayed on as Natalie’s live-in lover and that was no hardship. She was amused when he’d started using the “luvvie” talk of the showbiz crowd. He’d always been responsive to language, quickly picking up accents and new phrases. So Natalie got used to being called “love of my life” and “sweetheart” even though they both knew it wasn’t quite true. What they had was a friendly relationship with good sex that pleased them both.

Greg worked hard at the TV job and got promoted to assistant producer after Candida left. So his spectacular rise continued.

It was during this purple patch that Natalie had experienced her first symptoms of the multiple sclerosis: blurred vision, dizziness and numbness down one side of her body. She thought it was some flu virus. Nothing like it occurred again for several months. The onset was slow and there were long periods when she felt normal. She didn’t go for tests until nearly a year later, after being unable to move from bed one day. She was devastated when told that the illness was progressive and not curable even though it could be treated. She most feared losing the sensation in her hands and being unable to work as a potter.

Greg helped her through the shock and was a strong support. For a time, there were no lasting symptoms except that her sex drive became less active, which was understandable. She lost some of her confidence, knowing the control of her body could be taken away from her at any time. There is no certainty, no way of knowing how long you have got. Her hands and arms were spared, but in one terrible week she lost the use of both legs. This time it was permanent.

Greg became her caretaker and morale booster. He found her a wheelchair-accessible potter’s wheel and she managed to continue with the contract jobs, but it was just about impossible to work on the large pieces that were her joy. He researched chairs and found one she could raise a metre higher by the touch of a button, enabling her to get the height she needed. He shopped, cooked, cleaned, helped her to dress and shower and did the heavy work in the pottery, loading and emptying the kiln. Between them, they kept the business going. “You rescued me from dire straits at the beginning, my love,” he told her, “and now I can give something back.”

Somewhere beyond the small village of Combe Hay, deep in a valley, the road became a lane and the lane became little more than a farm track before reverting to tarmac again and continuing west. This was where visitors in search of the pottery had their confidence tested. There was no signposting and precious few landmarks. Greg knew it well, and even he had to concentrate hard on a moonless night. He was using his Range Rover. A four-wheel drive was essential for anyone living in an area where you sometimes got snowed in.

He was little more than a mile from home when he spotted a light ahead, white, like a flashlight, moving as if it was being swung as some kind of signal. He slowed and flicked off his main beam so as not to dazzle the person holding it. Closer still, he could make out a figure wearing a yellow reflective jacket, pointing with the left arm and beckoning to him to turn right with the other. If you’re a driver and someone in high-visibility gear is diverting traffic, you don’t argue.

A gap in the hedgerow was now revealed, an open gate.

Greg put the headlights back on to make the turn off the lane, up a slight hump and into a field, which was grassed.

He swung the Range Rover through a tight circle and halted facing the lane for an easy exit, leaving enough room for another vehicle to drive in, even though it was highly unlikely anyone else would come that way.

He turned off his headlights and waited with only the sidelights still on. Parked there with the engine running, he could smell the fish and chips in their paper wrapper on the passenger seat. All he could see through the windscreen was the open gateway and the hedge on the opposite side.

He partly unwrapped the packet and took out a chip.

When it became obvious no one had followed him into the field to tell him what was happening, he opened the door and stepped out.

He hadn’t taken more than two steps when he sensed a movement nearby. The car’s sidelights picked up a fast-moving shape. Something or somebody charged at him out of the darkness. Greg barely had time to register he was under attack. Instinctively he turned, swayed backwards and in that split second saw the glint of a knife blade. His back thumped against the Range Rover. Trapped on the bonnet of his own car, he could do nothing to defend himself.