Their Finest Hour and a Half Read online

  Going out tonight, Joan?

  The Palais with Charlie. Can’t wait!

  By five thirty she had achieved nothing in the way of useful work, and Colin Finch told her to go home; instead, she caught the tube straight to Paddington, and queued for ten minutes at a chip shop before taking the familiar route along a narrow street that ran parallel to the railway lines, passing a succession of warehouses before reaching the disused garage where Ellis had his studio. ‘Glass roof,’ he’d explained when she’d first seen it, a virtue that apparently excused the seatless lavatory, the lack of hot water and the vicious cross-draughts that whined between the double doors. Blackout regulations had created yet another disadvantage, and at twilight, the occupants had to climb on to the roof and spend half an hour pulling a set of home-made shutters over the panes; Ellis was up a ladder doing just that when she arrived, and she passed unnoticed through the shadows towards the roughly partitioned corner where he worked.

  It was neat, as usual, linseed and turps bottles wiped and capped, finished canvases stacked against each other and covered with a cloth, wood for framing tied in a bundle beneath a table. The only painting visible was hardly begun, charcoal lines and a greyish wash offering a ghostly view of a colossal cylindrical object, and a small figure peering into its interior.

  Ellis’s notebook was lying on the table. She picked it up and leafed through to the most recent entry, and found herself easily able to read the tiny, scribbled comments he’d made during his visit to an ordnance factory.

  AA shells stored in rows on warehouse flr – after 10 mins there lost all

  sense of scale, shlls started to look lk rows of bullets.

  Girders thrwing shadow grid across flr.

  Man checking bore of AA gun, head rt in barrel like lion tamer.

  She turned back a page or two.

  White-wshd labyrinth, evry route nmbrd.

  Maps so large on 1st sight lk like patterned wallpaper.

  That had been his previous short contract from the War Artists Committee – two pictures of the subterranean ARP control rooms in Kensington. He had finished the commission and then enrolled as a volunteer warden. ‘I should be painting this war from the inside,’ he’d said, with his usual certainty.

  Above her, another shutter banged to, and she heard his voice, indistinct through the glass. The first time she’d seen him actually at the easel, she’d expected dash and sweat and galloping inspiration and she’d been secretly disappointed; his technique was entirely without drama. He painted steadily and methodically, mixing colours with calm concentration and studying his preliminary sketches for minutes at a time. She had learned since then that if it were galloping inspiration she required, she had only to watch Perry, who worked in a cubicle on the other side of the garage, and who had recently, accidentally, painted over a fly that had momentarily landed on his canvas. His work wasn’t a patch on Ellis’s.

  On impulse, she began to thumb through the little book from the beginning, looking for the point at which she’d seen him come through the door of the Rivoli Café in Ebbw Vale, two and a half years ago. She’d served him pilchards on toast and a cup of coffee, and had blushed scarlet when he’d caught her staring over his shoulder at the sketch-pad, at the bold, economical drawings.

  ‘They’re ever so good,’ she’d said, shyly. ‘It’s the steel-works, isn’t it?’ and he’d nodded.

  He was staying in Ebbw Vale for a fortnight, he said, making sketches.

  And he was an artist, a proper artist, fourteen years older than herself, and he’d just come back, injured, from the civil war in Spain, and that evening he met her out of the café and kissed her in a doorway opposite the cinema and until that moment, she’d been hoping that a certificate in shorthand and typing from an evening course in Merthyr might be her ticket out of 12 Barram Terrace and away from a recently acquired stepmother, who was making it unpleasantly clear that there was room for only one woman in the house. She’d imagined a future in a place as far away as Swansea – a job in a typing pool, perhaps, a bed in a hostel for single girls – but when Ellis had left for London, ten days later, he’d said ‘come with me if you want’ and she’d done just that, she’d run off with him, and, oh, the daring of it.

  ‘And I’ll be useful,’ she’d promised Ellis. ‘I’ll look after you ever so well.’ Though, despite her best efforts, she wasn’t much of a cook, and she could never seem to iron a shirt without leaving triangular scorch marks, and since she had never finished the shorthand part of her course, it had been hard, at first, finding a job that could make a decent contribution towards the rents for both studio and flat. She’d been lucky to find Mr Caradoc, who was deeply sentimental about his childhood in Wales, and who didn’t mind a few errors.

  Ebbw steelwks

  Gouts of steam, evry single surfce black.

  Filth & metallic purity, dkness & blinding lght, hvn & hell. Blake

  Saw sheep looking thro yard railings. Unexpectedly white.

  There was no mention of herself in the notes; it wasn’t that type of diary, of course.

  The last set of shutters slammed down and for a few seconds there was pitch darkness before the lights sprang on. Perry, over by the switch, shouted, ‘Any chinks?’ and there was an answering ‘no’ from the rooftop, and half a minute later Ellis squeezed between the double doors.

  Catrin waved. ‘I’ve brought you something to eat,’ she called, and the two men strolled across, talking, and Ellis curled an arm around her waist and caught her close. ‘You’ll never guess—’ she began.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ said Perry, continuing the conversation, ‘if it weren’t for the fact that most of the stuff – present company excepted, of course – that most of the stuff being bought by the Committee is so bloody anodyne, kiddies’ nurseries, and bank clerks in tin hats, and pretty vapour trails over fields of barley and even when there’s a chance to show war, actual war, who do they pick to send to France with the BEF? Bloody illustrators, that’s who they pick. And who do they turn down, even though he offered his services? Only Bomberg, poor old sod.’

  ‘They think he’s too leftish,’ said Ellis. ‘Goes for those of us who went to Spain, as well.’

  ‘They turned down Bomberg!’ repeated Perry, incredulously.

  ‘I’ve got some news,’ said Catrin.

  ‘And when the bombing starts in London,’ added Perry, reaching for a chip, ‘when there’s death on every doorstep, who will they get to paint the devastation?’ He paused, dramatically. ‘Bloody illustrators, that’s who. Bet they’re kicking themselves Beatrix Potter’s not available.’

  Ellis shook his head. ‘It’ll change. New forms of war require new forms of art.’

  ‘I should hope they do. I’m sick of seeing stuffy old portraits of generals, the sort of thing that chap Eves does – technique unchanged in twenty years. You know he’s on a bloody salary from the War Office?’

  Ellis released Catrin’s waist and began to cut up the fish with the blade he used for sharpening pencils.

  ‘I had my interview,’ said Catrin.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Ellis.

  ‘I had my interview at the Ministry of Information. And you’ll never guess where I’ve ended up.’

  ‘Slogans,’ suggested Perry. ‘“Divide and Rule.” “Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory”.’

  ‘No, not slogans. They’ve seen the advertisements that I wrote for So-Bee-Fee and they’re putting me in the film division. Helping to write scripts!’

  She waited for a reaction; Ellis nodded a couple of times. ‘Yes, I’d heard that they’re starting to siphon money into film propaganda.’

  ‘The transient arts,’ said Perry, disparagingly. ‘Next thing we know they’ll be setting up a ballet division. And what are they paying you?’

  ‘Three pounds a week. I’ll be working mainly on women’s dialogue. In short films. And they said I’d—’

  ‘SHOWING A LIGH
T!’ shouted Ellis, suddenly, and the figure who had just entered the garage closed the door hastily behind himself and shouted an apology.

  ‘Which is a reminder,’ said Ellis, checking his watch, ‘that I’d better get off to Post C. Thanks for the supper, Cat.’ He kissed her on the lips and then crammed a last handful of chips into his mouth.

  Catrin watched him go.

  ‘Do you want the rest of that cod?’ asked Perry.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said. She felt oddly flat. It was so seldom that she had anything of interest to tell Ellis.

  ‘Three pounds a week,’ said Perry, ruminatively, picking up scraps of batter with a damp finger. ‘Wish I could write gossip for three pounds a week.’

  THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION PRESENTS . . .

  June 1940

  There was no chair with his name on the back. There was no dressing-room, and in any case there was no costume to be fitted. There was no car to collect him from home or to return him at the end of the day. The script was printed on what looked like rice paper. The sole water closet in the studio could be used by anyone, even electricians. The director was eight years old. The continuity girl was ninety. The pay was an insult.

  ‘I really am grateful,’ said Ambrose to the journalist from Kinematograph Weekly, ‘to be able to do something for the war effort. Really – it’s almost a privilege.’ He took a mouthful of lukewarm chicory and smiled over the journalist’s shoulder at the lady sitting at the next table. She looked startled.

  It had been yet another disappointment to add to the catalogue accrued during the day so far that the journalist – a shabby, enthusiastic man named Heswell – was not interviewing Ambrose for a feature on Ambrose but for some article about Ministry-sponsored films, Ambrose acting as a mere conduit for information. There being – but of course! – no green room in the studio, they had adjourned to a café in the next street, taking advantage of the mid-morning break enforced by the striking of one inadequate set and the erection of another.

  ‘I gather it’s all very economical,’ said Heswell, dabbing away at a tiny notepad. ‘What is it – two films a day? Seventy seconds apiece?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘And another two tomorrow?’

  ‘For my sins.’

  Heswell looked up at him enquiringly.

  ‘That means yes,’ said Ambrose, abandoning charm. ‘I simply hope that the degree of economy being used does not transfer to the screen.’

  ‘You mean, you hope it doesn’t look cheap.’

  ‘Your words, dear chap, not mine.’

  ‘The designer used the word “simplicity” rather than “economy”. He said that it was actually an exciting challenge to produce something stylish on a tiny budget – it made him think very hard.’

  ‘Did it, indeed?’ Made him think very hard, presumably, about painting a flat with taupe emulsion and then putting a table in front of it and calling it ‘The Browns’ Dining-Room’. Ambrose checked his watch; it seemed extraordinary that, despite the brevity of the scripts, the amount of aimless waiting around was, if anything, even greater than was usual in filming. It might, he thought, be worth using the extra time to go in search of some decent cigarettes, his tobacconist having last week fobbed him off with a Turkish brand called ‘Pasha’ which smelled of scorched wool and tasted of camel shit. ‘So if that’s all . . .’ he said, pushing his chair back.

  ‘No, not quite. I’d rather like to ask you about the challenge of acting in a propaganda piece.’

  ‘Oh.’ Ambrose lowered his buttocks on to the seat again. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well . . . is it a challenge? Are new techniques required when you’re attempting to convey a state-sponsored message rather than a simple story? Are you aware of a greater responsibility than usual in your interpretation of the text? Where does characterization end and didacticism begin?’

  Heswell gripped his pencil and looked expectant, as if this cascade of nonsense deserved a considered answer. Didacticism. Ambrose was unsure of what it even meant; it was one of those words that had suddenly appeared in the thirties, invented, presumably, in order to bulk out those long, dull political articles that nowadays dominated every magazine, even those supposedly devoted to entertainment. It was notable that Film Fun Weekly had never felt the need for questions like these. When Ambrose had been voted the third most popular British male star in their 1924 end-of-year poll, he’d been sent a list of ‘things our readers want to know’ and they’d included such queries as: ‘What is your favourite flower?’, ‘Which do you consider more important: truth or beauty?’ and ‘What is your opinion of unmarried women who wear face “make-up”?’ Trivial, possibly, but at least the reader would actually finish the article in possession of more information than when they had started.

  Heswell was still waiting. ‘An actor acts,’ said Ambrose. ‘You may as well ask a river what it thinks of its name – Thames or Tiber, Rhine or Styx, it makes no damned difference – it simply goes on being a river.’

  Heswell frowned, as if trying to recollect something. ‘Wasn’t that . . . ?’ he began.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Ambrose, getting to his feet, ‘but I’m going to have to leave you, Mr Heswell. Business calls.’ He tapped his watch, smiled and turned to find his path blocked by a short, entirely bald man.

  ‘Come to get yer,’ said the man, in a rusty monotone. It was like being addressed by an iron bollard.

  ‘And you are . . . ?’

  The figure lifted his head fractionally. ‘Third assistant director,’ he said, fixing Ambrose with a dead, grey stare. ‘They’ve told me to tell yer that yer wanted on the floor straight away.’

  ‘Very well, very well,’ said Ambrose, slightly rattled. ‘But please use my name in future. It’s Hilliard, Mr Hilliard.’

  ‘And mine’s Chick,’ said the man, catching the final sound on the back of his throat. It sounded like the unlocking of a safety catch.

  ‘Chick?’

  ‘Chick.’ There was an unnecessarily long pause. ‘I used to breed bantams,’ he added, anti-climactically, and then turned – revolved, one might say, since the back of his head appeared no more human than the front – and preceded Ambrose through the café door. Ambrose found himself breathing again.

  Where on earth, he wondered, were the studios finding the current workforce? Call-up had skimmed off the cream, and the industry was clearly awash with rancid curds. Of course, the third assistant director (the title was laughable, really, since the job was actually that of a messenger boy), came in many different guises, ranging from effete movie-mad youngest sons of the gentry to whom one had to remain courteous in case their next incarnation turned out to be that of director, all the way down to wizened ex-music-hall acts desperate for a crust, but it was usual for them to resemble human beings rather than items of street furniture. It was usual for them to have names. ‘Chick’ was the type of soubriquet Ambrose associated with electricians who, when not holding cast and crew to ransom with their private version of the Soviet manifesto, addressed each other by a host of oafish nicknames: ‘Moose’, ‘Spud’, ‘Dixie’.

  The commissionaire at the studio nodded him through, and Ambrose stopped just inside the double doors in order to light another cigarette. It was obvious from the amount of activity on the floor that the crew was nowhere near ready: the camera was in pieces, yet again, the electricians were still playing poker, and his fellow-professional, Cecy, was sitting on an upturned packing case at the back of the flat, drinking tea from a tiny spoon in an effort not to smudge her lipstick.

  ‘Fun, isn’t it?’ she said, catching sight of Ambrose. ‘Marvellous to be back in front of the camera. I’ve missed it dreadfully, I simply can’t pretend I haven’t, and when I hear that whistle blow – well, my heart!’ She mimed a little flutter above her breastbone, and then returned to her tea-spooning, enabling Ambrose to release his facial muscles from the polite smile into which they’d braced themselves. Cecy Clyde-Cameron. He’d almost turned
round and left when he’d seen her sitting in make-up this morning, those great teeth clattering away as she recounted the lean theatrical years since her last celluloid appearance. She’d let out a great shriek of recognition at the sight of him, however, and he’d been forced to exchange kisses and pleasantries, and to sit beside her as she reminisced about their last professional encounter. How dreadfully she’d aged! She’d always looked like a horse, but in fifteen years she’d slid from racing stable to brewer’s dray, everything wider, heavier, lower than before. Extraordinary to think that they’d exchanged a twelve-second screen kiss in The Door to Her Heart in 1925, and that he had actually suggested a second take because he’d enjoyed it so much. Extraordinary – hideous – to think that she’d now been cast as his wife. No kisses in the current script, thank Christ, just fatuous dialogue. He finished his cigarette and cleared his throat; his vocal chords felt coated with Turkish filth, and he spat discreetly into a handkerchief and strolled on to the floor just as Briggs, the first assistant director, was opening his mouth to call for the actors.

  ‘Scenario Two, The Letter, Mr Hilliard, Mrs Clyde-Cameron,’ said Briggs, who wore a coloured tie in lieu of a personality. ‘Would you care to run through the lines before we light?’