Nicola Griffith - Always

Now Kick was pushing the sleeves of her shirt up in frustration. “As well as doing the food?”

“No one’s exactly eating the food. Partly, you know, because of what happened. Partly because, well, who could eat in this kind of atmosphere?”

He was right. The tension was building again. Kick slapped the stuntman on the arm, and he clenched his jaw and walked forward into even more intense light towards what I assumed was his mark. The tweakers left Branwell, who now drew herself up to her full five feet five inches.

“Okay, everyone. Going hot in thirty. Let’s go.”

The building hushed. “Twenty-five,” a voice said. Branwell looked like a brown-furred fox: sleek, well fed, bright-eyed. The stuntman looked like a moron. “Twenty.”

The countdown continued. Joel listened intently to his headphones, then gave a thumbs-up to Rusen, who looked at the camera operators, who appeared to ignore him, the way heavy machinery operators always ignore lesser mortals.

“Ten.”

Branwell had her eyes closed. Rusen smiled at the stuntman encouragingly. He looked as though he needed it.

“Five. Four.” Rusen pointed to the cameras, and to the clapper operator, and nodded to Branwell. “Go now.”

The lights seemed suddenly brighter, the greenery more green, Branwell’s face more alert. She took a great, shocked breath, swung around, flinched—and, “Cut!” shouted Rusen, and the entire set burst into applause.

“Fantastic,” Dornan said, “bloody fantastic.”

“That’s it?” Bernard hadn’t even done anything.

“No, that’s just the beginning. But she nailed it. First time. That’s great. That’s a good omen.”

All around me the termite mound was heaving again: swinging of lights, the rushing of hair and makeup, the nervous pacing of the stuntman, the furious note-taking of two different people. I started for the craft-services table, but Kick was no longer there.

“Okay,” Rusen said, “ready again in thirty.”

And everyone hushed, and this time the scene lasted almost seven seconds, and again Dornan’s face brimmed with delight, and again everyone clapped. Bernard still hadn’t done anything. I watched the intent, focused bustle.

I didn’t understand a bit of it, but it was mesmerizing, as urgent as a trauma team working at the scene of an accident. In the middle of the fourth scene, Branwell’s key light went out with a pop.

“Hold!” Rusen called, and everyone froze to the spot. Branwell closed her eyes and went even paler. Rusen looked at Joel.

“I can have it changed out in about five minutes,” Joel said.

“I need it in two, Joel,” Rusen said.

“The engines willnae take it, Cap’n,” someone said—Peg—and everyone smiled.

“Aye, aye, two it is,” Joel said, and I understood that for two minutes you could hold together the mass delusion that this was possible, that one could make a sellable, watchable film from two bobby pins and a roll of sticky tape. Five minutes would leave time to question the miracle. Every person in the room was willing the impossible to become real with every fiber of his or her being. Magic wouldn’t wait. Technicians worked frantically, stripping gels, repositioning, rechecking light levels.

Kick appeared at my shoulder. She looked supple and alive. She nodded at the stuntman. “He’s in a flop sweat.”

She wasn’t sweating at all, I saw. And her breath smelled of strawberries. On my other side, Dornan shifted.

“Makeup,” Rusen said conversationally, and pointed his chin at Bernard. They rushed up and started powdering his face and neck.

Without the surrounding dark rings, Kick’s eyes seemed brighter and softer. Every individual cell seemed to be humming.

“Places,” Rusen said. “In thirty.”

And again, Bernard did nothing. Again, Branwell nailed it. Everyone was grinning. There were high-fives.

“Don’t get cocky now,” Kick murmured to herself, leaning forward so far I thought she might topple over. The black plastic fan on its black cord hung down like a plumb line. Her waist was tiny. My hands could span it easily. “Not yet. Not yet.”

“Just this one, then we’ll break for a half hour,” Rusen said. “Places.”

The whole room was focused on Bernard, but my focus was split between the actors and Kick, who was practically quivering.

“Going hot. In five, four, three, two. Now.”

And Bernard ran under the lights, tripped over his own feet, rolled with a crash into a stand of greenery, and got up again, looking dazed. No one yelled cut, no one made a sound, but Kick twitched. Bernard leapt over a chair and rolled again.

“And cut.”

No applause.

“Bernard, are you good to go again?” Rusen said.

He nodded.

This time he ran, leapt, rolled, and by Kick’s gush of relieved breath I understood it had gone well. Everyone was grinning. I was, too.

“Thirty minutes, people,” Rusen shouted. “Thirty minutes.”

“Excuse me,” Dornan said, and headed to the bathroom. The huge main doors rolled open, and the brilliance of the lights dimmed for a moment until my eyes adjusted to the different spectrum of the sun. A roar started near the ceiling. Someone had remembered the AC. People flowed out into the sunshine.

Kick and I turned to each other. We stood close enough for me to see the loose weave in the stripe that ran over her hipbone.

“I got your flowers,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. You’re looking well.”

“You’ve lost weight.”

“It’s hard to eat when food tastes like something shoveled out of a crematorium. ”

Her face sharpened with professional interest. “Still?”

“Worse, if anything.”

“And I thought it was just people not wanting to get drugged again— not eating my food. Jesus. Okay.” She nodded to herself. “Okay. What tastes the worst?”

“Scrambled eggs.”

“Other eggs?”

“Any eggs. Especially boiled. And milk smells terrible. I’ve been drinking my tea without.”

“Butter?”

“Not good.”

“In what way?”

“Sulfur and smoke.”

“Fish?”

“Some are fine. Some aren’t.”

“But fruit is good.”

“Yes. Not all vegetables.”

She was nodding again. A wisp of hair slid gracefully from its clip. “Like broccoli.”

“Yes. How did you know that?”

She brushed aside the question, briskly, impersonally, like a doctor. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. “I have some ideas about what might taste good. Though, hmmm, is it the taste or the smell?” She was talking mostly to herself.

“Everything would taste better if I could find whoever did this and bang their head on the wall.”

She laughed. “That sounds like you mean it.”

I shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“I thought you owned things.”

“That, too.”

The stripes in her trousers flared and stretched from waist to hip, ran in muscled lines down her thighs. Someone brushed by me. I turned, glad of the distraction. Peg and Joel, carrying milkshakes, laughing for a change. Behind them was Bri, the bony-faced teenager, and his friend, with greasy paper sacks. His brother was dying, and he could still eat.

“Fast food,” Kick said, misinterpreting my look. “No one even drinks my coffee anymore.”

“Then why do you stay?”

“Because I’m stubborn. They won’t be willing to eat fast food forever. And the minute they change their mind, I’ll be ready.”

“All right. How about now?”

She looked me up and down, raised her eyebrows. I nodded. “Okay, then.” She took off the fan, dropped it on the counter, and busied herself with the urn. “It’ll take a minute to make fresh.”