Peter James - Not Dead Yet

Our world. Everyone’s world. Was she totally stupid?

The snakes were rising. Stuff was getting all tangled up inside his head as it often did when he got angry. He needed to focus, remember why he was here, why he had phoned the production office in the first place.

‘That’s me!’ he said.

‘Thanks for calling us. We’re casting for extras now. We start shooting on Monday and we’d need you every day next week until Saturday evening. Would you be free?’

‘Absolutely,’ he replied.

‘We’re shooting crowd scenes outside the Pavilion, weather permitting. I’ll give you the address to come for costume fitting.’

‘Are you filming inside the Pavilion, too?’

‘Yes, a lot, but there won’t be any requirement for extras there.’

‘Ah, right,’ he said, slightly disappointed. But the information was helpful, he decided, although he wasn’t sure why. He filed it away. Sometimes his brain felt like a junk room where the light bulb had blown and no one had replaced it. You had to root around with a torch for stuff you wanted; and each year as he got older the torch got smaller and the batteries dimmer. There was stuff he’d filed away in there that he had long forgotten about and probably never would retrieve now. Mostly the place was guarded by the snakes that rose, their tongues flicking, each time he looked in there.

After he ended the call, he went down into the lobby of the hotel and approached the reception desk. He asked for information about the Brighton Pavilion: what time did it open and close, were there guided tours, did you have to book?

The man behind the desk, who was wearing a smart grey uniform, opened a leaflet and showed him the hours of opening, and the times of the guided tours.

Drayton Wheeler thanked him. It was pelting with rain outside; he decided this would be a good afternoon to spend doing something cultural indoors. What could be better than a visit to Brighton Pavilion?

‘Goddamn rain! Goddamn English weather. Shit!’ Larry Brooker, huddled beneath an umbrella, stood on the lawn of the Royal Pavilion, his Gucci loafers sodden from the wet grass. He checked the weather forecast on his iPhone for the tenth time today, as if somehow, miraculously, at any moment the grey images of rain that filled all six days were suddenly going to turn to sunshine. The cameras didn’t start rolling until next Monday, but they were on a tight schedule for these final days of pre-production and this lousy weather was not a help.

The film’s director seemed impervious to the stuff plummeting down from the sky. Unshaven, with a shoulder-length mane of white hair and a perpetual worried frown, Jack Jordan was wearing a long-peaked baseball cap and an old flying jacket over jeans and sneakers. The two-times Oscar nominee, as well as a BAFTA winner, stood like some ancient soothsayer who had just foretold the end of the world, staring up at one of the onion domes framed by minarets, with his group of acolytes around him – the Location Manager, the Line Producer, the Production Secretary, the Production Designer, the Director of Photography, the First Assistant Director, his Personal Assistant – who it was an open secret he had been shagging for years – and two other people Larry Brooker didn’t know, but had no doubt he was paying for.

Jack Jordan pointed out something on the rooftop; the DP nodded and his PA wrote herself a note. Jack Jordan raised a small camera and took a picture.

Brooker hadn’t slept last night. There was another big hiccup with the production finance. Gaia was arriving in town tomorrow from London, so was their male star, Judd Halpern; they were in full pre-production, building sets up at Pinewood for some of the interiors, ninety-three people on the payroll burning through cash. His partner Maxim Brody had called him from Los Angeles last night, very kindly at 1 a.m., to tell him about the new problem.

Quite a big problem, actually.

The whole production was going to fall over in three days’ time if their backer, Californian internet billionaire Aaron Zvotnik, didn’t come up with the money he had promised. And Zvotnik, it was all over the news, was in trouble himself, with a big lawsuit launched against his company by Google for some infringement; his stock had plunged. He had warned Brody he was facing cash calls for his own stock purchases and could no longer guarantee to honour his commitment.

And just how great was that, thought Brooker? At this late stage his and Maxim’s only option was to dig into their own pockets to save the production until they could find a replacement for Zvotnik’s cash. Brooker was almost broke, but Maxim Brody, luckily, had deep enough pockets to keep them going for a few weeks. Long enough, with a star of Gaia’s stature on board, to find someone to bail them out, but it would almost certainly mean going cap in hand to one of the major studios, and being royally screwed.

He stared moodily at the building. It was one of the most extraordinary places he’d ever seen, and as an inveterate traveller, he’d seen a lot. It was the only building that measured up, in his memory, to the Taj Mahal. Although, to be fair, he’d only seen that at 6 a.m. with a blinding hangover and stomach-cramps from diarrhoea.

The Pavilion was designed in the style of an ornate Indian temple, completely over the top, like some vast, garish wedding cake. Yet it worked, it was quite stunning and majestic, and the interior, decorated with an equally exotic and lavish chinoiserie, was even more extravagant. Developed from a farmhouse in 1787 by the Prince Regent as a seaside retreat for trysts with his mistress – and later his secret wife – Mrs Maria Fitzherbert, the Royal Pavilion was designed and expanded for several decades afterwards by John Nash. It was the defining icon of the city of Brighton and Hove, and one of England’s most famous landmarks.

To his relief, Jack Jordan and his entourage were now moving inside, out of the rain. When Larry Brooker had put his first movie together, twenty-five years ago, he’d seen himself living the LA dream. Within a few years, he had planned, he would have his mansion in Bel Air, his fuck-off yacht on the French Riviera, and his private jet. But it hadn’t worked out that way. He’d made a decent living so far, and would be a rich man if such a big chunk hadn’t gone up his nose and an even bigger chunk to his ex-wives. He felt like he was on a constantly nerve-racking ride, but as yet he was not playing in the league he’d hoped for, and if this film did collapse his and Brody’s reputations would be in tatters. They had to keep it going somehow.

A security guard nodded at them. Brooker followed his director and crew along a corridor and into the Banqueting Room. As he looked around him, he decided that if this movie became the global smash hit they anticipated, he would build himself a dining room in that Bel Air mansion that was a replica of this one. It was on a scale that was even more opulent than it looked in the photographs, and so beautifully ornate. He stared in awe at the painted canvas walls, and up at the domed ceiling with its massive centrepiece of plantain leaves in bas-relief, from which hung several immense and fabulous chandeliers.

The central one, the biggest of all, reminded him of a sky-burst firework. It was a good thirty feet high, seemingly held in the claws of the dragon in the apex of the dome. It hung high above a dining table, laid for thirty people, with elaborate candelabra, gold vessels, fine china and crystal goblets.

‘I guess this is where George and Maria had their intimate little dinners,’ the Production Assistant said, with a grin, to Jordan.

Several of them laughed, but not Brooker who was too wrapped up in his thoughts. He was extremely glad they had decided to shoot here on location and that they hadn’t attempted to replicate this room in a studio.