I’m about to say quite a lot of things when I catch Simon’s eye. He looks so appalled by the prospect of me coming to his defence that I say, ‘Just clearing my throat.’
‘How good of you to share,’ says Bernard. But he moves on to another topic.
By the time we take a break for lunch, my head is genuinely wrecked. Although when I say we take a break for lunch, this break is announced by Bernard looking at his watch at five to one and then walking out without a word.
‘See you back here in an hour, folks!’ says Susan brightly.
Everyone looks almost as stressed as I feel as they slowly make their way out of the room. Most of the staff – including Art, I presume – head to the canteen building, but I grab a sandwich from the vending machine on the ground floor, make a coffee in the kitchen and head back to my office. I want to go through my scene-by-scene properly. Also I don’t feel ready to face the dirty looks from the rest of theNorthsideteam in the canteen.
It’s actually quite nice in the bright little office. I open the window and start working my way through the documents, taking notes as I go. The story team has done a great job making up for Amanda and Joe’s absence. In the first episode of the block, the viewer will see long-lost sister Louisa arriving on the street at night. She looks up at Joe and Amanda’s window, where the couple can be seen in silhouette (easy to fake without the actors). Amanda and Joe are never seen again, killed off-screen by Louisa.
In the next episode Louisa tells everyone she’s an old friend of Amanda’s who’s looking after her apartment while she and Joe are on a last-minute trip to Paris. But Amanda’s uncle Paddy Cusack gradually starts to suspect Louisa has something to do with the couple’s disappearance. Then he spots Amanda’s trademark earrings in Louisa’s bag, stained with blood. Louisa hits him with her car before he can tell anyone, leaving him in a coma. And that’s where Ritchie comes in.
Paddy’s son Ritchie was a kid back in my regularNorthside-viewing days. But I know from my research that he’s now a proper heartthrob, a loveable rogue who’s broken the hearts of half the young women (and at least one young man) of Charlemont Street. He’s desperate to find out who caused his dad’s accident, and he’s increasingly worried about his cousin Amanda, who isn’t responding to calls. In my episode, Ritchie tearfully tells his comatose father he has no idea who could be behind it all. Paddy briefly wakes up from the coma and breathes Louisa’s name to a shocked Ritchie before falling back into unconsciousness. Then Ritchie confronts Louisa and she drugs and kidnaps him.
Murder, kidnapping, a coma – even with the murders happening off-screen, it’s a classic juicy soap story with exciting implications for future plots and an impressive action scene in the kidnapping. If I had more than three weeks to write a final draft from scratch, I’d be utterly thrilled. But as it is, the challenge seems almost overwhelming. This really,reallyisn’t how I want to start myNorthsidecareer. What if I mess it up? What if I fail my trial period? What if …?
Stop that, I tell myself.You handled the Tony Barton murder rewrites and you had to do that on the day of the shoot. Yes, it just involved cutting a minor character from a couple of scenes, notwriting an entire episode, but the principle was basically the same. You had to write something filmable at very short notice. You can handle this. It’ll be fine. Of course it’ll be fine.
Won’t it?
Louisa, Paddy and Ritchie have the A-story but of course there are other storylines this fortnight, and I need to go through them all in order to write my episode. I eat my sandwich and make more notes and nearly an hour later I’m so immersed in the stories I get a real jolt when the door of the office opens and Art walks in.
‘How was the canteen?’ I say, because I might as well try to be polite.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I didn’t get lunch there.’
Hmm, maybe he didn’t want to face our unfriendly colleagues either.
He takes his jacket off and says, ‘Are you all right?’
Despite myself, I’m touched by his concern.
‘I’m okay,’ I say. ‘It’s … well, it’s quite intense, isn’t it?’
‘Your eyes went all black and scary when they were going through that last script,’ says Art. ‘I thought you were going to jump across the desk and strangle Bernard. It was kind of terrifying.’
Oh great, he’s not looking out for me. He’sscaredof me.
‘I wasn’t going to strangle him!’ I say. ‘I’ve never strangled anyone.’ That sounds like I’m protesting too much. ‘It was the way he was talking to that guy Simon. It made me really angry. It was so … unnecessary.’
‘I agree,’ says Art. ‘But you’ve got to pick your battles. You can tell if someone can look after themselves, and Simon could handlehimself this morning. Besides, Bernard is probably just having a bad day.’
‘God, I hope so,’ I said. ‘If this is one of his good ones, we’re all in trouble.’
‘Look, we can’t judge the job on today’s drama,’ says Art calmly. ‘It’s obviously a mad week for everyone.’
Maybe he’s right. Maybe Iamblowing this all out of proportion. Maybe it’s just bad luck that I’ve turned up at such a difficult time for the show, and things will calm down when this crisis is over.
Wow, is Art Sullivan actually giving me good advice?
Then he says, ‘And besides, there’s no point in taking it all so seriously. I mean, we’re making a crappy low-budget Irish soap opera, not an A24 Sundance contender.’
Ah, there he is! That’s the snob I remember.
‘Thanks for the reminder,’ I say. ‘Good thing I have inner-city street urchin Art Sullivan here to keep me grounded.’
Art looks affronted. ‘I’ll have you know,’ he says, ‘my great-grandfather was a docker from the North Strand.’