-•✦--✦--✦•-
Thursday, May 14th, 1999 — River Medway, Rochester
I rode my royal steed so my boots wouldn't get any dirt on them.
"Go on," I urged, squeezing my legs to make sure the steed understood their master's command.
"I will dunk you in the mud and leave you for the stingers," my steed grumbled back.
My eyes chased a gentleman beside me, red coat, white buckles, shoulder pauldorons and an elongated hat.
"You hear the mouth on horses these days?" I flashed a Cheshire grin, because I was from Cheshire. "Know your place, you vile beast."
Weirdly, the guy in the red coat didn't even bother to acknowledge my observation.
"I hate working with children," Clive said, thoroughly put out beneath me.
Unlike my grandfather, this Clive still had strong knees and, apparently, the fate-weavers had taken offence at that. So if you were looking at it objectively, I was merely their chosen instrument to strike down Clive's joints and restore balance to the universe — or whatever nonsense applied. The camera stayed well back, taking a wide shot here, another there. Act natural, Julian had said and I took it literally. It was a leisurely hike, at least for me, perched comfortably on a piggyback.
The shooting schedule had given me my second night shoot of the entire project and I suppose my entire career. After nine o'clock I wouldn't be allowed to carry on, so they'd sensibly planned several scenes for sunset. Only twenty minutes later, the dying sun slipped away and we were properly in the dark. Hopefully, Julian got some good shots of us that would make it appear that we'd travelled all day and night.
We trudged along the riverbank with nothing but a low moon to light the path.
A station waited at the end of the route, assistant directors, production assistants, grips and even electricians lined up with unlit torches in hand. Clive and I hadn't made this trip alone — our escort was a row of British soldiers in their famous redcoats. They queued neatly to receive torches for every second man and have their muskets checked for every single man.
"Never point it at anyone. Always forty-five degrees. Two hands unless you're holding the torch. Sign here," the armourer repeated, again and again.
"Can't believe we're using real guns," I said, appalled.
"Cheap is good. Good is good," Clive replied, reaching for a musket and being shut down instantly.
It was hard to argue with that logic but it wasn't right that real guns were cheap. Only a few years ago, Bruce Lee's son had been killed by a gun on set. An accident that seemed to have the marks of those who turned the wheel of time. His father had changed an industry and the entire world, all his hard work to pave the way only for his son's life to be snuffed out. In the end, the event only made Bruce Lee's life more mythical and his legacy doubly secure.
If fate-weavers were real, surely one would misfire on me to protect the sanctity of this timeline from my advanced knowledge. Instead, reality I lived in proved grimmer — real weapons were cheaper than rubber imitations when bought in bulk. Life was cheap and humans were the best at killing. If they cared not for that, my shaking the world wouldn't be met with the karmic force. Probably.
"At least give me a torch. I can't see my feet," Clive complained at the desk.
Denied immediately. Only the redcoats were allowed their equipment. Clive still had scenes to shoot in Edinburgh and no one wanted him injured even if it was only a torch. I didn't even bother asking. Children could batter one another senseless on camera, but heaven forbid I held a torch or asked to look at a musket up close. They'd cite insurance bylaws to me but I suppose they saved me from being another Brandon story, so I couldn't really blame them.
"You'll be torch-blind before you find your feet, you old codger," I teased.
"This is why I don't work with children," Clive muttered again. "Torches don't last that long, anyway."
"The moon's doing a wicked job. Reckon it'll be you gone before the torches are out," I shot back.
"No, it'll be you gone when the clock hits nine. I've been counting down the days — awaiting the sweet silence when you disappear," Clive chuckled.
That was the end of our verbal spar. He'd won because I was no longer in the mood. I'd been feeling the lack of people my own age — me, the boy who never liked classmates, actually missing other children. Ridiculous. But even Clive seemed to get it as he let the banter drop. I'd been deliberately needling him because that was what he liked about Dorothea, and later on with Larry. He always complained, but he was unfailingly kind, always watching out for the children on set, always happy to be the butt of a joke. I'd never met a gentler man.
The day itself felt oddly muted. It was meant to be my last one on set, assuming everything went as Julian hoped. If the previous days were anything to go by, we'd wrap on time. I might've credited my improving acting, but the truth was the crew had become a well-oiled machine — packing, unpacking, resetting with quiet efficiency. Somewhere along the way, everything had clicked in place.
If I still felt about Dorothea the way I had at the start, I might've blamed her for slowing things down with her endless questions. That had to have had an effect even if she'd bothered them with a well intention. As it was, Julian seemed to be the reason everyone had found a second wind. Twenty-two shooting days had been planned, excluding Edinburgh, which only the adults would go on to film. Even with weather issues, cancellations and two marsh trips for my opening scene, we somehow found ourselves five days ahead of schedule.
Often I finished my solo scenes faster than allotted, earning me endless praise while the production manager took endless curses for wasting time for having too much dead time slots. Julian, meanwhile, already had his head in Edinburgh, spending most of the day discussing shot compositions for the big city. Today was just another day for most of the crew. If I was feeling more forlorn than usual, I blamed it on Thursday. I never could get a hang of Thursdays.
After what felt like ages, Clive, Bernard and I were placed on our marks for the shot.
"Just stand there and look sad," Julian directed.
Even his instructions had lost their word count. He'd mostly checked out, and the only thing that seemed remotely interesting to him at the moment was the way the moon hung over the still river.
I didn't bother collapsing into Pip for the scene. There were no lines, only a handful of expressions to carry the moment, to blend into the backdrop. Instead, I let my thoughts drift over the whole shoot — the people, the memories. Seventeen days in, and I'd already formed bonds that made leaving feel heavier than it should. Larry would drag me about and make me late to ballet classes with Aurelie, Dorothea would throw small jabs so that I felt I had to stay for the sake of professionalism. In the end, it was their way of hanging out just for a little bit more time. Shame that Larry lived in Kent.
"Very good, you look longing. Exceptional, Wilf. Brilliant." Julian shouted from a distance before running over.
"Okay, everyone. This is big. I want this scene perfectly shot. Make sure to row the boat in time. I'll count out of frame. Don't worry about the sound, we'll foley it all in."
Directors got excited about the oddest little things. Julian really liked night shoots and he really liked to shoot them without lights, which was insane, as everyone had been telling me. Supposedly, there would be enough lights to illuminate Wembley for anything involving night work. Julian didn't work that way. Probably because he hadn't had the money for lights when he'd started out, and at some point it had turned into a stylistic choice.
"It's all about the moon. Look how beautiful it is. Such a lovely blue tone," Julian kept gushing.
It did look beautiful, the shadow of the Paddlestreamer reflecting on the River Medway while the moonlight fractured into what looked like a million stairs as the tiny waves crossed it. The river was beautiful to the eye, but the camera struggled with it, and Julian spent most of my last day indulging his own creativity.
It all felt worth it when he smiled like a child at the end.
"That's wrap for today, and it's wrap for all our extras. Thank you for showing up and muddling through in the dark. Round of applause for everyone."
We clapped along, some more enthusiastically than others. The crew were largely finished with wrap speeches, and it didn't help that most actors seemed to finish on different days. All that is to say that the process had some of the excitement that it used to have.
"It is also the last day for our very own Pip!" Julian said with a flourish.
The cheering was much louder than what the extras had received, though it still felt small compared to the thunderous send-off Dorothea had been given. I'd take it, though.
"Speech, speech, speech!" the calls came.
With a sigh, I stepped up beside Julian. I'd prepared something in advance, but it fizzled out the moment I really looked at everyone around me. Old, young, fat, thin — all different, yet united by the same vision. A good speech praises everyone, or so I decided on the spot.
"Thank you, one and all. You've all been incredibly welcoming and kind. I appreciate all the guidance each of you has given me. Julian Jarrold has a great way of directing every scene, and Clive has been endlessly supportive —"
"Boring!" a man shouted, loud enough to echo on the river. A few others joined in.
Dorothea had sailed through her speech without trouble. I was being heckled — though not cruelly. It was more that very British reflex to deflect sincere praises with noise, a thin shield against embarrassment of being well thought of. If that feels alien to you, maybe you hadn't met a Brit yet.
"Fine, have it your way!" I shot back. "Clive, you mutter when you read. Even kids in my class don't do that. Julian, you walk away from the monitor whenever you need to fart. You think you're fooling us, but you're not. And I saw David with someone who was definitely not his wife — shame upon you."
The crew got hot gossip but got more confused as they wondered which David I was referring to. We had four Davids and one more on today's company of extras. I let my grin turn wicked as I scanned the cast and crew as if searching for my next victim. I didn't have much ammunition, but they didn't need to know that.
"Shall I carry on? You think I see nothing and hear none, but I've got a fine collection of dirty laundry ready to air. The riverbank is the right place for it. Is it not?"
A few people shifted uneasily. Most, however, burst out laughing — teasing, mock outrage, delighted heckling. I chatted absolute nonsense, gobby and shameless, and this they liked far better than the earnest gratitude. If banter was what they wanted, banter was what they'd get. British people, I swear.
"Now, don't smother the child," Julian said, eyes twinkling. "Insurance won't cover him anymore."
"Afraid of lawsuits? Don't worry. I'll only sue you — the production's safe." I warned.
"Wonderful," Julian said, shaking his head. "I should get you on the happy side of the fence. We've brought you a wrap gift."
My hopes lifted. I'd seen the tradition before, though never quite received one in a role of this size. Dorothea had been given her wardrobe — I wasn't expecting much from mine. Some of it barely counted as clothing, but it was Pip, and that mattered. Every character I played would be part of me and a memento seemed just the thing.
"This," Julian said, holding out a small bag, "is your work. Never forget it."
With nearly a hundred pairs of eyes on me, I reached inside and pulled out the gift, staring dumbly as I tried to make sense of it.
"A belt buckle," Julian explained. "Made from the iron you were hammering at the blacksmith's. Your grandmother tells me you've secured a role on a big project. Much like Pip, you're to be a gentleman. But you'll remember where you came from, won't you?"
It was enormous on me — solid iron, thinned just enough to be wearable. The design was an ornate cursive 'D'. Pip's letter. Pip had learned his letters and tried to turn a letter into a design for a buckle. Not that his attempt was anything good, but he'd poured his heart and soul into the metal. It was a symbol of his use of knowledge as a way to better himself. As I thought on it, more parallels seemed to blossom forth.
"There's one more in there," Julian added.
There was — my own attempt, hammered under the blacksmith's careful eye once the cameras had stopped rolling. It was too heavy, nearly solid iron, misshapen and ugly. And it made my eyes sting as I realised what Julian was hinting at.
"Thanks," I said, slipping into a side hug.
Julian looked at me kindly. We'd never been especially close — he was distant by nature — but he'd seen something in me that few people had.
"I don't know what the future holds," he said, gazing out at the Medway, "but if you keep that fire, you'll end up with the same polish as that second buckle. Just make sure you keep hammering at it."
—✦—
Aurélie carried me away from the bustle of the crew dismantling equipment and packing for their trip to Edinburgh. Nain and Grandad were waiting by the car at our latest base camp. My excitable ballet teacher went on and on about how amazing everything had been on a real movie set. She'd said her goodbyes to new friends and somehow managed to get even more emotional than I had at the end. Funny that.
"Ready?" Grandad asked as we gazed at base camp.
"Best not hang about," I said.
"There you are. Wait up." David came jogging over.
Our producer, David Snodin, was out of breath and sweating buckets. When he finally caught us and managed to inhale properly, he wheezed out a request.
"You'll need to get your paperwork sorted. Come on, bring your grandparents."
In a trailer much nicer than everyone else's — apart from our very own Horatio Hornblower — Eve Wheeler was waiting with documents. Normally I wasn't involved in this sort of thing, but apparently today was going to be educational.
"Sorry about this," Eve, the accountant, said. "We've lost some paperwork in all the moving about, some hasn't been faxed, and we don't have copies. Best to sort it now."
"Yes, we'll need a new talent release signed and schedule a few more things." David added.
"Here's a copy." She slid over a document.
Nain took over immediately. She lived for this sort of thing. I read along even though I couldn't sign. Children had no rights after all.
It was standard stuff. David explained it was for insurance and distribution — BBC, in this case. Short and simple of it was that without a signature, the film couldn't be aired while I was on screen. Technically I owned all of my scenes, and signing it would hand over the rights to the BBC and Masterpiece Theatre.
"Thank you," Eve said once Nain had signed after making sure it was match to the last one. "While we're here, could you also sign this?"
"What's this?" Nain asked, sharper than before.
"It's a release for the stills. Masterpiece Theatre is handling home video distribution, and they'd like Wilfred's face on the promotional material and the cover."
"He gets paid for that?" Nain asked sweetly.
"No — they're just stills taken on set. The other release already covers usage."
"Then we don't need this." Nain slid it straight back.
Eve glanced at her boss for backup.
"It's for insurance. Just to make sure everything's above board." He chimed in.
"You mean you don't want us suing you for using his image without permission." Nain didn't miss.
David now looked for divine intervention, but there was no one above him on this particular hill. He was the boss.
"Well, we don't say the S-word around here. But yes — that's basically it."
"That's fine, dear." Nain smiled. "We'll sign it."
"Then why—" David started.
"I just hate it when people scuttle about like rats instead of being upfront about it. I'd wager you never lost those talent releases. You just wanted this signed."
Her nails tapped the contract in rhythm.
David sighed. "Nothing gets past you, does it? That's part of it, yes. But my main ask is this."
He produced another sheet, noticeably thicker than the releases we'd signed.
"It's an agreement for ADR sessions Wilf will need to do. Since you prefer straight talking — here it is. It's a contract that ensures Wilf will record the ADR, if you sign it, great. If not, we'll hire someone else to dub all his lines. He's got a role in America and another in Italy. We'd need a week of availability before September and we can't plan without your promises. Could be a few lines, could be all of it depending on the audio. We'll know after the rough edit."
I appreciated Nain for clocking all this immediately. Experienced old buckle, she was.
"What do you think, Wilf?" Grandad asked.
"I don't want anyone dubbing over my performance," I said in determination.
Nain rubbed her eyes in frustration.
"Next time, Wilf, you refer all of this to Mr Baldini. Let him fleece them, so they don't fleece you." Her voice carried defeat just as much as it did blame.
"Well, we can ask them to talk to him now, can't we?"
"We can… but now they know that you won't allow someone else to do it. Never cede ground because they now hold the vantage."
"Is that why they call it advantage?" David chuckled.
"You stay out of it." Nain pointed her fingers dangerously.
David raised his hands, still grinning.
Oops. I'd been neglecting the money part of the discussion for far too long. Getting my foot in the door had seemed more important than adding more bars. But Julian had said I was moving up in the world. Bigger roles meant bigger pay. Something to keep in mind.
"Send it to Baldini. We'll sign after he looks it over. You know Wilf wants to do it." Nain picked up her bag.
"Safe travels — and thank you for being part of our film," David said as he saw us out.
—✦—
Friday, May 14th, 1999 — River Medway, Rochester
Worries were at the forefront of my mind. Five days weren't that many but every day that passed by without receiving a callback for Billy Elliot made my a bigger ball of nerves. Also, it didn't help that I was off the set, no more carefully scheduled days, no more busy work that I didn't have enough hours in the day to get through it all.
All gone.
Everyone always talked about wrapping a production with sadness and longing. Clive told me that he got over it by being so busy that he couldn't help but prepare for the next. Not many people had his luck at booking jobs, many of the cast told me that sometimes it took over a year before they booked another role.
It was hard to feel sorry when I had two projects on the way. So to get over not being busy on set and to stop making my Nain's life hell, I decided to dive into the pile of work that I'd been setting away.
The first task was needling Grandad until he finally agreed to drive us to a church with a proper choir. He'd spent half our time in London clocking steeples and poking his head through ancient holy doors — if anyone knew where to find the right place, it was him.
"I want the inside to look like the Duomo," I said, leaning over the table. "It's only for a tape, but it needs to look as close to the real thing as possible."
"Nothing looks like the Duomo." Grandad snorted into his tea. "And didn't Franco say it probably wouldn't be possible anyway?"
"He did. But you know what he's like — fingers in every pie. Big senator and all that." I waved off his concerns. "Can you do it or not?"
"Course I can." He took another forkful of laverbread. "Who d'you think you're talking to? When d'you want it?"
"Monday or maybe Tuesday. Whichever day they've got the fewest people inside and a rehearsal going on. Mum and I fly Wednesday."
"You're busy both days," Nain cut in, without even looking up.
"Ugh." I slumped back in my chair.
For the first time ever, I was actually going to have to attend the school I was technically enrolled in. End-of-year exams. Apparently it mattered that they had proof I wasn't quietly failing everything while being tutored on sets. Sensible for ordinary children. Catastrophic for my timetable.
"Can't we just do it all in one go?" I tried. "I'll sit the exams back to back."
Nain gave me a look.
"They're not private tutors you can cart round the country and discard when you're done. And what you did to Aurélie wasn't fair."
"I didn't do anything," I protested. "We paid her properly. She'd have done it just for the novelty of being on set and travelling 'round England."
"Maybe so," Nain said evenly. "But not everyone will put up with that. Sally wasn't pleased."
I seized on that line of conversation.
"Speaking of Sally — I need her again. Marge came out with half a dictionary of words I barely understood. I think I've got the accent down, but there's loads of slang in that dialect."
Grandad threw both hands in the air.
"Now you've done it. He won't hear another word until we book her."
Nain pursed her lips thoughtfully.
"Perhaps it's time for some firm parenting. Erin's been far too soft. A beating might be in order, Lord knows you've earned it. Where's the belt buckle?"
I stared at her.
She held it for a second — then cracked. Grandad burst out laughing, and I realised I'd been played, yet again. I didn't think she'd actually beat me but at the same time she could do a really dangerous stare. Something to note and keep in my back pocket.
The conversation carried on around the table, though I'd checked out of it entirely. Plates clinked, tea was poured, they laughed — it all blurred into background noise. Maybe a bit of time off was exactly what I needed.
I could go and see Gilles. Show him what I'd been working on. Ballet mixed with tap — clean lines meeting hard rhythm. It was good. Really good. Proper wizardry if there was ever one. And if he hated it, at least I'd get the quiet satisfaction of watching his face as I pissed all over purity that was ballet. That alone was worth the effort. Better than sitting here chewing over what may not happen.
I needed to practise my singing as well. Learning a new song always brought its own kind of excitement, especially this one. It lived on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum from what was required of Tommy. No bright smiles, no happy-go-lucky. This was grief, held low in the chest sung entirely in head voice. I'd have to let the sadness show — let people feel Luca Innocenti's ache, the hollow longing for a mother he'd never known.
A look could tell half a story. Eyes could do even more. But singing gave me another layer altogether.
And layers were on my mind.
Collapse was still new and unpolished. Singing in character might help push it further, help me reach those nested layers that kept slipping through my fingers.
Today, I'd practise.
Tomorrow, I'd record.
After that, I'd film.
Layers to my acting. Strings to my bow. Buckles on my belt.
I sat back slightly in my chair, feeling the shape of the plan settle into place.
I liked the sound of it.
The sound of music.