‘Shall we go outside? It’s so hot today.’
Oh goody-goody, I’m going to get a nice cold glass of something. Sure enough, out on the terrace, the table is already set with a bottle in a terracotta cooler and two glasses. David is an excellent host.
‘This is a Domaine Servin chablis,’ he says. ‘Not one of ours, of course, but it’s a tolerable vintage for a sweltering afternoon.’
‘I adore chablis,’ I reply. I do. And chardonnay, and châteauneuf, and champagne, and anything he wants to pour down my throat. He hands me a vessel as delicate as Cinderella’s slipper, filled with heaven’s juice. Taking that first, luscious sip, I sigh, soaking up the glorious view of the valley. This is the life. If only David wasn’t already married, he might want to marry me and make me lady of this manor. But I’ve met his wife Isabelle, who is also charming in a fragile, ethereal way, as breakable as this glass. I can’t imagine her stamping on grapes, whereas I would get stuck in. I’d make David a fine wife.
‘So, I gather Vincent has spoken to you about my concerns?’
I rearrange my face in a serious expression. ‘Yes, I came down as soon as I heard. What can we do to reassure you?’
David pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘I’m not sure,’ he says eventually. ‘I was a trifle perturbed anyway, but then I watched that . . . that meat thing.’
There was no television in the portrait parlour, so he must have a secret lolling room after all. Why on earth did he choose to watch Oz’s telly guff, of all things?
‘Would Like to Meat? But Oswald’s show is an entirely different genre,’ I say. ‘That was a reality series, whereas ours is a formatted documentary.’ People always hear the word documentary and think high-brow. Sure enough, David nods encouragingly.
‘Yes, of course, and you were saying your director . . .?’
Last time, I waxed less than lyrical about Tristram because I didn’t want to overegg the pudding. But now it’s time for lashings of egg.
‘It’s no exaggeration to say he’s one of the true greats,’ I say. ‘Right up there with Jackson Bezalel, Teresa-Ann Sutcliffe, Samuel J. Allen . . .’ He won’t have heard of any of them, because I’d guess that, unlike Danny the driver, he watches very little television – probably just listens to Front Row, and only watched Oz’s show for research because he had the jitters. If he were to look them up, he’d find out that they’re mighty filmmakers, and way out of Tristram’s league, but he won’t, because in about five minutes’ time, his mind will be at rest, and he won’t need to.
‘Last of the Summer Vine is a truly great opportunity to share Chew Hill with the nation, show the public the backbreaking work and expertise involved in creating world-class English wines.’ I’m pleased with the bullshit title I’ve just come up with though there’s no way we’d be allowed to call it that – it’ll probably end up being called something shouty and on-the-nose like Binge-Drinkers’ Vineyard or Good Drunk, Bad Drunk. ‘With a renowned director on board, and a cutting-edge independent production company behind it, this show has the potential to be a breakout hit.’ I take a gulp of my wine; delicious. ‘The channel heads are already talking about awards. BAFTA, Rose d’Or, maybe even an Emmy . . .’ That’s going to be a major talking point at future Lyon-James dinner parties, I’m sure.
‘It does all sound rather impressive,’ says David, taking a pensive sip. ‘You’re very persuasive, I must admit, but . . .’
But what? Just pocket the location fee and spend it on more noble grapes or trellises or whatever. David obviously isn’t short of a bob or two, but in my experience rich people always want to be richer and no vintage bouquet is as aromatic as the smell of hard cash.
‘What about the, er, youngsters who’ll be staying here?’ His brow wrinkles. ‘Izzy is worried they’ll be . . . high-spirited.’
That’s one way of putting it. One of the ‘youngsters’ we’ve cast likes to drink a four-pack of Diamond White prior to a night on the town. Then it’s beers at the local, followed by Goldschläger shots in a club called ‘Dixy’s Lyrix’, rounded off with kebabs and a tactical vomit before bed. Izzy’s going to have the biggest migraine of her life.
I press David’s arm reassuringly. ‘I understand absolutely, but we have a wealth of experience in finding contributors for upmarket documentary formats like this. Our casting producers have found a wonderfully diverse group of young people who are eager to learn all they can about vinification and your successful business here. Think of it as having a team of unpaid work experience students!’ The yummy wine is going down very easily, and I’m absolutely nailing this.
‘And I suppose your vetting process is rigorous?’
I nod solemnly. ‘We cast very carefully.’ That much is true. We have to cast incredibly carefully to hit that sweet spot of contributors who are borderline insane enough to be entertaining, without actually being certifiable. Our psych evaluations are on a knife-edge. If only I’d known it was this easy, to say what needs to be said, what people need to hear, without a care in the world. I’m even starting to believe it myself. Maybe we will win an Emmy.
David sits back, cradling his glass in his palm. ‘Well, I know about the director, who sounds terrific, and I know about your very talented casting team, but there’s one more thing I’d like to know.’
‘Of course!’ I beam, ready to lay it on with a trowel. I’m prepared to say that Caroline is the industry’s most dedicated series producer, Vince is a TV guru, and Red Eye is the UK’s most dynamic, ground-breaking indie. I’ll tell him the cameras we use are made of gold.
‘I’d like to know about you, Clover. You’re the mother of this show. Tell me about yourself.’
22
I got my second job in television via the first. That’s often how it happens – word of mouth, recommendations, ears to the ground. So, a producer on Ghostly Goings On put me in touch with someone in HR at the production company, who found me another show they were making, and the producer of that show found me another, and before I knew it, I was a working junior researcher specializing in the paranormal. I met a lot of psychics, who were mostly useless apart from one who told me to look under the bed for the missing item – I found a pair of socks which weren’t necessarily missing, but which were useful all the same. I met many, many people who believed they’d been taken by UFOs, which only led me to wonder why aliens choose to abduct such dim specimens, and don’t look further afield for superior samples of the human race, like Barack Obama or Paul Rudd. I attended several séances, and found it extremely hard to stop myself giggling and disrupting the spirit communication. Everyone (living) was so earnest, and all the mediums wore scarves and big earrings.
It might seem strange that such a resolute non-believer would find herself in this murky sphere, but firstly, it was really good fun, and secondly, a deeper part of me wanted to be proved wrong. I wanted to believe, to be convinced that there was something else out there beyond my basement flat and fractious calls from my mother. Maybe one day a medium would help me make sense of it all, or a ghost would at least prove death wasn’t the end. All the hokum gave me hope.
By early 2001, I was a researcher (no longer junior) finding contributors for a show called Bump in the Night, which was about people doing house renovations who were finding disturbing things behind plasterwork, or having their home makeover disrupted by unwelcome apparitions. It was a difficult job, because it loaded extra layers on the casting process – house refurbs AND supernatural claptrap. Plus, Susie wasn’t there any more, having picked up a gig on Songs of Praise – one of the resident exorcists on Ghostly Goings On was also a vicar who asked for her number. She was busy finding bell ringers to take part in some competition they were running, and had developed tinnitus as a result. Whenever I called her, she just shouted down the phone about how the reverend was a real letch, but couldn’t hear anything I said in reply.
So, this time round I was on my own, pretty much, touring the country by train and in taxis, trying to find fixer-uppers fed up with their phantoms. I was also writing treatments for the production company, Beatnik Media, and found I’d started talking in the same style when I pitched the show, using a lot of alliteration on doorsteps. Because I was often crippled with embarrassment, I’d write myself a little script to parrot, to stop myself stammering and petering out on the phone, and it carried on when I got over the threshold, a steady format-patter that ensured there were no awkward silences or tricky questions.
Luckily, I hit the jackpot early on, finding a couple who were renovating an old vicarage outside Chipping Norton and had encountered all sorts of freaky things. Re-laying the lawn, they’d discovered a strange air raid shelter in the garden which led to a network of dripping tunnels. When they started converting the attic, they found a crawl space which may or may not have been a priest hole, but had unnerving child-like drawings on the walls. Finally, they were pretty sure there was a partition in the cellar that led to a hidden room. I’d persuaded them to let us film them knocking it through, just in case there was anything juicy behind it. I was very pleased with myself for securing them, and it made up for the lacklustre semi in Woking whose loft renovation had unearthed a mysterious locked box labelled ‘Do Not Open’ which, when we filmed them opening it, turned out to be completely empty. Mysterious, but not in an interesting way. As my series producer, Sharon, said, ‘That’s two minutes’ footage, max. Move on.’
The vicarage rapidly became the focus of the show, as more and more ghoulish stuff started happening. One of the garden’s underground tunnels had a pentacle drawn on the wall, and when the builders knocked through the house’s cellar partition, they found an old iron bed behind it, which really freaked everyone out, and when we researched the history of the site, it turned out that one of the previous residents was a vicar called Humphrey Ecclestone, who killed his entire family, followed by himself, in one of the bedrooms. The new owners, Jillian and Edgar, were no longer as keen on their new property after that. They were renting a cottage in the nearby town while they did the works, and decided to put the vicarage back on the market, so then the story became them trying to find a buyer for their creepy-as-fuck house. By this point, the entire staff of Beatnik Media were obsessed, all angling to come up and have a poke around. Personally, I didn’t ever see anything spooky there, but there was no doubt the place had a bad feeling. The best way of describing it was there was a sort of echo. Like the silence after an unearthly scream. But I’m aware that sounds fanciful to the point of foolish.
By the time the series was finally finished that October when I’d just turned twenty-six, we’d filmed in a number of ‘hair-raising half-finished haunted houses’ across the country. Jill and Eddie had managed to find a (mad as a hatter) buyer and we decided to have our wrap party in the empty Ecclestone vicarage with its spooky dripping tunnels. Because, you know, telly people. They’re absolutely nuts. The production co-ordinator arranged for a load of booze to be delivered and everyone turned up in Halloween fancy dress. Nowadays, wrap parties are much tamer affairs – like the viewing for Blind Dinner Date would be tonight, just a few drinks and nibbles laid on as you show everyone a teaser trailer or the rough cut of an ep – but in those days they went large. They were different times, a culture of excess and devil-may-care that filtered down through the ranks until everyone was frothing on MDMA. Vince, for all his foot-in-mouth tendencies, is a pretty benign figure compared to what I saw going on at Beatnik.
It got out of hand pretty quickly, that night. Production can be intense, and everyone wanted to let their hair down, even if it involved shutting each other in the dripping air raid tunnels or coming out of the Bad Bedroom sniffing and rubbing their gums. A group of creatives were trying to play spin the bottle with a supernatural twist, waiting for the bottle to spin on its own, and just snogging each other randomly. I passed a couple of interns who were looking for the iron bed so they could shag on it. All around were the sounds of yells and cackling laughter – Humphrey Ecclestone would probably have been in his element. Maybe he was in there somewhere, dropping an E and groping a researcher.
And me? I was pretty pissed, obviously, but didn’t go in for any of that stuff. Too strait-laced, and worried about the consequences. When I was about fourteen, I read the Sweet Valley High book where Regina the former deaf girl does a line of coke and instantly dies of a heart attack, and knew that kind of scenario was my destiny. Stay out of trouble, Clover. Be a good girl, like my mother told me. I thought that if I behaved myself then everything would be OK, I wouldn’t get into trouble. And yet . . .
Later, the vicarage was still lit up like a jack-o-lantern when I stumbled away into my taxi. I went back to the hotel we were all staying in, curled up with a hot water bottle to read Atonement, and tried to forget all about it. The twin towers had just fallen, the world was changing, everything was a mess, ruined, ruined. It couldn’t be fixed, a fire that couldn’t be put out. Before I turned the lights off, I put a chair against the locked door, checked the windows were secure and got back into bed. There I was, tucked up, safe and sound. Move along. Nothing to see here.
* * *
I realize it’s been a while since David asked me the question, and I haven’t said anything, just gazed down the valley and on, to the clear horizon beyond.
‘Well?’ he says. ‘Tell me your story.’
I gulp my wine. ‘Not much to tell. I’m very boring, I’m afraid.’
‘Surely not,’ he says, gently. ‘With wine, I can glean so much just by looking. I don’t even have to taste it. The hue, for example. Did you know, the colour of a wine comes from contact with the grape skins after the grapes have been juiced? The longer the wine comes into contact with the skins, the more they will impart their colour on the wine. The skins have their own characteristics, just like the zest of an orange has a stronger flavour, or an apple skin contains more fibre. The longer the skin of a grape is in contact with the wine, the more of its own characteristics it imparts.’
I don’t think we’re discussing wine any more, but I don’t know what he’s talking about, or how I’m supposed to respond, so I just look at him.
