Casting horses

One night, over the summer, we were down at The Bridge Inn, necking pear cider (well, I was) at a ferocious rate. At some point in the evening I recall talking to a local lad who had just finished his A levels. He was going to take a gap year before going to film college (though he was so talented he’d already been offered jobs).

‘Hey, Conor,’ I slurred. ‘You know what? You could do a film trailer for my book, Samael.’ I vaguely remembered foisting my email and the URL of my blog onto him and, come the next morning, I was wincing at the memory.

‘God, what must he think of me?’ I wailed to Adrian. ‘I’m sure he’s got much better things to do.’
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Adrian replied. ‘You were so wrecked, he probably didn’t take you seriously anyhow.’

But he did. He had researched the book trailers that are already ‘out there’ and gave them all a distinct thumbs down. ‘Rubbish,’ he said, decisively. ‘We can do much better than that. How about I and my mate Guy come over and talk it through?

So there we were, around my kitchen table, discussing actors and locations and key scenes from the book. ‘It’s so cinematic,’ said Conor. ‘I could see every scene as I read it,’ agreed Guy. ‘The problem is going to be choosing which scenes to leave out.’

They quizzed me minutely. Did I have a specific house in mind for Borthwelm? Was the ford at Shadowcombe based on a particular place? Exactly what colour hair does Gen have? What kind of motorbike does Samael ride? Which part of the moor would Gen and Zeke be galloping over? Did I reckon Guy would work for my vision of Samael, the demon/angel? With contact lenses, of course. Oh yes, absolutely.

Conor seemed particularly keen on putting poor Guy through the mill. ‘That scene where Samael flings himself at Gen’s window in the storm,’ he said. ‘That would be amazing, with water pouring down your face  of course,’ he grinned at Guy who looked, bizarrely, totally enthusiastic. ‘Oooh, and the bit where the hand comes up through the water at the ford...you’d do that, wouldn’t you?’

Guy nodded happily and, much as I hated to rain (ahem) on their parade, I had to remind them that, actually, it’s a female hand that does the coming up through the flood waters. And a female head that is hacked off with a spade.  They looked vaguely disappointed.  

But, undeterred they discussed the mad gallop across the moor. I could feel myself starting to get the bit between my teeth (sorry) – it had to be a large bay gelding and a neat chestnut mare. Ye gods, was I really starting to cast the horses? For a book that hasn’t even got a publishing deal yet?  This had to be the most insane case of putting the cart before the (last pun, I promise) horse.

Yet, as we discussed it, it started taking on a life of its own. The wonderful thing was that, listening to them, I remembered that (despite the rejections it’s had so far) it IS a darn good book. More than 100 teen readers (and several hundred adults) can’t all be wrong surely? But I felt honour-bound to warn the boys that there was no deal in sight as yet.

They didn’t seem remotely fazed. ‘It’ll happen,’ said Conor cheerily, scribbling down more key scenes on his pad. ‘If it doesn’t – we’ll just have to make the full-length film instead.’

Can’t argue with that.

Ghosts

Oh I just give up! We had feedback from our two viewings on Saturday. The first turned us down because we don’t have enough land. The second because we don’t have enough bedrooms. OK, fine – good valid reasons, but why can’t they read?? The property details say really clearly that we have ten acres and that we have five bedrooms. Surely it’s not rocket science to figure out that ten acres won’t house your huge herd of beef cattle or that you won’t fit your family plus aged parent into the bedrooms we’ve got? What do they think will happen? That, by some weird miracle, by the time they get here to view we will have decided to buy an extra forty acres or so? Or that the morning they decide to view we’ll have woken up to find – gosh, what a surprise – the bedroom fairy has been and tacked another one on the end of the house?

Sorry, this is a huge rant but I do just get so cross. We raced back in order to tidy up the house. We ate sandwiches rather than have the smell of cooking permeating through the house. We locked ABSO Jack in the car for two hours. OK, so that’s our choice but really – what’s the point?

In fact I got so cross with the whole affair that I lost the plot a bit earlier this morning. Jack was going totally bananas which alerted me to the fact that there was a Landrover sidling up the drive. It got to the stables, turned round and headed back down the drive. Right, I thought, that’s it! Bloody househunters! Convinced it was someone having a sneaky look. OK, that’s fine, but if the householder catches you at it, surely it’s only polite to explain what you’re about? So I stood there, in my slippers, shouting, ‘Hello! What’s going on?’
Absolutely no response. Landrover halted down by the far field gate. Brake lights went off.
Then, OK, did a bit of jumping up and down and a bit of fist-waving. Awful but true.
Then, horrible dawning realisation: it was our neighbour, coming to bring feed for Murphy who’s turned out in our field. Face goes bright red. Fortunately he’s profoundly deaf so probably won’t have heard a word. Please God he’s getting short-sighted too – or I’ll never live down the leaping up and down.

On a cheerier note, that reminds me of our old house and old neighbour. We used to live on the Somerset Levels in a gorgeous old Georgian rectory (well, a chunk of it). We could only afford it as it had been carved into two and the old tennis court had been sold off for a building plot (so sad as it lost us our view). Our neighbour in the new house built on it was a bit of a nightmare – one of those people who always know best and feel the urge to tell you how to do everything. He’d hang over the fence when Adrian was mowing the lawn and give him tips on how to mow – and then (even more offensive to my dear real ale snob of a husband) offer him a can of Fosters!
Anyhow, one Christmas Adrian bought me a slide – one of those short-lived aerobic crazes that they hoped would follow on from step. You put on slippery overshoes and basically slid backwards and forwards along this mat. Actually it was good fun and damn good exercise. I had mine behind the large sofa in the living room and one day I was merrily whooshing from side to side when I noticed our neighbour looking over the fence. He caught sight of me and I waved a little ‘hello, yes I know you’re there now please leave me in peace’ wave….but he stood there with his eyes popping out.

A few days later I bumped into him and he gave me a weird look.
‘What’s up? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ said I helpfully.
‘Um. How do you do that weird sliding thing?’ he asked. ‘I saw you in your living room and one moment you were at one end of your sofa and the next you were up the other…..it was like you were on ice – how d’you do it?’
Tempting to say I could fly – but I took pity on him and came clean.

Talking of ghosts, I have to say that that particular Rectory was very weird. I never actually saw anything but it had a definite feeling. And there was one place on the stairs where something (?) always tried to trip you up. It was so uncanny. It was a huge wide staircase and there was no loose carpet or anything yet, if you didn’t pay attention, you’d nearly find yourself pitching down the stairs. Everyone who stayed said it was spooky and one night we had a hilarious farce. My friend Nicky was staying in one of our spare bedrooms. I couldn’t sleep and so decided to go through to the other spare room (next to Nicky) and read. I lay down, got out my book and then heard this awful dragging sound, like something being hauled across the room. It scared the hell out of me, and I spent the whole night half-awake wondering what would happen next.

Next morning at breakfast Nicky looked as rough as me.
‘I couldn’t sleep a wink,’ she said. ‘I thought there were burglars, so I hauled the tallboy across the door. But then I kept hearing sounds from the room next door but I knew nobody was sleeping there…..’

OK, now I’ve cheered myself up a bit. While I’ve been writing this Murphy has been galloping and bucking his way up the hill looking very frisky. I shall try to harness some of his energy when I go to the gym this afternoon!