magazine we sent you?’
Cotsworld? Grayle rocks back. This is that room…?
In the magazine picture, hazy candlelight is reflected in milky old window panes. Shivers up the velvet drapes and the wall hangings. Touches the chairs you want to sink into and the chairs just for looking at. The wall-wide tapestries, all deep reds, lions and fauns and unicorns. The portraits of Tudor ladies looking stoical and innocent, maybe with a view to keeping their heads.
In the photo, there’s a mature fire in the ingle, reddened logs like open thighs. And, in front of it, half-smiling, demurely on a velvet cushion, with the flames around her out of focus like an aura… Trinity Ansell, her hair loose around her shoulders, her full lips parted.
Grayle’s shocked. It’s the same fireplace, dead. The same fat oak lintel, its underside smoke-blackened, greasy-looking. On the hearth below, a layer of cold wood-ash is congealed like old volcanic lava. She recalls Lisa on the frustrations of Mrs Stringer, the housekeeper: things would get messed about … Things would get dirty, very quickly .
Leo Defford walks across to the wall opposite the windows, which is all dark wood, thick slanting timbers like a huge wooden radiator, bleached in places to the colours of old bone. This is not panelling, too rough and must be a couple inches thick.
‘Originally ships’ timbers. Sixteenth century. Farmhouses were cobbled together in those days from what you could salvage. Wood from old ships, stones from abandoned castles and abbeys, that kind of thing. Now…’ Defford’s peering into the shadows. ‘Look at this.’
An elbow comes back and he suddenly stabs a forefinger at the wall of iron-hard oak, hard enough to splinter bones. Grayle gasps as the finger vanishes, up to the third knuckle.
An unexpected sliver of sun from one of the windows finds Defford’s earring and the momentary relief on his face before he hides it with a laugh. He’s wiggling his finger around in the hole. This looks to Grayle to be absurdly sexual, and maybe Defford realizes this; he grins.
‘Not a knothole, more like where a peg used to be. They’re all over the place. Holes in the walls, gaps and old splits in the beams. Which is terrific. Drilling our own might well bring us into conflict with the Listed Buildings guys, and we don’t need that kind of attention. Besides…’ He taps the oak. ‘Not easy drilling through this.’
‘No.’
In Grayle’s former cottage, you needed a jackhammer to hang a picture. But she’s still trying to work this out. The significance of holes.
Defford grunts and quickly pulls out his finger, like someone has tried to grab it from the other side.
‘Good-good,’ he says.
Grayle sighs.
‘Leo—’
‘You’re asking what’s the programme in development? Right, then.’ Slaps his hands together. ‘We have a commission from Channel 4 for a series scheduled for late autumn, to run for a week. Seven or eight editions, ninety minutes, maybe, through midnight.’
‘OK.’
‘You might’ve seen a particular show where people who don’t know one another are locked up together. In a place full of cameras which record all their movements, all their interaction. All their arguments and embarrassment and mutual hostility.’
He waits. For Grayle, the truth starts to dawn, and the dawn is clouded with dismay.
‘The holes are for cameras?’
It’s like he hasn’t heard.
‘These people don’t have much, if anything, in common. And as the days go by they get increasingly annoyed with one another. Talk about the others behind their backs. Scabs get scratched, small disagreements escalate into bitterness, even rage. The atmosphere’s thick with paranoia and insecurity, because they know that their every reaction is being judged by millions of viewers, who—’
‘Mr Defford, are we talking about—?’
‘—who have the power to punish them. The viewers love that. Even more when the people they’re punishing
Cotsworld? Grayle rocks back. This is that room…?
In the magazine picture, hazy candlelight is reflected in milky old window panes. Shivers up the velvet drapes and the wall hangings. Touches the chairs you want to sink into and the chairs just for looking at. The wall-wide tapestries, all deep reds, lions and fauns and unicorns. The portraits of Tudor ladies looking stoical and innocent, maybe with a view to keeping their heads.
In the photo, there’s a mature fire in the ingle, reddened logs like open thighs. And, in front of it, half-smiling, demurely on a velvet cushion, with the flames around her out of focus like an aura… Trinity Ansell, her hair loose around her shoulders, her full lips parted.
Grayle’s shocked. It’s the same fireplace, dead. The same fat oak lintel, its underside smoke-blackened, greasy-looking. On the hearth below, a layer of cold wood-ash is congealed like old volcanic lava. She recalls Lisa on the frustrations of Mrs Stringer, the housekeeper: things would get messed about … Things would get dirty, very quickly .
Leo Defford walks across to the wall opposite the windows, which is all dark wood, thick slanting timbers like a huge wooden radiator, bleached in places to the colours of old bone. This is not panelling, too rough and must be a couple inches thick.
‘Originally ships’ timbers. Sixteenth century. Farmhouses were cobbled together in those days from what you could salvage. Wood from old ships, stones from abandoned castles and abbeys, that kind of thing. Now…’ Defford’s peering into the shadows. ‘Look at this.’
An elbow comes back and he suddenly stabs a forefinger at the wall of iron-hard oak, hard enough to splinter bones. Grayle gasps as the finger vanishes, up to the third knuckle.
An unexpected sliver of sun from one of the windows finds Defford’s earring and the momentary relief on his face before he hides it with a laugh. He’s wiggling his finger around in the hole. This looks to Grayle to be absurdly sexual, and maybe Defford realizes this; he grins.
‘Not a knothole, more like where a peg used to be. They’re all over the place. Holes in the walls, gaps and old splits in the beams. Which is terrific. Drilling our own might well bring us into conflict with the Listed Buildings guys, and we don’t need that kind of attention. Besides…’ He taps the oak. ‘Not easy drilling through this.’
‘No.’
In Grayle’s former cottage, you needed a jackhammer to hang a picture. But she’s still trying to work this out. The significance of holes.
Defford grunts and quickly pulls out his finger, like someone has tried to grab it from the other side.
‘Good-good,’ he says.
Grayle sighs.
‘Leo—’
‘You’re asking what’s the programme in development? Right, then.’ Slaps his hands together. ‘We have a commission from Channel 4 for a series scheduled for late autumn, to run for a week. Seven or eight editions, ninety minutes, maybe, through midnight.’
‘OK.’
‘You might’ve seen a particular show where people who don’t know one another are locked up together. In a place full of cameras which record all their movements, all their interaction. All their arguments and embarrassment and mutual hostility.’
He waits. For Grayle, the truth starts to dawn, and the dawn is clouded with dismay.
‘The holes are for cameras?’
It’s like he hasn’t heard.
‘These people don’t have much, if anything, in common. And as the days go by they get increasingly annoyed with one another. Talk about the others behind their backs. Scabs get scratched, small disagreements escalate into bitterness, even rage. The atmosphere’s thick with paranoia and insecurity, because they know that their every reaction is being judged by millions of viewers, who—’
‘Mr Defford, are we talking about—?’
‘—who have the power to punish them. The viewers love that. Even more when the people they’re punishing
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