The Buried Circle - Jenni Mills [1]
Lammas, 2005
‘I don’t want to do it,’ I said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. The shots will be fantastic. You’ll love it. Unless you’d like us to use someone else on the series?’
The usual blackmail. If you’re experienced enough to do the job, you can say no. If you’re not quite twenty-five, and desperate to claw a foothold in television, you’ll do anything. I made one last pathetic attempt to get him to change his mind. ‘Seriously, Steve, I’ve never filmed like this before. I’m not properly trained. If this was the BBC, the hazard-assessment form would have it flagged up as a major risk.’
‘There’s a harness, Indy. You’ll be strapped in.’
‘My legs’ll be dangling.’
‘What’s happened to your balls?’
‘My balls, if I had any, would be dangling too.’
So, my legs are dangling. My non-existent testicles are dangling. My bum, perched on the edge of the open helicopter door, has gone entirely numb. Below me is–well, if I were a proper cameraman I’d be better at judging these things, but I’d say a good six or seven hundred feet of nothing. Below that is hard Wiltshire chalk, with a skimpy dressing of ripening barley. The helicopter’s shadow races across it, a tiny black insect dwarfed by the bigger shadows of the clouds.
Steve, crouched behind me, taps me on the shoulder. I turn my head towards him, very, very carefully, in case even this simple movement unbalances me and I go tumbling out to become another shadow on the chalk. He’s saying something, but the wind and the noise of the rotors snatch his voice away. He makes cupping motions with his hands by his ears.
He wants me to put the earphones on so I can hear him–he’s wearing a set with a microphone attached. Like I have, too, only mine are round my neck and not on my ears yet, and to put them on I’m going to have to let go of my death-grip on the door frame.
With both hands.
I send a signal from brain to fingers to unprise themselves. Nothing happens. Fingers know better than brain what’s sensible. They’re going to stay firmly locked onto something solid, thank you very much, until someone hauls me back safely into the interior of the helicopter and there’s no more of this dangling.
Steve taps me on the shoulder again. Maybe if I try just one hand at a time?
My left thumb, fractionally more adventurous than the rest of my hand, comes free. Right. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Clear proof it is possible to move and not fall out of the helicopter. In fact, now my thumb’s no longer involved, the fingers are really not doing that much to secure me, so I might manage to let go altogether that side…
Very good, Indy, but one hand doesn’t seem to be much help getting the headset onto my ears. All I’ve achieved is to get my hair into my eyes. Should have tied it back more securely. The headset has knocked the pins outs. I can’t see. Perfect moment for the helicopter to bank and drop down towards Pewsey Vale.
Oh, God, I’m going to fall out…
Steve’s hands gripping my ribs, hot breath in my ear. ‘Let GO!’ he yells, practically rupturing my eardrum. The shock loosens the other hand. ‘I’ve GOT you.’ His arm snakes round my waist. ‘Now put the flicking headset on.’
‘OK.’ Not that he can hear me until I do. I could spout a stream of hangover-distilled vitriol and the wind would whip it straight out of my mouth into nowhere. ‘I hate you, you spotty little toilet-mouth. I despise the fact you walked straight out of a media-studies degree and into a job as a producer just because your father was a foreign correspondent for ITN, while I’ve had to spend two years hoovering the coke off the edit-suite floor. I loathe that you get to tell me what to do, although I’m the more experienced of the two of us and you’re far and away the biggest twerp I’ve yet met in my admittedly not extensive media career. In fact, right now, because you made me do this horrible, scary thing, I’d be delighted if you leaned over too far and tipped yourself out of the bloody aircraft.’
Of course, I never would say it, don’t really mean it (not all of it, anyway), but imagining it has made