Read by Sarah Feathers
‘Prologue: 2084. The Americans have wasted all the shale gas. President Cash allows mercenary conglomerate FrackULike to drill in geologically dodgy regions, like close to the Yellowstone Caldera – you know, this enormous, fomenting mass of pressured lava that’s been overdue to erupt for a million years. The experts—’
‘OK. I get it, you’ve got the end of the world wrapped before the opening credits. But give me the human interest – and what did you say your name was?’
‘Isabel,’ I say coolly, drawing breath momentarily and pressing the lift's down button. O-M-G. Jenny Cassidy, exec producer of Oscar-nominated Best Picture, Britcock, has not only let me start my pitch but she’s asked my name and we’re not even in the bloody elevator yet.
‘So, Isabel, shoot,’ Jenny says. She’s slim, suited and obviously looks after herself. I’d normally have offered to carry her massive Gucci bag when her car pulled up outside the Citadel but she tossed it over her shoulder like it was a little canvas tote.
‘The apocalyptic eruption blots out the sun for eighteen months, or long enough for civilisation to die out, anyway. Then the heroine surfaces: she’s commander of a nuclear sub.’
A lift opens and me and Jenny step inside. Despite my furious pressing of the ‘doors close’ button, some bearded jerk jumps in with an iPhone wedged against his ear. I vaguely recognise him as this marketing guy who cheated on one of the other interns with some burlesque trapeze artist. Jenny looks interested in the stack of scripts he’s almost dropped over the lift carpet. I’ll be damned if this twat interrupts my big chance. For six months I’ve made tea here at Citadel Film Finance just for opportunities like this. Over the flow of Earl Grey I’ve questioned whether this is the best use of a First in English from Brasenose – ushering visitors, invariably dull bankers, to our subterranean office suite.
‘This nuclear sub commander – is she hot? Does she have big tits?’ Jenny asks.
I’m uncharacteristically speechless. I must be giving Jenny a look that says ‘Didn’t I read in this week’s Guardian that you were one of Media’s Top Ten Pin-Up Feminists?’
‘It’s the movie business, Isabel. Shorthand for genre,’ Jenny says. She smiles like it’s some ironic, counter-subversive test. ‘Like are we casting Scarlett Johansson or Rooney Mara in this baby?’
Shit. She’s talking about casting, already. This is my chance.
‘The sub’s English,’ I add patriotically and I’m also thinking which A-lister I'd offer the part. ‘She’s sassy, kick-ass, a pro: but, yeah, she’s hot for an old – er, slightly more experienced woman –’ I try to avoid eye contact with Jenny and immediately regret it. ‘And her tits are, er, medium?’
Jenny narrows her eyes at my lack of precision.
‘Like mine,’ I say, desperately. I then panic over whether to push out my chest or hunch my shoulders to illustrate the point. I opt for the former, on account of appearing appropriately assertive. I immediately regret this when I remember I’m wearing a sheer, cream Mad Men blouse and the guy with the scripts drops his mobile phone from his ear and stares straight at me – or, more precisely, my medium tits. It’s a strange sensation when you’re hoping the ground will swallow you and you’re already plunging towards the third-floor basement.
‘Got to be Kate Winslet,’ Jenny decides.
The lift shudders, jerks under our feet like it’s come to an unscheduled stop. The soft down-lighters cut out and this florescent strip flickers on, and I see lines under Jenny’s foundation. It’s deadly quiet. I’ve taken this lift a thousand times and I can’t remember if it normally plays music; now nothing’s coming from the speakers.
We all exchange glances of suppressed anxiety, but in one way I can’t believe my luck. Without this power failure, or whatever it is, Jenny would be stepping out on to level minus-three. As it is, I can complete my pitch.
‘She rips open this envelope marked “SECRET: ONLY OPEN IF THE HUMAN RACE HAS BEEN ANNIHILATED” and it tells her to set course for this remote island in the Indian Ocean that’s been kitted out as a kind of ark. So she surfaces there with her crew of ninety guys and ten women, and they find this Cold War equipment, and rations to help them re-establish civilisation. But there’s only enough for half of them. And the twist is that a couple of weeks later, this Russian sub turns up: they’ve hacked the secret code.’
‘Russian commander? Javier Bardem,’ Jenny suggests.
It’s taking much longer than I expect for power to be restored and I wonder about hitting the alarm button but Jenny’s still composed, obviously captivated by my pitch, so I continue: ‘To be fair to the future of the human race it’s decided all the guys will fight-off to the death to decide who’ll stay on the island. And finally there’s the challenge between the two commanders.’
‘I can feel that sexual tension: will Winslet and Bardem finally fight or fuck?’ Jenny says.
‘Fight!’ I say. ‘She beats his bloody brains out.’
‘Cool. I like the Hunger Games vibe and that phallic submarine bursting with testosterone. But the first act needs eye candy for the teen demographic. Maybe the commander has a crush on this geeky midshipman code-breaker?’
‘Jesse Eisenberg?’ says the scripts guy, still staring at me.
I turn my back on the earwigging arsehole. This is my moment.
‘I could do with Jesse’s type to fix my phone,’ Jenny says. ‘There’s one thing worse than being stuck in a lift and that’s being stuck in a lift with no 3G signal.’
‘My signal’s normally good until the lobby in minus three but I’m dead as well. If it’s a major power cut, the base station might be down too,’ says the guy. ‘It’s cool, I need to practice Flappy Birds anyway.’
Jenny smiles at him and, I swear, looks him up and down. He twiddles with his irritating beard. Not bad-looking for a media type but she must have twenty years on him. I’m desperate to close my pitch and I’m damned if I’ll be derailed by some dick posing like he’s in a Calvin Klein boxers advert.
I maintain momentum, although the thirty-second spiel I practised in front of the mirror is long used up. I’m frantically trying to remember the plot of the remainder of my screenplay – which would be easier had I actually completed the thing. I decide to press as many buttons as I dare.
‘What motivates her in the showdown with the Russian commander is the remote possibility of a reunion with her disabled daughter, who’s in the custody of her ex because of her drink problem.” A weary eye-roll. “And drugs! Shedloads of ketamine and crystal meth.’
‘And this alcoholic Kate Winslet is skippering a nuclear submarine?’ asks the hipster. ‘Suppose it stops her nipping to Tesco’s for a bottle of gin.’
I hate him.
I’m feeling like I’ve blown my chance so I hit the alarm button. Nothing happens. I press it again… and again.
‘Isabel, I love your pitch,’ says Jenny.
I take my finger off the alarm and smirk at the guy. He smirks back, shamelessly. It’s getting hot in here. A bead of sweat trickles from inside my collar, and across my breastbone, then hesitates and pools where my necklaces are stuck against my skin. And he’s watched its progress every drip of the way.
‘But the beginning, the world-ending cataclysmic Yellowstone eruption – it worries me a little,’ Jenny says.
‘You mean natural disaster porn’s passé?’ asks the guy. I really fucking hate him now.
‘OK. My alternative beginning,’ I say. ‘This massive solar flare erupts, like one the boffins worry will fry all the satellites but a million times bigger, like Satan’s burning ... cock. Opening shot. Simple. Some can-kicking African kids in the desert see the sun get brighter and brighter. Cut to Shenzhen: a huge motherfucker of an electromagnetic pulse turns everything electrical – computers, cars, power grids – to burnt toast and before you’d had chance to decide you’d never want to butter it for breakfast – flash! The earth’s surface gets the thousand-degree hairdryer treatment and that’s how all human life gets wiped out, except for in submarines. Totes cinematic, and what’s more, my ex-boyfriend works for a firm in Soho who could knock the whole shebang up for less than half-a-mill.’
‘Cool,’ Jenny says, peeling off her jacket. The back of her blouse is as transparent and sweat-soaked as mine feels.
‘I’m guessing the reason it’s so stifling is the air-conditioning’s out all over the building.This light will have tripped on using emergency batteries,’ the guy says, then: ‘Would anyone object if I took off my shirt? It’s Alexander McQueen and I don’t want it marinated in brine for my meeting, once we get out.’
‘No. Go right ahead,’ Jenny says. ‘Watch out, I might be forced to do the same if we’re here much longer.’ She hits the alarm button too. ‘How long have we been stuck?’
‘Enough for about a hundred thirty-second elevator pitches, for sure,’ I say.
We’re all silent. The guy’s leaning against the wall, looking cool in both senses of the word, stripped to the waist in his jeans. I feel a jealous compulsion to do the same when I see Jenny's and my reflection in the mirror – two immaculately-dressed, professional women propped up and perspiring. I’m wondering how long we’ll maintain our composure.
I replay my pitch mentally and silently, over and over again. Then Jenny asks: ‘Your solar flare scenario. Is it, you know, researched and scientifically credible? Could all the electricity grids and computers be instantly knocked out?’
‘Except those in submarines and underground lift shafts in old government buildings?’ the guy says. I think he meant it as a joke but no-one’s laughing. No one speaks for another few minutes.
Jenny’s tapping furiously into her iPhone. ‘Are you still running on zero?’ she asks the guy, who I swear’s taking a selfie.
‘Not a question my girlfriends ask me,’ he replies.
It must be half an hour now and I’m creeping myself out. In the bowels of this basement we’ve heard nothing to suggest that civilisation is coming to help us – if, indeed, it’s still out there.
‘I’ll email you my treatment,’ I say to Jenny, pulse pounding in my ears. She’s slumped on the floor, jacketless, heels kicked off.
‘My turn to pitch,’ says the guy. ‘A guy’s trapped in a lift with two hot women. There’s a chance, distant but plausible, that outside there’s been some disaster. And the question is, if they all think the worst, where's the harm if they follow their base instincts, whatever the eventual outcome? What should the guy do?’ He glances at Jenny but he rests his hand on my waist.
‘Shut the fuck up and wait for help,’ I say, pressing the alarm continuously. ‘Or climb into the lift shaft like Daniel fucking Craig.’
‘James Bond gets rewarded appropriately for his bravery.’ He smirks.
Jenny slips on her stilettos, stands and starts to unbutton her blouse. She beckons the guy over to the doors against which she flattens herself and stretches out a sleek, muscular leg. He looms over her, unfastening his belt. Jenny gives me a knowing smile but I look away. I do not want to be part of this, even if it is the end of the world.
There’s an almighty yell and the lift shakes as the guy slams onto the deck. I see Jenny’s knee raised high. I grab a couple of the bastard’s thick-bound scripts, whack him around the head twice and he’s out cold. Whether it’s coincidence or that the action’s restored some broken connections, the lights flicker on, tinny music starts up, the doors open with a ping and Jenny presses her business card into my hand.
‘That was a no-holds-barred audition, Isabel,’ says Jenny, stepping over the prone guy. ‘But we’ll offer that role to Jennifer Lawrence.’
(c) Mike Clarke, 2014
Mike Clarke recently completed a Creative Writing MA and is currently putting the final touches to his first novel. His ‘day job’ currently involves working in the margins of the criminal justice system – a source of unparalleled inspiration for a crime writer – a shame, then, that he isn’t one!
Sarah Feathers trained at East 15. Theatre work includes All You Ever Needed (Hampstead Theatre), A Hard Day’s Month (Rose Theatre, Kingston), 26 (BAC), Moll Flanders (Southwark Playhouse) and The Winter’s Tale (Courtyard Theatre). Film includes Coulda Woulda Shoulda, Feeling Lucky and More Than Words. TV: The Real King Herod.
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