“Veggie, fruit, fruit! Veggie, veggie, fruit, fruit…”
Ed held up his hand. “Okay, okay, okay!” All the dancing fruit and vegetables stopped, bumping into each other as they did so. “Let’s just take five.”
He motioned to the lead tomato, who waddled over to him from the oversize kitchen that was the background to the Kitchen Kapers video—a ready-made sauce for less than discerning vegetarians.
“Could you possibly just run through your lyrics one more time and see if you can’t commit them to memory before the next take?” Ed smiled pleasantly at the tomato, but naturally couldn’t see if he smiled back, although from the way the tomato stomped off, it was evident that there wasn’t a lot of hilarity going on beneath his lurid red costume.
Ed tried to crack his interlinked fingers by stretching them and failed. Why was this taking so long? The set was built yesterday, and the ingredients had spent all day rehearsing their big moment. It should have been a piece of precipitation. Dead easy. The advert should take five minutes to record, plus a bit of post-editing, and yet they’d been here for more than an hour already, to no good purpose. They were supposed to be a lean, mean, budget-conscious production team, and the vegetables were supposed to be actors.
Trevor looked at Ed, who said sarcastically, “I thought it was supposed to be children and animals that are difficult to work with? I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning organic produce.”
“Will it help if I tell you that eventually the…er…fruits of your efforts will be screened in every supermarket and in post offices all over the country?”
“Not a lot.”
“What about if I tell you that it’ll make the advert for diarrhea tablets they’re going to show before it look like a heap of crap?”
“Shut up, Trevor.”
Trevor put his camera down. “You can tell one of your Harrison stories if it will make you feel better.”
“I don’t think even Harrison can help me today. It’s not every day one has to deal with a vegetable who can’t hold a note or remember four words.”
“Technically, a tomato is a fruit,” Trevor pointed out.
“Yes, of course,” Ed said. “How stupid of me.”
“Go easy, Ed. It must be difficult being a grown man in a tomato suit.”
“You’re right.” Ed picked up the white plastic cup next to him, but his tea had gone cold. “He’d probably rather be playing King Lear.”
“He’d probably rather be playing anything other than a tomato. We all have to pay the bills.”
“Some of us more than others,” Ed agreed.
“Do I take it we’re still not finding the exciting world of corporate videos any more enthralling?”
Ed rubbed his hands over his face. “And I thought I was hiding it so well.”
“If you do decide to go back to Hollywood,” Trevor said, “take me with you.”
Ed looked defensive. “Who said anything about Hollywood?”
Trevor shrugged. “It’s the only place to be if you want to work at the cutting edge. And I’m not sure how much longer you can stand this.”
Ed turned away before he was tempted to answer. He could see the juicy carrot right there just in front of him. Only this one was sitting on a six-foot polystyrene frying pan with its foam head peeled down, eating a Mars bar. “Shall we see if the vegetables are ready? Otherwise we could both be doing this for the rest of our lives.”
Ed clapped his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen! Are we ready?”
A door opened behind him, and Orla came onto the set. She walked up until she was close behind him and he could feel her breath on his neck. She always smelled good. A blend of fresh, clean soap and some ferociously expensive perfume that lured him to drink it in even if he didn’t want to. “Nice,” Orla said, and he wasn’t entirely sure what she was talking about.
“Hi,” he said, distracted by the tomatoes falling over each other to get back in line.
“This is a bad time, right?”
“You could say that.”
Orla lowered her voice. “I need to talk to you some more.”
Ed looked round to check that they weren’t being overheard, but as soon as Orla arrived, Trevor had faded into the background. “Right.”
“Did you manage to discuss this with Alicia?”
Ed made an apologetic noise. “The timing hasn’t been quite right yet.”
“Things are moving on. Can we set up a meeting?”
“Sure.”
“Tonight. What about dinner?”
“Er…” Ed scoured his brain for any remnants of conversations with Ali about parents’ evenings, dentists’ appointments, concerts, dinners with friends, but none came. “Dinner should be fine.”
Orla parted with one of her rare smiles. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Ed’s mobile rang.
“Damn,” he said as he checked all his pockets before finding it. He noticed that the vegetables were getting restless. “Ed Kingston.” He bit his lip while he listened and then spoke again. “Have you contacted my wife? Fine. Fine. I’ll be there right away.” Ed snapped his phone shut, wiping his damp palms on his trousers. His face had blanched and his forehead was creased in a frown. “Orla, I have to go. Can you do me a favor and take over here?”
Orla spread her hands. “Sure.”
“Find Trevor. He’ll give you the lowdown.”
“Is everything okay?”
“No, not really.” Ed was shrugging on his coat. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Are we still on for dinner?”
Ed was heading toward the door. “I’ll see you at the Groucho at eight.” He turned on his heels, came back and kissed Orla on the mouth. “Thanks,” he said. “You’re a pal.”
Orla watched him rush out of the door before she ran her tongue over her lips. “You’re welcome,” she said under her breath.