Constance by Rosie Thomas Page B

exhausted. He’s done a great job, you know. The agency and the client are really pleased.’
    ‘Ange.’ Connie removed the cup from her hand and took her by the shoulders. ‘How are you ? You look, if you don’t mind me saying, knackered.’
    ‘Oh. You know.’
    For a moment, Connie thought her friend was going to cry. She told Kadek to take the drink to Rayner and led Angela outside.
    The sun had slid behind the cliffs that they had used for the backdrop to the set and the rock was now a wall of darkness crowned with a halo of golden light that no lighting cameraman could ever have created. The first bat of the evening flitted overhead. Set-dressers were rolling up an artificial lawn, the cast were changing in the caravans. The self-important world of the shoot was folding up on itself, shrinking back into the waiting trucks and Toyotas.Tomorrow, when the cast and crew were on their planes home, the clearing would be deserted except for the birds and the bats.
    ‘Look at this,’ Angela sighed, as if she was seeing it for the first time. The trees were heavy with dusk.
    ‘Why don’t you stay on with me for a few days? Have a holiday. You’ve earned one.’
    ‘I’m fine,’ Angela said. She laughed. ‘Completely fine. I’ve got to start next week on pre-production for a yoghurt commercial. It’s really, really busy at the moment and that’s good, isn’t it? Can’t turn the work down while it’s there.’
    ‘Angie?’ It was Rayner Ingram’s voice. Her head turned at once.
    ‘Coming,’ she called. ‘Con, you’ll definitely be there tonight, won’t you?’
    Tonight was the wrap party, traditionally hosted by the production company. Connie knew about last-night parties more by reputation than recent direct experience.
    ‘Yes. Course I will.’
    ‘See you later, then. You’ve been an absolute star all this week. I couldn’t have got through it without you.’
    Left alone, Connie sat down on an upturned box. There were more bats now, dipping for insects against the blackness of the trees. She could almost feel the week’s edgy camaraderie being stripped away from her, rolled up like the fake turf and tossed into the back of a truck. She would feel lonely here next week, when Angela and the others had gone. She had her work, of course. She had planned to make some more recordings of the gamelan gong for her orchestral library. There was Tuesday night’s music to look forward to, and she should think about asking some people to the house, fill it up with talk and lights once in a while. The string quartet, for example. She should find out which was their night off and make dinner for them and their partners.
    This time tomorrow, Angela and Rayner and Tara and all the others would be halfway back to London.
    Connie found that she was thinking about London as she rarely did, remembering the way that lights reflected in the river on winter’s evenings, the catty smell of privet after summer rain, the glittering masses of traffic and the stale, utterly specific whiff of the Underground. She kept the focus deliberately general, excluding places and people for as long as she could.
    ‘I’m going to need that box.’ The voice made her jump. She saw it was the rigger who had whistled at her.
    ‘All yours,’ Connie smiled at him as she got to her feet. She wasn’t sorry to have her train of thought interrupted. In any case it was time to head home to change for the wrap party.
    There were more than forty people for dinner. They ate in the garden of the better hotel, under the lanterns slung in the branches of the trees.
    ‘This place is a bit of all right,’ one of the Australians shouted up the table. ‘You guys did well.’
    ‘Next time,’ Angela called back.
    ‘Holding you to that, ma’am. They’ve even got beer here.’ In the last-night surge of goodwill, the disagreements of the week morphed into jokes.
    The actress emerged from her room to join the crew for dinner. Draped in a pashmina