Читать книгу NO BRIDGE, NO WAY! - Jan Murray - Страница 4

‘Interesting?’

Xanthe fluttered her eyelashes and sighed. It was a theatrical gesture. She was aware she had killer eyelashes. And on a girl with fair hair, thick dark eyelashes were unusual her father reckoned. He told her she got them from her mother, an exotic creature. But her green eyes she had inherited from her Dad’s side of the family. The Irish. Although his were brown.

‘Yeah, try not to be so interesting. It’s dorky. Be cool,’ said Jack.

'Cool, he says?' Xanthe raised an eyebrow and stared at her friend. 'Mr Big Time Cameraman Jack Nolan giving the orders now, hey? But what if I hadn’t thought this whole thing up? We wouldn’t even be here in the park, making this video.'

‘Whatever.’

'Well, if your’re the big-time cameraman then, okay, I’m the star.'

'Whatever. Camera’s rolling! Start walking towards me, Zanth. Slow and steady.’

Xanthe stuck her hands in the pockets of her cargo pants and smiled with attitude. 'Everyone says I look like a guerrilla in these baggy old cargos and black shirt. And, by the way, that’s not a gor-illa... like at Taronga Zoo. Gue-rrillas don’t live in zoos. They live up in the mountains and fight the bad guys down in the cities.' She paused for a moment then shrugged. 'I guess that’s kind of what we’re doing, anyway, when you think about it.'

'Stick to the script, please, Zanth?’

Xanthe looked down the lens. ‘Parents!’ she said as she walked to camera, hands in pockets and rolling her eyes to heaven. ‘Where on earth do they dig up these names?’ She spelled it out slowly, ‘X.A.N.T.H.E. That’s what mine named me. But in case you’re going by the spelling, forget it! It’s not like it’s ‘Ex-anth’ or anything. The Ex is like actually a Zed. Duh! And the little ‘e’ at the end actually comes out like a double ee! So, to get to the point, my name is Xanthe, pronounced ‘Zanthy’. Hello. I’m Xanthe Madonna O’Rourke. Welcome to Glencairn Island.’

‘Cut!’ said Jacko.

‘Show us, Jacko.’ Xanthe leant over his shoulder and looked at the tiny screen on her father’s camera. ‘Ummm. Not bad.’ She tossed her hair back over her shoulders and walked off to catch up with her water bottle, pleased with her performance and ignoring the look Jack was giving her.

‘Stop your day-dreaming Zanth,’ said Jack. ‘Come back. Hurry up. Let’s get you finished. We haven’t got all day.’

'Do you want to know the biographical details?' Xanthe said to camera.

Jack, tracking towards her, gave his star a thumbs up.

'I guess you do. Well, I am a native of Glencairn Island and that’s just another way of saying I’m from Sydney because our island is just over an hour’s drive from the city but it’s nothing like the way most kids in Sydney live. Let’s face it, it’s an island. And the Xanthe thing? Well, my mother...'

There was a pause. Xanthe looked down at her feet. It seemed she had forgotten her lines.

'You okay?' asked Jack.

Xanthe looked back up at Jack and nodded. 'Sure.' She continued. 'A long time ago, my mother told me that Xanthe, in the Greek language, means "golden haired warrior-woman".'

'Like, hello, who’s Greek around here?' Zoran called out from the sidelines. '"O’Rourke"? I don’t think so?'

'I can live with Warrior Woman, you dork,' Xanthe muttered under her breath.

'Let’s keep it going, Zanth,' said Jack.

'Do you want me sitting on the sea wall, or standing in front of the rockery? I could be casually admiring the orange pig-face blossoms?'

‘Your call.’ Jack was looking into his camera lens and changing his weight from one foot to the other. ‘I’m ready when you are.’

Xanthe took a deep breath and smiled for the camera. ‘When I was young, I thought I would become a soldier because of my name and all that. Golden Haired Warrior Woman. Like, I am golden-haired, and I do think I’d make a great warrior.’

She dropped down off the seawall and strolled over to the rockery where she plucked an orange pig-face blossom. Coming in closer to the camera, she continued. ‘But living on beautiful Glencairn Island...’

She flung both arms wide. ‘... makes me think there’s much more to write about than to fight about. So, I’m going to become an author and film director, instead.’ She bent her head and brought the flower up to her nose. ‘Yuk!’ It’s so gross!’ She hurled it to the ground and rubbed the sticky white goo on the backside of her cargos.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Jack dropped the camera to his side and shook his head.

Xanthe could see Jack just wanted her using the words in her script instead of all the made-up stuff she was coming up with but once you know you’re on camera, thought Xanthe, it all gets jumbled. A bit like when you leave a phone message, the way you just run off at the mouth and then you want to rub it out and start all over again. It’s like that when they tell you the camera’s rolling, she felt.

'Okay, I’m ready, so back to the script. Sorry, Jacko.' She smiled for the camera. ‘Let me tell you ...’ she said in her best rehearsed voice, ‘... about how incredible this place is. We have no roads on the island, just dirt tracks winding all over the place. There are no factories, footpaths, streetlights, parking areas. Best of all, there are no cars, so no pollution.’

She walked back towards the seawall. ‘Just fabulous water everywhere and millions of trees to climb! And best of all?’ She heaved herself up onto the seawall again. ‘Best of all is that adults leave kids alone on Glencairn.’

‘Mostly!’ chipped in someone from the sidelines.

‘Cut!’ called Jack, lowering his camera. ‘Thanks, Zanth. You’re done.’

She tipped her two fingers to her forehead, a casual salute, and walked across to her Director’s chair and, for a few seconds was grateful just to sit under the shade of the spotted gum. Film work is exhausting, she realized as she looked across to Honey who was lying on her tummy in the grass, doing a last minute read of her lines.

‘Summers? You ready?’ Xanthe yelled out to Honey.

Honey nodded and stood up.

Xanthe clicked her fingers and pointed. ‘You’re on. Hurry. Over you go.’

Honey’s lips were moving as she walked across the bush clearing to her marker, the place Xanthe had decided would be where Jack would shoot her.

Honey Summers was wearing white jeans and white t-shirt. She practically lived an all-white life when school was out, thought Xanthe. Except when she decided to dress up, which was most of the time. But today, the all-white was in evidence, except for a piece of bright purple and pink silk she had wrapped around her floppy hat. Anyone could see she was nervous from the way she flicked back her hair and ran her tongue over her lips.

‘Just move to the left a bit,’ Xanthe called out through her megaphone. ‘Out of the shade ... to the right ... further. That’s it! And push your hat back so we get a look at your face, can you? Or, take it off! Good. Ready to roll, Jacko.’

Clasping her hands behind her back and looking straight into the camera, the subject took a deep breath and began. ‘Hello. I’m Honey Summers. This unique island is my home.’

Honey’s arms did the talking. She waved them over the scene. ‘Some houses are down at the edge of the water with their own jetties and sandy beaches.’ She walked a couple of paces towards the beach and spread her arms out to embrace the shore.

Jack pointed the camera down to the water.

He knew what to do, thought Xanthe, because they had done a storyboard – something they had learned from her dad who was in Advertising. Storyboards are rough drawings, a step by step kind of comic that lets the cast and crew know where to stand and what’s coming up next. Honey, being FIFU’s artist-in-residence, had been responsible for today’s storyboard.

Now Honey turned and pointed in the other direction. ‘And some houses are up in the spotted gum trees. Oops!’ She swallowed hard and tried to rub out her mistake. ‘Well, they’re not actually up in the trees. Like, they’re not tree houses or any think.’

Thing! Not Think! She called out.

She had made a megaphone from rolled-up cardboard the night before as well as a ‘Director’ sign to clip on the back of one of her father’s canvas fold-up chairs. Sitting there in her khakis, with a back-to-front black baseball cap on her head, a whistle around her neck and a clipboard and megaphone on her lap, she knew she looked for all the world like a serious movie director.

‘OK. Any Thing!’

Xanthe cued Jack, who began recording again.

‘They are not tree houses or anything.’ Honey gulped and carried on. ‘They are up the hill, among the trees. Spotted gums. The kind that were once used to build sailing ships on the island.’ Ms. Honey Summers, nervous star, was flustered. Her cheeks had turned bright pink.

‘That’s great!’ yelled Xanthe.’ Best to tell her that, she thought, appreciating her friend’s nervousness in front of the camera.

‘Anyway, everyone’s house has a view across the water towards Bayville or the Palms Peninsula. But no one lives around on the far side. It’s too dangerous because there’s a haunted––'

Xanthe blew her whistle. ‘No!’ she yelled, her voice as shrill as her whistle. ‘Stick to the script, Summers!’

Jack laughed. So, did the others. Honey had just tried to slip one in on her Director.

‘How do you get...’ Xanthe prompted Honey.

‘Oh, yes! How do you get across to the mainland? Well ...’ Honey held up the fingers on one hand and counted off, starting with her thumb. ‘... you can row your boat, drive your tinny, catch the ferry or, if you’re rich enough you phone for Shelley Bentley’s Blue Water Lady. That’s our water taxi service.’ She paused for effect then touched her pinky. ‘Or you can swim ... if you’re Thorpy!’ She giggled and did a bow to the camera.

‘That it for Honey?’ said Jack, turning to Xanthe.

Xanthe nodded. ‘You’re done, Summers,’ she said, and went back to consulting the notes on her clipboard.

‘How was I?’ said Honey as she passed Jack.

‘Okay. Cool, actually.’ He gave Honey a high five.

‘She should’ve let me tell them about Island Gertie’s.’ Honey said, her voice oozing with disappointment as she looked over at her Director.

‘Zoran?’ Xanthe called out through her megaphone.

There was no response.

‘Hey, where’s the Radz? Anyone seen him?’ asked Xanthe. 'He’s supposed to be on next.' She put her megaphone to her lips. ‘Zoran Radlic on set, please!’

Jack was grinning.

‘Where is he? What’s he doing?’

‘What comes naturally!’ laughed Jack.

Xanthe followed his gaze and saw exactly what Zoran Radlic was doing!

He was behind the bushes with his back to them and what he was doing could only take so long before grinning, he stepped out, closing up his fly and flipping his skateboard, which he caught in mid-air. He strolled across to his mark, still with a smirk on his face.

'Mr Too Cool for Words,' muttered Xanthe.

Now, with his feet apart, Zoran shuffled his Nikes in the soft ground and ran a comb through his hair – dark brown, shoulder-length and in need of a good shampoo and conditioner. He shook his head so that some of the hair dropped over his forehead and covered one eye, then slid the comb in the back pocket of his faded jeans – torn, of course. Finally, he winked at the camera, giving Jack a thumbs-up. ‘Ready to roll, bro.’

‘Good. Let’s go, then ‘bro’!’ Xanthe said, trying to remind people around her who was in charge of this shoot.

But Zoran still wasn’t quite ready. Not until he had turned up the collar of his black Polo shirt. Then he hooked both thumbs in his belt tabs and practiced a few serious looks until he found the exact one he wanted.

Xanthe cued Jacko to roll the cameras.

‘Glencairn Island is a magic place and we intend to keep it that way.’ Zoran indicated his surroundings. ‘But it’s not all fun. Offshore life can be hard. Yeah, real hard! Like sometimes getting over to the mainland in a storm can be heaps dangerous. And when it hasn’t rained for ages the water in our tanks dry up.’

He produced a pair of dark sunnies and put them on.

‘We have too many mosquitos.’ He took the sunnies off, shot a look across at his Director, then put them on again. ‘And not enough ...’ he hesitated for only a second. ‘... not enough skateboard ramps.’

‘The script!’ screamed Xanthe through the megaphone.

‘Thirty-six-inch concave deck board with seven-inch V-shocker springer trucks and lift kits with XT 122mm off-road wheels,’ he rattled off in one breath.

Xanthe stomped across the clearing and snatched the skateboard from him. She held up her clipboard with the script pinned to it and waved it in Zoran’s face, then looked over to Jack and signaled ‘cut’ by running a finger left to right across her neck. She shook her head to indicate they weren’t going on with this presenter till he agreed to behave. Standing with her hands on her hips, she stared him down, hoping he would soon get her message. Satisfied, she cued Jack to roll cameras again.

‘But it’s a fabulous place to live,’ Zoran continued as he cast his eyes over the surroundings. ‘And we wouldn’t change a thing about our island. Ever!’ His brows were knotted into a menacing frown. He made a fist with his right hand and jabbed his pinkie at the camera lens. ‘Anyone who tries to change anything around here is asking for trouble. Got that? Big trouble! Hello. My name is Zoran Milos Radlic, reporting to you from Glencairn Island.’

‘What is this? Sixty Minutes or something?’ His Director beat him over the head with her cardboard megaphone. ‘Freak!’

‘Y’liked it?’

His grin could light up Salvation Bay on a moonless night, thought Xanthe, shaking her head and rolling her eyes before turning them on her next presenter.

‘C’mon, it’s your turn, Summers Number Two,’ she shouted through the megaphone at the subject who had been sitting on the ground nursing little Lucien and reading to him from a big picture book. It was Lucien’s favourite––the one about Stripy the Tiger. She jumped to her feet, sending Lucien flying backwards. ‘Ready, boss!’ said Angel, saluting the Director.

‘Let’s go, then,’ said Jack. The frustrated cameraman could see they were losing daylight. By two o’clock the sun would sink behind the escarpment and put this side of Glencairn Island in shadows. Any moment now the cast and crew would be complaining that they had been given no lunch break.

One last glance at the piece of paper in her hand and the other half of the Summers twins strode across the set.

‘Hello. I’m Angel Summers,’ she said to camera.

Angel came with attitude. She liked to be the centre of attention. She paused for effect. Like her twin, Angel was fond of letting her imagination run riot and nowhere more so than with her wardrobe. Even for school, she hardly ever looked ‘normal’. The Summers twins haunted flea markets and charity shops with their mother, looking for way-out gear.

They call it ‘flair’. I call it tragic, thought Xanthe as she despaired at what her friend had chosen for today’s performance. The colourful dress with its swirly skirt and all those fringes and tiny mirrors on it was something else! Still, I like Angel, she reasoned. I like them both. The Identicals are good value. You get two for the price of one. And she had to admit, Angel had put a big effort into getting dressed this morning, even though the result was pretty weird.

Angel brushed the leaves off the front of her dress. ‘My friends and I,’ said Angel, ‘... well, like we really love Glencairn Island?’

'Ouch!’ said Xanthe. 'That rising inflexion has to go!'

‘Glencairn Island is our inheritance,’ Angel continued as she looked around the bushland foreshore. ‘And it’s our intention to fight for it! And to do so we’re making this video to show everyone how beautiful it is and what everyone can do to help us keep it beautiful. For always.’ Angel smiled sweetly, catching the eye of Zoran and Honey who each gave her a thumbs up.

‘There are many exciting things on our island which you will see in our proper full-length movie when we make it. It’ll be called, A Gecko Needs Friends.For instance, we have deserted coves and beaches and secret tracks through the bush and shipwrecks and ... even a haunted house and a ghost!’

The last bit came tumbling out so fast. ‘It belongs to a witch––or a ghost––no one knows for sure.’ Angel paused and counted to five under her breath, waiting for her Director to explode. When there was no shout from Xanthe, Angel knew she had won. Jack looked over to the Director.

Xanthe shrugged. 'Let it go. My Dad and I will edit it out, anyway.'

Angel was off again, ‘You’ve met Xanthe O’Rourke. She’ll be our Director. And you’ve met some of the kids who’ll star in Gecko– like Zoran Radlic. The Radz!’

She waved to Zoran. Jack panned his camera around and caught Zoran’s wink.

‘And Honey Summers,’ Angel continued, pointing across to her sister who was looking after little Lucien.

Honey smiled for the camera and took a bow.

Angel continued. ‘And there’s me.’ She put her hands to her chest and bowed from the waist. ‘No, you’re not seeing double. We really are identical twins.’

The camera swung around again to emphasize the phenomenon.

‘And then there’s Jack Nolan who’s behind the camera. Jacko’s a sailor. He sails his tiny boat Birdsong most afternoons, don’t you, Jacko?’

‘Angel!’ Jack wailed and stopped filming.

‘What? What’s wrong with adding that bit?’ cried Angel. ‘That’s what kids want to know about. Stuff like that. It sounded natural.’ She was casting around for her Director’s approval. 'Well, didn’t it?’

‘Stick to the script, Angel. You’re the one who helped write it, remember?’

‘You should talk!’

‘Okay, camera rolling.’

‘And you see Zoran’s little brother over there?’ Angel pointed to little Lucien who was chasing a frog out of the bushes.

Jack swung the camera around, zooming in on a small boy with a mop of shiny brown hair, talking to a tiny critter.

‘That’s little Lucien,’ said Angel. ‘He’s too little to be one of the Fabs. He just hangs around while we’re doing things ... kind of like our mascot.’ She paused. Sighed. ‘Kind of like a real pain, actually!’

‘Cut!’

Angel jumped up and down then spun around. ‘I was terrible, wasn’t I?’ she squealed, eating two handful of fingernails. ‘Can I do it again, Jacko? Zanth? Can I? Please?’

‘Nope,’ said Xanthe. ‘It’s a wrap.’ Her Dad taught her that. He directed TV commercials.

‘You were okay, Angel. Except that bit about my ‘tiny boat’ stuff,’ said Jack.

‘Well, it is tiny.’

‘It’s a Vee-Jay. What do you expect? Duh.’

‘Quit it, you two. C’mon, it’s your turn, mate,’ Xanthe said as she came across to Jack. ‘Give it up!’ She tackled the camera from him.

He looked around at his friends. ‘I so don’t want to do this, you guys!’ he wailed. ‘Just let me be the cameraman?’

‘C’mon. Stop being a drama queen.’ Xanthe handed him his didgeridoo and gave him a shove in the direction of his marker. He carried on for a few more minutes before she bellowed through the megaphone. ‘Take your position!’

Jack sat down on the ground and crossed his legs. He ran a hand through his thick black curls. The didgeridoo, painted in yellow, red and black, the same as his t-shirt, stuck out about a meter and a half in front of his body. He put his lips to the bark and puffed out his cheeks.

And there it was! The first of those weird and wonderful sounds!

Jack Nolan’s didge was the real thing – a dried-up eucalyptus sapling, eaten out a long time ago by colonies of termites. The termites make crevices inside and that’s why the didge makes the strange noises it makes.

‘Primal,’ said Zoran.

‘Earthy,’ said Xanthe. 'Like it’s coming up from somewhere at the bottom of the world.'

When Jack blew hard down the tube, the dark rhythms started filling up the bush around them. It was as though the strange bass sounds were a natural part of the ancient land. It was not hard to imagine that the booming, throbbing noise was an echo from the Dreaming that Jacko had once told them about. Mysterious and as old as creation, almost. There are secrets in the sounds that only Bungaree could know about.

'And, by the way,' said Xanthe, looking around at her friends who were entranced by Jack’s playing. ’The didgeridoo was my idea.'

She zoomed in close on the player’s face to show his puffed-out cheeks. They’re going to love it, she reasoned, thinking about the finished video and all the people who would be seeing it when she posted it on the net.

Jack stood up and carefully leant his didge against the rock wall. Looking into the camera like a real professional, he began his piece. ‘G’day. My name’s Jack Nolan. My family call me Bungaree.

Our mob, the Cammeraygal, have lived around here and looked after these lands for over forty thousand years and Bungaree was the name of their leader. The Fabulous Island Film Unit is going to make a movie called A Gecko Needs Friends.

It’ll be set here, on Glencairn Island. This video’s going to be up on Youtube soon. We reckon it’ll work like a kind of trailer for the movie.'

Jack shrugged. ‘Anyway, it’s gonna show other kids how great it is living here. And why everyone should care for it.’ He paused and looked across to Xanthe who nodded for him to keep going.

‘A Gecko Needs Friends will take heaps of money to make because we’ll need more equipment and we’ll need posters and stamps and costumes and props and things. We’ll be asking everyone in the offshore community to help us because we’ll need donations and we hope they’ll pay us for jobs we can do around their houses. And their boats and boatsheds and things.’

Jack hesitated.

Xanthe cued him to keep talking. It was good stuff. Jacko was so professional

He looked straight into the camera as if he was talking personally to one of their neighbours. ‘We can do baby-sitting for you or do your gardens ... and collect your rubbish and kind of look after your boats ... scrape barnacles off your bottoms––'

There was an outbreak of giggles over by the spotted gum. The Director glared at the Identicals and nodded to Jack to ignore them.

‘And clean out your water tanks.’ He paused, thinking, then went on. ‘And we’re good at chasing diamond pythons back up the hill where they don’t frighten anyone. Or eat the chooks. Things like that.’ He shrugged. ‘Yeah, things like that you can pay us for. Anyway, we’re the Fabs. See you around.’ He signaled that he was definitely finished.

‘That was so excellent, Jacko!’ yelled Honey.

‘Bro!’ said Zoran, coming up to Jack and pressing fist to fist with him and doing a boys-only hand shake that seemed to go on for ages.

Like he’s some kind of L.A. rapper, thought Xanthe as she looked across at Zoran. 'You watch too many bad movies Zoran Radlic.' They devoured movies at Zoran’s place, she reflected as she packed away her father’s video camera and folded up her Director’s chair.

'Dat all, Zampy?' said little Lucien.

‘For today, little mon.’ She replied. ' But I suppose it’s up to me to edit this mess, now,’ she said, hoisting the camera bag over her shoulder and tucking the chair under her arm. ‘It’s gonna get so many hits! The media will use it when we’re famous.’

‘And on our way to saving the island,’ added Angel as if her Director’s green credentials needed a prod.

‘Jo gets good ideas, doesn’t she?’ Honey piped up, chirpy as a canary in summer sunshine. She was skipping backwards, along the beach and no one seemed about to tell her there was a huge piece of driftwood coming up.

‘Who said it was her idea?’ Xanthe called out. ‘I’d already thought of it, anyway. Who thought of YouTube, huh?’

At this, the Identicals exchange one of their classic glances, a glance that came with raised eyebrows, rolled eyes and theatrical sighs.

As if they shared this massive state secret and the rest of us haven’t yet cleared security, Xanthe thought. Ooops! There she goes – head over turkey for Honey Summertime.

Honey had just landed on her backside, to the laughter of all. Poor Honey, flat on her back. But they knew it was only soft sand. Jack, Xanthe and Zoran, with little Lucien on his shoulders, kept walking. The Identicals started hanging back, searching the rock pools for mini crabs.

‘Not exactly one to let someone else take the credit for a good idea, is she?’ Angel said in a loud whisper. ‘I am going to become a famous author and film director.’ Angel, gigging, impersonated her friend as she came up behind Xanthe and stuck a handful of tiny rock crabs down her back.

‘Yuk!’

‘Run for your life!’ yelled Honey to her sister as Xanthe took off after Angel.

But too late! Xanthe, older and faster, brought Angel down with a thud. They wrestled hard, jamming wet sand and slimy crabs in each other’s mouths until they got the giggles and then it was hopeless. They fell flat on their backs in the water and lay there, holding each other’s hand and letting the waves wash over them.

‘Wish I still had the camera running,’ said Jack, coming up to where the pair were struggling to stand now, and brush the sand out of their mouths, without letting another giggling fit take over. ‘Something like that would’ve been better than all the rehearsed stuff, back there.’

‘C’mon, I’ll race you to the clubhouse,’ yelled Zoran, getting on his mark and looking at Jack like he had just thrown out the toughest challenge in the world to a rival. Rather than suggest something he and Jack did at least ten times a day.

‘You’re on, mate!’ Bungaree put his toe to the line and tensed, then relaxed his body like the fine athlete he was. Best in the school, in fact.

'Duh, Zoran!' said Xanthe. 'Every time, he thinks it’ll be different, but it’s not. No one beats Bungaree. No one. Not ever!' She looked at both competitors. ‘Ready. Set. Go!’ she yelled, and the two boys took off along the beach, sprinting out of sight. But it was Jacko they lost sight of first, of course.

Xanthe stood there, thinking about what Jacko had just said about the camera catching them unaware rather than the rehearsed stuff. Maybe he was right, but there was no use worrying about how good or bad they had been back at the Point. It was in the can. And that was another expression she liked, another one her dad had taught her. It sounded so final and it pretty much was, she figured, because it would be Christmas any day now, and then they would all be going off in a million different directions.

'Zampy?' It was the little boy pulling at Xanthe’s cargo pants.

‘C’mon, I’ll piggyback you, Luce.’ She scooped the little man up on her shoulders. ‘Let’s make a run for it!’ She called to the Identicals and they all took off, running along the beach, sticking to the wet sand, leaping over the rocky bits till they finally pulled up at the old boatshed where she and little Lucien collapsed on top of a sand castle, totally out of breath.

‘So, did you settle it, you guys?’ asked Jack. By now, he and Zoran had stripped to their swimmers and were putting on snorkel gear. ‘About who came up with the idea first – you or Jo Purdy?’

‘Forget it. We’ve got a proper movie to make and we’d better get on with it.’ Xanthe replied.