Not Dead Yet

yesterday? Would it have been more sensible to have given her a couple of days off to recover? Too late for that now.
    Patiently he repeated the line for her, putting the emphasis where he wanted her to put it. ‘This is not how a queen expects to be treated, my dear Prinny. I have never in my life been so humiliated.’ He paused. ‘Okay? Much more emphatic! In these last few takes you’re almost mumbling. You are saying this loudly to everyone, playing to your audience – all the king’s friends and associates. You must really project ! What you are doing is trying to humiliate him publicly.’
    Gaia nodded.
    He turned to the banqueting table, to King George. ‘Judd, immediately you respond with, “You never were a damned queen. You were just a posh tramp .”’ He turned back to Gaia. ‘That’s your cue to burst into tears and run, wailing, from the room. Are we all clear?’
    Judd Halpern and Gaia both nodded in turn.
    The First Assistant Director, headset on, strode across the floor and called out, ‘Right, first positions everybody!’
    The Camera Operator announced, ‘Rolling!’
    The Clapper Boy jumped in front of the camera lens with the digital clapperboard. ‘Scene One-Three-Four, take three.’ There was a sharp crack, and he moved clear.
    Jack Jordan called out, ‘Action!’
    ‘Gaia,’ she said, addressing first the king, then everyone at the table, before turning dramatically around and addressing Jack Jordan. ‘You never were a queen! You were always just a posh tramp! Just a poser! You made people believe you loved them just for your ego, didn’t you? Well, you’re not special, see, anyone can do what you do. Look at each one of you in this room!’
    Faces froze. There were looks of astonishment, bewilderment. Jack Jordan took a step towards her. ‘Gaia, love, do you want to take a few minutes’ break?’
    ‘You see?’ she was screeching now. ‘You can’t tell! You really can’t tell! So you don’t need her any more, anyone would do!’
    She turned and ran, stumbling, from the room.
    Jordan turned in bewilderment to Larry Brooker, then to the Line Producer. ‘That – that’s not her,’ Barnaby Katz said. ‘That’s not Gaia!’
    Brooker was shaking his head. ‘Has she goddamn flipped?’
    ‘That’s not her – that wasn’t her!’ Katz said again. ‘Shit, I’m telling you, that was not Gaia !’ He sprinted for the corridor and ran down it, into the hallway where there was the door to the public toilets. Brooker and Jack Jordan followed closely behind him.
    ‘Not Gaia?’ Brooker called out.
    ‘No!’
    ‘Then who the hell was it?’ Brooker said. ‘Is this her idea of a goddamn practical joke or something?’
    ‘Where’s she gone?’ Katz pushed open the door to the ladies and peered in, then the men’s room. Then he hurried across to the front entrance, and out to the two guards. ‘Did you guys see anyone come out? About a minute ago?’
    Both men shook their heads. ‘No one’s been in or out in the past fifteen minutes, on your instructions, sir.’
    ‘You didn’t see Gaia – or someone resembling her?’
    ‘No one.’ They looked adamant.
    He squeezed past them, followed by Brooker and Jordan. A few yards away, he saw Roy Grace standing beside a tall black man in a sharp suit. ‘Neither of you saw Gaia just now?’ he asked.
    ‘Gaia?’ Grace said. He did not like any of their strange, baffled expressions.
    ‘Or someone dressed as her?’ Katz asked.
    ‘She ran out of the Banqueting Room and goddamn vanished,’ Brooker said.
    ‘No one’s come out of this entrance since we’ve been here,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Not for at least the last seven or eight minutes.’
    Roy Grace stared at Brooker. ‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on? What do you mean, you can’t find Gaia?’
    ‘I would if I goddamn knew.’
    ‘Gaia came on set looking very strange, and acting completely out of character,’ Jack Jordan said. ‘Then she went totally off-script, spouting a whole load of nonsense, and ran out of the room.’
    ‘It wasn’t her,’ the Line Producer said. ‘I’m certain.’
    ‘Everything’s secure, the whole building,’ one of the security guards said. ‘All the keys have been removed from the locks – one of the measures we were advised to take by your colleagues. We did that as soon as the public had left. If she was in the building five minutes ago, she is still there, I can assure you.’
    ‘If you’re saying it