12.10 p.m. Maybe will win BAFTA award for Best Adapted Screenplay. ‘I would like to thank Talitha, Sergei, Billy, Mabel, Roxster . . . anyway, enough about them! I was born thirty-five years ago and . . .’
12.12 p.m. Look, stoppit. Must marshal thoughts. The important thing is that this updating is a feminist tragedy. The key narrative thread is that Hedda, instead of just being independent like Jude, settles for a dull, unattractive academic, who stretches his budget to buy them a house in Queen’s Park. Then, disappointed by the intellectual honeymoon in Florence, because she really wants to go to Ibiza, and disappointed by the rubbish sex, because she really wanted to marry her hot alcoholic lover, she comes back to find self also disappointed by the dingy, rainy house in Queen’s Park and eventually ends up shooting herself and . . . Gaah!
5 p.m. Was startled from reverie by a tall girl with dark hair, dressed entirely in black. A shorter youth stood behind her, with hair cut short at one side and long at the other. They smiled over-brightly as if I’d already done something wrong and they were trying to smooth me over before they killed me, and left me like the man on the floor.
‘Hi, I’m Imogen and this is Damian.’
There was a moment of awkward silence as we squashed into the stainless-steel lift looking at each other, through maniacal grins, wondering what to say.
‘It’s a very nice lift,’ I burst out, at which Imogen said, ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ and the doors opened directly into a spectacular boardroom looking out over the rooftops of London.
‘Something to drink?’ said Imogen, pointing to a low sideboard sporting an array of designer waters, Diet Cokes, coffee, chocolate biscuits, Nutribars, oatmeal biscuits, a bowl of fruit and chocolate Celebrations, and, oddly for that time of day, croissants.
Just as I was helping myself to coffee and a croissant, to create a pleasing air of a Power Breakfast, the door burst open and a tall, imposing man in large black glasses and immaculately ironed shirt swept in, looking very busy and important.
‘Sorry,’ he said in a deep voice without looking at anyone. ‘Conference call. OK. Where are we?’
‘Bridget, this is George, the head of Greenlight Productions,’ said Imogen, just as my handbag started making a loud quacking noise. Oh God. Billy had obviously done something with the text alert.
‘Sorry,’ I laughed gaily, ‘I’ll turn that off,’ and started grappling amongst the bits of cheese in my bag to try and find the phone. The thing is, though, the quacking wasn’t a text alert, it was some sort of alarm so it kept on going and my bag was so full of rubbish I couldn’t find the phone. Everyone stared.
‘So . . .’ said George, gesturing at the chair beside him, as I managed to pull out the phone, wipe off a bit of squashed banana and turn it off. ‘So . . . we like your script.’
‘Oh, that’s great,’ I said, furtively placing the phone on ‘vibrate’ and on my knee in case Roxster, I mean Chloe or the school, texted.
‘There are some really lovely things in there,’ said Imogen.
‘Thank you!’ I beamed. ‘I’ve made some notes for our discussion and—’
The phone vibrated. Was Chloe.
<Cosmata’s mum says fine to bring Mabel to play date as Cosmata and Thelonius have nits too, but Atticus’s mum says no to nits for Billy play date. Also Billy has been sick at school and they want someone to get him now but I can’t and Cosmata’s mum doesn’t want sick germs in her house, so can’t take Billy to pick up Mabel from Cosmata’s.>
Mind reeled over Latin-verb-declension-like morass of children’s names – Cosmo, Cosmas, Cosmata, Theo, Thea, Thelonius, Atticarse – and hideous pickup/sick dilemma, wondering what Power Mothers did in similar situations.
‘Basically we think the whole tone and the updating of the Hedda story is great,’ Imogen was saying.