To the Moon and Back

Chapter 22




‘I’m sorry, Zack’s not here today. Did you have an appointment?’

The couple on the doorstep looked disappointed. The girl, who was petite and dark-haired, said, ‘We just called round on the off chance. Oh, what a shame! We read that piece about him in the Telegraph the other day and thought he sounded like our kind of person.’

‘Not afraid to take a leap occasionally, if he comes across a proposition he likes.’ The man with her was tall, thin, and slightly beaky looking, but in a good way. His hair was Scandinavian blond, his manner was enthusiastic, and he resembled a scruffily dressed tennis player. Eagerly he said, ‘And that’s what we think we have for him.’

‘OK, well, come in for a minute and let’s see what we can do.’ Ellie ushered them through to the office. Pulling the appointments diary across the desk, she said, ‘I tell you what, he’s had a cancellation for tomorrow morning. I could put you in for eleven o’clock, how does that sound?’

‘We can do that. Brilliant.’ They looked at each other and beamed.

‘Give me your names.’ Ellie reached for the diary and picked up a pen.

‘Kaye and Joe Kerrigan.’

‘And the proposal’s in there, is it?’ She indicated the padded A4 envelope Joe was clutching to his chest like treasure. ‘Why don’t you leave it here, then Zack can have a look through it before he sees you? That’ll save some time.’

‘Oh, but…’ Kaye looked worried, then stopped herself. ‘The thing is, we kind of wanted to talk him through the whole thing…’

Joe put a bony hand on her arm. ‘Let her take it. Whatever’s easiest for Mr McLaren. We’ll see him tomorrow.’ He flashed Ellie an apologetic look. ‘Sorry. This just means so much to us. You have no idea.’

‘It means everything in the world,’ Kaye echoed longingly. ‘If anyone can make this happen, it’s Zack McLaren. We’ve been reading up on him all week.’ Her eyes were shining. ‘You’re so lucky. He must be fantastic to work for.’

‘He’s a nightmare.’ Ellie broke into a smile. ‘No, he isn’t, he’s great. I’ll make sure he gets this.’ She reached for the padded envelope. ‘And we’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Hang on.’ Kaye grabbed the envelope before Joe could hand it over. ‘Sorry! Just let me give it one last kiss for luck…’

***

Zack arrived back at four. Ellie brought him up to date with everything that had been happening in the office. Then she passed him the folder that had been inside the padded envelope.

Zack flicked through the proposal for all of twenty seconds, then closed the folder, and Frisbeed it on to the desk.

‘You have to read it,’ Ellie said.

‘Just have.’

‘All of it!’

‘I don’t need to read all of it. I just need to get the gist.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a film script.’

‘I know!’

‘They want me to be their backer, to provide the finance to get the film made.’ Amused, Zack shook his head. ‘It’s completely crazy. Not my thing at all. No way.’

‘But if it took off…’

‘It wouldn’t. We’re talking about the riskiest business on the planet. I wouldn’t touch a project like that with a barge pole.’

Kaye and Joe Kerrigan’s earnest faces, so filled with hope, swam in front of her. They were going to be devastated. Ellie said, ‘What about Mamma Mia?’

‘The exception that proves the rule.’

‘Titanic.’

‘The other exception that proves the rule.’

‘ET.’

‘And just how much of your own money would you be prepared to bet that this script is as good as the script for ET? Look,’ said Zack, ‘I’m not going to back these people. It would be madness. And don’t look at me like that. I’m not an ogre. I just don’t want to pack all my hard-earned money into one giant firework and explode it over London.’

‘You haven’t even read the script,’ Ellie protested.

‘I don’t need to. What would be the point?’

‘Oh, come on, you’re an entrepreneur. It might be stupendous. You just don’t know.’ She jiggled the pen she’d been using. ‘Honestly, this couple has worked so hard on it. You not looking at the script is like… it’s like spotting a Lotto ticket on the pavement but not bothering to bend down and pick it up because the chances are that it wouldn’t win the jackpot anyway!’

Zack raised his hands in surrender. ‘OK, OK. You’ve made your point. You really want to shame me into reading this script?’

‘Yes, I really do.’

‘Fine then, you win. I’ll read it.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’ His phone burst into life and Zack answered it. ‘Robert, thanks for getting back to me, do you have time to run through these figures now? Great, hang on, my notes are upstairs…’ Backing out of the office, Zack pointed to the folder on the desk then pressed his hand to his chest and silently mouthed, ‘I promise.’

When he’d gone, Ellie opened the folder and detached the film script from the rest of the paperwork. There were just over a hundred loose A4 pages. Crossing the office, she fitted them into the photocopier and pressed PRINT. She might not be a multimillionaire entrepreneur, but Kaye and Joe Kerrigan’s enthusiasm had sparked her curiosity.

She was going to read the script, even if Zack wasn’t.

***

‘Well?’ Ellie demanded the next morning.

‘Well what?’ Zack was throwing Elmo’s rubber ball around the kitchen, bouncing it off the units so that Elmo skittered and slid across the cream marble-tiled floor like something out of a cartoon.

‘Did you read it?’

‘Read what?’

‘The film script.’

‘Oh, that. Yes I did.’

‘Woof.’ Elmo barked impatiently, ready for Zack to throw the ball again.

‘What was it like?’

‘Actually, it was pretty good.’ Throw.

Ellie filled the kettle at the sink, skipping out of the way as Elmo barreled past in ecstatic pursuit of the ball.

‘And?’

‘Still not doing it.’

‘Woof woof woof.’ Elmo’s tail wagged furiously as Zack dodged behind the table and grabbed the ball a split second before he could reach it.

‘Who was the priest?’ said Ellie.

‘What priest?’

Ha! ‘The one in the film script who turned up at the end.’

Zack straightened up; his red polo shirt had come untucked and there was a new rip in the knee of his Levi’s. ‘Oh, that priest.’ He narrowed his eyes in concentration then said innocently, ‘Sorry.I don’t think I can remember.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘You promised.’ The one thing she’d thought about Zack was that he was honest. If he said he’d do something, he should do it.

‘I was really busy last night.’ He was watching her reaction. ‘Anyway, how do you know there’s a priest in it?’

‘I made a copy, took it home last night, and read it.’ Meaningfully, she added, ‘Unlike some people.’

‘Have I disappointed you?’ Zack lobbed the ball towards her, over Elmo’s head. ‘Here, catch.’

Ellie caught it in her left hand as Elmo leapt into the air. ‘Yes, you have.’

‘Neat catch.’ He signaled his approval. ‘So what did you make of the script then?’

She threw the ball back to him, sending Elmo into a frenzy of excitement. ‘I thought it was brilliant. It is brilliant. It’s funny, it’s moving, and it’s original. If it was made into a film, I’d go and see it.’

‘Would you?’

‘Yes.’

Zack teased Elmo by waving the ball just out of reach. ‘And would you cry at the sad bits?’

‘Maybe. OK,’ Ellie conceded, ‘probably.’

‘Like when Mary finally meets the son she put up for adoption and discovers it’s Father Dermot?’

‘Oh God, yes!’ Belatedly she stopped dead in her tracks. Zack lobbed the ball into the air and she stood there, not even attempting to catch it. One of the stools clattered as Elmo almost brained himself, diving on the ball and triumphantly regaining possession at last.

Zack half-smiled and said, ‘It just came back to me in a flash.’

‘So you did read the whole thing?’

‘I wasn’t going to. You shamed me into it.’

‘Excellent.’ Ellie felt herself flush with pleasure. ‘And will you back them?’

‘I still can’t do that.’ He looked regretful. ‘It’s not my field, the risks are astronomical, I don’t have any contacts who’d be prepared to invest in that kind of venture. But I did like the script,’ he went on. ‘A lot. When they get here, I’ll let them down lightly.’

‘Right.’ Oh well, at least she’d tried.

‘And if their film ever does get made,’ said Zack, ‘we’ll go along to the cinema and watch it together. My treat.’

Elmo dropped the ball at his feet, desperate to get the game up and running again.

Ellie said, ‘And will I get to say I told you so?’

Zack said good-naturedly, ‘Deal.’

***

The doorbell went at two minutes to eleven. Ellie opened the door to the Kerrigans and saw the naked hope in their eyes.

As she showed them into the hall, Kaye whispered excitedly, ‘Has he read the script?’

‘He has.’

‘We didn’t sleep a wink last night! And on our way over here this morning we saw two magpies. Two for joy!’

Oh dear. And now Zack was about to dash their dreams. Ellie led them up the staircase and knocked on the living-room door.

‘It’s finally happening. This could be it.’ Joe Kerrigan, taking deep breaths, briefly touched Ellie’s arm as they waited for Zack to appear. ‘Wish us luck.’

They were in with him for almost thirty minutes. Ellie, typing away with her ears on elastic, finally heard the door open upstairs, followed by the sound of footsteps on the staircase. If the meeting had lasted half an hour, could that mean Zack had changed his mind?

Then she heard Joe say, ‘Well, thanks anyway,’ and knew he hadn’t.

Zack put his head round the office door. ‘I have calls to make, but Joe and Kaye would like a quick word before they go, so I’ll leave you to show them out.’

‘He can’t help us,’ Joe explained when Zack had disappeared back upstairs. ‘But we just wanted to say thanks for fighting our corner.’

‘He told us about you nagging him to read the manuscript.’ Kaye was being heartbreakingly brave. ‘And he said you read it too.’

‘I thought it was brilliant.’ They were such a lovely couple.

‘That means so much.’ Kaye smiled at her.

‘You mustn’t give up.’

‘We won’t. We can’t,’ said Joe. ‘We think it’s brilliant too.’

‘Plus he’s modest.’ Kaye gave him a nudge.

‘I can’t help how I feel. This is our dream. It’s been our dream for so long.’

‘It’s just that we’re starting to run out of options.’

Joe shook his head. ‘We have to keep going.’

Ellie said, ‘Look, I don’t know anything about getting films made, but do you have to do all this yourself? How about sending the script out to all the big film companies? Maybe one of them will snap it up!’

‘We’ve already tried that. Every company, every last screen agent. They all turned us down.’

‘Oh.’ OK, now she felt stupid.

‘We have enough rejection letters to paper our whole house. It’s just so frustrating.’ Kaye sounded intensely frustrated. ‘Most of them don’t even bother to look at the script. I started putting hairs between the pages so you could see if they’d been opened. And they hadn’t!’

Nice. Ellie wondered how charmed any potential producer would be by the sight of a script full of hair.

‘Not a whole head’s worth.’ Joe grinned. ‘Just one hair per script.’

‘Glad to hear it.’ He had an open, friendly face and an easy manner. Together he and Kaye made a good couple.

‘Anyway,’ said Kaye, ‘you need to be getting back to work. But we just wanted to say thank you for being so enthusiastic and for doing your best with Zack.’

‘Don’t give up,’ Ellie said as she showed them out.

‘Don’t worry.’ Joe paused on the doorstep, then raised a hand in salute. ‘We won’t.’