28^th July 2005

Watch the first love scene between Dakin and Fiona, the Headmaster’s secretary, shot in a suburban house just up the road from school. It is not especially intimate, with no nudity at this stage, though I’d expected Dakin’s trousers to be open, since they’re lying on the bed and it’s quite heavy snogging, they presumably would be. However I don’t suggest it as it seems prurient.

A BEDROOM. NIGHT.

Dakin and Fiona snogging, Dakin rummaging.

The beauty of it is the metaphor really fits. I mean, moving up to the front you presumably had to pass the sites of previous battles, like her tits, which actually only surrendered about three weeks ago, but to which I now have immediate access and which were indeed the start line for a determined thrust southwards.

What’s the matter?

No man’s land.

Aw, fuck. So what do I do with this?

Carry out a controlled explosion.

Later we film the second scene when Dakin, fully clothed, is talking about Irwin while Fiona waits for him to come to bed. This configuration came to me at a Sickert exhibition in the Abbot Hall Gallery in Kendal, where there was a painting from the Camden Town murder series in which a clothed and threatening man, possibly a client, stands by the bed of a woman whom he is about to fuck or kill, or both.

Though hardly so dramatic, our scene takes a long time to film, but only because the sound of Dakin’s falling trousers keeps obscuring the lines. I suggest to John Midgley on sound that Dominic be asked to hold the line until he’s got his trousers off but John, who has obviously had some unfortunate experiences with actors, thinks this will only cause more problems. So we go thirteen takes until the trousers just happen to come down before the line is said, the gate is checked and we go on to a scene on the football pitch. All rather wasted because the scene is eventually cut and with it the two lines which I like as, in half-a-dozen words, they wholly explain Dakin’s relation to Irwin.

DAKIN I want him to rate me.

FIONA Rape you?

DAKIN Rate. Rate.

FIONA’S. BEDROOM. NIGHT.

Fiona lying on a bed, virtually naked.

Dakin stands by the bed without his jacket but otherwise fully clothed. Bad atmosphere. Silence.

Do you love him?

Don’t be stupid.

Well, I don’t know, do I?

What do think this is?

Not much, so far.

He starts to get undressed.

Cut to:

Them in bed. She is lying down, him sitting up, hands clasped behind his head. No sex so far, plainly.

I don’t fancy him. I just want his approbation, you know. I want him to rate me.

Rape you?

Rate. Rate.

Pause.

Fiona?

I’m asleep.

Cut to:

Later, when Dakin is asleep.

I’ve an awful feeling this is what life is going to be like, a man talking about things I don’t know or am not interested in, stopping for a bit while he fucks me then going back to talking again.

Looks down at Dakin.

Why don’t you sleep with him? Have done with it.

Dakin’s eyes are open.