So one minute you ask a girl to do a bit of French translation for you, and the next you end up on the other side of the world in her arms, the benefits of which include (amongst many others) that you can get her to do the Frenching live whilst you type, both improving your own language skills and being damn sexy. Once again thanks to blueeyedfrog02 for her interpretations (and her general all round awesomeness).
Dedicated of course to SJ and her continued recovery xx
I don't own Skins, but it did bring me the gift of love.
29. An Explosion Of Potential
Effy
Katie had not been lying when she said she had wanted to help us. Only last week she had scored us a private New Year's Eve gig in Kensington Palace. Ok, so it wasn't the main fireworks over the Thames (dream on, Effy), but it was seriously fucking prestigious. They were even shutting part of Kensington Gardens as our fall out zone. Emily had come down to our November 5th gig in Brighton and shot some footage, and was putting together a promo for us. And of course there had been the shoot for Naomi's advert. I had been quite incredulous when Katie had come back with that little piece of news, but as she began to explain the mechanics of it, I found myself falling even more deeply in love with the woman who had decided to become my personal saviour. So there might not actually be a PhD in the offing after all, but there is no doubt that she is one clever fucking lady.
The shoot itself had proved to be a laugh, and had provided me with some interesting technical challenges, and Cook certainly had himself a fine time with some of the extras. But what was even more fascinating was the chance to watch Emily and Naomi at work. The pair of them had intrigued me right from the start, all the way back in Paris. I had caught them tumbling out of a hotel room like a pair of adulterous lovers, the first day of my rigging on the show. C'était comme si elles revenaient d'une nuit si superbe, qu'elles ne pouvaient pas contempler une séparation, même pour le bien de leur travail. They dawdled down the corridor trying to break away, but inevitably pulling each other back together for yet more giggling kisses. And the heat. Like someone had set off a flame thrower down the hall. And yet even in the midst of this flaming passion, they had such a gravity about them that I knew almost instantly that there would be so much more to this than just a simple lust. It was borne out the next day when I watched Naomi instinctively step in front of her lover to protect her from her sister's wrath.
Katie had since told me that she was desperately suspicious of Naomi at first, having suffered so calamitously herself at the hands of Anna, but that it soon became clear that no force on this earth was going to keep the couple apart. I could have told her that in those very first of days. I had long since reconciled myself to the fact that I was not cut out for that kind of love, and that the convenience of my arrangement with Freddie was the best I was going to get. I understood that I had only two options, the thrill of my former promiscuity or the security of my muted relationship. I wasn't aware I was allowed to have both. Though I had come to terms with what I thought was my destiny, I had to admit to a shiver of jealously when I saw the future that seemed to shine out in front of Emily and Naomi, where love became an inspiration instead of a straightjacket, and passion still ruled stronger than stifling domesticity. Je n'avais pas le moindre soupçon que six mois plus tard ce même elixir me serait offert sur un plateau. I didn't know that that was just what fucking happened when you bagged yourself a Fitch.
They still had it. That sheer fucking joy in each other's simple presence. Even though they were both working, and focussed on their jobs, you couldn't help but notice the way they both lit up when the other one came near. Or the blatant eyefucking from across the set whenever they had a spare moment to share. Or the affectionate little touches which they used instead of speaking sometimes. Or Emily's tolerant smirking over the starstruck murmurings of the extras every time Naomi walked by. Or Naomi's proud adoration every time she watched Emily take control. They exhibited a cheerful ownership of each other without any of the screaming insecurities which seemed to batter other couples, even without the pressures of fame.
But Emily had a confidence and a belief in what she was doing which would not allow her to deem herself overshadowed by the fact that her girlfriend was an object of adoration for thousands. And Naomi, despite being constantly told she was beautiful by everyone and his dog, seemed genuinely to be at her happiest when she was dressed down in comfortable clothes and mucking about with her mates. Even on the days Emily was shooting with the extras or the pyro, Naomi would come down to the set just so that they could have lunch together, even if it was just a grabbed sandwich and a cup of tea. Because far more importantly than all the sex and money and glamour in the world, it became clear as they held hands every night whilst they waited for the car to take them home, they really just fucking liked each other.
Watching them work was an absolute joy. Emily knew exactly what she was doing, and bossed her team in a polite and yet professional manner, and nobody could do enough for her. She took genuine pleasure in her work, and when they had nailed a particularly good shot, she made sure everyone was included in that joy. And there was a reason Naomi had done so well since she had gotten her lucky break via the fists of Katie Fitch. Whatever that special ingredient was that made a performer irresistible, she had it in fucking spades. I watched her turn it on again and again and again. One minute we would be sharing a fag leaning up against the wall during the painfully time consuming business of setting up a shot, and then the next minute Emily would call her and she would turn in an instant from the girl you would hang out in the pub with into Naomi Diamond, international superstar. It got me every time. It was breathtaking. She was breathtaking, and even though we would privately have a laugh at the bombastic nature of the concept, both of us knew that this ad was going to be a sensation.
Because for all their genius and their talent, there was only ever going to be one boss on this site and that was my glorious, glamourous Katie Fitch. Much as I admired the golden couple's skills and professionalism, dès que j'appercevais Katie, à l'aise dans son milieu, une vague de désir me coupait le souffle. She would stalk about the set, iPad in hand, making sure that every little detail fell into place. Catering, transport, extras, crew, hospitality for representatives from the perfume house, Katie ruled the lot of them from her little electronic kingdom planner. And much as though everyone warmed to Emily's relaxed style, they knew that if they fucked up, a far more fearsome fate awaited them. To be honest, I did kind of miss her down at the business end of what we do, getting down and dirty with the rigging, but the rewards of seeing her doing what she does best were more than adequate. It still amazes me sometimes, that she seems so happy to focus all of her talents on our little band of misfits, when Naomi openly admits to having tried to headhunt her, but I'm fucking grateful that she does.
I was so mesmerised by watching her speak at the breakfast meeting on the final day of the shoot that I forgot to pay attention to what she was saying.
"So is everyone clear?" she said with finality, and I vaguely registered all the other departments answer in the affimative.
There was a pause, and it wasn't until I got a nudge in the ribs from Cook that I realised everyone was waiting for me.
"Pyro team, are you clear?" said Katie, a hint of a smirk in her eye.
"Um yeah," I stuttered, even though the only thing I was really clear on was how fucking hot she looked in that business skirt.
"Great," said Katie conclusively. "Then get set to 'detonate'!"
Everybody laughed, and started to gather up their things. It was our final day, the day of the money shot. All the preamble shots and cutaways had been done, leaving us with the big finale. Emily had refused to entertain the idea of green screen or CGI, she said (and rightly so) that we couldn't afford to look fake, and that rumours of Naomi getting up close and personal with the pyro for real would do wonders for the kudos of the product.
All of which meant that we had an impressive final shot, which had to be perfectly timed, with an incredibly valuable model slap bang in the middle of a load of material. It was a one take only deal. We didn't really have the budget to set it all up again, so everyone in the place had to be spot on, or we were fucked. I don't know what Katie's final words of wisdom had been, but I hoped that Cook or Thomas had been paying attention.
"Oh Effy," said Katie nonchalantly. "Could you pop into the production office for a minute before you go. I just want to go through those final firing sequences with you again."
I followed her into the portacabin that served as the office, whereupon she sent out her assistant to get her a coffee. As soon as the boy had shut the door behind him, I found myself thrown against it by a dominant Katie.
"Oh you are so busted," she grinned, pressing her body up against mine, and pinning my hands either side of my head. "It's a good job I find it cute."
"Good to know," I said breathlessly.
"You don't have a fucking clue what I said at the end of that meeting, do you?" she laughed.
"I may have had a momentary lapse in concentration," I admitted. "But this isn't helping."
"Then let me clear up the issue some more," she said, and kissed me fiercely.
"Oh God," I said helplessly, once she had re-gifted me control over my own mouth.
"Yes, you're right," smiled Katie smugly. "On this site I am God, so next time pay attention, or there will be consequences."
"Spanking type consequences?" I said hopefully.
"If you're lucky," said Katie, squeezing my arse.
"I love you," I said, and kissed her until I felt the bump of the door as the assistant tried to return with the coffee.
Katie stepped away.
"I'll see to you later," she whispered, just before she resumed her professional persona.
Of course I killed it. Malgré les charmes distrayants de Katie Fitch, je demeure toujours Effy – Reine des feux d'artifice. And in such stellar company, how could I fail to shine? We were such a good fit, the four of us, each one focussed and strong, and pushing ourselves to make something wonderful happen. Just before it all kicked off, when I was in the firing zone, I felt a surge of excitement over the new directions that Katie was capable of taking us in, and the thought that with her by my side I could accept new challenges I wouldn't have been able to face on my own. And as the last stars fell through the air at the end of the take, and a massive cheer began to ran through all the cast and crew on site, there came the strangest sensation of all. I looked back over the smoke-filled remnants of my work, and as the beams of the lights cut lines through the clouds, I remember one overwhelming feeling. Anthea serait fière de moi.
It was several weeks later when we finally got to see the fruits of our labours. Katie and I had gone up to London to meet with the others in a small post-production studio where Emily had been doing the editing. Katie went on ahead inside to join her sister, whilst I joined a skulking Naomi outside for a fag.
"What's it like?" I asked her.
"Dunno," she shrugged. "She hasn't let me see it yet."
No prizes for guessing who ruled the roost in that household then. The blonde was fidgeting restlessly as she smoked, chewing on her lower lip between drags.
"Are you nervous?" I said.
"No," she answered all too quickly, though the truth was clearly the opposite. I subjected her to the all-seeing eyes.
"Yeah well, maybe," she relented.
"How so?" I said. "You must be used to being in the public eye."
"Yeah, well," I'm always dressed up in someone else's clothes," she replied. "I'm a shadow, a hook to hang someone else's concept on. I'm never me, not the real me anyway. What if people think I'm a tit?"
"I'm sure your girlfriend isn't going to make you look like a tit," I reassured her, watching the iridescent glow that seemed to surround her at the mere mention of Emily. "In fact, if this commercial is you represented through her eyes, then you're going to look like the most amazing woman on earth."
"But it's different, isn't it? You know, doing something for yourself," she said quietly. "I'm not brave like you and Emily. I don't have something that's mine, something I want to show the world. Something I can be passionate about. At the end of the day I'm just a fucking clothes horse."
"You have her," I suggested.
"And I wake up every day praising the fucking stars for that," she smiled. "I know it's just a silly perfume, not art like what you do, but I do want it to be good."
"They say the trick to making great art is to surround yourself with the best people."
"Like those lovely boys of yours?"
"A great team can make all the difference," I said. "They can make you feel less lonely."
"You do," she said, squeezing my arm. "You make loving her less scary."
"And if all else fails we've got Katie to beat the world into submission," I laughed. "Come on, let's go watch this thing and then we can go and get monumentally fucked up someplace."
"That sounds like a fucking plan," she grinned back at me.
It seemed like Naomi was intent on making an early start on the plan, for as soon as we were inside she handed me a can of San Miguel out of a Tesco's bag. It would seem you could take the girl out of Hackney, but you can't take Hackney out of the girl.
"How did you ever become an international fashion icon?" I whispered to her as the lights went down.
"Fucked if I know," she replied. "I'm just milking it while it lasts."
The screen started in darkness, then slowly emerged into a dimly lit fog. In the gloom you began to make out figures engaged in repetitive actions amongst a debris strewn urban landscape. As they became clearer, you could see that they were dressed in kind of fucked up business wear topped off with what looked like home made steampunk style breathing masks. I smiled when I realised that Emily had used one of Thomas's music tracks, doom laden synths underscoring the actions of the dancers which represented them trying to recreate the motions of their ordinary business day in a system which had long since gone to hell in a handbasket; typing on semi-destroyed laptops, shouting down cell phones with shattered screens, bashing at a cash point that has been torn from a wall and thrown on it's side in the dirt, queuing for buses that would never come. The cinematography was awesome, a dank and depressing mundanity played out in the shadows of a shade of light Emily had cheekily called 'the colour of despair'.
Suddenly, a different figure begins to move amongst them, her entire physicality at odds with the environment. Although she is dressed the same as the others, she moves with a different purpose, striding amongst them and tearing down the representations of their former lives. She slams shut the computer screens, she tears the empty coffee cups from people's hands and finally she rips the mask away from her own head. The brilliant flash of Naomi's peroxide hair is the first colour we see in this nouveau hell, and it focuses a shocked attention from the other people in the crowd. Still she strides forward, and flashes of pyro colour start to follow her progress. Small stuff at first, flares and gerbs and the occasional mine. She begins to rip away her drab attire, and underneath we see she is wearing a stunningly vibrant red dress. As she flings away her former garb, red and gold candles and mines erupt around her. Several of the others try to stop her, but she nonchalantly tosses her head, and a barrage of flame projectors send them flying backwards.
Naomi raps on a heavy wooden door, which is opened by none other than myself, all smoky eyes and wild hair. Le regard ténèbreux, projetant ce je ne sais quoi qui n'appartient qu'à moi. Katie had insisted on the cameo, saying she wanted to get my face known, and when Katie decides she wants something, who are we mere mortals to argue? I hand Naomi an arming key, our fingers lingering in the touch before she continues on her way. Thomas's track hurls itself into a fat and frantic bass drop, and the shot changes to Naomi climbing effortlessly up the side of a ruined building and then expands to take in a hardcore bitchfest of aerial material going off all round the site. The place is a riot of colour and noise, as she surveys her territory from the roof of the building. And in an awesome final shot, we switch to a close full body shot of her standing in amongst an array of tubes as they send off their cargo into the sky with a roaring burst of flame. We got her as close as we dared, but Emily had foreshortened the shot so it looks like she is virtually right amongst the conflagration. Another camera starts to zoom into those hypnotising blue eyes until all we can see is the colour of the explosions reflected there, and the tagline read in Emily's husky voice says 'Detonate by Diamond. Explode your potential…' before switching to a shot of the perfume bottle surrounded by flame, and colourful explosions composited within it's confines.
The lights came up on our stunned features and Emily turned to face us.
"Well, what do you reckon?" she asked us.
Neither Katie or I had much of a chance to answer her as Naomi had pretty much leapt on her and was snogging her face off.
"Your sister has a seriously sexy voice," I said to Katie.
"I know," she replied. "She was going to get an actor in, but I made her do it instead."
"And you, mon Coeur, have a seriously sexy brain," I told her. "This is going to be huge."
"I can't wait to show the boys," she said.
"I dread to think what Cook's going to make of that," I replied.
"He's definitely going to need some alone time," she giggled.
Naomi made good on her dedication to the plan, dragging us off to the VIP room of some swanky club and drowning us in coke and expensive champagne until the dawn. It was 9am the next morning when the four of us were tottering unsteadily down the canal at Camden Lock as the rest of London was settling into it's working day.
"You're a fucking genius, Katie Fitch," slurred Naomi, chugging from a bottle of beer she had just procured from a Sainsbury's local.
"We're all a genius," responded Katie in a similarly inebriated fashion. "We're a right proper bunch of geniuses… genii? Geniee… clever fuckers, us."
"Look out world," sniggered Emily. "Here we come."
"I'll make you come," said Naomi suggestively, manoeuvring her lover against a wall and instigating a serious tonsil inspection.
Katie rolled her eyes and pulled me away to the water's edge.
"If I wake up in a field after this I will be most dischuffed," she said.
"It's going to be hard to find a field in the middle of Camden," I laughed.
"Why do we always end up by the canal?" she frowned the cutest little frown.
"Because canals always show you surprises in places you think you already know?" I shrugged.
"I love you," said Katie. "And I'm going to show the world the surprise that is you."
"And I'm going to marry you, Katie Fitch," I replied.
I said it just to watch the excited little shiver that ran through her body every time I reminded her of that. I could never get enough of it. Une fois mariées, j'allais devoir concocter mille et une autres façons de provoquer le même résultat. I was just about to kiss the face off her when I felt my phone buzzing away in my pocket.
"The fuck is this…" I mumbled as I fumbled to pull it out.
I frowned at the email in front of me, struggling to focus. I decided I needed a grown up to help.
"Some woman from a magazine called Marie Claire wants to interview me," I said to Katie. "What should I say?"
Katie looked back at me with a knowing smile.
"You say yes," she grinned.
.
.
Live Frenching results
1. C'était comme si elles revenaient d'une nuit si superbe, qu'elles ne pouvaient pas contempler une séparation, même pour le bien de leur travail.
It was as if they had just spent such an amazing night together, they couldn't bear to let each other go, and go about their working day.
2. Je n'avais pas le moindre soupçon que six mois plus tard ce même elixir me serait offert sur un plateau.
I had no idea that six months down the line the same heady cocktail would be flung so temptingly in my path.
3. dès que j'appercevais Katie, à l'aise dans son milieu, une vague de désir me coupait le soufflé.
whenever I saw Katie in her natural environment, I could barely breathe from the desire.
4. Malgré les charmes distrayants de Katie Fitch, je demeure toujours Effy – Reine des feux d'artifice.
However much I am enchanted by Katie Fitch, I am still me – Effy, Queen of Pyro.
5. Anthea serait fière de moi. That Anthea would be proud of me.
6. Le regard ténèbreux, projetant ce je ne sais quoi qui n'appartient qu'à moi. Looking dark and mysterious as only I know how.
7. Une fois mariées, j'allais devoir concocter mille et une autres façons de provoquer le même résultat.
When we were married I was going to have to think up new and countless ways to get the same effect.