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it.’
    â€˜You can bloody say that again,’ Trevor concurred. But the simple psychology had worked; it had brought a grin – albeit a patronising one – to the driver’s face. He sprang into the truck’s seat with insulting ease.
    â€˜Look, can we make it quick, please . . .?’ This wingeing voice belonged to Alan Hibbert, the Warehouse Manager, who had been hovering around uneasily all morning, trying time and again to move the proceedings along.
    He had received assurances from Ken Colebourne that the filming would only take a couple of hours and would cause minimum disruption. Unversed in the ways of television and film – where everything always takes immeasurably longer than it’s meant to and where the words ‘minimum disruption’ always mean ‘maximum disruption’ – Alan Hibbert had actually believed the Marketing Director’s words. And was now, to his cost, finding out the truth.
    Ken Colebourne had kept saying that they were only using one aisle for the filming and that the work of the rest of the warehouse could continue uninterrupted, but every time Alan Hibbert tried to get one of the other forklifts going, it either became entangled in the spaghetti of cables spawned by the cameras and lights or was ordered to stop because it was making too much noise during a take.
    The marriage between show business and the industrial process was not getting off to a very good start.
    â€˜Look, it’s dead simple. Bloody child of three could do it.’
    Charles grinned weakly, prepared to suffer Trevor’s scorn in the cause of speed.
    â€˜First you switch on the ignition – right?’
    Charles, nodding like an idiot, watched the key turned, as if the operation were a complex feat of microsurgery. ‘Right.’
    â€˜And then you simply push this lever on the left of the steering wheel forward and you’re in gear – right?’
    Charles watched this manoeuvre completed with the ardour of Galahad being given a sneak preview of the Holy Grail. ‘Right. You don’t use the clutch?’ he asked breathlessly.
    â€˜Can do, but don’t have to,’ Trevor assured him. ‘And look – you’re moving.’
    â€˜So you are,’ agreed Charles, amazed by the miracle of the forklift truck slowly edging forwards.
    â€˜And then you give it a touch of the accelerator to go faster.’
    â€˜Just like a car, really.’
    This thought did not seem to have struck Trevor before. ‘Well, yeah, I suppose, if you like. Bit like a car.’
    On reflection, he decided this comparison might diminish the mystery of his calling. ‘Different from a car, though.’
    â€˜Yes, of course.’
    â€˜I mean, driving a forklift . . . well, it’s a specialised skill.’
    â€˜I’ll say.’
    Trevor flashed a look at Charles, suspecting mockery. Unable to decide whether or not there had been any, he went on, ‘Anyway, what you got to do is swing the wheel like so.’ He matched the action to his words. ‘With a bit of bloody beef, though. If people are going to think it’s me, I don’t want to come across as a bleeding fairy, do I?’
    This prompted a laugh from somewhere over behind the stacks. Trevor turned sharply at the sound but could not identify its source.
    â€˜No. Right,’ said Charles, long accustomed to the fact that 50 per cent of the population thought all actors were ‘bleeding fairies’. Presumably, it had been one of that 50 per cent who had just laughed.
    â€˜Reckon you can do that then?’ Trevor asked, his voice again heavy with sarcasm.
    â€˜Think so.’ Charles judiciously mixed humility into the confidence of his reply.
    Trevor didn’t look convinced. He nonchalantly swung the wheel of the forklift again and brought the truck to rest exactly where it had started.
    â€˜That’s terrific,’ said Griff Merricks. ‘Thank