Page 20 of The Cut

The goal that exploded from Lily Knot’s boot was sublime. No one was surprised; her speed and agility, along with a sense of something to prove, were like fuel in her engine. A lot of unapologetic rage was expended on that football field, and Lily was the leader.

Old Mr Branchflower blew the whistle, and the ball was back in play.

‘DRIVE IT HOME, LILS!’ Nathan Knot was standing on the sidelines, shouting out what he thought was football jargon.

He sipped on hot soup, holding the cup with one hand and filming her on his iPhone with the other.

He and his sister lived for embarrassing each other with TikToks.

A montage of hilarious football fails would go down well.

Another camera panned across the backs of the bodies standing on the sidelines.

Karine Mickelsen hadn’t wasted a second setting up. Initially, she had held back, standing some way off under the cover of a line of cypresses, but slowly she began to creep forward until she was closer to the action.

She wore a baseball cap and headphones and had a handheld Sony Venice Rialto’d into a split body, the lens on her shoulder, battery in her backpack.

A guy in a fedora, with a mullet and sunglasses, was sitting in a lawn chair a little further off, with a portable sound-mixing desk on his knees.

A younger, scrawny kid wearing a puffer jacket and combats, who didn’t look much older than Nate, loaded the 110 shot with the clapper board and then concentrated on working the focus.

Lily Knot glanced up from the field to the chemistry lab window, where she could see a line of bare buttocks mooning her. If that’s what the boys thought of girls’ football, she would show them.

A flurry of trouser hitching was met with the red-faced Mr Tacey, struggling to drop the blind. Lily shook her head and looked over to Nate, who shrugged, trying not to snigger at the boys of Year 11.

Nate clocked Karine out of the corner of his eye and sidled up to her. ‘That’s a lot of kit.’ Karine removed her cans and slipped them down to her neck.

‘Lily’s a good player.’ Karine smiled at him. ‘She looks great on camera too, athletic.’

Nate smiled. ‘Have we started making the film already?’ He blew on the surface of his soup to cool it.

‘Not quite … I’m shooting plates and establishers to get a feel for the geography.’ Karine’s eyes scanned the field.

‘Will you tell me what the story is about?’

‘It’s about love.’ Karine’s gaze moved from his face, passing over his shoulder across the field.

‘And pain.’ She lifted the camera and continued recording. ‘It’s a simple story, really. Like football, we all know the rules but we won’t know what will happen in the game until it’s played. That’s what makes it exciting.’

The score was one all, and with five minutes left they would most likely be going into extra time.

Lily knew this wasn’t good. If it ended in penalties, they would lose; she was the only decent striker on their team.

The final minutes seemed like a blur. Backing up into the halfway line, the ball was thrown in and Lily was off 111 like a shot.

Whitney Briggs, the other team’s attacker, had been salivating for months at the opportunity to bring the team captain down a peg or two.

Karine continued. ‘Barton Mallet’s a quiet village … I like it. I live in the city but it’s nice out here in the peace and quiet of the countryside.’ She breathed in the cool breeze and surveyed her new location.

‘Yeah, not much happens here though … it’s pretty boring.’ Nate shrugged and chewed his lip.

‘Well … Not anymore.’ She winked. ‘Not now I’m here.

’ She jolted to attention as a loud boo surged through the crowd.

‘Ouch! That must have hurt.’ Karine’s eager eye returned to the viewfinder and Nate’s head whipped back to the pitch.

The brutal foul from Whitney Briggs, akin to a rugby tackle, had swept Lily’s legs from underneath her.

Winded, she lay on the ground, tasting iron in her mouth.

‘Briggs, what are you playing at? WRONG SPORT.’ Branchflower was striding across the field from the sidelines.

Whitney Bully Briggs was up on her feet. ‘She fouled me, innit … I was clinging on.’

‘With both hands wrapped tight around her knees, Briggs? I wasn’t born yesterday.’ Branchflower was fiddling in his top pocket for the inevitable yellow card.

‘Wha’ever.’ Briggs shrugged, turned to her gaggle of friends filming everything on their phones and smirked.

Nate was standing shaking his head. ‘SHOULD BE A RED CARD!’ He turned to Karine. ‘That girl never plays by the rules … she’s a bad sport.’

Karine eyed him beadily. ‘And what about you? You ever break the rules … just to win?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘No matter the cost?’ 112

Nate finished the soup and drop-kicked the cup over the chain-link fence. His head snapped back to her as if caught out.

Karine laughed, throwing her head back. ‘Is that all you got?’ She stopped for a second. ‘What? No necking on the swings, no smoking weed, no joy rides?’

Nate shrugged. ‘I guess not.’ He didn’t have a lot to say.

His eyes focused back to the sports field, where his sister was still lying on her back.

As she sat up on the grass, a trickle of blood rolled down her cheek.

A stone had caught her temple and opened a small cut close to her eye.

Whitney Briggs glanced over in the direction of Karine Mickelsen’s camera.

Then, unseen by the referee, Briggs booted Lily hard in the ribs.

Lily flinched with pain, holding on to her side.

Nate noticed Karine’s energy lift. He thought she was about to wade in and break it up, but instead she moved in closer and continued filming.

Hordes of kids began to pour out of the school doors and something in Lily snapped. The attack took her opponent by surprise. Briggs was down on the ground in a second and Lily Knot was on top of her, pummelling her face and pulling on her braids.

‘KNOT, KNOT, KNOT, KNOT.’

Karine moved like a bullet from a gun, striding across the field with Nate in tow, homing in on the action. ‘Go on, Nate, get in there … do your brotherly thing.’ Karine guided him to his sister’s aid, filming his every move.

‘Get off me!’ Briggs fought back as the crowd began to gather round.

Karine’s camera captured every moment and the circle of spectators were too preoccupied filming the action on their phones to do anything.

A girl-on-girl fight was the perfect click bait.

It would most likely go viral, especially if hair got pulled or clothes got torn and body parts spilled out.

It took Nate barging through the tight circle and pulling Lily off the massive physical 113 form of Whitney Briggs to bring the vicious fight to an end.

Nate held Lily’s arms and tried to calm her down as she continued to lash out.

Mr Branchflower helped Briggs up from the floor and ushered her inside as the clique of girls, checking their phones to ensure they’d captured all the drama, finally rallied to their friend’s aid.

As Whitney passed Karine, they made eye contact, a moment of recognition.

Karine smiled at her and she nodded back. She’d set the whole thing up.

Nate clocked it, but busied himself with his sister, talking quietly into her ear, stroking her head, and using the corner of his shirt to wipe some of the blood from her face.

Karine had witnessed the fight in close-up.

She had captured everything, just as she had promised.

From a safe distance, the focus puller, Freddie, had sharpened the frame as Karine pushed in close on the rage boiling across Lily Knot’s face and witnessed it melt under her brother’s touch.

The effect was dramatic; a score was already playing in her mind, something poignant, strings or a solo sparse piano.

She needed to cut to a wide shot to close the scene, so she changed lenses and dropped back to the very edge of the sports field.

School was out, the game was over and the girls were cleaning up in the changing room.

Karine saved the data to her hard drive.

She had decided to defy Max and shoot on digital where possible; the vintage camera would come later.

She sent Freddie and Fedora back to the Red Lion for a well-earned pint and waited for Nate to leave the main school building. She watched him cross the tennis courts, then headed him off at the shortcut between the houses.

Karine was leaning against the fence waiting for him, her eyes focused on the end of School Lane, where glittering Santas, robins 114 and bells already hung from each lamppost in the distance, lining the path. ‘Mind if I walk with you for a bit?’

Nate paused for a second. ‘Is this about filming?’

‘Yeah … Nate, listen … Those rules we were discussing. I am going to need you to break some of them.’ Karine walked alongside him, hunched over against the icy wind that was now picking up. ‘Just for me … for a bit of extra drama, you know?’

‘Like you just did?’ Nate looked down to his feet.

‘How do you mean?’ Karine kept her eyes fixed on his face.

‘Whitney Briggs … the fight with Lily.’ Nate turned to Karine and stared her down. ‘You set that up … the foul.’

Karine stopped for a second and smiled. ‘I’m just testing the water.’

‘She could have got hurt.’ Nate’s brow furrowed.

Karine inclined her head. ‘Lily’s tough … she can take it … but how about you?’

Nate was reddening, he swallowed and nodded.

‘You have to go through the mill to get the best results. Did watching your sister make you feel something?’ Karine was studying him, like a specimen.

‘It made me feel sick.’

‘Right? So, use it, Nate. These feelings are real.’

Karine pulled something from the bag on her shoulder, a bundle wrapped in a leather zip pouch.

‘I’m going to set you a task. Do you know what improvisation is?’ Karine was holding a small leather camera case.

‘Oh course. We do it at Kidsmet … never invent … never deny.’ Nate seemed energised now, his ruddy face beaming as they picked up their pace towards the amber lights of the small parade of shops in the village. 115

‘Good mantra … we might need a little bit of invention, though.’ Karine paused at the end of the lane. ‘Will you take this and shoot some footage for me?’ She held out the zip bag and opened it. ‘It’s a vintage camera.’

Nate frowned. ‘Looks complicated. Can’t I just use my iPhone?’

‘This one will capture some interesting stuff.’ Karine flicked open the cassette window and ejected a tape. ‘It uses real film.’ She blew into the reels, clearing it of dust.

‘What do I have to do?’ Nate’s eyes glinted with intrigue.

‘OK … how about this. I send you a text each day, with a time and a place to meet. I tell you what to wear and what to be prepared for, maybe a few lines of script but not exactly what is about to happen. I want you to be surprised and I want you to surprise me.’ She crossed her arms and smiled at him down the lens. ‘Does that sound like a good plan?’

Nate took the clunky-looking camera and turned it over in his hands. ‘You’ll have to show me how to use it.’

‘Of course. Happy to! They don’t make the tapes anymore, but I’ll try and get hold of some for you. Maybe there are some old home videos stashed away in the attic you could use?’

‘Yeah, maybe.’ Nate smiled, tucked the camera safely into his bag and turned to head home.

‘This will be exciting; we’ll have some fun. I’ll text you the first task tomorrow. How are you with stunts?’

Nate shrugged. ‘Oh … I’m not sure.’ He looked nervous. ‘Why?’

‘There’s going to be a fight.’ Karine’s eyes moved to the path behind him.

‘It might get a little tricky.’ She seemed lost in her thoughts for a second.

‘But don’t worry, we’ll choreograph it to look convincing.

’ Karine turned towards the old part of the village.

‘So, my little action hero, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Yes?’ Nate 116 nodded and headed off home.

Karine watched him trudging off into the distance.

His gangly awkward body, trousers too short, already outgrowing his school uniform, made her flinch with anticipation for what was about to happen. Max was right, he was absolutely perfect for this role.

Nate was grinning from ear to ear as he opened the front door to his house and headed up to his room. This would be exciting. He loved a new project, and experimenting with an old film camera was right up his street.

He felt like a spy on a mission.

It had already begun; blood had already been spilt, just a spot. A second audition had happened by accident and Lily had nailed it.

Karine had no intention of disturbing the water, but throwing in a catalyst now and then to get what she wanted would be essential.

The cast of characters was beginning to emerge in her mind. The lover, the rival, the outsider, the witness, there was always a bent copper and someone always had to die.

The Hoax had been a commercial success. The Cut would change everything.