Cause Celeb

by Helen Fielding

  In the morning, of course, it all seemed like paranoia. I decided I had to get the project on a sounder footing: get the story in the newspapers for a start and go and talk to SUSTAIN. It was early days, I still had three weeks.

  “And it’s the UNHCR you’re dealing with?” said Peter Kerr, from The Times’s Foreign desk.

  “Yes, mainly, as well as SUSTAIN, and the Nambulan relief commission but the UN supply us with food.”

  “Fine. Geraldine,” he shouted across the room, “call the library, love, will you? And PA and see what there is in the last six months.” He looked at me questioningly. I nodded. “Last six months on Nambula and Kefti. Refugee story. Try under Aid and Locusts as well.”

  He started leafing through the photos. “What’s your relationship with SUSTAIN now?”

  “Fluid. I’m going to see them later today. I just put in my resignation in El Daman and left.”

  “I have to say this is not a great time for a famine story.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “When is a great time?”

  “Come on. You know how these things go. All eyes are on Eastern Europe and the Gulf now.”

  “But does everyone think the problem’s solved? It’s not. Look at this.”

  I picked out a photograph of Liben Alye lowering Hazawi into her grave. “This is my friend,” I said emotionally. “This was last week. It’s outrageous to start applying flavor-of-the-month thinking to this.”

  He looked to either side, then picked up the photograph shiftily and put it down again. “Listen, love, I hear what you’re saying. I am just explaining—how—these—things—tend—to—work, all right? This is a newspaper.” He scratched the back of his neck.

  “Course, you could do a personal piece for the feature pages—what about that? My experience in the relief camp, my mission, personal quest sort of number.”

  “No, it needs to be a news story.”

  “Well, I think we’ll be the judge of that, shall we?” he muttered. Then he banged a hand down on the desk. “Leave it with me, love. I’ll check it out, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  I emerged, despondent, from the meeting into the fridgelike world of the London docklands, and a blast of wind hit me, howling round the high concrete and glass buildings. A man bumped my shoulder and hurried on, sporting an ugly purple and green track suit. A lorry groaned past, changing gear, and splashed muddy water on the coat I’d borrowed from Shirley. The skies were heavy and gray. I thought of Safila at sunset, of the red earth, the hot wind, the sound of it filling the empty acres. Maybe it was all just too different and far away for people to imagine.

  Back at Shirley’s I wiped the mud off her coat, made a cup of tea and wondered which way to turn. I had envisaged front-page news stories, featuring my photos. I had thought it would be easy to talk to the celebrities. Always before, in this celebrity world, I had been the other half of Oliver. I had forgotten how alone and insignificant I was going to be. I looked at the phone. I wanted to ring SUSTAIN but I really needed something concrete to offer them first to prove this celebrity plan might work.

  What could I do? I certainly shouldn’t go around begging favors anymore from celebrities who didn’t remember me. It was behaving like Hassan’s girl in the Safila village, who always barged straight up to us demanding earrings. Muhammad had figured out how to fit in with the ex-pats and make us work for him. I thought hard. Now, if this was Muhammad, trying to get help for Kefti at a series of ex-pat social occasions, what would he do? The answer was not what I’d done last night. He’d never try to pull off a trick like that at a UN drinks party—too crass, too difficult. He’d get a friend who was an ex-pat to help him. I had to get someone, or something, to help. But what? Who? I decided to ring some more newspapers.

  A little red light was flashing on the answerphone. I pressed PLAYBACK.

  “Hi, Rosie. It’s Oliver. Listen, I got your number from your mother. I just wanted to say I’m sorry I was a bit over the top last night and wish you good luck with your plan. That’s it. If there’s anything I can do, give me a call.”

  I was excited for about four minutes, then I calmed down. It was just part of a pattern. He’d be nice. Then he’d be horrible. Then he’d be nice again. And then he’d be horrible. He was a lunatic. He had a bad effect on me. Still. He was definitely my best shot. He’d told me last night he had a new job as some flash executive at one of the ITV companies. He was still presenting Soft Focus, which had moved to ITV with him. He had the power to get us a TV slot and the celebrities would probably come on board if he asked them. They trusted him—professionally, at least.

  Why should he do it, though? He was such a cynic. Conscience. Now there was something. Most of the time, socially and professionally, Oliver put up a very convincing front as the good guy, strong, moral and fatherly. Somewhere inside he must want to be that way, or imagine that he was. Maybe I could work on that. Then there was me. I wondered if I still had any power over him. I had rejected him once. He was a control freak, he probably wouldn’t quite be able to reconcile himself to that. But was it a sound plan to get food for the starving by attempting to manipulate a powerful loony? No, really not at all.

  Half an hour later I got out the phone book and dialed the company number.

  “Oliver Marchant, please.” I was up against it. I had to play every card I had.

  “Just putting you through.”

  The world was imbalanced, half of it was vulnerable and if that meant people’s lives relied on unreliable things, like politics, like accounting, like fashion, like Oliver Marchant’s moods then that was the way it was.

  “Oliver Marchant’s phone.” Oh dear. It was Gwen. He still had the same supercilious PA.

  “Hello, it’s Rosie Richardson here. Could I speak to Oliver, please?”

  “Oh . . . oh. Hello. Well, he’s really very busy.”

  “I realize that. But he did call me and ask me to ring.”

  “I see . . . um, well, he’s in a meeting at the moment. Shall I ask him to call you?”

  “Actually, what he said was to fix a time to pop in this afternoon.” Slight lie but never mind. A phone call wouldn’t do.

  “Hold the line, please,” she said in a cold, skeptical voice. Damn, she was going to ask him. I waited. Our relationship didn’t need to come into it. I could simply ask him as one professional to another and appeal to his better nature.

  “He has a window at four-thirty.”

  “Four-thirty will be great. Thank you.”

  At four twenty-five, I arrived on the seventh floor at Capital Daily Television. Gwen was waiting for me outside the lift.

  “Hel-lo, Rosie. My, you have changed.”

  What was that supposed to mean?

  “Just along here. You won’t be able to have him for very long. You’re very lucky he’s managed to pop you in. Are you enjoying it in Africa?”

  “I’m not sure enjoying is quite the word.”

  “Have a seat,” she said. “He won’t be a moment.”

  I sat watching Gwen type for twenty-five minutes. I was very nervous. He was cleverer than me. He suddenly opened the door, looking at his watch. He didn’t acknowledge me. “Call Paul Jackson, will you, and tell him I’m running late? Come in,” he said, still not looking at me. “Did Sam Fletcher call?”

  “Yes. Oh, and Greg Dyke,” said Gwen.

  “I’ll get back to them when I’m through with Rosie. I’ll be ten minutes.”

  Ten minutes? Was that all?

  The office was a large white room with a wooden floor, soft black-leather sofas lining three of the walls and plate glass windows behind the desk with a panoramic view of the city. There was a matte-black staggered plinth in the center of the room with golden award figurines neatly placed at various levels. Oliver sat down behind the desk. There was nothing on it except a flat black phone, a flat black ashtray and a black hardback notebook open at a pristine thick white page. The wall to Oliver’s right was covered with pic
tures of Oliver with celebrities: Oliver with Mick Jagger, Oliver with Kenneth Branagh, Oliver between Margaret and Denis Thatcher.

  I sat down on the upright chair opposite.

  “So, then. Where are we? Sorry, haven’t got much time here.”

  He was entirely detached and formal. His hands were flat in front of him on the desk, dark hairs on the sides, long familiar fingers.

  “What is it you want to talk to me about?” he said, glancing at the matte-black watch we had chosen together. I might have been a stranger pitching an idea for a series. This was no good.

  “You know what I want to talk to you about,” I said.

  He blinked at me.

  “You rang me this morning. Have you forgotten already? Have you gone senile or something?”

  He looked down, then he gave three slow laughs through his nose, and leaned back in his chair, putting his arms behind his head. “Well. You haven’t changed, have you?” he said.

  “I think I have,” I said. “It was very good of you to ring me today.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “You’re the only person I know who can make this work. I think you’re a kind man. I want you to help.”

  I was watching his face. He was flattered. It was working.

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “Nothing complicated. We just need to get a handful of celebrities to agree to do a simple program. You’re quite right. I was going about it the wrong way last night. But if you approach them, they’ll say yes.”

  “To what?”

  “A TV appeal. Just a short show.”

  “But you say you need to do this inside three weeks.”

  “It’s enough. Couldn’t it be done in the Soft Focus spot?”

  He got up and walked into the middle of the room, thinking. Then he turned toward me, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, love. I’d like to help but it can’t be done. Not in that space of time.”

  I looked at the plinth, then got to my feet, walked over and picked up one of the awards. “Do you remember when you won this? Do you remember how long it took you to put that program together? Ten days.”

  “I remember,” he said softly.

  He was looking down at me, into my eyes, holding the look for too long, as he used to do. I broke the moment, moved back and sat on the chair and saw his face change.

  “It can’t be done,” he said. “You might get the money for your first lot of food. I’ll give you a few grand. Dave Rufford’s got millions he doesn’t know what to do with. If you posed as a therapist you could take Julian for everything he’s got. Bill Bonham’s completely barking now. You could probably get the whole lot from him if you convinced him it would heal his aura. How much do you need?”

  “The food is no use without a cargo flight. And I can’t get a flight sponsored without publicity. The problem’s bigger than just our camp. We need public pressure and we need to explain why it’s happened. I don’t just want to tug heartstrings.”

  “Have you tried the newspapers?”

  “I tried The Times today, but famine’s out at the moment apparently.”

  “You went to Today?”

  “No. I said I tried The Times today.”

  “You want the tabloids. I’ll give you a name at the News. They could make a big thing out of it. ‘Ministering Angel Twists Arm of Former Lover to Save Starving.’”

  “Oh, come on,” I said angrily.

  “It’s a great story, great picture. Just undo another button, love.”

  I shot him a furious look.

  “Sorry, sorry. Just arsing around,” he said.

  “Don’t.”

  “You have changed, haven’t you?” he said disparagingly.

  “Yes.”

  “Look. I can’t help you. I know it’s a heartwarming idea but it’s unrealistic. You can’t just stick a bunch of performers in front of a camera like that.”

  “I’m not saying we should. It needs organizing properly. That’s why it needs you, and an office and some staff.”

  “It won’t work. What can I say?” He raised his hands and let them fall.

  “You could say you’d try,” I said. “You’re a good person, aren’t you?”

  “I’m in a new position in a new company here. I can’t come in at this stage with an idea which is going to go off at half cock.”

  “Oliver, I know this is difficult for you, but try. Just try to get a grip on the idea that there might be some things in life which are more important than your career.” I got up. “I can’t pull this off on my own, but if you won’t help me, someone else will. I’ll do it. You watch.”

  Right, no more pressure, just leave. I picked up my bag and headed for the door.

  “Thanks for talking to me anyway, that was good of you. I’ll see you in a couple of years. Bye.”

  When I got back to Shirley’s, sure enough the little light was flashing on the answerphone.

  “Oh, Rosie, hi, it’s Oliver here.” Excellent. Excellent. “Listen, if you want to talk about this idea some more I’ll be in the Groucho at eight o’clock. Maybe see you there.”

  I sat back and sighed. Thank God.

  CHAPTER

  Twenty

  Barrrurrrrr!” Dinsdale got the evening off to a splendid start, bellowing across the room like an old she-elephant.

  “Barry, do tell me, are you going to be the chairman? I absolutely can’t bear it if you are. I’m desperate to be it. Absolutely wild for it.”

  “Oh, shut up, you bloody old fool, do. Absolutely crazy. You know perfectly well who the bloody chairman is. Where’s the bloody drink around here? That’s what I want to know. Bloody crazy.”

  When Oliver decided to move, he moved. It was just five days since I’d seen him in the Groucho club, and now over a dozen major celebrities were assembled in a conference room at Capital Daily Television for our first meeting. It was the Famous Club, acting branch, with certain key additions. Edwina Roper and the bearded figures of SUSTAIN’s press officers were standing in a little group with Oliver, Vicky Spankie and Julian. Vicky was wearing a khaki combat jacket and peaked cap with a hammer and sickle on it.

  Oliver was in his most charming, authoritative mode, working the room, relaxing everyone. He was talking to Edwina Roper, touching her arm, looking at her as if she was the most interesting person in the world. Edwina was coloring slightly, charmed, putting her hand to her throat.

  The Irish actor Liam Doyle was standing in another group with three actors donated by the RSC. Bill Bonham was already seated at the table, mouthing something, his mantra presumably. Rajiv Sastry and his friends were talking in low, bitter voices and looking around the room. Behind them Corinna Borghese was lecturing a group of Soft Focus personnel. And Dave Rufford, the wealthy ex–rock star, was handing round photos of his five-year-old son, Max, sitting on a Shetland pony and dressed in full fox-hunting gear.

  I was talking to Nigel Hoggart, a very clean young man in a gray suit, who was the representative of Circle Line Cargo. They had more or less promised me a sponsored flight to take out the first lot of food, provided they were happy with the publicity.

  There was a commotion at the door and Kate Fortune fluttered in, followed by the nanny, the baby and two aides. She swooped across the room and positively fell upon Oliver, taking hold of her hair and throwing it back into the eyes of Barry, who was coming forward excitedly to greet her.

  Dinsdale caught hold of my arm. “D’you know, my darling. I’m so sorry. I’m such a senile old fool. I did not have the faintest glimmer of a clue who you were the other night outside the theatah. I only remembered when you’d disappeared and I was agonized. You must think I’m the most frrrrightful boorish old nincompoop.”

  “No problem. I’m very glad—”

  “But could you help me out, my darling, could you? Could you bear to? Where is it we’re raising the money for? Do you know? You could possibly bear to tell me? Could you?”

  “Nambula.”


  “Oh, Nambuuuula.” The brown eyes fixed on me concernedly. “Ah yes. Nambula. Bossy neighbors, bothersome borders. What is it? Refugees? Keftians? All that again? We must gather round and support. We must help. We must.”

  “Yes, Keftians. Didn’t know you were an Africa buff, Dinsdale.”

  “Oh, I read the papers, you know. Every day, my darling, cover to cover, never miss. Barry!” he roared.

  “What is it now, you bloody fool?”

  “It’s Nambuuula. Nambuuula.”

  “Yes, all right, all right. No need to make a bloody song and dance about it.”

  Edwina Roper tapped me on the shoulder. “Rosie, this is terrif, what a turnout! Well done. Isn’t Oliver Marchant the most charming man?”

  “This is Nigel Hoggart from Circle Line Cargo, who are going to help us with the flight—we hope!” I said, smiling creepily at Nigel.

  “Yes, I know. Been twisting our arms all week, this lady has!” said Nigel. “That’s what’s been occurring.” He winked at Edwina.

  “Have you heard anything from the government?” I asked her.

  “Yes, I’ve spoken to the ODA. Not good, I’m afraid. They’re aware of what’s happening in Kefti. They’re concerned, but they don’t have the funds at the moment. They’ll need an additional budget before they can do anything, especially as it has to be a question of airlifting now.”

  “Have you heard anything from Safila?”

  “Nothing recent, I’m afraid. There’s still no radio contact and Malcolm has been away. But we’re getting reports of arrivals in Wad Denazen and Chaboulah.”

  “UN made their minds up what they think yet?”

  She shook her head. “I think what we have in this room is our best shot.”

  Oliver gave good meeting, relaxed and authoritative.

  “Right,” he was saying, looking round the table. “Acting? Acts? Africa? What are we going to call ourselves?”

  “Act on Africa,” said Vicky looking at him hopefully.

  “Arms Around the World?” said Kate Fortune. “Hearts? Hearts of Africa?”