by Jane Fallon
I look out into the office. Juliet is no longer there. I grab my coat and steam over to Roz’s desk. ‘Come for a walk with me.’
Roz takes one look at me and, I assume, realizes now is not the time to plead busyness. I keep walking out into the corridor. Lorraine and Emma both look up as I go, but I ignore them.
‘That fucking bitch,’ I say when Roz catches me up.
‘I take it we’re talking about Camilla Parker Bowles?’ She stumbles on her heels trying to keep pace. I slow down.
I tell her what’s just happened and she listens with her mouth open, reaching the conclusion that the whole point was to cause friction between me and Caz way more quickly than I did.
‘You’ve got to give her credit, it’s original,’ she says.
‘What if Amanda hadn’t called to say thank you? I mean, for fuck’s sake. Caz probably would have started a hate campaign against me. As it is I’m fifty-five quid down and I look like a desperate saddo who sucks up to the cast by sending them flowers.’
I slam out of the door into the car park. The freezing air hits me like a slap and I pull my coat close round my neck.
‘Where are we going?’ Roz asks in a slightly desperate voice.
I keep moving. ‘I have no idea. I just had to get out of there. Let’s walk round the block.’
‘Can we go to the café instead?’
I look back at her. Her nose is already pink. Cheeks flushed. Roz and extreme temperatures do not go well together. ‘Shit, sorry. Yes, let’s.’
We walk on for a moment and then I come to a sudden stop. ‘What if that’s where Juliet’s gone?’
‘I can scout it out before we go in. Are you going to say anything to her?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, the stupid woman in the shop couldn’t even tell me who put the order in …’
‘Think about it carefully first. You don’t want her to lure you into losing your rag. Then she’ll go bleating off to Glen and you’ll look like the bad guy.’
I consider this. It’s true that Juliet and Glen have a good relationship or, as Roz would prefer it, she sucks up to him and he likes it. But he and I do too. And he had a big say in me getting the job over her, after all. Maybe I should open his eyes as to what she’s really like.
‘I mean, what’s she actually done so far?’ Roz is saying. ‘Nothing that can harm you. If that’s the best she’s got then who cares?’
‘What if there’s something else? Something worse?’
Roz shrugs. ‘I don’t think she’s that clever.’
We walk on in silence for a moment. I tell myself not to overreact. She’s doing this to provoke a reaction. Above all else I shouldn’t give her what she wants. By the time we reach the café, and Roz has checked that the coast is clear, I feel calmer. We get takeaway coffees, start the walk back.
‘Think zen,’ Roz says, and I laugh. The previous boss of the show, Catherine, once decided that lunchtime yoga would be a good bonding exercise. Probably because her husband was a yoga teacher and needed a bit of extra cash. Roz and I went along one time, but even though we managed to get past the sight of our co-workers’ Lycra-clad bums in the air neither of us could survive the meditation session at the end. The omming made us howl with laughter and the frustrated teacher shouting ‘Think zen’ at us, in a voice that was anything but, finished us off. We’ve said it to each other ever since in times of stress.
We’re walking along the long corridor, back to the office, when I spot Juliet up ahead, coming out of the Ladies. My heart starts to pound. I feel myself go red in the face. Roz puts a hand out and touches my arm, a gesture designed to remind me to keep calm. I know she’s right. I know there’s nothing to be gained from calling Juliet out. I know I should keep my dignity.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ I’ve said it before I can stop myself. I shrug Roz’s hand away.
Juliet looks round as if I might be talking to someone behind her. Realizes there is no one behind her. Looks back at me. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about.’ It hits me as I’m saying this that it sounds as if we’re rehearsing a scene from the show: ‘You slaaag’; ‘Who do you think you’re talking to, you’re the effing slaaaaaag.’
‘Why would I ask the question if I did?’ she says in that sneery way she has.
‘Just know that I know it was you. If you do anything else I’m going straight to Glen.’
‘Good,’ she says. ‘You do that. Maybe he’ll have a clue as to what the hell you’re referring to.’
I can’t bear her condescending tone. I open my mouth to say more but just at that moment the door to Glen’s office opens and he steps out into the corridor. He looks at the three of us standing there, Juliet and me glaring at each other. ‘Everything OK?’
‘All good,’ Roz says cheerily, and then she takes my arm and steers me towards the office.
6
As I’m thinking about packing up for the day Glen puts his head round my door.
‘Got two minutes?’
‘Sure.’ I follow him out of my office, through the open-plan area and into his larger space at the end of the corridor. For some reason it doesn’t occur to either of us that we could close the door to my room and chat in there. Roz and Joe have already left for the day, Emma is winding her overlong scarf round her face again and Juliet has her head in a script. She looks up as we pass. I’ve managed to avoid her all afternoon. Mostly by looking the other way whenever she appears in my field of vision.
Glen reaches into the small fridge by his desk and produces a screwtop bottle of white wine. ‘Drink?’ he says, opening it without waiting for an answer.
‘Love one.’ I pull two plastic cups from the water dispenser and put them down in front of him and then sit at one end of his grey sofa.
‘How are you getting on?’ he says as he pours.
‘Oh. OK, I think. It’s going to take me a while to get completely up to speed with what everyone else is doing …’
‘Of course,’ he says. He hands me a cup and I sip, resisting the urge to chuck it all back in one go.
‘So …’ he says, and then he leaves such a long gap I start thinking maybe I’m meant to fill it. Luckily I can’t think of anything to say because he finally speaks again.
‘I appreciate it must be difficult trying to redefine relationships with people you’ve worked with for a long time.’
I wonder if Juliet has been to see him. To complain about me before I can complain about her. Of course it may just be that he overheard us talking in the corridor. The atmosphere was so thick when he opened his office door he must have been able to feel it. I think about telling him what’s happened but what would I really be saying? Juliet may have moved some scripts I came in early to read, and she sent some flowers on my behalf. Put like that it hardly sounds damning. And I don’t want him to start thinking I’m not going to be able to manage the people I’m meant to be working with. ‘What? No. I mean … I think things just need to settle down a bit.’
‘Well,’ he says in a measured tone. He sits on the armchair opposite me and leans back. I’ve never really thought about it before but he’s actually not bad-looking in an ‘it took a lot of hard work to look this laid-back’ kind of way. He certainly thinks he is. He has a beard, the kind that he probably oils and combs every day and has neatened up at the barber’s once a week, his eyebrows have not a hair out of place. His clothes are impeccable, as if he spends way too long worrying about them. He lives in Shoreditch, need I say more? I prefer my men clean-shaven and sweaty from the gym. What men? I hear you say, and you’d be right. The imaginary men in my head.
‘… it’s always difficult when someone else gets the job you’d set your heart on …’
I’m hopeful that I detect an acknowledgement in there that Juliet is the one who is behaving badly, not me.
‘Well, I think Juliet probably feels a bit hard done by because she’s been here the longes
t …’
‘I imagine they both have issues with that.’
I wonder if I’ve misheard. ‘Both?’
‘Juliet and Roz.’
‘Oh no,’ I say, realizing he’s got the wrong end of the stick. ‘Not Roz. She’s totally behind me.’
He nods. ‘I suppose that makes sense. If she didn’t get it herself she’d rather it was you than Juliet. That’s the impression I get.’
‘She didn’t even want it, though.’ I’m confused by the turn this conversation has taken. Why are we talking about Roz here?
Glen raises an eyebrow. ‘Oh, but she did. She didn’t tell you she applied? I thought you were mates.’
‘We are. What? Roz went for the job?’
He nods.
‘My job?’
‘Yes. Is that such a surprise?’
‘Really?’ I’m at a loss for what to say. I think about all the evenings in the pub when we pored over my application form. Me saying to Roz ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go for it?’ because if she’d said yes I would have supported her. Happily. And her pulling that face. As if.
‘I’m really confused,’ is all I can come up with eventually.
‘Anyway, my point is that you were the one we all felt was the best candidate. There’s a reason for that. You need to rise above whatever was going on out there in the corridor.’
‘Of course,’ I say, trying to seem professional. Glen doesn’t need to see how much this has rattled me.
‘Don’t you think that’s weird?’ I say to Dee. We’re in the chintzy bar at the end of my road, which Dee conveniently passes on her way home from work as a receptionist at the Royal Free, half a glass of Merlot down. Because we arranged to meet at seven and I arrived at approximately two minutes past she was already in a bit of a huff when I walked in, making a point of checking the time on her Fitbit.
‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘I’ve been sat here for ten minutes, like a saddo.’
‘Because you were eight minutes early.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘No, it really is,’ I said, leaning down and giving her a hug.
Now she screws up her face. ‘Maybe she was just embarrassed to tell you? She probably knew you had a much bigger chance of getting it.’
‘Not on paper. She’s got years more experience than me.’
Dee shrugs. ‘It’s insecurity, that’s all.’
‘It’s just strange,’ I say, finishing the glass. ‘I told her all my story ideas and she helped me pick out the best one. And she never said anything …’
She holds up her own glass as if to say ‘Do you want another’ and I shake my head. ‘Are you going to mention it to her?’ Dee asks.
I think for a moment. ‘I have no idea. No, I don’t think so. I mean … if she was so determined not to tell me …’
She pulls her coat from the back of her chair. ‘It’ll blow over. Just keep your head down and do a good job.’
Outside it’s started to snow. Not in a picture-book Santa in Lapland kind of way, but that horizontal frozen slush that gets into your eyes and never settles except in treacherous icy patches. Even though I only have to walk two hundred metres I jam my woolly hat down and pull my scarf up, leaving just a tiny viewing window. Dee and I hug like two snow-suited babies, arms out straight, and we go our separate ways.
‘Don’t worry about the Juliet thing either,’ she calls after me. I know I must have bored her to death with my work woes.
‘I won’t,’ I shout back. ‘Hopefully she’s got it out of her system.’
Inside my flat it’s bitterly cold. Smokey greets me like someone who’s been lost on the frozen wastes of Siberia and thought they might never experience warmth or food again. I reach out a hand to feel the nearest radiator. Nothing.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I say aloud. Without even taking my coat off I head for the cupboard in the kitchen that houses the boiler and turn the knob to top up the pressure. Then I press reset and, thankfully, it bursts back into life. I turn on the gas fire in the living room, open a tin of food for Smokey and put his bowl within whisker-singeing distance. I had been planning on thawing out and mulling over my day in a deep hot bath with a glass of wine on the side, but by the time the water heats up now I’ll probably be asleep, so I just change into my PJs as quickly as I can without exposing too much flesh to the elements at any one time, microwave a bean chilli with rice and eat it huddled next to my cat on the living-room floor.
I’m living the dream.
7
I’ve decided that I have to go all out to impress Glen to assuage any worries he has about whether or not I’m the woman for the job. So, a week into my new position, I’m pitching him my idea for the Morgan character. I know it’s taking her in a very different direction, and it’s a bit more serious than our usual ‘who’s shagging who?’ fluff, but I’ve been mulling it over, and I think it’s just what we need at the moment. Our ratings have been on a long slow decline for some time, even with all of Glen’s changes and although it’s tempting to just bury our heads in the sand and keep churning out the same old stuff, that seems foolish in the long term. We could all end up out of a job. And I’ve decided I need to stick my neck out. Show him I’m up to it.
‘Oh yes, Roz’s story?’ he says when I mention it. ‘It’s not a bad idea.’
His comment throws me completely off course. ‘Um … no, it’s mine. But anyway …’
Glen looks momentarily confused. I decide to let it go even though all I really want to say is ‘What do you mean Roz’s story?’ I need to focus on what’s important here. I talk him through the whole story arc and he nods along.
‘Yes, and then she goes off the rails. Ends up waking up in hospital with no idea where she’s been,’ he says, when I reach a certain point. ‘Have we talked about this before? It’s so familiar.’
‘I don’t think so.’ I tell myself to concentrate. We talk for a bit about whether or not the viewers might enjoy seeing a completely different side to our Miss Perfect character, or if it might alienate them. About whether Sammy, the actress playing Morgan, could pull it off, and how she might feel about the challenge. But my mind is racing.
‘Plot it through and let’s see how it would work alongside everything else,’ he says, turning to some paperwork on his desk. ‘And then we’ll see.’
‘I thought maybe the hospital ep could be the first week in September, and work back from there.’ We always look for a big story to give us a boost the first week the kids are back at school, once everyone has returned from their summer holidays and they’re sitting back down in front of the TV in the evenings.
‘Good idea,’ he says, and I take that as my cue to leave.
Back in my own office I shut the door and try to fathom what that was all about. The only person I’ve talked to about that idea before was Roz. Glen clearly has already heard it and he thinks it’s Roz’s. Roz wanted my job. It hardly takes Hercule Poirot to put the pieces together. It’s what I do about it that’s the issue. Confronting Roz head-on is pointless. She’ll just deny any knowledge, declare Glen senile and it’ll make things too awkward between us. I’m still festering about it when she knocks on my door and then comes in without waiting for an answer.
‘God, I’m bored,’ she says, flopping down in the armchair. She’s wearing a chunky fuchsia polo neck over tight red tartan skinny leg trousers, and red DMs. Usually she’s in vertiginous heels but the ice has defeated even her.
‘I’m snowed under,’ I say, hoping she’ll take the hint. She doesn’t.
‘Look at her,’ she says, staring at Juliet through the glass. ‘Do you think she reads Horse & Hound? Or The Lady? “Twenty ways to get the best out of your manservant”.’
Usually I’d laugh. I don’t feel like it today though. ‘I don’t think she’s that posh.’
‘She’s like Zara Phillips’s posher, horsier sister. Is it home time yet?’
I force a smile. ‘No. And I need to get this fin
ished before it is,’ I say, indicating a script on my desk.
Roz heaves herself out of the chair. ‘OK, OK, I can take a hint. Drink tonight?’
‘Zumba,’ I say apologetically. It’s a lie. Dee and I gave up zumba weeks ago in favour of a shared bottle of wine. The après-ski without the ski. Life’s too short.
‘Later,’ she says, waving a casual hand as she leaves.
Because I’ve cried zumba I have to leave dead on six, as my fictional class starts at seven near my West Hampstead home. On the way to the station I call Dee, establish that she’s on an afternoon shift but that she’ll pop into mine on her way home at about half seven. Dee always walks to and from work, even though it takes her a good forty minutes each way to and from the hospital and her Kilburn flat. She’s obsessed with her step count. I get regular updates in text form (12,000 today!!!!) to which I usually reply something like What? Drinks? or Deaths in the hospital due to your incompetence? Dee has threatened to get me a Fitbit for my birthday in August, and I’ve told her that if she does I’ll just attach it to Smokey and send him out mouse hunting while I sit on my backside eating cakes.
Not that I’m completely unfit. No, scrub that, I am. But I get away with it most of the time because I’m also quite slim. Some kind of freak genetics that I’m sure will catch up with me one of these days. Dee, of course, is a world health expert just by working on the reception of a busy hospital, so she knows better. She’s full of stories about people who looked skinny but keeled over dead out of nowhere, and when the doctors opened them up they found their organs were 99 per cent flab. Or something. I never really listen.
She once told me a man had been brought into A and E with stomach pains only for the doctors to find, when they opened him up, that he’d eaten a whole Lego castle. When I’d spluttered in disbelief she had looked indignant.
‘One of the surgical techs told me.’