by Jane Fallon
I heard a stifled giggle. Looked up briefly to see Pete pointing something out on my document to Leanne, the fellow writer sitting next to him. I struggled to regain my train of thought.
‘… Catriona’s mum, as you all know, will turn up in episode seven forty and will be a woman Ronnie met at the hospital when Mary was kept in for complications during her second pregnancy …’
Try as I might I couldn’t ignore the fact that the one isolated laugh had now turned into a rumble. I glanced round, confused. I caught Juliet’s eye and she flicked the document in her hand and gave me a hard stare as if to say ‘Look at this’. I picked up my own copy, skim-read the first paragraph. Nothing strange there. Then my brain registered something further down.
‘Catriona will be played by’ – here I had inserted the name of the actress who had already been cast. I distinctly remembered typing it. Mel Carmichael. But now the rest of the sentence read ‘some has-been who used to be in a girl band but can’t act to save her life’.
I looked up, looked round the room again. I could see some of the writers flicking through the rest of the document, pointing things out to each other, laughing. And there in the midst of the chaos Roz, innocent-faced. I pushed the papers to one side. Fought off the urge to cry.
‘OK,’ I said as loudly as I could. ‘I’ve got no idea what’s going on there but let’s keep going without referring to the document. Could you all pass them up here please?’ I didn’t want them carrying on, looking for whatever other horrors might be in there. Luckily I knew I could get through this without referring to the notes. I could feel myself glowing red as I waited for the rustling of paper to stop. I couldn’t bring myself to try and make a joke about it. I couldn’t even let myself try to work out how it had happened yet. I just had to get through it.
‘So …’ I said without waiting for the chatter to subside. ‘Catriona …’
Somehow I managed to regain order and plough my way on through the characters. Then I reminded everyone that two cast members were coming to the end of their contracts and that we needed to make a decision on whether or not to renew them and it was time to start discussing the submitted stories. Right on cue the door opened and a hotel employee in a black uniform carried in fresh pots of tea and coffee.
The story document stretched to nearly a hundred pages, a potential new storyline on each one. It would take us the best part of two days to go through them all, discuss them (apart from the ones that were obvious no-goers from the off), and then vote on whether or not to proceed with them. The latter part of the afternoon of the second day would be given over to brainstorming new ideas for any characters who still didn’t have enough going on.
I turned to the first page. Breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that all seemed to be as it should be. They’d had their little bit of fun at my expense and now I could salvage the rest of the day by brushing it off and moving forward as if nothing untoward had happened. I just needed to be professional.
‘So. Challenor family first up.’ I read the title of the story. ‘ “Mary’s Revenge”. We have five ideas in along similar lines for how to deal with the aftermath of Mary finding out about Catriona, so I suggest we look at them all and then discuss …’
It took us more than half an hour to reach a consensus, which turned out to be an amalgamation of three of the submitted stories. I checked that Lorraine was keeping comprehensive notes, but I’d also sneakily turned my phone on to record the discussions because I no longer trusted her.
Once we were all agreed I suggested we move on to the next story. I turned the page. Title ‘Ronnie’s Mum Moves In’. But I’d hardly got the words out before I realized that the text underneath read: ‘Blah blah blah. Who cares? Some trite load of old shit written by a washed-up hack who couldn’t get a writing gig anywhere else. Blah blah.’ A ripple of chatter rose up as everyone else caught up with me. I flicked through the pages. All the rest of the stories were the same. ‘Blah blah.’ The occasional ‘Tired unoriginal bollocks’ or ‘Clichéd crap’. I swallowed down the impulse to be sick.
‘What on earth is going on?’ Glen said, turning to me. ‘Is this a joke?’
‘Hardly,’ I said, my voice barely a whisper. ‘It was all fine on Friday morning. Emma’ll vouch for that.’
‘Well, sort it out,’ he snarled. It’s not often Glen loses his temper, which makes it all the more terrifying when he does.
I looked round at the sea of faces. All of them looking back at me. I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
‘I need to phone Emma,’ I say now. I stand up and leave the room on shaky legs. I hear a wave of laughter as I close the door and, even though I know they’re laughing at the situation, not at my misfortune – well, most of them are – it stings. I walk to the end of the corridor and tuck myself into a fire escape doorway.
‘Emma, what the fuck …’ I say before she even manages a hello. I blurt out what’s happened and wait while she checks the document I’d sent through to her last night. Of course it contains the same alterations, why wouldn’t it?
‘It was all OK when I read it through on Friday,’ I say, pointlessly. ‘Do you have an earlier version saved?’
It goes quiet for a moment. ‘I’ve got one from a week ago. It’s not completely up to date and it probably has loads of typos but –’
‘OK,’ I interrupt. ‘Can you print off sixteen copies and get it here ASAP? I’ll have to improvise till then.’
‘I’m on it,’ she says, and I’m grateful she doesn’t try to start a conversation about what might have happened. That will have to wait. I have a room full of people to think about. I put the phone down. Take three long deep breaths and force myself to march back in there, head held high. Everyone looks at me expectantly.
‘Right. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on but I can only apologize. I’d just like to make it clear that I was completely unaware the document had been tampered with. Those comments were unforgiveable. Emma is bringing over an earlier version ASAP, but until then I think we should try and continue as best we can.’
I look at the page headed ‘Ronnie’s Mum Moves In’, try to avoid seeing the offending text. Check the name of the person who submitted it. ‘Davina, this first one is yours so I wonder if you can talk us through it in broad strokes.’
It’s a shame it’s Davina because of all the writers she can be the trickiest. And I imagine she’s feeling slighted by the – all-too-accurate – barb about her being washed-up. She pulls a bit of a face.
‘I can’t remember all the ins and outs.’
‘Just give us the broad strokes. We can always revisit it once Emma gets here. Please,’ I say and I think she must catch the desperation in my voice because she actually gives me a sympathetic smile.
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Bear with me, everyone …’
Somehow I get through the rest of the day. Emma turns up about forty minutes after I call her, red-faced and sweating. The replacement document is missing about thirty stories but we muddle through. At lunchtime I pull Glen aside.
‘I can’t apologize enough.’
He gives me a steely look. ‘Care to explain?’
‘I’m not sure I can. I think someone’s trying to sabotage me but I don’t know how they managed to access the story document.’ In actual fact I assume that Emma hasn’t been as cautious as she might have been entering her new password, but I don’t want to drop her in it.
‘Who? Not one of ours, surely?’
I also don’t want to voice my suspicions out loud, even though I have no doubt that I’m right. There’s no way Glen would believe that Roz was capable of this. I need proof.
‘I don’t know. But a few strange things have happened. I just … I don’t want you to think I’m rubbish at my job,’ I say with a catch in my throat.
‘Holly, I have no idea what’s actually going on, but I appreciate you wouldn’t have made those changes yourself.’
I almost burst into tears with gratitude
. Or relief. Or both. Of course no one would think I’d sabotaged myself like that. Unless I were insane.
Glen is still talking. ‘It’s probably just a practical joke gone wrong.’
It isn’t. I’m sure of that. It’s an attempt to make me look incompetent at best.
‘Probably,’ I say, trying to smile.
‘Let’s just hope it’s a one-off.’
‘I think it’s going OK otherwise, isn’t it? We have a few good ideas.’ I want to get the focus back on the positive.
‘Always hard to tell at this stage. But yes, so far so good.’
I don’t want to go back into the conference room where everyone is milling about eating the hotel-provided sandwiches. I can’t trust myself not to pin Roz against the wall, ask her what the hell she thinks she’s doing. I can hear her holding court, making everyone laugh with a story about what some celebrity – I can’t catch who – had said to her at a swanky A-list birthday party she and Hugh had attended at the weekend. The gist seems to be that they’d assumed she must be the latest fabulous new star he was representing – there’s always a thinly disguised boast in Roz’s stories – and that she had thought it funny to string them along and talk in detail about the movie she had just starred in having been plucked from obscurity after a gruelling open casting call.
‘I told them it had been selected for Sundance and Cannes,’ she says to much hilarity. ‘And that there was Oscar buzz.’
‘And did they buy it?’ someone says.
‘Totally. I think Hugh was a bit pissed off with me.’
I stand there, not knowing what to do with myself. I’m ravenous, despite everything, and I wonder about finding the hotel bar and getting a sandwich there, but I’ve left my bag in the conference room and I’m not sure I’d be able to persuade whoever served me to put it on the production’s bill. I’ll just have to hope there’s something left when we all convene again in twenty minutes’ time and I can have the odd bite while other people are talking.
My stomach growls. I decide I should at least go and hide somewhere else, before someone catches me lurking out here and wonders what I’m up to. My mind is made up for me when Juliet exits the conference room, presumably en route to the Ladies. I turn away and start to walk towards the reception area.
‘Are you OK?’ I almost jump when she speaks to me.
‘Fine. Yes, thanks.’ I make to move off again. The last thing I need is her gloating.
‘What was all that about in there?’
I try to shrug it off. ‘Just someone playing a joke on me, I think.’
‘Right,’ she says. ‘Not a very funny one.’
‘No.’
She hovers there for a moment as if she wants to say something else but I don’t want to hear it. I want to be on my own.
‘I’m going for a quick walk,’ I say, waving an arm in the direction of the nearest exit. ‘I just need some fresh air.’
Outside I find a bench where I think no one will be able to see me, shivering in the cold because I’m not wearing my coat. I put my face in my hands and don’t even try to stop the tears when they come.
16
‘That fucking bitch.’
I’m on the phone to Dee, sitting on the train having first checked there was no one I know in my carriage.
‘I hope you fucking punched her fucking face in.’ Dee doesn’t swear very often but, when she does it’s as if all the bad words she’s been saving up come gushing out at once. It also means she puts them in slightly odd places. I remember once she was furious with someone for cutting in line when we were waiting to get on a bus, and she’d snapped, ‘Get the fuck back to where you fucking well are meant to fucking be,’ at them. They’d looked at her and said, ‘Sorry, can you repeat that? I didn’t quite understand.’
‘How can I say anything? I’ve got no proof it’s her.’
‘Of course it’s fucking her.’
‘I know that. Jesus,’ I say, too loudly. The woman across the aisle from me looks up sharply, and I mouth a sorry at her. I adjust down to a hoarse whisper. ‘I just can’t prove it yet.’
‘OK, well, it’s time for the gloves to come off.’
‘Oh, the gloves are most definitely off. Fuck her. I’m done.’
‘That’s my girl. I’ll help you,’ Dee says. ‘We just need to find something that we can use to bring her down.’
‘Shit,’ I say. ‘Are we really going to do this?’
The second day of the conference passes off without incident. We all agree on a higher than usual number of storylines including – I am heartened to say – my own about Morgan. I flick my eyes at Glen when it comes up to see if he looks confused when I claim it as mine, but he registers nothing.
I am as open and friendly towards Roz as I am towards everyone else. Dee and I decided that I need to avoid giving her any clues that I’m on to her. In fact I sent her a text message last night once I got home, fuelled by rage and something else: an almost evangelical drive to wipe the smile off her face.
OMG. What the fuck was all that about today? Juliet??? x.
I actually laughed out loud when I read her response. It must be! What a fucking bitch. She’s just jealous. And you handled it brilliantly xx.
Yes, I’m sure no one noticed haha x.
Thankfully there was no sign of Hattie when I got in last night, although I could hear the low murmur of something she was watching coming from her room. I microwaved a frozen macaroni and cheese without even bothering to make a salad to go with it, topped up Smokey’s bowl, poured myself a large glass of white and shut myself in the living room.
I decided that the best thing I could do was concentrate on making day two run as smoothly as it could, so I checked through my emails and saved files for any of the missing stories and printed them off. Just one copy. Then I sneaked out to the kitchen and got myself another drink, dug out my copy of Roz’s application form and started going through it line by line.
I realized that I was skimming over the parts that I’d looked at already, so I made myself go back to the beginning, examine every word. Name: Roz Huntingdon. Age: 40. Marital Status: Single.
I almost did a double take. Checked again that the box that was ticked corresponded to the word I thought it did. Then I picked up the phone to call Dee back.
‘Roz put that she’s single on the form,’ I said without even bothering to say hello.
‘Can they still ask you that?’ Dee said. ‘Isn’t it a violation of your human rights or something?’
‘Who cares. They did, and she put single.’
‘That’s weird,’ Dee said. ‘Maybe she thought HR would think she’d be more dedicated if she wasn’t married?’ She was in her element, trying to spot a conspiracy. ‘Like, I don’t know, she wouldn’t be rushing home on the dot every night to cook him his tea?’
I snorted. ‘Can you imagine Roz being that sort of nineteen fifties housewife?’
‘Well, no,’ Dee said, despite never having met Roz. ‘But who knows what she thought might help get her the job?’
I wasn’t buying it. ‘Maybe she didn’t even notice.’
‘Come on. How many times did you check and recheck your form?’
I switched the phone to my other ear. ‘That’s me though. I’m paranoid.’
‘No one puts anything on an application that they don’t mean to be there. If they make a mistake they just start again. Maybe they’ve separated and she couldn’t face telling anyone yet?’
‘I wondered about that, but there’s no way. We were talking about him yesterday. She’s all over-excited about something he’s got going on at work.’ I was tempted to tell her about David Summers but I was sworn to secrecy. And that’s a thing I have. If I promise someone I won’t tell something I never do. I’m carrying a lifetime of other people’s secrets. Affairs, plastic surgeries, drinking problems. You name it, someone has confided in me about it, and I’ve kept it to myself. I have a whole secret soap opera going on inside my head.
‘I’ve got it!’ She shouted so loudly that I jumped. Smokey shot across the room. ‘Maybe she’s having an affair with someone in HR and she doesn’t want him to find out she’s married.’
I pondered this for a second. It wasn’t the most outrageous Dee theory ever (that would be the one about Alexa listening to all our conversations and reporting back to the authorities if she heard key words. I tried shouting about where I could buy a gun and whether you could find all the components to make a bomb in B&Q in front of mine to try and prove a point, and the police didn’t batter down my door, but she was still insistent) but I doubt Roz has ever even met anyone in the HR department outside of a job interview. We’re in our own little world at the studios and we rarely have any reason to interact with the channel. That’s not to say she couldn’t have met them somewhere else but the coincidence just seems too extreme. Let alone the fact that I couldn’t imagine Roz having an affair and never having given away any clues. ‘Too many variables. She’s having an affair. She’s lied to the man about being married. He just happens to be the person who’s going to be dealing with the applications for a job she wants. No, it can’t be that.’
‘Maybe they’re just not actually married. They call each other husband and wife but they never got round to the legal bit?’
I didn’t even have to think about that one. ‘I remember it. It was a couple of months after I started on the show. They went off to the Caribbean somewhere and did it there. We had a collection and everything.’
‘That could be it, like those people who pretend they’ve got cancer to fleece all their friends.’
‘No. We got them a little painting by that artist she loves. I forget his name. Two hundred quid. And, besides, Hugh’s loaded so that doesn’t make any sense.’
‘It does if they’ve got enough rich friends …’
‘No …’
‘Well, then there are only two explanations. She ticked the wrong box by mistake and didn’t notice, which is frankly unlikely, or she deliberately lied about it.’