by Sue Margolis
Once, as I was admiring a hot pink papier-mâché brooch, he came over to me full of excitement. He’d found a 1940 edition of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution and managed to buy it for a song. “And I got this for you,” he said.
He handed me a copy of Albert Camus’s The Stranger. “Wow. Thank you.”
“It’s one of his best. You haven’t read it, have you?”
“Uh-uh.”
“It’s about the absurdity of man’s position when faced with a universe of indifference. Really gets you thinking. Trust me. You’ll love it.”
“I’m sure I will,” I said, kissing him on the cheek. We moved on and I took one final backwards glance at the hot pink brooch. I suddenly remembered that Greg had bought me something similar, but in green. It was for our second or third wedding anniversary.
“So, apart from reading Trotsky and making love to me,” I said later, as we lay entwined like mangrove roots in our postcoital glow, “what do you do to relax?”
He admitted that relaxing wasn’t something he was very good at.
“What about sports?”
“I played a bit of soccer when I was young, but to be honest, sports bore me.”
“Greg and I used to love going to comedy clubs. You’d get loads of acts that were embarrassing and useless, but I remember seeing Ricky Gervais before he was famous and thinking that he was destined for the big time.”
“Oh, right. He’s the Office guy, isn’t he? I’ve watched a few episodes, but I’m not quite sure what people see in him.”
“That’s because you haven’t given yourself a chance to get into it. I’ve got all the episodes on DVD. How’s about we watch them together?”
“Sure. I’d like that.” His mind seemed to be wandering.
“What?” I said.
“Oh, I dunno. We just received the latest crime figures involving kids at Princess Margaret. They make pretty depressing reading. Have you any idea how much theft there is these days in multistory car parks?”
“God, that is wrong on so many different levels.”
“How do you mean?”
“It was a joke. Multistory car parks have different levels, get it?”
“Oh. Yeah. Right. Most amusing.”
• • •
Huck wasn’t keen on our relationship going public and neither was I. But Annie and Gail had known me long enough to sense that I was keeping something from them. It wasn’t long before I admitted that I’d been sleeping with Huck and that we were in a sort of relationship. Gail, who was far more up-front about these things than Annie, was already asking when she was going to meet him.
“The thing is,” I said to Huck, “I know that Gail will just keep on nagging until she’s worn me down. It occurred to me that the simplest thing to do would be to invite her and Annie over for a cuppa on Sunday afternoon. You’ll just happen to be around. That way we keep it casual, and Amy and Ben won’t suspect anything.”
That coming weekend, Greg couldn’t have the children because he and FHF were off on a city break to Prague. (Things had clearly settled down between them.) Since Amy and Ben would be with me, I suggested that Annie and Gail bring their kids when they came around on Sunday. I thought it might make the atmosphere more relaxed and that Huck might feel less like he was on some kind of inspection parade.
I made Gail—who was more likely than Annie to say something out of turn or put her foot in it where Amy and Ben were concerned—to promise that she would think twice before she spoke.
“What do you take me for?” Gail said. “I’m not completely clueless, you know.”
This from the woman who’d once found herself in the lift at Virgin Atlantic HQ and suggested to the blond, bearded man standing next to her, who was wearing chinos and a polo shirt, that dressing down for the office might not be entirely appropriate. He’d smiled at her, apparently not in the least bit offended, and said that it was the one advantage of owning the company.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Alexa and Spencer would actually come. As it was the weekend, I assumed they’d be busy hanging out with their friends. But when I opened the door, there they were. I asked Gail later if they were here under duress, but she insisted she hadn’t put any pressure on them. Apparently they both felt they hadn’t seen their cousins in a while and wanted to say hi.
“So how are things, Spence?” I said as I took everybody’s coats. “You found a bar mitzvah teacher yet?”
“Nah. Dad’s helping me a bit, but he’s useless.”
“So I’m assuming you’ve abandoned the dark arts.”
“What?”
“She means the black magic,” Gail said.
“That was only ever a joke. I’m actually into real magic now.”
“Really? You know Amy and Ben love magic tricks. Don’t suppose you feel like showing them a few? They’re in the living room.”
“Sure.”
“By the way,” Alexa said, “Mum’s letting me go to stage school. She says I have you to thank for persuading her.”
“She’s letting you go? Oh, Lexie, I’m so pleased. But to be honest, I think her mind was made up before she asked my opinion.”
“Well, thanks anyway.”
“My pleasure, hon.” I gave my niece a hug. “It’s going to be a hard slog, you know—combining academic work with performing.”
“That doesn’t worry me. It’s what I want to do. You wait and see how hard I work.”
Gail looked at me and shrugged. “What can I do? She’s a chip off the old block.”
Spencer and Alexa disappeared into the living room and we made our way into the kitchen. “You’ve done the right thing,” I said to Gail.
“God, I hope so.”
A few minutes later Annie arrived with Freddie and Tom. The boys could hear the screeches and laughter coming from the living room and ran off to see what was going on. “Spencer’s showing them his magic tricks,” I explained to Annie.
I left Annie and Gail to chat while I took drinks and potato chips to the kids. Huck had offered to go to the baker’s to buy cakes for tea, but wasn’t back yet.
I could hear Ben from way down the hall. He was begging his cousin to tell him how one particular trick was done and getting pretty pissed off that Spencer was refusing.
“It’s magic,” Spencer kept saying.
“Yeah, right,” Ben said. “How old do you think I am?”
Alexa was yelling at her brother, telling him he was being mean and snotty.
Spencer told her to shut up and said that if David Copperfield went around telling everybody how his tricks were done, there would be no magicians left.
“It’s not magic. You’re lying,” Freddie said to Spencer. “I’m only six and I know there’s no such thing as magic. It’s a trick. You shouldn’t lie. Kathleen who looks after us says lying is a mortal sin and liars go to hell.”
“Freddie’s right,” Tom piped up.
“Yeah, and they get given internal dalmatians … and … and torments. And this fire-and-brimstone stuff comes down all over you and it’s so hot that your skin boils off and your eyes pop …”
I heard Tom burst into tears.
“Oh, Tom, it’s all right,” I said, charging into the living room with my tray and depositing it on the coffee table. “Don’t let Freddie frighten you.” But Tom’s tears had already turned to giggles. Spencer had produced a mini Mars bar from behind the little boy’s ear and he was busy unwrapping it.
I was back in the kitchen, about to tell Annie how Freddie had scared his brother half to death with Kathleen’s grisly vision of hell, when Huck appeared, looking particularly cute in his stubble and gray cashmere sweater. He put down the carrier he was holding and greeted Gail and Annie with handshakes. Then, without being asked, he proceeded to slice four tea cakes in half and pop them and some crumpets under the grill. Afterwards, he went in search of butter, Marmite, jam and plates. I could see that all this wasn’t lost on Annie and Gail. I made us all mugs
of tea and Gail yelled at the kids, telling them there were hot tea cakes and crumpets for those who wanted them.
Annie seemed fascinated to hear about Huck’s work and kept asking him questions. I noticed that while Huck was speaking—which admittedly he did at some length—Gail seemed to glaze over. I couldn’t work out if that was because she was bored or because she disliked not being the one holding court. She perked up once she was able to bring the conversation around to her charity “work,” so I decided it was probably the latter. “Far be it from me to toot my own horn,” she said to Huck, “but within half an hour of an international disaster being announced on the news, I’m organizing a ball. Tell you what—why don’t I organize one to raise money for the kids at Princess Margaret? Or better yet, why don’t we get people to live on junk food for a week and they could get sponsored for every pizza and Big Mac they eat?”
Huck shot me a WTF look. Then he explained to Gail that my friend Judy was already organizing a PR campaign and he didn’t want to step on her toes.
“So how’s your work going?” Huck said to Annie. “Sophie tells me you’ve just started back at the BBC.”
She let out a theatrical groan. “Exhausting. I had no idea I’d be this tired.”
Looking at Annie more closely, I could see she looked a bit heavy eyed. “The program airs at six each morning, but I was promised I wouldn’t have to do any early shifts. Of course, the moment I start, the editor announces that things have changed. Turns out another producer just left. They’re advertising the post, but until they’ve filled it, I’m in at four thirty, three days a week. Of course, by the evening I’m ready to drop and I pretty much go to bed at the same time as the boys. This means I’m spending almost no time with Rob. I can’t tell you how pissed off he is. I said that at least now he knows what it’s like for me when he’s away, but it didn’t cut much ice. He said that if I have any interest in preserving our marriage, I should hand in my notice.”
“But you’ve only just started.”
“That’s what I told him. We’ve agreed that I should give it a few weeks and see if they manage to find another producer.”
“But Kathleen’s working out OK?” Gail said.
“The woman’s an angel, an absolute angel. If it weren’t for Kathleen, I wouldn’t be able to cope at all.”
“Well, far be it from me to toot my own horn,” Gail repeated, “but I did tell you that a housekeeper is the only way forward.”
I’d been planning to pull Annie aside and raise the issue of Kathleen’s view of hell and how it was affecting the boys—poor Tom in particular—but now that I knew how much she was struggling at work and that her sanity depended on Kathleen, I didn’t have the heart to say anything.
The kids took their crumpets and tea cakes into the living room. The initial quiet, brought about by their sitting stuffing their faces, was followed by sounds of squabbling. Huck said he’d go and calm them down and help them choose a DVD.
“So,” I whispered after he’d disappeared, “what do you think?”
“He’s gorgeous, he’s domesticated,” Annie said, “and judging by the silence coming from the living room he’s obviously great with kids.”
“Yeah, I get the impression that the kids where he works pretty much hero-worship him.”
I watched Gail pick up Albert Camus’s The Stranger, which was sitting on the kitchen counter. “Whose is this?”
“Mine. Huck bought it for me at a secondhand-book shop.”
She was reading the dust jacket. “‘… an intimate study of alienation … Camus assumes that the universe has no meaning. For him the only question that matters in life is why we shouldn’t commit suicide.’ Sounds like a right laugh. You actually going to read this?”
“Of course,” I said.
• • •
The next morning Debbie-from-down-the-road took the kids to school so that I could get to the picket line by eight. The temperature had dropped below freezing again and the sky was heavy with snow. Wendy appeared with a tray of bacon rolls and coffee. We wolfed them down like half-starved refugees.
“Well, the good news is,” Des said, “our regular listeners are posting like mad on the strike Web site and on our Facebook page. They’re furious about the new program. They’re all saying the same thing—that they feel betrayed. Somebody’s started a ‘bring back the old-style Coffee Break’ campaign. They’re also setting up a petition to submit to James Harding. What’s more, there have been complaints to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission about the poor quality of STD’s show. Several people have written to the prime minister. They’ve even written to the Queen. It’s unbelievable. I had no idea we’d get this sort of support.”
“It’s all great stuff,” I said, “but I’m not sure where it’s going to get us.”
Just then a minibus pulled up. Nobody paid it any attention until a group of about a dozen banner-carrying middle-aged women climbed out and came striding over. “Middle Wallop Women’s Institute come to lend our support,” one of them declared, looking as if she was about to salute us.
Our stunned silence turned into cheers and applause.
“I can’t tell you how utterly disgusted and appalled we all are by what’s happened. Coffee Break is part of what puts the Great into Britain. How dare some Australian upstart come along and destroy it. It simply won’t do.”
There were cries of “Hear, hear” from the rest of the Middle Wallop Women’s Institute.
A few moments later, a second bus pulled up and another group of women emerged. It turned out that they were from the Upper Wallop and Lower Wallop branches of the WI. They presented us with food hampers, bottles of whisky and blankets.
But that wasn’t the end of it. The “bring back the old-style Coffee Break” campaign had clearly been gathering momentum. By the end of the morning, a hundred of middle England’s best and most dowdy were standing shoulder to shoulder waving their DON’T BREAK COFFEE BREAK banners and singing “We Shall Not Be Moved.”
By midafternoon the reporters and TV crews had arrived.
A few hours later, when I went to collect the kids from Debbie-from-down-the-road’s, they came rushing to the door. “Mum! Mum! We just saw you on the news.”
Chapter 13
Over the next few days, thanks to the newspaper and TV coverage of the strike, more and more people joined the picket line. They came from as far away as Scotland and Cornwall. Most arrived in groups, in hired buses, like the ladies from the Women’s Institute. Some came by tube. Others drove. One woman hitched from Penzance. Groups tended to stay for a couple of days. They booked themselves into bed-and-breakfasts, which didn’t come cheap in central London.
Surrounded by her fans, Nancy was in her element and went around signing autographs and being starry and patronizing. “Thank you so much for coming, my dear,” she’d say. “You have no idea what this means to us, having ordinary civilians join us in our plight.”
Sometimes there were as many as three hundred people on the picket line. That didn’t stop STD and the rest of the management team crossing it each day, apparently unperturbed by all the hissing and booing. Whenever James Harding appeared, he was met by cries of “traitor” and “turncoat.” When two women pelted him with eggs and flour, the police decided it was time to have a presence on the picket and sent a couple of good-natured constables—both Coffee Break fans, as it turned out—to keep the peace.
By now the reviews of the program had started to appear. Apart from the expected rave in Radio World, it was universally panned. The Times called it “mucky” and “prurient” and “fodder for the brain-dead.” The Independent asked if tabloid broadcasting had finally reached its nadir and called for James Harding to resign. “How could the man who once championed such an intelligent, thought-provoking program as Coffee Break dismantle it in favor of this twaddle and tripe? James Harding should hang his head in shame.” The Daily Mail printed an editorial lamenting the loss of a great British institution:
“For four decades Coffee Break was a beacon of British broadcasting. These days it panders to an ignorant, uncouth underclass made up of people whose interests rarely extend beyond their next KFC Bargain Bucket or new Adidas jogging pants.”
Eventually the viewing figures were in. Des managed to get hold of them through a mate who worked on the listings pages of one of the newspapers. The numbers were disastrous. Coffee Break was managing to attract a few thousand listeners at best. Des was euphoric and declared that victory was ours.
“But Harding and STD are still crossing the picket,” I said. “There’s no sign of the program being pulled.”
It didn’t help that, in an interview with one of the papers, James Harding had made the point that new programs often took a while to catch on and that all Coffee Break needed was time to find its feet.
Des called him deluded. “Take it from me. This strike will be over in a week.”
• • •
A week later, we were still manning the picket line. James Harding and Co. clearly weren’t budging. Des kept sending around e-mails, appealing to us to keep the faith. It would all be over soon, he promised, but nobody had the stomach or, more to the point, the savings to take it much further.
Worried as I was about money and whether I would have a job to go back to when the strike was over, part of me was feeling pretty upbeat. I was enjoying being in a new relationship. It was early days, but I wasn’t ruling out the possibility of it getting serious. I was especially enjoying the sex. Huck was so brilliant at it and I still couldn’t get enough of him.
When his piece appeared in the Vanguard, I couldn’t have felt more proud. I insisted we go out to celebrate. “There’s a new Italian around the corner I’ve been meaning to try. My treat.”
Natalie, the new sitter—who was Debbie-from-down-the-road’s university student niece—came to mind the kids. It hadn’t occurred to me that they would read anything into Huck and me going out—after all, they knew that we were friends from way back. Plus I’d made it clear that we were celebrating Huck’s newspaper debut. Ben didn’t seem at all bothered, but a look came over Amy’s face, which wasn’t entirely happy.