‘Pro-rata?’ said Brian. ‘I thought you said it was fulltime?’
‘It is. But it’s still a contract . . . fixed term . . .’ She tailed off as their faces contorted with confusion.
‘Fixed term?’ asked Alice.
‘Yes.’
‘So it’s not a permanent job, then,’ said Brian flatly.
‘No . . . Not many are in this business.’
‘But the person you’re covering for – hers is a permanent job?’
‘Well, yes, but . . .’ Emma felt all her earlier excitement evaporate. ‘This is a big deal, you know, to be offered such a step up.’ She felt angry with herself for sounding like a child, for pleading with them.
Alice waited just a moment too long for it to sound authentic. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘we can see.’ She suddenly went back to stirring the contents of the saucepan, tutting as she realized she’d left it too long and it had caught on the bottom.
Emma looked at her father. He too had turned away and was continuing to set the table.
She was about to say something else, to angrily defend herself, but she’d seen the looks of frustration and embarrassment on her parents’ faces and closed her mouth abruptly. As she did, everything became crystal clear. How could she not have seen it before? These people would never be satisfied unless she did exactly what they perceived was successful, a certain career, a certain pathway to obtain it. She could win a dozen awards, make a huge amount of money, but it would never be good enough.
A little part of her soul changed its molecular make-up forever, became as hard as a stone and settled in the pit of her stomach.
NINETEEN
Wednesday 22 November
Carrie was incandescent with rage. She stomped around the kitchen, but in a controlled, muted way as Rory was asleep in his Moses basket on the dining table. All she wanted to do was kick and shout, but instead she gripped the edge of the work surface and let out a strangled, muffled scream of frustration.
How dare she?
It was obvious now what had been going on. Emma wanted her job and had been doing everything she could to get it.
Well, she wasn’t having it.
Except Carrie would now have to job-share, an idea that made her feel so impotent, it physically weakened her. It was temporary, she reminded herself, and breathed deeply again and again until she could regain some composure. The deep inhalations began to make her feel dizzy and she quickly sat down at the breakfast bar as the room spun. A jar of utensils seemed to move across the worktop and she realized she was hallucinating from the lack of sleep. She held her head in her hands until the room settled.
When Liz had suggested the new arrangement, Carrie had had no choice. Liz was keen, Adrian delighted, and she’d walked right into it by pretending she had no issue with Emma. She’d casually tried to suggest someone else, but it was pointless and made her sound stupid, as Emma clearly knew the scripts inside out. Liz had presented what she said was a choice but they all knew was a fait accompli, and Carrie had to smile and nod and agree how serendipitous it all was, how lucky they’d found such a good replacement to enable her to ‘have her cake and eat it’.
She looked across at Rory, asleep on the table, and once again felt the helplessness, the painful guilt at resenting the fact his presence meant she could no longer do her job the way she wanted to do it. But the alternative was putting him in that nursery from seven in the morning until seven at night, five days a week, something that made her feel hopelessly sad.
Carrie had another flurry of disquiet – maybe Emma was singularly brilliant. She stood up, nerves in the pit of her stomach dislodging her from her seat.
One thing she was certain of was that Liz wanted people around her who would make her look good, such as Adrian, the superstar writer, or Emma, the new, bright young thing. It was a business of self-preservation and self-advancement. And if Carrie knew what was good for her, she would shut up and put up.
Even if there was a better way of handling it, she had no idea what it was. She was just too tired to think.
TWENTY
Wednesday 6 December
They had a desk next to each other in the open-plan area and Carrie calculated that on her workdays, she spent nine of her daily waking hours in close proximity to Emma, more than her husband and certainly more than her son, who she dropped off at seven in the morning and didn’t see again until she picked him up in the evening, only to put him to bed. She kept up civilities, though, especially as now she was back in the office, she could see just what an impact Emma had made.
Liz would joke with her, ask her opinion on new pitches that came in from various writers, just placing a printout on her desk with a casual ‘What do you think?’, which was really an invitation for Emma to voice her opinion in the inner sanctum, and Carrie knew by the way the proposals kept coming – some, she noticed as she glanced over, created by very reputable writers – that Emma’s opinion was extremely highly valued.
Emma was careful not to alienate her, though, noted Carrie, and was almost obsequious with her attentive behaviour, following her around like a puppy, always under her feet. Carrie kept the relationship professional, making sure Emma was in the loop on information and decisions (albeit occasionally choosing precisely when to impart certain things, just for the hell of it). There was a coolness, though, in the way Carrie spoke to Emma, something that was noticed in this easy-going business in which hugs were free-flowing and people often called each other ‘darling’, ‘gorgeous’, ‘wonderful’ or some other gushing form of address. Whenever Liz noticed and looked at her askance, she’d turn up the thermometer a little, keep her resentment deeply hidden.
She couldn’t bring herself to relax fully around Emma, though, suspicious as she was of her, and once, Liz had asked: ‘Everything working out with you and Emma?’ It had been said casually enough but was as loaded as a Kalashnikov and just as deadly.
‘Fine,’ said Carrie. ‘We’re really getting into a rhythm together.’
Liz was approaching their desks now and Carrie looked up, piqued by the fact Emma’s was closer to the walkway and therefore she was always at the forefront when receiving news.
‘Hi, guys. Luke’s asked for a meet to catch up on everything seeing as we’re a month from filming,’ said Liz.
Carrie made sure she replied first. ‘Great. When?’
‘Next Thursday,’ said Liz, wrinkling her nose in a gesture of mild sympathy.
What? She didn’t work Thursdays! ‘Can’t we look at another day?’ Carrie asked, trying to remain cool. She felt deliberately excluded. Why had this date been agreed on?
‘He’s off for two weeks to the Caribbean, and then it’s new year – and that’s just too close to filming.’
Carrie gritted her teeth. ‘What about before?’
‘I’ve tried, but his assistant says he’s back to back. Getting everything in before he goes away.’ Liz paused. ‘I’ve mentioned it’s difficult for you, but he’s happy if you can write up a report and then Emma and I can just meet him to go through everything. Adrian will be there too.’
They’d all be there. Everyone but her. Carrie’s insides churned and she felt her smile falter. She was clearly the inconvenience – worse, the one who was dispensable. The meeting with the channel commissioner about her show could take place without her.
Emma’s silence was telling – no doubt she was looking forward to stepping into her shoes, thought Carrie darkly.
She suddenly sat up in defiance. ‘Fine. I’ll just bring Rory.’
Liz looked alarmed. ‘What?’
‘He’s getting into a routine now. What time’s the meeting?’
‘Ten thirty.’
‘Perfect! Rory sleeps between ten and twelve.’
‘I’m really not sure that’s a good idea.’
‘It’s just for an hour or so. It’ll be fine.’ Carrie had a flinty note to her voice. ‘He’s not going to be in the room. He can be in your office, and if
he wakes, which he won’t, then I can just pop out for two minutes.’
She knew the madness of it even as she was speaking but refused to back down. She was damned if she was going to miss this meeting.
Liz, she saw, was tight-lipped but wasn’t going to argue anymore.
‘Excuse me,’ called Zack, from across the bank of desks. ‘I’ve got Michael Sheen’s agent on the phone. Wants to talk to the producer of Leon.’
‘Fine. Put him through,’ said Carrie, turning to her phone.
‘Um . . .’ Zack blushed. ‘He’s actually asking for Emma.’
Carrie was struck dumb for a moment, and it was as if they had all stalled in some sort of freeze frame.
Emma was the first to recover. ‘Put him through to Carrie. She’s the lead producer.’
She sounded so authoritative her words actually had the opposite effect, and humiliated, Carrie felt like the junior individual as she picked up the phone.
As she began to speak, Emma tactfully moved away.
Despite the torrential rain, Carrie had decided to walk to BAFTA, where she regularly held meetings when she needed a change from the office. Her shoulders had been rigid with tension ever since the morning’s events, and desperate to get out, she’d left early. The journey was a constant battle with the wind and rain, which had left her even more worked up than when she’d departed, and she half stumbled into the quiet sanctuary of 195 Piccadilly with a sense of exhaustion.
Someone took her wet coat and umbrella, running with rivulets of water, and then she found her writer – a woman she knew from one of her previous shows – and they took two coffees to a table by the window. The bar was on the first floor and was light and airy with huge windows overlooking Piccadilly’s creamy-white seventeenth-century buildings, the tops of red buses gliding past beneath them. She began to relax and they spent a pleasant time chatting over possible new ideas to explore together. The writer had to rush off after an hour but Carrie stayed on to check her phone, answering a few emails rather than going back to the tense atmosphere of the office. Craving another coffee, she got up to walk to the bar and bumped straight into a formidable redhead.
‘Elaine!’
‘Well, if it isn’t TV’s most popular producer. Aren’t you supposed to be pregnant?’
‘Rory was born seven weeks ago.’
‘A boy. Congratulations.’ She looked around the room. ‘Where is he?’
‘At his nursery.’
‘You palmed him off already?’ Elaine smiled broadly. ‘Needed to get back to the job, eh? Never know who might be waiting in line to nobble your spot.’
She always knew just how to get under her skin. Outwardly, Carrie ignored the jibe. ‘Life treating you well?’
‘If you count having to wait nine damn months for the BBC to get back to me on a submission, then it’s marvellous. I don’t have your instant commissioning prowess, you see. Not anymore.’
Carrie knew it wouldn’t be as bad as Elaine painted it. Elaine had been in the business for several decades; she was a survivor who always had something up her sleeve.
Elaine started to move off. ‘Well, lovely to gossip . . .’
Carrie suddenly remembered something, placed her hand quickly on Elaine’s arm. ‘Just one thing . . . You had an Emma Fox working for you a while back. Last year?’
Disinterested, Elaine continued to make a beeline for one of BAFTA’s quintessential turquoise high-backed chairs. ‘Don’t remember.’
‘Tall. Blonde. Very bright.’
Elaine stopped, her face registering. ‘Oh yes. The intern.’
‘Intern?’ said Carrie, surprised. ‘I thought she was an assistant script editor?’
Elaine laughed, a hearty guffaw. ‘Is that what she called herself? The little fibber. She made tea and photocopied. Shame really – she showed potential, but she seriously fucked up. Had to get rid of her.’
Carrie’s heart leaped. ‘Why? What did she do?’
‘Russell!’ gushed Elaine, striding over to the entrance without even a second thought to Carrie. Her writer had clearly arrived and, Carrie noted wryly, he was a big player – Elaine was still doing OK. She was desperate to ask Elaine more about Emma but knew she’d not get anything else out of her today, so, with a last longing look back, she left the building. Out on the grey, rain-soaked pavements of Piccadilly, she opened her umbrella once more and hurried back to the office.
At her desk, Carrie returned Emma’s welcoming smile and willingly accepted her offer to make them both a cup of tea. As soon as Emma was in the kitchen, Carrie dug out the folder with the crew CVs. At the bottom was Emma’s, which Liz had handed to her all those weeks ago.
Her eyes scanned down – there it was. Assistant script editor working across various developments for Elaine Marsh’s company. She stuffed the CV into her handbag as Emma came over with two steaming mugs.
‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling more warmly than perhaps she had in a long time.
Emma was hiding something. Not just the little expansion on her job title, a common enough crime in such a competitive industry, but the reason she’d left. She’d told them her contract was up. Not true, according to Elaine.
Carrie felt herself regain something of a foothold on her crumbling position. Maybe Emma wasn’t the golden girl everyone believed her to be. What was it Elaine had said? She’d ‘seriously fucked up’.
Carrie glanced at her cohort out of the corner of her eye, her mind wondering.
What had she done?
TWENTY-ONE
Wednesday 6 December
He loved his baths. Carrie held Rory while he kicked his legs in his own uncoordinated way. He looked surprised and fascinated by the wet stuff that seemed to appear out of nowhere and land on him. Her back ached from leaning over the tub and Carrie creaked as she stood. Her body had never felt so battered, not just from giving birth but from the inability to get enough rest to recover properly, and she reflected again on how childbirth was a young person’s game.
She wrapped Rory in a towel and got him ready for bed, finding herself giving a running commentary on everything as she did it: ‘Let’s pat you dry’; ‘Nappy time!’; ‘Where’s those arms?’ She sometimes wondered if this was part of the natural progression of slipping into madness.
As she poppered up his sleepsuit, eternally grateful for the baby changing unit so she didn’t have to kneel on the floor, she gave him a smile just before she picked him up and then something totally unexpected happened.
He smiled back.
She stopped still, thinking she’d imagined it. There was only one way to find out for sure.
She smiled at him again.
Again he returned it.
She let out a laugh, a mad, bewildered peal. Then scooped him up and hurried down the two flights of stairs, the smell of a beef casserole growing ever stronger as she descended to the kitchen.
Adrian looked up from peeling potatoes, unused to her moving with such energy.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
‘Guess what?’
‘What?’
‘Rory smiled. He actually smiled.’
Adrian put down the peeler with interest. ‘Oh yeah?’
She held Rory upright in her arms so he faced Adrian. ‘Go on – show Daddy.’ Rory seemed oblivious. Carrie looked up at Adrian. ‘You have to smile at him first.’
Adrian hesitated and then, under her insistent gaze, moved closer and waggled his fingers. ‘Hello, mate.’
Rory started to grumble, rubbed his eyes with his fists.
‘Go on, again,’ said Carrie encouragingly.
‘Hi, Rory. Woohoo.’ Adrian waved at him again.
Rory started to cry.
Adrian shrugged. ‘Guess he’s all out of smiles.’
‘He’s just tired,’ said Carrie quickly. She’d seen the distance in Adrian’s eyes, hated the feeling of panic it raised in her. ‘I’ll put him down,’ she said, ‘then come and help you with the mash.’
A pair of hands rested on her waist. She jumped.
‘Wanna get freaky?’ Adrian said in her ear, and led her to the spare room.
They kissed and his hands roamed. She knew the curtains were open and the room faced out onto the street, so she broke away and went to close them, realizing she was nervous and taking her time.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Adrian impatiently.
‘We’re not giving the neighbours a free show,’ she said.
When she turned round, he was already naked on the bed and she giggled. He patted the sheet next to him. She slipped off her dress, conscious of her post-pregnancy body, and then got quickly under the covers next to him.
They looked at each other, reacquainting themselves with the prelude to intimacy, something that hadn’t happened in so long it felt strange. They kissed again and hands touched bodies, stroking, caressing. With a sense of joy and relief, for a part of her had been dreading this moment, Carrie began to get into it. Her hands moved lower and she was surprised to find he wasn’t ready. She sensed his embarrassment and tried to reassure him with her hands, but after a few more minutes, he rolled away.
‘Guess I wasn’t in the mood.’
He was staring up at the ceiling and she moved closer to him, putting her hand carefully on his chest. She could see he was frustrated.
‘Been wanking furiously the last few weeks. Thinking about nothing except this – us – and now . . .’
‘It’s OK,’ she said.
He got up, started to put his clothes back on. ‘Better get the spuds on or we’ll never eat. It’s getting late.’
The Temp Page 8