The London Pigeon Wars

by Patrick Neate

  15

  Reality. Television

  It might seem surprising how easily TV Ami was convinced.

  They met at the Kensington end of Hyde Park. Ami had just been at her agent's office. Since the end of her stint on the Weather Channel, she'd been in there most days, walking the fine line between pushiness and desperation, confidence and panic.

  Emma called her on her mobile out of the blue. Ami seemed distracted. She was sitting on one of the leather sofas in reception, pretending to read the Stage, and pulling smiles at the hasbeens and wannabes who came in and out – eighties comedians clutching corporate-video scripts in nicotine-stained fingers, brassy former soap stars who were these days all slap and no dash, reality-TV rejects with makeover outfits and wide eyes, and male-model types with puckered lips, particular profiles and T-shirts that revealed the line of hair from navel to crotch. The real stars? They never went to see their agent. Oh no. Their agent went to see them, in fashionable restaurants, private members' clubs or boutique hotels that were themed around Barbarella or Gaudi or Grand Central Station.

  ‘Ami? You there?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Yeah. Sure. How are you?’

  ‘OK. Tommy's playing up. I think his milk teeth are sore.’

  ‘Really?’ Ami soothed. ‘It must be so difficult for you.’

  Emma was mildly irritated. What was that supposed to mean? She found that most people talked to new (or newish) mothers exactly how they talked to their babies so that words mattered far less than tone of voice. ‘Who's my little man?’ became ‘How are you coping?’ and ‘You're my little man’ became ‘It must be tough’. They might as well just coochie-coo at you. Just because you'd had a kid, it didn't mean you couldn't think straight, did it? Or maybe it did.

  ‘Look. I just wondered if you fancied a coffee some time.’

  ‘A coffee? Sure,’ Ami said vaguely. ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Now? Kensington. With my agent.’

  ‘Kensington? Really?’ Emma checked her watch. ‘Actually, I'll be there in about half an hour. I'm picking up some… some stuff for Tommy. You want to meet?’

  Ami's shrug was almost audible. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Why not?’

  At the other end of the phone, Emma raised her eyebrows at Murray. He nodded.

  The four of them – Ami, Emma, Murray and Tommy in the pushchair – walked up past Kensington Palace, past the gates where a sea of flowers once lapped in memory of Princess Diana. Ami was chattering about her meeting. Her agent had seemed excited, told her he had really good news, got her hopes up. But then it turned out to be nothing more than TVX offering her another series as the ‘croupier in a bustier’. ‘I mean, soft porn?’ Ami exclaimed. ‘On cable?’ She'd told her agent she'd have to think about it.

  Emma was barely listening, just making the right noises. And not just because she could do it too. No. She was thinking about the time she and Tariq had come here a couple of weeks after Diana was killed. It wasn't like they'd cared. It had been Tariq's idea, a thoroughly honest act of morbid curiosity. She liked that about him; his brazenness.

  They'd been here at dusk, stood in this very spot and stared at the flowers and the people who kept silent, candlelit vigil: middle-aged men with alcohol-bulbous faces, mothers with teenage kids, elderly couples in scarves and overcoats with brass buttons. The way they'd been talking on the way there, Emma was scared she might laugh which, in retrospect, seemed ridiculous. Because, in fact, she was ambushed by a bubble of sadness that slowly swelled in her stomach until, much to her surprise, she couldn't stop it bursting in a sudden series of choking sobs. She'd wept like a baby though she didn't really understand why. It certainly wasn't for Diana. If anything, she was weeping for herself, for the brief, gaping immediacy of her own mortality. She'd buried her face in Tariq's shoulder and he squeezed her tight and didn't say a word.

  Now, Emma remembered the overpowering stench of the flowers; sickly sweet, the olfactory equivalent of a dress in orange and aqua or too many marshmallows. She remembered how it had seemed so appropriate, the scent of beauty putrefying. Now that she was thinking about it, she appeared to be able to conjure that smell as if it had hung in the air around here for the last few years, unaffected by changes in weather or the nearby expulsions of millions of car exhausts. But this smell seemed slightly different. In addition to the sweetness, there was a hint of musky warmth.

  Emma found herself unconsciously sniffing. She looked at Ami, who was still chattering on about her career or lack thereof, and wondered if she could smell it too. She recalled Tariq's retort whenever she accused him of farting in bed. ‘That's your top lip, Em.’ The thought prompted a quick internal smile.

  She turned to Murray who was pushing Tommy at her side, and she suddenly, sickeningly, realized the smell was coming from him. It wasn't strong and it wasn't dirty but it was definitely there, a smell somewhere between sex and death that reminded her of the day they'd… She felt like she might gag.

  Ami was saying, ‘So, Murray. What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Shouldn't you be working? I know Em's just a housewife but what about you?’

  Murray shrugged, ‘You know me.’

  ‘Not really,’ she said and she attempted a laugh but it sounded uncomfortable.

  They pottered on in silence for a bit after that. Ami glanced up at the sky and saw the sun manfully trying to poke his head out from behind a cloud. Scanning left and right, she noticed how grey everything looked. This was hardly a revelation. Though she'd lived in London all her life, she'd travelled enough to know that this was the most colourless city in the world, in which even the trees and flowers had the faded quality of a black-and-white photograph. This wasn't a metaphorical observation, either; rather a seemingly intrinsic feature of London's washed-out light (though that didn't, of course, negate the possibility of an apposite metaphor). She took a couple of deep breaths. Maybe things weren't so bad. After all, if celebrity was a ladder then her problem was that she'd chosen only to look up and never down. There were, she knew, a whole lot of people who would die to be in her shoes and, when you looked at it like that, it made you feel a little better. It's important to enjoy where you are as much as you'll enjoy where you want to be, Ami thought, and she congratulated herself on her perspective.

  She looked around and consciously appreciated the sight of baby Tommy snoozing in his pram, the Swedish couple snapping pictures by a statue, the Lycra buttocks of a fit guy who jogged past grunting like a caveman and, oddly, holding an umbrella like a relay baton. Simple things. She enjoyed the crunch-crunch of the gravel path underfoot, which sounded like chewing muesli. Unfortunately, as soon as she thought that, she began to think about the chimps in pyjamas – ‘What do your little monkeys eat for breakfast?’ – and she remembered how she'd been mistaken, more than once, for the girl in the advert; a girl who was certainly more famous than her (for being in an advert!), probably younger and already playing a mother. She began to feel miserable all over again. Something had to change.

  Tommy woke up and started to grizzle so they sat on a bench to give him a bottle: Ami, Emma and the baby, and Murray; all in a line.

  ‘I'll take him if you like,’ Murray suggested.

  But Emma said, ‘It's fine.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘No. Really. It's fine.’

  Ami asked if either of them had a spare cigarette. Emma said, ‘I didn't know you smoked.’ She didn't, not really; just fancied one. Emma nodded. She didn't have cigarettes anyway; hadn't smoked since she got pregnant. Murray didn't have any either.

  Then Murray leaned forward and said to Ami: ‘So we're going to rob this bank, then.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This bank. For Em and Tariq. It's all planned.’

  Ami laughed. ‘Yeah, right.’ She could really use a cigarette.

  Murray was staring at her. ‘What do you mean, “Yeah, right”? We all agreed. And the whole thing depends on you.�
��

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he snapped. ‘You. You're going to be “on the inside”, remember? It was your idea.’

  Ami was slightly taken aback and her smile became a stuck-on expression. She tried a scoff, ‘I thought Emma was on the inside too.’ But Murray shook his head. ‘Not any more. Plan's changed.’

  She didn't really know what Murray was on about, nor whether to take him seriously. She'd never seen him aggressive and that confused her all the more. I mean, he had to be having a laugh, right? But it certainly didn't look like it.

  Murray shook his head in an exasperated way and said, ‘Em?’ Like he was appealing to her for reason.

  Their plan was unfolding exactly as anticipated and it was Emma's cue to take over. But she nonetheless felt uncomfortable as she passed him her son, contentedly suckling on the rubber teat. Murray got up then and walked a little distance away, rocking Tommy in the crook of his arm. He was still shaking his head, apparently irritable, as if to say ‘You talk to her’.

  Emma moved closer to Ami on the bench. She took her hands briefly and then let them go as if she couldn't presume such an intimacy. Ami watched the way her bony fists clenched and unwrapped, clenched and unwrapped.

  She explained it to Ami like this. Look. Things were desperate. They were going to lose their house, weren't they? No. Seriously. Lose their house.

  ‘So you're going to rob a bank?’ Ami said. ‘You're winding me up, right?’ And she tried a disbelieving giggle. But Emma was eyeballing her so intensely that it never made it out loud.

  Ami! That was exactly it. That was exactly what they were going to do. That was exactly how desperate things had got. Sorry. Look. She didn't mean to snap but how else was she supposed to react? What would she do in this situation? Just sit around and wait for the bailiffs? Watch Tariq drink himself to death? Raise her kid in a fucking – Emma rarely swore but Murray had told her it would add conviction – council B & B? Tom had been right. A one-off job? They'd never get caught. Think about it, Ami, think about it. Please. Tom had been right. Never even be suspected.

  Ami said: ‘I'm sorry, Em, but…’

  Emma covered her face with her hands for a moment. They were cool against her eyelids. Murray had said this would happen. And he'd said what would happen next.

  Emma spoke through her wrists. It was fine. What was she thinking of? Sorry. Ami must think they'd gone completely crazy. She lowered her hands. They'd just had such a good idea, that was all. Trouble was it depended on casting Ami. It wouldn't work without her.

  ‘What is it?’

  What?

  ‘The idea.’

  No. Forget it. It didn't matter now.

  ‘Really? You may as well say. What is it?’

  Emma was smiling feebly. It was simple really. If you wanted to rob a bank, you had to have someone on the inside, someone who worked there, right? So they'd wanted Ami to get a job as a cashier. Something like that.

  Ami said, ‘Oh.’ It didn't sound like much of a starring role. Emma continued.

  But how was Ami going to get a job in the specific bank they'd targeted? It wasn't possible. Even if she got accepted, she'd probably have to do all kinds of training and placements and she might not even get posted to the right branch at the end of it. So they'd had this idea. Well. Murray had had this idea. Emma shook her head. Ami would probably think it was daft.

  Look. She, Ami, was always saying how TVX wanted to break into terrestrial telly and were just looking for the right format. So why didn't she pitch them something? A reality-TV show based around real workplaces, a different one each week or maybe even one each series, depending on how it went. You'd set up hidden cameras around an office, say they were a new security system or whatever, and create a real-life soap opera. You'd see all the office romances, affairs and power games; find out who was nicking Julie's Slimfast from the fridge, that Trevor was downloading porn all day, that Mr Cunningham was cooking the books and fiddling his expenses, that kind of thing.

  Emma paused. Ami looked completely nonplussed but she ploughed on regardless.

  And Ami? She'd be the stooge, right? She'd be the viewers' point of access, the continuity, the mole, the focus, the star. If there was a story they didn't catch on tape? Ami could relate it in a piece to camera. But they weren't talking trash here, no way. This would be high-quality, popular programming. There would be sex, sure. But it would be real sex; not like Hollywood but justified and plausible. There would be comedy but you wouldn't be laughing at these people. Because there would be tragedy too and it would be human tragedy, real tragedy. Like when Annette's mum has a heart attack or Darren, the office junior, gets knocked off his moped. This would be real life, right? Only on TV.

  Emma was watching Ami. She suddenly realized she was pushing the right buttons. Ami said, ‘So what if they recognized me?’

  Who?

  ‘The people in the office.’

  They wouldn't, would they? Emma smiled.

  Then Murray stepped in. He was now standing in front of them but concentrating on the baby, persuading the bottle between his lips. Murray said that if she got recognized, she could make a joke of it, couldn't she? How she looked like that girl Ami Lester off the telly.

  Ami said, ‘Right. I could say, “That stuck-up bitch? No way!” Something like that.’

  She looked to Murray for approval but he was still encouraging Tommy to take a little more formula – You're not full, are you? Come on, china. Just another sip.

  Ami turned to Emma. It was a good idea – a really good idea – but she still had some reservations; some queries about, you know, the exact format. Emma nodded. Of course she did. But that was hardly the point, was it? The point was to have a pretext to work in the bank. Ami looked perplexed but she still muttered, ‘The bank. Yeah. Right.’

  Emma reassured her. Because this was the beauty of the idea. All she had to do was convince TVX that the show had potential. She could explain to them that she just needed to do some research with the validity of a credible production company behind her. Like, in the first instance, all she'd want is to use their headed paper to write up a proposal and borrow a DVC. She'd take them to one of the businesses she was thinking of including in the show – a high-street bank, say – and explain to the manager that she just needed to test the water. Like, do a couple of weeks posing as a work ex. Something like that.

  ‘What if he says no?’

  But Emma just laughed. A bank manager wasn't going to say no to TV Ami, was he? She would stress the good publicity. She could say, ‘It'll be good for me and good for you. Good for both of us.’ The guy would think he'd died and gone to heaven.

  Emma could see Ami was hooked; wanted to be, anyway. Ami said, ‘But I'm never going to actually make this show, am I? Not if you're going to…’

  No, no, no. Hold on. Because this was where it really got good. Emma glanced quickly at Murray but he appeared not to be listening – You're all right, china, aren't you? Lovely. Yum, yum, yum.

  If… Emma began. If, for whatever reason, they didn't go through with the robbery, then the idea for the show was still a strong one and Ami would have lots of material to work with, wouldn't she?

  ‘We'd have to pitch for a pilot,’ Ami said. ‘That's how it works.’

  Sure. If, for whatever reason, nobody was interested in the idea, she'd still have blagged her way into the bank. So couldn't she sell the footage to Channel 4 News or somebody? As, like, a special report about lax security in our high-street banks. Surely that was just the kind of thing they'd go for on a slow-news day and it would help establish Ami as a serious journalist, wouldn't it? Like on Tomorrow's World. Or Watchdog. An undercover reporter. That kind of thing.

  Ami was nodding. She was swallowing this, all right.

  If, on the other hand, they did go through with the… you know…

  ‘The what?’

  The bank job. If they did, it would be all over the media. And look who'd be on the spot? Ami Les
ter, TV presenter, working undercover on her new project. And guess what? She'd have secretly filmed the whole thing on her DVC. She'd be a hero, an overnight celebrity. Even more of a celebrity, that is.

  Emma said, ‘I mean. When you think about it, what have you got to lose?’

  Murray handed Tommy back to her with an ‘I think he's had enough’ and she nodded and absentmindedly burped her son over her shoulder. Tommy spewed up a little milk over her T-shirt which she wiped away with a tissue.

  Murray was now rummaging in the pocket of his jeans and he pulled out a crumpled packet often cigarettes. ‘Look what I found!’ he announced and offered them to Ami. ‘You want one?’ Ami gratefully accepted and Murray lit it with a flourish. He was squatting in front of her, his hands resting on the bench either side of her thighs. She had to turn her head a little to exhale, so she didn't blow smoke right in his face.

  ‘I mean, Tariq and Emma…’ he muttered. He looked sideways at Emma and nodded respectfully. ‘Sorry, Em. But you really need our help.’

  ‘It's fine. It's true,’ Emma said quickly. And then to Ami, ‘But, look, if you've got problems with this – like, moral problems – just say. I mean, I know it sounds kind of mad. If you just think it's wrong…’

  ‘No,’ Ami interrupted decisively. ‘It's not that. Like you said, you're desperate and what have I got to lose? I mean, it's good for me too. Not that I'm selfish because you know I'm devoted to you and Tariq, Em. I'd do anything for you.’

  Murray said, ‘Devotion can appear selfish.’

  ‘Exactly. So I'll talk to the guys at Tit TV a.s.a.p. After all, if we're going to do this, I ought to get on with it, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Right.’ Ami flicked her half-smoked cigarette on to the grass nearby. She felt good.

  They walked back down to Kensington High Street together. Emma remarked, ‘We never even had that coffee’, but Ami replied that she wanted to get into the production company that very afternoon, to make a start. Murray said he was going to stroll up to Notting Hill and visit Freya's shop. He asked Emma if she wanted to come but she thought Tommy was looking a little tired and they ought to head home.