by Jane Lythell
Chalk Farm flat, 7.40 p.m.
Janis had cooked pasta for Flo. There was some left and I wondered if I should settle for that. Could I be bothered to cook anything for myself? But cooking decompresses me after a stressful day at work, cooking is my therapy. I opened the fridge and peered in. I had cheese and some lovely fat spring onions. There were six eggs on the counter. I’d make a cheese and onion frittata.
Flo joined me as I was beating the eggs.
‘Good day, sweetheart?’
‘OK. Harriet WhatsApped me. They want to fix a date for the fashion shoot next week.’
‘You’re back at school next week.’
‘They’re suggesting Sunday.’
‘That’s OK then.’
‘But I must have some new underwear, Mum. In case I have to undress in front of the other girls. I hope I won’t have to, I hope there’ll be separate changing rooms.’
She looked anxious. Fifteen-year-old girls are so self-conscious about their bodies, seeing only flaws where I see beauty. I agreed we would buy her some new underwear at the weekend.
‘Can we go to Selfridges?’
‘I was thinking Primark,’ I said.
‘Please, Mum.’
‘What’s wrong with Primark?’
‘In case the other girls see it.’
I put my whisk down and turned to face her.
‘Give me a hug. I’ve had a hell of a day.’
She hugged me and sat at the table while I grated cheese and made a salad.
‘There was this awful pushy journalist who kind of ambushed me as I was leaving work.’
‘Why did she do that?’
I explained the whole Fizzy and Ledley problem and realised I hadn’t told Flo much about what was going on at work and that I should probably share it more with her.
‘Poor Mum. Sounds awful. Can I make the dressing?’
‘Yes, please.’
I got out the mustard, oil and vinegar and she measured each ingredient carefully into our dressing jar and shook the mixture.
‘I like your dressing,’ I said.
18
SEPTEMBER
StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge
We were about to go live on Day One of the Fizzy and Ledley show and there was palpable tension in the air. I had checked in on Fizzy earlier. She had come in extra early to get Ellen to do her hair and make-up. Then I had gone to Ledley’s dressing room to wish him luck. He seemed nervous. The lighting had been changed to accommodate two presenters and I noticed the posy of cream and yellow roses in a vase on the table in front of the sofa. We had dispensed with daily fresh flowers while Fizzy was away but it was something she was keen on and I was pleased that Henry had remembered to organise that for her today.
‘End of an era,’ the director said as the countdown clock started and he switched through to the opening titles. We came out into a wide two-shot of Fizzy and Ledley both beaming into the camera. Fizzy was sitting on the left-hand side of the sofa, the power position. She looked fantastic and her demeanour was relentlessly upbeat.
‘Good morning, Britain. It’s brilliant to be back and I must start by thanking you wonderful viewers for all the toys and clothes you sent me for my little Zachary. Oh, Ledley, you wouldn’t believe how kind and generous our viewers are.’
‘We have the best viewers,’ he agreed, smiling widely.
‘We do; the very best. And to thank you all I want to share a rather special picture which I had taken of me and Zac by one of Europe’s top photographers, Marco Torti, and he’s with me now.’
Fizzy turned to Marco Torti who was sitting on her right. He was an attractive forty-something Italian snapper who was the darling of the celebrity crowd and who spoke with a charming misuse of English.
‘I am honoured indeed that you agreed to do this mother and baby shot of us, Marco, as I know you don’t usually do this kind of thing,’ Fizzy said.
‘It was my happy pleasure,’ Marco said as the director flashed up the image of Fizzy with Zachary on her lap. He was leaning his head back against his mum and it was a beautiful and tender photograph. They were sitting in some kind of greenhouse with a feathery fern in the background and the light was soft. We held the image up on the screen for thirty seconds, which is long in TV time, as Marco talked about the shot and how the image of the mother and baby was iconic in his country. Eventually, the director faded back to a two-shot of Fizzy and Marco who then embarked on a lively discussion about his many other celebrity subjects. We flashed up images of these too. I had given this item longer than usual because it was the welcoming Fizzy back item. Ledley played no role in it at all.
After the ad break we ran an item which Ledley presented on the growth of artisan bakeries and how there was a turn away from the giant supermarket chains. Shoppers were favouring small independent shops, Ledley said. He did the item well and involved Fizzy by offering her the platter of different breads we had prepared as his prop. He asked her if she preferred sourdough or focaccia and did she want to sample them? Fizzy played along and you would have thought she was delighted to have him there, sitting next to her, and that they were the best of friends. What a consummate actor she is, I thought.
The next item was Guy Browne’s fashion slot. Fizzy ignored Henry’s countdown after six minutes and the item overran by a full two minutes. Guy was talking to her about the current fad for vintage clothes.
‘My advice is to look in your granny’s attic because crushed velvet, tea dresses, floral prints, beads and brooches are the look to put together.’
I thought of how Flo had chosen that brooch from Grace and how my daughter was more in tune with fashion trends than I was.
‘You have to have a good eye to pull it off. Mix it up but don’t overload it and maybe pair the dresses with biker boots to make it contemporary,’ he said.
Fizzy recalled, at length, the joy of going through her granny’s dressing-up box when she was a little girl. I wondered if she was making this up. She had spoken of her granny as a fearsome Baptist. Would she have had a dressing-up box? But Fizzy often made things up and their discussion was animated and entertaining. The director was irritated at the overrun.
‘Please wind it up, Fizzy,’ he said twice before she brought the item to a close. There had been no opportunity for Ledley to insert himself into this discussion for the whole eight minutes.
‘I’m putting this down to first day back nerves,’ he said to me off mic so that Fizzy could not hear.
I was relieved when the end credits rolled. Viewers may not have noticed but some items had run too long for comfort and Ledley’s items had all been squeezed.
The atmosphere in the morning meeting was sub-arctic as Julius welcomed Fizzy back and complimented the two presenters on their performance that morning.
‘We have some tweaks to make but it was a good start,’ he said.
I wondered if that was what he really thought. Fizzy had sat down between Julius and me. Ledley sat opposite with Lori on his right and Bob was next to Lori. The battle lines had been drawn. The director was there too and he delivered his report. All was fine from a technical point of view. I reported that we had had a Twitter surge welcoming Fizzy back.
‘And our viewers loved the portrait of you and Zachary. It is a gorgeous shot,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Liz. I’ve had photo-cards made which we can send out,’ she said.
She did not look at Ledley once and was giving Lori her death stare. Julius, who usually manages by the sheer force of his personality to corral us all into discussing the show, seemed at a loss. He kept the meeting short and asked Lori, Bob and me to join him in his office afterwards.
We sat in a semicircle around his table as Martine brought in a large pot of coffee. The atmosphere was tense as Martine laid out the cups. She flashed a sympathetic glance at me. She would have watched the show and noted how much Fizzy had dominated it. It had not come anywhere near a double act and the expression on Julius’s f
ace said it all. We had a problem on our hands.
‘We couldn’t talk frankly with Fizzy and Ledley present. It’s too new and too raw for her. I want to know how the three of you think it went this morning, honestly,’ Julius said.
I stirred a little sugar into my coffee. I wasn’t going to be the first one to speak. This had been Lori’s big idea. Let’s see how she assessed it. She was wearing another of her boxy suits and today it was a nasty royal blue. The ever-present brooch glittered on her lapel. She addressed her remarks to Julius.
‘Ledley was given hardly anything to do. They are supposed to be co-hosts and for this to work it needs to be a partnership,’ she said.
This was true but we had had no choice in the matter. I waited for Julius to explain that the allocation of items had been a contractual obligation but he maintained a charged silence and looked at me to say something.
‘Our hands were tied by Fizzy’s agent. He pretty well stipulated the running order for today,’ I said.
‘Do presenters really have that much power? I mean, the station pays the wages and surely has a right to make changes?’ she said.
‘I’m not interested in talking about contractual issues. We need to discuss this in programming terms,’ Julius snapped.
Julius is a brilliant programme maker, he had seen how the show had not worked and it had angered him. In my role as head of features he would expect me to make it come right. I felt a wave of weariness and foreboding wash over me.
‘It’s going to be difficult. We’ve agreed Fizzy will do the big interviews so she will inevitably be seen as the senior presenter. We’ll need to develop a distinctive role for Ledley, make certain areas his own. Food, of course, but also Betty has gelled with him. We could give him that to do. We need to bring his humour out too; he used to be funny on his cooking slot,’ I said.
Ledley’s weekly cooking slot had always been an opportunity for him and Fizzy to have a good laugh together. She would tease him about his unhealthy ingredients and he would get her to sample his dishes. There had been no humour on the show this morning. Lori looked less than satisfied at my response and I felt like saying to her ‘You fix it then, shark-eyes!’
‘We’ve all got to want to make it work,’ she said.
I was furious at that. One thing that Julius and I share is the desire to put on a good show at all costs. I sometimes think that I put my drive to do that above my need to be a good mum to Flo. How dare she imply that we, or I, would try to sabotage the programme.
‘That’s a given,’ I said, glaring at her. ‘This is a major change and will take some adjusting to. The item with Marco Torti was a great opener and our viewers liked it.’
‘The fashion item went on and on,’ Lori said.
‘Make sure she doesn’t make a habit of overrunning, Liz,’ Julius said.
He poured more black coffee into his cup and swirled it around before swallowing it with a slight grimace. He had been looking at Lori and me with a sour expression on his face. His comment about not tolerating a bitch-fest came to mind and I hated the fact that the two men were watching Lori and me trying to take lumps out of each other. I couldn’t fathom his attitude to Lori. He was being careful around her. He couldn’t like the fact that she was close to Saul Relph and I wondered if he too felt her to be a threat to his position, the sales tail wagging the programming dog.
‘Bob, you’re here because I want to know what you made of it,’ Julius asked.
Bob looked more cheerful than usual and he had had his hair cut. I wondered what he had to feel chipper about. Was he glad that Fizzy was back? He had been obsessed with her last autumn, could hardly drag his eyes away from her, but their affair was over.
‘I agree with Lori that Ledley looked like a spare part this morning. It was awkward. I guess it will get easier as they both adjust to the new set-up.’
It was predictable that Bob would support Lori. My sense of foreboding deepened. If this failed as a double act and we lost ratings it would be me, not Lori, who would get the blame because I am the one who produces the items.
‘We’re going to have to keep a careful eye on it and track ratings and viewer comments,’ Julius said.
‘I’m on it,’ Lori said.
I bet you are, I thought. We trooped out of his room and I was heading for my office when Martine called me back. I stood at her desk, noting the new framed photograph of her beloved Jack Russell Milo sitting in pride of place. She was watching Lori and Bob walk down the stairs together.
‘They’re thick as thieves,’ she said.
‘They are.’
Martine must have picked up my despondent tone and she gave me a penetrating look.
‘Is she making life difficult for you?’
Usually I put a brave face on things but I felt tired of always having to conceal my true feelings at work.
‘Yes, she is.’
‘She’s an operator and she’s got Saul Relph eating out of her hand.’
‘I know, and that’s a big problem,’ I said.
Martine is astute and keeps a close eye on what is going on at the station. She could see that a shift in the power balance was happening. Lori was in the ascendant because she had won the argument about Ledley and I had lost power.
‘I’m glad Fizzy’s got you on her side. She said could you pop down and see her?’ Martine said.
Fizzy was seated at her dressing table. She had changed out of her studio clothes into jeans and a soft grey jumper. She stood up and brushed her hair vigorously.
‘Where does Lori Kerwell get her hideous suits from?’ she said.
I shrugged, feeling too disconsolate even to join in the abuse of Lori’s taste.
‘I know what you’re going to say,’ she said.
‘What am I going to say?’
‘That I overran on the two main items.’
‘Well, yes, you did, but—’
‘That prick Ledley needs to know that he’s the junior partner,’ she said.
I pulled up a chair. Fizzy sat down again, reapplied some pink lipstick and blotted her lips on a piece of tissue. She looked every inch the TV star in relaxed mode.
‘He is the junior partner but the show comes first,’ I said firmly.
‘Of course. Now, Liz, I’ve got to leave in a minute but I need your advice. Bob’s seen Zac the once and he’s determined to have more contact.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he’s willing to pay towards Zac’s upkeep and he wants to see him from time to time.’
‘But not to play an active role in his life, surely? I mean, Pat could find out.’
I had met Bob’s wife Pat once at a StoryWorld Christmas do. They had got together in Burnley when she was seventeen years old. She worked in the health service and wasn’t part of the TV scene at all. In fact, she was the antithesis of TV people. She had struck me as a strong woman and someone you should not underestimate.
‘He knows it’s a huge risk but he said he’s desperate not to be shut out of Zac’s life altogether.’
I wondered if Fizzy was exaggerating. Would Bob say he was desperate?
‘It’s a very difficult situation,’ I said.
‘I have no idea what to do about it.’
She was fiddling with her bracelet which was gold and delicate. Again, I held back from offering any answers.
‘What are your options?’
‘God, I don’t know! I can tell him to get lost. That it would be easier all round if he stays out of Zac’s life for good. Or I can let him have limited access on my terms.’
‘Do you have any preference?’
‘I had it in my head that I would do this by myself. But it’s lonely, isn’t it, not being able to share the responsibility of your baby with anyone else?’ Her voice had taken on a plaintive note.
She had had three months of lone parenthood and was already finding it a burden. I felt for her but could see nothing but trouble and heartache ahead. Bob had so much to lo
se. His urge to see his son must be strong indeed.
‘OK. Let’s try to think this through. What’s the worst-case scenario?’ I said.
‘That he sees Zac regularly and it gets out that he’s the father. The tabloids would have a field day and I can’t afford any negative publicity at the moment. That prick Ledley would love that to get out, wouldn’t he?’
She crossed her arms and looked at her reflection. She had frowned at the mention of Ledley’s name. She smoothed her eyebrows with a brow comb and I felt a tremor watching her, remembering that Ledley had voiced his suspicions about Bob. The new ambitious Ledley was not above using this to his advantage and I felt Fizzy was walking on thin ice. Should I alert her to Ledley’s suspicions?
‘You need to be careful. Don’t give him any ammunition,’ I said.
‘I know. If we do meet it will have to be in a safe house,’ she said.