by Jane Lythell
‘Go on in,’ Martine said.
*
Julius had been furious. What had particularly enraged him was that the clip showing Ledley was doing the rounds on the news networks. He hates it when StoryWorld becomes the story. I was scheduled to leave the station at noon. Simon and I had been invited to a presentation in Westminster on changes to broadcasting law and I didn’t plan on missing it.
Simon and I decided to walk to the conference centre along the riverside. There was an autumnal nip in the air and we walked briskly. We passed a mother with twins in a double buggy. She was kneeling down trying to comfort one of the toddlers who was yelling his head off and banging his legs against the buggy in a total body fury. He would not be comforted. The other twin looked at him with interest and sucked on his dummy.
‘I remember those temper tantrums. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with them any more, though teenage tantrums can be a challenge too,’ I said as the sound of the toddler’s cries receded.
A young couple rollerbladed past us at speed. They were wearing knee pads and racing each other, swerving in and out to avoid the obstacles in their path.
‘Ziggy had so little to move in to her new place. I unpacked her kitchen box. There were a couple of mugs, three plates and a frying pan. When I think of what I’ve got, well, it cut me up actually,’ he said.
‘She’s been looking happy since she moved in,’ I said.
‘She is happy to have that little flat. And it is nice. I’ve learned a lot from Ziggy about being grateful.’
We arrived at the conference centre and were given our name badges and printouts of the presentations to come. We queued for the coffee and pastry that was on offer and I spotted a lot of TV people I’d met over the years. There were high tables to rest your cups on and Simon and I headed for one. The woman who covers economics on Douglas’s bulletin approached our table. I recognised her from watching his show. She’s clever and her presentation style is acerbic. I’ve seen her lance a few politicians with tricky questions in her filmed reports. She didn’t say hello and she was scanning the room to see if there was anyone she knew. When she looked back I saw her read my badge and a look of recognition flashed on her face. But I had never met her. Simon broke the ice.
‘Hello, we’re from StoryWorld.’
‘Greetings from News Nine,’ she said.
She gave me a penetrating but not a friendly look. It occurred to me that she knew I was dating Douglas.
‘Is it true what I read that there’s all-out sofa wars at your station?’ she said.
She had to be referring to the Lou Gibson piece. I was chewing on my pain au raisin. I swallowed and tried to sound light-hearted.
‘Have you had any dealings with Lou Gibson? She should be a novelist. She invented a lot of that.’
I noticed she was drinking her coffee black and had no pastry.
‘I would certainly fight it if News Nine suddenly said I had to share my slot with a newcomer,’ she said crisply.
‘Ledley’s not exactly a newcomer,’ I said.
‘I thought he was your chef?’
Her manner was so supercilious and I was trying to think how to answer her when Roomana, who used to be in my team, arrived at our table with a shriek of joy and embraced Simon and me. We were called into the main room and Simon, Roomana and I sat together.
‘She was a cold fish, wasn’t she?’ Simon said to me.
‘Arctic,’ I said.
‘And she was digging,’ he said.
I was thinking about her as the first speaker started his presentation. It was only when she read my name that she knew who I was and she had been far from friendly. Did the News Nine team know about Douglas and me? I didn’t like the idea that he had talked about our relationship. But maybe they had heard about it indirectly, as Julius and Fizzy had.
I was back at the station by five. I had a session booked in with Molly to look at three screen tests she had organised with travel bloggers as possible candidates for our travel pilot. I found her in the edit suite lining the tests up. We watched three young women do the same script. The first one was awful. The other two were competent but neither of them leapt off the screen.
‘That’s a bit disappointing. I was hoping for someone with that extra something. Do you have a preference between the last two?’ I said.
‘The last one edges it for me,’ Molly said.
‘Let’s go with her then. Thanks for doing this; I know it’s been a terrible rush.’
I went upstairs to get ready for my date. I changed into a green velvet blouse and laid out my make-up by my mirror. As I applied mascara I was thinking about whether I should ask Douglas about his frosty colleague. He rarely talked about his work with me, though he asked me about StoryWorld, particularly about Fizzy. A small worm of suspicion uncurled. I put concealer under my eyes and was using my brush to add blusher when Lori came into my office without knocking. She shut the door behind her, I swung round to face her and she launched straight in.
‘I do not appreciate you running to Julius and winding him up like this,’ she said sharply.
‘Are you talking about the Magic on Ice fiasco?’
‘There was no need to involve Julius.’
‘Oh, but there was. This is an issue about the reputation of the station. He needed to know,’ I said.
‘I bet you laid it on with a trowel.’
‘I find that rich coming from you when you went running to Saul the moment I disagreed with your fashion ideas.’
‘You’ve been against me from day one,’ she said.
‘I’ve tried to resist your cheap and nasty ideas. And working with cheapskate companies gets us into difficulties, as per Magic on Ice.’
‘You’ve been working against me and working against Ledley.’
‘That’s not true but go ahead and think that if you want to. You’re the one who screwed up on Magic on Ice. Thanks for linking the station with a money launderer.’
She looked like she wanted to slap me or better still stab me with her hideous statement brooch. I glared back just as hard and she turned on her heel and exited my office. I sat down. My heart was pumping hard and I was breathless. For once I hadn’t held back. It felt good to have given her the two barrels and sod the consequences. My phone rang. It was Douglas and he sounded stressed.
‘I’m so sorry, Liz. Tonight is off.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘My mother-in-law has had a stroke, a bad one. She’s hanging between life and death.’
‘That’s awful.’
‘I’m driving down to Cornwall in the next hour, picking Stew up on the way.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I’m sorry to miss tonight.’
‘Don’t worry about that. I hope the news is better when you get there.’
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.
I sat at my desk and felt immensely deflated. I couldn’t stop myself from resenting that his mother-in-law was sick and that he had been called away; which then made me feel that I was a bad person. I sighed deeply.
‘Get a grip,’ I said aloud. ‘It’s a cancelled date.’
Chalk Farm flat, 7.15 p.m.
As I unlocked the door to our flat I could hear Flo chatting happily to Janis in the kitchen. I took off my jacket and joined them.
‘I thought you were out with him tonight?’ Flo said in an unfriendly voice.
‘A last-minute change of plan. One of his family is very ill.’
Flo got up and went to her bedroom. She shut her door with a click and Janis and I exchanged knowing looks. I wondered if Flo had told her about Ethan. I followed Janis out onto the pavement.
‘It’s a shame your date was called off,’ she said.
‘Yes, and I’m in her bad books. Oh joy.’
‘It’s her age and her hormones. She loves you loads, you know,’ Janis said.
I could not face another night of Flo and me sitting in our separate rooms with an atmos
phere in the flat. I tapped on her door.
‘Shall we cook a cake? We haven’t made one for ages.’
She was probably as miserable as I was about our stand-off.
‘OK.’
We went through the cupboard together. I laid out flour, butter and baking powder and got the milk from the fridge.
‘I think we’ve got everything for a Victoria sponge,’ I said.
She opened the egg box.
‘We’ve only got three eggs.’
‘It’s enough.’
‘And can we just have jam? I’ve gone off buttercream.’
She beat the ingredients into a batter while I lined the sandwich tins with baking paper. She divided the mixture between the tins and smoothed the surface with the back of a wooden spoon.
‘That’s nicely done,’ I said.
The oven was ready and she put the two tins in carefully. We sat at the table while the kitchen filled with that most comforting of smells, a baking cake. I tried not to think about my missed date with Douglas. The priority was to mend fences with Flo.
‘Granny’s birthday next week and I’m thinking I should get her something useful to take to Kenya,’ I said.
‘I wish she wasn’t going.’
‘Me too, but I am proud of her. She likes to help people,’ I said.
‘Granny would be Abnegation,’ Flo said.
I must have looked blank.
‘In Divergent. I told you. Everyone belongs to a category and Abnegation are the people who help others. They always put their own needs last.’
She was reading Divergent, in fact she was completely enthralled by it and had mentioned it before. Society was arranged by character class and she had explained the categories at length to me. She had said I was a mixture of Erudite and Candour. Erudite were into knowledge and power and Candour were the truth-tellers.
‘I wouldn’t want to be Abnegation. They have to wear grey all the time,’ she said.
This made me think of a story my mum used to tell me about her childhood and I told it to Flo again. Money had always been short. My granny would buy cheap meat cuts and make a basic stew at least once a week that would last for two days. My mum hated this stew and dreaded those nights when it was all that was on offer. One evening she had arrived home from a bad day at school, had smelled the stew cooking and had burst into tears. Granny had said, if you were in the Russian Revolution you would be grateful for a bowl of my stew. It had been known as Russian Revolution Stew ever afterwards.
Later, as the cakes were cooling on the rack, Flo reached for the jams.
‘Mum, do you want apricot or raspberry?’
‘You choose. I like them both.’
‘I’m going for apricot this time.’
I watched her spread the jam thickly on the sponge.
‘I can’t wait to taste it,’ I said.
We ate the cake with mugs of tea and agreed it was a good one. When Flo and I cook together it unites us.
32
LATE OCTOBER
Chalk Farm flat, afternoon
I’ve been in bed for two days with my worst bout of flu in years. My legs ache so much, my throat is raw and my head is heavy and throbbing. No word now from Douglas for nearly a month.
I couldn’t get warm and was shivering under the duvet. I pulled on my dressing gown before going into the kitchen to make yet another Lemsip. I put on the kettle. There was no point in going to see my doctor. With flu you have to endure the symptoms while the virus works its way through your body. Douglas had called me a couple of days after his dash to the hospital, said that he and Stewart were staying in a hotel in Truro while Natalie Cooper’s condition hung in the balance. I poured boiling water onto the powder and added a large spoonful of honey, watching it melt into the mix. I’m trying to keep track of how many of these I’ve drunk. I had texted him a few days later saying I was thinking of him and hoped that things were improving. He hadn’t texted back. He would be spending a lot of time with his wife Claire. She would be frightened about her mum and crises bring people together.
I refilled the kettle and fetched the hot water bottle from my tangled sheets. It’s Flo’s Peter Rabbit hot water bottle and the fur on his stomach is flat. Stewart wants his parents to get back together, of course he does; it’s only natural. The kettle boiled again and I filled Peter Rabbit. I shuffled back into my room and tried to straighten the bed. But he could have called. He could have kept me updated. Even a text to show I was important to him. I always knew he was too glamorous for me. We met at that award ceremony and I was only on that table because Julius was away. I was wearing the dress of transformation and, looking back, the whole thing has a feeling of unreality about it. I sat against my pillows and cried. Another failed relationship. Why does it hurt so much?
I’ve seen the articles on how your emotional state affects your health and that misery makes you ill. Perhaps it does. For the last two weeks I hadn’t been sleeping well. I was brooding about no word from Douglas and October is also a difficult month for me because my darling dad died suddenly in October. Every night I’d long for sleep but would wake up, usually around five, still bone-tired. I tried to make myself go back to sleep so that I would have enough energy to face the demands of the day. Sometimes I managed to drift off. When I woke again I would feel this heaviness pressing on my chest, like a weight I couldn’t throw off. I’d drag myself up and make myself go through my morning routines. There was a certain salvation in habit and in having to get Flo up and having to go to work. But I could not remember feeling so bleak for a very long time. And now this wretched flu has felled me.
I can’t imagine feeling good about myself again. I know I’m failing at work. I’ve got nowhere with the Young Fashion Designer competition. We filmed the travel pilot and it was lacklustre. But who cares, what does it matter? I rolled onto my side, hugging Peter Rabbit.
It was nearly dark when the phone rang. It was Fenton, calling from work.
‘How are you, love?’
‘Still one great big ache.’
I know she is worried about me. When Douglas stopped calling she’d told me there were parallels to the troubles she’d had with Bill and his ex-wife. When they were starting out on their relationship Bill’s ex made a move to get back with him and it had been fraught. She reminded me how she had been on the rack for months but it had come good in the end. We didn’t talk about Douglas today. I was glad she didn’t ask me if he had rung.
‘You’re not to go back until you’re completely well. I know you. You always go back too early,’ she said fondly.
I had told Janis not to come to the flat. I heard Flo unlocking the front door and she came straight to my room.
‘Poor Mum. You look awful.’
‘Darling, can you heat me a tin of tomato soup?’ I croaked.
She warmed the soup and brought it to me in a mug.
‘Thanks, sweets. There’s some ravioli in the fridge and a jar of sauce you can put with it.’
‘It’s OK, Mum. I’ll cook something.’
I sipped at the soup. She sat on my bed and plucked at the duvet.
‘How was your day?’
‘I hate boys,’ she said.
‘What happened?’
‘You remember the girl I told you about who had sex with a boy who’s a total dick.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘I heard him calling her all kinds of horrible names so that everyone could hear. I went over and told him he was disgusting. And Rosie said he should grow up and then he and his mates were jeering at us and calling us frigid skanks and other things.’
I felt a starburst of pride explode in my chest.
‘That was brilliant that you did that, just brilliant.’
33
NOVEMBER
StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge
I’m peaky but I’m standing. My team were glad to have me back and made me feel wanted. Ziggy got me a coffee and a Twix from the Hub and Harriet b
rought me a bunch of pale pink camellias at lunchtime. She arranged them in a vase and placed them on my desk. I cupped one bloom in my hand, the petals unfurled in a perfect spiral from the centre.
‘These are so lovely. Thank you.’
‘You’ve lost weight,’ she said.
I had lost nearly half a stone and wasn’t taking my usual pleasure in food.
‘It’s a silver lining, but I wouldn’t recommend the flu diet,’ I said.
My emails had accumulated to an alarming number. Many were out of date and I spooled through and did a mass delete. Around twelve-thirty Martine rang, sounding apologetic.
‘Sorry for the shortness of notice but Julius said can you come down to his office? And Lori’s in there with him.’
I went down and as I got to Martine’s desk she said: ‘Keep your cool and don’t let her get to you.’
‘Thanks for the warning.’
But I was detached rather than anxious as I went in to his office. Lori was sitting on the sofa with her back straight and Julius was standing by the window. You couldn’t see anything outside, a thick fog hung over the river and I could hear the mournful note of some kind of foghorn tolling its warning. Julius looked tired.
‘Sorry we have to throw this at you on your first day back,’ he said.
‘Throw what?’ I said.
‘I’m afraid we’ve just heard that WayToGo has rejected the pilot.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said.
‘They want another pilot,’ Lori said.
Julius looked irritated that she had spoken out of turn. I addressed my remarks to him.
‘What didn’t they like?’
‘They thought there was no chemistry between Ledley and the expert.’
‘And they thought the footage was below par,’ Lori interjected.
She was getting well and truly above herself. It was for Julius to comment on the editorial content, not her. I continued to look at him as his left eyelid twitched and I found that I didn’t really care.
‘We’ll rethink the expert. That’s why you do a pilot. To test it out,’ I said.