by Maeve Haran
‘Where’s Daddy?’ Liz asked weakly, putting her head under the covers, suddenly appreciating the thought of a childfree lunch in Julie’s.
‘Da Da Da Da Da Da!’ an off-key voice warbled outside the door. Jamie and Daisy put their hands over their ears as David danced in carrying a breakfast tray and the papers.
Daylight blinded her as he whizzed up the blind and she lunged for the Daily Mail to check the coverage of Metro’s press launch. But David got there first, removed the TV pages, crumpled them up and hurled them out of the open window to Jamie and Daisy’s delight, who immediately set upon the rest of the papers and followed suit, delighted at this forbidden new game.
‘Hey!’ protested Liz jumping out of bed. David pushed her back in.
‘No TV pages today. You’re supposed to be relaxing. The trouble with you is you think television is a matter of life and death.’
Liz grinned and settled back against the pillows. ‘It isn’t, is it?’
‘No it isn’t,’ David agreed.
‘It’s much more important than that!’
David grabbed a pillow and climbed on top of her, setting about her with the feather pillow till she squeaked for mercy, tears of laughter running down her face.
Suddenly she felt a hand sneak inside her nightdress and start to stroke her breast. Despite the presence of Jamie and Daisy, she stiffened in response and felt an unexpected stab of desire.
‘David!’ she chided gently. ‘Not in front of the children!’
‘Quite right,’ David conceded, climbing off, and took each child gently but firmly by the hand. ‘Come with Daddy.’ He led them out of the room and downstairs. ‘Daddy’s got a video for you.’
When they got to the sitting room she heard a loud stage whisper. ‘Here’s two packets of Smarties. Don’t tell Mummy.’ And he bounded back up the stairs.
Smiling lecherously he shut the door and locked it.
‘And now, Mrs Ward, where were we?’
As he jumped on the bed she saw that his cock was peeping cheerily out of his boxer shorts and she stifled a giggle.
But she soon stopped laughing as his hands delved into her nightdress again, one caressing her nipple and the other diving gently into the welcoming wetness between her legs. And after a few seconds she forgot everything. Television. The nanny. Even her maternal responsibilities as they both clung to each other in joyful, passionate lovemaking.
As orgasm beckoned, only seconds away, there was a sudden thundering on the door and Jamie was outside shouting. ‘Dad! Dad! The tape’s finished!’
Liz felt David deflate like a balloon with the air let out.
‘Tell me’ – he collapsed with laughter on her chest and held her – ‘whose idea was it to have children?’
‘So what’s she like, then, your new boss?’ Steffi Wilson, gossip writer and star interviewer of the Daily World noticed how Claudia flinched at the word boss. ‘I hear the hacks were falling over themselves to worship her at the press launch.’
Steffi leaned closer to her old friend Claudia Jones in Harry’s Bar and ordered another Bellini. The delicious blend of champagne and peach juice always reminded her of expenses-paid trips to Venice. Not since she’d joined the World of course. They were only interested in screwing people on the cheap. But at least they paid you vast salaries to do it.
Steffi had known Claudia ever since they’d been at school together fifteen years ago. Not Roedean or Cheltenham Ladies’ College for them. They were old girls of Southend Grammar and it gave them a solidarity no exclusive private school could ever have forged. They were the only two who had ever fought their way through the net curtains and the Airwick Mist out of suburbia and into the big time.
‘Yes.’ Claudia tried not to let her anger show, even to Steffi. ‘So I hear.’
‘So what went wrong? I thought you had the Yankee Dwarf so pussy-whipped the job was yours.’
‘So did I and then Liz bloody Ward pulls the Superwoman act and the Board damn well fell for it.’
‘How inconvenient. So what’s she like? I’ve never heard of her before. Usual type, I suppose. Dedicated career woman? Account at Browns, company Merc, works out with her own trainer, holidays at Club Med?’
Claudia laughed hollowly, remembering Liz’s one good outfit with sick on the shoulder. ‘More chain-store massacre, Volvo estate and cottage in Devon.’
Claudia knocked back her Bellini and brightened. She’d had an inspiration. Steffi was rapidly getting a name as the bitchiest writer in print.
‘You know, you should do an interview with her. A Stephanie Wilson special. She’d interest you. You see, it’s my belief that if you scratched the most powerful woman in television you’d find a suburban mum fighting to get out. She should be doing the school run, not trying to run a television company. The only question is how long it takes her to find out.’ She could see that Steffi was intrigued. She loathed career mothers as much as Claudia did.
Claudia leaned even closer to her friend and looked quickly around before she spoke. ‘Maybe you could help her find out a bit quicker.’
‘And you could step into her size six Maud Frizons?’ Steffi smiled back at Claudia over the top of her glass.
‘Exactly.’
‘And how do you propose I get her to admit all this?’
‘I don’t know. You’re the hack. Accuse her of being a bad mother.’ Claudia finished the last drops of her Bellini. ‘Even better, get some dirt on her. Talk to her nanny. I heard her complaining that the nanny was getting pissed off with her.’
Steffi thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a bad story. TV MOGUL NEGLECTS HER CHILDREN. And the World liked nothing better than putting the boot into television people. Especially when the TV person in question just happened to be married to the editor of their rival newspaper.
‘OK then, darling,’ Steffi touched Claudia’s glass with hers, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
CHAPTER 4
‘Thirty . . . twenty-five . . . twenty . . . fifteen seconds to on air . . .’
Liz held her breath sitting in the gallery of the transmission studio as the PA did the countdown. In fifteen seconds Metro Television would be on air for the very first time and all her work over the last few months would stand or fall. It was the most terrifying and wonderful moment of her life. There was only one other possible comparison. Giving birth. Only when you’re having a baby eight million people aren’t watching, thank God.
‘Settle down studio please,’ warned the floor manager to the assorted technicians who were taking life rather too casually for Liz’s taste and still reading their papers.
‘Ten seconds to on air. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five seconds to on air. Three. Two. One. Roll Titles. That’s it everybody! We’re on air!’
Liz sat and watched Metro’s brilliant title sequence for what seemed like the millionth time and still loved it. An unseen person, represented by the eye of the camera walked through London streets witnessing highlife and lowlife, culture and crime, politics and party-going all on one single unedited shot. It would have people arguing all over town about how they’d done it. And a freeze-frame from it would be on the front cover of TV Week tomorrow.
As the titles ended in the about-to-be-familiar station ident of a big red M with a lightning flash through it, Liz sat down and closed her eyes. Upstairs a huge party of advertisers, journalists and Metro broadcasting bigwigs awaited her. She stood up. And then she realized that everyone in the studio and the gallery had got to their feet too. They were giving her a standing ovation.
‘You’re hot news, Lizzie! The phone’s been ringing non-stop!’ Conrad hissed the moment she walked into the room.
‘Every paper in the country wants to talk to you,’ interrupted Cindy, Metro’s PR girl, ‘as well as the colour supps and the women’s mags. Boy are you going to be busy!’
Liz felt as though she’d just been given some very bad news by the doctor. The last few days had been a nightmare as they’d str
uggled to put the finishing touches to their launch programmes. She’d seen the dawn coming up over the river more often than when she was a bright young thing at Oxford. And she wasn’t a bright young thing any more. She was knackered.
Yet as she posed elegantly for the photographers against the backdrop of the river in a hastily bought sunshine-yellow Arabella Pollen suit, which had cost more than she usually spent on clothes in a year, she knew it was great news for Metro, even if she did feel like an exceptionally chic zombie. And as Cindy handed her a glass of champagne she smiled and began to enjoy herself.
As the photographers rushed back to their papers to print up the shots, Cindy bore down on her with a sheaf of interview details.
‘Feeling strong as a horse, I hope? You’ll need to be! I’ve set up four interviews today for the nationals and two or three more tomorrow for magazines.
‘Here’s the schedule.’ Cindy handed her a typed sheet. ‘The Daily Mail at two, the Guardian, natch, at three-thirty, Today at five. Then ITN want to catch a quick word with you for the news.’ The girl looked at her pad, sounding puzzled. ‘Oh, and Steffi Wilson from the Daily World’s after you too.’ She smiled encouragingly at Liz. ‘I didn’t think it was her territory but with four million readers, she’s not the kind of person you turn down. Do you know Steffi?’
‘Only by reputation. The Acid Queen, don’t they call her?’
‘They do indeed. Out to make her name as the new Julie Burchill and doesn’t mind leaving a few corpses on the way. Anyway she’s asked to meet up tomorrow evening, at your home, for more colour. Maybe I should be with you for that one?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Liz sounded a lot more chirpy than she felt, ‘I’m a big girl now.’
‘I hope so.’ Cindy’s tone was unnervingly worried. ‘You’ll certainly need to be.’ And as she handed Liz the list of interviews she wondered if Liz had seen the story in that week’s Press Gazette about how the Daily World was nudging the News out of its niche as top tabloid.
Steffi glanced in her rear-view mirror as she parked outside Jamie’s nursery school. It had been easy to work out which of the handful of small, private schools two thrusting media professionals would send their kid to. Then all she had to do was ring and check if he was a pupil. Now she just needed to mingle as though she were picking up a kid. The trouble was she didn’t look like a nanny or a mum. A croupier maybe or possibly a high-class madam. She’d just have to pretend to be some brat’s wicked auntie. She’d enjoy that.
Good, there were one or two mothers waiting there already and one of them looked like a prime target for spilling the beans. Big and badly dressed, she was clearly a professional mum who believed that the first twenty-one years of a child’s life should be spent in the exclusive charge of its mother. No doubt she’d taught her children to read, write and play Mozart piano sonatas by the time they were eighteen months. And if Steffi knew her sources she was just the person to blow the whistle on a working mother.
She watched the woman lean over to a friend and whisper in her ear, glancing surreptitiously round before she did. That’s my bitch, thought Steffi, a world-class curtain-twitcher if ever I saw one.
Thank God at a school this size the mothers would know all the dirt about each other. Smiling sweetly Steffi introduced herself as Sophie’s aunt. There was bound to be a Sophie amongst this lot for Christ’s sake, toffee-nosed little brats.
Steffi leaned on the school fence. ‘Did you see Jamie’s mummy in the papers today? She’s in charge of that new TV company. That must be hard work. A job like that and two kids.’
The curtain-twitcher, who had given up a stagnant career in advertising to look after India-Jane herself, visibly bristled. ‘Those poor children! She never sees them you know. If she drops them off she can’t wait to get back into that ridiculous car. And has she ever been seen at a school event? Never. Well, hardly ever, anyway.’ She paused for effect and moved so close that Steffi felt like stepping backwards to get away from the aroma of Nappysacks and puke. ‘She missed the Medieval Evening, the Family Quiz Night and the Welly Boot Throwing Contest in aid of the Under-Fives Library Fund. I know. I organized them.’
‘How frightful.’ Steffi tried to sound suitably appalled.
‘Why she bothered having them, God knows. But Susie, their nanny, is wonderful. She’s been a tower of strength. Though even she can’t stand it any longer.’ She lowered her voice dramatically and leaned closer to Steffi. ‘She’s thinking of leaving you know. She can’t take any more.’
Susie pushed Daisy’s buggy down the street as fast as she could and swore under her breath. She was going to be late to pick Jamie up from school.
By the time she got there nearly all the children had gone. Oh God, there was that frightful Maureen Something-Something. Noticing she was deep in conversation with an over-made-up woman in a pink suit, Susie hoped she wouldn’t notice her. But it was too late.
‘Susie,’ she boomed, ‘come and meet Sophie’s auntie. She’s new to the area and doesn’t know anyone.’
Steffi turned to Susie and smiled. ‘That’s right. I’m looking after Sophie for a couple of weeks and I don’t know a soul. I don’t suppose I could buy you a cup of coffee and pick your brains about how to meet people. I gather you know everyone.’
Susie blushed slightly, pleased at the suggestion that she was the hub of the community.
‘I noticed a nice patisserie round the corner,’ Steffi added invitingly, ‘maybe we could go there?’
Susie was supposed to be on a diet but she couldn’t resist the thought of a cappuccino and strawberry tart in Le Gourmet. She had been there occasionally with other nannies, but it was so wildly expensive they’d given up going. And this woman was offering to pay.
‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘But I’ll have to go and get Jamie first.’ When she went in to get Jamie the teacher made a sharp comment about the time, and Jamie had chosen this of all days to lose his trainers, so by the time she came out angry and flustered, she didn’t notice that Sophie’s auntie seemed to have forgotten to pick up Sophie.
And it wasn’t till later that evening when she was back home and was watching TV, that it struck Susie for the first time that there wasn’t a Sophie at Miss Sloane’s Nursery School.
By the time Steffi Wilson arrived the next evening Liz had done four interviews already and she was feeling tired and jumpy. She hadn’t realized what a strain it was trying to be clever and quotable four times in one day. And she bitterly regretted agreeing to let this wretched woman interview her at home, especially given her reputation for screwing her interviewees. It seemed so much more intrusive somehow, as though Steffi would have the chance to look in her wardrobe and snoop around her bathroom cabinets. For the first time she understood why so many of Metro’s stars demanded to be interviewed in faceless hotel rooms. But it was too late now. She could already hear the doorbell ringing.
Liz smiled a small tight smile as she let her in and hoped Steffi couldn’t tell how nervous she was.
Steffi took one look at Liz in her designer suit, smiling that superior smile and decided she loathed her. Claudia might suspect her of pining for the kitchen, but Steffi couldn’t see much sign of it. To Steffi she looked like another bloody Superwoman. God, they were everywhere these days! A white patch of sick on the shoulder of their business suits, the emblem of late, doting motherhood, they breezed through life convinced they could Have It All. And then, when the going got rough, they expected everyone to make allowances for them.
Steffi knew the biogs of women like Liz off by heart. They landed on her desk every day now. ‘Chairwoman of ICI and mother of six, Dawn has a hectic life at home and at work . . .’ Blah. Blah. Blah. It made you want to throw up.
As Liz went to fetch a bottle of wine, Steffi glanced round the kitchen taking in the pale yellow dragged units with the family photos Blu-tacked to every available surface. Why was it that working mothers assaulted you with pictures of their bloody kids as though they were some ki
nd of trophy? Here’s Jimmy stuffed and mounted, we had him in ’83.
Maybe it was because they saw so little of them they couldn’t remember what they looked like? If they loved them so much why weren’t they bloody well looking after them instead of handing them over to some teenager like Susie who probably force-fed them with Neighbours and locked them in their bedrooms while she bonked her boyfriend?
If Steffi had kids, perish the thought, she’d give up work at once. In her view you could only hope to do one thing really well. Fortunately she had no intention of having any.
Her gaze came to rest on a cork noticeboard. Hah! Pinned there in all their glory were the ten commandments of the working mother’s life: babysitting rotas, shopping lists, details of pickings up and droppings off at music lessons, dancing lessons, tennis lessons. And probably, God help us, Suzuki violin and mini-Mensa.
Jesus, what a way to live! She probably planned her menus three months in advance, booked lunch appointments with her kids and pencilled her husband in for a fuck every other Tuesday.
Looking round her, Steffi decided she’d enjoy bagging a career mother. It was time someone blew the whistle on them and gave them a bit of bad press instead of worshipping at their bloody feet. She was fed up to the teeth with hearing them preaching the wonders of working motherhood and giving every other poor female who didn’t happen to run a multinational company from her spare bedroom an inferiority complex. Steffi smiled maliciously. And given who Liz was married to, she’d probably get promoted!
Liz noticed Steffi’s gaze rest on the noticeboard and kicked herself. She’d meant to remove those lists. They made her life look like a military operation, which it was, but she didn’t happen to want Steffi Wilson to know it. What would the Acid Queen of the Daily World make out of those?
Liz watched her fascinated for a moment. She was pure Fleet Street rag-hag: mid-thirties, streaked hair, a lurid mahogany tan from too many sessions recovering from hangovers on the sunbed at The Sanctuary, make-up Jackie Collins circa 1968, more bangles than an Indian temple dancer, huge rings on each of her blood-red fingers. She probably thought kids should be drowned at birth.