After the Break

by Penny Smith

  Keera Keethley was on a train back from Nottingham as Celebrity X-Treme went out that night. The carriage was repugnant. She liked the word ‘repugnant’. It was a word with three syllables and it made her feel good. Plus, she knew exactly what it meant.

  She had enjoyed her weekend away. Her mother had made her feel like a star. Sheila lapped up her tales and came back for more. ‘I saw the picture of you in one of the magazines the other day,’ she had said. ‘You and two men in LA when you went there. You looked great. Such a pretty bikini. I’ve put it in the scrapbook with all the others. I’ve started a fifth already. And that’s not including the magazines where you’re on the front cover. I’ve kept those whole.’

  So here was the cover girl on the train again. Luckily, it was only half full, and she had taken the precaution of bringing a book from her mother’s shelves. She was a bit embarrassed about it, but she was holding it under the lip of the table, so no one could see that she was thoroughly enjoying one of Mills & Boon’s racier titles. The picture on the front showed a couple in a passionate clinch. The man resembled Peter Philbin. It was a shame he was a soap star, she thought. He wouldn’t be good for her image. Otherwise she was fairly sure she could get a date with him when he got out of Celebrity X-Treme. He obviously looked after himself. She found she was reading her book with him in the title role and herself as the heroine.

  She really ought to begin an earnest hunt for the right kind of man to squire her about town, now that Mr Praed was off the menu. She wanted a man who looked good and had a high-powered job. Or maybe a title.

  She got back to her book. The train’s arrival in London interrupted a very steamy passage, and she could hardly wait to get home.

  After metaphorically notching his bedpost, Matthew Praed had wiped Keera from that part of his mind and was hunting the next conquest–an actress with an icy demeanour and a reputation as a difficult nut to crack. He had a fancy to storm the citadel and fly a flag from the ramparts. He was having an unaccustomed early night, and was idly watching Celebrity X-Treme in the absence of anything else while flicking through one of the Sunday supplements.

  As Tanya Wilton was predictably booted off (could the producers be any more cynical about whom they wanted out? he wondered), he debated whether she would look good on his books. Or even on his bed. Possibly. He leaned over to the side table, the leather bed creaking as he adjusted his position, to write on a large pad. Crystal Blake’s stupendous cleavage had lingered in his mind, but he dismissed it. Too short-term. He couldn’t see her going the distance, and she’d bore most of his staff. Paul Martin? Now there was a piece of work. He wondered if he had any representation…and jotted his name down with Tanya’s. He recognized the hungry look in Paul Martin’s eyes. Truly hungry for Katie–or for fame? Or both?

  Siobhan had had a successful Sunday and was relaxing with a glass of Chardonnay.

  Mark’s idea for the astrology game had been inspired. The seven men and women had had to put on enormous comedy boots, then run from one roped-off area to another, picking up balloons, which had pictures on them representing the defining characteristics of each star sign.

  The one with the most correct balloons would win a specially prepared dinner.

  There had been the anticipated grumbling from some of the participants that Flynn O’Mara was obviously going to win. Flynn had said loudly that she hoped they were using a reputable astrology book (i.e. hers) for the characteristics. Dave Beal had sworn comprehensively when hearing the rules of the game, and said he had no idea what his star sign was. Nobody believed him.

  It had turned out to be very funny, with lots of crashes and silliness. And Flynn O’Mara had not won because her boots were too big and she couldn’t walk in them (she said).

  As they had waited for the starting hooter, Katie had examined her footwear.

  ‘I could do with a blacksmith to put metal grips on these,’ she said. ‘They’re going to slip everywhere.’

  ‘Don’t blacksmiths do horses? You’d end up getting rehoofed,’ said Paul, standing next to her.

  ‘I could become a hoofer. I could become Hoofers Sewell.’

  ‘Ah. Those puns.’ He sighed.

  To everyone’s astonishment, it was Dave Beal who took the crown. Mark had given Siobhan a sideways look as Dave stood under his Scorpio balloons showing sexiness and strength. She had smiled knowingly back at him. Her plan had worked. The celebrities were sharing intimate details of their lives with each other in a way they hadn’t done before. And now that the alcoholic Denise Trench was out, they had been able to go to town on the booze. Dave Beal had been revoltingly lecherous with poor Crystal, so they would put quite a lot of that in the final edit to get people fired up.

  Another producer came over to speak to Mark.

  ‘Hysterical,’ he said, as the producer went back to his station, monitoring the input.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Apparently Katie told Crystal she thought Flynn might be from the isle of Lesbos. Then Crystal went over and said it was strange having a name like Flynn O’Mara when she was from Greece. And Flynn said, “Who told you I was from Greece when I’m from Billericay?”’

  ‘Excellent on so many levels. That should definitely get in.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m going to turn in for the night. You fancy a quick snifter?’

  ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ he said, surprised.

  What he didn’t know was that she had noticed a small lapse in security on his part. He had forgotten to log himself off his computer for the night. And if she could make sure he was in his room before she got back to it, she could shore up her defences in the unlikely event of a few waves on the phone-voting front. She had covered her tracks fairly comprehensively but it was always worth having one more back-up plan. Marvellous, she thought gaily, as they walked through the moonless night together. I am marvellous.

  Sunday had not been a marvellous day for the Fallons. There had been a major fight with Eleanor after Issy’s mother had rung up to complain that her daughter had been led astray. She had left nothing out. So, when Eleanor had arrived home, Rod had torn her off a strip and grounded her for a month. She had stood there sullenly, and then shouted, ‘I hate you. It wasn’t my fault. They weren’t my drinks. Issy and I just wanted to have some fun.’ And when it had been pointed out that it didn’t matter whose fault it was, she was old enough to make her own decisions, Eleanor had said, with vehemence, ‘You don’t listen to anything I say. It wasn’t my fault. I don’t care what you do to me. I hate you,’ then gone to her room. A slight waft of cheese escaped as the door slammed.

  The Fallons had exchanged a look, and Rod had asked, ‘Do all teenagers smell like that?’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘I’m definitely going to get Katie to introduce me to Flynn O’Mara,’ said Dee, as she flopped into the makeup chair on Monday morning, clonking her plaster cast as she did so. ‘Did you see it over the weekend?’ she asked Vanda, who was washing her hands ready for the day’s ministrations.

  ‘Sure did. Cancelled a racy evening out entirely so I could sit down and watch it on my ownsome.’

  ‘What racy evening out had you been planning?’

  ‘Supermarket. I hate it. I put it off until there was no time. Can’t be doing with weekend shopping. Too many children.’

  ‘Aaah,’ said Dee, with a smile. ‘I love them. Mad little midgets. They make me laugh.’

  ‘Your brain must be wired up wrong.’

  ‘Anyway. So. What do you think of Paul Martin now, eh?’

  Vanda sighed in a swoony way. ‘I think he is the most handsome man. But I can’t understand why he’s making such a big thing of flirting with Katie when he knows she’s going out with Adam.’

  ‘Mm. Yup. I agree,’ said Dee, nodding, as Vanda put the makeup wrap around her. ‘It’s very confusing. I don’t know whether it’s because I quite fancy him myself, but I do wonder whether Katie’s going to succumb. Which would send the newspapers i
nsane.’

  ‘What would send the newspapers insane?’ asked Keera, gliding in. She had been on her way to the wardrobe department but, at the magical word, she had done a body swerve.

  Without looking round, since Vanda was rubbing cream blusher on her cheeks, Dee said, ‘If Katie went off with Paul Martin on Celebrity X-Treme.’

  ‘Why should she do that? She’s got Adam Williams.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Dee. She didn’t want to discuss Katie’s love life with two-faced Keera Keethley who, she suspected, sold stories about them to the nationals.

  ‘Anyway, I was saying if. She wouldn’t go off with him because, as you say, she’s going out with Adam.’ She closed her eyes to prevent further talk, and Vanda silently applied makeup, until Keera’s footsteps could be heard going down the corridor.

  ‘Toe-rag spawn of Satan,’ said Dee, quietly. Then added brightly, ‘So where were we?’

  ‘About the newspapers going wild. At the risk of sounding like Keera, why would she mess up a relationship with Adam?’

  ‘Why did she mess up her relationship with Bob?’

  ‘There is that. Is it because of her background? Did she grow up in a stable environment?’

  ‘Neigh!’ whinnied Dee.

  ‘Stop giggling. You’re messing up my perfect eye-shadow application,’ said Vanda, her hand hovering with a fresh load of Christian Dior.

  ‘Yes. Her parents are still together. They’re lovely. I’ve met them a few times. Barking. But really nice. No. I think Katie just likes flirting. I know she’s not after a husband or anything.’

  ‘Unlike the rest of us.’

  ‘Oi. Speak for yourself. I had one, and they’re dreadful. All they do is mess up your life.’

  ‘If Oliver asked you, you’d say no, would you?’

  Dee had her eyes closed. After a minute she said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Aha.’

  ‘I didn’t say I would.’

  ‘But you didn’t say you wouldn’t.’

  Dee was imagining the scenario: Oliver on bended knee, looking up at her and asking her to marry him. Oh, yes. She’d say yes. Deffo. She smiled.

  ‘You see?’ said Vanda, understanding.

  ‘No–I’d gone off on one and suddenly found myself thinking about underwear,’ she lied.

  ‘Specifically what?’ asked Vanda, not believing her.

  Dee cast around her brain cells and came up with ‘Teddies.’

  ‘Teddies,’ said Vanda, with scorn. ‘One of the most awful inventions of the eighties. Do you remember how the poppers underneath would burst open if you sat down too quickly?’

  ‘Or trap everything so you ended up walking with a wince,’ Dee said.

  ‘Or they’d start riding up, and you’d have the two bits inching their way up your waist.’

  ‘And the shoulder pads they were holding in would start slipping.’

  ‘And they flattened your boobs. They were a nightmare. Almost as bad as thongs.’

  ‘I love thongs,’ pronounced Dee.

  ‘How can you? They’re so uncomfortable.’

  ‘Get bigger ones. You need them in extra large. Or large, at least.’

  And they look cheap when you bend over and you can see them.’

  ‘I won’t argue with you there. Mascara?’ Vanda handed it to her. Dee opened her mouth as she put it on, then put the wand back into the tube. ‘Strange how you can’t put mascara on without having your mouth open.’

  ‘Like how you can’t look in a mirror without doing a mirror face,’ added Vanda.

  Dee smiled. ‘But is that a mirror face, or just the face you’re pulling to reflect how you feel?’

  ‘Is this one of those psychological conversations?’

  ‘At this time in the morning?’ asked Dee. ‘Talking of which, I need to go and choose something to wear or I’ll be doing it in these day pyjamas.’ She gestured to her tracksuit bottoms and the sweatshirt with a stain on it. ‘Oops. Wonder what that is.’ She raised it to her nose and sniffed. ‘Coffee. I’ll see if Derek can sort it out. Maybe he’ll wash it for me if I do a really major creep. Wish me luck. I’m going over the top, Captain,’ she said dramatically, as she disappeared round the corner to Wardrobe.

  Derek was steaming one of Rod’s suits and a luminous yellow shirt.

  Dee goggled at it. ‘Haven’t seen that one before. Does it come in any other flavours?’

  ‘Strawberry. You naughty girl,’ said Derek, who quite liked Dee. ‘What will you be wearing this fine…erm, what day is it?’

  ‘Monday. All day.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ he groaned, ‘you mean I have four more of these to go before the weekend?’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It does feel like it goes on for ever and ever. You get up, and it’s another day. It’s like Groundhog Day. It’s like Groundhog Day. Isn’t this like Groundhog Day?’

  ‘It’s coming round awfully quickly. Could have sworn you said Groundhog Day a moment ago. Now, tell me what you want to wear,’ he said, as they walked into her dressing room together. She picked out a plum dress.

  ‘Good. Nice and subdued. Rod’s banana can shine through.’

  ‘I don’t really want to think about Rod’s banana, thank you,’ said Dee, grimacing.

  ‘Know what you mean,’ said Derek. His ears pricked up. He put up his hand to stop any more conversation, and popped his head out of the door. ‘Morning, Rod,’ he said, as Rod pushed open his dressing-room door. ‘I’ve done a nice navy suit and a lemon shirt for you, with a choice of two ties. OK?’ He brought his head back in.

  ‘Lemon!’ whispered Dee. ‘If that came with my gin and tonic, I’d send it back.’

  But actually, on air, it worked surprisingly well.

  Keera was wearing a pale yellow dress, which somehow took the edge off it.

  She was in an imperious mood. ‘Phil,’ she said, to a cameraman who was bent over his camera, ‘why are you fiddling with that crane? Can you please do it somewhere else? That’s right in my eye line.’

  ‘I’m splitting the tension wire back on the roller,’ he said, and thought, Like you know what that means.

  In their earpieces, they heard the countdown to the end of the VT.

  ‘Coming up, we’re going to be talking to a family whose house was almost destroyed by the recent floods,’ said Rod.

  ‘Although it does look like it only needs a lick of paint,’ said Keera, as the pictures rolled.

  Rod paused to let her idiocy sink in with the nation, then continued smoothly, ‘And we’ll be talking moths–specifically, endangered moths and how we can help.’

  The Hello Britain! music came up. But the soundman had forgotten to fade Keera down, and she could be heard quite clearly saying, ‘Who wants to help moths, for God’s sake? They eat my clothes.’

  As the adverts went on in the background, the floor manager asked them if there was anything they wanted. ‘I’d love a herbal drink,’ said Keera, ‘maybe a lemon-flavoured one. How strange. I wonder why I want a lemon-flavoured one.’ She tried out her new laugh again as she fingered her yellow dress–in case anyone had missed the point. If she wasn’t careful, she thought, the laugh had a tendency to go quite Sid James.

  ‘Anything involving plums for you, Dee?’ asked the floor manager, with a wink.

  Dee shook her head.

  ‘Rod?’

  ‘No, thanks. Is this moth on its way in here?’

  ‘Twenty grand’s worth of moth is currently being primped and preened ready for its television appearance by its handlers. I think it may be in Makeup having a wing dusting. But you’ve got the parking-meter thing first.’

  ‘That’s a down-the-line, isn’t it? No guest in the studio?’

  The floor manager checked his notes. ‘Yes. And then it’s Keera doing the moth.’

  ‘I thought I was doing the moth,’ said Rod.

  ‘No. You’re parking, she’s mothing.’

  ‘I am mothing without you,’ Dee muttered, as she
checked through her graphics in front of the chroma key.

  Keera moved her ankles together and admired her sheer tights. She liked these ones: they gave a good sheen. Her ankles really were superb. And she liked the way her shoes gave her toe cleavage.

  Rod picked up the phone with the direct link to the senior producer. ‘I thought I was doing the moth.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Forgot. We had to drop the bus story. So Keera’s doing the moth.’

  ‘Well, thanks for letting me know,’ said Rod, curtly, and semi-slammed the phone back on its cradle. He sat back on the sofa. He was in a bad mood, and had been all morning. Eleanor had been unbearable, and he had slept badly.

  ‘Coming back to the studio. Five…four…three…two…one…on air.’

  The ident came up, and Rod read the autocue. ‘We’re celebrating–if that’s the correct word–the half-century of the parking meter. Fifty years ago today, the first meter was unveiled in London. This report from Rick Merkney’

  It began with pictures from Manchester and Glasgow of parking wardens, then switched to black-and-white footage.

  ‘Shall I caption them as library pictures?’ asked the PA.

  ‘Kind of obvious, really,’ said the director. ‘What else would we put up? Pictures just in? Latest news?’

  ‘Um. Get your point.’

  Rod’s interview afterwards was lacklustre to say the least. But nobody expected much of him any more.

  And while it was going on, a man and a moth snuck in to sit on the sofa. ‘Good morning,’ the man whispered to Keera, so that the microphones wouldn’t pick it up. ‘I’ll take the moth out after we’ve talked about her. She might be a bit difficult with the lights.’

  ‘All right,’ she whispered back. Boy, she loved television. Being in control. If she’d said, ‘Take it out now,’ he would have done. She stifled a smile. Take it out now. That was a bit rude. She smiled. Her guest smiled back. Idiot, she thought, and turned to face Rod as he finished his interview.

  ‘It’s twenty past seven and you’re watching Hello Britain!,’ she said. ‘Now. Moths. Some of them are in danger of becoming extinct. And we can help…’