“Okay, great, see you then. Thanks for calling, it’s really nice of you.”
“Don’t mensh. Bye.”
Maggie felt absurdly pleased, but realised she didn’t sound very cool. She must try and act like a professional – so first she must find out how a professional acts in the BBC. Sally would provide clues.
At one o’clock she knocked on the door labelled SALLY FARQUAR-BINNS, SCRIPT EDITOR. She heard Sally on the phone, saying: ‘Anyway must go, awfully sorry – got to do some biz over lunch. Call you soon. Kiss kiss.’ The phone went down and Sally called, “Hi! Come in Maggie!”
Sally was about Maggie’s age, slim and elegant with thick glossy hair and expensive jewellery. “Nice to meet you. How’s it going?”
Maggie decided she’d rather be honest than cool. “Actually it’s a bit strange. You’re the first person I’ve talked to yet.”
“Really? You poor thing. Don’t worry, I’ll introduce you to a few people.”
“You’ve got a lovely office,” said Maggie, admiring the view over the car park. “You can see who’s coming and going.”
“Not bad is it? Gives me something to do!”
Maggie chuckled. There were scripts and books on every shelf and surface, and videos piled on a trolley bearing a television monitor and VCR. Sally clearly had plenty to do.
The self-service canteen, which Maggie had looked for unsuccessfully up to now, was large and spacious and occupied three floors of a purpose-built extension to the main building. To reach it they walked across a closed-in bridge which was lined with poster-sized photos of a grinning Terry Wogan with many of his famous guests: his live early-evening chat show was the bedrock of the BBC1 schedule. Once in the canteen, there seemed to be an endless range of hot and cold food, and the atmosphere was cheerful and busy. Maggie looked around, hoping to see a familiar newscaster or at least a table of actors amusingly dressed in Dr Who costumes, but saw only ordinary people like herself. To a theatre freelance used to having lunch in a greasy spoon café the canteen was rather grand, but those used to eating in restaurants considered it third-rate. Maggie had a large plateful of casserole with chips and peas, pleased to find it was subsidised. It tasted pretty good too, she thought. Sally picked at an avocado salad and seemed more interested in who else was in the room. She asked Maggie about her theatre experience and was intrigued by her Huddersfield grammar school, although she seemed to think Huddersfield was somewhere in the Black Country. When Maggie put her right she shrugged. “Oh well, it’s all ‘t’ north, isn’t it?” When asked, she said she came from Kingston.
“Cornwall?” inquired Maggie with a grin.
“No, Surrey” corrected Sally, without one.
Maggie learned that Sally also worked for Fenella, and that she had some very interesting projects in development. She had joined from a major publishing house and was evidently well connected with their list of writers. Sally thanked God Almighty that she didn’t have to slog through the slush pile anymore reading amateur crap. Maggie felt shocked when she realised that she herself had inherited the ‘slush pile’, as she was giving very sympathetic consideration to each writer and had made detailed notes on every idea, good and bad. Apparently Fenella expected all of them to be rejected.
“The thing is,” explained Sally kindly, “there are only so many slots aren’t there? And we’ve already got tons of projects commissioned from writers we know are really good. So the chances of finding anything decent in the slush pile are remote to say the least. Trouble is we have to read everything that’s sent in because of the public service remit. Don’t worry, when you’ve served your time some other bugger’ll get lumbered with it.”
“But how else do new writers break in?”
“They always get through eventually if they’re good enough. It’s the pyramid system. They all start equal at the base, and the best ones float their way up to the top.”
It sounded reasonable but Maggie suspected there was a hidden flaw in the logic. “Like scum, you mean?”
Sally smiled. “Exactly. We skim off the scum.”
“From the top.”
“No, from the bottom.”
Maggie decided not to pursue it. If this pleasant but decidedly snobbish woman had dismissed all those poor writers out of hand, at least Maggie would give them a fair reading. She made a mental resolution to find a brilliant new writer in the slush pile and champion his or her rise from obscurity.
“Hiii Sally,” drawled a deep, cultivated voice, as a slim young man with floppy blond hair sat down at their table. “Mind if I barge in?”
“Jonathan my sweet. Meet Maggie. She’s the new trainee, started this week. Doesn’t know a soul.”
“Charmed,” said Jonathan with a self-mocking tip of the head and a raised eyebrow. “Well now you know two souls.”
“Except that you haven’t got one,” quipped Sally.
“Ouch! Wicked girl! How dare you?” he replied jovially. He looked quizzically at Maggie. “Haven’t we met somewhere before? Were you an actress?”
“No, but I did work in theatre.” She didn’t recognise Jonathan at all, now that he looked as if he’d just stepped out of Selfridges’ window.
He shrugged. “Maybe we crossed paths somewhere or other.”
“More than likely,” agreed Maggie, uncomfortably – she normally had a good memory for faces.
“How’s Basil?” asked Sally. “Still wrestling with the man mountain?”
“God knows why he bothers. The first draft of ep one’s in but it’s in a terrible state. The guy’s spelling is so bad I can hardly tell what he means. I’m thinking of asking him for a glossary.”
“Won’t it go, then?”
“Probably, Basil wants us to go to as many drafts as necessary before we even show it to Peter. He calls it extraordinary writing. It’s extraordinary alright!” He and Sally giggled.
Maggie’s attention was riveted by this exchange. How many Basils could there be in the department? This public school twit was apparently privileged to work with her hero, but he obviously didn’t appreciate his good fortune.
“Is that Basil Richardson?” she enquired.
“Yep,” said Jonathan. “I’m his script editor.”
“Lucky you!”
Jonathan’s lack of response indicated that luck had nothing to do with it as far as he was concerned.
“Who’s the writer you’re working with?” Maggie ventured.
“Tony Scott.” Maggie hadn’t heard of him. “He’s the Next Big Thing, according to Basil. Twenty years a miner, two years a writer. Working class hero, all that crap.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Yes, interesting is about right.”
“What’s the project?”
Jonathan was beginning to look as if he didn’t like having questions fired at him. “It’s a four-parter for 2: Love-on-the-dole-type thing. Miners,” he said, with a trace of reluctance.
“Sounds great.” Maggie felt it would be indiscreet to enquire further. She couldn’t help disliking this superior young man. Sally, on the other hand, obviously liked him a lot, and spent the rest of lunch talking knowledgeably to him about people Maggie hadn’t heard of: apparently there was to be a new Controller of BBC1, which might have a significant impact on drama requirements for the channel. The best possible appointee would be a man with a drama background, but this was thought extremely unlikely, and there was always a worry that any new controller would favour his particular field at the expense of the others.
The conversation moved on to a discussion of the latest David Hare play at the National, which Maggie hadn’t seen, so she made another mental note to go.
“Of course it’s absurd that David isn’t writing for us,” remarked Sally.
“I suppose he just loves the theatre,” said Maggie. The others regarded her with amusement.
“Probably got film deals all over the place” said Jonathan, in a tone that settled the discussion.
Back in her office after lunch Maggie felt twice as lonely. Accustomed to the camaraderie of a theatre company, she longed to feel part of a team pulling in the same direction, and the after-effects of her lunch with Sally and Jonathan were a sense of bewilderment and social ineptitude. Although they had both been perfectly pleasant, there was a great gulf between them and Maggie, which she had no idea how to cross. There was no real point of contact. She felt she had nothing in common with them whatsoever. They treated her as a peer, but as a stranger: well, fair enough, she was the new girl.
She wondered how she could get to Basil. Or Stewart. Making friends with Jonathan clearly wasn’t a way forward, they were chalk and cheese. Maybe Basil wouldn’t like her anyway, if he liked Jonathan.
She looked at her pile of scripts and books, which had hardly been dented so far, and decided to get through them as fast as possible so that she could go back to Fenella soon and talk her through each project with a well-thought-out assessment of their potential for production, thereby earning Fenella’s respect and her right to a place on the team.
Two and a half weeks after her first day, Maggie called Fenella to say she’d read everything and could she come and talk about them.
“Goodness, you are quick, aren’t you?” said Fenella. “Anything good among them?”
“Yes, one or two are very promising.”
“Okay. Well I’m really busy this week, can you do me a short report on each one, say a page each, and drop them off? I’ll leave your next pile with Anthea.”
“I was rather hoping to have a chat. There’s a few questions I’d like to ask.”
“Really?” Fenella didn’t sound keen to squander her precious time on answering silly questions from newcomers.
“Maybe I could ask Anthea instead.”
“Yes, do that. She knows the ropes.”
Maggie felt disappointed but not downhearted. She spent a day re-writing her reports to shorten them from three pages to one, and double-checked her own notes on each writer so that she could refer back to them if she needed to in the future. Then she called Anthea to announce that she was coming round to see her. Anthea Onojaife was as black as Brucie’s twirl-girl Anthea Redfern was white. She was secretary to Fenella and to another development executive. Tall and straight-backed, her large features seemed even larger in contrast with her very short hair, and her age was hard to guess. She looked bored and pissed off when Maggie entered her tiny office. The connecting door into Fenella’s office was open, and Maggie could hear her on the phone, cajoling somebody.
“Hi Anthea. I’m Maggie. These are for Fenella.” She plonked the pile down on a chair. “She said she’d leave some more stuff for me to pick up, and that you could answer a few questions for me.”
“Did she? Okay, take a seat. She’ll be off the phone in a minute.”
Yet again, Maggie sat and waited. Evidently Fenella hadn’t told Anthea about any of this, and Anthea wasn’t going to act on Maggie’s word alone. “Shall I get us some coffees?” she offered, but Anthea shook her head. As an afterthought she smiled and added, “Thanks.” Maggie picked up a circular advertising the new Drama Discussion Group, which looked like an opportunity to meet other members of the department. Maybe she could join. Maybe Stewart and Basil would be there.
Anthea disappeared into Fenella’s office and a muttered conversation took place. She emerged with three large novels.
“Fenella would like you to read these and do synopses. They’re all advance copies.”
Maggie accepted them happily, “To see if they’d work on television?”
“That’s the general idea.”
“Great.”
Anthea’s mouth twitched. “Everything all right?”
“Oh yes.”
“Good.” Anthea went back to her typing. Maggie felt uncomfortable about pursuing a conversation, but Fenella had told her to ask Anthea, so she did.
“Can you tell me what an ‘offers meeting’ is?
“That’s when the heads of department offer the controllers the new projects they want to make. They happen twice a year.”
“Oh, I see. And the controllers say yes or no.”
“Sometimes. Mostly they say they’ll have a look at it.”
“So there’s like, two deadlines a year for new shows?”
“Yeah, but they can take projects in any time.”
“So – sorry if I sound stupid, but what’s the point of having offers meetings?
“There has to be a system.” Anthea made it sound crashingly obvious. Maggie decided to quit while she was ahead, and stood up to go, not daring to ask Anthea if she would like to have lunch one day. She was certain Anthea wouldn’t want to, and not sure she wanted to herself. She just wanted to have a mate in this forbidding place.
“By the way,” she added, “do you know how I might join the Drama Discussion Group?”
“Just turn up. Didn’t you get the memo?”
“What memo?”
“That one.” Anthea pointed to the circular Maggie had already read.
“No, I haven’t had any post yet.”
“Aren’t you on the rooms list?”
“The what?”
Anthea sighed and produced a thick document stapled at one corner, which listed all the drama employees, their room numbers and so on. She looked at the back page. “I thought as much – you’re not on it. Here’s a spare one. You need to call Maxine and tell her to put you on it for the internal mail.”
“Oh, I get it. Thing. There’s this hand that visits my office bringing post for other people. I think of it being the Addams family running the post service.” Maggie’s nervous attempt at humour had failed.
“You have to look out for yourself here, keep the memo if you like.”
Maggie thanked her rather too warmly, felt embarrassed, and returned to her office wondering what Anthea had meant exactly. It certainly wasn’t an offer of friendship. She sat down and devoured the details of the memo. It listed four programmes, all drama department productions due for transmission before the discussion date in a fortnight’s time, which everyone was asked to watch. No problem, thought Maggie, noticing with delight that Stewart Walker had produced one of the films. He was sure to be there.
In the next week, Maggie read two of the novels and wrote a six-page synopsis of each. Determined to pin Fenella down to a meeting, she dropped them off with Anthea, with a note to Fenella asking whether she had time to talk about the first pile of scripts yet. Anthea glanced at it. “You’re too late, I’m afraid. I’ve already rejected them.”
“Sorry?”
“Fenella told me to send them all back,”
Maggie blinked. “All of them? Just like that? Even the good ones?”
Anthea smiled. “It’s a tough old world, isn’t it?” At that moment Fenella’s door opened and she came out, chatting to Sally. They walked straight out of the office without acknowledging Maggie or Anthea.
Maggie took a deep breath. She’d been working there nearly a month now, and still hadn’t had a proper conversation with her boss. A faint sense of panic began to lurk at the back of her mind.
“I mean, really, it’s just that I don’t know whether I’m doing what she wants. Do you think she’s happy with my reports?”
“I imagine she’d tell you if she wasn’t,” said Anthea stiffly, and the phone rang. She picked it up, and Maggie decided to leave. She didn’t bother saying goodbye; it wasn’t expected.
Evidently she hadn’t been employed because they valued her opinions; they merely wanted her to stand at the gates of the BBC with a metaphorical riot shield, turning away the thousands who mistakenly believed that the ‘Auntie’ affectionately referred to by the likes of Terry Wogan was a kind, friendly organisation with writers’ best interests at heart and a sympathetic interest in their work. Nevertheless, she must have courage in her abilities and believe in her own judgement. No doubt Fenella would call her in eventually – she would have to, as Maggie’s contract wa
s already a third over, and there would inevitably be some kind of assessment. Or so she assumed. She would be patient. Better not to annoy people when they’re busy with important matters. It would be awful if they didn’t give her another contract, she’d barely dipped a toe in the water.
After another day or two of reading, during which she found another writer who she thought showed promise, she began to wonder what was the point of her efforts, if everything was to be rejected anyway. Did Sally really mean everything? Maybe she should start developing a project on her own, as Sally seemed to be doing. She knew lots of theatre writers, maybe she would call a couple if she didn’t hear from Fenella soon. On the other hand, she ought to ask permission first. Damn that bloody woman. She was neglecting her duties. If she was responsible for a trainee, she ought to be training her.
Later that evening, she left her office and walked to the lifts, frowning to herself and jiggling her keys. She pressed all the buttons and waited, gazing automatically at the Ceefax monitor until a lift arrived and the doors pinged open, when she stepped in and turned to face the closing doors. Two men were already inside, discussing the test match. As they travelled down a floor and stopped again to receive more people, Maggie noticed a familiar tone in one of the voices. Unable to turn and look, she swiftly scoured her mental files and remembered a man she’d encountered in Edinburgh several years earlier: a BBC wonk who’d proved unexpectedly capable at the police station, and afterwards, in fact. The unfaltering conversation behind her indicated that he hadn’t recognised her, so she dawdled out when they reached the ground floor, pausing in the foyer to pretend to check her bag so she could surreptitiously get a good look at him. Yes, that was Chris. He’d hardly changed at all, but wore a very smart suit – Armani? – and carried an even smarter briefcase. He and his companion walked with total ease and confidence out to a waiting limo, where a chauffeur opened the back door for them.
Maggie shrugged to herself, and headed off to the tube station.
Chapter Four
That’s right, I slipped Jonathan in there without warning you. His Cambridge University production of Henry V had led directly to a job at the National Theatre and then the BBC, thanks to a couple of contacts he had – did I mention he was an old Etonian? By the time Maggie and I had squeezed ourselves under the thick glass doors of the BBC, he was comfortably established on a staff contract (that means permanent employment in normal language).
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