Woman of the Hour

by Jane Lythell

  ‘This afternoon would be better, but I have to tell you there may be a problem.’

  ‘A problem – what do you mean?’

  ‘It came to me last night that Julius will object to this interview.’

  ‘But you haven’t even seen it yet!’ Molly said, her flat cheeks flushing a deep red.

  ‘I’m at fault here, Moll. I got a clear steer from Julius and the sponsor that they want upbeat stories. Julius said no disease and death. I’m so sorry. I should have thought this through more. I don’t know why I didn’t.’

  ‘No disease and death, but we’re filming in a hospital!’

  ‘I know. They want manageable disease, picturesque disease, pastel disease,’ I said, my voice rising in my distress. I put my hands to my head. ‘You know what a plastic world we create here.’

  ‘Please watch it. Please. I think it’s a special interview.’

  ‘I will, this afternoon, but I had to be straight with you about this. It’s unlikely we can transmit it.’

  The phone rang on my desk. I picked up and it was Fizzy.

  ‘Can we have a private word, Liz?’

  ‘Give me ten minutes. Do you want to come here?’

  ‘Will you come to my dressing room? I’m resting up.’

  ‘Of course. Can I get you a coffee?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m off coffee.’

  ‘I’ll be down in ten.’

  ‘I’ll book us a viewing room,’ Molly said.

  She left my room and I felt ashamed of myself. I walked downstairs to the café, bought myself a coffee and wondered what Fizzy wanted to talk to me about. I reached her dressing room, by far the nicest one in the suite of rooms. It had just been redecorated and Fizzy had chosen fiendishly expensive wallpaper with sepia flowers all over it which is too chintzy for my taste, but what Fizzy wants, Fizzy gets. I tapped and went in. I was thinking about my conversation with Molly and how I had let her down. Fizzy was stretched out on her chaise longue; yes, she does have this rather beautiful antique chaise longue upholstered in rose-coloured taffeta. She was wearing a cream silk kimono and sipping at a glass of water with a slice of lemon floating in it.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘I was tired after the show.’

  I pulled up a seat and sat at her feet. She was paler than usual.

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  Fizzy put her glass down, wriggled into a more upright position and shot me an irritated look.

  ‘I told you to watch that girl.’

  ‘Harriet?’

  ‘Martine tells me she’s in hot pursuit of Julius. She skips down to his office all the time and she’s invited him to a film premiere tonight.’

  ‘Tonight? Are you sure?’

  Harriet had told me she had to leave early, at four o’clock, to visit her grandmother in hospital.

  ‘Yes, at Leicester Square. Her father got her the tickets and an invite to the champagne reception beforehand. Martine thinks she’s angling to get a screen test!’

  Martine would know. She is Julius’s gatekeeper. She and Fizzy are close because Fizzy started work at StoryWorld as a PA and all credit to her that she didn’t drop Martine when she became famous. Martine is older than her, has no desire to be a TV star and idolises Fizzy. My relationship with Martine is, unfortunately, more fraught. She is such a Julius loyalist and from time to time, after I’ve stood up to him, she will give me the cold shoulder, sometimes for months at a time.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that. Julius will see right through it and anyway, Harriet hasn’t got what it takes,’ I said.

  Fizzy’s insecurities get on my nerves. She is self-obsessed and we all pander to her all the time. But had Harriet lied to me? Had she asked to leave early so she could get to the premiere?

  ‘What time is this premiere?’

  ‘The reception starts at five. Why?’

  ‘And is Julius going?’

  ‘Martine said it’s unlikely. The point is she’s hanging around him at every opportunity and making a nuisance of herself. She’s young and she’s very ambitious,’ Fizzy said.

  ‘But with little personality, or if she has she’s shown little evidence of it so far.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘She doesn’t come up with any ideas and she seems a bit bored by it all,’ I said.

  ‘She’s not interested in being a researcher. Her sight is set on being in front of the camera. Surely you can see that?’

  I sighed. It had already been a difficult morning and it wasn’t even eleven.

  ‘I think you’re right about her being interested in Julius,’ I said.

  ‘It’s what she did at her father’s paper; went after the features editor; had an affair with him.’

  ‘We can’t stop people having affairs, Fizzy.’

  I wondered why I had said those words and suddenly was embarrassed. I stood up and put my coffee cup down by her washbasin. There was an awkward silence as I rinsed the cup and saucer under the tap, then dried my hands.

  ‘Did you hear that Sal was sacked this morning?’ I said.

  Fizzy drew her kimono more closely around her.

  ‘She had it coming; thought she was more important than the station.’

  ‘That’s what Julius thinks, but I’m sorry she’s gone. Look, don’t worry about Harriet. She’s a silly star-struck girl who is batting her eyelashes and behaving in a foolish way. She’s no threat to anyone.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s a threat for a moment,’ Fizzy said crossly with a toss of her head.

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘But I want her out of here.’

  I had almost decided that once the three months were up I would ask Harriet to leave. She did not deserve to be made a permanent member of my team. But Fizzy demanding it like that annoyed me.

  ‘That’s above my pay grade. As I told you before she’s here because the MD wants it. By all means have a word with Saul.’

  ‘Maybe I will,’ she said.

  The current MD, Saul Relph, is a remote figure, unlike the man who was in charge when I arrived at StoryWorld. Saul Relph has been here for five years but he has always kept his distance from the staff. He looks after the shareholders and lets Julius run the station. Which is why it was unusual for him to intervene as he did to get Harriet placed in my team.

  Harriet left at four sharp. I thought about challenging her about where she was going, but in the end I left it. I went down to the viewing room and Molly played me the rough edit of her interview with Naomi Jessup. It ran nine minutes, far longer than would ever be transmitted; our stories run three to four minutes long. Naomi Jessup looked older than her thirty-three years and she was so thin. She was sitting in a chair by a window in the hospital room and the light from behind her lit up the papery almost translucent skin of her face. She had no hair or eyebrows and had tied a jaunty scarf around her head. She said in a surprisingly strong voice that she knew she was dying and it was almost a relief because she had battled for so long. ‘You battle because you have hope,’ she said, ‘but hope is an extension of suffering. Hope puts you on the rack.’ She knew she was beaten now and it was less frightening than she thought it would be. We all have to die sometime. She talked about the wonderful people she had met on the oncology ward, other patients who were facing death like her. It helped to talk to them. She talked about her family briefly. Her reticence here spoke volumes. She said every day mattered now. We sat in silence at the end of the item.

  ‘That’s a special piece of work,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Her point about hope was so moving. I’ll show it to Julius. You’ll need to cut it down to four minutes first.’

  But not today, I thought. I won’t show it to him today after the sacking of Sal this morning.

  ‘Do you think he’ll let us transmit it?’

  ‘Probably not; but I’m going to try to persuade him. I’d like to see this go out.’

  Chalk Farm flat
, 9 p.m.

  I had a horrible headache tonight. I had taken Flo to Waterloo station and she gave me a big hug before she went through the barrier. I needed that hug. It was lovely because often when we are out together now she won’t show me any signs of affection. I had watched her retreating figure as she swung along the platform. She’s getting tall and she had her overnight bag slung over her shoulder and could have passed for older than fourteen. As she opened the carriage door I waved and blew a kiss. She waved back and disappeared into the train.

  Flo stays at Ben’s parents’, Peter and Grace, in Portsmouth and she adores them both. They have lived in that house for years and it’s a comforting place to stay. Before the divorce Ben and I would go down there about every six weeks so they could see Flo, and we would sleep in what had been Ben’s childhood room. Peter and Grace are far more active and involved grandparents than my mum is because she lives so far away in Glasgow. I remember one weekend we went with them to their local pub to have a Sunday roast. This pub had a big garden with those wooden tables with benches on either side and at the bottom there was a slide for children. Peter, Ben’s dad, had taken Flo down to the slide and had stood there patiently as she climbed up and slid down again and again. She was about four years old at the time. They came back up the garden and he seated her next to him. Grandpa Peter always talked to her in a grown-up way even when she was little. He now asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up. Flo did not even think about this for a moment but replied at once:

  ‘I want to be a bride.’

  Ben and I burst out laughing and Flo looked put out.

  ‘Oh, darling, it’s just that being a bride only lasts for one day,’ I said.

  How I loved it when Flo was little. I bought myself a large packet of honey-roasted cashew nuts from a kiosk and ripped the bag open and was stuffing them into my mouth as I went down the escalator. Sitting on the Tube as it rumbled along to Chalk Farm I folded down the top of the packet and put them in my bag, only to retrieve them a minute later and scoop another handful of cashews into my mouth. When I came out of the station I had eaten two thirds of the packet. Disgusted at my greediness I left the nearly empty bag on a wall.

  When I reached my flat the quietness and the emptiness made me want to cry. This was the second time this week I have been tearful and it’s not like me – I pride myself on being stoical. I spend so much time at work holding down anger or frustration so now I told myself to feel the pain, don’t run away from it. I stood in my living room and let myself become overwhelmed by a sense of loss and sadness. My tears were a release from the tension of the week. Mr Crooks came in and stood mewing piteously by his food bowl. It was empty with dry food crusted round the edges. His water bowl had a film of dust floating on the top.

  ‘Poor boy, she didn’t feed you.’

  It was Flo’s job to feed Mr Crooks. I picked up his bowl and scrubbed it clean, feeling irritated with her for doing that adolescent thing of only ever thinking about herself. It was hardly an onerous task to feed her cat. I gave him a pouch of food and refreshed his water bowl.

  I took two paracetamol for my aching head and ran a bath, pouring my favourite rose oil under the tap. The oil turns milky as it hits the water and it has the most divine smell. I lit a candle, turned off the bathroom light and stepped into the fragrant water.

  Chalk Farm flat, Saturday morning

  It had turned cold and I switched the heating on. I was tidying the flat and had ventured into Flo’s room to look for mould-encrusted plates which she will often stash under her bed. It was then that I felt a draught in her room. There are shutters at the bedroom windows but there was a definite chill coming from outside. I unlocked and folded the shutters back and saw at once that the bottom left windowpane was broken. My first reaction was terror. Someone had tried to break into our flat last night! I thought back. I’d been in the bath and then had an early night. I hadn’t heard a thing. I had taken two paracetamol and these make me sleep more deeply than usual. I examined the broken pane more carefully. The glass had been knocked outwards; shards were lying in the window well below. Surely the glass would have fallen into the room as the pane was smashed? Down among the fragments of glass on the ground was a pile of cigarette butts. Understanding dawned. This was no attack from outside the flat. Flo, and probably Paige, had broken the window and not thought to tell me. They must have thought the wooden shutters gave protection enough.

  I got a brush and pan, opened the window to its full extent and lowered myself into the window well. This is part of my property and in front there’s a small raised garden which belongs to the flat above. The window well is not an easy space to get into and I had to squat to sweep up the glass fragments and the cigarette butts. There was a pungent smell, a mixture of damp and of foxes. Strong weeds were growing out of the brickwork at the bottom. I would need to get those pulled out before they damaged the fabric of the building; another task to add to my to-do list. It never stops.

  Balham, Sunday morning

  I woke in Todd’s large and lumpy bed. He had rolled onto his side taking most of the duvet with him. I slid out and went to his bathroom. It was clean enough in there and I wondered if he had cleaned it for me. Over the bath he had hung a large wooden sign which was yellow and had words painted on it in bright blue letters:

  HOORAY, HOORAY THE FIRST OF MAY

  OUTDOOR FUCKING STARTS TODAY.

  The paint was peeling. He had bought it in a street market and thought it dated from the seventies. He’s such a lad. I got back into bed and stroked his naked back before heaving some of the duvet over me. He turned and grabbed me and we lay fitted together in the warm nest of his bedding.

  We had gone to a music pub the night before. I had expected Todd to favour rock music but this pub did indie folk. There was a singer-songwriter with an acoustic guitar and Todd loved it. We were drinking pints of Guinness and in the break between sets I told him about the broken glass and the cigarette butts in the window well. I rarely talk to Todd about Flo.

  ‘I’m not sure what I should do.’

  ‘Think back to you at fourteen. Were you a model kid?’

  I reached over and wiped the Guinness foam off his top lip with my thumb.

  ‘Course not. I used to clash with my mum all the time, mainly over clothes and make-up, skirt too short, eyes too black.’

  ‘Exactly; she’s a teenager and they’re built to break rules.’

  ‘I’m not worried about the breakage, though she should have told me. But the smoking? She’s only fourteen.’

  ‘Is it so terrible? I bet she’s a good kid.’

  ‘She is a good kid. But I hate the idea of her smoking. I think it’s a girl thing, you know, more than boys. I’ve often seen young girls coming out of the school gate and lighting up.’

  ‘I thought it was all e-cigs these days?’

  ‘Not my Flo. She’s fallen under the spell of an older girl, Paige, and she comes from a smokers’ house. Their kitchen reeked.’

  ‘If you come over heavy and do the banning thing it will make smoking even more desirable.’

  It was helpful talking to Todd about Flo. It made me feel less alone and I wondered why I hadn’t done it before. Apart from Fenton I rarely tell anyone what is going on in my head.

  We got up an hour later and Todd cooked us a brunch of scrambled eggs and pork sausages.

  ‘I do love a man who cooks a good breakfast and these sausages are sensational,’ I said.

  ‘They’re Gloucester Old Spot, the best sausages I’ve found over here.’

  ‘And not burned to a cinder either. I’m impressed.’

  ‘You implying we Aussies only know how to barbecue our meat to a crisp?’

  I grinned at him and pushed down the plunger in the cafetière. I had heated milk to go with our coffee and I poured us each a mug. He was watching me and I noticed a tiny shift in his face as I pushed the mug over to him.

  ‘Thanks. I didn’t say anything last night
because I didn’t want to spoil our evening...’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I have to go back to Australia for a few months. My dad is ill.’

  ‘Your dad?’

  ‘He’s got cancer.’

  ‘Oh no. Todd, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Mum says there are things they can do but... she asked me to come home.’

  ‘Of course, you must go at once.’

  ‘I’m flying out next week. It won’t be for ever but...’

  He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t want to say he wouldn’t be back until his father had died. I put my hand over his and stroked his knuckles. He didn’t say anything and I felt my response was inadequate. I got up and hugged him and my eyes filled with tears. My emotions are all over the place at the moment.

  ‘Why the tears, Liz? You always seem so strong, so untouchable.’

  I blew my nose and tried to smile.

  ‘Untouchable? After last night?’

  ‘You know what I mean. At work. You come over as the consummate professional, calm and in charge and a little bit haughty.’

  He was not the first person to have said that about me. I am able to be calm and professional at work, most of the time. I wondered if my team thought of me like that too. It’s a front. And I can’t seem to be calm at home; I’m an emotional mess at home.

  ‘It’s not what it feels like inside, believe me.’

  ‘It’s a turn-on for us fellas,’ he said.

  ‘I was thinking about my dad,’ I said.

  When we parted in the late afternoon we hugged each other tight and there was such a closeness between us, the warmest feelings I have experienced for ages. It’s the first time I have let Todd see me feeling vulnerable, and now he is going away.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

  Great excitement at the station this morning as Ashley Gascoigne, the A-lister, arrived to be interviewed by Fizzy. She had made a special effort and was looking more glamorous than usual with her strawberry-blonde hair piled up on top and wearing a dress of palest pink which suited her colouring. A crowd of fans had gathered outside the station and they were thrilled when Ashley stopped to sign autographs. They were all taking selfies with him which would be shared on Twitter and Instagram at the earliest opportunity.