by Jane Lythell
‘It must have been. I did the test straight after.’
I squeezed her hand.
‘Are you happy about this?’
‘I’m very conflicted about it.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Part of me wants this baby. But I’m not married and, well, I can’t go public about the father.’
‘OK.’
‘I’m scared I’ll lose the support of viewers and if that happens I know what Julius will do. Goodbye my slot on StoryWorld.’
‘Does he know?’
‘I told him yesterday and he advised me to have a termination.’
‘As if it’s as easy as that!’ I said.
‘I know.’
‘Did you have a scan?’
‘I haven’t done any of that stuff yet.’
‘And Bob, what does he say?’
She gasped and her eyes widened in alarm.
‘You know about Bob?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh my God, is it that obvious?’
‘I saw you two going into a hotel one afternoon.’
‘We were spotted. Christ!’
She was agitated and turned in her chair to face me full on.
‘You mustn’t tell anyone, Liz. Really. We can’t have Bob’s name getting out. Julius thinks the father is Geoff.’
‘I won’t say a word.’
‘Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
‘I let him think it was Geoff’s,’ she said.
Fizzy had been involved with Geoff for several years which was why Julius had made that assumption. Geoff was also married.
‘But what did Bob say?’
She picked up the folded napkin and slapped it against the edge of the table.
‘He said he’s crazy about me but his kids are still at home and he has to see them through till they go to college. He’s got two girls in their teens.’
‘He needs to think about you too, Fizz.’
‘He’s in a bad place at the moment. He’s heard a rumour that Julius is going to cut the news operation even more, turn the bulletins into three-minute celebrity news round-ups and do a deal with a newspaper for the headlines.’
‘I can’t see that happening. I think he’s being a bit paranoid there.’
‘Maybe, but what it comes down to is he doesn’t want this kid. He wants to stay married and if I go ahead I’m on my own.’
‘Do you want this baby?’
‘It’s my last chance pregnancy, isn’t it?’ She rested her hands on her stomach. ‘Yes, I think I do.’
‘OK.’
‘But I don’t want to be shunted off to a mother and baby slot in the afternoons. I love my job. I can’t bear the thought of losing it.’
I am cursed with this need to fix things.
‘You know, I think the thing to do is to front it up. Speak directly to the viewers. Say you made a mistake and got pregnant by a married man. You deeply regret that and will never reveal his identity, but you want this baby very much. We can get our viewers onside.’
‘You think so?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ I said.
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Give yourself time to think about this, Fizz, please.’
Her face was sad as she asked me if I wanted a coffee. I sensed she wanted me to stay longer with her.
‘That would be nice.’
She yanked on a rope pull by the wall, another affectation of the club. The waiter reappeared and she ordered a coffee for me and a peppermint tea for herself.
‘They have lovely glass teapots here,’ she said.
The waiter left the room.
‘If I do go public I can see Betty giving me the third degree. You know her view on unmarried mothers.’
‘Bugger Betty!’ I said.
She looked at me, surprised, and then she started to giggle and that set me off and we laughed and laughed and I felt closer to her than I had ever felt before.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Chalk Farm flat, Saturday
Ben had been in touch finally and we arranged for Pete to pick Flo up from the station on Friday night. Grace rang to say she had arrived safely. That was the cue for a major slump on my part. I was worn out by the events of the last few weeks and I lay in bed until mid-morning. I thought about Harriet who had left the station on Friday night looking cowed as she passed Julius. And then I thought about Fizzy and the decision facing her. She has two powerful men trying to influence her, playing on her fears about what will happen to her career if she goes ahead with the pregnancy. There are few enough mothers who are senior women working in television. It’s been written about: how it’s less than the national average. It’s partly the long hours and the assumption that you don’t leave work until the programme is ready. But you also get sucked into thinking that working in television is a privilege; it puts you at the centre of things and that is a difficult thing to give up. Ranged against these forces was the tiny life fluttering inside her.
*
This afternoon I took a walk along the canal towpath from Camden to Islington. I like this walk, though you have to be aware of a few psycho-cyclists zooming up behind you. The narrowboats along this stretch are well-kept and jaunty. Most of them are painted dark green or blue with decorative name signs picked out in scarlet and yellow lettering. A few of the decks had piles of logs neatly stacked for the wood-burning stoves within. You can peer through the windows and get a glimpse of the lives lived there. Part of me thinks it would be delightful to live in such an unusual space. Then I think about what it would feel like coming home on a dark night and walking along the towpath. It feels a sinister place here at night.
I have been caught out many times in my life by taking action when I’m in emotional turmoil. I needed to weigh up the evidence of Harriet’s allegation of sexual assault as objectively as I could. There was that encounter on the stairs between Harriet and Julius, the way she turned her face away as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. And she has changed since that night I found her sobbing in the Ladies. She is less confident than when she arrived at StoryWorld. She sticks closer to the team, which has actually meant her becoming more of a team member and more likeable. It is this change in her behaviour which reinforces my belief that something bad has happened to her, an experience that has fundamentally shaken her sense of herself.
Ziggy has changed too. She got a lot of praise for showing initiative at the OB and she was starting to come out of her shell. But she has looked pinched and anxious the last few days. She was supportive to Harriet when she came back to work and they have become unlikely friends. Either Harriet has confided in her about Julius and the assault or, possibly, Ziggy overheard a conversation. She gets around the building in her role as our runner. Something is definitely up with Ziggy.
I had reached Islington and I walked up the metal stairs and onto the high street. I stopped to get a tea and a rose-flavoured macaroon and sat at a table in the window looking out at the shoppers on Upper Street. Harriet told me she lives in Islington, with her parents. It’s probably one of those grand Georgian houses down by Highbury Fields which cost millions. I don’t think she’ll go to the police now. If she doesn’t report Julius he’ll get away with it. Again. I bit into the macaroon and my mouth was filled with an intense perfumed sweetness. Another thought occurred to me: Julius does not come down to my office any more, not since the night of the incident. We are on the same side of the building and he used to saunter down a lot. Not any more. He’s avoiding Harriet. We think we can read people but can we really? I had read that an accomplished liar can look you in the eyes and lie and lie. Julius tells lies. Even his name is a lie; he was plain Nigel Jones until he reinvented himself.
I caught a bus back to Chalk Farm and went upstairs. I was turning it all over as we chugged down the hill towards King’s Cross. Two children were running shrieking up and down the aisle of the bus while their mother made feeble attempts to stop them. There was what he did
to me at the Christmas party seven years ago. I don’t like to think about it but I have to. Our kisses had turned too quickly to him pushing his fingers up me. He was rough and insistent and had made me bleed and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Fenton thought I should have reported him then. How I wish I could discuss this with her again but she’s in Amsterdam with her sexy detective.
I reached my flat and unlocked the door. I hate the way Julius made me feel seven years ago and I hate the way he often makes me feel now, that I’m a pushover and powerless. He’ll never admit when he is wrong about anything. Nothing ever seems to dent his power and his mantle of untouchability. Julius did it. I’m sure he did it.
Chalk Farm flat, Sunday morning
I woke up and I knew what I had to do. I had Saul Relph, our MD’s home email address. It was Saul Relph who had asked me to take Harriet into my team as a favour to his friend Edward Dodd and I had a duty of care to her. I cannot report Harriet’s allegation because I don’t have her permission to do that but I can tell him what Julius did to me.
I opened my laptop and typed in his address. I wrote CONFIDENTIAL FOR YOUR EYES ONLY in the subject line. In our business there’s a mantra: never put anything in writing that can be used against you in the future. But what was the alternative? Saul Relph is a remote figure and I could never talk to him about this. It would be excruciating to say it to his face. Writing it down would give me some control. My skin prickled as I started to write the details of what had happened between Julius and me. I struggled with how much detail I should include. He is the overall boss of StoryWorld and whatever I wrote would be out there in the world in black and white for ever. But he needed enough detail to know how serious the incident had been. I said I had been at the Christmas party and described how Julius had followed me upstairs and had slammed me against the wall; how he had said ‘Come on, Liz. Let’s fuck hard’; how he wouldn’t take no for an answer and had been rough with me. How I’d had to push him off me to stop intercourse taking place. I read through my draft several times. It was strangely cathartic to see it written down. I deleted the reference to ‘Let’s fuck hard’; that was a detail too far.
My finger hovered over the send button. If I sent it the MD would know my shaming secret. If I didn’t send it Julius would be off the hook, again. He has been allowed to bully us all for years. I brought to mind the way he had sacked Sal and the last time he had snarled at me. I was steeling myself to press the send button. If I didn’t send it I would have given up on the values I once held and absorbed the corrupt values of the TV station. No, I would wait. I needed to be sure before I lobbed this hand grenade.
Chalk Farm flat, Sunday evening
When Flo got back from Portsmouth the first thing she said was: ‘Granny was crying.’
‘Grace? What was that about?’
‘I don’t know and she tried to hide it when I came into the kitchen but she’d been crying for sure.’
‘That’s not like her at all. I hope she’s OK. I’ll ring her in a bit.’
‘And Dad was in a weird mood all weekend. He looked awful, Mum, he hadn’t shaved and he didn’t want to go out.’
‘Oh, darling, was it a difficult weekend?’
‘I’m glad to be home.’
I hugged her.
‘I’m glad to have you back.’
I put my nose against hers.
‘Grasshopper kiss.’
Then I kissed each of her eyelids.
‘Butterfly kiss.’
She smiled. It was a thing we used to do when she was little, though we hadn’t done it for ages.
When she was tucked up in bed with her tablet I went into my bedroom and called Grace. She said she would call me back soon; she couldn’t talk at the moment. Something is wrong and it has to be that Ben is gambling again. I opened my laptop and reread my confidential memo to Saul. I jumped as the phone rang and it was Grace.
‘Honestly, I’m in despair. Everything is falling apart for him. He spent forty-eight hours last week gambling non-stop. Forty-eight hours without sleep. It’s an addiction.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘He’s in no shape to work and he’s got all these debts. He asked tonight if he can move in with us. He and Pete have gone to collect his things.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You knew about the gambling, didn’t you? Is that why you left him, Liz?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘I wish you’d told me about it.’
‘I couldn’t, Grace, I couldn’t do that.’
‘You just said you had different attitudes to money and that his spending was making you unhappy.’
I could tell that Grace was feeling resentful that I hadn’t been more open with her.
‘It was for him to tell you. I’m sorry.’
‘He says he’s tried to fight it and I believe him. But then it gets hold of him again and it controls him. I feel so helpless,’ she said.
I was too sad to send the memo to Saul Relph. I couldn’t sleep as thoughts of Ben kept me awake. He’s forty-four and he’s going back to live with his parents and he isn’t working. I could say goodbye to any monthly maintenance payments from him. They weren’t much but they did help with Flo’s costs. Strongest of all though was my feeling of sadness that clever, talented Ben has lost his way so profoundly. You make a decision about your life, as I made the decision to leave Ben, and the implications of that decision go on working themselves out for years to come. I have never been able to grasp the significance of what I am doing while I am caught up in the doing of it. My understanding of its meaning can take months or even years to become clear to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NOVEMBER
StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge
It was a cold drizzly morning and the leaves on the pavements were slick and slippery as I walked to the Tube. I’d had to coax Flo out of bed and was running late. I joined the director in the gallery but had missed the first item of the show. He said Fizzy was low-key this morning and I watched her carefully. She was doing a professional enough job but was not as spirited as she usually is, but then she had had a weekend on her own to consider her huge decision. I wondered if she would go through with the pregnancy. If she did there would be a major fallout with Bob and he would be a formidable opponent if you went against his wishes.
At the end of the morning meeting I waited for her and we walked down to her dressing room.
‘I’ve realised that what I represent for Bob is pleasure, an escape for him from domesticity and routine. We create our own pleasure bubble, our lovely afternoons in bed after a gorgeous meal. No mention of work ever. We banished it. But a baby isn’t part of all that, is it?’
I recalled the months following Flo’s birth; the feeling of profound exhaustion as if I hadn’t slept for days and the being tuned in to my tiny baby’s every whimper.
‘No, it’s something primeval. It’s one of the few times in your life when you give yourself over completely to another person.’
‘That sounds scary.’
‘It’s life-changing for sure, but my life never felt more right than when I first held Flo and looked at her little face.’
‘But you are naturally maternal, Liz.’
‘I don’t think so. I struggled at the beginning. I still do.’
I thought about my fights with Flo over her smoking and over the Cat and Mouse.
‘Oh, you are. You’re like a mother to your team. I’m not like you. I like to look nice. I like male attention. One of my biggest thrills is when I know a man is falling for me.’
‘That is a great feeling,’ I said.
‘But it doesn’t last. I’ve never been so torn about anything in my life.’
‘That means you need to give yourself more time.’
I went upstairs. Outside my window I could see the rain was still falling and the team were subdued as they trooped into my room at noon. Ziggy was wearing another of Harriet’s tops this mo
rning; at least I assumed it was one of hers as it was a soft-looking oatmeal jumper, probably cashmere. Ziggy had pulled the arms down so that they covered most of her hands. You could just see her bitten fingernails peeping out. I watched Harriet settle herself on the sofa and tried to assess what she was feeling. She appeared to be OK, but you couldn’t tell what was going on beneath that calm exterior. Simon rather half-heartedly suggested bringing John of Sheffield back onto the show to get an update on how he’d been getting on.
‘There have been developments. He’s started dating and he sent me a funny email about the perils of dating when you have children in the house and you don’t want them to know. Lots of creeping down the stairs at sunrise to unlock the back door,’ Simon said.
‘I doubt that will work. Teenagers seem to hear everything and especially the things you don’t want them to hear. Well, mine does,’ I said.
Molly leaned forward in her chair.
‘But if he’s dating now won’t he lose his sympathy appeal with our viewers? It was the lone dad thing that was appealing.’
‘Who is John of Sheffield? He sounds like a saint,’ Harriet asked.
Simon smiled briefly.
‘He’s this good-looking man we had on the show, a single dad, in need of female support.’
The room fell quiet.
‘Can you give us an update on the budget situation, only we’ve heard that they’re cutting the news team,’ Molly said.
So that was it. Molly is straight as a die and asks outright what the others must have been talking about. Bob had acted fast. Tim Cooper had insisted that as members of staff were being made redundant we had to be vigilant in following company procedures. I thought Bob was going to wait till the end of the week to reveal the cuts to his team.
‘I’ve had to make cuts too but none of you are going anywhere,’ I said.
Their relief was palpable and the mood in the room changed at once. Molly talked through the list of ideas she’d developed since her meeting with the non-fiction publishers.
‘Next week we should do Jan Clayton. Her book is going to be huge. They’re calling it The Female Eunuch of today. It’s feminist and funny.’