A Room Swept White

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘How do you fancy being rich?’ Laurie asks me.

  Part of the reason I find talking to Laurie so exhausting is that I never know the right answer. There’s always a right one and a wrong one – he’s very black and white – but he gives you no clues and he’s disturbingly unpredictable about everything apart from what he calls ‘the cot-death mothers witch-hunt’. On that, his views are fixed, but on nothing else. It must be something to do with his brilliant, original mind, and it makes life hellishly hard for anyone who’s secretly trying to please him by second-guessing what he’d like them to say while at the same time wanting to look as if they’re just being themselves, acting with a hundred per cent integrity and to hell with what anyone else might think. Actually, that’s unlikely to be a significant constituency of people, come to think of it. It’s probably just me.

  ‘I’d like to be well-off,’ I say eventually. ‘I don’t know about rich. There’s only so much money I’d need – a lot more than I’ve got now, but less than . . . you know . . .’ I’m talking rubbish because I’m unprepared. I’ve never given it a second’s thought. I live in a dark, low-ceilinged one-bedroom basement flat in Kilburn, underneath people who have sound-amplifying wooden floors in every room because to lay a carpet anywhere would threaten their upper-middle-class identity, and who seem to spend most evenings jumping around their living room on pogo-sticks, if the noise they make is anything to go by. I have no outside space whatsoever, though I have an excellent view of the pogo-jumpers’ immaculate lawn and assortment of rose-bushes, and I can’t afford the damp-proofing my flat has urgently needed since I bought it four years ago. Funnily enough, wealth isn’t something I dwell on.

  ‘I suppose I’d like to be rich-ish,’ I say. ‘As long as I wasn’t getting my money from anything dodgy, like people-smuggling.’ I play back my answer in my head, hoping it made me sound ambitious but principled.

  ‘What if you could do my job and earn what I earn?’ Laurie asks.

  ‘I couldn’t do what you—’

  ‘You can. You will. I’m leaving the company. From Monday, you’re me: Creative Director and Executive Producer. I’m on a hundred and forty a year here. From Monday, that’s what you’ll be on.’

  ‘What? Laurie, I—’

  ‘Maybe not officially from Monday, so you might have to wait for the pay-rise, but effectively from Monday . . .’

  ‘Laurie, slow down!’ I’ve never shouted an order at him before. ‘Sorry,’ I mumble. In my shock, I forgot for a second who he is and who I am. Laurie Nattrass doesn’t get yelled at by the likes of me. From Monday, you’re me. It must be a joke. Or he’s confused. Someone as confusing as he is could easily be confused. ‘This makes no sense,’ I say. Me, Creative Director of Binary Star? I’m the lowest paid producer in the company. Tamsin, as Laurie’s research assistant, earns significantly more than I do. I make programmes that no one but me has any respect for, about warring neighbours and malfunctioning gastric bands – subjects that interest not only me but also millions of viewers, which is why I don’t care that I’m regarded by my colleagues as the light relief amid all the purveyors of earnest political documentaries. Raffi refers to my work as ‘fluff stuff’.

  This has got to be a joke. A trap. Am I supposed to say, ‘Ooh, yes, please,’ then look like an idiot when Laurie falls about laughing? ‘What’s going on?’ I snap.

  He sighs heavily. ‘I’m going to Hammerhead. They’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse, a bit like the offer I’m making you. Not that it’s about the money. It’s time I moved on.’

  ‘But . . . you can’t leave,’ I say, feeling hollow at the thought. ‘What about the film?’ He wouldn’t go without finishing it; there’s no way on earth. Even someone as hard to fathom as Laurie leaves the odd clue here and there as to what makes him tick. Unless the clues I’ve picked up have been planted by someone determined to mislead me – and it’s hard to see how that could happen, since most of them came from Laurie’s own mouth – then what makes him tick at a rate of a hundred and twenty seconds to the minute rather than the usual sixty is the film he’s making about three cot-death murder cases: Helen Yardley, Sarah Jaggard and Rachel Hines.

  Everyone at Binary Star calls it ‘the film’, as if it’s the only one the company need concern itself with, the only one we’re making or are ever likely to make. Laurie’s been working on it since the dawn of time. He insists that it has to be perfect, and keeps changing his mind about the best way to structure it. It’s going to be two hours long, and the BBC has told Laurie he can take his pick of the slots, which is unheard of. Or rather, it’s unheard of for everyone but Laurie Nattrass, who is a deity in the world of television. If he wanted to make a five-hour film that knocked out both the News at Six and the News at Ten, the BBC higher-ups would probably lick his boots and say, ‘Yes, Master.’

  ‘You’re going to make the film,’ he tells me with the confidence of someone who has visited the future and knows what happens in it. ‘I’ve emailed everyone involved to say you’re taking over from me.’

  No. He can’t do this.

  ‘I’ve given them your contact details, work and home . . .’

  I want nothing to do with it. I can’t have anything to do with it. I open my mouth to protest, then remember that Laurie doesn’t know my . . . well, it’s something no one here knows. I refuse to think of it as a secret and I won’t allow myself to feel guilty. I’ve done nothing wrong. This cannot be a punishment.

  ‘You’ll have Maya and Raffi’s full support.’ Laurie stands up, walks over to the tower of box files by the wall. ‘All the information you need’s in these. Don’t bother moving them to your office. From Monday, this’ll be your office.’

  ‘Laurie . . .’

  ‘You’ll work on the film and nothing else. Don’t let anything get in your way, least of all the filth. I’ll be at Hammerhead, but I’ll make myself available to you whenever . . .’

  ‘Laurie, stop! The filth? You mean the police? Tamsin said you spoke to them this morning . . .’

  ‘They wanted to know when I’d last seen Helen. If she had any enemies. “How about the entire fucking judicial system, not to mention you lot,” I said.’ Before I have a chance to remind him that Helen’s murder convictions were overturned in the court of appeal by that same judicial system, he says, ‘They asked about the film. I told them you’d be exec-ing it as of Monday.’

  ‘You told them before you asked me?’ My voice comes out as a high-pitched squeak. My stomach twists, sending prickles of nausea up to my throat. For a few seconds, I daren’t open my mouth. ‘You emailed everyone and told them I’m . . . When? When did you do that? Who’s everyone?’ I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands, feeling horribly out of control. This wasn’t supposed to happen; it’s all wrong.

  Laurie taps the top box file. ‘All the names and contacts you need are in here. I haven’t got time to go through it all with you, but most of it’s self-explanatory. Any more detectives come sniffing around, you’re making a documentary about a doctor determined to pervert the course of justice, and three women whose lives she did her best to destroy. Nothing to do with the investigation into Helen’s death. They can’t stop you.’

  ‘The police don’t want the film to be made?’ Everything Laurie says makes me feel worse. Even more than usual.

  ‘They haven’t said that yet, but they will. They’ll trot out some guff about you compromising their—’

  ‘But I haven’t . . . Laurie, I don’t want your job! I don’t want to make your film.’ To clarify, I add, ‘I’m saying no.’ There, that’s better. Perfectly in control.

  ‘No?’ He stands back and examines me: a rebellious specimen. Previously compliant, though, he’ll be thinking, so what can have gone wrong? He laughs. ‘You’re turning down a salary that’s more than three times what you’re on now, and a career-launching promotion? Are you stupid?’

  He can’t force me – it’s impossible. There are some things one can physica
lly force a person to do. Making a documentary is not one of them. Focusing on this helps me to stay calm. ‘I’ve never exec-ed anything before,’ I say. ‘I’d be completely out of my depth. Don’t you want to cooperate with the police, help them find out what happened to Helen?’

  ‘Culver Valley CID couldn’t find tennis balls at fucking Wimbledon.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘If you’re going to Hammerhead, why isn’t the film going with you?’

  ‘The BBC commissioned Binary Star, not me personally.’ Laurie shrugs. ‘That’s the price I pay for leaving. I lose it.’ He leans forward. ‘The only way I don’t lose it is if I give it to you, and work with you when I can behind the scenes. I need your help here, Fliss. You’d get all the credit, you’d get the salary . . .’

  ‘Why me? Tamsin’s the one who’s been working on it with you. The woman’s a walking miscarriage-of-justice encylopaedia – there’s not a detail she doesn’t know. Why aren’t you trying to force this promotion on her?’

  It occurs to me that Laurie’s been patronising me. How do you fancy being rich? He’s always moaning that he can barely afford the mortgage on his four-storey townhouse in Kensington. Laurie comes from a seriously wealthy family. I’d bet everything I’ve got – which is considerably less than he’s got – that he regards his salary at Binary Star as acceptable, nothing more. The offer Hammerhead made him, the one he couldn’t refuse, obviously knocked a hundred and forty grand a year into a cocked hat. But of course a hundred and forty a year would be wealth beyond the wildest dreams of a peasant like me . . . I stop in my tracks and realise that, if that is what Laurie’s thinking, he’s entirely correct, so perhaps it’s unfair of me to quibble.

  ‘Tamsin’s a research assistant, not a producer,’ he says. ‘Look, you didn’t hear this from me, okay?’

  At first I think he’s referring to what he’s already told me, about the promotion I don’t want. Then I realise he’s waiting for me to agree before telling me something else. I nod.

  ‘Tamsin’s being made redundant. Raffi’s talking to her now.’

  ‘What? You’re joking. Tell me you’re joking.’

  Laurie shakes his head.

  ‘They can’t get rid of her! They can’t just . . .’

  ‘It’s industry-wide. Everyone’s tightening their belts, making cuts where they can.’

  ‘Who made the decision? Was there a vote?’ I can’t believe Binary Star would keep me and lose Tamsin. She’s got loads more experience than I have, and unlike me, she isn’t constantly pestering Raffi for a dehumidifier for her office.

  ‘Sit down,’ says Laurie impatiently. ‘You’re making me nervous. Tamsin’s the obvious choice for redundancy. She’s earning too much to be value for money in the current economic climate. Raffi says we can get a new graduate researcher for half the price, and he’s right.’

  ‘This is so out of order,’ I blurt out.

  ‘How about you stop worrying about Tamsin and show me some gratitude?’

  ‘What?’ Was that the great crusader for justice who said that to me?

  ‘You think Maya wants to pay you what she’s paying me?’ Laurie chuckles. ‘I talked her through her options. I said, “If there’s a line in the budget for me, then there’s a line in the budget for Fliss.” She knows there’s no film without my cooperation, not for Binary Star. Ray Hines, Sarah and Glen Jaggard, Paul Yardley, all the solicitors and barristers, the MPs and doctors I’ve got eating out of the palm of my hand – one word from me and they walk. Whole project falls apart. All I need to do is bide my time, then sign a new contract with the BBC as MD of Hammerhead.’

  ‘You blackmailed Maya into agreeing to promote me?’ So that’s why she was less gushy than usual when I passed her in the corridor. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’m—’

  ‘I want this documentary made!’ Laurie raises his voice to a level some might describe as shouting. ‘I’m trying to do the right thing here, for everyone! Binary Star gets to keep the film, you get a package that’s appealing enough to make you get off your arse and do the work . . .’

  ‘And what do you get?’ I feel unsteady on my feet. I’d like to sit down, but I won’t, not after Laurie ordered me to. Not when he’s just made a snide remark about my arse.

  ‘I get your full cooperation,’ he says, so quietly that I wonder if I imagined his outburst a few seconds earlier. ‘Unofficially I’ll still run the show, but my involvement will be strictly between you and me.’

  ‘I see,’ I say in a tight voice. ‘You’re not only blackmailing Maya, you’re blackmailing me, too.’

  Laurie falls into his chair with a groan. ‘I’m bribing you. At least be accurate.’ He laughs. ‘Fuck, did I read you wrong! I thought you were rational.’

  I bite my lip, struggling to take in this latest revelation: that Laurie has an idea of what sort of person I am. It means he’s spent time thinking about me, even if only a few seconds. It has to mean that.

  ‘You deserve a chance,’ he says in a bored voice, as if it’s tiresome having to convince me. ‘I decided to give you that chance.’

  ‘You want control of the film even after you leave. You chose me because you thought I’d be easier than anyone else to manipulate.’ I hope he’s impressed by how calm I am. On the surface, at least. Not in a million years did I ever imagine that I would stand in Laurie Nattrass’s office and accuse him of bad things. What the hell am I doing? How many innocent citizens has he sprung from their jail cells while I’ve been whiling away my spare time leafing through heat magazine on the sofa, or shouting abuse at Strictly Come Dancing? What if I’ve completely misread the situation and I’m the one in the wrong?

  Laurie leans back in his chair. Slowly, he shakes his head. ‘Fine. You don’t want to exec the documentary that’s going to win every prize going? You don’t want to be Creative Director? Then why don’t you make Maya’s day: tell her you want out of the deal, and watch her lose any respect for you that she ever had.’

  ‘The deal?’ I am bloody well not in the wrong here. ‘You mean the deal I wasn’t party to, the one that involves my life and career?’

  ‘You’ll never be offered anything again,’ Laurie sneers. ‘Not at Binary Star, not anywhere. How long do you think it’ll be before you’re standing behind Tamsin in the dole queue?’

  Mercury, Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus, Pluto.

  ‘I don’t feel comfortable getting a pay-rise of a hundred grand a year when my friend’s losing her job,’ I say as unemotionally as possible. ‘Of course I’d like more money, but I also like being able to sleep at night.’

  ‘You, lose sleep? Don’t make me laugh!’

  I take a deep breath and say, ‘I don’t know what you imagine you know about me, but you’re wrong.’ Then I feel like a scumbag for implying that I might have an active social conscience, when in fact all the sleep I’ve lost has either been love-related, or . . .

  Or nothing. I can’t let myself think about that now, or I’ll start crying and blurt out the whole story to Laurie. How hideously embarrassing would that be?

  How much would he hate me if he knew?

  ‘Jesus,’ he mutters. ‘Look, I apologise, okay? I thought I was doing you a favour.’

  What happens if I say yes? I could say yes. No, I couldn’t. What the hell’s wrong with me? I’m panicking, and upset about Tamsin, and it’s affected my brain. The state I’m in, it’s probably sensible to say as little as possible.

  Laurie swings his chair round so that I can’t see him. ‘I told the board you were worth what I think you’re worth,’ he says flatly. ‘They nearly shat themselves, but I made a good case and I talked them round. Do you know what that means?’

  A good case? Do what I say or I’ll put the kibosh on the film – that’s his idea of a good case? He can’t even be bothered to put a convincing gloss on it; that’s how little he values me.

  Without waiting for my response, he says, ‘It means a hundr
ed and forty a year is now officially what you’re worth. Think of yourself as a share on the stock market. Your value’s just gone up. If you tell Maya you don’t want it, if you say, “Yes, please, I’d like a pay-rise but not that much, because I’m not that good, so can we please negotiate downwards?” – do that and you plummet to rock-bottom.’ He spins round to face me. ‘You’re worthless,’ he says emphatically, as if I might have missed the point.

  That’s it: my limit. I turn and walk out. Laurie doesn’t call after me or follow me. What does he think I’m going to do? Take the promotion and the money? Resign? Lock myself in a toilet cubicle for a good cry? Does he feel at all guilty about what he’s just done to me?

  Why the hell do I care how he feels?

  I march back to my office, slam the door, grab the damp towel from the top of the radiator and wipe away condensation until my arm aches. A few minutes later, the window is still sopping wet and now so is my jumper. All I’ve succeeded in doing is flicking the water all over myself. Why doesn’t someone think to put an end to world drought by collecting condensation? My window alone could irrigate most of Africa. Why doesn’t Bob Geldof sort it out? It must be Bob Geldof I’m angry with, since it can’t be Laurie. I’ve got a typed document buried somewhere in my desk, instructing me, among other things, never to allow myself to get angry with Laurie.

  I used to look at it all the time when Tamsin first gave it to me. I thought it was hilarious, more hilarious still when she told me she gave a copy to every woman who came to work at Binary Star. About a year ago, it started to lose its appeal for me, and I stuffed it in my desk, underneath the flower-patterned lining paper that someone who worked here before me put in all the drawers.