by Emily Gunnis
She sighed as she watched a dejected Jim walk back down the uneven stone pathway to join the other reporters under a golf umbrella. She knew the game, knew door-stepping was a necessary evil of her trade, but it was the worst part of being a reporter. Though she liked every one of the hapless gaggle standing at the end of this poor woman’s pathway, they always looked to her like vultures circling their stricken prey.
She adjusted the mirror, pulled out her make-up bag and assessed how much of her face was salvageable. She would need a trowel of foundation to fill in the scowl-induced dent in the middle of her brow. As she dabbed at it, she closed her eyes and images of the fight she’d had with Ben the night before rushed back. It was always tense when she collected Emma from Ben’s flat, the two of them trying not to snipe at each other in front of their daughter, but yesterday hadn’t gone well. The fight had been a bad one, she knew that much, but as usual the exchange of insults had become a blur that had ended with them shouting so loudly they’d made Emma cry. Sam hated herself for dragging Emma into their arguments, and hated Ben for not trying harder to hide his disdain for her.
Recoiling at the sight of her frizzy hair, she reached for the portable tongs in her bag. In between getting Emma dressed and pouring breakfast down them both, she had little time for pampering in the mornings. Her red corkscrew curls were usually scraped back from her face, and the five minutes she had spare were given to blow-drying her heavy fringe. Heels were her uniform, and on her wages, eBay was her best friend. Days never went right without Louboutin or Dior to prop her up in a man’s world, and she often found the pack sniggering at her as she made her way across muddy fields or flooded car parks in killer heels.
‘Hey, Sam!’ called Fred as he turned and spotted her, breaking free from the pack and tripping on the edge of a paving stone in his rush to get to her. He laughed in embarrassment, pushing his floppy fringe back and adopting the lovesick gaze he usually reserved for her.
‘Hey, yourself. How long have you been here?’ Sam pulled the passenger seat forward to grab her coat, bag and Nana’s flowers from the back seat.
‘Not long. It’s my day off and I was rock-climbing in Tunbridge Wells so I’ve only just got here.’ Fred’s waterproof waxed jacket made him look like he’d just come from a pheasant shoot, Sam thought, pulling her black mac tightly around her.
‘Why has Murray called you in on your day off? That’s not fair,’ she said, checking her phone as she walked.
‘I know, I was a bit gutted. The friction was sick,’ said Fred, smiling.
‘You were sick? Oh dear.’ Sam moved away slightly.
‘No, it was good; sick is good,’ said Fred, embarrassed.
‘Sick is never good when you’ve got a four-year-old. How long have the others been here?’ Sam asked as they approached the pack, huddled in a group.
‘Hours. She’s a tough one; we’ve all tried. The Guardian and Independent have been and gone too. Don’t think even you can crack this one, Samantha,’ said Fred in the public-school accent that earned him merciless teasing from the troops at Southern News.
Sam smiled back at him. At twenty-three, Fred was only two years younger than her, but as a commitment-free, fresh-faced graduate full of heroic ideals, he seemed part of another generation. It was obvious to most at Southern News that he had a huge crush on Sam. Despite the fact that he was tall, good-looking and accidentally amusing, with an endless supply of blue suede shoes and rainbow-coloured glasses, she found it hard to take him seriously. He was obsessed with climbing, and as far as she could gather spent every weekend scaling mountains and then getting drunk with his friends. She had no idea why he was interested in her. She was an exhausted, joyless grump whose greatest fantasy in the bedroom was eight hours’ uninterrupted sleep.
They reached the back of the press pack. ‘I’m not sure why Murray’s sent you,’ Jim called over his shoulder at Sam. Sam smiled politely at the Southern News old-timer, who found it hard to hide the fact that he thought she should be back at the office making tea.
‘Me neither, Jim! Am I passable?’ she said, turning to Fred.
Fred flushed slightly. ‘Yes, definitely. Look out for the old witch next door,’ he added hurriedly, keen to change the subject. ‘She looks like she’s going to attack us all with her Zimmer frame.’
All eyes were on Sam as she walked past the pack and down the path, clutching the bouquet to her chest like a terrified bride. As she reached the front door, she caught sight of an elderly lady at the window of the house next door. She had her net curtains pulled back and was staring intently. Fred was right, she did look like a witch. She was wild-eyed, her long grey hair loose around her shoulders and her bony fingers white from gripping the curtain so hard. Sam took a deep breath and pressed the bell.
It was a good two minutes before Jane Connors opened the door, ashen-faced.
‘I’m so sorry to bother you at this difficult time.’ Sam looked directly into the woman’s reddened eyes. ‘My name is Samantha, I represent Southern News. We wanted to offer our sincere condolences—’
‘Can’t you just leave us alone?’ the woman snapped. ‘As if this isn’t hard enough. Why won’t you all just go away?’
‘I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs Connors.’
‘You’re not sorry! If you were sorry, you wouldn’t do this . . . at the worst time in our lives.’ Her voice trembled. ‘We just want to be left in peace. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.’
Sam waited for the right words to come, then hung her head. The woman was right. She should be ashamed, and she was.
‘Mrs Connors, I hate this part of my job. I wish I didn’t have to do it. But I’ve learnt from experience that sometimes people wish to pay tribute to their loved ones. They want to talk to someone who can tell the world their story. In your case, you could talk about how brave your father was trying to save your son.’
Tears sprang into the woman’s eyes as she moved to close the door. ‘Don’t talk about them like you knew them. You don’t know anything about them.’
‘No, I don’t, but unfortunately it’s my job to find out. All these reporters out here, myself included, have very tough bosses who won’t let us go home to our families until you speak to one of us.’
‘And if I refuse?’ Mrs Connors peered round the half-closed door.
‘They’ll talk to other members of your family, or local shopkeepers, or write features based on potentially inaccurate information from well-meaning neighbours.’ Sam paused. ‘That would be a lasting memory for readers that you might find even more upsetting than all this in years to come.’
The woman was looking at the ground now, her shoulders sagging. She was broken. Sam hated herself.
‘These are for you.’ She laid the flowers on the doorstep. ‘Well, they were actually for my grandmother – it’s her birthday today – but she’d want you to have them. Please accept my sincere apologies again for intruding. That white Nova is my car, and this is my card. I’ll wait for half an hour and then I’ll go. I won’t bother you again.’ She started to make her way back down the cobbled pathway, hoping she wouldn’t trip in her heels in front of the bored pack.
‘Would I get to check what you wrote first?’ Mrs Connors’ voice was faint.
Sam turned round. ‘Absolutely. You can read every word before I send it off.’ She smiled gently at the woman, who examined the sodden handkerchief squashed into her palm.
Sam had noticed that the elderly woman in the house next door was standing at her open door now, still staring. She must be in her nineties. What must it be like to be so old, to have lived through so much? The woman was almost bent double over her Zimmer frame, an age spot like a large bruise on her hand. Her heart-shaped face was pale apart from the dark red lipstick she wore.
‘Well, I suppose you’d better come in then,’ said Mrs Connors, pulling her door open wide.
Sam glanced back at the pack, then at the old lady, who had fixed her with her pale blue eyes.
It wasn’t uncommon for neighbours to become involved when the press were out in force, but their presence was usually accompanied by a great deal of swearing. She offered the woman a smile that wasn’t returned, but as she turned to close the door behind her, she looked up and their eyes met.
Chapter Two
Saturday 4 February 2017
Kitty Cannon looked down at Kensington High Street from The Roof Gardens one hundred feet up. As she watched commuters scuttling home in the bitter February night, she leant forward over the balcony railings, took a deep breath and imagined jumping. The roar of air in her ears as she plunged forward, arms outstretched, head bowed, weightless at first, untouchable, then growing heavier as gravity sucked her down irreversibly. When she hit, the force would break every bone in her body and for several seconds she would lie twitching as the crowds gathered around her, gasping and gawping, clutching one another in disbelief.
What could be so bad, they’d say, for someone to do that to themselves? It’s awful, so tragic.
Kitty imagined herself as she lay there, narrow trickles of blood making their way down her face, a small smile frozen on her lips, formed at the moment of her last breath, knowing that at last she would be free.
‘Kitty?’
She stepped back and turned round to face her young assistant. Rachel stood two feet away, her neat blond bob framing the look of slight alarm in her green eyes. She was dressed from head to toe in black, apart from neon-pink heels and a skinny belt to match. Her pencil skirt and jacket fitted so closely around her narrow frame that they didn’t move when she did. She had a clipboard in her hands, which her long fingers were clutching so tightly they had lost their colour.
‘They’re ready for you,’ she said, turning towards the stairs to a function room Kitty knew to contain her production team and many of the stars of stage and screen she had interviewed over the twenty-year run of her talk show. She imagined the acoustics of the room, voices straining to be heard above the clashing cutlery and clinking glasses. Voices that would all fall silent as she walked in.
‘Kitty, we should go,’ said Rachel slightly nervously, standing at the top of the stairs. ‘They’ll be serving dinner soon and you wanted to say a few words.’
‘I don’t want to say a few words; I have to,’ Kitty said, shifting from one leg to the other in an attempt to ease her already throbbing feet.
‘Kitty, you look ravishing as always,’ said a male voice from behind them, and both women turned to see Max Heston, the executive producer of every one of Kitty’s shows. Tall and slim, he was dressed in a perfectly fitting blue suit and pink shirt; his clean-shaven face was as handsome as ever. The man didn’t age, thought Kitty as he smiled broadly at her; he looked the same now as he had when they had first met over thirty years ago – better, in fact. She watched Rachel as Max walked towards them; the younger woman’s cheeks flushed red, her head tilted slightly, and as he reached them, she lifted her hand and played with her blunt fringe to check it was perfectly straight. Max always had the effect of turning Rachel into a schoolgirl, and it annoyed Kitty intensely.
‘Everything all right?’ he said, in the tone he used to use when Kitty was due on set. Knowing she was in need of propping up, he would dole out compliments and praise, easing her out of her awkwardness by making her laugh, knowing exactly how to settle her.
Except this evening he wasn’t settling her; he was enraging her with his lack of attention. Since the last show of her previous series, his loyalty had unquestionably faltered. He had cancelled lunches with her at the last minute, ignored several phone calls, and not sent flowers or even a card when news of her retirement broke. She had sensed that the BBC executives were losing interest in her: there was no talk of a start date for the new series despite her agent putting in several calls to the commissioners. She had imagined that she would soon be called to a lunch to tell her that the next series would be her last, and it had been this suspicion that had prompted her to retire. She, not Max, would decide when it was time to go and make way for the younger, prettier broadcasters snapping at her heels. She had half expected him not to turn up to this dinner, but at the last minute he had called to accept, probably when he discovered the number of heavyweights attending.
‘I think I’m getting one of my migraines. Where am I sitting again?’ said Kitty, clutching the railing tightly as she walked carefully down the steps in her white Dior heels, the label from her new pink chiffon dress scratching at her neck. She caught sight of herself in the huge mirror hanging on the stairs and recoiled. She had been talked into the pink by a pushy young sales assistant in Jenny Packham. She had known instinctively it was too young for her, but had let the girl’s much-needed flattery go to her head. Rachel, in contrast, looked effortlessly stunning, and walking next to her made Kitty feel like the spinster aunt at a wedding.
‘Table One. As you requested, you’re next to Jon Peters from BBC Publicity, and Sarah Wheeldon, head of development at Warner Brothers,’ said Rachel, scuttling after her.
‘I don’t remember asking to sit next to Jon. He’s a crashing bore,’ Kitty snapped as Rachel nervously checked her paperwork.
The room was warmly lit with fairy lights and candles, and the white linen tablecloths acted as a backdrop to the huge arrangements of Kitty’s favourite flowers: pink peonies.
‘Where are you sitting, Rachel?’ said Max, turning to her.
Rachel’s cheeks flushed again as she looked up from the table plan. ‘Oh, I’m not sure I’m eating. I think I’ll be needed on standby,’ she said, tearing her gaze away from Max and smiling at Kitty, who didn’t catch her eye.
‘Oh nonsense, I’m sure we can find you a seat on our table. I could introduce you to some people,’ said Max.
As Rachel toyed with her fringe again, the first claps echoed around the room and slowly built to a thunder. The room was full of everyone who had helped Kitty get to the top: actors, editors, producers, agents, journalists, sports personalities. All here this evening, but soon they’d be gone: like Max, bored of her now she was no use to them. People who had crossed rooms to talk to her would look over her shoulder at events, cut short their conversation and make their escape to talk to the new, younger Kitty – whoever she was – congratulating themselves quietly as they walked away for making the effort with the old has-been.
Kitty smiled and glanced at Rachel. ‘Will you go to my apartment and get me my navy Jaeger dress and heels? I’m going to change after dinner.’
Rachel looked over at Max, her shoulders drooping, then turned and began to make her way through the tables towards the exit, her cheeks flushing with self-consciousness. As the applause finally died down, Kitty cleared her throat.
‘Thank you all so much for coming. And thank you particularly to my long-suffering team for putting up with me for the past fifteen series: my beautiful assistant Rachel, who I could not cope without, and of course my executive producer Max Heston, who has been there since day one.’
Max smiled broadly at her. ‘Careful what you say, Kit. I can still remember those Dynasty-inspired shoulder pads!’
Kitty laughed. ‘Thank you for reminding us, and for throwing such a wonderful and undeserved dinner for me. As many of you know, I am not keen on being in the spotlight and prefer to be the one asking the questions. But I will say this. From the moment I saw John Freeman interviewing Gilbert Harding on Face to Face in 1960, I was hooked. Here was this larger-than-life personality – one of the few people who could make my father howl with laughter on What’s My Line? – being reduced to tears as the man behind the mask came out. I was only ten years old but already acutely aware of the expectation piled upon me to play a part, and as I sat glued to the black-and-white television in my parents’ lounge, it was an epiphany to realise I wasn’t the only one.’
She looked around the room at the eyes fixed on her. ‘People fascinate me. What you see is very rarely what is going on inside. And I have always tried to use television as a platform for t
he truth. Few of us have won an Oscar or an Olympic gold medal, but most can relate to the struggles, on some level, our idols have been through. Struggles so profound and loneliness-inducing that they lit a fire in them that propelled them to success.’
She took a glass of champagne from a waiter standing next to her and smiled at him graciously.
‘I would like to raise a glass to anyone brave enough to remove their mask and share their pain. I am immensely proud of those of my guests who made a difference and touched people’s hearts – some of you achieved the best ratings in BBC history. I am of course sad to be climbing down from this wonderful platform, but I figured better that than to be pushed.’
‘Never!’ shouted a voice from the back, and Kitty smiled briefly.
‘As a policeman’s daughter growing up near Brighton, I certainly never dreamed I would be keeping company such as this. Thank you all so much for coming. Now please, eat, drink and behave appallingly.’
As the applause died down, Kitty turned to walk to her table, but paused when she heard the chink of a knife on a glass. Max stood up and smiled warmly around the room.
‘I first met Kitty when I was a relative newbie, a recently promoted producer at the BBC, and a young, handsome buck if I recall.’
‘And didn’t you know it!’ said Kitty, causing Max to frown.
‘Now as all those who know Kitty will attest to, she has a disarming ability to convince you that what she wants is what you need. A colleague of mine in Light Entertainment back in 1985 asked if I could take on an intern who had written a letter every day for a year and was driving him insane.’
A ripple of laughter ran through the room before Max continued. ‘I needed a researcher on Parkinson, so I agreed. The following day, this dark-haired, dark-eyed, stunningly intelligent girl turned up and took over.’ He smiled over at Kitty, who raised her glass to him.