Kissing Toads

by Jemma Harvey

  Of course, they are nearly the same age. Come to think of it, he must be older . . .

  ‘I thought you might like to present,’ Crusty went on. ‘Jennie said you were at a loose end.’

  I am not at a loose end. I’m a star. Stars don’t do loose ends. They have things in the pipeline, exciting new projects, people angling for their time and attention. But Crusty is of the old school, as they say. He just isn’t clued up.

  But never in a million years was I going to turn down the chance to work on Hot God’s briar patch.

  Unfortunately, he also wanted Mortimer Sparrow, the housewives’ pin-up, he of the faux-rustique accent and relaxative manner. I wasn’t eager for the reunion. Morty is an inveterate bum-patter and tit-fondler who, when I started on Earth Works, had thought he could jump on me just because we were colleagues. I didn’t need him, didn’t fancy him, and said so, which hadn’t helped our professional relationship. How someone as cool as Hot God could admire Morty . . . Which just goes to show that even superstars can be as dumb as ordinary people, only on a bigger scale.

  I had protested at the inclusion of Morty but had to give in, so I sort of felt Crusty owed me a favour. Not that I would put it like that, naturally. I do tact, whatever people may say. But the designated producer was due to bunk off on maternity leave at the crucial moment, and the Major hadn’t appointed a replacement yet. It wasn’t Roo’s field, but what she really needed was a complete change of scene.

  Sometimes, things just come together. Fate taking a hand. I felt this was one of those times.

  Roo spent the week after her departure from Behind the News going back into the office to pick up things she had left behind (five times), having lunch with people who might be useful but weren’t (three times), and getting incredibly depressed (all the time). I took her to my health club and to a theatrical party with Alex, but at the former she tried to drown herself in the jacuzzi and at the latter she spent the whole evening talking to the only gay guy there. Shakespeare once said something about how you should grapple your friends to your soul with hoops of steel (sounds a bit like bondage to me), but my hoops were beginning to show the rust. Meanwhile, Crusty Beardstandard got back to England on Saturday, had tea with my mother on Sunday (I’d already enlisted her support for Roo), and on Monday I met with him at the Rip-Off Café.

  I chose the Rip-Off because I know Crusty likes it, though I don’t. It has scenic views over the river, glass and steel minimalist décor and film-starlet waitresses. The food is as minimalist as the décor and very, very expensive – a single plover’s egg with a stick of asparagus, or one raviolo parcel drizzled with a sauce so subtle it has virtually no flavour at all. You know the kind of thing. They once served me a fritto misto which included two langoustines battered in the shell. How the hell was I supposed to eat that? Peel off the batter, get the langoustine out of the shell, then reunite the two? (I sent it back.) I go to the Rip-Off quite often, naturally, because it’s very trendy, but I still don’t think much of it. Of course, it’s frightfully good for your figure, because the portions are so small.

  Crusty was there before me, drinking prosecco. He’s known in television as a Character and he looks the part, on account of the upright carriage mentioned earlier, a hint of Edwardian side-whisker, and that solid portliness that comes from a lifetime of good lunches, probably followed by port. Only the well-off become portly; the poor just get fat, usually on junk food, but portliness implies high-priced high living (and port). Crusty also has the resulting cerise complexion, set off by his white hair and currently deepened to a sort of beetroot-bronze by the Caribbean sun.

  As soon as we’d ordered I began to explain about Roo. I hadn’t been sure what to say about the Kyle affair, but I had to give him her reasons for dumping Behind the News and, anyway, Crusty is awfully chivalrous, despite decades in television.

  ‘She wasted years on that show because of Kyle,’ I said. ‘She effectively put her career on hold to work with him, and now he’s married this slapper out of the blue and she’s left high and dry. He should be the one to quit, but of course she did, because she’s so honourable.’

  Honourable is a good word to use with Crusty. It presses all the ex-army buttons.

  ‘Poor child,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember meeting her at your mother’s place . . . ten, twelve years ago? Quiet little thing, rather pretty. Nice manners.’

  ‘That’s her.’ Well, she does have nice manners, except for the lapse with the cut crystal, which I totally approved. I don’t like cut crystal either.

  ‘Trouble is, it’ll be a tough job, dealing with . . . well, a lot of difficult people.’ Surely he didn’t mean me? ‘People who won’t necessarily get along. A nice girl like her, she mightn’t have the thick skin, the requisite resilience . . .’

  ‘Roo does tough,’ I insisted. ‘She’s worked on location in war zones, with guerrillas shooting at her.’ More or less. ‘And she’s naturally diplomatic. She’ll be really good with Hot God.’

  ‘Jennie spoke highly of her,’ the Major conceded. ‘She said your Roo’s one of a kind.’

  ‘She is,’ I averred, dropping my voice to do sincerity. I mean, I was sincere, but on television you learn it isn’t enough to feel emotion – you have to sound as if you feel it. And I am a proper actress. I do all the emotions. What was it Dorothy Parker said? The whole gamut from A to B.

  ‘Better see her,’ said Crusty.

  We were home and dry. I knew he’d love Roo.

  Chapter 2:

  The Road to Dunblair

  Ruth

  How do you tell your best friend you don’t want to work with her?

  When we were kids, and Delphinium decided she was going to be a star, I was variously cast as her agent, her assistant, her social secretary – sidekick, confidante, whatever. I was thrilled to be included in her life on a long-term basis, but deep down I knew I had to go my own way. How far her career choices influenced mine I don’t know. Delphi wanted fame and fortune at any price and television was the obvious route; I didn’t have her hunger for stardom, but there’s no doubt her ambition, and her belief that every goal was attainable, had its effect on me. When at sixteen I told my father I was going to work in the news media, he was nervous, considering it beyond my range, but to Delphi and her family any endeavour was possible. She and Pan took my future success for granted, and even Jennifer Dacres was carelessly supportive, saying whatever was necessary to allay my father’s fears. My dreams of supreme producerdom had shrunk over the years as such dreams do, but they had never included a switch from covering the big issues to the world of TV gardening – and I had never, ever contemplated producing Delphi. I love her, but she’s a spoiled egotist who sees life from a single viewpoint and thinks that giving an inch means losing a mile. I knew instinctively that she was every producer’s nightmare.

  I couldn’t possibly say so.

  ‘I know nothing about gardening,’ I said, hedging.

  (Sorry about the pun. It was unintentional. Horticultural puns spring up like – well – weeds.)

  ‘You don’t actually have to garden, stupid,’ Delphi said impatiently. ‘Good God, you don’t imagine I do, do you? Only think what it would do to my nails. We have dogsbodies for all that – researchers, runners, that’s what they do. You’re a producer: you just produce. It’ll be the same as Behind the News only you’ll be in charge, nobody will be trying to kill you, and there’ll be no Kyle Muldoon. And instead of a refugee camp in Africa or a brothel in Budapest we’ll be staying in a fabulous castle in Scotland and hanging out with the most famous rock star of all time. What more do you want?’

  I not only hedged, I fenced. I walled. I built small balustrades and ducked behind them.

  ‘It’s just . . . I’ve got the chance of something with News 24. I have a contact there . . .’

  ‘News 24? No one watches that!’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Yes, but you’re not a typical viewer. Typical viewers watch soaps
because their own lives are so boring, and gardening shows because they never garden, and cooking shows because they never cook, and reality TV because it’s completely unreal. Everyone knows that.’ She was, of course, perfectly right. ‘Nobody watches the news. They just have it on.’

  I didn’t argue.

  ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity . . . I’m so grateful . . . but . . .’

  ‘You’re determined to be difficult,’ Delphi concluded. ‘It’s because you don’t want to accept favours, isn’t it? I know you’re always having scruples about things. If someone offered you a diamond necklace worth a hundred thousand pounds you’d probably turn it down because you didn’t approve of conditions in the diamond mines. Look, you can’t afford to have scruples in television. And I’m not doing you a favour: you’ll be doing me one. I’m being totally selfish about this. I’d much rather work with you than anyone else.’

  Oh shit.

  ‘Maybe Major Beard-Trenchard won’t like me,’ I suggested hopefully.

  ‘Of course he will,’ Delphi said.

  Major Beard-Trenchard did like me, alas. I liked him, too. I knew I’d met him years before, but I had only a hazy recollection of a flourishing moustache on a large pink face; memory had exaggerated the moustache, though not much. He was, as Delphi had told me, a Character – there aren’t that many left in television nowadays – one of the old school, probably Eton, though the ex-Etonians I’ve come across from the younger generation are mostly arrogant rich kids adorning assorted merchant banks. Anyway, Crusty Beardstandard – I couldn’t help thinking of him as Pan’s nickname – was courteous rather than merely polite, thoughtful, kindly, faintly avuncular. I don’t know what Delphi had told him, but he evidently considered the job mine already, and his principal concern appeared to be whether I would be happy in it, and if there was anything more he could do to look after me. Senior executives do not normally treat producers as if they are fragile beings in need of TLC, and I would have been darkly suspicious of whatever Delphi might have told him if I hadn’t realised that this would be Crusty’s customary attitude to any female in his employ. However, since his company is pretty successful he must expect high standards in return, and instead of saying the job wasn’t really what I wanted I found myself assuring him I could handle it.

  Afterwards, I clung to the hope that News 24 would come up trumps. I hadn’t signed anything yet with Persiflage Productions and there was still time to back down if something else developed, but my back-up funds were limited and I needed work (and pay) as soon as possible. That’s how life goes: you make your grand dramatic gesture, and then you’re stuck with the more mundane consequences, like how to eat and pay the mortgage. Delphi has a grandparental trust fund to take her through a lean period, but my family weren’t trust fund material. Time passed, and I waited by the phone in vain, succumbing to idiotic fantasies that my next caller might be Kyle, not News 24, telling me he’d made a mistake, was getting an instant divorce, wanted to be with me again. In the event, I didn’t hear from either of them. The telephone is the ultimate watched pot: it never boils (or rings). Ever. I finally called the BBC myself, to be greeted with ums and ahs and murmurs of cutbacks. No job. I thought about suicide all over again, but it was no good: the prospect of working with my dearest friend might be scary, but it didn’t drive me to wrist-slashing despair. I rang the Major’s PA and braced myself.

  I didn’t even hint to Delphi, of course. Under the rhino hide necessary for media stardom, the effortless arrogance, the self-assurance, the bouncing ball of her optimism, I’ve always sensed hidden insecurity, a deep-seated vein of sensitivity – in short, the usual junk we all carry around. I haven’t ever seen much evidence of it, but I know it’s there. When I confessed to having taken the job she bubbled over with enthusiasm and self-satisfaction, insisting on a champagne lunch because we had so much to celebrate. ‘We’ll put it on expenses,’ she concluded.

  Oh God.

  ‘No we won’t,’ I said. ‘Crusty would fire me before I’ve even started, and he’d be perfectly justified.’

  ‘Darling, I always put things on expenses. So does he. When did you get to be so stuffy?’

  ‘When I accepted the position you pulled strings to get for me,’ I responded unhappily.

  ‘Look, it’s quite all right. Ask Crusty if you don’t believe me, though I must say—’

  ‘No.’ If I didn’t assert my authority now, I never would.

  ‘You told me Kyle used to put everything on expenses.’

  ‘Not when I could stop him.’ As a mere assistant, my powers had been limited, but I was determined to take my new responsibilities seriously.

  Delphi agreed to pay for lunch, pained rather than grudging, an injured innocent labouring under the stigma of unjust accusation. But she’d forgotten about it before the starters arrived.

  ‘We have lots to celebrate,’ she declared. ‘I’ve been wanting to tell you, only you were so miserable about Kyle I didn’t think it was tactful. Alex and I have got a date.’

  ‘What kind of a date? You’ve been dating for years – I mean, you live together. You don’t need a date.’

  ‘A date for the wedding! Honestly, Roo . . .’

  ‘Oh . . . That’s wonderful. That’s absolutely terrific. When?’

  ‘Next summer – when I finish the series. Of course, we’ve been vaguely engaged for ages, but he’s bought me a ring now. I wore it last week and you didn’t even notice.’

  She was right. I’m not awfully observant at the best of times, and times lately hadn’t been the best. I admired the ring, a chartreuse diamond of impressive dimensions in a modern setting. Alex had very good taste.

  ‘He has, hasn’t he?’ Delphi glowed contentedly. Half the clientele of the Ivy could probably see the aura. Of her glow, not the ring. ‘Actually, I chose it, but he agreed with me. I want you to be my maid of honour. I’ll have a couple of sweet little girls – Alex has some nieces who’ll do – but you’re the important one.’

  ‘Do I have to? I look awful in frilly dresses.’

  ‘No frills, I promise. This is me, remember? We’ve always said we’d be maid of honour for each other, ever since we were kids. Roo . . . you are pleased for me, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Her flicker of anxiety, indicative of those hidden sensibilities, touched me with guilt, and I injected real warmth into my voice. She was genuinely happy, and I was being picky and ungenerous.

  ‘You do like him?’

  ‘Very much. He’s adorable.’

  This was true. Alex is adorable – he’s adorable like an Andrex puppy or a small child. You want to cuddle but not shag him. At least, that was my reaction. Evidently Delphi felt differently. And he had always been a near-perfect boyfriend, remembering her birthday (I suspected she took care to remind him) and even mine, squiring her to all the right social occasions, bringing her flowers after any tiff (Delphi and Alex didn’t row, they only tiffed), giving her surprise presents of things she didn’t want, like Perspex jewellery and soft toys. They’d been drifting towards marriage since they met, when Delphi ticked off his various qualities on some private checklist in her head. She’d moved into his mews house within four months, redecorated it in her own image, done her best to charm his parents, his three sisters, and any partners of same. Spoilt, indolent and sweet-natured, Alex seemed only too happy to let her run his life. They had the sort of successful, stress-free relationship that all the rule books advocate. It was just . . .

  It was just that I didn’t think it was love.

  Three-quarters of the way down the Bolly, I said so. In a roundabout way. Vestiges of diplomacy remained to me.

  ‘You do love him, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ Delphi’s eyes widened at the imputation. ‘I wouldn’t dream of marrying without love. Alex is fantastically handsome – he’s charming, he loves me to bits. How could I not love him back?’

  Lorelei Lee, I thought, recalling Monroe in Gentlemen Pref
er Blondes. But Delphi wasn’t a platinum-haired gold-digger who’d hooked a compliant millionaire. Delphi had subtle streaks and deep-seated veins – or something.

  I really shouldn’t have champagne at lunchtime.

  ‘It’s only . . .’ I floundered, ‘you never seem to get upset about him, or worry if he’s late to meet you, or think he fancies other women.’

  ‘Alex only fancies me,’ Delphi sighed blissfully. ‘He’s so good like that.’

  ‘But when we were teenagers, and you were keen on Ben—’

  ‘Ben Garvin,’ she retorted tartly, ‘was a mistake. I learnt from that. That’s your trouble, Roo: you never learn. You keep doing the same old thing over and over again. If you’d only learn from the Kyle business, you could meet Mr Right and get married and live happily ever after, like me. It’s like someone or other said – before you get your prince you have to kiss an awful lot of toads. Ben was one of the toads, Alex is—’

  ‘A frog?’

  ‘Alex is my prince.’ Delphi swept minor niggles aside. ‘You’re still stuck in toad mode. You’ve got to start thinking princes.’

  Maybe she was right. She looked happy – radiantly happy, serenely confident of the future. Who was I to quibble because Alex never made her miserable?

  ‘We’ve got to start planning the wedding,’ she went on. ‘It’s going to be mega. I was thinking a castle, like Madonna and the McCartneys. Maybe Hot God would lend me his? I had considered Brighton Pavilion, because that would be amazing, but apparently anybody can get married there, so obviously it won’t do. Alex wants us to use his father’s place in Wiltshire – it’s huge, about twenty bedrooms and acres of garden – but I told him you can’t get married in your own home, it’s so naff. And then there’s the dress. I want it to be totally over the top, but tasteful. How about Stella – or John Galliano?’