ADAMS, Douglas - Mostly Harmless
Page 2
US/AM breakfast show to have a baby. She had been offered a
mind-bubbling amount of money to have it on the show, but she
had declined, unexpectedly, on grounds of personal privacy and
taste. Teams of NBS lawyers had sieved through her contract to
see if these constituted legitimate grounds, but in the end, reluc-
tantly, they had to let her go. This was, for them, particularly
galling because normally `reluctantly letting someone go' was an
expression that had its boot on quite another foot.
The word was out that maybe, just maybe, a British accent
would fit. The hair, the skin tone and the bridgework would have
to be up to American network standards, but there had been a
lot of British accents up there thanking their mothers for their
Oscars, a lot of British accents singing on Broadway, and some
unusually big audiences tuning in to British accents in wigs on
Masterpiece Theatre. British accents were telling jokes on David
Letterman and Jay Leno. Nobody understood the jokes but they
were really responding to the accents, so maybe it was time, just
maybe. A British accent on US/AM. Well, hell.
That was why Tricia was here. This was why loving New
York was a great career move.
It wasn't, of course, the stated reason. Her TV company
back in the UK would hardly have stumped up the air fare
and hotel bill for her to go job hunting in Manhattan. Since
she was chasing something like ten times her present salary, they
might have felt that she could have forked out her own expenses,
but she'd found a story, found a pretext, kept very quiet about
anything ulterior, and they'd stumped up for the trip. A business
class ticket, of course, but her face was known and she'd smiled
herself an upgrade. The right moves had got her a nice room at
the Brentwood and here she was, wondering what to do next.
The word on the street was one thing, making contact was
another. She had a couple of names, a couple of numbers, but all
it took was being put on indeterminate hold a couple of times and
she was back at square one. She'd put out feelers, left messages,
but so far none had been returned. The actual job she had come
to do she had done in a morning; the imagined job she was after
was only shimmering tantalisingly on an unreachable horizon.
Shit.
She caught a cab from the movie theatre back to the Brent-
wood. The cab couldn't get close to the kerb because a big stretch
limo was hogging all the available space and she had to squeeze
her way past it. She walked out of the fetid, goat-frying air and
into the blessed cool of the lobby. The fine cotton of her blouse
was sticking like grime to her skin. Her hair felt as if she'd bought
it at a fairground on a stick. At the front desk she asked if there
were any messages, grimly expecting none. There was one.
Oh...
Good.
It had worked. She had gone out to the movie specifically
in order to make the phone ring. She couldn't bear sitting in
a hotel room waiting.
She wondered. Should she open the message down here?
Her clothes were itching and she longed to take them all off
and just lie on the bed. She had turned the air conditioning way
down to its bottom temperature setting, way up to its top fan
setting. What she wanted more than anything else in the world
at the moment was goose pimples. Then a hot shower, then a
cool one, then lying on a towel, on the bed again, drying in the
air conditioning. Then reading the message. Maybe more goose
pimples. Maybe all sorts of things.
No. What she wanted more than anything else in the world
was a job in American television at ten times her current salary.
More than anything else in the world. In the world. What she
wanted more than anything else at all was no longer a live issue.
She sat on a chair in the lobby, under a kentia palm, and
opened the little cellophane-windowed envelope.
`Please call,' it said. `Not happy,' and gave a number. The
name was Gail Andrews.
Gail Andrews.
It wasn't a name she was expecting. It caught her unawares.
She recognised it, but couldn't immediately say why. Was she
Andy Martin's secretary? Hilary Bass's assistant? Martin and
Bass were the two major contact calls she had made, or tried
to make, at NBS. And what did `Not happy' mean?
`Not happy?'
She was completely bewildered. Was this Woody Allen trying
to contact her under an assumed name? It was a 212 area code
number. So it was someone in New York. Who was not happy.
Well, that narrowed it down a bit, didn't it?
She went back to the receptionist at the desk.
`I have a problem with this message you just gave me,' she
said. `Someone I don't know has tried to call me and says she's
not happy.'
The receptionist peered at the note with a frown.
`Do you know this person?' he said.
`No,' Tricia said.
`
Hmmm,' said the receptionist. `Sounds like she's not happy
about something.'
`Yes,' said Tricia.
`Looks like there's a name here,' said the receptionist. `Gail
Andrews. Do you know anybody of that name?'
`
`No,' said Tricia.
`Any idea what she's unhappy about?'
`No,' said Tricia.
`Have you called the number? There's a number here.'
`No,' said Tricia, `you only just gave me the note. I'm just
trying to get some more information before I ring back. Perhaps
I could talk to the person who took the call?'
`Hmmm,' said the receptionist, scrutinising the note carefully.
`I don't think we have anybody called Gail Andrews here.'
`No, I realise that,' said Tricia. `I just -'
`I'm Gail Andrews.'
The voice came from behind Tricia. She turned round.
`I'm sorry?'
`I'm Gail Andrews. You interviewed me this morning.'
`Oh. Oh good heavens yes,' said Tricia, slightly flustered.
`I Left the message for you a few hours ago. I hadn't heard
so I came by. I didn't want to miss you.'
`Oh. No. Of course,' said Tricia, trying hard to get up to speed.
`I don't know about this,' said the receptionist, for whom
speed was not an issue. `Would you like me to try this number
for you now?'
`No, that'll be fine, thanks,' said Tricia. `I can handle it now.'
`I can call this room number here for you if that'll help,'
said the receptionist, peering at the note again.
`No, that won't be necessary, thanks,' said Tricia. `That's
my own room number. I'm the one the message was for. I
think we've sorted this out now.'
`You have a nice day now,' said the receptionist.
Tricia didn't particularly want to have a nice day. She was busy.
She also didn't want to talk to Gail Andrews. She had a very
strict cut-off point as far as fraternising with the Christians was
concerned. Her colleagues called her interview subjects Chris-
tians and would often cross themselves when they saw one
if Tricia was smiling warmly and showing her teeth.
She turned and smiled frostily, wondering what to do.
Gail Andrews was a well groomed woman in her mid-forties.
Her clothes fell within the boundaries defined by expensive good
taste, but were definitely huddled up at the floatier end of those
boundaries. She was an astrologer - a famous and, if rumour were
true, influential astrologer, having allegedly influenced a number
of decisions made by the late President Hudson, including every-
thing from which flavour of cream whip to have on which day of
the week, to whether or not to bomb Damascus.
Tricia had savaged her more than somewhat. Not on the
grounds of whether or not the stories about the President were
true, that was old hat now. At the time Ms Andrews had emphati-
cally denied advising President Hudson on anything other than
personal, spiritual or dietary matters, which did not, apparently
include the bombing of Damascus. (`NOTHING PERSONAL,
DAMASCUS!' the tabloids had hooted at the time.)
No, this was a neat topical little angle that Tricia had come
up with about the whole issue of astrology itself. Ms Andrews
had not been entirely ready for it. Tricia, on the other hand,
was not entirely ready for a re-match in the hotel lobby. What
to do?
`I can wait for you in the bar, if you need a few minutes,'
said Gail Andrews. `But I would like to talk to you, and I'm
leaving the city tonight.'
She seemed to be slightly anxious about something rather
than aggrieved or irate.
`OK,' said Tricia. `Give me ten minutes.'
She went up to her room. Apart from anything else, she
had so little faith in the ability of the guy on the message desk
at reception to deal with anything as complicated as a message
that she wanted to be doubly certain that there wasn't a note
under the door. It wouldn't be the first time that messages at
the desk and messages under the door had been completely at
odds with each other.
There wasn't one.
The message light on the phone was flashing though.
She hit the message button and got the hotel operator.
`You have a message from Gary Andress,' said the operator.
`Yes?' said Tricia. An unfamiliar name. `What does it say.'
`Not hippy,' said the operator.
`Not what?' said Tricia.
`
`Hippy. What it says. Guy says he's not a hippy. I guess
he wanted you to know that. You want the number?'
As she started to dictate the number Tricia suddenly realised
that this was just a garbled version of the message she had already
had.
`OK, OK,' she said. `Are there any other messages for me?'
`Room number?'
Tricia couldn't work out why the operator should suddenly
ask for her number this late in the conversation, but gave it
to her anyway.
`Name?'
`McMillan, Tricia McMillan.' Tricia spelt it, patiently.
`Not Mr MacManus?'
`No.'
`No more messages for you.' Click.
Tricia sighed and dialled again. This time she gave her name
and room number all over again, up front. The operator showed
not the slightest glimmer of recognition that they had been speak-
ing less than ten seconds ago.
`I'm going to be in the bar,' Tricia explained. `In the bar.
If a phone call comes through for me, please would you put
it through to me in the bar?'
`Name?'
They went through it all a couple more times till Tricia was
certain that everything that possibly could be clear was as clear
as it possibly could be.
She showered, put on fresh clothes and retouched her makeup
with the speed of a professional, and, looking at her bed with a
sigh, left the room again.
She had half a mind just to sneak off and hide.
No. Not really.
She had a look at herself in the mirror in the elevator lobby
while she was waiting. She looked cool and in charge, and if she
could fool herself she could fool anybody.
She was just going to have to tough it out with Gail Andrews.
OK, she had given her a hard time. Sorry but that's the game
we're all in - that sort of thing. Ms Andrews had agreed to do
the interview because she had a new book out and TV exposure
was free publicity. But there's no such thing as a free launch.
No, she edited that line out again.
What had happened was this:
Last week astronomers had announced that they had at last
discovered a tenth planet, out beyond the orbit of Pluto. They
had been searching for it for years, guided by certain orbital
anomalies in the outer planets, and now they'd found it and they
were all terribly pleased, and everyone was terribly happy for
them and so on. The planet was named Persephone, but rapidly
nicknamed Rupert after some astronomer's parrot - there was
some tediously heart-warming story attached to this - and that
was all very wonderful and lovely.
Tricia had followed the story with, for various reasons, con-
siderable interest.
Then, while she had been casting around for a good excuse to
go to New York at her TV company's expense she had happened
to notice a press release about Gail Andrews, and her new book,
You and Your Planets.
Gail Andrews was not exactly a household name, but the
moment you mentioned President Hudson, cream whips and the
amputation of Damascus (the world had moved on from surgi-
cal strikes. The official term had in fact been `Damascectomy',
meaning the `taking out' of Damascus), everyone remembered
who you meant.
Tricia saw an angle here which she quickly sold to her producer.
Surely the notion that great lumps of rock whirling in space
knew something about your day that you didn't must take a bit
of a knock from the fact that there was suddenly a new lump of
rock out there that nobody had known about before.
That must throw a few calculations out, mustn't it?
What about all those star charts and planetary motions and
so? We all knew (apparently) what happened when Neptune
was in Virgo, and so on, but what about when Rupert was
rising? Wouldn't the whole of astrology have to be rethought?
Wouldn't now perhaps be a good time to own up that it was
all just a load of hogwash and instead take up pig-farming, the
principles of which were founded on some kind of rational basis?
If we'd known about Rupert three years ago, might President
Hudson have been eating the boysenberry flavour on Thursday
rather than Friday? Might Damascus still be standing? That sort
of thing.
Gail Andrews had taken it all reasonably well. She was
just starting to recover from the initial onslaught, when she
made the rather serious mistake of trying to shake Tricia off by
talking smoothly about diurnal arcs, right ascensions and some
of the more abstruse areas of three-dimensional trigonometry.
To her shock she discovered that everything she delivered to
Tricia came right back at her with more spin on it than she could
cope with. Nobody had warned Gail that being a TV bimbo was,
for Tricia, her second stab at a role in life. Behind her Chanel lip
gloss, her coupe sauvage and her crystal blue contact lenses lay a
brain that had acquired for itself, in an earlier, abandoned phase
of her life, a first class degree in mathematics and a doctorate in
astrophysics.
As she was getting into the elevator Tricia, slightly preoccupied,
realised she had left her bag in her room and wondered whether
to duck back out and get it. No. It was probably safer where it
was and there wasn't anything she particularly needed in it. She
let the door close behind her.
Besides, she told herself, taking a deep breath, if life had
taught her anything it was this:
Never go back for your bag.
As the elevator went down she stared up at the ceiling in
a rather intent way. Anyone who didn't know Tricia McMillan
better would have said that that was exactly the way people
sometimes stared upwards when they were trying to hold back
tears. She must have been staring at the tiny security video camera