THIS TEMPLE OF THE ARTS AND MUSES IS DEDICATED TO ALMIGHTY GOD BY THE FIRST GOVERNORS IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1931, JOHN REITH BEING DIRECTOR-GENERAL. AND THEY PRAY THAT GOOD SEED SOWN MAY BRING FORTH GOOD HARVEST, AND THAT ALL THINGS FOUL OR HOSTILE TO PEACE MAY BE BANISHED THENCE, AND THAT THE PEOPLE INCLINING THEIR EAR TO WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE LOVELY AND HONEST, WHATSOEVER THINGS ARE OF GOOD REPORT, MAY TREAD THE PATH OF VIRTUE AND WISDOM.
She plunged her hand into the pile of spilled pumpkin seeds in her pocket and held one between her thumb and forefinger. We reap what we sow.
Mick had called first thing. The controller wanted to see them both at nine sharp. Until then neither he nor Jessamine were to talk to or email anyone – press, colleagues, friends – about what had happened.
It didn’t bode well.
She reached the front of the crowd, and when the next lift opened, she stuffed herself inside. As she stepped out onto the second floor she was met by Mick and a woman in an ill-fitting suit. ‘Faye Williams,’ said the woman, offering her hand. ‘Union rep.’
In all the drama, she’d never once thought of calling BECTU. Mick had treated her badly at the end of their affair but on this he seemed to have her back. She gave him a grateful smile.
‘How bad?’ asked Jessamine, as they navigated the edge of the open-plan.
‘Best-case scenario?’ said Mick. ‘We get a rap on the knuckles and the Trust and Compliance watch us very carefully for the next few months. Worst case . . .’ He tailed off and looked to Faye.
‘Second-guessing is not useful at this stage,’ said Faye, refusing to meet his eye.
Jessamine felt a new wave of dread. This was all her fault. To have put her own career in jeopardy was one thing, but Mick’s too. The show was already on shaky ground. How could she have been so stupid?
They took a seat outside the controller’s office. Kimmy Sorenson had been appointed to the role of Controller of Radio seven years earlier: in that time she had had to weather a number of storms, many relating to abuse or events that had happened decades before she was in post. Tall, thin and elegantly dressed, it was rumoured that as a teenager she had modelled for Vogue before taking up a place to study philosophy at the Sorbonne.
An assistant appeared and shuffled them inside. Kimmy was sitting at her desk, typing on a laptop. ‘Jessamine, Mick,’ she said. Her words were squished, as if she didn’t have enough space in her mouth to sound them properly. She gave Faye a quick nod and gestured at a man on a sofa in the corner. ‘This is Giles from HR.’ A glass wall stretched the length of the room behind her, through which it was possible to see across the road to the Langham Hotel and its stone ledges and curlicues, iced with snow. She closed the laptop and got to her feet. ‘I’ve now listened to the show in full and I’ve got lots of questions, but first I’d like you two to explain.’
‘As producer, I take full responsibility,’ said Mick.
Before he could go any further Jessamine placed a hand on his arm. ‘It’s okay,’ she said quietly. She turned to Kimmy. ‘It was my fault. I’d had some bad news earlier in the day. I let my emotions get the better of me.’ Jessamine still couldn’t figure out how that sound-engineer kid had got hold of Tasha and Theo’s names before they were released to the press or how he’d known to give them to her. He must have overheard someone talking in News – that was the most likely explanation. ‘I know that doesn’t excuse what happened. What I said. I lost control.’
‘I see.’ Kimmy turned to face the window. ‘The show’s been on for what, ten years?’
‘Eleven,’ said Mick.
‘We’ve been thinking of shaking up the schedule for a while now. We want to pilot some new things, move time-slots around.’ She turned back to them. ‘Rest a few of the more tired brands.’
Jessamine felt Mick tense at this slight on the show he had created.
‘Christmas feels like a natural break. Maybe it would be good if you took a breather. Give us all time to take a step back, re-evaluate.’
‘Just to be clear,’ said Faye, ‘what exactly is happening here?’
Kimmy looked to Giles from HR. Giles sat forward, his red BBC lanyard bright against the check of his shirt. Absenting herself from the next part of the conversation, Kimmy went back to studying the snow on the Langham.
‘We’re suspending Jessamine on full pay until further notice. She needs to issue a formal apology to the caller in question and last night’s show will not be uploaded onto the iPlayer.’
‘What?’ Mick was indignant. ‘Faye, can they do this? Tell me they can’t do this.’
Kimmy strolled round to the opposite side of the desk, stopping once she was standing over them. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you both understand how vulnerable we are right now, how vulnerable we’ve been for some time. We can’t do anything that might poke the tiger in the eye – we can’t be seen to be letting things go.’
‘This is a joke,’ said Mick, standing up. ‘It never ends. We pussy-foot around in the build-up to Charter Renewal. Charter Renewal happens, everyone breathes a big sigh of relief – and now what? We have to keep on creeping about just in case. Look, we all know that Jessie fucked up last night but that doesn’t mean she deserves to be suspended, that you need to cancel the entire bloody show.’
‘To reiterate, we’re not cancelling the show, we’re merely resting it until further notice,’ said Kimmy, her mouth set firm.
‘An investigation will be launched into your conduct,’ said Giles from HR. ‘Until then, Mick will be reassigned and Jessamine should go home.’
They were shown out.
Jessamine found an empty cardboard box and started to clear her desk.
‘About last night,’ said Mick. ‘I know you weren’t happy when I broke things off. Was it – is it – are you . . .’ He faltered, and tried again. ‘I’m worried about you.’
Jessamine placed the padded envelope containing Cassie Scolari’s file on top of her things. ‘The way you treated me, the way you lied was atrocious.’ At this he flinched. ‘But last night, that was my own shit.’
He waited a second, unconvinced. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
He watched her gather her things. When she was ready he grabbed hold of the box. ‘Shall I walk you out?’
‘I’m good, thanks.’ Jessamine was touched by the offer but she felt she might burst into tears the minute she got into the lift and she didn’t want Mick to see.
He looked at the floor.
‘What?’
‘You have to give in your pass. Giles said I have to make sure of it.’
She cringed. Even now, after everything, she’d thought he’d wanted to walk her out because of the feelings he still had, because he wanted to stay by her side as long as possible.
She was such a fool.
‘That’s ridiculous. What do they think I’m going to do? Come back and rob the place?’ She almost launched into a rant, then thought better of it. ‘Fine.’
They were about to leave when the post guy appeared pushing his trolley. He handed Jessamine an A4 envelope that she shoved into the box on top of everything else and they went down in the lift to Reception. At the door she hooked her lanyard over her head and held it out. Mick took it from her, and as he did so, she leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek. So what if she was foolish? This morning with Kimmy he’d defended her as much as he’d been able to and for that she was grateful. She held her mouth there a second too long and as she pulled away her lips brushed his.
As though in a trance, his mouth followed hers, but then he seemed to come to and stood back with a jolt.
‘You know we can’t.’ He seemed surprised at himself, confused by what he’d been about to do.
‘Have a good Christmas,’ said Jessamine.
‘We’ll have you back on the air in no time,’ he said, trying to regain control. ‘You wait and see.’
Jessamine smiled as if she believed him, then pushed her way out through the
doors and into the winter sunshine.
Jitesh
Jitesh took a seat in the waiting area, unwound his scarf and shucked off his coat. He usually arrived late on purpose – avoiding talking about the precise thing you were there to talk about for a whole hour was exhausting – but today, glad to have someone he could ask for advice, he’d got there five minutes early.
At exactly one o’clock the door opened. Jitesh kept his eyes on the floor and only looked up once he was sure the other person had gone.
‘Jitesh.’ Marty said his name like it was both a question and an invitation. Jitesh got to his feet and Marty stepped back to allow him inside.
For the last three months Marty had been Jitesh’s therapist. Sessions with him cost an eye-watering £120 an hour and took place on the third floor of a grand Harley Street mansion. Jitesh’s parents had tried to get him referred through the NHS but the waiting list had been eighteen months. When their GP had delivered the news and offered a prescription for citalopram instead, Jitesh’s father had been outraged. He had dragged his son to his feet, then marched him out of the surgery and into the car. There he’d sat staring straight ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel.
‘We’ll go private,’ he’d said eventually, his hand shaking as he reached for the key in the ignition. ‘Get you seen now, tomorrow. A year and a half’s wait. Don’t they know what you did?’
‘How was your week?’ asked Marty, once Jitesh was settled into his chair.
‘G-g-good and b-b-bad.’
Marty smiled kindly. ‘Which would you like to start with?’
Marty’s therapy room was small and simple. The only furniture was two armchairs facing each other, and a desk under the window. A generic shot of Ayers Rock that looked like it had been bought as part of an Ikea job-lot hung on the wall. Jitesh knew the lack of decor was deliberate. That therapists weren’t supposed to tell or show any part of themselves to their patients. But that was okay. Jitesh didn’t need to see Marty’s paperback collection to know who he was. He’d read his email. From everything he’d seen, Marty was a good man. Recently single after a two-year relationship with a flautist named Theresa, he was pretty broken up about the split and had collected all of Theresa’s old emails into a special folder in his inbox marked T.
‘I-I-I-I met a girl.’
‘Oh?’ Marty failed to hide his surprise. Jitesh rarely volunteered information, especially so early on in a session.
‘She-she has a nose stud. A ruby.’
‘You like her?’
Jitesh remembered standing outside the café with Meera that morning. Seeing her face again, he had felt he was stepping from shadows into warm sunshine. But on hearing that she was on her way to meet Kishor that feeling had been replaced by the cold snip of fear.
Jitesh tried to figure out a way to explain this fear to Marty. He wanted to ask what to do about Meera, about how he might keep her safe – but he couldn’t figure out how to do that without also revealing something he considered strictly off limits.
That night at the party, after walking in on Shanae and Kishor, Jitesh had returned downstairs to the relative quiet of the kitchen. He was embarrassed at what he’d just seen but he was also jealous. He liked Shanae and had hoped to ask her out. He decided to go home and was about to leave when he heard a muffled croak. The frog. It was still in the box on the floor next to the bin.
He lifted the flap and peered inside. The frog’s skin seemed drier than before. Surely it needed water or food of some kind. He went through the cupboards until he found a small pan and filled it with water. He was about to lower it into the box when Kishor appeared.
‘You.’
Jitesh cringed.
‘S-s-sorry.’ He gestured to the ceiling. ‘I was looking for the b-b-bathroom.’
Kishor laughed and waved his hand in the air, as though Jitesh had made a joke that didn’t quite deliver. He began to walk away but then he clocked the pan in Jitesh’s hand. ‘What are you doing?’
‘The f-frog,’ he said, pointing at the box. ‘It’s c-c-cruel.’
Kishor stopped and cocked his head, thinking. He looked from Jitesh to the box, a smirk forming. ‘You’re quite the pervy party pooper, Ganguly, you know that?’ He took the pan from Jitesh and placed it on the hob. ‘You’re going to read science, right? An unc-c-conditional offer,’ he said, mocking Jitesh’s stammer. ‘Unlike me. Four As or I’m toast.’ He went over to the box, removed the frog and placed it in the pan, just as Jitesh had intended. Jitesh felt a surge of relief. The frog was going to be okay. But then Kishor bent down and, after locating the correct dial on the cooker, he turned on the heat.
‘Being such a clever little shit you must know about the boiling frog experiment.’ He didn’t wait for Jitesh to respond. ‘It goes like this. If a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put into tepid water, which is then brought slowly to the boil, it will not perceive the danger and will stay there, until it is eventually cooked to death.’
Marty coughed twice, a prompt. He often did this when Jitesh went quiet for too long.
‘In our last session we talked about October,’ said Marty. ‘Starting university. How are you feeling about that?’
‘F-f-fine.’ He thought of the boxes collecting dust in the corner of his bedroom. Of Kishor, already installed in his college quad. ‘Though I’m no l-longer sure I want to go to C-Cambridge.’
‘You think the pressure might be too much?’
‘I had an offer from UCL. I could go there.’
‘You don’t sound terribly happy about that either.’
He wasn’t. He wanted more than anything to go to Cambridge, to Newton and Hawking, to Jesus College with its lawns and the people playing cricket on summer afternoons.
‘If I went to UCL I could live at home. I wouldn’t have to pay r-r-rent.’ I wouldn’t have to see Kishor, thought Jitesh, have to breathe the same air.
In the pan the frog had sat perfectly still, the underside of its neck inflating and deflating. Jitesh tried to calculate how long it would take for the water to heat up. One minute, two?
‘In actual fact,’ said Kishor, searching the drawer for a pan lid. ‘The experiment is a myth. Studies into the thermal relations of amphibians have found that, once the temperature of the water reaches a certain point, the frog will jump out.’
Bubbles started to form at the bottom of the pan. Jitesh watched, horrified, as Kishor placed the lid on top, sealing the creature inside.
‘So how about we do a little experiment of our own?’ said Kishor. ‘If you can tell me to stop I’ll let the frog go.’ Kishor got out his phone, pointed it at Jitesh and pressed record. ‘Say the word,’ said Kishor. ‘One word, that’s all.’
Jitesh looked from Kishor to the pan, trying to understand what was going on.
Kishor moved his phone between Jitesh and the creature. The glass lid was fast becoming obscured by steam. After a little while he started humming the jingle from Countdown. Soon it was no longer possible to see the frog inside. The water must have been close to scalding.
‘Say it!’ shouted Kishor. ‘Why can’t you just say it?’
Jitesh remembered trying his hardest to form the word in his mouth. He’d taken breath after breath, but no matter how hard he’d concentrated he couldn’t do it, couldn’t get the word out.
The rest of Jitesh’s time with Marty was spent in the usual way, with chat about his supposed perfectionism and the need he felt to excel academically. It was all fiction. Academic achievement had nothing to do with what he’d done. Still, it was plausible and more palatable than the truth, so he let him keep thinking it.
Marty went to see him out but when they reached the door Jitesh hesitated. When it came to knowing what to do about Meera and Kishor, he was no further forward.
Marty looked over Jitesh’s shoulder, to the person in the waiting room.
‘H-h-how do you protect someone that doesn’t know they need p-p-p
rotecting?’
Marty smiled kindly. ‘We’re out of time today.’ He put his hand on Jitesh’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Let’s explore that next week.’
Jitesh nodded and, making sure not to catch the eye of the waiting patient, he wound his scarf tight and headed for the lift.
Jessamine
Jessamine dumped her box on the kitchen table, took a deep breath and tried to ignore the constant buzz of her phone. Sarah was still in bed. In the holidays she liked to sleep in till at least noon. Jessamine was glad. The last thing she needed right now was another set-to.
She went to the fridge and took a bottle of Sancerre from the bottom shelf. The cork came loose with a pop and she poured a slug into a glass. She brought it close to her face, considered it for a moment, then swallowed it in one.
Her phone buzzed again. Word of her suspension had spread quickly, and during the cab ride home, she’d been barraged with messages. At first she’d read the texts and listened to the voicemails. Half were from concerned friends wanting to know if she was okay. The other half were from journalists, on the hunt for a comment. It was clear from the tone of her friends’ messages, bright but sombre, that they weren’t sure whether to offer comfort or outrage at the unfairness. They were also wary. Their messages tap-danced around the elephant in the room: why had she spoken to the caller like that? Was she having a breakdown? Had she lost the plot? Jessamine’s instinct had been to call them back one by one, but then she’d realised the first thing they’d ask was how she was feeling and the truth was that she wasn’t sure.
The Dangerous Kind Page 12