The picture fades to black as the theme music soars and the credits roll.
Created by
RUSSELL STYLES
Written by
RONA BASUJOE CARVER
TOM DAVISONREECE HART
OTTILIE PERRYJAKE TAYLOR-ROSS
We fall silent in a reverent guard of honour as we watch our names appear and slowly scroll up the screen. That’s the moment all of us dream of when we write drama. Seeing our names in white capitals, gliding over black.
It’s perfect.
I close my eyes and let it hold me.
And then, all hell breaks loose.
Mobiles start vibrating, the office phones ring, texts arrive and notifications chime. Suddenly everyone is looking at screens, answering calls and scrolling social media, laughing and yelling and sharing news.
‘Top UK trending topic on Twitter!’ Fraser says, waving his phone. ‘Hashtag EyeSpy and hashtag WhoIsTheMole are number one and two.’
‘My mum loved it,’ Rona laughs, wiping tears from her eyes. ‘Half the street is packed into her house to watch!’ She shares a photo of at least forty smiling people crammed into a tiny lounge, all giving thumbs-up signs.
‘I’d better get Russell,’ Joe smiles as he leans in to kiss my cheek. ‘Good work, partner.’
‘You too.’
My mobile begins to buzz and I look down to see Dad’s number. Squeezing my way past my celebrating colleagues, I hurry out into the brightly lit reception to take the call.
‘We all saw it!’ Dad yells, sounding as if he may have been watching with a beer or two. ‘Bostin, chick! Absolutely cracking.’
‘Are you at home? Who’s with you?’ I ask, picturing Dad’s living room filled with family and friends.
‘We couldn’t get ’em all in at ours, so we’re down the cricket club in Moseley. Say hi, you lot!’
I’m shocked to hear an enormous cheer erupting down the line.
‘Wave back at them for me,’ I say, blinking away tears.
‘They’m all here, our Otts. The lads from the Sunday League team, me, Jarv and Steve, Sheila, Chris. He has his new girlfriend with him.’
‘Oh…’ That s news to me.
Dad lowers his voice, which, considering his surroundings, might not be the most effective approach. ‘Hates her guts, our Sheila does. But she’ll live. Is your Jock there?’
I smile against the phone. ‘Fraser’s here. So is Joe.’
‘Spoiled for choice then, bab! I’ll let you go, okay, but – er – we’re proud, Otts. So proud. You’re doing what you should be and that’s – well, that’s as it should be.’
I never thought I would receive a phone call like that.
I know my dad’s proud of me and to hear it means the world. But his parting comment – that’s incredible. That tremor in his voice, the small hesitation before he said it, those made it remarkable. I’m doing what I should be. I never thought he’d say that.
‘Here’s the man himself,’ Joe says, guiding a very relieved showrunner into the writers’ room. I follow them in and join the applause. Russell takes centre stage, the ringmaster accepting the plaudits on behalf of his company. Then he reaches under the writers’ table and produces two large bottles of champagne.
‘I wasn’t sure whether we’d need these, but now I think they must be opened.’
Daphne hurries out to find fresh plastic glasses while Fraser wrestles with the corks.
‘Speech!’ Jake yells.
‘Okay, you asked for it. Now I’m presuming episode one was all right, seeing as I was in a very important meeting…’ He grins at the laughter this remark receives. ‘I just wanted to thank all of you for making this happen. When I was putting this team together, I had little support from my esteemed colleagues in the business. To be frank, they thought I was insane. But we’ve more than proved them wrong. You guys did that. We’re not just a pretty bunch of writers – Fraser excepted, that is – we’re a powerhouse of creativity. Eye, Spy is just the beginning. So drink up, party on and then get back to writing tomorrow.’
For the next two hours, we celebrate. It feels like I’ve lived a lifetime in this place when it hasn’t even been a year yet. When the festivities naturally wind down and people start to disperse, Joe helps me tidy party detritus from the room.
‘That was some evening,’ he grins. ‘There will be mammoth hangovers in here tomorrow.’
‘I think one of them might be mine.’
‘Ha, you and me both. Otts, can I ask you something?’
‘Of course. Don’t make the question too hard, though. I’m not sure my brain can take much more today.’
He rests the black refuse sack on the table and sits down beside it. ‘My spec script – I know what I want to write about now.’
‘That’s great. You’d better get a shift on, though. Time’s running out.’
‘It’s okay. Now I have an idea it’s flying.’ I can’t pin down his expression. ‘I wanted to ask, will you read it when it’s done?’
‘I’d love to, but we’re not supposed to share them until after the judging.’
‘Yeah, sure. I meant after.’
‘Of course. How about we swap? On decision day.’
‘Sounds good. It’s a date – but don’t tell Fraser.’
I shake my head. ‘You want to be careful with that kind of humour. You know what happened last time.’ It still feels strange to joke about it. But at least we don’t seem to be joking about that night anymore.
‘You cracking on to my girl, pal?’ Fraser’s arm slides around my shoulder. I’m relieved to see his grin when I look up.
Joe looks relieved, too. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’
‘That’s what I like to hear. So, Miss Ottilie, back to mine or are you chaperoning this Sassenach back?’
Like Dad said, spoiled for choice…
Chapter Fifty-Two
JOE
Overnight viewing figure: 10.4 million. A week later, the consolidated figure for the first episode is nearer 10.6 million. It appears we have a hit on our hands.
Twitter is ablaze with speculation about who the mole in Laura Eye’s organisation is – so far every name mentioned is wrong. Good-natured jokes about the show appear and an Eye, Spy bingo card is produced by some internet wit, the cause of great hilarity in the writers’ room.
‘Laura looks up, Dr Montgomery takes off glasses, Gus hand shot! These are incredible,’ Jake laughs as we gather round his phone. ‘Oh man, some people are using this as a drinking game! That’s dangerous.’
‘There’s the idea for the weekend, then,’ I say, grinning at Otty, who rolls her eyes at me.
On the side of the planning board Reece is keeping track of the current William Hill betting odds for the identity of the mole. Hot favourite is Laura’s boss Charles Wilson at 5-1, followed by Gus at 10-1. It’s crazy to think people we’ve never met are risking actual money on this. I half wondered about having a flutter myself but that’s highly illegal, even if it would be fun to clear up.
We’re four episodes into the six-week run and our weekly viewing parties have now moved to our house. It’s great having everyone round and it’s making us even closer as a team. Very few people get to see their words become drama, and sharing the experience with these writers we’ve worked with for almost a year is something very special.
In the middle of our fun, Daphne hurries in.
‘Nobody show Russell today’s Sentinel, okay?’
Our laughter ebbs. ‘Why not?’ Tom asks.
Daphne blows out her cheeks. ‘Hatchet job.’
The room falls ominously silent. Everyone is on their phones. I watch as, one by one, faces fall. I go to google the article, but I don’t have to search for it – as soon as I type Eye, Spy it’s there. Top result.
‘Ugh, bastard,’ Rona says beside me.
‘Don’t, whatever you do, read the comments,’ Reece says flatly. ‘If Russ sees these he’ll freak.’
It appea
rs tall-poppy syndrome has kicked in and as usual The Sentinel leads the charge. Popularity is a dirty word as far as certain newspaper commentators are concerned – as soon as ordinary, licence-fee paying people are loving a programme, out come the snobbish knives. Because to them, something being popular must automatically mean it’s less worthy. I hate that attitude.
‘Listen to this,’ Otty says, scowling at her phone. ‘“Russell Styles’ latest offering of bland, set-scene montage is indicative of a worrying trend: patronise your viewer, make them come back for more. It’s the fast-food approach to TV: overloading the senses with saccharine storytelling and wholly unnecessary violence, while presenting poorly researched facts as gospel. So the ill-informed man in the street is armed with inaccurate schlock-culture ‘facts’ to spout down the pub…” Oh my life, who wrote this?’
‘Unsuccessful screenwriter,’ Tom suggests, as Rona and Jake agree.
‘Oh, here we go,’ Reece grimaces. “‘Even the writing is cynical. Produced in Styles’ controversial US-modelled writers’ room, it’s writing-by-numbers stuff from a team rumoured to have been selected more for their commissioner tick-box likeability than their writing prowess. A machine, churning out mindlessness for the masses…”’
We stare at him. I know exactly what everyone is thinking.
‘Shit. Russell’s going to lose it.’
‘We just don’t tell him?’ Jake suggests.
Daphne shakes her head. ‘He’ll have seen it. Best we can do is hope viewing figures sustain for the last two eps and the talks with the commissioners progress.’
It’s one article, in one newspaper renowned for click-bait headlines. Compared with the deluge of love and excitement all over social media and viewing figures we could only have dreamed of, it’s a drop in the ocean. But it still stings.
‘He’s coming!’
Phones are stuffed away, laptops hastily rebooted, heads bowed so that when Russell storms into the room, he finds his charges hard at work and absolutely, definitely not reading the article.
He slams the door and chucks a large pile of paper on the table.
‘I’m guessing you’ve seen it,’ he growls. ‘I’ve been going over the scripts we’ve completed for season two and there’s stuff we need to change.’
The entire team deflates.
Russell looks up. ‘For the record, every single one of you is here purely because of your writing ability. No tick-boxes in this room. We have work to do and no time to do it, so I need you on side and I need you firing on all cylinders, okay? We’ll show the bastards.’
It isn’t just small changes. Everything is measured, sharpened, overhauled; hours of hard work cut in a single stroke. We’re battling time and Russell’s increasingly dogged insistence that nothing can be predictable. Twists build on twists, complicated subplots woven into the main thrust of the story. Hidden symbols fans of the show can help push into folklore, red herrings to fox even the most astute viewer. Dead alleys, shock exits, every character weighed and discussed and refined.
Meanwhile Daphne intercepts the daily papers before they reach Russell’s desk, while I accompany him on frequent, frantic laps of the eleventh floor as we discuss plot knots and his latest interactions with commissioners. All of us make a pact to distract Russell every time we see him reach for his phone, tag-teaming the mission constantly to keep him away from the inevitable counter-wave of opinion on social media. I think it’s this game that saves us: watching each other chuck ourselves between our showrunner and his device at every turn is grimly hilarious.
We have to laugh or else we might never stop crying.
I’m exhausted. Doubt is a writer’s biggest nemesis at the best of times, but when every word you write is critiqued it’s hard to keep focus. Otty’s going through it, too.
‘I’m starting to edit what I say when I talk now,’ she says one evening, after a stupidly late finish. ‘I have to think about every word. I doubt everything.’
I know she’s strung out. I bought her surprise dinner on JustEat from her beloved Diamond Balti that arrived at home just after we did, and Otty burst into tears on the doorstep in front of a very startled delivery guy. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone vault the gate at the end of our path before…
It’s 11 p.m. and we’ve allowed ourselves an hour for food, then we’re back to it. Russell isn’t happy with one of the storylines that threads through season two. He wants it changed, but our episode is where it’s introduced, so we have to rearrange the entire thing. We’ve already sketched out four possible replacement strands, the wall above the sofa covered in bright lines of Post-it notes to give us an idea of how the restructured episode could run. It feels like a backward step.
‘None of these work,’ Otty says, hands on hips.
‘The second one might…’
‘I just think it’s too similar to the Gus backstory we did in season one.’
She has a point. Also a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of the series bible, which is a killer skill for this.
I glance at her, my heart swelling with pride. Her brow is furrowed, lips moving gently as she silently reads each note. She is so different from the terrified newbie I met on her first day. She’s earned every bit of success she’s worked for. She’s a better writer than I am, that’s for sure. Instinctive, brave, unwilling to let go of stories she believes in.
I think back to lines of my spec script I scribbled this morning while we were having coffee, Seth speaking the words I found watching Otty.
SETH (v/o)
I watch how she sees her world and it floors me. Evie finds beauty where I see dust. I’ve never met anyone who can do that before. And the thing that steals my breath? That she sees something in me worth watching.
It’s helping, pouring it all into the script. If she reads it, will she realise whose story it is? I still can’t believe I asked her. But I don’t know any other way of finally being honest. I’m not brave enough to say it to her face.
I think I just want her to know. With no expectation that it will lead anywhere. I put her through so much and none of it was deserved. Against the odds, she’s still my friend. I have to repay that faith she has in me.
I just hope it’s enough.
Chapter Fifty-Three
OTTY
I am so tired.
The script edit still isn’t done, although Joe and I have rewritten most of our episode. Every time we take it to Russell, we wait for the inevitable notes, the red lines scrawled through dialogue we’ve debated hours over.
‘No. Not strong enough.’
‘Gus needs bite. Viewers won’t suspect him otherwise.’
‘No, Anya can’t know that at this stage. Write it again, twist it…’
No. Not good enough. Do it again… It plays like a mantra in my mind, so that Russell’s voice has merged into my own internal critic.
‘Hey, it’s nearly two thirty. Go to bed.’
I open my eyes, that I don’t remember closing, and I blink the blur away to see Joe’s big smiley face. ‘Sorry… I didn’t mean to drop off…’
‘You’re knackered. It’s a wonder you’re even functioning.’ Joe eases the laptop from my hands, placing it on the coffee table. He returns to me. ‘Want help standing up?’
I laugh. ‘I’ll be all right. Just give me a minute here.’
‘Okay. But don’t go back to sleep. You pay for a bed, remember?’
‘Do I get a discount if I sleep on the sofa instead?’ I ask. It’s good to smile after hours spent scowling at words that refuse to help you.
‘Er yeah, good luck selling our landlord on that,’ Joe says, flopping down beside me. ‘Eric would sublet your room in seconds.’
We lean our heads back.
‘I am so tired.’
‘Me too,’ Joe says, closing his eyes. ‘I keep walking into rooms and forgetting what I went there for.’
‘These rewrites are endless. I swear if Russell doesn’t like the new workaround in our ep
isode I’m giving up and going back to the bike shop.’
‘I’d work at Waitrose,’ Joe says.
‘Waitrose?’ I laugh and now he’s laughing too.
‘Think about it, right: everyone is lovely in Waitrose. They have nice uniforms and sell lots of nice food. No rewrites, no annoying blank pages. What’s not to love?’
‘Ah, but you don’t care about that,’ I say. ‘I know what the attraction is for you, Joe Carver: it’s the apron, isn’t it?’
Joe snorts. ‘Yeah, that sexy-ass apron…’
‘Shameless!’
‘You wouldn’t say that if I was wearing the apron right now. Think of the tapes…’ He raises a suggestive eyebrow. I’m too tired to work out if I should join in the joke or not. We collapse into giggles.
‘I need to get to bed.’
‘Yeah me, too. Want a hand?’
‘Go on then.’ I stick my arm out.
Joe struggles to his feet, laughing, and yanks me to my feet. I wobble a little and throw my hand out to his shoulder to steady myself. ‘Okay? Steady?’
I nod, my laughter subsiding. ‘This job is crazy. But I’m glad I’m doing it with you.’
‘Me too. We’ll get through this, Otts.’
I hope he’s right.
Fraser is in the strangest mood when I arrive at Ensign the next morning. He can’t keep still, moving from the edge of the writers’ room table to a seat, then getting up to pace the room. His smile is as lovely and warm as ever, but his restlessness is at odds with it. Everyone’s noticed, surreptitious glances following his dance around the space.
When Russell arrives and collects Joe for their daily eleventh-floor stomp, I leave the script I’m leafing through and take the vacant seat next to Fraser.
‘What’s up with you?’
‘What do you mean?’ He tries to feign surprise, but there’s too much life going on in those eyes to convince anyone. ‘By the way, did I tell you you’re gorgeous today?’
He steals a kiss and I let him, glancing back to check if any of our colleagues saw it. But all I see is a room of weary writers, heads uniformly bowed over printed scripts as we double-check the latest round of changes.
Our Story: the new heartwarming and emotional romance fiction book from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Take A Look At Me Now Page 27
