Playing James

by Sarah Mason

  “He can’t be that bad! He looked really concerned about your eye in the diary!”

  “I would hope he did! It was his bloody fault!” I say indignantly, swiftly changing the subject. The conversation is making me feel distinctly uncomfortable. “I sorted everything out with Ben.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Well, I hope he believed me.”

  “I’m sure he did. If you like, I’ll call him and tell him the magazines were mine.”

  “No. Thanks anyway. He might think I’d put you up to it or something. Least said, soonest mended. I’m sure it’ll be fine. Will you take the magazines back with you though and get them out of my flat?”

  Lizzie pulls a face. “Alastair might see them then and think the same as Ben.”

  “Lizzie,” I say with a warning note in my voice. I mean, if she hadn’t brought the bloody things around in the first place then I wouldn’t be in this mess with Ben.

  “OK,” she says sulkily.

  We toddle about Sainsbury’s, popping various bits and pieces into the basket. Lizzie and I are busy contemplating the pros and cons of sugar-free baked beans compared to good old Heinz when a voice from behind us says, “Hello!”

  Lizzie and I look at each other, tins in our hands. It’s Teresa. Oh, un-yippee and un-hooray. My hand involuntarily tightens around my can and Lizzie’s knuckles are looking a shade on the white side themselves. We plaster a smile on our faces and turn round.

  “Hello Teresa. How are you?”

  “Fine. My goodness, fancy seeing you two here. I would have thought you’d be out clubbing or something.” She laughs an innocent-sounding tinkle. Now you may think this is a very innocuous comment, but coming from the lips of Teresa it has a different slant on it. The kind of slant that implies we are two trollops with a drink problem. It’s all I can do not to club her over the head with the can of baked beans.

  “I would imagine you are doing the same thing that we are doing here, Teresa. No prayer meetings to go to?” says Lizzie pointedly.

  “Just come back from one.” She smiles smugly, completely oblivious of the sarcasm.

  “Have you been reading Holly’s diary in the paper?”

  “No, I don’t read the tabloids. Full of smut.” Right, now I’m going to clock her one. “But I do know Fleur. I believe she is the fiancée of the officer you are shadowing, Holly?”

  Will we ever be free of this girl? Ever? Why couldn’t we have met someone nice in the supermarket? The Beverley Sisters perhaps? How on earth does she know Fleur?

  “How do you know Fleur?” I ask in surprise.

  “My prayer group does some Bible work down at the bereavement charity where she works. Such a nice girl. She is so sweet. And kind.” And what are we, the twin sisters of Genghis Khan? “We were just chatting the other day and she mentioned her fiancé was being shadowed by a reporter. And of course I knew that was you, Holly, although I have never read your diary.” I think she has mentioned that before.

  “We would love to stay and talk, Teresa, but we do have to get back,” I snarl. We all smile a little stiffly. Teresa goes to walk away and then hesitates. “I would just like to say, Holly, that your Ben was nice.” There is a peculiar, smug expression on her face. It flashes there for a moment and then it is gone. She adds, “Bye,” and walks off.

  “God!” I fume as we walk toward the car, “what has she got to be so bloody self-righteous about! And don’t you think it was a funny thing to say at the end about Ben?”

  “Oh, don’t let the annoying cow get to you. She’s got it into her head that any ordinary person needs to be rescued from themselves and she’s probably thinking you need to be pitied just because you have a normal, functional relationship.”

  After we have consumed a bottle of wine, half a quiche Lorraine, two French fancies and a sherbet dip each, we seethe and bitch about Teresa to our heart’s content. Then Lizzie takes her leave, pleading an early morning meeting.

  After she has left, I wander around the flat, strangely restless. I pick things up and put them down again. I mindlessly puff the cushions on the sofa. I wipe the work surfaces in the kitchen and then I go through and phone Ben.

  “Hi! It’s me.”

  “Hi!”

  “Just called to see how you are.”

  “I’m fine. Do you want me to come round?”

  “Yes please.”

  Long after Ben has gone to sleep, I lie awake. My head is full of Fleur and James. To distract myself, I turn to thoughts of the burglaries. Who would Mr. Williams have let into his house? If he had seen the person who assaulted him, would he have recognized his attacker?

  sixteen

  This being my first-ever visit to a television studio, I have to admit to feeling just a little apprehensive. I am greeted at the reception desk by an over-bright, shan’t-keep-you-a-minute peroxide blonde. While I sit patiently in the reception area for someone to collect me, I look at the photos all around me of the studio’s stars. Some I recognize, most I do not. This is unsurprising as I am not an avid viewer of local television. I have never been on television before, if you don’t count the time my school class were given a slot on the local news for creating an Easter garden. I was the only child not to have a plant in the garden. We all had to bring one from home and my mother dug up what she thought was a lily-of-the-valley, while waxing lyrical about what a gorgeous flower it was and how beautiful it smelt. Unfortunately, she was actually digging up wild garlic. My plant and I stank the classroom out and we were both banned from the Easter garden. The crew who filmed our two-minute slot thought it would be amusing to bung me in at the end with my wilting garlic plant. Not quite so amusing to an eleven-year-old who cried for a week afterward, and it took almost two terms for me to shake off the nickname “Humming Holly, the greatest-known antidote to vampires.”

  A girl wearing an outfit consisting of black leggings and a bobbly, sloppy jumper, complete with customized Union Jack Dr. Martens, comes out of a door to one side of the reception. Her hair is colored bright orange, her ears are pierced three times each side and her nose is pierced as well.

  “Holly Colshannon?” Her plummy accent is in complete contrast to her appearance; she sounds as though she was taught to speak with several toffees in her mouth. But then this is the BBC. Queen’s English and all that.

  “That’s me!”

  “Follow me.”

  We twist and turn through a maze of corridors. We don’t talk at all as there is only enough room for us to walk behind each other. We finally come to a stop in front of a door and the girl knocks politely and goes in. I follow. The room is small and completely lit by artificial light from overhead strips. There is a large barber’s chair facing a wall of mirrors and the man who is sitting in it leaps to his feet. He has several tissues tucked into his collar, and a woman, who I presume is some sort of makeup artist, appears next to him.

  “Hello!” he exclaims jovially. “Jolly nice to meet you!”

  “Hello! I’m Holly.” He pumps away at my proffered hand as though he’s aiming to produce something from me. Maybe he’s expecting water to start gushing from my mouth.

  “Super to meet you, Holly! Simply super! I’m Giles, Southwest Tonight’s host. How are you today?”

  “Er, fine, thank you. How are you?” I ask politely.

  “Very well, very well. I suppose it’s been a big week for you!”

  “Er, yes. It’s all happened so quickly, quite a surprise really!”

  “Oh no! Surely not? You must have been preparing for this for a long time.”

  “Well, no, not really. I was covering pet funerals before this.”

  “Not your own?”

  “Er, no. Other people’s.”

  “Tragic, tragic.” He observes a couple of seconds’ silence for the deceased pets while staring solemnly at his shoes. I stare at them too. He looks back up, respects paid. “So, where are the little critters?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Where are the
y?” He beams at me. I frown.

  “Well, most of them are in Bristol Cemetery. They have a special section there.”

  “No, I mean the live ones. Didn’t you bring them?”

  This man is completely off his rocker.

  The girl with orange hair tugs at Giles’ sweater.

  “This is Holly Colshannon, Giles.” She speaks slowly, as though spelling it out to a five-year-old. I’m hanging on to her every syllable. “She’s from the Bristol Gazette. She’s doing the diary with the police detective.” Giles’ eyes clear and light dawns.

  “Sorry, thought you were the lady with the prize-winning ferrets. She’s on tonight as well.” Orange head, standing just behind his elbow, raises her eyes to the ceiling. I grin.

  “Er, no. No ferrets, prize-winning or otherwise, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, right. Well, I wondered where the black eye had come from. Thought you might have had a run-in with one of the judges or something,” he chuckles. “How’s the newspaper business then?”

  “Er, fine.” I am saved from having to go through this very arduous conversation once more by the makeup lady, who huffily says, “Look, Giles, I’m not going to get time to do your eyes unless we start now.”

  I am whisked away to a sort of waiting room by orange head (whose name turns out to be Rosemary). “I am soooo sorry. He doesn’t normally mix the guests up. Can’t think why he did it this time. You’ll be on in twenty minutes. A sound man will come and rig you up with a microphone.”

  “Do I look like someone who raises ferrets?” I ask jokingly.

  “Well . . .” She leaves me in the waiting room. I stare after her. That’s a bit rich coming from someone with flags on their feet.

  In due course a sound man with the rather appropriate name of Mike (Mike’s-my-name-and-miking’s-my-game) turns up. It seems he has one intention and one intention only and that is to get as familiar with my body as is feasibly possible within the space of two minutes. He keeps up a steady patter throughout. “All right love? Just going to slip this down there . . . Oops! No need to look like that love, you’re in expert hands here . . . Had Su Pollard in last week. Now there’s a one. She says, ‘Mike, go one inch further and you’ll know me better than my gynecologist!’” He roars with laughter at this. “There you are, love. Any slippage, just shout.”

  Rosemary comes into the room clasping a clipboard to her chest. She walks over to me. “Ready?”

  “I think so.” I get up and follow her out of the room.

  “Rosemary? Can you tell me what sort of questions Giles is going to ask?”

  “Oh, nothing to worry about. He’s just going to ask you some general things. Remember to talk to him, not the camera.”

  She puts her finger to her lips to indicate we are about to enter a live studio and sweeps me inside. Before I know it, I’m stepping over cables on my way to a squashy sofa where Giles is sitting in state and talking to the camera. I’m forcibly taken by the arm and plonked next to him. Butterflies start up in my stomach. I listen to his patter.

  “As I am sure most of you have been ‘reading all about it’, our next guest needs no introduction to the residents of Bristol. She is Holly Colshannon and she works for the Bristol Gazette, where she has been writing a day-by-day account of her adventures with the Bristol Constabulary and one officer in particular, Detective Sergeant Jack Swithen.”

  He turns to me. “So, Holly, tell us about life on the force.” And we are off, and fairly speedily too. I don’t know if Giles wants to spend more time on the prize-winning ferrets but we gallop through my “fly on the wall” stuff and fairly canter through the details about The Fox until we come to one of his last questions. I wriggle uncomfortably in my seat. The microphone case that Mike has fixed to the back of my skirt has come a little askew and is busy trying to work its way down the back of my legs. Much like the human version was doing earlier. I reach for a glass of water someone has thoughtfully placed on the table in front of me and try to disguise the fact that I seem to have ants in my pants.

  “Right, Holly,” Giles says, fixing me with what I suppose must be his winning smile, “for those people out there who haven’t had the chance to read your diary, tell us how you got that black eye. Were you pursuing the famous Fox when it happened?”

  I don’t actually manage to answer the question. As I am leaning forward to replace the glass of water on to the table, my hand catches my microphone wire. The half-full glass is jerked forward as my hand comes to a sudden stop due to the restraint. The water is thrown in a perfect parabola and lands neatly in Giles’ lap. Simultaneously, my microphone case, suitably loosened now, flings itself on to the floor like a child having a tantrum and lands with a loud clatter in the pool of water. Giles has leaped up the instant the water has infiltrated his boxers and is standing there staring at me with an open mouth. I stare back at him, frozen with horror to the spot. Then, all of a sudden, the studio seems to come to life. Two people run on to the set, one armed with a tea towel who starts feverishly mopping at Giles’ crotch area and another who tries to pick up my abandoned microphone casing. The fact that it is lying in a pool of water doesn’t seem to disturb him but unfortunately the rules of physics conspire against him. He gets an electric shock, which he receives with a loud “SHIT!” before dropping the mike back into its pool of water. Amid all the chaos, I am gazing intently at Giles. He is the anchorman of the show and I am willing him to lead us out of the wilderness. He seems, however, to be having some problems controlling himself. His mouth is twitching suspiciously and he appears to be in danger of snorting. I daren’t look at him any more but instead I breathe deeply, stare down at the floor and fight for some control. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheeks and try to suppress the wave of giggles that is coming up my throat. Giles doesn’t seem to be faring any better. With a loud snort from him, I can’t control myself any longer and we both collapse. I clutch myself and sink down on the sofa, tears pouring down my face. Slowly the laughter subsides amid furious hand signals from the floor manager behind the camera. I wipe my eyes. “I’m so, so sorry,” I whisper. Giles grins at me with the camaraderie of a shared moment and turns back to the camera.

  “Golly! Well, thank you, Holly, for coming in. Don’t forget to read all about Holly’s adventures in the Bristol Gazette. Our next guest . . .”

  The telephone rings for the third consecutive time just as I am walking away from it. I pause and look down at my feet for a second in the vain hope it might stop ringing. I curse BT forever inventing the Ring Back request and then despondently turn round and drag my weary feet once more into the hall.

  “Hello?”

  “How was it?” It’s my mother.

  “Terrible,” I groan.

  “Why?”

  “You didn’t see it?”

  “I told you, we don’t have it in our area.” A good positive point there, I think, grasping at this last comment. Humiliating oneself on local television isn’t quite as bad as doing it on national television. Fewer viewers.

  “I threw water over the host, electrocuted a technician and then laughed about it. All on live TV.” My rather cavalier attitude to the catastrophic television interview has vanished after a phone call from Joe, who told me just how awful the whole thing had looked and generally gave me a good dressing-down. The only way I could get him off the phone was to promise I would be slitting my wrists as soon as I replaced the receiver, if not before. That was the first phone call.

  “How marvelous, darling!” My mother laughs her tinkling little laugh. I idly wonder where I inherited my great Father Christmas guffaw from. “People will definitely remember you now! Just think, you could be on one of those It’ll Be Alright on the Night deliberate mistake things!”

  “Gosh. Do you really think so?” I say mutinously.

  “Absolutely!” says my mother, not catching the edge to my voice. “I can’t wait to see a copy!”

  “I am personally trying to ensure that every single copy
will be burned on a giant bonfire.”

  “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”

  “No, really. It was.”

  There’s a pause and I can almost hear her scraping around for something good to say. I would normally pitch in and try and help out at this point but (a) I can’t think of anything and (b) I’m interested to see if she can.

  Longer pause. The wheels are frantically turning. There must be something she can think of.

  “At least it was only local television and not national. I mean, no one watches local TV, for goodness sake!”

  I drag my feet back into the kitchen to fix myself another drink. I have run out of tonic and don’t want to trail round to the corner shop to buy some more in case I am pointed to and laughed at by the local children. I am drinking vodka and water. It has a kind of desperate feel to it.

  Grasping my glass close to my heart, I stagger back through to the sitting room and flop onto the sofa. I reach for the remote control and will the cathode rays to brainwash me into oblivion. Avoiding any channels that might invoke disturbing images of Giles and Southwest Tonight, I turn to Channel Four and their Friday night comedy fest.

  My second phone call (the one before my mother) was from Lizzie. Had she called before Joe, I might have been a little more responsive and indeed amused to hear her snorts of jocularity.

  “Oh! Oh! Holly! That was priceless!” Pause as she struggled for control. I shifted uncomfortably. She was finding this a little too funny. “His face when you threw the water over him! Oh! It was a picture!” She was doing a passably good impression of a drain.

  “I didn’t throw it, Lizzie, it was an accident.”

  “And then when the technician swore out loud! It was just hysterical!”

  “Well, I wish Joe thought so,” I said dully.

  Lizzie eventually calmed down and we got around to talking about Alastair. The long and the short of it is, they are at last spending the whole day together tomorrow and she wants me to put parts A and B of OPERATION ALTAR, which is her rather elaborate plan to force Alastair to marry her, into play. I did rather gloomily inquire as to what was wrong with the old-fashioned method of getting pregnant, to which she tartly replied that they would have to be sleeping together now and then for that to happen. In order to get her off the phone so I could return to my depressive state, I agreed.