After the Break

by Penny Smith

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘And when I say done enough, I mean done enough to get rid of Adam. And to get rid of any chance of doing anything else with the rest of her life apart from appearing on more shows like that.’

  ‘You see? There you go again. Cut her some slack, why don’t you?’

  ‘You must admit she’s coming across as a common little flirt. And although I’m sure she didn’t cheat, it was made clear that they think she did.’

  ‘I’m going to go and scrub out that pan. Can you take Hercules for a walk?’ he asked, as he disappeared into the kitchen. ‘Do something constructive, for a change,’ he muttered, under his breath. He didn’t want to have another argument about Katie–especially since he felt Lynda might have been right this time. Their daughter was coming across as what his mates would have called ‘a fast piece’, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was a pitch-black moonless night when the early-morning workers and presenters made their way into the Hello Britain! building. The weather, as so often seemed to happen, had held itself in abeyance for the hour or so before dawn. Thunderous rain had pounded down all night, making potholes into puddles. But there was a lull now.

  In the makeup room, the conversation would normally have been about the lightning that had disturbed their sleep and the difficulty of the trip into work for those who had driven in from outside central London. But as Vanda flung the makeup bib around Dee, the first thing she demanded was an update on Celebrity X-Treme. I had to go to bed last night at seven. And remind me to tell you about trying to find my car last night after I finished doing the makeup for a photo shoot. But tell me, tell me!’

  ‘Well, it was a fancy-dress downhill-skiing thing. It was hysterical. She slid most of the way on her bottom on one of the warm-up runs. And then Paul Martin suggested she did it deliberately–although why it matters…It was still funny.’

  Heather put her head round the door. ‘Graphics are a nightmare. You may not have them up for your first weather.’

  ‘Hm. Is anyone out on an OB today? We could use a shot from their camera to put on the chroma key so at least there’s something to look at behind me that’s vaguely weather-related.’ The chroma key was the blank canvas behind the weather presenter, used to put up images.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Heather. ‘I’ll have a word.’ She disappeared.

  ‘What happened to her?’ asked Vanda.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The black eyes or whatever. Has she been beaten up?’

  ‘Oh. That. No. She had her eyebags done for a plastic-surgery strand. They’ve dropped it.’

  ‘No!’ said Vanda, scandalized.

  ‘Now, to go back to X-Treme…’ started Dee, and they continued to gossip about it until Keera piped up from another makeup chair.

  ‘When does the first evacuation take place?’

  Dee stifled a laugh. ‘The first eviction is tonight.’

  ‘Who do you think will go?’ asked Vanda.

  ‘Well, Denise Trench is hideous. And Flynn O’Mara’s irritating me, even though I love reading my stars–her voice is very, very annoying. But Dave Bed’s absolutely hateful. I want him and Denise to go first. How about you?’ asked Dee.

  ‘Don’t know. But it would be nice if Crystal Blake won. She seems lovely’

  Dee wasn’t having any of it. ‘I cannot believe you want Crystal to win. You obviously want Katie to win. She’s brilliant. And giving us some great telly.’

  Vanda looked guilty. ‘Of course,’ she stressed, ‘but if she doesn’t, then Crystal.’

  Dee smiled. ‘Well played.’

  ‘Yes. I agree with you,’ Keera said. She gave a tinkly laugh, its first public appearance. ‘It’s a good job Katie’s a cuddly shape, with all that falling over she’s doing.’

  Dee gritted her teeth, deciding not to rise to the bait. ‘Hey, Vanda, what was that story about your car?’

  ‘Oh, yes. So I get back to my car after this photo shoot, so tired I can barely stand, and there’s a traffic warden about to slap a ticket on it. So I rush up and virtually go down on mended knee…’

  ‘Mended knee?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said “mended knee”.’

  ‘You’re lucky I can do joined-up speaking I’m so tired. You know I meant bended knee. As I was saying…I go down on bended knee and plead with her not to give me a ticket, because I thought it was a residents’ parking area, and I say that I have a resident’s permit. And then she says it is a residents’ parking area, and I suddenly realize it’s not my car! And then this man, who’s been watching this stuff going on, says there’s an identical silver Peugeot up the road that’s probably mine. And that’s when I notice we’re standing by a Peugeot. And my car’s a Volkswagen!’

  Dee barked with laughter. ‘Do I need more blusher do you think?’ she asked quizzically, turning her head from side to side as she looked in the mirror.

  ‘I’ll adjust it later. Let me get on with my job, and you do yours,’ said Vanda, tartly.

  ‘Well, you said you were tired. I was just wondering about the blusher, that’s all. Don’t suppose you were watching that programme about HIV and Africa last night, were you?’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I was working all day doing a photo shoot, and then so knackered that–’

  ‘Oh, yes. Well, it must have been on before X-Treme. And there’s this bloke who’s a researcher or something. And he’s talking about the new initiatives and tests and things. And he says that there’s a fifty to sixty per cent less chance of getting HIV as a man if you’re circumcised. And then he says…’ she started giggling ‘…and then he says, that unlike this other thing they’re trying out, circumcision’s a difficult tool to roll out!’ She hooted, as Vanda joined in.

  Keera wondered if she had misheard.

  For a few minutes, the only sound in the makeup room was the television in the corner, blurting out the early-morning news.

  ‘I really hate this bloke reading the news today,’ said Dee. ‘Such a pompous man. It’s as though he thinks we’re all children who don’t understand anything.’ She mimicked his delivery. ‘Do you remember when the QE2 ran aground and they said on the news that it was being tugged off?’

  The two of them were getting slightly hysterical. Early mornings affected people in different ways. Some went quiet. Others went silly.

  ‘I made up a joke yesterday,’ said Vanda. ‘Do you want to hear it?’

  ‘Go on,’ said Dee, using a cotton bud to tidy up some mascara.

  ‘Why didn’t Gandalf go to the Middle Earth meetings any more?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because he’d managed to kick the hobbit.’

  Dee giggled, then looked serious. ‘It needs work, though. I mean, there’s no reason for him to kick a hobbit.’

  ‘It’s Middle Earth.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s not enough. He needs a reason for the kicking. Like why did he stop shaving? Because he’d kicked the hobbit. No. That doesn’t work either.’

  Keera tuned out. This was the sort of conversation she hated. And she wanted to concentrate on thinking about Matthew Praed. For the first time in her life, she feared she had made a mistake. She had slept with him after their dinner date. She had a horrible feeling that she had been used.

  It was no wonder that Dee Krammer was still doing the weather on Hello Britain!, she thought. Too much time spent watching television and not enough time devoted to her career. She closed her eyes as the makeup artist stroked black eyeliner across the lids to emphasize her feline features.

  Dee and Vanda were on the verge of meltdown. ‘And then the beavers say to these hunters, “We no longer want to be known as beavers. We want to be called vagina squirrels.’” Dee was holding the side of the chair as she guffawed.

  ‘Stop it,’ said Vanda. ‘Oh, look what you’ve done to your makeup.’

  Dee’s eyes had puckered up so much she
had two caterpillars of mascara underneath. ‘Oops.’ The two women quietened as Vanda tidied up.

  ‘I’m going to have to be careful today. I’m on the edge,’ said Dee, as she finally stood up and went to the wardrobe department to collect her clothes.

  At five minutes to on air, she went past the makeup room again and poked her head round the door. ‘And I’ve just remembered another thing,’ she said, tittering. ‘Were you working that day we had a winner of something, and we had his name as Mike Hunt?’

  Keera was fed up of their nonsense, and escaped to the sound department to put on her microphone before she went through to the studio.

  Rod, wearing a lime green shirt and dark green tie, was bemused. Every minor quip he made when they were off air was greeted with gales of laughter by Dee. ‘What’s she on?’ he asked Keera.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she responded sourly. ‘Probably been at the sherry.’

  That started Dee off again. ‘Stop it,’ she gasped. ‘I’m not safe.’

  In their earpieces, they could hear a row of some sort developing in the gallery, with Richard shouting at the producer of an OB at a shopping centre: ‘Well, go to the nearest place and grab some, then…There must be somewhere with people in it…I don’t know. Use your bloody imagination.’

  The director’s assistant started counting down to the end of the ad break.

  ‘Five…four…three…two…one…on air.’

  ‘Cue grams,’ said the director.

  And the Hello Britain! logo was followed by a two-shot of the presenters. ‘Welcome back,’ said Rod. ‘It’s eight twenty. Glad to have you with us this morning. We’ve got a gospel choir from America coming up.’

  ‘So stick around for that,’ said Keera, ‘but first…’ she did her serious face ‘…we’re talking about the elderly, and how many of them don’t see anyone from one end of the week to another.’ She continued to read, her face not betraying her view that they should all move into homes anyway.

  During the ad break, she stood up and stretched. ‘Can you turn off my mike?’ she asked the sound girl. I need to nip out to the loo.’

  The girl nodded, while seriously considering leaving the sound up. Then she reconsidered. She needed her job and everyone knew how vindictive Hello Britain!’s star presenter could be.

  Richard went through to Rod’s talkback. ‘We’ve had problems with the next item, the shopping centre. Brent can hear us, but we can’t see him on the monitors. They’re working on it. He should be with a whole load of early-morning shoppers. You may have to stretch the link to him.’

  ‘Fine.’ He reached for a newspaper and turned to an item that had caught his eye earlier. If all else failed, he could use that as a filler.

  Keera came back in and sat down. Rod didn’t bother to tell her what had happened, and she was wrongfooted by him suddenly ad-libbing about something she hadn’t seen in the paper. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it as he showed no signs of stopping.

  In her earpiece she heard Richard say, ‘Keera. Throw to Brent at the shopping centre.’

  She waited for Rod to stop and then said: ‘Now we can go over to Brent to see just how many people are taking advantage of the bargains to be had at the moment.’

  Brent was having a miserable time. He and his producer had arrived at the venue to find one homeless man trying to find a warm spot, and a cleaner. Richard had told them to go and grab people from the nearest big building, so they had. The ‘shoppers’ stood around the reporter, silently gazing at the camera, wearing big labels round their necks identifying who they were and where they lived. Brent did his piece and handed back to the studio.

  And immediately, Rod and Keera’s earpieces were filled with a rant from Richard, shouting on the squawk box. ‘For God’s sake! I didn’t mean you to go and get people from the ruddy Shady Pines Home for the Terminally Bewildered. I can’t believe there was nowhere else…Well, you should at least have taken their bloody labels off. If we do another hit, and I mean if, at least put their labels on their backs if they have to have them on.’

  Keera and Rod were still talking to the nation.

  ‘Well, at least they won’t be the sort of elderly people who don’t see anyone from one end of the week to the other. They’ve got each other to talk to,’ said Keera, in a two-shot.

  Rod looked aghast. How on earth was he supposed to respond to that?

  Dee, who was standing at the chroma key waiting to do the weather, found it almost impossible not to giggle. Thank goodness she had five minutes to compose herself, she thought, pretending to fiddle with the plunger she used to change the graphics.

  It turned out to be one of the worst programmes Richard had worked on. The gospel choir from America had turned up expecting to be paid in cash. Apparently it had been agreed with the finance department, but someone somewhere had forgotten to check whether the envelope was there. He’d had to send every member of the production team to the cashpoint to draw out as much money as they could.

  As the closing music played, he leaned back in his chair and gave a sigh of relief, followed by another of resignation, as he went upstairs for a spot of ritual humiliation at the editor’s hands. There were days, he thought, when he wished he’d gone into drainage.

  In Norway it was a tense day. Everyone was keyed up about the eviction. They had no idea how much air time they’d had or who was being painted as what.

  Siobhan had had her way, and they were all to stay inside and play a game of speed Monopoly, with forfeits for those who had the least cash at the end of half an hour.

  Paul Martin wandered over towards Katie. ‘How are the bruises?’

  She laughed ruefully. I look like I’ve been manhandled by an octopus.’

  ‘Interesting. An octopus has three hearts, you know.’

  ‘Does that mean they’re very romantic?’

  ‘And very good at massage. They’re like me, really’

  ‘Impossible to buy jumpers for, though.’

  ‘How kind. When can I expect it?’

  ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to get away from the fire–it’s making me hot.’

  Paul’s eyes followed her as she went into the kitchen. Every day he was becoming happier with the position into which Siobhan had thrust him. To be flirting with the only woman he found attractive while knowing it was helping him to win the show was a very fine place to be.

  In the control room, the quiet logging of the cameras went on. ‘Mark?’

  ‘Siobhan.’

  ‘I’m assuming you’ve done a triple check on the phone lines for tonight’s eviction?’

  ‘The company in charge assures me that everything’s in working order, yes. And we did a run-through in which we put through a specified number of calls and checked that they corresponded. It’s all looking good.’

  ‘Fine. We can’t afford to have any negative stories on that front. Oh, and I phoned that company you suggested, Compot, about the website. Thanks.’

  ‘No worries.’

  She could have hugged herself when she thought of how it was all coming together.

  Katie’s parents, on the other hand, were coming apart. While she was falling down and wondering whether it was possible to be in love with two people (and feel rather tingly about a third), Jack and Lynda were wondering about their own relationship–or, strictly speaking, Jack was.

  While his wife was at a Ladies Who Lunch bookclub meeting, he was at home, making apple and parsnip soup. He liked cooking. He liked gardening. He liked home. His wife, it seemed to him, liked to do anything that didn’t involve him. Although she appeared to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

  He had copied out a quote from a book he was reading, a memoir of a journey on foot from England through Europe just before the Second World War. Some ancient knight had written: ‘Live, don’t know how long. And die, don’t know when. Must go, don’t know where.’ It ended: ‘I am astonished I am so cheerful’ For that, Jack substituted: ‘I am not
even remotely astonished to find that I am not cheerful’

  He had reached a point at which he could no longer pretend to be at the delta of middle age. He was officially in the sea of old people. He felt like a car that needed love and careful handling because the engine was starting to coke up and the points and plugs were furry.

  Having said that, he was feeling surprisingly well, apart from a minor knee twinge. Lynda would have ordered him to the doctor if she’d found out about it. He would go if he thought it was worth it, but their family doctor would no doubt refer him to hospital, with his pursed lips looking like the end of an undercooked sausage roll. And then there would be X-rays, and the verdict: creeping decrepitude. Before he knew it, he’d be on twenty tablets a day and contemplating adult nappies. He peeled another parsnip.

  If the Grim Reaper were to emerge from the fridge right now, he’d be–well, annoyed because he hadn’t finished the soup but also sad. What a lonely little word that was. Sad.

  They’d done a good job with the kids, though. Kind, lovely, intelligent and with a wonderful zest for life. Ben was the best son anyone could ever have had. And Katie, well, occasionally she went mad and drank too much, but everyone had to have a release valve. They could have done without her buggering up their and Ben’s relationship with Bob Hewlett, but they had pulled through that one.

  He smiled as he remembered the enormous trout Bob had caught on their fishing trip, and how they had eaten it simply grilled with lemon. And the leftovers had been great as pâté. Although, in hindsight, perhaps a touch more parsley.

  However, she now seemed to be happily ensconced with Adam Williams. Or was she? He did wish she wasn’t such a flirt. And that she hadn’t done this television programme. He and Lynda were having so many rows about it. But maybe it was all for the best: it had forced him to consider the deeper malaise. He put the pan on the hob and turned up the heat. It was time to take his own advice. He was forever intoning the mantra: ‘Make a decision. Don’t let things slide. Nip it in the bud.’ Like all advice, it was easier to give than to take.

  He had already had a number of conversations with Lynda, and she didn’t take him seriously. She got all stroppy and claimed it was his fault, not hers. What she needed was a taste of life without him. It was a high-risk strategy, but he felt sufficiently confident it would work.