After the Break

by Penny Smith

  ‘A really nice vase, which I bought in a little shop in Holloway when I was married.’

  ‘Your ex-husband was a shitemeister. He had an affair. The vase reminds you of him. Give it to the Oxfam shop.’

  ‘But it’s pretty’

  ‘Is it chipped?’

  ‘No…not much.’

  ‘When did you last use it?’

  ‘Yes, all right. Not since I left him. But that’s because it’s in the cupboard.’

  ‘Throw it. Next.’

  ‘I can’t bear this. You’re too harsh. You’ll tell me to throw it all away.’

  ‘You’re right. Get rid of it all. You live in a giant manifestation of a waste-disposal pipe. It needs to be recycled. You don’t need it, and there are others who would be very grateful of a small pot into which they could put a nice bunch of dandelions.’

  ‘Dandelions don’t last in a vase.’

  ‘Nettles, then.’

  Dee sank down, sticking her legs out in front of her, leaning against the cupboard door and wriggling her toes to get rid of the cramp that had just come on.

  ‘What exactly is cramp?’ she asked.

  ‘Eh? What’s cramp got to do with it?’

  ‘Got cramp from squatting uncomfortably in front of the cupboards and sorting them out.’

  ‘I don’t know. Ask a doctor. Don’t you know any nice doctors you can ask?’

  ‘Oliver is a bottom doctor.’

  ‘And bottoms never get cramp? No, actually, I suppose they don’t.’

  ‘I was just wondering what the point was in human terms? You know, you get the surge of adrenalin in a tricky situation because the body needs to get ready for fight or flight. And goose-bumps make you warmer because they tighten the pores to stop the cold getting in. Or something like that. But what’s the point of a cramp?’

  ‘To remind you that you’re stopping the blood getting round and you’re in danger of getting gangrene. Talking of which, how is your ankle?’

  ‘Every day in every way, it’s getting better and better. But, oh, so dull. It’s like all these things. Exciting at the beginning. Then progressively more irritating because of the things you can’t do. And itchy. Talking of dandelions, do you know where the word comes from?’

  ‘Isn’t it dents de lion, meaning lion’s teeth, because of the shape of the leaves?’

  ‘Oh, Miss Know It All,’ said Dee, in disgust, ‘I knew I didn’t like you.’

  Katie laughed. ‘You know I can only remember strange facts like that. Nothing useful, like people’s names or dates or who came next in the kings and queens of England. Or who I’ve interviewed in my life. Ask me what I did yesterday, and I can’t remember.’

  ‘What did you do yesterday?’

  ‘Actually, I can remember that. I knocked myself out.’

  ‘Oh, yes. So you did. How is your poor head now?’ ‘I have to have extra time to brush my hair, to get over the bump.’

  ‘Ouch. But no lasting damage?’

  ‘Not perceptible. Yet.’

  ‘Hey, should I wear a dress or trousers on Saturday night?’ asked Dee, brightening.

  ‘What are you doing on Saturday night?’

  ‘No, I asked you the question. What’s the answer?’ ‘Hotpants. What are you doing on Saturday night?’ ‘Going out for dinner with Oliver. He said it was important.’

  ‘Did he indeed? Important, eh? Do you think he’s going to ask you to marry him? Eh?’ shrieked Katie.

  ‘I dunno. Maybe. Do you think he will?’ asked Dee, excitedly.

  ‘Abso-bloody-lutely, to use a tiny tmesis.’

  ‘Tmesis?’

  ‘One word inserted into another. Like fan-bloody-tastic. Another of my essentially useless bits of knowledge. Of no great interest. Unlike your news, which is?’

  ‘So do you really think he is?’

  ‘Abso-bloody-lutely,’ said Katie, dramatically. ‘To use a tiny tmesis. As I said before. What else would Oliver consider “important”?’

  ‘Oh, I hope he does.’

  ‘You’d say yes?’

  ‘Of course I would,’ said Dee, without hesitation.

  ‘Dee Greene. That sounds like you’re going to make the lawn a nasty brown colour. I’m degreening the lawn.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Oh yes it does.’

  ‘It’s not the panto season.’

  ‘Dee Greene. As in where dee golfers play.’

  ‘Can you point me out to dee green?’ giggled Dee, in an Irish accent.

  ‘Anyway, why else would he say it’s important? Unless he’s pregnant. Or leaving you.’

  ‘Don’t be horrible. Leaving me? Of course he isn’t. Oh, God. Maybe he’s shagged someone else and needs to tell me. Oh, no…’ she wailed.

  ‘Don’t be such an idiot. Of course he hasn’t. He’s not the type. You’ve found a good one. And you’re lovely. If messy. Wear that purple dress which shows off your waist.’

  ‘It’s got a rip in the sleeve.’

  ‘Sew it up, then.’

  ‘How about that black dress with the polo neck?’

  ‘You look like Maria von Trapp in it. Wear the purple.’

  ‘Or that short tartan kilt?’

  ‘He will leave you.’

  Dee sighed. ‘All right, I’ll sew up the purple.’ She went to the sofa, moved a pair of knickers and an old milk carton, then sat down.

  ‘But enough of this,’ said Katie, ‘and do keep me informed of Mr Greene’s movements on Saturday. Regarding wedding, that is.’

  There was a pregnant pause.

  ‘By the way, I understand I may not have been getting the best newspaper coverage in the world,’ Katie said.

  Dee might not have known what to wear on an important Saturday night, but she did know that you never tell a friend the unvarnished truth. ‘Er. Yes. Perhaps. They’ve been making something of your flirtation with Paul Martin. Who, I have to say…’

  ‘No, you don’t have to say. No court order has been taken out against you.’

  ‘Who, I have to say, is rather gorgeous.’

  ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’

  ‘And I’m sure it’s just the way they’ve been editing it, but you know how they do those voiceovers and make it sound worse than it is…’

  ‘You’re saying it’s bad,’ said Katie, baldly.

  ‘Well, it’s perhaps not good,’ said Dee.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘And you fall over a lot.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’

  ‘Perhaps through drink.’

  ‘Not true.’

  ‘I know. That’s what I mean. I know it’s not true. I can’t believe Adam doesn’t think it’s not true either,’ she said, suddenly confused over how many negatives there had been in the sentence.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘What did he say when you spoke to him?’

  ‘I haven’t, really. Spoken to him, that is. Briefly, after it happened. And I’ve left a message.’

  ‘And, erm, also,’ said Dee hesitantly, ‘just to warn you…that, er, Keera has been spouting it around that she’s going to be working for Wolf Days Productions.’

  There was silence on the line.

  Katie felt like she’d been thumped in the solar plexus. That would be the outside of enough. To be shafted once by the wicked witch was bad enough. To be shafted twice…‘Doing what?’ she managed to ask.

  ‘I’m sure it’s nothing. You know how she bigs things up. But she’s been saying some fashion series. You do know what she’s like? She was having a meeting this morning, apparently. And doing all that they’re-so-desperate-to-get-me-they’re-throwing-money-at-me rubbish.’

  Katie sniffed. ‘Well, she’s not going to get away with her scheming this time.’

  ‘Good. What are you going to do?’ asked Dee.

  ‘I don’t know. But I’m going to bring out the big guns. Flynn O’Mara. She’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Yes, I can see Flynn O’Mara as a
massive great grenade-launcher,’ Dee said, a smile in her voice. ‘Just to get off pigscarer Keethley for a minute, I love Flynn. Will you introduce her to me?’

  ‘Course I will. Oh, and the other thing. My parents seem to have split up.’

  ‘What? You wait until now to tell me your parents have split up? When? Why? They haven’t really, have they? That’s awful,’ Dee gabbled.

  ‘It didn’t seem right to rain on your parade,’ Katie answered. ‘An awful lot of things appear to have happened. Ben says that Dad was staying with Bob. Which is very odd. But he’s not now. He hasn’t got a mobile. Dad, that is. And obviously I can’t phone Bob. I don’t know what the hell’s happening.’

  ‘Oh poor you,’ said Dee, getting up to rescue a comb she had spotted under the armchair. ‘What does your mum say?’

  ‘She’s being her usual taciturn self. Not saying much. Won’t say why. Says she isn’t worried.’

  ‘What does Ben say?’

  ‘That Dad is old enough and ugly enough to look after himself. Oh, I don’t know. Of course he is. But I want to know he’s all right and not moping. Or whatever dads do.’

  ‘As long as you don’t think he’s a danger to himself or anyone else, you’re just going to have to let them sort it out. Bloody nightmare, though. Awful for you and Ben. But what can you do? Nothing. Parents. Who’d have ’em?’

  Katie laughed. ‘Can’t live with them. Can’t kill them. Right. Anyway, I suppose I’ve got to get on. On a lighter and more inconsequential note, who do you think is going to win this wretched show?’

  ‘Peter Philbin.’

  ‘Same here.’

  ‘Although Paul Martin has got a very attractive smile.’

  ‘Are you after Mr Martin now, you floozy?’

  ‘No, I am not. I have a very nice man already. I’m not like you, trying to gather them like onions on a kebab stick.’ There was a pause.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Katie, tight-lipped. ‘Maybe you could tell Adam that.’

  ‘Oops. You know I didn’t mean it,’ said Dee, feeling guilty.

  ‘The awful thing is, I know that deep down you do,’ said Katie.

  When she had phoned Adam, he had dropped her call. He was feeling uncharacteristically grinchy and didn’t want to say anything that might be used against him in future. He had done too much of that with his previous girlfriend, Naomi, to want to repeat the experience. She never forgot a single slight, and he still had a scar above one eyebrow from a hurled egg-cup. He had been surprised by how much an egg-cup could hurt–then pleasantly so by the rakish scar that had been left behind.

  But did he want to continue with a relationship if the general feeling was that he had been cuckolded? How much did he care what everyone thought, if what they thought was not accurate? He had to wrestle with that before he talked to Katie. He thought about Cécile in Paris. An elegant woman who would never talk about ‘snogging’ and ‘shagging’ but of ‘affairs’ and ‘passion’. Yes, OK, it was the same thing, but it sounded less tawdry. Less childish.

  He sighed. What he needed was a large glass of chilled Sancerre. He left the office and went round the corner to a gloomy bar he sometimes used for evenings when he didn’t want to bump into anyone from the trendy world of television. He spent three hours there, getting unusually maudlin as he drank his way through two bottles of wine and ate a small portion of olives before going home. He stopped at a late-night shop to pick up some milk and an early edition of Friday’s Daily Mail, which had a strap line promising revelations about the stars of Hello Britain!. He flicked to the double-page spread as soon as he got home. And laughed out loud at the photo of Keera halfway through The Brothers Karamazov. You couldn’t help admiring the girl.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Katie Fisher being out of Celebrity X-Treme meant less money for the production company from the voters. Her designated phone number had immediately been frozen after a code red warning was put out to everyone on the programme–and the phone company–that Katie was on her way to hospital and might not be back to continue the show.

  ‘How about we put Katie back in?’ suggested Siobhan, silkily, at the production meeting that night.

  ‘Hmm. Not a bad idea,’ said one of the senior executives, ‘although, of course, we’d have three in the final, which wouldn’t be what we’d planned. Bloody viewer voting. If we didn’t make so much money out of it…Why don’t you ask her if she’d be prepared to go back into the house?’

  Siobhan didn’t care either way, but it always paid to show willing. She drove over to the hotel where those who had been in the contest were now enjoying five-star luxury.

  Katie had finished breakfast and was reading a fax of the Daily Mail article, which Richard had sent to her, starring Mr Rod Fallon as Blofeld. She looked up as Siobhan walked towards her, thinking that she really was a striking woman, with her strawberry hair and slim figure–today in a white shirt with her jeans tucked into high boots.

  ‘Hello, Katie. Just the woman I was looking for. Can you talk?’

  ‘Only if I open my mouth and make noises.’

  Siobhan pretended to smile. It really was sad how Katie thought she was funny ‘We were wondering whether you could be persuaded to go back into the hut for the final?’

  ‘Why?’ asked Katie, enjoying her freedom and the fact that she had managed to escape with an honourable discharge. Then she pretended to brighten. ‘Would I get more money?’

  Venal woman, thought Siobhan. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but you’d obviously get more air time.’

  ‘I think we both know that, the way I’ve been edited, I’ve probably had more than enough,’ said Katie, with a tight little smile.

  ‘Well, the executive producers wanted me to let you know that they would be more than happy for you to go back in for the final.’

  ‘If you could tell the executive producers that I would rather not?’

  ‘Fine. Enjoy your article,’ said Siobhan, having noticed the headline. She hoped that Hello Britain!’s viewing figures were sinking through the floor and that they were being roundly beaten by the BBC. She walked away, pleased with the outcome. It would have been quite nice to see Katie trounced by Paul Martin. But it really didn’t matter.

  It seemed to Rod, as he sat in The Boss’s office at Hello Britain!, that he was having an out-of-body experience. His mind had gone into a constant refrain that filled it with such a buzz there was no room left for anything else. It had been there since that blasted phone call: ‘Who told them? Who told them? Who told them?’ And the trouble was, it was the first question The Boss had asked him.

  ‘Who told them, Rod, do you think?’ He had waited for an answer, but none was forthcoming.

  Rod was thinking that some of the quotes had been so scarily accurate it was as though Sarah Nicholls had been in his sitting room, listening to his conversation. If he didn’t trust his wife so much, he would have accused her of being the mole. He looked up. ‘I have no idea,’ he said miserably. ‘No idea at all. Obviously I’m very sorry for any upset I’ve caused. I’ve already apologized–I don’t know what else I can be expected to do. You know that sometimes we say things in the heat of the moment that are perhaps not, erm, exactly, er, politic. Or correct, even,’ he ended.

  The Boss knew what he was trying to say. However, he did get a degree of pleasure from seeing his presenters squirm. He picked up the newspaper in front of him. ‘So I am not, as it says here…Let me look at this again…“an idiotic numpty” with my head up Keera’s…What is that word? It’s always difficult when there are so many asterisks, don’t you find?’

  ‘No, of course I don’t think that.’

  There was a silence as The Boss stared at him.

  Rod had not taken his agent into the meeting–a decision he was now regretting.

  ‘I do think, Rod, that it might be as well in future if you remember how your mortgage is paid. You’re on a cushy number here. I could sue you, of course, for lowering me in the eyes of right-thinki
ng members of society…’

  Rod examined his shoes. He wriggled his toes. This was excruciating.

  ‘…but I won’t. To parrot our chief press officer, I will not dignify the slur with a response. You can go now.’ And he turned his seat slightly, and picked up the phone.

  Rod stood up, adjusted his trousers, which were sticking to his sweaty legs, and left. Phew, he thought, as he made his way to the reception area, and was brought up short by the view of about twenty photographers outside. He ducked back into the loo and checked his reflection in the mirror. He looked as white as a sheet. He splashed water on his face and gave it a scrub with the roller towel to bring the colour back. He tidied his hair, and left, his face carefully arranged into what he hoped was a bright but contrite expression.

  The Boss called the chief press officer in. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, standing up and going to the window.

  ‘Could go either way. You know how it is. Sometimes we get more viewers when something like this happens. They tune in to see how the, er, miscreant is coping.’

  The Boss could just see the reflected flashlights going off at the exit to the building. He turned and smiled. ‘He really isn’t one of our finest appointees, is he?’ he mused.

  The chief press officer was not that easily drawn. He made a noise that was a cross between a cough and an ‘ahem’.

  ‘Even his insults in the paper were grey and uninventive, didn’t you think?’ continued The Boss.

  No answer came.

  ‘How’s everyone else?’

  ‘Well, as you saw on air this morning, Keera appears to be handling it in her own way.’

  The Boss now laughed out loud. ‘Oh, yes. I think we can safely say she actually enjoyed herself. It’s hardly new, co-presenters slagging each other off behind their backs. Won’t be the first or last time, eh?’

  The chief press officer left to continue fielding calls from other publications.

  Keera, meanwhile, was speaking to her publicist, giving him a complete rundown of her day to make for optimum press coverage. ‘Can you put it out there that I’ve been offered another high-profile job?’ she asked. ‘You don’t have to mention Wolf Days Productions, obviously. Is there anything else I should be doing?’ She suddenly had a blinding flash of inspiration. Why on earth hadn’t she thought of it before? Nick Midhurst. He was perfect. Rich, handsome, and not as much of a player as Matthew Praed. He’d be grateful for the attention. And–this was the genius of it–they would be more famous than Adam Williams, who was hardly maximizing his publicity potential with that overweight old biddy Katie Fisher.