After the Break

by Penny Smith

  She looked up as Nick arrived.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, smiling at her as she folded her newspaper carefully.

  ‘Good morning.’ She returned the smile, standing up gracefully.

  ‘Now, I think I told you,’ said Nick, as they waited to be taken through, ‘that this meeting is to confirm you as the host of this show. Or, at least, I think that’s what it’s about. To be honest, it’s all rather odd. It’s not the usual way we do business. But you know how it is. New commissioners. New series producers. Et cetera. Et cetera. You look great,’ he finished.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, acknowledging that she did. And slightly miffed that he should mention it. She always looked great.

  A girl came to pick them up from Reception, taking them past Security and showing them to an empty meeting room. ‘They’ll be here in a minute,’ she said, and offered them a drink. She came back with a cup of herbal tea for Keera and a black coffee for Nick.

  There was a knock on the door, and two women and a man came in. Keera put her cup down and stood up to shake hands. She frowned slightly at the face of one of the women. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Haven’t we met before?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the executive producer, smiling. ‘The last time I met you, you were on a train, sitting in my seat and refusing to give it up. And then, if I remember rightly, you tried to wipe out some poor woman who was sitting in the next seat. Oh. And you had forgotten your name.’

  The meeting went by in a blur, and Keera was not surprised to find out the next day that she was not to be the presenter of a new series showing behind-the-scenes footage from the world of fashion.

  For Katie, the week went by in a whirl. She bought a new outfit for Saturday night–even though she was only supposed to be going to an old family friend’s to help cook dinner for her parents. She needed new jeans anyway, and the shirt was expensive, but good quality really never went out of fashion, she reasoned.

  She hadn’t trusted herself to talk to Bob. Their discussions had all been on email. She had sent a cheque to cover the cost of the food, and had bought a train ticket for early Saturday morning. Ben would already be with her mother, having travelled up on Friday night after work.

  She had had no further communication with Adam, and was content to leave it at that until she had a clearer view of what was going on in her life. But on the Thursday before the big day, she had a call from a newspaper. She immediately referred it to her agent, and quickly rang him before the journalist could get to him.

  ‘Jim,’ she said, ‘there’s a reporter going to call you about some sort of dodgy phone line or something on Celebrity X-Treme.’

  ‘And good afternoon to you,’ he said.

  She laughed, ‘Sorry I’m rushing around. I don’t know what this is about, but it all sounds weird. Apparently, some computer spod has put some link onto a computer at Wolf Days, which meant that I was illegally–or not illegally but wrongly, maybe–voted for in Celebrity so that I stayed beyond when I should have done…or something like that,’ she ended, having not made the case clear at all.

  ‘Slow down. What?’ he asked, finding somewhere to put his cup of coffee and picking up a pen.

  ‘I know. I just listened to this reporter and phoned you. So I’m not sure I have it correct in my own head. You know the viewers’ voting lines?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  ‘So, apparently, someone put a program onto a computer at Wolf Days that voted for me constantly from the moment the lines were open.’

  ‘As in Adam had a computer man put your number in on a computer to skew the votes?’

  ‘You’d think so. Although out of character. And he didn’t care. Anyway, no. It didn’t sound like that. And, anyway, I’m not sure it’s illegal or anything. But I think the paper’s suggesting that someone on Celebrity X-Treme did it.’

  ‘Why on earth would someone on Celebrity do that? Instant dismissal. What would be the point?’

  ‘I don’t know. I have no idea. I’m just phoning you to tell you what the reporter’s going to say. He asked me for a comment. I don’t want to say anything. In case.’

  ‘I’ll deal with it. I can hear the other phone line going. I’ll speak to you when I know more.’

  But by the time he got off the phone he was really no clearer. What a very odd story. He phoned Katie to say as much, and advised her to ‘scrub up’ in case the newspaper decided to take a photograph of her.

  Meanwhile, Siobhan Stamp had picked up an email on her BlackBerry about voting for Katie Fisher and Paul Martin, and while her heart had thumped uncomfortably as she read it, she believed she had enough safeguards in place.

  Katie was half expecting a phone call from Adam, but when it didn’t arrive, she believed the story had disappeared. Obviously it had not stood up to scrutiny. She was not to know that Adam was in Paris having scratched the itch that was Cécile d’Ombard.

  She packed a small overnight bag and took the train to Yorkshire.

  She was reminded of when she had travelled this route to see Bob–it felt like light years ago–and virtually fallen off the train into his arms. She had then been violently sick into a clump of stinging nettles and given herself a rash on her forehead. Today she confined herself to two cups of tea and a seemingly plastic croissant, which she had bought at a shop on the way to the station. If she closed her eyes to get a fix on what it tasted like…it was…mmm…pork pie. Nice. Not.

  By the time she arrived at the station, she was sparking with excitement and trying to contain it. It was as though there was a champagne bottle in her head waiting to pop. She was single, and so was Bob. The words felt more like: BOB IS SINGLE. I AM SINGLE. Even knowing that she was there to try to bring her parents together was not enough to squash the thoughts to the side of her brain. It was like an entire army of Bobs and Katies were taking up all the space in her cranium, packed in like plums at a jam factory.

  As she went into the car park and Bob flashed his lights, she felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. She saw herself walking towards him–and not doing a particularly good job of it. How come she suddenly had so many legs? Why weren’t they under her control?

  Bob, waiting for her, thought she looked beyond gorgeous. Her hair, newly washed, was blowing softly in the breeze. Her orange shirt brought a splash of colour to the station forecourt. He had a feeling that life was going to be all right. The universe was unfolding as it should.

  ‘Well, good morning, Miss Fisher,’ he said, as she threw her small bag into the back of the Land Rover and jumped into the front seat.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ she corrected him, smiling into the blue eyes.

  ‘Good trip?’

  ‘Very uneventful,’ she said. ‘I read two newspapers and all I can remember is that coffee has more effect on men than women. And that fear is contagious. Research shows, apparently, that we secrete a sweat that has a different smell. It means that…say, the plane is bouncing all over the sky, even people who aren’t scared of flying will start to feel fear. Herd instinct.’

  ‘And the point of that is?’ he asked, pulling out into the road and slipping into second gear.

  ‘Hm. Can’t quite recall. Maybe it’s like being scared of woolly mammoths in the Stone Age.’

  ‘But then we’d have starved,’ he said reasonably.

  ‘There must be some sort of atavistic reason, though,’ she said, thinking.

  ‘Nice.’ He nodded approvingly. Atavistic, eh?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ she laughed, ‘as in what our ancestors did but we don’t do any more. Or is that what it means? I don’t know. I misuse and mispronounce…’

  ‘I would never misunderestimate you, though,’ he said, using a mispronunciation of which he had become inordinately fond.

  ‘Words. Lovely, lovely words. So many words and so little time to use them.’

  ‘I found one the other day that I thought you might like. “Matutinal”.’

  ‘Excellent. Something to do with a
mutinous mat?’

  ‘It means active or wide awake in the morning hours,’ he declared, as he swung the Land Rover down a small leafy road.

  Katie sniffed happily. ‘Fresh air. Can’t get enough of it. It smells of plants and growing and good things. Hey, I saw one in a book written by a man who read the whole of the Oxford English Dictionary. “Finifugal”.’

  ‘That is superb,’ he said, changing gear as they pulled out of a junction. She looked at his forearms. She loved them. Strong. Manly. A sprinkling of golden hairs. The big watch on his wrist.

  ‘What does it mean?’ he added, casting a sidelong glance, aware of her attention.

  ‘Shunning the end of anything,’ she announced, resolutely facing forwards, ‘I suppose like someone who can’t bear to watch the end of a film.’

  ‘Or finish a relationship,’ he said, without thinking. And blushed. What an idiot, he thought.

  She gave a short laugh. ‘I think we’re quite good at that, aren’t we?’

  He took his eyes off the road for a second to glance at her. They exchanged rueful smiles.

  As they arrived at the house, Caligula meandered out to meet them, weaving in and out of their legs, depositing cat hairs–ever hopeful that, with enough of a welcome laid on, he could improve his lunch menu.

  ‘Well, hello, you handsome young thing,’ said Katie, bending down to stroke him firmly down his back.

  ‘Lucky cat,’ said Bob, meaning it.

  Katie looked up, faint colour coming to her cheeks. She felt breathless. It was all going to happen again.

  Which was just what Bob was thinking as he reached out to stroke her mane of hair.

  And without the bags being taken in, without conscious thought, they were together again. Lost in lust. Lost in remembrance of things past. Lost in the passion of the moment.

  In the grand tradition of romance, Bob literally took her in his arms and swiftly strode into the house, heading for the bedroom.

  Later, so closely entwined that it was hard to see where one limb ended and another began, Katie finally spoke. ‘So…’ she said, without quite knowing where she was going with the sentence.

  ‘La…’ he sang, after a moment.

  ‘Ha,’ she declared, ‘or should that be tee?’

  ‘Doh,’ he pronounced in the manner of Homer Simpson.

  ‘Very much so,’ she said, moving her head back slightly so she could look at him.

  He smoothed a strand of hair back from her face. ‘A lot of water under the bridge, eh?’

  ‘Shall we pretend it didn’t happen?’ she asked.

  ‘Not exactly pretend it didn’t happen,’ he said slowly, caressing her arm where it lay on his thigh, ‘but maybe not discuss what’s been happening to us in the interim until we feel a little more secure in this. In us. In whatever this is.’

  She nuzzled her nose in his chest hair. ‘I’ve missed that.’ She sighed.

  ‘And I’ve missed you,’ he said, pushing her away so that he could look at her, an answering smile in her green eyes.

  Katie traced his eyebrows, gazed into his blue, blue eyes. Fell into their depths and fastened her lips on his.

  And, for a while, nothing more was said, as the sun continued its arc through the sky.

  Caligula had quite given up his perambulations on the landing by the time the reunited lovers emerged from the bedroom, having suddenly noticed the time and remembered that there was cooking to be done.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ben had got away from work early the day before and driven up to Yorkshire, taking the pretty route. Even the most clueless of pop psychologists could see that his mother was missing his father, and that, but for a curmudgeonly disinclination to admit she was wrong in any way, she would be back with Jack in a heartbeat. Katie’s plan may just work, he thought, that night, as he and Lynda ate steak and fried potatoes with slightly under-cooked broccoli and boiled carrots, before sitting down in front of the television.

  ‘What a treat,’ he said, slumping on the sofa and flicking through the channels with the remote control, stopping for a few minutes on each station, then rolling backwards and forwards through those he found vaguely interesting.

  Lynda gave him half an hour before bursting out, ‘Could we just watch one programme for longer than five minutes, for God’s sake? Honestly, you’re making me feel seasick.’

  ‘What do you fancy?’ he asked, not taking his eyes from the screen on which Top Gear had appeared. ‘Do you think this show’s on a permanent loop? Whatever night, wherever one or more stations cluster together for warmth, Top Gear is on.’

  ‘I have no idea,’ she said dismissively ‘I only use the first five stations. As you know, it’s your father’s toy.’

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve never checked out the other channels,’ he said. ‘I bet you’re constantly surfing. And probably ending up like the rest of us watching Sexcetera in the absence of anything else.’

  ‘If that’s the late-night dodgy channel, I tend not to linger in case I get charged.’

  He smiled. ‘It’s a programme. And they don’t charge. You can watch it all for free.’

  ‘I used to like that afternoon painting show with Hannah Gordon,’ she said wistfully, ‘and you can’t go wrong with a black-and-white film. How’s Oliver, these days?’ she asked, knowing that Dee was engaged to him. Even though Katie had left Hello Britain!, she still watched it, and was up to date on everything that was going on there.

  ‘Unbearably happy,’ he said, ‘and already talking about stag nights or stag weekends, even though it’s months before they get married.’

  ‘I think she’s lost weight,’ said his mother, getting up to make a camomile tea. ‘Do you want a herbal?’

  ‘No, thanks. According to Oliver, Dee’s down at the gym most mornings after work. He called me an ugly middle-class tosser yesterday after I told him he ought to shape up as well.’

  ‘How very, very hurtful,’ said his mother, smiling. ‘You’re not middle class.’

  ‘Drrrrrr-dum.’ Ben pretended a comedy drum roll.

  ‘So what’s the drill tomorrow night?’ She raised her voice from the kitchen.

  Ben tried to sound nonchalant. ‘I think Bob said any time after seven. I’ll ring him tomorrow and check.’

  ‘And smart?’ she asked, coming back in from putting the kettle on.

  ‘Ballgown,’ he said promptly.

  ‘Gloves?’ she asked.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Should I wear a hat?’

  ‘Naturally’

  ‘Or should I do a Katie and wear a pair of underpants on my head?’

  ‘Only if they match your earrings.’

  ‘You know, between you and me, I rather enjoyed that Celebrity programme.’

  ‘Now there’s an admission, Mum,’ Ben said, surprised. ‘I thought you and Dad had a falling-out about it.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t enjoy Katie making a spectacle of herself. But considering I wouldn’t normally have watched something like that, I actually had a good time. I found myself caring about what happened. I didn’t go so far as to vote for anyone…’

  ‘Not even Katie?’

  ‘As if my vote would’ve made any difference.’ She snorted. ‘And I didn’t feel I could vote for her because I wanted her out of it. Did you vote for her?’

  ‘No. I wanted her out, too.’ He laughed. ‘She got paid the same no matter what.’

  ‘Oh, please stop this aimless trawl,’ she said wearily, and grabbed the remote control out of his hands. She pressed button three and Hugh Grant appeared as the Prime Minister. ‘Not the best film in the world, but amiable enough,’ she pronounced. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, I started to care about who was evicted on Celebrity X-Treme, while secretly hoping every night that it would be Katie.’

  ‘Did you like Tanya?’ he asked, in what he assumed was a casual voice.

  She gave him a funny look. ‘Yes, I did. I was prepared to dislike her because of poor Howard
Elph. But then you heard her story, and suddenly you understood a bit more. Not that I could ever condone that sort of thing.’

  He said no more about it.

  She stood up again as the news came on. ‘I’m off to bed. Do you want anything?’

  ‘Aston Martin. A holiday in the Seychelles. House in the Hamptons. Bigger feet. A canteen of cutlery. Cuddly toy. Usual stuff,’ he said, flicking through the channels again.

  The next morning as Katie was on a train to a rendezvous with destiny, he phoned Bob to check that everything was in order.

  ‘I’ve done an early shop, organized a florist to come and do some flowers–it’s all right, she’s a mate–and I’ve got meat being delivered about now. Everything appears to be on target. A-OK. All systems go. Do you think it’s going to work?’

  Ben lowered his voice in case his mother was loitering. ‘I think if he gave even the smallest sign, she’d welcome him back with open arms,’ he said.

  ‘From my knowledge of your dad–and not presuming anything here–I reckon he feels the same,’ said Bob.

  ‘Well, let’s hope it works because otherwise that wretched sister of mine will be thinking up more twattish schemes to get them back together again.’

  ‘I thought she said that she wouldn’t do that, if this didn’t work.’

  ‘Yeah…right. Now, I’ve told Mum and Dad the same time. Dad can be relied on to turn up on the dot of. I’ll make sure Mum does.’

  At five o’clock Lynda began to get ready for the evening. She was unaccountably excited about it. She had her beloved son with her, and although it was only a small dinner party, she anticipated good-quality conversation. It was always nice to be with those from a different generation. It kept you young. Otherwise you were in danger of sliding into top-trumping each other’s death stories.