Coming Up Next

by Penny Smith

  She got back to the statement. She needed to cancel those charity things until she could afford them again. And as for the three clubs, she could cancel membership of two without much hardship. One was miles away. The other was full of trendy young people who made her feel old. Only way to appear young and thin, stand next to old fat people. The more she fiddled with the figures, the more she realized she was going to have to do some work. And not just a column in a magazine. That was merely a finger in the dike. She had a nasty mortgage habit. And unless she wanted to end up in a squat, she was going to have to do something fairly swiftly.

  She phoned her agent.

  The production company for the dating game All Mine At Nine hadn’t got back to him. ‘Looks like it might have been offered to someone else, and they’re waiting for a response from them. So shall we remain optimistic on that one? You’ve got the magazine column, and they’ll be happy with the profile you’re getting at the moment. Unless this woman decides to press charges.’

  ‘It’s unlikely they’ll do me, though, isn’t it?’ asked Katie, slightly holding her breath.

  ‘Unlikely. The Crown Prosecution Service would get involved, and they’d have to prove malicious intent if they were going to do you for actual bodily harm. It was an accident. The witnesses would have to say it was deliberate. Fingers crossed it will go away. You’re proving one of my most entertaining clients,’ he said, ‘if to be entertaining is to be constantly in a state of alert waiting for the next instalment.’

  ‘Britain needs more lerts.’

  ‘Sorry. Didn’t get that.’

  ‘State of a lert? Britain needs more lerts?’

  ‘Ah. Right. So, where was I? Yes. Nothing else has come in. Shame you didn’t get that programme Mike’s doing with Saskia Miller.’

  ‘Yes, I know. He told me he pushed as much as he could, but you know how the BBC likes its own home-grown presenters. And actually, with hindsight, perhaps it would have looked a bit odd with two people hosting it who are – or were – better known for breakfast television. Can you try to get me some corporate stuff, though? I’m down to my last bottle of Cristal, and the servants are threatening to leave,’ she said, in a Penelope Keith kind of way.

  ‘You know that even if I did – and don’t assume I’m not hustling on your behalf – the readies wouldn’t come through for months. If you really are strapped, I could lob you a grand or so to tide you over, but I’m afraid there’s nowt much out there at the moment. I’ve suggested you as holiday relief for virtually everyone apart from Postman Pat.’

  ‘You know I could stand in for Pat.’

  ‘You know you couldn’t handle that much mail.’

  ‘You forget,’ she said tartly, ‘to whom you are talking. I can handle vast amounts of male.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  It was time for the annual ‘blue sky thinking’ weekend at the Wolf Days production company. They had been pitching for a number of commissions. Adam Williams and Nick Midhurst, the joint managing directors, were very keen on a new late-night slot, which was available on Channel 4, after its long-running arts show had been forced out by the new bosses at the channel.

  There was also an afternoon series going for UK Living, and a health strand for Channel 5, after the success of a series on horrible diseases. Every year the two men took their gang of workers away for team building – alias a piss-up. Before setting up the production company, they had both worked at the BBC, and hated the lack of fun they’d had during their working week.

  ‘All work and no play makes for a deathbed speech devoid of anything but a list of accomplishments,’ said Adam, in his inaugural speech. ‘Which is why we’ve set up Wolf Days. We want it to be a great place to work, where creativity isn’t stifled by umpteen layers of bureaucracy, where the show isn’t run by accountants, where you put in the hours and work your arses off, only to be told that someone else is going to get the glory – or that it’s being shelved because we’ve had our quota of home-decorating shows. Wolf Days is going to get out there, win the commissions,’ he said, ‘and deliver. On time. On budget. And occasionally on edge. But always with a large dollop of enjoyment.’

  At that point, there were precisely ten people in the company.

  Adam had come up with the idea and Nick had brought the name, after a night out scavenging for girls.

  One of Adam’s exes had described them dismissively as the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of the production world. In her mind, that meant shallow. And although it was intended as a criticism, they took it in extremely good part. She was an art critic Adam had met at a BAFTA party, as beautiful and as cold as an ice sculpture; for a short while, they had called their company Good Will Hunting.

  Their good looks had done them no harm in securing commissions from female bosses at some of the television companies. The company had now swollen to forty, and what had started as a thank-you had turned into a blue sky thinking weekend. A chance to brainstorm away from the office. This year it was in Wales. Adam and Nick had booked a beautiful hotel on the banks of a lake. There was to be canoeing, sailing, cycling and clay-pigeon shooting during the morning, then working all afternoon. In the evening there was to be a slap-up meal with no alcohol (‘Sorry, want you all sharp and looking pretty in the morning,’ said Nick), and an early start on Saturday, followed by more of the same.

  ‘I want at least a hundred suggestions by the time we come back on Sunday night,’ Adam told the staff, as he unveiled the details.

  There was a murmur.

  ‘All right, at least ten good ones, then,’ he amended, smiling.

  There was a sigh from the women. Not because of the revised estimate, but because he was so damned attractive, particularly when he smiled.

  ‘And,’ as Gemma confessed to her fellow production assistant, ‘he has the most gorgeous voice. And bottom. And torso. And crotch.’ She giggled.

  ‘Do you think it’s the way his jeans are cut?’ asked her friend Rose, seriously. ‘Or do you think that, basically, it’s enormous?’

  ‘Hmm,’ mused Gemma. ‘Difficult to say. Sometimes it’s all testicles and no penis, don’t you find?’

  ‘And sometimes it’s like there’s a posing pouch attached to the front of the jeans, and nothing inside,’ insisted Rose. ‘You know how Nick seems to have less. And I can’t believe it’s because he does have less.’

  ‘What do I have less of?’ asked Nick, coming up behind them on his way out of the building for a meeting.

  Rose blushed. ‘Less, er, less, er …’

  ‘Lesser what?’

  ‘Lesser spotted woodpeckers near where you live. You live near Crowborough, don’t you? Do you get woodpeckers?’ she burbled.

  He stopped. ‘Didn’t have you down for a bird-watcher, Rose,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, yes. Only just started, though,’ she explained.

  Gemma smiled broadly behind her friend. ‘Now you’re going to have to start bringing in binoculars and talking twitchers,’ she said, as he left. ‘I thought I was going to die when he came up behind us like that. You don’t think he heard, do you?’

  ‘Doubt it,’ said Rose. ‘But, God, wouldn’t you just die if he kissed you? Talk about twitching.’

  ‘You’re terrible, Muriel,’ said Gemma, in a bad Australian accent.

  ‘But really,’ said Rose. ‘And I wouldn’t mind rummaging around in Adam’s nest, either.’

  There was silence then as they tried to get their desks cleared before the trip that started at the weekend.

  Nick had been on his way to a meeting about the late-night show on Channel 4. He wanted more information on exactly what the commissioning editors were after.

  He felt he could probably write their demands himself – the same words would keep on cropping up – edgy, fun, sexy, appealing to the seventeen-to-twenty-fives – but he wanted to get it from the horse’s mouth in case they were barking up the wrong tree. To mix a metaphor.

  Talking of which, Rose a bird-watcher? He l
aughed. Wondered what they’d really been talking about, then put it out of his mind as he headed into the coffee shop.

  Back at the office, Adam was thumbing idly through the newspapers. He wondered whether it was worth trying to poach the press officer from Hello Britain! There was rarely a day when there wasn’t a story in one paper or another. Now it was about a man he’d vaguely heard of called William Baron. Apparently he’d been knobbing two of the presenters, and been given a lifestyle strand. He’d keep an eye on that one. If he was good, he might be suitable for the UK Living programme.

  He was looking forward to the weekend away. He was tired after a series of shouting matches with his girlfriend, who was angling to move in. He didn’t want her messing up his routine. He liked his towels nicely folded, his fridge nicely organized, his washbasin unsullied by makeup, and his CDs put back in their boxes. She may look like Scarlett Johansson, he thought, but she’s as messy as a Jackson Pollock painting. Had it come to the end of the road? he wondered. Was it the awful but inevitable move-in-or-split-up moment? He’d get a bit of perspective in Wales, where there was erratic phone reception. And where one of the conditions was that mobile phones were switched off during the day.

  By Friday, Katie was worried about her financial situation. Reluctantly, she borrowed five thousand pounds from Jim, and phoned to investigate remortgaging the flat. She really could have done without it, though. The repayments would be higher, and she could see that things might spiral out of control. She had grown up with the idea that you didn’t borrow money. Ever. Even having a mortgage felt like a gross betrayal. Like Eve not only biting the apple but actually snogging the snake in the Garden of Eden.

  She looked through the newspaper. Yet another story about William Baron and his wretched lifestyle strand at Hello Britain! ‘That rat fink,’ she said. She couldn’t believe the man-management skills at Hello Britain! ‘How bloody insensitive to give him a series. Poor Dee. She’s well out of it with that idiot. But, really, they need their heads examined.’ Although she could see that it would be essential viewing – and, shamefacedly, had to acknowledge she would be tuning in to watch it herself. Nothing wrong with being a hypocrite as long as you know you are. For something to do, she wandered over to her dictionary and looked up ‘hypocrite’: ‘A person who pretends to be what he is not.’

  Well, that’s all right then, because she knew she was. So she wasn’t. Which would make her a what? A ‘hypogeal’, she read. ‘Occurring or living below the surface of the ground.’ No, she thought, I’m not one of those. Although I know a number of people who are. Or who should be.

  She flicked on: ‘Catachresis. The incorrect use of words, as in luxuriant for luxurious.’

  Excellent. She was definitely guilty of that. She had once said she was feeling inclement, when she meant tearful. Or did that count? Was it only if they sounded similar? ‘Disinterested’ and ‘uninterested’, for example? She looked up ‘disinterested’: ‘Freedom from bias or involvement.’

  Right. ‘Uninterested’: ‘Indifferent. Unconcerned.’

  Bingo! As she’d thought, one meaning unbiased, the other meaning uninterested.

  She looked at her watch. Ten minutes well wasted.

  She went to the mirror, took out the eyebrow tweezers and got rid of a few stragglers. Then checked on her bikini line. Got rid of a few stragglers. Tweezered out a grey hair. Then tweezered out another from her head. Looked at her watch. It was amazing how little time some things took.

  She phoned Andi at Greybeard TV. ‘Do you want me to come and act in anything?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s come to that, has it?’

  ‘It sort of has,’ explained Katie.

  Andi had been in touch throughout her trials and tribulations, cheering Katie up with one particular text after her night in the cells: ‘You looked ridiculous. Wouldn’t have recognized you but for the knickers.’ Andi promised to keep her ear pinned firmly to the ground. ‘But, you know, these days actors get paid bugger-all unless they’re out of the soaps. So even if you were to do a cameo role – say, falling out of a nightclub with a man who’s not your boyfriend – you’re talking in hundreds, not thousands. Tops. Oh, by the way, did you read today what’s happened to your ex-snog?’

  ‘What – Bob?’

  ‘No. Is he your ex? Thought you were still with him. Please remember to fax me your movements in future so I don’t put my foot in it. I meant the married man, Mr Krishnan O’Flaherty or whatever his name was.’

  ‘I have no idea what’s happened to him and no great interest in it,’ said Katie, irascibly. ‘I’ve got to the stage where I’ve decided I like my men as I like my coffee. Ground up and in the freezer.’ And then she added, ‘And I don’t know whether or not Bob’s an ex. But I have a strong feeling he may be.’

  ‘Well, that’s sad. He sounded lovely,’ said Andi. ‘And to get back to Mr Ravi Murphy. Even though you don’t want to know, I’m going to tell you. His wife has apparently left him and taken their child to live in Zambia. Or Zanzibar. Or Zimbabwe. Somewhere beginning with a Z. It was the final straw, she said. Constant philanderer. So you’ve done them a favour.’

  ‘I fail to see how that’s done them a favour. Child with no dad around. Single mother.’

  ‘Yes, but happier mother. And philandering ex-husband off the scene, so that new and non-philandering man can be introduced to give the daughter a sensible and proper background.’

  ‘God, what a mess,’ said Katie. ‘I’ll never order another Cosmopolitan in my life. Not that I can afford one anyway. Whatever I drink will have no alcohol, no mixer and possibly no ice, no lemon, or glass. Just a straw. Do you want to go out for a drink of water from a tap somewhere tonight?’

  ‘Tempting,’ drawled Andi. ‘However, I do have a couple of toenails to rip out by the roots. And I was thinking of watching a line of paint dry afterwards.’

  Katie laughed.

  She trailed round the flat. She checked the fridge. Two olives, suspiciously shiny. She ate one. It was off. She crunched a vitamin tablet to get rid of the taste.

  Why did she never buy any useful food? It was always designed to be eaten within two days of opening (like anything went back in the fridge) or had to be cooked.

  She squeezed a whitehead in the bathroom mirror, applied nail-varnish remover and a dob of toothpaste. Squeezed an ingrowing hair on her leg. Put nail-varnish remover and toothpaste on it. Accidentally tried to squeeze a mole, which made her feel faint. Put nail-varnish remover on it and a bit of toothpaste. Filed her nails. Looked up another word in the dictionary. There were four entries for ‘bob’, followed by ‘Bob’s your uncle: everything is or will turn out all right’. (Nineteenth century: perhaps from pet form of Robert.)

  Which it won’t.

  She felt an ache somewhere in the region of the heart.

  Perhaps I’m so hungry I have low blood sugar, she thought.

  There’s no way I’d be getting this maudlin if it wasn’t for that.

  She picked up her mobile. Her hand hovered over the keys. She dialled her brother. ‘Ben Fisher. If it’s urgent, call me on …’ He rattled off his bleeper number. ‘Otherwise do the usual stuff after the flatline.’

  ‘Ben. I’ve said sorry about the, erm, Bob thing, but I’m feeling a bit hungry. And I’m trying to conserve my money. And there’s nothing in the cupboard. Can you please bring the poor dog a bone? Or take it out to dinner?’

  She pottered round the flat again and rearranged the towels.

  She was considering descaling the kettle when Jim phoned. ‘I’ve organized meetings with every twenty-four-hour news station, including Al-Jazeera. I’m not necessarily advising it,’ he said, ‘because they’ll be wanting contracts of a sizeable length.’

  ‘I like a sizeable length,’ said Katie, trying her best to be her normal self.

  ‘Oh, behave,’ he said, all Austin Powers. ‘We’re talking two years minimum, locked in. Which would mean you’re off terrestrial for all that time. You wou
ld get big viewership, but mostly in places you haven’t heard of.’

  ‘Try me,’ she said.

  ‘Spain.’

  ‘You’re right. Never heard of it. Is it near New Zealand?’

  ‘Being serious for uno momento,’ he continued, ‘there would definitely be openings, but the money you’d be offered is likely to be pretty bad, particularly if they smell desperation. But it’ll keep the wolf from the door. And you might as well keep your oar in – give you a reason to get dressed in the morning.’

  When Ben eventually called her back, she had dozed off in front of the television and appeared to be watching a programme with half-naked women talking about their breasts. ‘What time is it?’ she asked groggily.

  ‘Late. I’ve been on shift until now. I’m whacked. And I’m still pissed off with you. If you’re hungry tomorrow, though, I’ll cease hostilities long enough to feed you. I’m going to a comedy club with Oliver.’

  ‘Oliver the proctologist?’

  ‘Yes. He’s thinking of supplementing his income by writing and performing on the comedy circuit.’

  ‘But he’s not funny,’ she said, confused.

  ‘Neither are you, but some people think you are. You don’t think he’s funny because he’s clever, and you always reason he’s having a go at you. Look, I’m too knackered to talk. Fancy it or not?’

  The comedy club smelled of mushrooms and feet. The walls were red and damp to the touch. But it was cool after the hot day outside. Ben and Katie had eaten an enormous amount of empanadas, tortillas and guacamole, and were sitting in their seats releasing quiet, garlicky burps when Dee rushed in.

  ‘Phew! Not last, I’m glad to see,’ she panted, taking off her jacket over her handbag and having to put it back on again.

  ‘You are, actually,’ said Katie. ‘Oliver had a late shout. An urgent bottom, as it were. Could it be described as dis-arse-trous?’