Coming Up Next

by Penny Smith

  ‘Yeah, right,’ said Bob. ‘Two balls in the thicket is enough for anyone. Don’t you agree, Clare?’

  ‘Abso-bloody-lutely.’ She gave a firm nod. ‘Two of your balls in the thicket and, frankly, you’re scuppered.’

  Introductions were made as a mixture of friends from both sides trickled into the bar, some trickling more than others, having rescued their balls from the water feature. Others were steaming gently as the sun had finally appeared.

  By the time they were ready to peel off for an afternoon’s fishing, there was general agreement that at some later stage a rendezvous would be essayed.

  ‘Cracking bird,’ said Harry to Bob, as they were leaving.

  ‘Yes. Very nice. Fun. All of a sudden I’m rather looking forward to this evening.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Harry, sarcastically.

  ‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ said Bob. ‘It’s good to have something decorative to look at as we while away the hours.’

  ‘By the end of this evening, I was rather assuming we’d be seeing nothing but the bottoms of our glasses. But I agree. Always as well to make sure they look good before you get the beer goggles on. Don’t want to wake up with a pig-scarer. Like that one – do you remember, when we were at uni? – when I chewed half my arm off to get away in case I woke her up? I couldn’t believe she hadn’t squashed me flat during the night. Enormous hairy feet and legs like a carthorse’s.’

  ‘Are you sure she was human?’

  ‘Now I come to think about it, perhaps not. And she did wear a cloak. And, oh yes, she slept in a coffin. Are you coming fishing?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘And I bet you want to borrow my nasal tweezers, eh?’

  ‘Of course. Do you want to borrow my big book of knots?’

  ‘Why should I? I know them all. Sophie and I practise every night. The winter evenings fly by. And talk of the devil…’ said Harry, answering his mobile phone. ‘Hi honey. How are you coping without me?’ He listened as Sophie brought him up to date with news. ‘Aaaah…’ he said, nodding at Bob. ‘Is she? … Well, I’ll tell him, but we’re rather tied up this evening so I think it’s unlikely … Yes, I am with him … Speak to you later … Love you. ‘Bye.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Apparently your true love is on the telly at eleven o’clock tonight. There’s just been a promo on, saying she’s a guest on some chat-show. Going to be talking about being dumped by breakfast television, etc., etc. You think she’ll mention you?’

  ‘Pah,’ said Bob. ‘Unlikely.’

  Did he want to watch her? No. No. Thrice no. Unless he happened to be in bed by eleven. Which was always a distinct possibility. Suddenly he felt quite tired. But what was the point? No, he wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

  Adam had had a massive row with Naomi. She was so late getting home that they’d missed the opera. ‘If I’d known you weren’t going to be back in time, I’d have gone on my own and sold the other bloody ticket,’ he said belligerently.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you?’ she’d countered, opening the fridge and taking out a packaged soya-bean salad.

  ‘Because I’d have preferred to go with you. But your phone kept clicking on to voicemail so I kept waiting for you, hoping you were on your way, when instead, you were just pissing about. So we’ve wasted two tickets.’

  ‘We could get there for the second half.’

  ‘Second half? It’s not like a bloody football match. And anyway,’ he said, looking at the clock, ‘we’ve probably missed that too. And you now appear to be having dinner. You’ve succeeded in completely ruining my evening. Thank you. Thank you very much.’

  ‘It’s not as though you can’t afford an occasional opera ticket,’ she responded, chewing frantically at a small piece of rocket.

  ‘Actually, it’s not about the money, as you well know. It’s about your – your – your chaos. Your cavalier attitude towards time-keeping. Towards things. Towards me, now I come to think of it.’

  He walked through to the sitting room, sat down on the sofa, then stood up again. He looked through to the kitchen. She was stunning. She was wearing the smallest dress he had seen outside Baby Gap. But … but … ‘This isn’t going to work,’ he said brutally.

  She inhaled a snow pea. ‘What?’

  ‘Us. I’m sorry, Naomi. It isn’t.’

  The ensuing row had gone on for hours. They had both been in tears. They had then had the best sex. And resumed the row after she had wiped her damp mascara on the white duvet. ‘Not even the corner of the duvet,’ he had shouted, after she demanded he stop tutting.

  Eventually she had stuffed a random selection of clothes into a holdall and slammed out of the house ‘to sleep on the street’.

  Adam went back to the bed. Almost ripped off the dirty duvet cover. Threw the sheets and towels into the washing-machine. Opened a bottle of wine and tossed back half of the contents before recalling that he hated Fleurie and opening a bottle of Barolo. He finished that, then the Fleurie, and sat slumped in front of the television, unable to decide whether he would be happier if it was definitely over or happier if it wasn’t.

  On the plus side, no more mess.

  On the minus, no more Naomi.

  No more mess. Sounded like the name of a kitchen roll. ‘Buy Nomoremess – does what it says on the packet.’

  He flicked through the channels. Was Scrubs on every single night? He stopped to watch Katie Fisher talking about Hello Britain! She was looking fit. Shiny auburn hair. Shiny green eyes. He turned off the lamp. That was better. He looked closer. Weird. There was a gap in the lashes of her right eye. He really should have bought a smaller screen: it was kind of offputting having a person’s head twice as big as your own. Like how he imagined lab rats felt when the scientists were observing them. Only without the experiments.

  Katie was animatedly telling a story, trying to make sure they got their money’s worth. She was a last-minute booking because a tennis player had tested positive for cocaine and pulled out at the eleventh hour. ‘. I was always a bit late on to the set,’ she was saying, ‘but on this particular occasion I tripped over a cable, lost my shoe, twisted my ankle, then tried to hobble forward as the titles were going on. And Mike was co-hosting from Washington. So the camera cut up, and there was the sofa. No presenters. I looked like a right idiot, shuffling on, wincing. But that was – is – the lovely thing about Hello Britain! Not that it’s encouraged per se, but that it’s accepted it’s very early in the morning and things happen, which are funny.’

  Adam was finding her mouth rather fascinating.

  Then a rather large celebrity came in to talk about his new travel show on BBC2. He told of how he had been sunbathing naked on his balcony in Spain before the first day’s filming. Unfortunately he had locked himself out, and had had to take refuge under his sun-lounger. He had been there for five hours until the crew had returned. Various bits of him had burned to a crisp.

  Adam went to open a bottle of Chablis and a bag of roasted onion and Cheddar crisps. He lay on the sofa, and some time between a programme about transvestites in Brazil, and a foreign film featuring much running about by a woman with plaits, he dropped off.

  A few hours later, with a crick in his neck, he stretched, went back to the now beautifully clean bed and slipped between immaculate sheets where he had a dream about being a secret agent with a deadly thumb.

  In a pub in a small town in Kerry, the stag-nighters and the former stag-nighters were starting on the shorts. The rounds were getting bigger. The bills were getting larger. The singing was unpleasant.

  Bob the Builder had never been ruder, and if he had really had all the attributes assigned him, he would have been working in a strip joint in the gay section of Soho.

  Clare McMurray had excelled herself with the harmonizing, and was snuggling up to Bob. Not that he was complaining. She stretched up to his ear, warm breath making his neck tingle, and asked why he wasn’t married.

  ‘Divorced.’


  ‘And nobody since?’

  ‘What do you take me for? But not married again. No.’

  ‘Will you marry again?’

  ‘Not if I can help it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Scroungers.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘All they do is eat, poo and demand new clothes, until they’re eighteen when they demand a car and a house.’

  ‘You’re just being provocative,’ she said.

  ‘A long word for this time of night and after so many drinks. Are you sure you’re not pouring yours on to the carpet?’

  She looked at it. ‘You’re right. I don’t think you’d notice if I had been.’

  ‘Anyway, as for being provocative, you must confess I do have a point. When they’re little, they run around carrying their excrement with them. They grow up and say they hate you, despite all the effort you’ve put in. Then they have children and demand you look after them, just when you’ve taken down all the gates and finally got your DVD player working again. Dogs, on the other hand …’

  ‘I don’t know,’ whispered Clare, leaving warmth by his earlobes. ‘I hear they’re constantly on the phone booking massages at poodle parlours.’

  Bob smiled and pulled back to look at her.

  Her deep blue eyes smiled at him. He held her closer and moved forwards until his lips were touching hers. She didn’t resist. Then, with a number of interested onlookers, he kissed her. It was a kiss that went on for quite some time.

  And was repeated.

  And repeated.

  Until Clare excused herself to go to the loo.

  She looked drunkenly in the mirror, closing one eye to see better. Whoops, my girl, she thought. She ran her hands through her hair, which had begun to give itself a centre parting, and splashed cold water over her face. Dried it with a hand towel. Washed her hands. Went to the loo. Washed her hands again. Dried them on her trousers. Bent over to wash the splash marks off her shoes. Almost fell over. Stood up. Noticed her hair had gone into a definite centre parting. Put water on it, and rubbed it with a hand towel. Left.

  Bob, who had suffered an intense ragging, was relieved to see her and immediately made room for her to snuggle up to him.

  ‘Mmm. Missed you,’ he said. ‘Why is your hair wet?’

  ‘Needed a refresher.’

  ‘Ah. Failed its A level, did it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, and gave him a searing kiss that resulted in a rush of blood to a part of his anatomy not unadjacent to her thigh. ‘Is that a gun in your pocket … ?’ she asked, as she came up for air.

  ‘Or my inhaler,’ he answered, with a frown.

  That was the last coherent conversation they had, as the early-morning haze rose round the bar. A miasma of Guinness and pheromones. Vodka and body heat. Lust and peanuts.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  On Monday there was perturbation at Wolf Days. They had been given the commission for the late-night chat-show on Channel 4, and everything was ready for the launch in two weeks’ time. Only the presenter had pulled out: he had been told that his three BBC jobs would be in jeopardy if he insisted on doing it.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he had explained to Adam, ‘but if the show isn’t recommissioned after the first series my family will be out on the streets within a month. It’s not as if my agent hadn’t already run this past my bosses, but they’ve suddenly cut up rough about me having every Friday off for eight weeks.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ asked Adam.

  ‘Honestly? No. They’ve made it abundantly clear. And I daren’t risk it. I can’t apologize enough. I was so looking forward to a trip to Dorset every Friday, too. I am so, so sorry.’

  Adam put the phone down. Damn. He’d had a shit weekend and now he was having a shit Monday. ‘Nick,’ he called down the corridor, ‘we have a problem.’ He sat back on his black-leather chair and doodled on his pad.

  This thing was turning into a nightmare. It had seemed like such a good idea, using Nick’s country house as a studio, with a lighting rig in the sitting room, and an OB shed in the garden. But they’d had to slash costs, down to £150,000 per show, and operate with a skeleton crew of twenty. Gemma and Rose had been drafted in to act as greeters/runners/floor managers, and everyone else was doing two jobs. ‘And now we need a host.’

  They sat gazing out of the window as a large black cloud moved centre stage in the sky and hovered like a bad omen.

  ‘By the way, is everything at the house done?’ asked Adam.

  ‘Mmm. Rig’s up. Shed appears to be almost finished. Looking forward to seeing how my accountant gets the mortgage payments through the system.’

  The rain started.

  ‘What a relief. That’s the garden watered for another week,’ said Nick.

  Adam was watching the water trickling down the window. ‘How about Katie Fisher?’ he asked suddenly. ‘She’s available. She’s a good interviewer. I saw her the other night, looking rather attractive for an old bird…’

  ‘And she’ll be grateful,’ finished Nick, ‘and therefore cheap. Bingo. Brilliant idea, my man. We probably need to offer up a few more names, too, just in case.’

  ‘We’ll get Rose to pick some randomly from Spotlight Presenters,’ said Adam, ‘because I think Channel 4 will absolutely go for Katie Fisher. And while we’re talking of Hello Britain! presenters, it was inspired of Gemma to suggest Keera for Dare to Bare. Guaranteed audience ratings … if she can be persuaded to do it!’

  When Jim Break took the phone call on Tuesday, he was thrilled and relieved. He’d get his five grand back – and he was genuinely pleased for Kate. He didn’t think she’d turn down the offer, and he was right.

  Katie was filling in a questionnaire to see whether she was clever enough to join Mensa and eating custard from a tin. When the phone rang she had one eye on an edition of Friends she’d seen before.

  She put down the custard and threw the unfinished questionnaire (she was stuck on question two) on to the floor. ‘I’m now leaping round the sitting room like a capering deer,’ she said, in answer to the question as to whether she was interested. ‘How brilliant. How wonderful. Thank you, Hello Britain!, for sacking me. Thank you, Wolf Days. Thank you, Channel 4. How much are they offering, incidentally? Should I stop capering?’

  ‘It’s not the biggest of offers. I’ll try to get more, but I’ve a feeling they’re not going to budge. They know you haven’t got much else at the moment. And it does start in a fortnight. With your permission, I won’t push too hard. You want the job, your own show, and it’ll probably be lovely going down to Dorset on a Friday morning, or Thursday night. I’d suggest we do a reasonable deal now. And we can always get unreasonable if it goes into a second series.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to whoever suggested me. Do we know how it happened? Do we care how it happened?’

  ‘I think you should stop capering now. It sounds exhausting. You’ll knock something over if you’re not careful. Can you get to a meeting tomorrow, assuming we get the money side sorted?’

  ‘Let me look through my packed programme of events,’ said Katie, consulting an imaginary diary. ‘Oh dear. Tomorrow I’m getting up and staring at the wall all day. What a shame I can’t fit in a meeting.’

  ‘Right. Do you mind if I give them your mobile number and you can deal with it from now on?’

  ‘Yes, yes, oh, yessity, yes, I think you should and, yes, I can.’

  ‘Now don’t go celebrating in the Fisher Fashion, will you?’ he admonished.

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘Which means don’t go getting legless and ending up in a police cell.’

  ‘How unkind. You shag one sheep …’

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t get that one. Is it one of your bad puns?’

  ‘No, it’s the joke about the bloke who’s in the pub looking depressed. Other bloke comes in and says, “Why are yo
u looking so miserable?” And the first bloke says, ‘You know, all my life I’ve worked hard. I actually built the school you can see from this pub. But do they call me Jack the builder? No. I carved the clock on the church tower. But do they call me Jack the clock-carver? No, they don’t. You shag one sheep …”

  ‘Hah,’ he barked. ‘If only you had stuck to one drink’. I’m going to get straight on to this. I’ll give them your number so you can get your meeting organized. But, hopefully, I’ll have glad tidings on the cash side by the end of play today.’

  The negotiations were surprisingly swift, and at five p.m., a press release was winging its way to the nationals, revealing the new presenter of Start the Weekend. Katie phoned her parents.

  ‘Well done,’ said her dad. ‘I knew it would all come good in the end. Here, speak to your mother. I’m at a crucial stage with the béchamel sauce.’

  ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Your mother will tell you. I really do have to go or it’ll be all lumpy. Here she is.’

  ‘Hello, Katie. I hear congratulations are in order.’

  ‘I just wanted to say thanks to you both for putting up with me when I was going a bit, erm – a bit mad. I know it drove you mad. But I’ve learned my lesson on the drinking front. And on the photographer front too.’

  ‘And the lesson is, always smile as you’re falling over?’ asked her mother acerbically.

  ‘Of course. Will you come down to Dorset for the first show? You don’t have to, but it would be really nice if you did. They’re not having an audience as such because it’s being filmed in a house –’

  ‘A house?’ interrupted her mother. ‘They could have used ours. Your dad could have provided a steady stream of canapés.’

  ‘Great idea, Mum,’ laughed Katie. ‘I’ll suggest it if they do another. What’s for dinner?’

  ‘He told me, but I’ve forgotten,’ whispered her mother. ‘Don’t make me ask again.’

  ‘Fine. Well, will you come down?’