How to Get Ahead in Television (5 page)

I smiled weakly. ‘Um, any time.'

‘So fifty-one to five,' gloated Rhidian, once JR had left. ‘Do you think we should keep tabs on this kind of thing, you know, for the final job reckoning? It might be these little things that swing it.' Rhidian brushed a hand through his blond hair and looked down at me, a small dimple pulsing in his left cheek. I couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

‘I hardly think knowing a few stupid answers in a ridiculous quiz qualifies you as a better runner,' I said, a little too tartly.

‘Maybe not.' Rhidian looked thoughtful. ‘Still, I think I might make a chart… Something to put up in the post room to keep track of our respective victories.'

He winked at me. Infuriating man.

‘Well, if you need a chart to reassure yourself you're doing a good job, you knock yourself out, buddy,' I said, marching back upstairs in a manner that I hope conveyed an ‘I've got far more important things to do than verbally spar with you' attitude.

STEP 10 – REMIND YOURSELF WHY YOU ARE DOING THIS

I
LAY AWAKE
that night, in Natalie's parents' basement, fretting. All summer I'd been so focused on trying to get a foot in the TV industry door, I hadn't really thought beyond that first step. To continue the analogy, once I'd got my foot in, how was I going to wedge the rest of my body through, announce I'd arrived and make sure nobody said, ‘Oi, what are you doing in here? You aren't supposed to be in here'?

While I was at Bristol, a film crew visited the university to film a TV show called
Single and Ready to Mingle
. I had been neither single nor ready to mingle at the time, but I'd gone to watch them filming at the student union. I got talking to one of the researchers who worked on the show and it had struck me what a fun job she had, being paid to travel around the country talking to people about their love lives. Most of the grown-ups I knew had really boring-sounding jobs, like urban planning (my dad), accounting (my uncle) or banking (Lorraine-next-door's-son-Ian), so I had little idea that such a fun way of earning a living was even an option.

My dad sometimes worked from home, and when I asked him what he was working on, he'd say something along the lines of: ‘I'm writing a proposal on how to revitalize the physical facilities of Swindon. I'll present my findings to the council, where they'll be universally ignored on account of a lack of funds. I tell you, Poppy, it's a bloody waste of my time.' He'd
then shut himself in his study until all hours to finish said proposal and emerge in the morning looking haggard and world-wearied. This made me depressed on my dad's behalf. Imagine spending your life working on things that not only sounded mind-numbingly dull, but would probably never happen anyway.

A lot of parents must clash with their children over the ‘secure, money-making career' versus ‘creative calling' debate. However, in my family there were reasons why this debate was a particular source of contention: namely, Aunt Josephine. When I'd first mentioned the TV idea to my parents, my mother had cried, ‘Oh no, Harold! It's Josephine all over again!'

Aunt Josephine was my mother's older sister. In the seventies she'd been a highly regarded, rather controversial modern artist who, the way Aunt Josephine tells it, ‘invented graffiti as a modern art form'. In her mid-twenties, she became a sensation when she created an illegal mural made out of honey-glazed ham on the side of a police station on the Edgware Road. She'd called the piece
Pigs. Question Mark. Ham. Question Mark
and was hailed by people in the art world as a maverick visionary. The mural was removed after just twenty-four hours, but you can find photos of it even now in books on the history of modern art.

After her mural success, Aunt Josephine got invited to all the cool parties, and galleries wanted to exhibit her hamthemed work. Suffice to say, being catapulted to fame and fortune rather soured her relationship with my mother, who was working as a rather lowly legal secretary at the time. Family legend has it that at this point, riding high on her mural success, Aunt Josephine got in the with ‘the wrong crowd'. ‘She got too big for her boots is what happened,' said my mother. The details are rather hazy, but Clemmie and I have deduced that Aunt Josephine indulged in a few too many psychedelic drugs.

Anyway, one thing led to another, and before anyone really realized what had happened, Aunt Josephine had squandered
her ham fortune, started making murals out of cat hair, which no one liked half as much as the ham art, gone a bit ‘doolally' – my father's words – and moved to Wales to live on a vegan commune.

We do see her once or twice a year as my mum feels a sisterly obligation to keep in touch, plus I think my parents believe that seeing Aunt Josephine serves as a warning to us girls about what happens if you ‘live an unconventional lifestyle' and end up with no money. In reality, the only lessons I take away from the Aunt Josephine parable are that taking too many drugs is not a good idea, and if you're making a shedload of money out of ham art, don't diversify.

If I could only get a steady income and show my parents that television was a viable career, I might win them around. But if I didn't get the job and had to start all over again doing unpaid work experience, I feared my parents would not support me.

Today's quiz had been humiliating and I pledged to myself that I would watch
Newsnight
every night for the rest of my life to try and plug the evidently huge holes in my basic general knowledge. In addition to my general intellectual ineptitude, I was also worried about Rhidian. He was my competition, all that was standing between me and my perfect job. I needed to stop getting distracted and start focusing on how I could be a better runner than him.

All of this raced around and around in my mind, which was why I found myself lying awake at three in the morning in Natalie's parents' basement, thinking about Aunt Josephine's ham art and plotting ways to outdo Rhidian.

STEP 11 – SAY YES TO EVERYTHING

FROM
: UNKNOWN

TO
: POPPY

Hi Poppy, Ian Griffith here, (Dorset neighbour). My mother said you were expecting a call from me and wanted advice on getting into banking? Happy to help if I can, though I'm no expert. Let me know a good time and we can chat over the phone or meet for a drink if that suits? Ian

I
HAD WOKEN
up this morning full of resolve to be more professional. For starters, I decided to dress in a more ‘media' way, taking inspiration from what I'd seen the girls around the office wear. This morning I'd pinned my hair into a quiff and high ponytail and added a splash of orangey-red lipstick to my lips. I'd put on a fitted black shirt and green midi skirt that cinched in my waist. As I glanced in the hall mirror on my way out of the house, it crossed my mind that I looked slightly like a human traffic light (with the hair, lips and skirt colour combo), so I quickly wiped off the lipstick as I raced out of the door.

Mid-morning, Helen and I were in the post room, sorting through all the confidential waste that needed shredding.

‘So did you do the runners' placement yourself?' I asked her.

‘Yup, I did it last year,' said Helen. ‘They offered us a job on production, but then head o' post room left, so they offered us this instead.'

‘And you'd rather be in here than on Production?' I asked.

‘Not in the long term, but they needed someone who knew the ropes, an' I don't know what side o' TV I wanna work in yet. 'ere, put those in the recycling pile, they don't need to be shredded,' said Helen, handing me a pile of old scripts.

‘So who was your competition when you were on the placement?'

Helen smiled. ‘She were someone a bit like you, actually, she were called Jenny.'

‘Like me? How?'

‘Posh, pretty, prone t' throwin' coffee over 'erself,' Helen said.

‘I am not posh,' I objected.

‘Trust us, Poppy, compared to everyone I know back i' Doncaster, you are posh.'

‘What makes me posh?'

‘Hmmm.' Helen looked thoughtful. ‘Well, you say things like “totes”…'

‘Totes ironically!'

‘Plus you talk about what you gonna 'ave for supper rather than tea.' She paused for a second. ‘And I bet you 'ave a Waitrose card in your wallet.'

‘What? This is the definitive posh test now, is it?' I was offended but decided not to dwell on the question of the myWaitrose card.

Helen laughed. ‘It's not
the
posh test, Poppy, I'm just sayin' that in TV terms, you're posh. It's not necessarily a bad thing.'

‘Except in your case, where you won the runner placement and the posh girl didn't…'

‘Ah, well, I don't think me gettin' the job over 'er 'ad 'owt ta do wi' that!' Helen said, in an exaggerated Yorkshire accent.

‘So what did it have to do with?' I pushed.

This was the perfect opportunity to pick Helen's brains for inside intel. Rhidian had already been sent to work on a production so was temporarily out of the picture.

‘Well, I have two pieces o' advice for you. One: say yes to everythin', 'n' two—'

But before she could finish, series producer Shannon Long marched into the post room.

‘Poppy, right?' Shannon asked me.

Shannon was one of the scarier-looking producers at RealiTV. She had limp red hair, an impossibly angular face and the look of someone on a permanent mission to avert some kind of apocalyptic-scale catastrophe. Just looking at her made me feel stressed.

‘Yes, hi, Shannon,' I said.

‘Do you have a driving licence?'

‘Um, yes.'

‘Great. I'm going to need you to drive Valerie Decouz up to Scotland tonight for
Last Clan Standing.'

‘What? To Scotland?'

I couldn't drive to Scotland. I only passed my test last year (fifth time lucky) and I'd barely been in a car since.

‘Yes. She's just announced she's scared of flying, stupid bitch, and she's got to be on set presenting the day after tomorrow so it's the only way we can get her there,' Shannon said, tugging fingers through her hair. ‘All our production runners are already up there, so Dominic said we could commandeer you for a few days.'

‘Um, well, yes, anything I can do to help…' I stammered. ‘Shannon, the only thing is that I haven't done that much driving since I passed my test, so I'm not sure…'

‘You'll be fine,' Shannon said. ‘It's motorway all the way.'

Was this the time to say I'd never driven on a motorway?

‘Go home quick as you can, pack a bag, then get to the hire car place. You need to pick up a cameraman and his kit en route. Jackie, our production secretary, will give you all the details.'

‘Okay.' I couldn't think of anything else to say, but in my head I foresaw a lot of potential problems with this plan.

‘Lifesaver. Thanks, Poppy.' Shannon's stressed face broke into a forced smile. ‘You can stick around in Scotland for a couple of days to help out with
Clan;
it's pretty epic.'

‘Thanks, that would be great!'

Once Shannon had left, I confided in Helen about my concerns.

‘I haven't really done a lot of driving since I passed my test.'

‘Poppy, that'll be least of your problems. Bein' in car wi' Valerie Decouz for eight 'ours is what I would be worried about.'

‘What was the other piece of advice you were going to give me?'

‘What?'

‘Well, you said: one, say yes to everything, and two… Then Shannon came in.'

Helen shrugged. ‘Hmm… Don't agree to drive ol' battle-axes to Scotland?'

Great.

STEP 11* (AMENDED)– SAY YES TO EVERYTHING, EXCEPT THINGS YOU REALLY CAN'T DO

FROM
: POPPY

TO
: NATALIE

Work want me to drive Valerie Decouz to Scotland for LCS TONIGHT. WTF?? Driverama Disasterpants. Probs won't be home for 3–4 days. Will call you from Carlisle! Xx P

S
EVERAL HOURS LATER
, I was driving an insanely large hire car to a smart address in Hampstead. The journey up to this point had not been without incident. I'd been issued with a monster truck-sized Mercedes, had to Google ‘how to drive an automatic' to get it to start, managed to scrape the wing mirror on my way out of the parking garage, and then accidentally stopped on a double red line to inspect the damage. Suffice to say, my confidence in this journey was not at an all-time high.

I'd finally managed to navigate my way to Camden to pick up the cameraman, who had proceeded to spend twenty minutes f-ing and blinding at me about how ‘RealiTV are such f-ing cheapskates' and ‘I can't believe I've got to be in a car with that old bat Valerie f-ing Decouz all the way to f-ing Scotland'.

I pulled up at the address in Hampstead. The house had a very short driveway that came straight off the main road. I drove in, already worrying about how I was going to reverse out. Jumping out of the driver's seat, I scuttled over to ring the doorbell. A young redhead girl about my age answered, holding a clipboard.

‘Are you from
Last Clan Standing
?' she asked in an authoritative voice.

‘Um, yes, I'm the driver,' I said. I had never imagined myself saying those words.

‘Right.' The girl looked down at her clipboard. ‘A few things: you should address Ms Decouz as Ms Decouz; she'll need to stop for a comfort break every hour or so; if she says she wants to top up her make-up, that's what she means, okay?' said the girl.

‘Er, okay.'

‘And don't try to make small talk about her life or career. She'll guide the conversation if she wants to talk to you. Okay?'

‘Okay.' I nodded.

‘Name?'

‘Um, Poppy, Poppy Penfold.'

The girl disappeared inside and I heard her talking to someone. If I hadn't been scared of chauffeuring around the Grand Dame of British television already (which I definitely was), then this bizarre set of rules only served to make me more nervous.

The girl reappeared at the door with Valerie Decouz, who looked far more elderly and frail than I had imagined she would. She had been presenting television for over forty years and was famously one of the only people the royal family agreed to be interviewed by. She was wearing a well-tailored pale green suit jacket with matching skirt, her hair coiffed into a voluminous helmet of curls. The girl handed her a green snakeskin handbag as she walked out of the door.

‘This is Poppy, Valerie. She'll be driving you up to Scotland,' the girl said. ‘I've packed all your overnight things
in this bag, and Trisha will meet you up in Scotland with everything else, okay?'

‘You are good, Maria,' said Valerie in a slow, clear voice, every syllable perfectly enunciated. ‘I don't like to fly, you see,' she said, turning to me. ‘My late husband used to fly, but I never took to it. Altitude doesn't agree with me.'

‘Indeed,' I said, not really knowing what might constitute a suitable response. Having been warned about not pursuing topics of conversation with the woman, I didn't want to say the wrong thing. I thought ‘indeed' implied agreement and sympathy without appearing to probe.

The cameraman, Nick, had climbed into the back seat and pulled out copious amounts of paperwork. As Valerie carefully climbed into the front seat, he introduced himself.

‘Hello, Ms Decouz. I'm Nick Hill. We worked together on
The Royal Interview
many years ago.'

Valerie turned around to look at Nick and took a full minute surveying him before saying, ‘Ah yes, I remember. How are you, Nicholas?'

‘I'm good, thank you, Ms Decouz. You are going to have to forgive my rudeness on this trip though, I'm afraid, as I've got a lot of shots to plot on the journey so I won't be the most scintillating company.'

No f-ing and blinding for Valerie, I noticed.

‘I understand entirely, Nicholas. Work must come first.' Valerie turned to face the front and nodded to me. ‘You may drive, Poppy.'

I turned the key and pressed the accelerator. Nothing. Valerie raised a wordless eyebrow at me. Oh, D – Drive, hang on. The car started and lurched forward, dangerously close to Valerie's ornamental stone wall. Right, calm down, Poppy. I gave myself a pep talk. You can do this; you'll only make a mess of it if you get stressed. Right. R – Reverse. The car purred backwards. Phew.

I backed slowly down the driveway, alarmed to see how much traffic was zooming past on the main road.

‘You should have reversed into the drive,' Valerie said languorously. ‘It is much harder to do it this way.'

‘Indeed.'

I wondered how many questions could be answered with the word ‘indeed'? I prayed to the Road Gods and they came through for me: a small gap opened up just as the car lunged boot-first into the road.

Just as everything was going so well, I realized I hadn't reprogrammed the sat nav to take us to Carlisle. I couldn't really do it while driving – Valerie might think it dangerous, so I'd have to ask her to do it.

‘Ah, Ms Decouz. Apologies, do you mind entering a postcode into the sat nav for me?'

Valerie turned to look at me, confused. ‘A what into the whom?'

‘The onboard map.' I pointed at the car's control panel. ‘You just need to tap in the postcode and…'

Valerie was looking at me as though I'd just asked her if she would kindly urinate all over the dashboard.

‘You know what, I'll pull over.'

I pulled into a bus stop and tapped the postcode in myself. Nick stayed silent.

‘You know what I would have done, if I were you?' said Valerie.

‘Um, huh.' I made a non-committal noise.

‘I would have practised this route on your own, before picking up passengers.'

‘All the way to Scotland?' I asked. Was she mad?

‘At least the route out of London,' said Valerie. ‘I was a runner many years ago, you know. 1975 it was. I would stay up well into the small hours preparing for the day ahead. That is the best advice I can give you: never start a task unprepared.'

Pleased as I was that Valerie Decouz was deigning to give me career advice, I was a bit offended that she thought me unprepared.

‘I would have done that, Ms Decouz, but I was only told about this job this morning.'

A little cough came from Nick in the back seat.

‘Excuses are easy, Poppy. I've heard many excuses in my forty years in the industry.'

Another cough from Nick.

I decided it might be better not to engage in a debate. I'd set the sat nav and we were off again. Valerie opened up her Filofax and started leafing through the pages methodically. I could hear Nick pretending to work in the back. I was not good with silence.

‘Does anyone mind if I put the radio on?' I asked.

‘As long as it's not too loud,' said Valerie.

I flicked through a few channels but they were all playing ‘Smack My Bitch Up' or something equally inappropriate. I turned it off again.

Before long, we reached the M1 junction, my first motorway. ‘Just merge into the lanes', that's what my driving instructor always said. ‘Keep up speed and merge, the cars next to you will move over.' I kept it at a steady forty as we headed down the slipway onto the motorway. Shit, everyone was going so fast, there were so many cars. I was headed for the nearest lane but no one was moving over… I slowed down as there was no gap, then I sped up thinking maybe I could get ahead of that car… I quickly realized there was no room – no one was making room for me! I slammed on the brakes and verged onto the hard shoulder just as the slipway merged with the closest lane, bottling my ability to get out in time. Valerie was flung forward like a rag doll and made a strangled, squawking noise.

‘Fucking hell!' shouted Nick. ‘What the fuck, Poppy!'

Cars behind me were blaring their horns, shouting obscenities from their windows as they passed.

‘What on earth are you doing, girl?' said Valerie, trying to get her breath back.

I pulled the car over to the edge of the hard shoulder, my hands shaking on the wheel.

‘I'm sorry, I haven't driven on a motorway before and I didn't think I could get out,' I said, bursting into tears.

Valerie put her hand on the dashboard to steady herself. ‘You haven't driven on a motorway before?' She sounded horrified.

‘No…' I snivelled.

‘I am not confident in your driving ability, I'm afraid, Poppy. This is absolutely unacceptable,' said Valerie.

‘Well, we can't stay here,' said Nick. ‘I'm not insured. I can't drive.'

‘I will not be driven by Poppy,' said Valerie firmly.

I grabbed my phone and jumped out of the car, trying to sniff back tears. I scanned the call sheet for phone numbers. I tried scary Shannon but she didn't answer, so I dialled the
Last Clan Standing
production office up in Scotland, praying someone would pick up.

‘Hello?' I sniffed.

‘Hello,
Last Clan Standing
, Rhidian speaking.'

Oh great.

‘What are you doing up there?' I asked.

‘Poppy? Hi. Oh they flew me up yesterday to help. It's unbelievable, you should see the games they've built here, it's huge… Are you okay?'

‘No, no… I'm not okay,' I sobbed.

‘Poppy, what's wrong? Where are you?'

‘I, I… I was supposed to drive a cameraman and Valerie Decouz up to Scotland as a last-minute change of plan, but I haven't really driven for ages and… and…' I choked back a sob. ‘Valerie says she's not confident in my ability and doesn't want me driving, and we're on the hard shoulder of the M1 and I don't know what to do!' The last words were lost in a wail.

‘Okay, okay, calm down,' said Rhidian. ‘Don't worry, we'll sort it out. Is anyone else with you in the car?'

‘Nick Hill, the cameraman, but he's not insured.'

I was starting to feel calmer. For some reason Rhidian's voice was reassuring me that this situation might be fixable.

‘Okay, listen, you get Nick's driving licence details for me and I'll call the car hire company and get him on the insurance. Don't worry, Poppy, we'll sort this out.'

Twenty minutes later, Nick was driving us off the hard shoulder. He was not happy about it, grumbling that he had work to do and ‘what's TV come to when you have to drive yourself to a shoot'. Valerie hadn't said a word since her earlier pronouncement that she refused to be driven by me. I sank into the back seat, cursing the fact that I hadn't taken that extra motorway driving post-test lesson my instructor had recommended. I think I spent the thirty-seven pounds I saved on a pair of really uncomfortable pleather clogs. Damn those bloody clogs.

We drove in silence for a few miles, me primarily thinking clog-related thoughts, when a phone started to ring. Mine – I'd plugged it back into the car's phone system to charge. It flashed up on the dashboard screen: UNKNOWN NUMBER.

‘Want me to answer that?' asked Nick.

It was probably Shannon calling me back. I couldn't reach my phone to unplug it, so I'd just tell whoever it was I'd call them back.

‘Yes?' I said.

‘Hello, it's Ian,' came a voice through the car speakers.

‘Ian?' I asked, nonplussed, trying to think if an Ian worked at RealiTV.

‘Ian Griffith. I texted you. Lorraine's son?' Ian sounded embarrassed.

Ah, Ian, I suddenly remembered.

‘Ah! Hi, Ian, I um…'

‘Sorry, is this a good time? It's just I wanted to see if you got my text? I wasn't sure I had the right number.'

‘Oh yes, yes,' I said. ‘I'm so sorry I didn't reply, I was going to, but I totally forgot… This new job…'

I could see Valerie looking disapproving, sensing it typical of my lack of professionalism that I wouldn't reply to somebody's text.

‘Well I d-didn't want to bother you,' Ian stammered, ‘I just wanted you to know that if you did want to talk about a career in banking, I am available to field questions, you know, if I can be of help.'

‘Banking?' mouthed Nick.

‘No, no, Ian, that's fine. Listen, I'll need to call you back, this isn't a good time I'm afraid.'

‘Ah, right, well, you have my number…' Ian trailed off.

‘I do. I'll call you, Ian. I'm sorry.'

‘Okay, sure.' Ian hung up.

After a few minutes of awkward silence, Valerie observed in her slow, languorous tone, ‘Banking would entail a lot less driving, wouldn't it, Poppy?'