Thin Air (21 page)

‘You don’t have to do it. I’ve
asked Tom to.’

‘Tom? Why?’

‘God, this is difficult, and I
didn’t want to have to do it like this, but your contract with
‘Track’ isn’t going to be renewed.’

Jay stood up. ‘Are we talking
‘fired’ here?’

Grant looked up at her, then
shook his head. ‘Fuck, Jay, I can’t do this here. Let’s go get a
coffee. OK.’

‘No, you tell me now. What the
hell is going on?’

Grant glanced past her at the
door. When he spoke, his voice was low. ‘Look, you don’t want all
that lot listening to this, and believe me every antenna will be
tuned this way. Let’s go down the road to Helena’s. Give me a
chance to explain.’

Grudgingly, Jay assented. She
was filled with a cold, incredulous fury, sure there was some
mistake, or that she could talk her way out of this.

Everyone in the main office
still had their heads down. Jay didn’t even look in Lorna’s
direction. Loyalty meant nothing in this business.

Helena’s was a small French
cafe, filled with the aroma of fresh coffee. Before Gus, Jay had
spent many lunch-times there with Grant. She shouldn’t have let
their friendship slip. She’d a feeling this wouldn’t be happening
if she hadn’t.

They sat down and ordered
cappuccinos. Jay lit a cigarette as they waited for their order.
She leaned back in her chair, folded her arms. ‘OK, explain it to
me. Why drag me out here?’

Grant rubbed his face. ‘Jay, you
never know who’s listening back there, or how, for that
matter.’

Jay pulled a scornful face.
‘Bugs, espionage. I never knew ‘Track’ was so hot.’

Grant refused to be ruffled.
‘Think what you like. I had your interests at heart.’

‘So why did you lie to me? What
was all that crap about ‘what feature’?’

‘I didn’t lie to you. It took me
by surprise when you walked in, that’s all.’

‘What’s happened?’

Grant squirmed on his chair.
‘There was a meeting yesterday. The directors want to give ‘Track’
a face-lift, and part of that involves taking on new freelancers. I
hate having to do this, I really do. Don’t even know how secure my
position is.’

Jay kept staring at him. ‘Who
else is going?’

At this point, Grant’s gaze slid
away from hers. Their coffees arrived, giving him time to formulate
a response. ‘It hasn’t yet been decided who’s going and who’s
staying, but someone’s lined up to take over your regular feature
already. Carmen Leonard.’

Jay laughed, genuinely amused.
‘Carmen Leonard? You’re kidding me. She’s a great body, granted,
but hardly a great brain.’

To Jay’s satisfaction, Grant
recoiled a little. ‘She’s a supermodel, Jay, and she wants to add
another string to her bow. She’s just being sensible. Modelling is
a career for the young. The directors see her as a big catch, and a
big draw.’

‘So will Tom be writing her
features for her?’

‘She can write.’

‘I bet she can.’

Grant drank some coffee, put his
cup down slowly. ‘It’s not my choice, believe me.’

Jay leaned forward. ‘Can you be
honest with me?’

He looked her in the eye. ‘Yes.
You know I can.’

‘OK, I’m not convinced this is
just about a face-lift.’ She raised her brows, tilted her head to
one side, fixed Grant with a stare.

He didn’t lower his eyes. ‘You
think someone has the knives out for you? Have you pissed someone
off?’

She shrugged, clicked her
tongue. ‘Seems to me I can do that simply by lying in bed in the
dark.’

‘What do you mean?’

She could tell him now, Jay
thought, tell him everything. She shook her head. ‘Oh, nothing. I
just find this hard to believe, that’s all. ‘Track’ has been part
of my life for years. Stupid of me not to realise I wasn’t
indispensable.’

Grant reached out to squeeze her
hands. ‘Look, Jay, this isn’t the end of the world. You’re a superb
writer. There’ll always be work for you somewhere, but ‘Track’ is
changing. There’s so much competition now. We can’t afford to stand
still, and if sacrifices have to be made, we have no choice but to
make them.’

‘Would you make that
sacrifice?’

He paused, then shook his head.
‘No. I’m just given instructions. This decision came as a big
surprise to all of us. You know I love your stuff.’

‘So does the readership. I hope
they love Ms Leonard’s wit as much.’

‘Jay, we both know it’s not
always about quality.’

She nodded. ‘Yeah, I know.’

Grant rubbed his face. ‘I’m
sorry about this, I really am. I was going to call you today,
arrange to come round. I didn’t want to have to tell you like
this.’

Jay sighed. ‘It’s OK. I don’t
blame you.’

‘Look, I’ll call you soon. We
should have an evening together.’

‘Yeah, that’d be good. Gus has
just left me, so I could do with a social life.’

Grant tilted his head back, took
a deep breath. ‘Oh, Jay, I didn’t know. Christ, this couldn’t have
been worse timing.’

She forced a smile. ‘Don’t be
ridiculous. It’s clearly time for a change all round. Don’t worry
about me. I’ll be fine. I like challenges.’

Grant escorted Jay back to her
car, and gave her a hug before she got into it. ‘I’ll be in touch
soon,’ he said.

‘Yeah. See you.’ Jay pulled away
from him and slid into the car. She sounded the horn as she drove
off, gave Grant a cheerful wave.

Inside, she was seething.

Carmen Leonard? Jay couldn’t
believe it. Anorexic, mindless bitch! She didn’t need this job.
Effectively, Jay now had no work and no income. She’d relied on
‘Track’ and had let other jobs slide. Her lover had left her. She
had to earn money to live. Now this. Could Sakrilege have had
anything to do with it? Why would anyone want to destroy her like
this? It was all too bizarre. Must be a coincidence.

When Jay got home, she found
Gina in the living room. ‘Oh, You’re still here.’

Gina grinned in too bright a
way. ‘Yeah. I rang Dan, and said I’d stay over with you for a
couple of days. I’m going to cook dinner.’ She frowned. ‘You all
right, Jay?’

Jay didn’t want to cry, she
really didn’t. She wanted to throw down her briefcase on the sofa,
utter the most vibrant profanities she knew, and reach for the gin
bottle. But somehow, instead of that, she was standing in the
middle of room, numb, with tears running down her face in a deluge.
She couldn’t speak. She felt exhausted.

Gina hurried towards her and
hugged her. ‘My God, Jay, what’s happened?’

After a few moments, Jay was
able to say, ‘They fired me.’

‘What? Why?’ Gina steered Jay to
the sofa and went to pour her a gin, which she thrust into her
friend’s cold hands. ‘Drink. Breathe,’ she ordered.

Jay did so, and then found a
lighted cigarette being offered to her. She took a long draw, and
then delivered a brief summary of her meeting with Grant Fenton. By
the end of it, she’d regained her composure. ‘They’ve hired Carmen
Leonard in my place.’

Gina looked outraged. ‘That’s
ridiculous! Jay, they can’t do this.’

‘Of course they can!’ Jay
wriggled out of Gina’s hold. ‘They can do what they like. Everyone
can. Except me, apparently.’

‘But you’re part of ‘Track’.
Everyone loves your work. You help sell that fucking magazine.’

‘Not anymore.’

‘It’s their loss,’ Gina said.
‘They’ll regret it. I doubt the lovely Carmen can even write her
own name.’

‘What will that matter? It’s the
name that counts, after all. They could get junior journalists to
write all her features. Who’d ever know or care? There’s no
integrity, Ginny. We already know that. It’s a fucking dirty
business, populated by soulless automata, the physical
representation of figures on a balance sheet.’ She gulped down the
rest of her gin, then put her face in her hands. ‘I’ve got to find
work. Now. I’ve got a rejected Devon Klein feature, and a mortgage
and credit cards to pay, never mind Gus. What the fuck am I going
to do?’

‘Right.’ Gina sat back on her
heels. ‘We think clearly, for a start. You’re going to drink
another gin, then a strong coffee. You’re going to wash your face,
will some metal into your spine, and start making calls.’

Jay shook her head slowly from
side to side. ‘Gina, I’m too tired and it’s too late in the day.
I’ll have to do it tomorrow.’

‘No you won’t. Come on, Jay, you
know enough people. There must be loads of them that owe you
favours. Maybe you should get an agent. Start writing books.
Anything. But begin by making those calls. Sell the Klein feature,
then start planning the future. You have to.’ Gina reached out and
squeezed Jay’s knee. ‘I’m here. I’ll help.’

This offer of support invoked
the tears again. Jay curled a hand over Gina’s, watched the salty
drops splash down. ‘Thanks.’

Gina squeezed her fingers back.
‘Right. Have a good bubble to get it out of your system, then go
and splash some water in your eyes. I’ll get you another drink.’
She stood up and marched to the cabinet across the room.

Jay pressed the heels of her
hands against her eyes and sat in prickling darkness. This was all
too much. She hadn’t the energy to call people. She just wanted to
sleep. But Gina was persistent, and Jay could do nothing but obey
her instructions. She downed the second gin and staggered to the
bathroom, where she immersed her head in a bowl of freezing water.
Raising her face, she blinked at her dripping countenance in the
mirror. She didn’t look good. There were lines around her mouth,
and the skin beneath her eyes looked fragile and papery. Decay was
setting in. She could write a book about the unbelievable injustice
of ageing, yet only a few days ago, she’d never even thought about
it.

Gina was sitting in the
living-room, Jay’s filo-fax open on her knees. ‘That’s better.
First you call Graham Teale.’

Jay rolled her eyes and groaned.
‘No! Patronising little dick-head.’

‘Quite. But he’s first on the
list. ‘Music Times’ is the major music paper. Won’t they want a
scoop feature on one of America’s wild rock daughters?’

Jay sighed and sat down, water
still dripping from her hair. ‘They’ve probably already run their
own, but give me the phone. I’ll try. What’s the number?’

‘Good girl. Here goes...’

But Graham Teale didn’t want a
feature on Devon Klein. He wouldn’t even speak to Jay. Neither
would the next two music-paper editors she called. There weren’t
any more. All the other music papers had died in the Eighties.

‘Don’t give up,’ Gina said. ‘We
move on to the other style magazines now.’

Time was moving on. Jay could
only phone a few before it was clear all the editors and their
assistants had gone home for the day. No-one wanted to talk to her.
No-one was interested. They’d all run their own Devon Klein
features recently, or had already commissioned them from their
regular free-lancers.

Jay threw the phone on the
floor. ‘That was a waste of fucking time. It’s too late, Gina.
Devon Klein is already old news.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Gina said
firmly. ‘Tomorrow, we start calling the teen magazines. You could
revamp the piece to suit their style.’

‘Gina, you’re not hearing me.
There’s no point. It’s too late.’

Gina shook her head. ‘Then just
make some calls to find other work. Don’t worry. Your life isn’t
going to collapse in a single night. Tomorrow, you’ll sort it all
out.’

By two o’clock the next
afternoon, Jay had realised that the world of journalism had closed
its doors on her, despite Gina’s constant encouragement to suggest
it hadn’t. The few editors who’d actually deigned to speak to her
personally were polite enough, but certainly not eager to take her
on. She couldn’t believe it. She had a good reputation. Only a few
months ago, other editors had tried to get work out of her. She put
down the phone and said, ‘No more. I have to face it. Someone is
making sure I don’t get work.’

‘Jay!’ Gina scolded. ‘You’ve got
to stop being so paranoid.’

‘It’s not paranoia,’ she said.
‘There can be no other explanation, unless I’ve been kidding myself
about my skills all these years.’

‘We have to make more calls,’
Gina said. ‘You need to meet people. Make appointments. You could
try and get a column in a daily. Other music journalists have done
that. You’ve certainly got the ability. You could do a great,
bitchy column. Editors will know that. Jay, please, don’t give
in.’

She sighed. ‘It’s OK. I won’t
give in. I can’t.’

‘Right, well tonight, we’ll get
a take-out meal, and couple of bottles of wine and...’

‘No,’ Jay said. She patted
Gina’s arm. ‘I appreciate what you’ve done, being here for me, but
tonight I really need to be on my own.’

‘Jay, no.’

‘Gina, yes.’ Jay managed a
smile. ‘I’ll be fine. I’ll call you tomorrow, I promise.’

After Gina had left the flat
seemed more at peace. Jay sat for a few minutes, thinking about the
day. Perhaps it was time to fight in more ways than one.

Zeke Michaels
was far from happy about what Rhys Lorrance was having him do to
Jay Samuels. He did not like the woman, but harboured a
superstitious dread that doing bad to people was wrong, and caused
horrible things to happen. He’d been greatly affected as a boy by a
horror story about someone who killed a spider and then got eaten
by a gigantic momma spider. All of Zeke Michaels’ small gestures
towards altruism were tainted by his broad streak of self-interest.
None of his kindnesses came without a price tag, but then neither
did his cruelties, and they were costs he had to pay himself.

Consequently, when Jay Samuels
fought her way through his layers of staff and marched into his
office first thing in the morning, he thought the day of reckoning
had come. Personally, he did not believe she was in contact with
Dex, nor that she had the tapes. He’d seen the state of her in the
first days after Dex’s disappearance. She’d let him search Dex’s
private work-room, where it had been clear nothing had been touched
by her. She was a silly bitch, of course, but hardly calculating.
Let her stick to her rounds of parties and gigs and her sniping
articles in magazines. She should not have been touched, but let to
lie. Now, Lorrance, through Michaels, had stirred her up. She was
angry, and Michaels could hardly blame her. He was no actor. It was
difficult to keep playing the part.