Woman of the Hour (23 page)

I reached my flat and unlocked the door. I hate the way Julius made me feel seven years ago and I hate the way he often makes me feel now, that I’m a pushover and powerless. He’ll never admit when he is wrong about anything. Nothing ever seems to dent his power and his mantle of untouchability. Julius did it. I’m sure he did it.

Chalk Farm flat, Sunday morning

I woke up and I knew what I had to do. I had Saul Relph, our MD’s home email address. It was Saul Relph who had asked me to take Harriet into my team as a favour to his friend Edward Dodd and I had a duty of care to her. I cannot report Harriet’s allegation because I don’t have her permission to do that but I can tell him what Julius did to me.

I opened my laptop and typed in his address. I wrote CONFIDENTIAL FOR YOUR EYES ONLY in the subject line. In our business there’s a mantra: never put anything in writing that can be used against you in the future. But what was the alternative? Saul Relph is a remote figure and I could never talk to him about this. It would be excruciating to say it to his face. Writing it down would give me some control. My skin prickled as I started to write the details of what had happened between Julius and me. I struggled with how much detail I should include. He is the overall boss of StoryWorld and whatever I wrote would be out there in the world in black and white for ever. But he needed enough detail to know how serious the incident had been. I said I had been at the Christmas party and described how Julius had followed me upstairs and had slammed me against the wall; how he had said ‘Come on, Liz. Let’s fuck hard’; how he wouldn’t take no for an answer and had been rough with me. How I’d had to push him off me to stop intercourse taking place. I read through my draft several times. It was strangely cathartic to see it written down. I deleted the reference to ‘Let’s fuck hard’; that was a detail too far.

My finger hovered over the send button. If I sent it the MD would know my shaming secret. If I didn’t send it Julius would be off the hook, again. He has been allowed to bully us all for years. I brought to mind the way he had sacked Sal and the last time he had snarled at me. I was steeling myself to press the send button. If I didn’t send it I would have given up on the values I once held and absorbed the corrupt values of the TV station. No, I would wait. I needed to be sure before I lobbed this hand grenade.

Chalk Farm flat, Sunday evening

When Flo got back from Portsmouth the first thing she said was: ‘Granny was crying.’

‘Grace? What was that about?’

‘I don’t know and she tried to hide it when I came into the kitchen but she’d been crying for sure.’

‘That’s not like her at all. I hope she’s OK. I’ll ring her in a bit.’

‘And Dad was in a weird mood all weekend. He looked awful, Mum, he hadn’t shaved and he didn’t want to go out.’

‘Oh, darling, was it a difficult weekend?’

‘I’m glad to be home.’

I hugged her.

‘I’m glad to have you back.’

I put my nose against hers.

‘Grasshopper kiss.’

Then I kissed each of her eyelids.

‘Butterfly kiss.’

She smiled. It was a thing we used to do when she was little, though we hadn’t done it for ages.

When she was tucked up in bed with her tablet I went into my bedroom and called Grace. She said she would call me back soon; she couldn’t talk at the moment. Something is wrong and it has to be that Ben is gambling again. I opened my laptop and reread my confidential memo to Saul. I jumped as the phone rang and it was Grace.

‘Honestly, I’m in despair. Everything is falling apart for him. He spent forty-eight hours last week gambling non-stop. Forty-eight hours without sleep. It’s an addiction.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘He’s in no shape to work and he’s got all these debts. He asked tonight if he can move in with us. He and Pete have gone to collect his things.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘You knew about the gambling, didn’t you? Is that why you left him, Liz?’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘I wish you’d told me about it.’

‘I couldn’t, Grace, I couldn’t do that.’

‘You just said you had different attitudes to money and that his spending was making you unhappy.’

I could tell that Grace was feeling resentful that I hadn’t been more open with her.

‘It was for him to tell you. I’m sorry.’

‘He says he’s tried to fight it and I believe him. But then it gets hold of him again and it controls him. I feel so helpless,’ she said.

I was too sad to send the memo to Saul Relph. I couldn’t sleep as thoughts of Ben kept me awake. He’s forty-four and he’s going back to live with his parents and he isn’t working. I could say goodbye to any monthly maintenance payments from him. They weren’t much but they did help with Flo’s costs. Strongest of all though was my feeling of sadness that clever, talented Ben has lost his way so profoundly. You make a decision about your life, as I made the decision to leave Ben, and the implications of that decision go on working themselves out for years to come. I have never been able to grasp the significance of what I am doing while I am caught up in the doing of it. My understanding of its meaning can take months or even years to become clear to me.

NOVEMBER

StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

It was a cold drizzly morning and the leaves on the pavements were slick and slippery as I walked to the Tube. I’d had to coax Flo out of bed and was running late. I joined the director in the gallery but had missed the first item of the show. He said Fizzy was low-key this morning and I watched her carefully. She was doing a professional enough job but was not as spirited as she usually is, but then she had had a weekend on her own to consider her huge decision. I wondered if she would go through with the pregnancy. If she did there would be a major fallout with Bob and he would be a formidable opponent if you went against his wishes.

At the end of the morning meeting I waited for her and we walked down to her dressing room.

‘I’ve realised that what I represent for Bob is pleasure, an escape for him from domesticity and routine. We create our own pleasure bubble, our lovely afternoons in bed after a gorgeous meal. No mention of work ever. We banished it. But a baby isn’t part of all that, is it?’

I recalled the months following Flo’s birth; the feeling of profound exhaustion as if I hadn’t slept for days and the being tuned in to my tiny baby’s every whimper.

‘No, it’s something primeval. It’s one of the few times in your life when you give yourself over completely to another person.’

‘That sounds scary.’

‘It’s life-changing for sure, but my life never felt more right than when I first held Flo and looked at her little face.’

‘But you are naturally maternal, Liz.’

‘I don’t think so. I struggled at the beginning. I still do.’

I thought about my fights with Flo over her smoking and over the Cat and Mouse.

‘Oh, you are. You’re like a mother to your team. I’m not like you. I like to look nice. I like male attention. One of my biggest thrills is when I know a man is falling for me.’

‘That is a great feeling,’ I said.

‘But it doesn’t last. I’ve never been so torn about anything in my life.’

‘That means you need to give yourself more time.’

I went upstairs. Outside my window I could see the rain was still falling and the team were subdued as they trooped into my room at noon. Ziggy was wearing another of Harriet’s tops this morning; at least I assumed it was one of hers as it was a soft-looking oatmeal jumper, probably cashmere. Ziggy had pulled the arms down so that they covered most of her hands. You could just see her bitten fingernails peeping out. I watched Harriet settle herself on the sofa and tried to assess what she was feeling. She appeared to be OK, but you couldn’t tell what was going on beneath that calm exterior. Simon rather half-heartedly suggested bringing John of Sheffield back onto the show to get an update on how he’d been getting on.

‘There have been developments. He’s started dating and he sent me a funny email about the perils of dating when you have children in the house and you don’t want them to know. Lots of creeping down the stairs at sunrise to unlock the back door,’ Simon said.

‘I doubt that will work. Teenagers seem to hear everything and especially the things you don’t want them to hear. Well, mine does,’ I said.

Molly leaned forward in her chair.

‘But if he’s dating now won’t he lose his sympathy appeal with our viewers? It was the lone dad thing that was appealing.’

‘Who is John of Sheffield? He sounds like a saint,’ Harriet asked.

Simon smiled briefly.

‘He’s this good-looking man we had on the show, a single dad, in need of female support.’

The room fell quiet.

‘Can you give us an update on the budget situation, only we’ve heard that they’re cutting the news team,’ Molly said.

So that was it. Molly is straight as a die and asks outright what the others must have been talking about. Bob had acted fast. Tim Cooper had insisted that as members of staff were being made redundant we had to be vigilant in following company procedures. I thought Bob was going to wait till the end of the week to reveal the cuts to his team.

‘I’ve had to make cuts too but none of you are going anywhere,’ I said.

Their relief was palpable and the mood in the room changed at once. Molly talked through the list of ideas she’d developed since her meeting with the non-fiction publishers.

‘Next week we should do Jan Clayton. Her book is going to be huge. They’re calling it
The
Female Eunuch
of today. It’s feminist and funny.’

Simon, who is growing a beard at the moment which makes him look older, was sceptical.

‘Fizzy’s not great on the feminist stuff,’ he said.

‘She was OK with Sal,’ Molly fired back.

‘Could we get a counter view in? Maybe generate a debate,’ I said.

‘I don’t see why we need to do that with Jan Clayton. She’s big enough news on her own.’

Harriet suggested we cover the latest work from Central Saint Martin’s fashion course. She had been to an exhibition at the college.

‘They’ve got an amazing record for turning out young British designers. I was thinking maybe we can bring in some of the outfits and put them on mannequins. We can interview their star pupil or teacher, or both.’

‘I like that idea,’ I said.

After they had left I realised that I had implied by my words
none of you are going anywhere
that Harriet would be staying on long term too. But she hasn’t proved herself yet.

Gerry called me at lunchtime.

‘How was the spa?’

‘Fabulous and it did me a power of good. You’ll never guess who I bumped into there?’

‘Tell me.’

‘Amber, you know, Julius’s ex.’

I just stopped myself from saying ‘The Pouter’.

‘How is she?’

‘Oh, she’s in good form. She was there all weekend and we kind of palled up. She recommended I go for an Ayurvedic consultation and I’m so glad I did. Turns out I’ve been eating the wrong kind of food for years.’

He explained that he had filled in the Ayurvedic questionnaire and he was Kapha dominant. This meant he needed hot spicy foods to ginger up his constitution.

‘That’s why I put on weight. My system is very sluggish.’

He sounded far more cheerful.

‘And I know why she and Julius split up,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘He was on the point of asking her to move in with him. You know he’s got that gorgeous penthouse in Limehouse? Right on the river.’

‘Yes. I’ve been there once,’ I said.

I remembered his flat. It was huge and light-filled and the epitome of minimalist taste. I could see no evidence of anything personal on show and I guessed that Julius had hired an interior designer to style it for him. He had a roof terrace with stunning views of the river. That’s what money can buy you, lots of space and an unimpeded view.

‘Amber had all kinds of plans for that flat but then he moves his brother in with him.’

‘Steven?’

‘Yes. Steven was living with their parents but apparently Julius said they were getting frail, so he moved Steven in with him for the foreseeable.’

‘Whatever you think about Julius his feelings for his brother are genuine,’ I said and it was true. Julius is kind to his brother. He loves his brother.

‘Amber thought it was unreasonable. She said it was a ploy to stop him committing to her.’

Amber had struck me as a vain, self-obsessed woman I thought, as I put down the phone.

*

It was probably the imminent departure of some of the news reporters but I felt low all afternoon. The rain had finally stopped. It was dark by four and I wanted to get home and turn the heating up and make comfort food. Martine rang me at five.

‘Julius would like a word,’ she said.

It was ridiculous how her saying such innocuous words should make my stomach clench as it did.

‘Did he say what it’s about?’

‘No, but can you come down now, please?’

I checked myself in my mirror by the door and brushed my hair. Julius was on the phone and he motioned me to come in and I stood there for an age while he finished his call. Whoever he was talking to was making him irritated and his voice was getting snappier by the minute. I did not want to sit down and prolong things so I stood and looked at the framed award certificates from the Royal Television Society on his wall. I felt foolish standing there but couldn’t bring myself to sit down either. I won an award once. Four years ago I ran a health campaign to raise awareness of prostate cancer and the need to have regular check-ups. I got celebrities to endorse the message and produced an online fact sheet. I even secured sponsorship to get the fact sheet translated into Urdu and Hindi. The majority of our viewers are female but every woman will have a father, a brother, a husband or a son and the idea was to get the women to encourage their men to get checked up. It was a big deal for me, winning that award. The ceremony was black tie at the Grosvenor House Hotel. I asked Mum if she would come to the ceremony as my date. I wanted her to see that television can achieve good things. Mum had said congratulations and that she was proud of me but she couldn’t get away from her job for a mid-week event in London. I still feel a pang of hurt about that.