Woman of the Hour (3 page)

‘I want to see the news reporters in pale blue shirts,’ he said, standing up, ‘from next Monday.’

The meeting was over and Julius walked out of the room. I was keen to talk to Bob about this latest development and followed him to his office. I could tell by the way he was walking that he was furious. He sees himself as a serious news man in competition with much larger outfits. He prides himself on getting exclusives and on selling these on to other TV stations. We reached his office and he slammed his door shut.

‘Pastels! Such bullshit,’ he said, throwing his papers onto his desk.

‘You’d think we were a supermarket or an airline. Welcome to StoryWorld... fasten your seat belts,’ I said.

‘You know what gets me? It’s a fucking great power trip, that’s what this is all about. It’s about
him
getting
us
to do something and there’s never any room for discussion.’

It was true and I wondered if Julius was punishing Bob for his intervention yesterday. He has pockmarked cheeks and dark angry eyes and he’s weirdly attractive and magnetic. He’s been at the station about two years. As a rule the news editors don’t last long here. Sooner or later they clash with Julius and Julius always wins any power struggle.

‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.

‘Carry it out, of course,’ I said.

‘You’ve worked with him a long time, haven’t you?’

‘I have and I’ve learned to pick my fights. I’m not going to fight over what colours people wear.’

He knelt down to pick up the papers that had slid off his desk onto the floor.

‘Yeah, but just the once I’d like him to get what’s coming to him,’ he said.

I went downstairs to get myself a coffee from the staff café which is called the Hub. The management spent a shed-load of money on this café and got an architect in to design it. Julius has a theory that if you give the staff a good place to eat and drink they are more likely to put in the long hours. There is a central circular food and drink bar and spreading out from these like the spokes of a wheel are stylish lime-green and orange designer tables and chairs. The lighting is trendy and can be changed to create different moods – we use the Hub for presentations sometimes. The menu caters for all types and all allergies. Gerry Melrose, our astrologer, was sitting in there drinking a diet Coke. He told me recently that he’s on a diet and is aiming to shed a stone. He’s in his late-forties and his partner, Anwar, is younger than him and Gerry worries about his appearance. No time like the present, I thought, as I sat down opposite him. He was wearing a rather nice dark blue jumper over a crisp white shirt.

‘How are things with you, darling?’ he asked.

‘OK,’ I said, stirring half a spoon of sugar into my coffee. ‘Julius has this new idea. He wants all the presenters to wear pastel colours; yellow, pink, pale blue. But not dark blue like your nice jumper, and definitely no black. He was adamant about it. Said it’s the StoryWorld brand to be bright and cheerful and he wants us to implement this straight away.’

‘Pastels can be fattening, you know?’ Gerry said.

‘I know they can.’

‘What’s he got against dark colours?’

‘He says they stand for misery and death,’ I said, trying to resist the impulse to roll my eyes.

‘That’s an Aquarius for you, free thinkers, mould breakers.’

‘Julius is an Aquarius?’

‘Oh yes. I did his chart a while back.’

I tried to imagine how Julius would have reacted to this. Julius is the most private of men and he would have had to give Gerry the exact time and location of his birth.

‘I guess I’ll have to buy myself a few new shirts then. I don’t usually go in for pastels,’ Gerry said.

‘Thanks for taking it so well.’

Gerry sipped his diet Coke.

‘Will we get a clothing allowance for the new shirts?’

I’m fond of Gerry, even though I think astrology is enjoyable nonsense, but he does like to drive a hard bargain on money matters.

‘Not sure. Leave it with me.’

I went upstairs to congratulate Simon on his excellent choice of John from Sheffield as the interview of the day.

Chalk Farm flat, 6.50 p.m.

It was good to be home earlier tonight. Flo was in her room and as she was leaving Janis told me a new family has moved in across the road. There’s a daughter, Paige, who is a bit older than Flo and they had been talking. Flo was dead chuffed to have made friends with a girl of sixteen, Janis said.

She left and I decided to make macaroni cheese. I don’t eat much during the day and when I get home I like to make something from scratch. I’m an average cook but cooking helps me to decompress. Macaroni cheese is one of my favourite comfort foods and I made a creamy sauce with extra mature Cheddar and a bit of Gruyère I had left over. As I grated the Cheddar I was thinking about John from Sheffield and his story which had moved our audience today. It brought back the painful time after Ben and I split up. Flo had just had her seventh birthday and was a happy and settled child. Ben and I had been going through difficult times for a while but we had managed to protect her from the worst of it and our separation came as a complete shock. She was confused and upset and I noticed a definite change in her. She started to cry at minor things and would cling to me when I dropped her off at school, pleading with me not to leave her. It was tough having to pull her fingers off and walk away. She had seen one parent leave and was frightened the other one might be off too. She wanted to sleep in my bed every night. Poor little mite, it hit her hard.

I put a good pinch of nutmeg into my sauce and kept stirring. I took it hard too. Ben and I had been together for ten years. I met him shortly after I joined StoryWorld as a junior researcher and he was working as a cameraman and on a higher salary than me. I was vulnerable. My darling dad had died suddenly the year before and looking back I can see that there was always an imbalance in our relationship. I let Ben take the lead on most things, like where we would live and how much we would spend on things. I was a bit of a pushover really. So being on my own with Flo has stretched and challenged me. I have had my moments of blind panic but I know I have become stronger.

Flo came out of her room.

‘How was your day, darling?’

‘I hate today. I hate double maths,’ she said.

Mr Crooks, our cat, was curled up on our squashy yellow sofa in his favourite spot with his nose resting in his fur, blissfully asleep. Flo picked him up with a deep sigh and took him back to her room. I sat down on the sofa. I love the colour yellow in a home. It’s so cheerful and my sofa just asks to be stretched out on.

I cleared my emails, turned off my mobile and made myself a mug of tea. I value these quiet times. When I split up with Ben we sold our small house in East Finchley and I found this two-bedroomed garden flat in Chalk Farm. There’s not much of a garden, it’s more a patio with potted plants, but there’s room enough for Flo and me to have two deckchairs out there in the summer and to pretend we have a garden. It’s not a big flat inside either. Both our bedrooms are small doubles. It does have one beautiful large room, the living room, which is also our kitchen and dining room. There are doors at the far end which open onto the patio and I bought the flat because of this room. It’s costing me more than I can comfortably afford and a great slab of my salary goes on my mortgage every month. But my flat is my haven. Often, late at night, when Flo is asleep, I’ll sit here on my sofa with the doors open, listening to the thrum of the city and enjoying the feeling that this is my little corner of the world and no one can get me here.

StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

Start of a new week and Harriet Dodd arrived today. I was walking out of the morning meeting with Julius when this young woman with light red shoulder-length hair approached us. She had hooded eyelids which gave her a sleepy look, though she sounded confident as she extended her hand towards me.

‘I cannot thank you enough for this opportunity. I’ve always wanted to work in television.’

She had the well-bred voice and the poise of an expensively educated girl and she was dressed immaculately. I wondered what my team would make of her.

‘You must be Harriet,’ I said.

‘Yes. Please call me Harry, everyone does.’

She smiled at me and then glanced over at Julius and smiled at him and I could see that his interest was aroused. He introduced himself and they shook hands.

‘My father sends his best wishes to you,’ she said.

‘Please send mine back,’ Julius replied.

That grated on me. She was already working her contacts. Harriet followed me to the quartet of desks outside my office that belong to my team and I presented her to Molly, Simon and Ziggy, my runner.

‘Please show Harriet how to log on and we’re meeting in my room in fifteen minutes,’ I said.

They joined me and we spent the next hour discussing several ideas we were working on for the show and I could see that Molly and Simon were observing Harriet rather carefully. I was observing her too. Maybe because of her hooded eyelids she has a closed face that you can’t read. She has beautiful shiny hair which is the colour of apricots and she was dressed in a cream silk blouse which had to be designer, tucked into a burgundy leather pencil skirt with kitten heel courts the exact same shade of dark red. Now, we television people earn good money and we can be a stylish crew but honest to God, Harriet’s ensemble was in another league.

‘There’s a lot to learn about turning an idea into good TV,’ I said to her. ‘I’d like you to shadow Simon this week and he can teach you the basics.’

I saw an expression flit across Molly’s face. Was she aggrieved that I hadn’t asked her?

‘And then next week I’d like you to shadow Molly. That way you’ll get a good insight into how we work in this team.’

They got up and left my office. About ten minutes later Julius walked in without knocking, flicked my door shut and sat down opposite me.

‘So that’s Edward Dodd’s daughter.’

‘Yes, and she’s twenty-six,’ I replied crisply.

He laughed.

‘Oh, Liz, you and your suspicious mind...’

‘What can I do for you, Julius?’

‘I’m planning an outside broadcast for October. I’ve secured a sponsor and they want something human interest and inspirational.’

He knows I love doing outside broadcasts and it is an aspect of my job that gives me huge satisfaction. They require a great deal of planning and longer hours than usual but when they work they can be special.

‘Great. Shall I work up a few ideas?’

‘Let’s brainstorm now,’ he said.

That is Julius for you. I had a week’s worth of items to produce and he expected me to drop everything to discuss ideas.

‘Not now. Can we do it over lunch?’

He stood up.

‘OK. See you at The Brasserie at one.’

He left and I saw how he leaned into Harriet’s desk and said a few words before he sauntered away. In all the years I’ve known him, Julius has held a more senior position than me at StoryWorld, and now he is Top Dog. Sometimes I look at him and think, I could do what you do, but I would do it differently. I would try to take the staff with me through praise and encouragement, not through fear. He is a bully, not always, but often enough to generate unease in all his senior managers. He has made me feel afraid in the past. He is also talented and very clever. He has a phenomenal memory and doesn’t forget past conflicts, but then nor do I. How could I ever forget that night?

Our TV station is housed in a converted Victorian warehouse which is right on the river near London Bridge. I’ve worked here for years yet I still find that the building gives me a lift when I arrive in the mornings. The architect who converted it used its space to great effect and there’s this dramatic light-filled atrium which you enter from the street. Off the atrium are the main studio, the small news studio, dressing rooms and the Hub, our staff café. There are two staircases, on either side of the atrium, which take you up to the executive offices above; features is on the left and news is on the right. It is a very showbiz building and I have sometimes used the interior for my stories. One year I even staged a fashion show, using the staircases to great effect.

I walked down and out onto the riverside and headed towards The Brasserie which is near Tower Bridge. This is his favourite restaurant and they make a fuss of Julius when he goes there. It was a fine autumn day, bright and blowy, and I was feeling good about my life and my job. There are times when I feel so lucky to be working in television because no two days are alike. Julius was seated at a corner table and he’d ordered a bottle of Chablis.

‘To go with the oysters,’ he said.

‘You’re having oysters?’

‘Join me. They’re fantastic here.’

He ordered a dozen oysters and a side order of fries for us to share. We talked outside-broadcast ideas as we drank the wine, which was very fine and dry.

‘What about a fire station? Everyone loves a fireman,’ I said.

‘Too risky; we would need a fire or an accident to happen that day and it might be a quiet one. Have you noticed how rarely we carry fire stories these days? Maybe the health and safety people have achieved something after all,’ he said.

The platter of oysters arrived, already opened, and he put some on my plate. He reached for the black pepper.

‘How about a hospital then? I know it’s an obvious choice but there would be a lot of human interest stories on the wards,’ I said.

‘Might be a downer, don’t you think? Death and disease... The sponsor wants something inspirational.’

‘I’m sure we could find stories of courage in the face of adversity and I could see Fizzy being great with the patients. They’d love her and the staff would too. Let me do some research.’

We agreed I would work the idea up; find a suitable hospital and recce it.

I asked him if he would like my sixth oyster. Five had been enough for me. He shared the last of the wine and told me he had got his taste for oysters when he was a student and worked at an oyster bar at Mersea Island in Essex.