This is extremely worrying: Dominik keeps the show on the road. ‘What happened? He cancelled?’
‘He didn’t cancel. But he wouldn’t make himself available. Says he has another job.’
‘But –’
‘Be here at seven.’ She hangs up.
This – Mum’s assertiveness, her unreasonableness – is unprecedented. I’ll ask Hugh what I should do and – Oh! I can’t.
It’s literally unbelievable that he has gone away. How did everything go so bad so quickly?
I call Mum back, but it goes straight to message. Next I try the landline and it’s the same story so I’ve no choice but to drive all the way out there.
Mum is in Neeve’s leather jacket, waiting by the front door. ‘Thanks for this,’ she says. ‘If I don’t get out and away from him,’ she nods in Pop’s direction, ‘I’ll go fucking insane.’
‘Um … okay.’ I’m certain I’ve never before heard her use the F-word. ‘Who are you going with?’
She answers by taking one of my hands between both of hers and asking, ‘How’re you managing, love? Since Hugh went?’
‘Oh. Ah. It’s weird. But early days.’
‘Well, I’m here for you. Come over any time.’
‘So where are you off to now?’
‘Who’s doing the dinner tomorrow night?’
‘Maura.’
‘Oh.’
Maura’s is the lowest point in the five-week cycle because all she can cook is baked potatoes and grated cheese, which generates aggrieved griping that she could at least order in pizzas, seeing as she has plenty of money.
I do get pizzas on my week, but they’re only supermarket ones, which I suspect also generates aggrieved griping. But, feck them, I don’t have the resources that Maura does.
Joe and Declyn are both good cooks, so their weeks are happy ones. But Derry’s week is the jewel in the crown, the Met Ball, the event that no one misses. Derry is a great woman for flinging money around and always sends out to Rasam for a small mountain of fabulous Indian food.
Something beeps outside.
‘Here’s my taxi,’ Mum says. ‘I’ll be home by eleven.’
‘Have you your phone?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’ She scampers away.
‘Is it switched on?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice floats back to me. I’m certain she’s lying.
Feeling confused and hard-done-by, I go in to Pop, who greets me by bellowing, ‘Who are you?’
‘Amy.’
‘Amy who?’
‘Amy O’Connell.’
‘I’m an O’Connell, could we be related?’
‘I’m your daughter.’
‘Away to feck, I’ve no children. Who are you?’
‘Amy.’
‘Amy who?’
‘Amy O’Connell.’
After about ten minutes of this lark, I really want to hit him with a hammer. I can actually visualize the whole thing, picking up a hammer, clonking Pop on the skull with it, then watching him lapse into the silence of the comatose. No wonder elder abuse is so prevalent.
It’s suddenly a lot easier to sympathize with Mum needing to go out with these mysterious friends of hers.
I can’t even go on the internet and escape into looking at cushion covers or fantasy holidays because in this house you can only get Wi-Fi in an upstairs bedroom and I’d better not leave Pop on his own.
The thing with the Wi-Fi is that we’re actually stealing it from the neighbours, the Floods. I’m ashamed of this but the story of how Derry and I tried and failed to get broadband installed is too long and too boring. However, living internet-free is hard and sometimes the temptation to jump aboard the Floods’ Wi-Fi is irresistible. As compensation, we bought them a case of Argentinian wine, but Joe went around with it and, for reasons we never got to the bottom of, neglected to explain what it was actually for. So the moment to ’fess up has passed and we live in fear that the Floods will start using a password.
At eight o’clock things get worse: Pop wants to watch a documentary about serial killers but I want – need – to watch Masterchef. Pop seems much tougher going tonight than ever before. Then I remember that the few evenings I’ve minded him in the past, Hugh was with me. It’s a lot easier when there’s two of you. ‘You’ll like this,’ I say to him, keeping a tight hold of the remote.
But Pop heaps such loud, lavish insults on Marcus Waring and the misfortunate contestants that I quickly admit defeat and switch over to Jeffrey Dahmer: The Milwaukee Cannibal.
‘The lad with the kettle!’ Pop says. ‘This is a great one.’
27
Friday, 16 September, day four
Alastair breezes in from London around two p.m., like he does every Friday. ‘Plans for the weekend, Amy?’
‘Neeve and Kiara are talking about us going bowling.’
‘Bowling!’
I have to laugh. ‘Apart from anything else, the shoes. No, just the cinema on Sunday, all part of the routine.’
‘Routines are good. So, anything social? What about your girlfriends?’
‘Lunch with Steevie tomorrow, after I do battle with my hairdresser. Then, tomorrow night it’s Vivi Cooper’s birthday.’
‘Who?’
‘Wife of Hugh’s friend Frankie. Hugh said yes before he decided to skip the country so I’ve inherited the obligation. It’s in Ananda, six couples and me. I’m not going. Vivi says I can decide at the last minute but I already know it’s a no-way.’
‘You don’t think it might be good for y–’
‘I’d be mortified. Having to pretend to be okay but – Oh, God!’ Suddenly I’m struggling to catch my breath.
‘Easy,’ Alastair soothes. Gently he rubs my back until I can get some air in. ‘Sorry,’ he says.
‘It’s grand. You were only trying to help. It’s just, what if I got the panic in a situation like that? When I’d be trapped with all those people?’
He nods. ‘Maybe just see people one on one?’
I’m not sure. Apart from the girls, there’s no one I feel entirely safe with.
‘But tomorrow night,’ he says, picking up my thoughts, ‘just stay in, eat and look at runway shows on vogue.com. You’re in shock. Your world changed too quickly. You’re still processing it.’
‘Is that what it is?’ I’m desperate for an explanation.
‘The transition will take time,’ Alastair says. ‘You’ve to metabolize all these new factors.’
‘And then I’ll be okay?’
He laughs, a little sadly.
‘Okay,’ Tim announces to me and Alastair. ‘Quick meeting.’
‘Feck off,’ Alastair cries. ‘It’s ten to five. It’s nearly the weekend.’
‘Media Awards?’ Tim continues as if Alastair hasn’t spoken. ‘On Friday, November the eleventh, in Brighton. Do we go? And, if so, which of us?’
Because the British media has to pretend it isn’t entirely London-centric, these awards – ‘the Oscars of the News World’ – take place outside the capital. About seven hundred presenters, producers, researchers, directors and journalists descend on a seaside resort, where approximately a gazillion prizes are doled out for every imaginable version of current affairs.
Something about being away from home encourages late nights and bad behaviour. Accolades are dished out to the great and the good over a rowdy dinner. Then there’s an old-school disco, featuring lots of dad dancing and multiple after-parties in various hotel rooms. In some you drink whisky and play poker until sun-up and in others you dance around a trouser-press, drunkenly convinced you’re talented enough to be on a podium in Pacha.
Pity the unlucky person whose bedroom is right below an after-party – they won’t get a moment’s sleep. And there’s no point complaining: the staff are too scared to intervene, and if the sleepless guest goes upstairs to demand the racket quietens down, there’s a good chance they’ll be hoicked into the room and force-fed rum.
All kinds of unlikely all
iances are forged on such a night – holding back the hair of your mortal enemy as she pukes, after one B52 too many. Or walking hand in hand on the shingle beach as the sun rises with a man you’d never previously had down as doable.
If you were prone to infidelity, it’s the perfect setting.
‘D’you want to go, Amy?’ Tim asks.
‘Yes.’ It’s always a fun night and I hadn’t gone last year because Hugh’s dad had just died.
‘We should all go, really,’ Tim says. ‘Having nearly every journalist in Britain in one room is too good an opportunity.’
‘Can we afford for the three of us to go?’ Between airfares, hotel costs and ticket prices, these things are expensive.
Alastair and I look at Tim expectantly, awaiting his verdict. We’re equal partners in our business, but in all financial matters we treat Tim like he’s our dad.
‘Thamy?’ Tim calls. ‘Costings for flights to Gatwick on November the eleventh? And the cheapest rooms at the Gresham Hotel in Brighton?’
We drift back into our work, and when Thamy shows her findings to Tim he obviously likes what he sees because he says, ‘Book them.’ Then, ‘Okay. We’re all going.’
Out of nowhere I wonder if Josh Rowan will be there.
28
Seventeen months ago
The terrible evening when Premilla’s drug shame had appeared online, I stood on the plane, waiting impatiently to exit, scrolling down through the grisly details and strategizing.
I had to change the conversation fast from Premilla-who-bought-drugs-on-the-street to Premilla-the-respectable-woman-who’d-been-badly-served-by-the-medical-community. An interview with a journalist I trusted? A slot on This Morning?
Both my phones were ringing. I answered one at random. ‘Amy O’Connell.’
‘It’s Josh Rowan.’
I said nothing. I was silent. Furious.
‘Are you there?’
‘What do you want?’ No publicist could afford an enemy in the press but I was very sore about this.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘About Marie Vann.’ That lovely Geordie accent. ‘Most trusted accent,’ some survey had said. ‘I did my best. She went over my head. But I can offer something else. A damage-limitation interview with Chrissy Heathers. Big spread. Two pages on Friday. Sympathetic.’
Silently I considered this. Chrissy Heathers was a different proposition from Marie Vann. Chrissy’s pieces were probing but they were generally balanced and fair. And now that Premilla’s dirty laundry was being washed in public, the only option left was a mop-up operation. But even if I decided to trust the Herald, there was no knowing if Premilla would talk to the paper that had shafted her.
‘Copy approval?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘No.’
It had been a long shot. Journalists almost never ceded it because it meant anything negative could – and would – be removed by the interviewee until nothing remained but a sanitized fluff-job.
‘Look, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘But you can’t promise anything,’ I echoed.
Sounding a little weary he said, ‘Aye.’
My first call was to Hugh to tell him I wouldn’t be home. Then as soon as we were let off the plane I went straight upstairs to Departures and bought a flight back to London, the last of the evening.
Running through the airport, I rang Premilla and promised her that wheels were in motion, then called her sister to tell her to take care of her. Then I rang Josh Rowan back.
‘Why should I trust you?’ I asked.
‘Because you can.’
‘You’ve just demonstrated that I can’t.’
‘I didn’t promise anything. I couldn’t. Marie wasn’t my hire, I’ve no sway with her, but everyone else in Features is mine.’
I was thinking fast, fast, fast. True, Marie Vann had been hired by the remote-as-Beyoncé editor in a wrong-headed attempt to halt declining sales. Speedily, I flicked through a mental index card of all my fluffier journalists – plenty who’d do me a tame piece but because they wrote for weekend supplements we’d be looking at a lead time of two weeks. This story needed turning around immediately, before the public perception of Premilla the street junkie crystallized.
‘Friday?’ I asked. ‘This Friday? The day after tomorrow? Two pages?’
‘This Friday. Two pages. Sympathetic. I’ll try for copy approval and either way I’ll personally oversee the subs.’
An important factor. A sympathetic piece could be rendered worthless if the sub-editors shoved in a trashy tabloid headline, like ‘My Druggie Shame’.
My indecision was agonizing; there was a lot to lose here with the wrong call.
‘Or you can go to another outlet,’ he said. ‘Who could blame you?’
Paradoxically, that was what decided it. A defence of Premilla in the Guardian or The Times could look like one newspaper point-scoring against another. But if it was in the Herald, it might almost neutralize the original story.
‘Okay. Chrissy Heathers interviews Premilla tomorrow in a hotel.’ No journalist was getting anywhere near Premilla’s home to go through her bathroom cabinet and report on the contents.
‘And it’s an exclusive. Wait. Are you running?’ he asked.
‘Yep. Catching the last flight back to London.’
‘In the shoes you were wearing earlier?’
‘When you’re as short as I am, you get used to doing everything in high – Oh, my God!’ My wrist was suddenly vibrating.
‘What is it?’
‘Oh. I see.’ I didn’t break pace. ‘It’s my Fitbit. I must have hit my ten thousand steps for today. It happens so rarely I didn’t know what was happening.’
‘Yet the perky encouragement never stops. Apparently I’ve walked the length of Britain but it’s taken me about three years. Right. So we’re clear that this is an exclusive?’
‘Clear.’
More than clear. It was vital that Premilla didn’t speak to any other media outlet. Deafening silence was the only sensible response, until we had a game-changing piece on Friday.
My stomach was burning up with acid. I didn’t know how far to trust Josh Rowan.
He’d already shafted me once.
It was close to midnight when I arrived at Premilla’s flat in Ladbroke Grove to spend the night. A clamouring scrum of media waited outside, the lenses of the photographers trained on her first-floor windows.
The crowd was even bigger the following morning when two big Lithuanian security men and I shepherded Premilla to the waiting car. ‘Ignore them.’ I spoke softly into her ear as the journos yelled insults and accusations, anything to trigger a response from her. Premilla’s nails were bitten so far down that blood was visible, and her beautiful face was flaky and red from stress-psoriasis.
A hotel suite in central London was booked for the interview. Standing outside its door, Premilla was trembling.
‘It’ll be okay,’ I said fiercely. ‘It will.’ Well, I’d do everything in my power to make it so. I led her in by the hand.
Chrissy Heathers was there, her plump face and curly, messy hair giving the false impression of someone perfectly benign. Also milling about were a photographer, a stylist, a make-up artist and – leaning against a wall, watching them – Josh Rowan. My heart thumped hard at the sight of him and a messy mix of feelings flooded through me: mistrust, rancour and some variant of shame.
His arms were folded across his chest and he was perfectly still in the midst of all the activity. We locked eyes for a moment longer than necessary and my skin flamed with heat. Why was he even here? Editors didn’t usually show up at interviews, no matter how big a splash.
A choking noise from Premilla distracted me – she was so distressed by the scale of this operation that she was crying. ‘Sssh,’ I said softly. ‘It’s okay.’
Chrissy had noticed our arrival so I plastered on a big smile for her – but she shut me down. ‘You’ve full copy appro.’
I had? This was gr
eat news. ‘Thank you.’
‘Not my call.’ God, she was pissed off. ‘Thank him.’ She jerked her head in Josh Rowan’s direction – he had suddenly appeared at my side.
‘Premilla? Josh Rowan, I edit the section you’ll run in. I’m sorry you have to go through this. But we’ll do all we can to make today bearable.’ There he went, with his ‘most trusted’ accent, trying to charm her.
Premilla swallowed and nodded.
‘We just want to make you look good,’ Josh Rowan said. ‘And you and Amy have full copy approval. That means –’
‘Premilla knows what that means,’ I said. Patronizing arse.
‘Let’s get going, shall we?’ Chrissy really wasn’t happy.
‘Just a moment.’ This didn’t start until Premilla was comfortable. I guided her to an armchair. ‘What would you like to drink, lovely? Water? Camomile tea?’
‘Tea.’
‘I’ll make it,’ Josh Rowan said.
Was that why he was here? As a tea-boy? Like, hardly.
While he was gone to whatever part of the suite the camomile tea happened in, Chrissy started firing questions – clearly the interview was under way without any of the soft-soaping that usually precedes them.
Shaky and scared, Premilla stumbled over her first answer, and fury filled me.
‘Just a moment.’ My face was smiley but my voice was sharp. ‘Chrissy, a quick word? In private?’ I was on my feet, walking away with purpose.
In the corridor that connected the living room and the bedroom, I said, ‘I get that giving copy appro is a bummer. But Premilla is genuinely fragile. Can’t you be kind?’
She gave me the death-glare, then her expression wavered. ‘Okay.’ She sighed. ‘Okay.’
She turned and went back in, me behind her, just as Josh Rowan appeared in the corridor and blocked my path. ‘Everything okay?’
Suddenly the rage had a hold of me again. ‘Did you orchestrate this?’ I asked. ‘Letting Marie run that shitty piece so your paper gets a juicy exclusive?’
‘No.’ His voice was polite, his face like stone.
He sounded convincing but he was hard to get a read on.