Woman of the Hour (20 page)

‘Oh no.’

‘It was peaceful. I wanted to ask you to thank your employee Molly Dorff. It was clear to us all that they had connected and Molly’s visits gave her comfort.’

Visits? I hadn’t realised that Molly had been visiting Naomi since the outside broadcast.

‘I’ll pass that on.’

I planned to tell Molly in the privacy of my room, but as I looked over to the team I could see that she already knew. She had gone white. I came out and took her by the hand and led her into my room, closing the door. She sank onto the sofa and covered her face with her hands and wept. I sat next to her and stroked her back gently.

‘Connie Mears said that your visits were a comfort to Naomi,’ I said after a while.

Molly sat up straighter.

‘She saw her interview,’ she said.

‘She saw it go out?’

‘No, she was having treatment that morning. The next evening I took my laptop in and showed it to her. She liked it a lot.’

‘That was a kind thing to do and I’m glad she saw it.’

‘Me too.’ Molly’s voice wobbled.

After she had gone I thought how that put our problems into perspective; that poor young woman, dead at thirty-three, a life completed too soon.

At lunchtime Simon, Harriet and Ziggy went out to lunch together. Simon had suggested they go to a café nearby to work more on his panto idea but Molly had chosen to stay behind. She was writing, typing fast and with a don’t-come-near-me concentration.

It was about half an hour before I was due to meet with Julius when I got a call from Martine.

‘We’re going to have to move your budget meeting to tomorrow. He’s not coming in today, after all,’ she said.

I knew it wasn’t worth asking if anything was up. Martine guards Julius’s privacy as if she is dealing with state secrets. It has been one of the sources of conflict between us. She gave me a new slot for the next day.

At the end of the afternoon I asked Harriet to pop into my office.

‘How’s it been for you today?’

‘It was good to see Si and Moll and Zig,’ she said.

‘It was good to have you back.’

She pulled at the cuffs of her dress.

‘Where is he?’

‘He hasn’t been in today. But he’ll be back tomorrow and you need to prepare yourself for that.’

Her face is not an open book like Molly’s. It is partly her hooded eyelids that give her face a closed look and I couldn’t tell if she was upset.

‘And you still don’t want to take this any further?’

‘I don’t. I can’t,’ she said.

‘It’s not a question of can’t. I hope you know I’ll support you. I won’t let him bully you.’

‘I just want to go on working here.’

Did she think that if she reported Julius she would get the sack? This made me feel uncomfortable as she is only here on a three month trial and she has few enough employment rights.

‘If you change your mind you must let me know. You don’t have to suffer this in silence.’

We had got through the day but Julius would be back tomorrow and sooner or later she would encounter him. I looked through my door to the desks outside. Simon and Molly had gone for the day but Ziggy was still sitting there. She was doing that hugging thing she does which makes me feel uneasy, wrapping her arms around her thin frame and rocking back and forth in her chair. Something is troubling her.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Harriet said.

‘Yes, see you tomorrow,’ I said, feeling I had failed her somehow.

Chalk Farm flat, 8 p.m.

I made the bubble and squeak, my own version of it using the leftover roast potatoes and vegetables from Sunday. My mum would always make it the traditional way, using cabbage and mashed potato and lots of pepper. She would shape the mixture into round cakes, dust them with flour and fry them until they were crisp and golden brown. I remembered how much Dad loved that dish.

As I cooked I was thinking about the first year after Ben and I split up. Flo and I were getting used to living in this flat without her dad and she kept getting ill. They were minor ailments, but the sort that meant I couldn’t send her to school or leave her with a childminder. I had to take days off work to look after her, often at short notice. I remember feeling terror that StoryWorld would use my absences to get rid of me. Over the years I had seen other team members despatched on flimsy grounds. I had taken on a huge mortgage and hanging on to my job had never been more important. I was sleeping badly and had started to do obsessive–compulsive things like checking three or four times every night that I had locked the front door or turned off the gas hob. I would be lying in bed and had to get up to check on these things even though I
knew
I had locked the door and turned off the gas. I had an overwhelming feeling of being on my own and of carrying too heavy a load.

Flo got ill again for the fifth time in as many weeks. It was a sore throat and temperature and once we were through that I booked an appointment with my GP while Flo was at school.

‘I want to talk to you about Florence. I’m wondering why she’s getting ill all the time. Can it be because of the separation?’

I listed her various illnesses.

‘These are normal childhood ailments. She’ll have picked these up at school.’

‘She never used to get ill all the time.’

‘She’s building up her immune system and she’ll be fine. I’m more worried about you.’

‘Why me?’

‘You appear to be under a lot of stress.’

I could feel tears pushing up but I held them in and swallowed hard.

‘I do feel horrible a lot of the time,’ I said at last.

‘Are you experiencing any kind of symptoms?’

Gradually she coaxed them out of me. I shared my feelings of anxiety, my shortness of breath and my obsessive–compulsive actions.

‘These are all symptoms of general anxiety disorder. I’m not going to prescribe you antidepressants though. I’m prescribing a holiday instead. It’s clear you need a break.’

‘I can’t possibly go away. I’ve been missing too many days as it is.’

‘That’s the anxiety speaking. The roof won’t fall in if you take a week off work. Book a package holiday, somewhere where you can spend time with your little girl and do the simple things, plus get lots of rest. If you’re calm she’ll be calm.’

‘I wish I could.’

‘Please take a break, soon. Stress is a killer. It can take years off your life. If you can’t get away I can recommend a course of meditation which may help.’

She’s a brilliant doctor who refuses to reach for the prescription pad. I thought about what she said but I did not take her advice. I soldiered on for the next few weeks feeling shaky and out of control until one morning my anxiety reached such a pitch that I couldn’t leave the flat or walk Flo to school. I was dizzy, as if I was standing on a tall building and might throw myself off. This scared me and I called my doctor.

‘You sound short of breath,’ she said.

I was trying to gulp in great mouthfuls of air and my heart was beating too fast.

‘I can’t breathe properly,’ I said.

‘I think you’re hyperventilating.’

She talked me through how to deal with it and I went to see her again. That afternoon I called work and said I had to take one week’s leave of absence, unpaid if necessary. I said an urgent family matter had cropped up. It had got to the stage where I was beyond caring what they thought any more.

I found one of those last-minute holiday sites and booked a budget hotel in Brittany. Flo was excited by the large Brittany Ferries ship we travelled on and the fact that the ship had its own shop. We spent a week sitting on a beach and I threw myself into building elaborate sandcastles, complete with a moat. One afternoon Flo and I got so absorbed in the task that we accumulated a small group of French children who helped us in the construction. They ran to get seawater in their buckets and as fast as they poured the water into the moat it sank into the sand and yet still they ran to get more water.

In the evenings I would find a harbourside café and Flo and I ate moules and frites most nights. I got into bed early and Flo snuggled up against me as I read to her. While she slept next to me I read my way through two novels and that was a treat. It was our first holiday without Ben and it was all right. When we got back to Chalk Farm I put an ad in the local paper and that was how I found Janis.

What I realised tonight is that one of the subterranean causes of that horrible period of anxiety must have been what happened between Julius and me. I had pushed it down and refused to think about it. But that doesn’t work, does it?

StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

Julius was back this morning; he did not look well at the meeting and was clearly feeling irritable. There were dark shadows under his eyes and his jaw was clenched. At one point when Bob was holding forth he started to drum his fingers on the table. Martine had told me that our budget meeting would be straight afterwards so we left the meeting together and walked in silence to his office. He opened the door for me and motioned me to sit in front of his desk.

As I sat down I said: ‘That young woman with cancer, Naomi Jessup, died yesterday.’

He gave a slight flinch at this and seated himself with a sigh.

‘That’s tough.’

I wondered why I had told him that. It could have reactivated his hostility towards me but I wanted him to know that our screening of her story had been timely and a good thing to do.

Martine had given him a copy of my budget. He stared down at it for a minute or two and I could feel tension building in me. Since Harriet’s allegation, being alone with him makes me feel hugely uncomfortable.

‘I’m not going to waste time. Our revenue is down the last two quarters. You will have identified the cuts you can make so I suggest you share them with me.’

‘Is it a blip?’

‘What?’

‘The problem with the revenue; or are we talking something more permanent?’

‘I doubt advertising will ever get back to former levels. Come on. What have you got?’

I offered up half the cuts I had identified the day before. These amounted to 1.5 per cent of my annual budget. A cold smile flickered on his lips as he scanned my list of cuts and I experienced a wave of revulsion against him as I imagined him with Harriet in the edit suite. I wondered if he knew that she had confided in me and if he felt any guilt at all. The atmosphere between us was crackling with tension.

‘You know you can cut more. Bob’s budget has taken a five per cent hit and he’s had to let go of people.’

‘He started from a better place than me.’

‘That’s arguable. News is more expensive than features.’

We both wanted the meeting to be over. He was distracted and had glanced at his watch twice. It is one of those absurdly expensive watches that you see in glossy magazines, often modelled by Hollywood A-listers.

‘Do you want to hear my arguments?’ I said.

‘No I do not. Get the cuts up to three per cent and I’ll sign off on it.’

I offered the further cuts that I could live with. Julius reached for his pen and initialled the lines that would be cut. He signed the bottom of my budget and pushed it across the desk towards me.

‘You’ve been let off lightly,’ he said.

I felt a small bloom of satisfaction that I had been cut less than Bob – if Julius was telling me the truth, of course. I stood up.

‘Oh, and Liz?’

‘Yes?’

He pulled my latest expenses sheet from a drawer and tapped at it.

‘This has got to stop.’

He was pointing at the clothing expenses I had signed off for Gerry and Betty to buy pastel-coloured shirts and tops.

‘But we asked them to change their wardrobe.’

‘Tough. They want to be on the sofa they can bloody well supply their own clothes.’

We paid for Fizzy’s on-screen clothes, so she was in that special category of indispensable. He cared less about the other presenters. Martine must have seen that I was about to leave because she came to the door.

‘Julius, it’s the hospital on the line.’

His face changed and the budgets were forgotten.

‘Put them through,’ he said.

I left his room and stood at Martine’s desk. I recalled that his brother Steven had been ill.

‘How is Steven doing?’

‘He’s worse. He’s had to go into hospital.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said.

‘Julius needs our support’ she said.

Back in my room I stood at my window and stared at the streets below. Julius was under pressure. Bob has to get rid of some members of his team and that meant times were hard indeed and it would lead to gossip in the Hub and a tremor throughout the station. I doubted any of my team felt truly secure in their jobs. I asked Molly to join me.

‘Moll, I wanted to tell you that I’ve been thinking about your Naomi interview. It’s a brilliant piece of work and I’m going to enter it for an award.’

She flushed with pleasure because more than anything Molly wants to be a film-maker.

‘Thank you. I hope it helped other people, you know, who are facing stuff.’

‘I’m sure it did.’

‘I’m off to see that non-fiction publisher. I should be back by three,’ she said.

We get a lot of our story ideas and our interview guests from non-fiction books; memoirs, of course, but also books on history and sport and science. Molly likes doing these and she has built up a solid group of contacts with publishers.

‘Stay off politicians for now, please,’ I said.

‘Point taken.’

We smiled ruefully at each other.

At lunchtime an email from Todd appeared in my inbox. It was after ten p.m. in Sydney and he told me that he’d spent the day at hospital with his dad. His father was having chemotherapy and it was unnerving to see his once strong father looking so frail. His father was not going to get better. He wanted to tell his dad he loved him but the words had got stuck in his throat and they’d spent his whole visit talking about sport. He needed to find freelance work soon or he would go nuts. His mum was in pieces, and sitting around in his parents’ house all day was doing his head in. He ended his message with
I miss you. X
. It was a more emotionally revealing email than any talk we had ever had. I was missing him too, even though we had not seen each other that often. Fenton thinks that I held back from getting too deeply involved with Todd because my relationship with Flo has to be the primary one.