Woman of the Hour (22 page)

Flo was on the phone and went into her room as I came in. I put three sweet potatoes in the oven to bake and phoned Fenton for an update on her relationship with the sexy detective. Things have progressed and they are going away this weekend for three nights in Amsterdam. She sounded happy and excited.

‘We’re getting the Eurostar and Bill has found us a hotel right on the canal.’

‘Sounds romantic,’ I said.

Fenton spends all her time looking after others and she deserves more than anyone to have some happiness. But as I put the phone down I felt a bit bleak. It had highlighted my sense of being on my own. I tapped on Flo’s door.

‘Do you fancy a baked sweet potato?’

‘Mmm, yes please.’

She joined me in the kitchen. She had eaten at five with Janis but Flo is tall and able to eat what she wants without putting on an ounce. She was in a good mood.

‘I got an A for my project on the northern white rhino.’

‘That’s fantastic. Can I see it?’

She went into her room and returned with her folder. She opened it at the last page.

‘Look what the teacher said.’

Her teacher had written at the bottom of the project:
This places the plight of the northern white rhino in context and highlights the implications for species survival. Excellent work.

‘Well done, darling. You’ve made me feel very proud.’

The sweet potatoes were perfect, with lashings of butter melting into their orange flesh. I served them with goat’s cheese and broccoli but left the broccoli. It was the warm earthiness of the potatoes I had craved. Fenton once said I cook more comfort food than anyone she knows.

*

It was around nine when Grace called me.

‘Have you heard from Ben this week?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Only he was supposed to come over to eat with us last night and he didn’t show.’

‘He hasn’t told me whether he wants Flo to come down this weekend. Has he got a big job on?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. Let her come down on Friday night anyway. Pete and I will meet her at the station. And if he rings you’ll ask him to call me, won’t you?’

Grace sounded worried. After Flo’s casino comment I wondered what was going on in his life. For some reason a memory came to mind of an autumn day when Flo was five and Ben and I had taken her to fly a kite on Parliament Hill Fields. The kite had been my birthday gift to Ben and I’d bought it at a specialist shop. It was a rectangular box kite with one end green and the other end bright red. Ben was determined to get his new kite flying even though there wasn’t much wind that day. To begin with he had held Flo by the hand and they had run down the hill with Ben holding the kite aloft. They couldn’t get up enough speed to launch it even with her little legs pounding down the hill. So I sat on a bench at the top with my arms clasped around her as he laboured up and down that hill until he finally got the kite up into the sky and I cheered and Flo clapped. It’s important to remember the happy times we shared.

StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

We got through to Friday without further drama. Gerry was in and I went down to make-up to see how he was doing. Ellen was plucking his eyebrows and she rubbed in a little bit of cream to make them lie smooth.

‘Thanks, darling,’ he said.

He swivelled round on his chair.

‘I’ve been telling Ellen I’m going to a luxury spa this weekend. I’ll be off straight after my slot and blow the expense.’

‘Good for you,’ I said.

‘I have more spending money these days, for obvious reasons.’

‘Every cloud,’ Ellen said.

She was in on the drama of Gerry’s life too. There are few presenters who can resist sharing their woes while their make-up is being applied and their outfits titivated.

*

For our lunch Fizzy had booked us into a small private dining room at a club where she is a member. It was in Soho and you would have walked by without knowing it was a club, so unobtrusive was its brown front door. Inside it was all narrow twisty staircases and dark wood-panelled rooms that could have graced a novel by Dickens. It was just the two of us in a room at the top. The waiter was wearing one of those long white aprons and I asked for a red wine and Fizzy ordered a Virgin Mary. He left the room briefly. When he returned he opened a wooden hatch in the room and our drinks were pulled up by pulley and presented to us on a silver tray.

‘So good,’ Fizzy said, sucking deeply on her straw.

‘Thanks for inviting me here. It’s nice that it’s so private.’

We consulted the menu which was self-consciously retro with dishes like shepherd’s pie with braised turnips and semolina with raspberry jam for pudding. I chose the fish pie and Fizzy asked for an omelette with herbs.

‘We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we?’ she said.

When Fizzy joined the station as a PA I had been a junior researcher.

‘And I’ve always admired how you cope with everything, Liz, especially after you and Ben split up.’

This turn in the conversation was so unlike Fizzy.

‘That’s kind of you to say so.’

‘How do you do it?’

‘Oh, I have my wobbly days, believe me.’

‘You never seem to show it.’

My fish pie was good, creamy with chunks of salmon and cod and the occasional prawn. Fizzy was toying with her omelette. She took one more mouthful and then pushed the plate away from her.

‘You haven’t eaten much. Was it dry?’

‘It was fine. I want to ask your advice but this has to be
totally confidential
.’

‘Of course.’

She wiped her mouth on her napkin and folded it twice neatly along its original seams then folded it again. I sensed her trepidation and I stopped eating.

‘I’m pregnant.’

‘Wow! I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Nor was I.’

She gave me a rueful smile. The thought hurtled into my head that it had to be Bob’s child. I reached for her hand.

‘How many weeks are you?’

‘I’m not entirely sure: seven or eight, I think.’

She touched her left breast and then her right one.

‘But these boys are getting bigger.’

‘Was that why you were sick at the OB?’

‘It must have been. I did the test straight after.’

I squeezed her hand.

‘Are you happy about this?’

‘I’m very conflicted about it.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Part of me wants this baby. But I’m not married and, well, I can’t go public about the father.’

‘OK.’

‘I’m scared I’ll lose the support of viewers and if that happens I know what Julius will do. Goodbye my slot on StoryWorld.’

‘Does he know?’

‘I told him yesterday and he advised me to have a termination.’

‘As if it’s as easy as that!’ I said.

‘I know.’

‘Did you have a scan?’

‘I haven’t done any of that stuff yet.’

‘And Bob, what does he say?’

She gasped and her eyes widened in alarm.

‘You know about Bob?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh my God, is it that obvious?’

‘I saw you two going into a hotel one afternoon.’

‘We were spotted. Christ!’

She was agitated and turned in her chair to face me full on.

‘You mustn’t tell anyone, Liz. Really. We
can’t
have Bob’s name getting out. Julius thinks the father is Geoff.’

‘I won’t say a word.’

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise.’

‘I let him think it was Geoff’s,’ she said.

Fizzy had been involved with Geoff for several years which was why Julius had made that assumption. Geoff was also married.

‘But what did Bob say?’

She picked up the folded napkin and slapped it against the edge of the table.

‘He said he’s crazy about me but his kids are still at home and he has to see them through till they go to college. He’s got two girls in their teens.’

‘He needs to think about you too, Fizz.’

‘He’s in a bad place at the moment. He’s heard a rumour that Julius is going to cut the news operation even more, turn the bulletins into three-minute celebrity news round-ups and do a deal with a newspaper for the headlines.’

‘I can’t see that happening. I think he’s being a bit paranoid there.’

‘Maybe, but what it comes down to is he doesn’t want this kid. He wants to stay married and if I go ahead I’m on my own.’

‘Do you want this baby?’

‘It’s my last chance pregnancy, isn’t it?’ She rested her hands on her stomach. ‘Yes, I think I do.’

‘OK.’

‘But I don’t want to be shunted off to a mother and baby slot in the afternoons. I love my job. I can’t bear the thought of losing it.’

I am cursed with this need to fix things.

‘You know, I think the thing to do is to front it up. Speak directly to the viewers. Say you made a mistake and got pregnant by a married man. You deeply regret that and will never reveal his identity, but you want this baby very much. We can get our viewers onside.’

‘You think so?’

‘I’m sure of it,’ I said.

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Give yourself time to think about this, Fizz, please.’

Her face was sad as she asked me if I wanted a coffee. I sensed she wanted me to stay longer with her.

‘That would be nice.’

She yanked on a rope pull by the wall, another affectation of the club. The waiter reappeared and she ordered a coffee for me and a peppermint tea for herself.

‘They have lovely glass teapots here,’ she said.

The waiter left the room.

‘If I do go public I can see Betty giving me the third degree. You know her view on unmarried mothers.’

‘Bugger Betty!’ I said.

She looked at me, surprised, and then she started to giggle and that set me off and we laughed and laughed and I felt closer to her than I had ever felt before.

Chalk Farm flat, Saturday

Ben had been in touch finally and we arranged for Pete to pick Flo up from the station on Friday night. Grace rang to say she had arrived safely. That was the cue for a major slump on my part. I was worn out by the events of the last few weeks and I lay in bed until mid-morning. I thought about Harriet who had left the station on Friday night looking cowed as she passed Julius. And then I thought about Fizzy and the decision facing her. She has two powerful men trying to influence her, playing on her fears about what will happen to her career if she goes ahead with the pregnancy. There are few enough mothers who are senior women working in television. It’s been written about: how it’s less than the national average. It’s partly the long hours and the assumption that you don’t leave work until the programme is ready. But you also get sucked into thinking that working in television is a privilege; it puts you at the centre of things and that is a difficult thing to give up. Ranged against these forces was the tiny life fluttering inside her.

*

This afternoon I took a walk along the canal towpath from Camden to Islington. I like this walk, though you have to be aware of a few psycho-cyclists zooming up behind you. The narrowboats along this stretch are well-kept and jaunty. Most of them are painted dark green or blue with decorative name signs picked out in scarlet and yellow lettering. A few of the decks had piles of logs neatly stacked for the wood-burning stoves within. You can peer through the windows and get a glimpse of the lives lived there. Part of me thinks it would be delightful to live in such an unusual space. Then I think about what it would feel like coming home on a dark night and walking along the towpath. It feels a sinister place here at night.

I have been caught out many times in my life by taking action when I’m in emotional turmoil. I needed to weigh up the evidence of Harriet’s allegation of sexual assault as objectively as I could. There was that encounter on the stairs between Harriet and Julius, the way she turned her face away as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. And she has changed since that night I found her sobbing in the Ladies. She is less confident than when she arrived at StoryWorld. She sticks closer to the team, which has actually meant her becoming more of a team member and more likeable. It is this change in her behaviour which reinforces my belief that something bad has happened to her, an experience that has fundamentally shaken her sense of herself.

Ziggy has changed too. She got a lot of praise for showing initiative at the OB and she was starting to come out of her shell. But she has looked pinched and anxious the last few days. She was supportive to Harriet when she came back to work and they have become unlikely friends. Either Harriet has confided in her about Julius and the assault or, possibly, Ziggy overheard a conversation. She gets around the building in her role as our runner. Something is definitely up with Ziggy.

I had reached Islington and I walked up the metal stairs and onto the high street. I stopped to get a tea and a rose-flavoured macaroon and sat at a table in the window looking out at the shoppers on Upper Street. Harriet told me she lives in Islington, with her parents. It’s probably one of those grand Georgian houses down by Highbury Fields which cost millions. I don’t think she’ll go to the police now. If she doesn’t report Julius he’ll get away with it. Again. I bit into the macaroon and my mouth was filled with an intense perfumed sweetness. Another thought occurred to me: Julius does not come down to my office any more, not since the night of the incident. We are on the same side of the building and he used to saunter down a lot. Not any more. He’s avoiding Harriet. We think we can read people but can we really? I had read that an accomplished liar can look you in the eyes and lie and lie. Julius tells lies. Even his name is a lie; he was plain Nigel Jones until he reinvented himself.

I caught a bus back to Chalk Farm and went upstairs. I was turning it all over as we chugged down the hill towards King’s Cross. Two children were running shrieking up and down the aisle of the bus while their mother made feeble attempts to stop them. There was what he did to me at the Christmas party seven years ago. I don’t like to think about it but I have to. Our kisses had turned too quickly to him pushing his fingers up me. He was rough and insistent and had made me bleed and he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Fenton thought I should have reported him then. How I wish I could discuss this with her again but she’s in Amsterdam with her sexy detective.