Acquired Tastes (29 page)

'Mr
Spittle,' Philip began. He hated people who used first names without a formal introduction. 'An interview at this stage would be a little premature. The series is still on the drawing board and I would hate to pre-empt anything.'

'Oh come now, Philip,' the voice was treacly with enforced bonhomie, 'there's got to be something you can tell me. Rumour has it that Britain's answer to Gina Lollobrigida - Gabriella Wolfe - is back in town and she's been lunching with you. Any connection?'

'I really wouldn't like to make any comment.' Philip tried to keep the irritation out of his voice.

'I can always call her agent,' Spittle countered. 'She's a bit of a has-been these days, so I bet he wouldn't mind a few column inches to boost her earning potential.'

Philip was outflanked. Gabriella's agent, Lance Cox, would probably offer Spittle anything he wanted. Philip had taken Cox to lunch as the opener to discussing Gabriella's contract and he had been very difficult, hinting that Gabriella had other offers on the table when both of them knew that this was untrue. Perhaps Cox knew the newspapers were sniffing around and that any publicity would increase her profile as well as her price - perhaps he had even alerted the Ferret to the advert.

'You could say that discussions are under way with Miss Wolfe, but that nothing has been signed, as yet,' he said slowly.

'You mean she's asking more than you're giving?'

'I'm not prepared to comment on the figures involved. That would be tantamount to breaking a confidence,' Philip protested.

'And a big spread about Gabriella, the raven-haired beauty, Queen of the chat show, returning from her European exile would push the price up, eh?' Spittle prodded. 'If you can offer me something more, I'd be prepared to hold fire for the time being.'

Philip thought fast. If Spittle was on to him, the other tabloids wouldn't be far behind. Perhaps he could do a bit of damage limitation.

'Look, Mr Spittle…'

'Eddie, please …'

'Look, Eddie,' Philip began again, 'this series is going to be very exciting and will break new ground in television. I expect a lot of media interest once we're up and running, but I would consider a favourable working relationship with one newspaper if we could agree to certain provisos.'

'If that means I get exclusives on all stories, I'm sure we can agree,' said Spittle.

'Something like that,' hedged Philip. Once he had got a deal with the Network, the kind of publicity Spittle could give the series would guarantee high ratings, but right now, any publicity was likely to bring the full weight of Sir Norman and his committee down on him. Philip blanched at the thought.

'It has to be better than something,' Spittle pressed. 'I would want an absolute guarantee of exclusivity.'

'I think that could be arranged,' said Philip guardedly. 'Although I hope you would be prepared to respect the sensitivity of our subject matter at this early stage. I wouldn't like to jump the gun on publicity so to speak.'

'Discretion is my middle name, Philip, and I think I follow your drift. I get the stories but you want a say in when they are published?'

'And of course, you understand this isn't in any way a formal agreement?'

'A gentlemen's agreement you mean?' asked Spittle. 'I can live with that. Contracts aren't worth the paper they're printed on. Anyway, you sound like a man I could trust Philip, and I'm sure you know what would happen if you broke the agreement.'

The threat hung large and visibly in the air.

Spittle replaced the telephone, a satisfied look on his face. Ignoring his intercom, he bawled through his office door at one of his researchers.

'Tebbit! I want absolutely everything we've got on Gabriella Wolfe, that's with an “e”, and anything you can find on some wanker called Philip Pryce. That's P-R-Y-C-E. From the sound of his voice I bet he's an ex-BBC leftie poofter. And get your bloody skates on.'

Back on the other side of London, Philip slowly replaced the receiver. There was a low whistle and he looked up to see Hugo standing in the doorway, his arms folded.

'Was that
the
Eddie Spittle?'

Philip nodded.

'Bit dangerous doing deals with him, isn't it? They say it's safer to sell your soul to the devil.' He came into the room and draped a long leg over the edge of Philip's desk.

'I can handle him,' said Philip with an attempt at bravado that was unconvincing even to his ears. 'This way he'll keep the other tabloids off our back and all I need to do is to drop him the occasional little titbit. He might think we have a gentleman's agreement, but he can hardly be classed as a gentleman, so I consider any agreement null and void.'

Hugo raised a questioning eyebrow at Vanessa, who just shrugged. 'Anyway, apart from the Ferret, what's up?'

Philip made a visible effort to pull himself together. 'I have decided to give Dr Archibald a try-out as a second presenter. I think he will give us the intellectual weight we need.'

Hugo's eyebrow shot up again. 'Does Gabriella know about this added intellectual weight yet?'

Vanessa ostentatiously examined her nails.

'No. But as I've already told Vanessa, I can handle Gabriella,' snapped Philip peevishly. 'What I want to know from you is how this will affect the studio set. We ought to get the designer working on it immediately.'

'Well another presenter rather puts the kybosh on the design Jasper and I have been talking about,' Hugo said, running his hands through his hair. He began to pace up and down. 'I find it difficult to get my head around the concept of a second body. No strong visual images spring to mind when I think of a psychiatrist.'

'He's a psychologist,' interjected Vanessa.

'Whatever,' Hugo continued. 'But my real problem is Archibald. The visual statement he makes is that he should be living underneath the arches at Waterloo Station sleeping on newspaper and surrounded by empty meth bottles.'

He stopped pacing and closed his eyes for a moment, pressing his hand to his forehead. Then he snapped his fingers.

'I've got it: Freud is our key. We can use that awful beard and crumpled corduroy to our advantage with a kind of mad scientist look. I know this stylist who can work wonders with the roughest material. I'll give him a bell. We could also have this kind of post-modernist version of a psychiatrist's couch. There's this little place in Covent Garden which makes amazing furniture. It's run by a friend of mine.'

He excitedly punched some keys on his electronic organiser. 'I like it, I really like it, although we'll have to revise the budget for the set. This wasn't included in the original costings.'

Before Philip could remonstrate, Hugo strode out of the room. He looked at Vanessa. She got up to leave.

'Have we got any participants we can actually use without a raid from the vice squad?' he asked in a small voice.

Vanessa gave him a superior smile. 'Philip,
trust
me. Little Vijay is beavering away out there in fantasy land even as we speak, and the letters are still pouring in. I've just read this great one from some frustrated woman wittering on about defrocked nuns, you'll just love it. I'm sending Vijay to see her tomorrow. I promise you, we
can't
lose.'

She blew him a kiss and swept out of the room.

Jeremy dug his hands deep into his pockets and disconsolately kicked one of Zelda's large oriental floor cushions. It emitted a little puff of dust, but otherwise failed to satisfy his urge to hurt something. He tried kicking an ugly brass urn which contained a disintegrating display of dried grasses. It made a more satisfying sound but hurt his big toe. He limped over to the window and stood, staring sightlessly out.

He had thought he and Alicia were getting on so well. They had established such a nice, comfortable daily routine. Getting up late, eating a cooked breakfast on a scale he had thought long since dead, followed by a gentle walk to Camden High Street where they did a little food shopping and then bought the newspapers which they read over a cappuccino and a plate of freshly baked croissants, before coming back to the flat where Alicia prepared lunch.

Most afternoons Alicia went to the British Museum Reading Room for a few hours, while he finished reading the newspapers, or watched an old film on the large colour television Alicia had rented when he complained he had nothing to do when she was out. In the evenings, Alicia seemed happy in the kitchen, preparing some mouth-watering concoction which they would eat watching television. It was bliss. Or it had been.

About a week ago a change had come over Alicia. One afternoon when he assumed she had gone to the British Museum as usual, she arrived home in a taxi with a camp bed contraption which she set up in the front room, and to which he was banished that night.

When he had said he would make love to her if that was what she wanted, she got upset and demanded to know whether it was what
he
wanted. He tried to explain that he wanted whatever she wanted, but that seemed to make her even more upset. Either way he couldn't win. He just didn't understand women.

And then there was this ridiculous plan she had cooked up to try and find out what Vanessa and Fergus were doing. It was all very well to wish something horrible would happen to someone who had hurt you, but you couldn't actually go around
doing
things to people. It could get you into trouble.

Jeremy took his hands out of his pockets and squared his shoulders. He would make one more attempt to dissuade Alicia. He strode into the hall and knocked on the closed bathroom door.

'Alicia, I really think we should talk some more about this. I thought we had agreed to put all that business with Vanessa behind us.'

'We
agreed to nothing, Jeremy. That was your suggestion, not mine.'

Alicia leaned over the washbasin as she tried to get a better view of her face in the bathroom mirror. She never wore make-up apart from a little face powder to stop her nose getting shiny, and she was finding the intricacies of foundation, blusher, highlighter, eye shadow, eyeliner, lip-liners, lipstick and mascara, a little hard to master.

The girl at the cosmetics counter at Boots had made it all sound so simple, as she painted Alicia's hands with a bewitching array of powders and creams. Alicia had only wanted some pink lipstick and maybe a little pale blue eye shadow, but the girl had been so kind and had taken so much trouble, Alicia felt honour bound to buy all the products she recommended. The memory of the final bill made Alicia blush two shades deeper than the Savannah Rose blusher the girl had promised would provide the perfect definition for her face. Alicia sucked in her cheeks and peered in the mirror. Finding her cheekbones was not as easy as the girl in Boots had claimed.

'Alicia, please …' Jeremy scratched at the door.

Since she suggested he sleep in the other room, Jeremy had been behaving like a puppy who had been punished for making a nasty mess. He had taken to trailing her everywhere, his brown eyes full of reproach, eager to help but clumsily causing chaos.

She had tried so hard to talk to him, but every time she broached the subject of their relationship, he managed to find some urgent task that needed doing, so she had decided on unilateral action. Sleeping separately had been her first move. If they were going to share a bed, it would not be just for sleeping in.

'How do you know Vanessa won't turn up in person?' Jeremy called through the keyhole.

Alicia didn't reply for a few moments. She was concentrating on applying mascara to her bottom lashes. She had discovered that the best way to do this was to bury her chin in her neck and stretch her facial muscles downwards, which made meaningful conversation impossible.

She replaced the mascara wand in its tube then opened her eyes wide and studied her handiwork.

Her make-up wasn't quite in the same league as that worn by the exquisitely maquillaged girl in Boots, Alicia decided, but it was still quite a transformation. She had also bought some hair colourant which had promised subtle highlights and some hair gel. Not being conversant with substances like colourants and gels, Alicia had been a little heavy-handed, and the result was a startling honey-blonde, pre-Raphaelite mass of tendrils.

Alicia turned her head from side to side. It was definitely not her, she decided, but it certainly suited her alter ego for the evening.

'Because I didn't sign my own name on the letter, silly,' she called out. 'Anyway, Vanessa's much too grand to do her own research. There's some man coming. I couldn't quite catch his name.'

The door handle rattled impatiently.

'If a man is coming I really think I ought to stay around. You never know what he may be like.'

Jeremy had noticed a bottle of wine and two glasses, together with bowls of savoury nibbles on the coffee table.

Alicia tweaked one of the ringlets which curled rather fetchingly over her forehead.

'I'll be perfectly safe, Jeremy. He's hardly likely to jump on me. After all, he's just coming to conduct a perfectly normal interview.'

'Normal, my foot!' Jeremy snorted. 'I hardly call the subject matter normal.'

Alicia had shown him the letter she had written in reply to Vanessa's advertisement. It had been a mistake. He had gone very pale when he read the bit about the nun and muttered something about being C of E but that still didn’t make it right. He hadn’t spoken to her for some time afterwards.

'For heaven's sake, Jeremy,
stop
fussing! You're going to your club and that's that.'

There was a grunt from outside the door which seemed to suggest Jeremy had conceded defeat. Alicia gave her hair one more pat and then began to get dressed.

She had decided none of her clothes were suitable for the occasion. It wasn't just that she wanted to look like a woman who had exciting sexual fantasies, she wanted to feel like one too, and even when she put on her prettiest white evening blouse and Laura Ashley print skirt, she still felt like Dr Alicia Binns, overweight spinster and university lecturer.

After offering up a silent prayer for forgiveness to Zelda in faraway Budapest, Alicia had searched through her wardrobe. Zelda had a penchant for the theatrical in what she described as her off-duty clothes. Alicia had counted at least half a dozen flowing kaftans, two richly embroidered silk kimonos, and several pairs of wide-trousered, satin pyjama-style suits.