Flying Under Bridges (3 page)

‘Yes.’
And I want to scream. Of course I am a mother or I wouldn’t have done this and—
‘And your own mother?’

‘She’s
dead now, but it took some doing.’ My attentive listener’s head snaps to
attention. I realise what he’s thinking. Perhaps this case is more exciting
than he thought. Perhaps I am the Rosemary West of the Home Counties. He sees a
book in it, maybe a film from the book, chat shows, Oprah Winfrey…

It
seems a shame to shatter his world. ‘I mean, she was sick for a long time,’ I
say. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

He
crashes back to the prison service. ‘What was she like? Your mother.’ I try to
think. Mother was just Mother, but I know that won’t do.

‘She
worried. She was always worrying. What people would think, what they might say.
She wanted to be a star, but she wasn’t. She was just a sort of dim light that
never went out. One of those light bulbs that you can’t really see by but you
feel you shouldn’t change yet either.’

I don’t
want to talk about my mother. I just want to tell him that it is all my fault
and I do feel bad and yet I didn’t have any choice and.., if that’s what
everyone wants to hear, that’s what I’ll tell them. It’s what I told the
police. It really doesn’t matter what happens to me now. I did what I had to
do. I’m not important in all this. That’s the point. It’s the end of my
session and we never get to the point after all. I go back to my little room.
None of it seems to get to the point. I killed my daughter’s fiancé and I don’t
think she’ll ever understand. Please, tell her that I love her.

Love,

Eve

Chapter
Two

The beginnings of things
are sometimes hard to find. In the beginning was the word and the word was
God. And before that? Nothing apparently, but human lives aren’t really like
that. They twist about taking unexpected turns and link up in the strangest
ways. Like trying to find the end of that tangle of string in the kitchen
drawer, it is not always clear-cut where a particular story in someone’s life
starts. Certainly the changes that were to come about in both Eve and Inge’s
lives occurred long before Eve finally ended up in prison. You could probably
look back and pick any number of days in the early summer of that same year and
say that was when events began to unfold. The story has to start somewhere, so
take that day in May, May 3rd actually, when Inge Holbrook drew up at
Television Centre.

It was
a mark of her achievement that she was always allowed to park at the Horseshoe,
a turn in the drive right outside the BBC’s main building with only five or six
highly prized car spaces. Inge Holbrook, gold medallist for Great Britain, four
hundred metres sprint, 1976 Olympics, still fantastically fit at forty-plus,
but too famous to be made to walk from the multi-storey. She slipped her silver
Mercedes SLK Kompressor in next to an idling limousine and stepped out. She
looked fabulous: blonde (since 1987), tanned (since Christmas in the
Caribbean), long legs (since for ever) and an aura of success, which can never
fail to be attractive. Inge was one of the ‘faces’ of the corporation and she
enjoyed every minute of it. She headed for the entrance known as the Stage
Door. It was the old main entrance at the heart of the building. The BBC had
spent millions making a new glass entrance and foyer, but had brilliantly
placed it miles from anywhere anyone wanted to be. Everyone tried to avoid
using it. A curious symbol for the entire place. If you wanted in at the BBC,
it was best to try to sneak an entrance at the side.

As Inge
headed for her meeting, a harassed-looking man in spectacles and a grey suit
ploughed out of the automatic doors, followed by a long-established black
comedian. They were in a heated debate, which they stopped only for a moment in
order to acknowledge Inge as she passed.

‘A
decision, I just want a decision,’ the comedian kept repeating.

The two
men headed for the waiting limo and the suit got in while the funny man
shuffled off to be hilarious with a cab driver from the rank.

Inge
waved to the women at reception and took the lift up to the fifth floor. She
walked along the silent corridors of Light Entertainment. The doors of the tiny
offices were all tightly shut. Even the small glass panels bearing the occupant’s
name had been papered over from the inside so that no one could see in. Behind
them everyone was presumably being lightly entertaining, but not so
entertaining as to let any of it seep out to the nation. It still felt strange
for Inge to come here. This had never been her floor in the past. She had come
up through sports presenting but sport was now officially an entertainment.
Inge was no longer a journalist but an entertainer. The corridor wound round in
a giant circle as Inge passed huge colour photos of herself at Wimbledon, at
the FA cup, the Olympics, winning at the Olympics. Her life, career and
hairstyles played out for ever in front of the world.

Paul
Roe, Controller of BBC1, had a large office at the far side of the building
with, as a mark of his importance, an even larger waiting-room. He also had two
secretaries. One to jump when he called and the other to look impressive with
the coffee machine. Inge strode in and managed to make them both jump.

‘God,
Inge, sorry, you’re here,’ said the senior one called Trish. It was an English
sign of instant subservience to have the word ‘sorry’ in an opening sentence.
Inge didn’t know if Trish was ‘sorry’ Inge was here at all, ‘sorry’ in general
or just ‘sorry’ in case something might turn up to be sorry about. It was hard
to tell. Trish had a voice unique to a particular breed of women who work in
outer offices. It was ingratiating and yet pitched high enough to encourage the
gathering of dogs from distant parts.

‘Coffee?’
squeaked the junior one called Sue in an even higher and more impossible range.
Inge always wondered about these voices. They were emitted by very thin women
who seemed intent on taking up as little space in life as possible. Both
physically and vocally they occupied the minimum square footage necessary for
existence.

‘Black,
thanks.’ Inge smiled at them, she smiled at the coffee machine and she smiled
at a small, wild-haired man hunched on one of the leather chairs in a corner.
Inge smiled a lot. She was famous for smiling. She was accessible. She was the
people’s friend. It was what made old ladies she had never met before hug her
in Tescos.

‘I’m
afraid Paul is running a little late,’ squealed Trish. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And she
was sorry. Inge smiled and everyone was sorry. It was the correct balance of
power. They were sorry and Inge was gracious. Inge smiled some more and took
her coffee. Paul was always running late. Everyone at the BBC ran late. Inge
had never run late. She wondered about it as an excuse at the Olympics.

‘Sorry
I didn’t win a medal. I was running a bit late.’

Inge
moved to the hairy lump in the corner. He twitched and seemed unsure whether to
get up. She put out her hand.

‘Hi, I’m
Inge Holbrook. I don’t think we’ve met.’

He
stood and managed to fall over his own feet, knocking his coffee from the glass
table.

‘God,
sorry, yes, of course, I mean, I know.’

‘And
you are?’

‘In
development.’ The twenty-something young man blinked at her and swallowed hard
as he took a grey hanky from his pocket and attempted to clear up some of the
spilt drink. He wore ancient, creased, black trousers upon which it was
impossible to tell where the coffee might have landed. Inge smiled.

‘I
meant your name.’

This
was clearly a new concept to the man in development.

‘My
name?’

‘Um,’
said Inge encouragingly.

‘Nick.
I’m… Nick… in development.’

‘So you
said.’ Inge sat down and sipped her coffee. ‘And what do you develop, Nick?’

‘Ideas
mostly, you know, for… Paul.’ He said the name with sufficient reverence to
need to sit down again.

‘Programme
ideas?’

Nick
nodded and wiped his hands, wet with sweat and coffee.

‘How
long have you been doing that?’

‘Oh,
three years.’

‘And
what sort of programmes? What might I have seen?’

The
question seemed to cause a minor seizure.

‘Do you
mean on air? Oh.’

Nick-in-development
paled at the thought of actual programmes and was probably only saved a major
blood vessel rupture by the appearance of Paul Roe.

The man
responsible for the entertainment and information of a nation stood framed in
the doorway. He was slim-hipped, slim-haired and hung on to the last remnants
of his thirties by wearing a smart white shirt and Gaultier tie with faded but
pressed denims. The jeans were tight and Paul often found it necessary to
adjust his genitalia against the inside seam. He did this openly and with no
thought of concealment. Inge thought it must be strange to have a penis. To
have a part of your body which is never quite where you want it to be. No woman
ever walked into a room and suddenly discovered that her left breast had
inexplicably moved on to her shoulder blade.

There
was no one in Paul’s office with him. There was no way of knowing what had
caused him to ‘run late’.

‘Inge!
Sorry! Trish, you never said!’ he admonished senior squeal, while giving
another cupped flick to his pants.

Trish
took the blame instantly.

‘Sorry,’
she said. Paul shrugged his shoulders and smiled. Then he took Inge’s hand,
kissed her warmly on both cheeks and led her into his inner sanctum.

‘Have
you met Nick from development?’ asked Paul, as he waved Inge on to the leather
sofa.

‘Yes,
yes, we’ve been… chatting.’

‘He’s
got some very exciting ideas.

Inge
was keen to get on, but it wasn’t going to be easy. She had long ago decided
that British men and women have completely different approaches to meetings.
Because the women usually have the meeting to get through, three children to
collect, a dog to worm and the nagging worry that something was left boiling on
the stove, they tend to be rather cut and thrust about the whole thing.
Meanwhile the men tend to favour an approach based on the UK road network. They
know where they are supposed to be going, but can’t see the point of a
straight road. They are quite happy to go round many roundabouts en route while
discussing the merits of the straight-arm driving technique. Much foreplay,
little substance. Inge didn’t like preliminaries. It was this sense of urgency
that had made her a world-class runner. She took off from the starting blocks.

‘I
wanted to talk about Wimbledon for next year,’ she began. ‘I’ve been thinking
about some junior presenters round the outside courts and—’

‘Ah.’
Paul carefully pulled the padded leather chair on wheels from behind his desk.
He placed it to one side of the large mahogany work surface. It was a mark of
friendliness.

Inge
knew where this was heading. ‘Not Wimbledon? Surely not Wimbledon?’

Paul
shook his head in despair. ‘I know. I’m sorry. Sky just outbid us. Went this
morning, I’m afraid. They’ll announce tonight.’

Inge
was almost speechless. ‘Paul, how could this happen? The BBC
is
Wimbledon.
God, there’ll be no sport left. We’ve already lost the Premier League, ITV are
going to dance rings around us at the next Olympics, Channel Five got the
bloody boat race. If the BBC don’t cover Wimbledon, what are we going to have
left? Carpet bowls?’

Nick
shook his head and muttered, ‘Eurosport, I’m afraid.’

Paul
looked down at the very carpet where, but for financial constraints, bowls
might have been played. He shook his head for a moment and then bounced up and
made for the door.

‘Wine,
shall we have some wine? Trish! Get some wine.’ Paul circled back into the
room. ‘I found this terrific new wine warehouse under the arches in King’s
Cross. They’ve done the place up. It was falling down and—’

Inge
found it hard to care less about Paul’s fallen arches. ‘So if not Wimbledon,
then what?’ she asked.

Paul
smiled a slight smile of irritation. He liked talking about his wine warehouse
discovery. He nodded, adjusted his bollocks for comfort and headed back for the
straight road.

‘Indeed.
Well. This is going to be a very exciting time for you, Inge. We have great
plans. I think I speak for the entire corporation when I say that you are one
of the most loved and trusted faces here at the Beeb and we are going to move
you up and up. Now, Nick has got some very exciting ideas. Nick?’ Paul clicked
his fingers to wake Nick up from his reverie. ‘The show . .

Nick!
Tell her about the show.’

‘Yes.’
Nick cleared his throat and gave a small cough. ‘We, Paul, obviously, and I,
have come up with an idea for you to host a brand-new Saturday-night show
called…’ he paused for effect,
‘Don’t Even Go There!’