The Cinderella Reflex (3 page)

“You can give Tess a hand,” Helene muttered. “Now. Can we have your ideas for the week please, Andrea?”

Andrea looked panicked. “I don’t have anything nailed down at the moment. But,” she added hurriedly as Helene’s features darkened, “I do have a few ideas floating around in the ether …”

“The ether?” Ollie cut in. “That’s the place to have them all right!”

“There’s no need to be sarcastic, Ollie!” Helene admonished him. “We must all be positive together now! We are losing listeners but we can turn it around! Can’t we, people?” She looked challengingly from face to face.

Nobody said a word.

Then Ollie spoke. Or rather shouted. “
How
can we turn it around?
How?
” His face was flushed and his brown eyes were bulging. “Will we get more listeners with Andrea’s ideas – out in the ether? Or with Tess’s stories about pooper scoopers? As for your idea, Helene! How to look ten years younger! That is just a ruse to get a freeloading weekend and I am so stressed right now I could do with one of those myself. But how is it going to improve my figures?”

“Your figures are not my only problem, Ollie,” Helene said coolly.

“You can say that again, lady!” Ollie jumped to his feet. “And trying to look ten years younger won’t help your problems either! Try ten decades. Ten decades of the Rosary, that is!” And with that Ollie stormed out, nearly taking the door off its hinges as he slammed it behind him.

Inside the room there was complete silence. All Tess could hear was the ticking of the wall clock. She focussed hard on her notebook, pretending to be reading over her notes.

Finally Helene broke the silence. “So!” she beamed around the room. “That was a frank exchange of ideas! Lots of creative tension – that’s good! That’s what we need to turn this station around, folks. And now I have another meeting to attend. You can all go now.”

As Tess stood up to leave she could hear Helene clicking and unclicking the top of her biro compulsively – the only outward sign that Ollie’s tantrum had rattled her in any way whatsoever.

Chapter Two

Helene strode out of the office and into the street, stumbling slightly as her stiletto caught in a ridge on the pavement. She blinked in the sunshine, not quite sure where to go. After Ollie Andrews had belittled her in front of her staff like that, she’d had to invent a bogus meeting just to get out of the office. Damn Ollie, she seethed. She had brought him into Atlantic 1FM and now she found herself in the peculiar position of having to defend someone she had come to despise.

It had all been so different when she’d poached him from a rival local radio station, luring him over with the promise of a glittering career. But that was five years ago, when she, like everyone else, had thought the station was going national. Now it was becoming clear that that wasn’t going to happen and Ollie was holding her responsible. Helene had told him to his face that he was as much to blame himself. More, in fact. He was meant to be the shock jock, courting controversy and building publicity and listeners in equal measures. Well, he was shocking all right, she thought darkly. Shockingly awful.

He annoyed Helene on an almost daily basis, alienated the rest of the staff and – this bit was the most important – aggravated the hell out of the listeners. Ollie insisted on mixing heavy current affairs with a mad mix of music – from country to middle-of-the-road, light opera, and on the days when he was feeling particularly bad-tempered, a blast of heavy metal could be heard thumping out of the studio.

This Morning
was the flagship programme for Atlantic 1FM and as each set of figures showed that his show was collapsing Ollie had become more needy, more panicky and, perversely, more arrogant. He had taken to phoning Helene at all hours of the day and night with demands and complaints and whinges.

A gust of wind whipped Helene’s long dark hair across her face as she started to walk towards the coast road. Killty was a seaside town on the commuter belt for Dublin and was populated with young couples starting their families and wealthy retirees who frequented the health-food stores and alternative-treatment centres that were scattered along the main street. The town was big enough to be anonymous if that’s what you really wanted – and Helene did – but she liked how the people still seemed to be interested in each other and she often found herself eavesdropping on the friendly banter in the shops and cafés.

She reached the seashore and stood for a few minutes watching the waves breaking in white frothy patterns on the sand. It was early spring and people were emerging from their winter hibernation. An elderly couple sat on a bench on a patch of grass above the sand, their cocker spaniel wheeling around in wide circles on the strand in front of them.

A couple of joggers passed her by, earphones in their ears and their eyes firmly ahead.

Helene turned and started along the tarmac path which hugged the coastline, walking as fast as her heels would allow her, trying to work off her temper. According to the tiny tourist office the town offered stunning walks along the sea cliffs, and abundant wildlife, but Helene had never ventured into those straggling bits of it.

A few minutes later she stopped and looked around her curiously. This area of the town had once been earmarked for “gentrification” as the
Killty Times
had put it. Old, run-down buildings had been bulldozed for new blocks of identical, red-bricked apartments. There was to be a crèche for the children of the working couples destined for the apartments, and a shopping centre, and a gym. But then the financial crash had taken a wrecking-ball to Ireland’s economy and all building had stopped. Now Helene was surprised to see there were small signs of regeneration here again. Some of the identikit apartment blocks looked inhabited now and there was a bulldozer starting up on a patch of green down the road. A hoarding with colourful murals had been built around the vacant shopping centre and she could see several planning signs seeking permission to renovate in the gardens of old buildings that had survived the first ill-fated development of the area.

There was a slightly grubby-looking café across the street. Helene crossed over to reach it with a sense of relief. It was nice there was a new place to go to get a break from work. And a strong coffee would psych her up for going back to the office.

She pushed at the blue door of the café gingerly, the hinges groaning as it creaked open. She stood for a few seconds while her brain made the transition from the sunny afternoon outside to the dim interior of the café. There was a strong smell of fresh paint and, when her sight finally adjusted, she realised the café was in the process of being renovated. Damn. She’d been looking forward to a breather.

She spotted a sandy-haired man standing at the counter, his shoulders hunched over a sheaf of papers he was studying. He looked up absentmindedly, rubbing his hand on a blue-and-white check teacloth.

“Hi, can I help you?”

He was mid-thirties, Helene guessed, clean-cut and fit looking. He was dressed casually in black cotton trousers and a blue striped shirt.

“Are you open?” she asked.

He raised an eyebrow, looking around the ramshackle room. A paint-splattered wooden ladder leaned against one wall; tall stacks of books were piled up beside it.

“Er … do we look open?” His smile softened the question.

“I just wanted a coffee.” Helene gestured at the bubbling coffee machine beside him.

“Oh, that …” His eyes flickered to the machine. “I was just about to have one myself, so I suppose I can let you have one too. You can be my guinea pig if you like.”

“Fine,” Helene agreed. As he busied himself with the machine she sank into an ancient armchair by the window. “Cappuccino,” she specified to the owner.

She looked around the room critically. It really was run-down – even the cacti on the scuffed yellow-pine table in front of her looked ancient.

He poured out the coffee and ambled down to her. “You’re my first customer, so it’s on the house – I’m Matt, by the way.” He beamed as he placed an old-fashioned, floral-patterned cup and saucer in front of her.

Helene looked at him suspiciously. What did he have to be so cheerful about, trying to run this dump? “Thanks.” She turned away, staring out the window. All the buildings seemed to be either empty or in the process of being renovated and she wondered absently where Matt thought he was going to get his customers from.

He coughed slightly.

“So?” he asked expectantly. “You’re my guinea pig, remember? What do you think of the coffee?”

“Oh!” Helene glanced down at the cup of cappuccino, and noticed how there was a heart-shape of chocolate traced onto the white froth. “That’s a nice touch,” she acknowledged. She sipped the coffee. “It’s good. So when are you opening?”

Matt scratched his head, looked around helplessly. “It was supposed to be last week, but it’s all got a bit overwhelming to be honest. It’s a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.” He placed his own cup of coffee on the table next to hers and sat down.

Helene looked at him in alarm. She hoped he wasn’t going to start talking about his problems. She needed to think about how to handle Ollie Andrews and … oh, a million and one other things. She looked at him pointedly.

“I’m a bit busy.”

“I’ve given you free coffee because chatting to a potential customer is a perfect guilt-free break for me,” he countered.

“Sorry, but I have things I need to work out.” Helene pulled a notebook and pen out of her bag to make her point. She needed a break herself – and preferably in a five-star hotel, not in this run-down café. But she had to work out her strategy for reviving Atlantic 1FM’s dwindling audience.

She stared into the froth of the cappuccino, one part of her brain automatically calculating its calorie content, the rest of it wrestling with what to do about Ollie.

Richard, her boss, was breathing down her neck about him day and night lately. He seemed to have decided that the entire future of the station depended on the success, or otherwise, of the
This Morning
show and that it was up to Helene to make it work. That’s why he had promoted her to executive editor, he’d reminded her a few days ago – on the strength of her self-professed talent for good ideas. He had said it half-jokingly, but Helene didn’t miss the ill-concealed barb. She frowned at the memory. She had claimed to be a good ideas person, not a bloody miracle-worker. How could anyone have predicted that Ollie Andrews would turn out to be so volatile? He had been super-charming when they’d first met to talk about his new role at Atlantic 1FM – but that was probably because she had just agreed to double his salary if he came on board, she acknowledged bleakly.

“Maybe I can help?”

She looked over at Matt who was still sitting at the next table, looking at her quizzically.

“I doubt it.” Helene flicked open her spiral notebook and stared at the blank page, biting on the end of her biro. “I’m looking for ideas for a radio show.
This Morning with Ollie Andrews
– do you know it?” She looked around the café, realising the radio wasn’t on. By rights, Matt should have Atlantic 1FM on, keeping him company.

“I think I’ve heard it once or twice,” he said vaguely. “To be honest, I have too many problems to attend to in this place to be distracted by the radio.”

Helene looked down at her notebook and began to write. Now he’d have to take the hint and leave her alone. She scribbled down ‘
Ideas
’ and underlined the word twice. Underneath she added ‘
Ten Years Younger/Me
’. She smiled and relaxed a little. Seeing her ideas down in black and white always cheered her up. And the
Ten Years Younger
project was a win-win situation for her. She’d get a break at that top spa and look a lot younger – or better anyway – at the end of it. But what else? She thought of what Matt had just said: ‘I have too many problems to attend to in this place to be distracted by the radio.’That was it! The radio version of a problem page! People were always fascinated with other people’s problems.

She looked over at Matt and smiled. “Actually you’ve just given me an idea!”

“Really?” Matt was astonished. “What is it?”

“It’s a problem slot. For radio.”

“Okay.” Matt looked mystified.

“Your mention of having problems, you know?”

“Oh. Well, happy to oblige.” He stood up. “Right, I’d better get back to getting this place up and running. It has to open next week!”

Helene turned her attention back to her notebook and scribbled down the line ‘
Agony Aunt of the Airwaves
’. She looked at the words, her pulse quickening. It was bound to be a success. She alone had enough problems to fill that slot for months! As her thoughts drifted to her personal life she turned on to a new page and jotted some of her problems down, partly as a way of working out how the agony-aunt slot might work, and partly because she thought it would be good to get them off her chest for five minutes.

One:Milestone birthdays.

Helene rested her chin on her hand, eyes fixed on the middle distance. Her big Four-O was coming up. The birthday that had been hovering on the horizon for ages and now was nearly here. Was that why she’d been so unsettled lately, she wondered? Feeling as if she was at a particularly precarious crossroads in her life and that one false move could spell disaster.

She would wake up with a start at night, a feeling of impending doom settling like a swamp in her stomach. The clock on her bedside locker always flashed roughly the same time – thirty minutes either side of four o’clock – the figures displayed in mocking red neon. And then she’d start to panic because her alarm was due to go off at six and the panic woke her up even more.

She had spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the feeling was about exactly. It wasn’t just connected to her job. There was also the vexed question of Richard to consider. Reluctantly she scribbled down:
Two: Richard.