Woman of the Hour (35 page)

I was wretched that Fizzy had not only turned against me but that she had talked to Julius about it. He had gone round to her house at the weekend while she was blanking my calls. The irony was that it was me who had urged her to tell him what was going on. She had made him her ally again and made me the enemy.

I grabbed my coat and headed out of the building without telling my team where I was going. I trailed along by the river feeling thoroughly miserable. What had I done? I knew it would come to this one day. I knew there would come a point when the forces would be stacked against me. I’ve been walking through a minefield for years and finally I’ve made too many enemies; Julius, Bob, Martine and now Fizzy. There’s a tipping point and I’ve reached it. I was running through everything Fizzy and I had been through over the last few weeks. She has been on such a roller-coaster over her pregnancy. First she decided to have a termination and then she couldn’t go through with it. That was followed by the terror of almost losing the baby last week. I walked for thirty minutes; I noticed the Christmas lights strung along the perimeter of the river and if anything they made me feel even more bleak. Ben was in Dubai, Todd was in Sydney and I was on my own. Standing looking at the silver and gold lights I felt a moment of profound loneliness.

*

As I headed back to the StoryWorld building it occurred to me that I am copping it at the moment because Fizzy confided in me. I have become her punchbag. I have got to see her face to face and it needs to be away from the poisonous atmosphere of the station.

I hurried upstairs and called Janis.

‘I need to do something this evening at short notice. Is there any way you can stay later tonight?’

‘Sorry, Liz, but I can’t, not tonight. Do you want a word with Flo?’

‘Yes please.’

Flo came to the phone and I told her I’d be late and she’d be on her own for a few hours.

‘It’s OK, Mum. Don’t stress. I’m fine on my own.’

*

Fizzy’s mews house is tucked away in an exclusive corner of Pimlico. You enter through an arch and the private road is cobbled. These would once have been stables and now they are bijou residences for the moneyed and the well-born. A black Mercedes with smoked windows purred past me as I walked. Her place is halfway along and it comprises two mews houses which have been knocked together with a central entrance between the two garages. Her house is painted white and on either side of her yellow front door there are terracotta pots holding bay bushes. As I approached the house I saw Loida, Fizzy’s housekeeper, coming out carrying a bin bag. I’ve met Loida a few times at Fizzy’s drinks parties. I hurried over and she recognised me.

‘Hello, Loida. Is Fizzy in?’

She nodded.

‘She’s resting and I’m just leaving for the night.’

‘That’s OK. I won’t be long.’

Loida looked doubtful.

‘She said no visitors.’

‘I need to update her on the show tomorrow,’ I lied.

‘She needs to rest,’ Loida said.

‘I won’t be long.’

I watched Loida put the bin bag into the wheelie bin and waved goodbye to her. As I walked up the stairs I could hear the sound of the TV coming from the sitting room and it was Ledley’s voice that I could hear. Her sitting room is long; it stretches the length of the two houses. Fizzy must have assumed I was Loida because she didn’t move from her position on the sofa as she lay there watching Ledley’s interviews from last week. She was wrapped in a towelling robe and had the remote in her hand and I watched her rewind and start to watch Ledley’s interview with Dirk again.

‘Hello, Fizzy,’ I said.

She jumped as if I had caught her doing something illicit, and turned off the TV.

‘What are you doing here?’

Her voice was hostile. I walked further into the room and sat on a chair by the sofa.

‘We need to talk. Julius said I had upset you somehow?’

‘Loida!’ Fizzy called out.

‘She’s gone for the evening. What the hell is going on, Fizz?’

‘I know exactly what you’re planning and you’re a bitch to do that to me.’

She had spat out the word bitch.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You want Ledley to have the main anchor role not just during my maternity leave!’

‘That’s crazy. What on earth gave you that idea?’

‘Julius told me you’ve got a thing for Ledley. You can’t bear to have him criticised and you let him get away with all kinds of things.’

‘Oh, Julius said that, did he?’

‘Now you think here’s your big chance to promote him and get rid of me.’

‘That’s frankly delusional! He’s a chef, for God’s sake.’

‘Don’t tell me he wouldn’t jump at the chance of being the main anchor. Everyone wants that.’

‘It’s
not
what he wants. He’s building his food business. This is Julius trying to poison your mind against me. You know how he tries to divide and rule us all.’

She shook her head resolutely.

‘Bob told me you were singing Ledley’s praises to the roof too,’ she said.

‘As a good stand-in; at short notice...’

She narrowed her eyes.

‘I don’t think so. You have your favourites and you’ve got an agenda.’

‘I’ve tried to support you every step of the way,’ I said.

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ve been
very
keen for me to go through with the pregnancy and get me off air.’

‘This is paranoid. You told me you wanted the baby.’

‘I can’t trust you. I can’t trust anyone. Now get out of my house,’ she shouted.

I left her because I didn’t want her getting into even more of a state. As I travelled home on the Tube a wave of utter weariness was stealing over me. Julius doesn’t like to lose power. I got one over on him with the screen test and now he’ll be trying to undermine me at every opportunity. I could just imagine how he had worked on Fizzy’s fears, fanned the flames of her insecurity over Ledley. This was how it was going to be from now on. I would have to be even more vigilant.

Chalk Farm flat, 8.45 p.m.

When I got home Flo was sitting at the kitchen table.

‘You weren’t long, Mum.’

I felt a great wave of tenderness for her. I put my arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

‘You are my best and darling daughter,’ I said.

‘I’ve been WhatsApping Dad.’

‘How is he?’

‘His flat is so cool. He sent me some pix.’

She showed me the shots on her phone. Ben had done a selfie by a large window and you could see high-rises soaring behind him.

‘He’s high up. Look at that view,’ I said.

‘That’s his sitting room.’

There was not much furniture in the room but then he had only just moved in.

‘Impressive.’

‘He says he’ll pay for me to fly there and see him in the new year,’ she said happily.

I felt a tremor at that. It would be a long flight to Dubai and she was only fourteen.

‘I’m making a cheese omelette. Do you want some?’

‘No thanks.’

I broke three eggs into a bowl and as I whipped them I returned to a fantasy I often have of giving up this life of stress and moving somewhere like Folkestone, where Fenton lives, and living a simpler, less demanding life. My salary would be half what I get here, if I could even find a job, but oh the relief to walk away from all the politics and the backstabbing at StoryWorld. I sprinkled the grated cheese over the egg mixture in the pan. I know it will never happen though. Flo is a London girl through and through. She is settled at school and I couldn’t inflict such a change on her.

Later I called Fenton.

‘Fizzy’s turned against me overnight. She thinks I persuaded her to go through with the pregnancy because I was conspiring to replace her with Ledley who apparently I have a thing about.’

‘It sounds like she’s in the grip of her hormones and not thinking straight.’

‘I thought we were getting closer. You know, it’s one bloody thing after another.’

‘It’s a snake-pit but keep your chin up, sweetheart, because you’re strong and I know you will prevail,’ she said.

‘And how are things with you and the sexy Bill?’

She giggled.

‘We are trying very hard to keep our relationship a secret at the moment. He works with such a cynical gang and he can’t face the ribbing he’ll get. Being secret kind of adds to it all.’

She sounded happy and I was pleased for her. As long as I have Fenton in my life I never feel completely alone.

StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge

Straight after the show today we’ve got the launch of Ledley’s marinade
Go Luscious with Ledley
and I had dressed for the occasion in my dark red fitted dress and black ankle boots. The PR team were setting up in the atrium as I walked to the gallery. I sat down next to the director.

‘What’s up with Fizzy today? She’s like a cat on a hot tin roof,’ he said.

He was right; Fizzy was keyed up with a hectic flush on her cheekbones as she linked into the first pre-recorded story, about a project in Manchester that has turned an old church hall into a hacker’s house, a place where formerly convicted hackers could use their IT skills for social good. She is so volatile at the moment and she wants to get me the sack. I reminded myself that I had the memory stick and that that was my armour with Julius, whatever stunt Fizzy tried to pull. The story ended and she linked into the ad break.

‘Be sure to stay. Next up I’m joined by everyone’s favourite TV detective, George Walter.’

‘You got everything you need there, Fizzy?’ I said to her through her earpiece.

She ignored me as she looked down at a sheet in her hand, and she was reading through her notes as Henry brought George Walter in to sit next to her on the sofa. They spoke briefly and the ad break ended but instead of reading the introductory link on the autocue Fizzy leaned towards the camera and said: ‘Please bear with me. I have some news I need to share with you all.’

With a sick feeling I knew what was coming. The director did not and he watched in horror as Fizzy looking straight into the camera started to tell the viewers about a pivotal moment she had reached in her life. She was using the words I’d drafted for her almost unchanged. She had reached the bit about how she would never reveal who the father of her baby was and how that part of her life was over for ever. All the time she was talking to the camera George Walter was sitting next to her, looking bemused. The voice of Henry the floor manager came over the system to us.

‘I need instructions. Do we take the camera off her?’

‘There’s no scheduled break for another five minutes,’ the director said.

‘You have to let her go on,’ I said.

I knew her speech was drawing to a close because I had written it.

‘Keep the camera on her,’ the director said.

Now she was asking the viewers to forgive her transgression and to support her in her decision to be a lone mother.

‘Christ,’ the director said.

‘I feel I have so much love to give this baby.’

She turned to George Walter.

‘Welcome to our show, George. I’m sorry for the delay but I needed to share that with our viewers.’

He kissed her on the cheek and said: ‘I think that was very brave of you.’

She moved seamlessly into an interview with him about his new series. Two minutes later Julius stormed into the gallery.

‘Of all the unprofessional claptrap! Using our show for her personal stuff,’ he roared.

He was standing right behind me. He gripped the back of my chair and I could feel the tension radiating through his body and his arms as he watched Fizzy interviewing George Walter.

‘Did you know about this, Liz?’

‘No.’

‘It wasn’t your idea?’

‘No!’

My stomach did a double flip. I was in deep trouble if he found out it had been my idea, and my words too. I tried to remember if I’d deleted my draft of the words from my system. Fizzy’s eyes were unnaturally bright but otherwise she was as professional and as charming as ever as she chatted to George Walter about what made his detective so loveable. She thanked him for coming in and linked into the ad break.

‘If the viewers react against her she’s out,’ Julius said.

I was scrolling through my phone.

‘We’re already getting a lot of reaction.’

‘I want to see it, all of it, every last damn comment. List it and bring it to my office.’

He left the gallery and the director and I exchanged glances.

‘Never a dull moment,’ he said.

I hurried upstairs to my team who had been watching the show and were standing in a small knot discussing Fizzy’s bombshell.

‘Come on, there’s work to do. I need all four of you to collate the comments.’

Tweets and emails flooded in during the last half-hour of the show and my team recorded every one. I was reading them as they came in.

‘Make two columns please, positive and negative, so we can tell at a glance which way it’s going,’ I said.

Down in the atrium, the preparations for Ledley’s launch were going full steam ahead and the smell of roasting meat was wafting up the stairs. Fizzy’s dramatic announcement meant we would get even more press coming to the station. I looked across the staircase to the newsroom on the other side of the divide. I could make out Bob sitting in his office with the door closed. I wondered what was going through his head. Betty arrived at the top of the stairs and approached the team desks. She had come in for Ledley’s do and was wearing the peach-coloured blouse StoryWorld had bought for her and a rope of pearls at her neck. She looked put-out.

‘A quick word, Liz?’ she asked.

I showed her into my room.

‘I had my suspicions, you know, that she was pregnant. I tried to raise it with you last week. I wish you’d told me.’

‘Betty, we’re up to our eyeballs collating the viewers’ reactions. Can we talk about this later, please?’

Martine knocked on my door and came in.

‘Julius has cancelled the morning meeting. He wants to see the viewers’ reactions now.’