Getting Home (7 page)

She threw the trout back on the platter, sending it skidding down the table to collide with the coffee pot. The team arranged their feces in expressions of contrition, sharing covert eye-rolls as they did it. The weather girl, catching on, buried her nose in her chart folder.

Eviscerating The Himbo was a ritual. Allie did not work with competition; the only woman on the
Family First
team was her secretary, and if she could she would have hired a male for that job. Her preferred co-host was a dumb but nice-looking heterosexual boy, emasculated in a style-free hand-knit.

Allie graciously allowed The Himbo to report the poodle grooming classes, the phallic potatoes, the European Commissioner for women and the environmental stuff. For herself she reserved the bleeding hearts, the transplant babies and the miracle makeovers. Politicians and film stars were shared, but Allie asked the questions and The Himbo reacted. She hired a new Himbo on a year's contract every September; by March his agent would be snarling like a stoat in a gin-trap. In July The Himbo would leave, usually without trace, although one of them had actually made good in a cable kids show.

The producer cleared his throat to summon courage. ‘I think on camera, Allie …'

‘You're telling me it'll work on camera? That fish will look sad on camera?' Now the finger of damnation was pointing at her producer's heart. ‘Is that what you're trying to say?'

‘Not exactly, Allie, but I think you'll find …' He was a grey, thin, untidy man and it was ten years since he had won an award for investigating the child sex gangs staking out the city train stations. His star withered him with a flick of her wrist, as if she were throwing him bodily away, casting him on the scrap heap already piled high with ex-producers of
Family First.
Par for this post was eighteen months. Producers were not like Himbos, producers were dangerous, and so Allie's producers were fired in fusillades of writs and left to weep in the smouldering debris of their careers. If he was lucky, an ex-producer of
Family First
could end his days in radio. Small-town radio.

‘What you're telling me is that it'll work on camera because I can make it work, is that right?'

‘Allie, you're—'

‘Don't tell me what I am.' She had the bee-stung lips of Manet's ‘Girl at the Bar of the
Folies Bergère
', and they surged back into a snarl. She began stalking around the edge of the room. ‘I know what I am, thank you. I am not whatever the tabloids call me. I am not what people in this industry think I am. I am not a star, I am not a prima donna, I am not a superwoman, I am not a killer bimbo on speed, I am not Joan Crawford on a bad hair day, I am not an armour-plated, nut-crushing bitch.' One by one as she approached them, the nine men and two women sentenced to contracts on
Family First
turned around, kept their faces blank and said inwardly: oh, yes, you are. ‘Yes! I may have a few awards on the office wall. Yes – this show has topped the ratings every year since I took it over. But all I am is a broadcaster,' she proceeded in a calmer tone. ‘A trained, experienced broadcaster, a professional. That's all that I am, and
because
I'm a goddamn professional …' At the end of the table was an unoccupied space and she turned to grip the table edge and glare around the room. ‘I'm carrying you guys. I carry you, every day. Every day somebody in urgent need of a brain transplant screws up and every day you all look at me and expect me to ride up like the Seventh Cavalry and save the show. Well, I won't do it. Not this time. You screwed up, you sort it.'

‘Hey, Allie …' The Himbo had a good nature, but not the ability to understand that this was not a universal blessing. ‘Allie, hey – it's only a fish. If it's a problem …' The group winced as she turned her eyes on him.

‘The fish is not the problem, Daniel.' Stalking back towards him on her stilettoes, she pushed up her jacket sleeves, getting down to work. Today's colour was pro-consumer cerise. ‘No, the fish is not the problem, Daniel. You're the problem. You're a problem because you have lower intelligence than vegetable life. You're a problem because you are a complete dickhead and I am stuck with you until the end of the series.'

Papers were strewn over the head of the table, and from among them Allie seized a sheaf of newly opened mail, letting a couple of slit envelopes fall as she did so. ‘You know what this is? All of you, you know what this is? This is my personal mail, and today – let's see …' She made a show of scanning the letters. ‘Today, apart from the fan stuff and the woman complaining about the dog story, I got twenty-eight applications for your jobs and
of
those …' Theatrically, she began picking out individual sheets of paper and tossing them into a pile beside the trout. ‘Seventeen were for your job, Daniel. Seventeen guys out there want your job today. Maybe eighty or ninety want your job this week. It would be a safe bet that at least eighty men will beg me for your job this week, Daniel, they will
beg.
And you can't find me a sad-looking fish.'

In as far as a man can when he has benefitted from multiple applications of self-tanning gel, The Himbo's face turned grey. ‘I … do you … are you …'

‘I'm asking for a better fish, Daniel.' Now the voice, was pitched low, grinding like a glacier. ‘Just get me a better fish. You've got half an hour.' She turned and left the room. Her secretary, well rehearsed, shovelled the papers into her briefcase and followed. The smell of make-up lingered in general reproach.

‘Whew.' All around the table, people stretched, sighed and loosed their collars. Daniel got up and went to the window for the illusion of fresh air; there were no opening windows in the Channel Ten building. ‘Wow. I never thought she'd chuck an eppy over the fish.'

‘Does she often behave like that?' The weather girl felt like going over to lay a comforting hand on one of the rumpsteak-like protrusions under The Himbo's shirt but hesitated, uncertain if that would be politically wise and not willing to consult her copy of
Machiavelli For Women
in public.

‘Krakatoa's always smoking round here. You never know what'll set her off.' The senior researcher was already reaching for the telephone. ‘Only that something will. That one was off the scale. Wowee.'

‘I couldn't believe her language.'

‘Well, my dear, you'd better starting expanding your understanding of the universe right now because the truth is out there and it's worse than that. Is that Magno Hypermarkets? This is
Family First
at Channel Ten, put me through to your public relations office, it's urgent.'

‘My-name-is-Maria,' the weather girl catechised, blinking hard. ‘Do-you-feel-terms-of-affection-are-appropriate-in-the-workplace?'

The secretary returned. ‘Allie says get a selection in and she'll choose the one she wants herself.'

In her dressing room, Allie sat uncomfortably on the edge of a chair with her hands spread on board. ‘You've got an hour,' she told the waiting make-up artist.

‘It's more like two to strip and reapply,' the cosmetician ventured.

‘Then hurry,' was her reply.

Fumes of solvent filled the room. Allie crossed her legs, wriggled in her seat, twisted one ankle behind the other, and sighed. She was used to suffering for her profession. Taking off the jacket meant the risk of ruining the manicure when it was resumed, so she had to keep it on and sit upright to stop it creasing and hold her arms right away from her body in case of accidents.

Her vacant eyes were turned up to the monitor showing Israeli bombing-raid debris on CNN but her mind was running on Stephanie Sands. On hearing from Lauren Pike that Stewart Sands was a kidnap victim, Allie had gone directly to New Farm Rise with a bouquet of
Casablanca
lilies, anticipating an exclusive for
Family First.
Instead, her Westwick friend had pulled the delicate flower number, the fluttery fingers and the wispy hair. ‘I couldn't, Allie, how could I? Go on TV and talk about Stewart? I'd die before I got two words out. Besides, the Foreign Office wouldn‘t like it, I know they wouldn't.'

Allie retired, offended. What right had Stephanie to be drifting tearily around after that chubby kid of hers when she was a kidnap wife and belonged on TV? She imagined Stephanie on the studio sofa, dabbing tears off the end of her nose. So demure, so big-eyed and soft-voiced and …
decent.
Boss would eat her up – maybe literally, she must be gagging for sex by now. How long had it been, two weeks? There was something wrong with her, there had to be. She really should get that nose done. The fucking woman could weep over a dead daisy, so what was her problem with
Family First
?

Allie chewed her top lip. Other people's stupidity offended her. Didn't the dear girl realise that this was it, her Andy Warhol portion? Gardens for kiddies, who'd remember that? Kidnap victim husband, now that was cool, that was great. She could not turn this down. She was holding out, that was all. Money. Money or spite. Allie never understood it, but sometimes this thing happened and people got malicious or perverse and just refused to give her what she wanted. But she'd keep working on it. Geography was destiny. A story that big just a short spit from her own doorstep – it had to be.

An hour and a half later, two crates of assorted fish packed in ice were carried into the studio kitchen under the supervision of the senior wet fish buyer and the public relations director for the south-eastern division of Magno. Allie Parsons was invited to leave her dressing room, where the manicurist had just completed the operation of stripping off, reapplying and revarnishing her acrylic nails in cerise to tone with the jacket, and select the fish with which she wished to appear.

It was a new Allie Parsons who emerged, one who greeted the outsiders with flattering squeals of joy, as if they had chosen to leave their offices and entertain her. ‘My, oh my, what a
magnificent
catch,' she cried, clasping her hands in admiration. ‘And you did all this for us? I'm overwhelmed, I really am. Now you must tell me,' and she took the fish buyer seductively by the arm, ‘which one of these gorgeous creatures would
you
choose?'

‘Well, the tuna is on promotion this week …'

‘Tuna … just a tiny bit in the luxury bracket for us I think.'

‘What we need is a medium-sized whole fish with a sad expression,' the senior researcher interjected anxiously, seeing the entire feature transmuting into something else, the shooting ratio for the series rising even higher than it already was and his date for the evening left waiting in fury by her phone.

‘Hey – look at this f-a-a-ab creature, isn't he beautiful?' Allie picked up an enormous lobster by the tail. ‘Is it still alive? He won't nip me will he?' The extended f-a-a-ab was her catchphrase; on screen, she made a point of using it within the first three sentences of her opening speech. She was getting increasingly annoyed that no comedian had yet done an impression of her.

‘Our lobsters are all freshly killed.'

‘Or what about this? What
is
this?' Delicately she held up a big flat white fish, draping it reverently over the corner of the tray as if it were a length of cloth of silver.

‘Turbot. Our turbot are farmed in the North Atlantic, enabling us to offer them at about half the price of wild turbot.'

‘Oh my, that's just
f-a-a-ab
… Now, everybody, let's really think
fish
here …'

And so the drama continued, until after forty minutes Allie was presented with a pair of lobsters and the fish buyer had departed in a state of high satisfaction, also leaving behind a very average herring which, in objective truth, looked more cheerful than the trout first chosen. Thinking fish had determined that a fish was definitely an ocean-swimming creature, so trout were out. The Magno Hypermarkets public relations director left a little later, having summoned an assistant to oversee the operation in her absence.

The Himbo set out across the city with the herring, the assistant and a camera journalist griping about the afternoon light. He was filmed attempting to return the fish to a Magno Downtown store on the grounds that it looked unhappy. At another Magno, he was filmed returning a packet of detergent because he did not care for its perfume. Lastly, he was captured in the Magno at Helford taking back a packet of cornflakes because they were too yellow for his kitchen decor.

The herring passed the night in the refrigerator in the studio kitchen. In the morning, at the suggestion of the public relations assistant from Magno, it was washed, patted dry, touched up around the gills with a little red lip gloss and coated with hair gel to restore its healthy fresh-from-the-ocean shine.

‘And now,' The Himbo primed the watching millions with his extraordinary natural sincerity, ‘a fishy tale for our Watchdog feature. Every week on Watchdog
we
put a consumer claim to the test for
you
…'

‘And today,' standing in front of the studio audience, Allie brandished the herring above her head. ‘With this fish,' she confided to Camera Two, ‘we set out to test the claim of Magno Hypermarkets that they would exchange
any
unsatisfactory merchandise, however crazy the reason the customer might give for bringing it back, with
no
questions asked. We gave Daniel this fish and told him to take it back to Magno Downtown because it looked miserable and it was making him sad …'

The audience moaned, ‘O-o-o-o-o-h,' in sympathy, their sensibilities tenderised by a warm-up man who had told blue jokes for half an hour before the show started.

‘And after that,' Allie gracefully deposited the fish on an Italian ceramic platter decorated with hand-painted lemons, and picked up the detergent, ‘Daniel took back this washing powder to Magno just because he didn't like the smell …'