Having It All (5 page)

Though she knew she had not a hope in hell of explaining it to their childfree friends, the funny thing was it all sounded rather dull to her now! After all there are only so many wonderful
meals you can eat, only so many glorious places to go on holiday, before they start to feel the same. Children at least made life unpredictable!

As if on cue Jamie burst into the room, bare-bottomed, wearing his pyjama top and a pair of her high heels. Daisy, joining in the spirit of the thing, had a Thomas the Tank Engine wastepaper
basket on her head and had drawn with felt-tip pen all over her pyjamas.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Liz asked weakly, putting her head under the covers, suddenly appreciating the thought of a childfree lunch in Julie’s.

‘Da Da Da Da Da Da!’ an off-key voice warbled outside the door. Jamie and Daisy put their hands over their ears as David danced in carrying a breakfast tray and the papers.

Daylight blinded her as he whizzed up the blind and she lunged for the
Daily Mail
to check the coverage of Metro’s press launch. But David got there first, removed the TV pages,
crumpled them up and hurled them out of the open window to Jamie and Daisy’s delight, who immediately set upon the rest of the papers and followed suit, delighted at this forbidden new
game.

‘Hey!’ protested Liz jumping out of bed. David pushed her back in.

‘No TV pages today. You’re supposed to be relaxing. The trouble with you is you think television is a matter of life and death.’

Liz grinned and settled back against the pillows. ‘It isn’t, is it?’

‘No it isn’t,’ David agreed.

‘It’s much more important than that!’

David grabbed a pillow and climbed on top of her, setting about her with the feather pillow till she squeaked for mercy, tears of laughter running down her face.

Suddenly she felt a hand sneak inside her nightdress and start to stroke her breast. Despite the presence of Jamie and Daisy, she stiffened in response and felt an unexpected stab of desire.

‘David!’ she chided gently. ‘Not in front of the children!’

‘Quite right,’ David conceded, climbing off, and took each child gently but firmly by the hand. ‘Come with Daddy.’ He led them out of the room and downstairs.
‘Daddy’s got a video for you.’

When they got to the sitting room she heard a loud stage whisper. ‘Here’s two packets of Smarties. Don’t tell Mummy.’ And he bounded back up the stairs.

Smiling lecherously he shut the door and locked it.

‘And now, Mrs Ward, where were we?’

As he jumped on the bed she saw that his cock was peeping cheerily out of his boxer shorts and she stifled a giggle.

But she soon stopped laughing as his hands delved into her nightdress again, one caressing her nipple and the other diving gently into the welcoming wetness between her legs. And after a few
seconds she forgot everything. Television. The nanny. Even her maternal responsibilities as they both clung to each other in joyful, passionate lovemaking.

As orgasm beckoned, only seconds away, there was a sudden thundering on the door and Jamie was outside shouting. ‘Dad! Dad! The tape’s finished!’

Liz felt David deflate like a balloon with the air let out.

‘Tell me’ – he collapsed with laughter on her chest and held her – ‘whose idea was it to have children?’

‘So what’s she like, then, your new boss?’ Steffi Wilson, gossip writer and star interviewer of the
Daily World
noticed how Claudia flinched at the
word boss. ‘I hear the hacks were falling over themselves to worship her at the press launch.’

Steffi leaned closer to her old friend Claudia Jones in Harry’s Bar and ordered another Bellini. The delicious blend of champagne and peach juice always reminded her of expenses-paid trips
to Venice. Not since she’d joined the
World
of course. They were only interested in screwing people on the cheap. But at least they paid you vast salaries to do it.

Steffi had known Claudia ever since they’d been at school together fifteen years ago. Not Roedean or Cheltenham Ladies’ College for them. They were old girls of Southend Grammar and
it gave them a solidarity no exclusive private school could ever have forged. They were the only two who had ever fought their way through the net curtains and the Airwick Mist out of suburbia and
into the big time.

‘Yes.’ Claudia tried not to let her anger show, even to Steffi. ‘So I hear.’

‘So what went wrong? I thought you had the Yankee Dwarf so pussy-whipped the job was yours.’

‘So did I and then Liz bloody Ward pulls the Superwoman act and the Board damn well fell for it.’

‘How inconvenient. So what’s she like? I’ve never heard of her before. Usual type, I suppose. Dedicated career woman? Account at Browns, company Merc, works out with her own
trainer, holidays at Club Med?’

Claudia laughed hollowly, remembering Liz’s one good outfit with sick on the shoulder. ‘More chain-store massacre, Volvo estate and cottage in Devon.’

Claudia knocked back her Bellini and brightened. She’d had an inspiration. Steffi was rapidly getting a name as the bitchiest writer in print.

‘You know, you should do an interview with her. A Stephanie Wilson special. She’d interest you. You see, it’s my belief that if you scratched the most powerful woman in
television you’d find a suburban mum fighting to get out. She should be doing the school run, not trying to run a television company. The only question is how long it takes her to find
out.’ She could see that Steffi was intrigued. She loathed career mothers as much as Claudia did.

Claudia leaned even closer to her friend and looked quickly around before she spoke. ‘Maybe you could help her find out a bit quicker.’

‘And you could step into her size six Maud Frizons?’ Steffi smiled back at Claudia over the top of her glass.

‘Exactly.’

‘And how do you propose I get her to admit all this?’

‘I don’t know. You’re the hack. Accuse her of being a bad mother.’ Claudia finished the last drops of her Bellini. ‘Even better, get some dirt on her. Talk to her
nanny. I heard her complaining that the nanny was getting pissed off with her.’

Steffi thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t a bad story. TV MOGUL NEGLECTS HER CHILDREN. And the
World
liked nothing better than putting the boot into television people.
Especially when the TV person in question just happened to be married to the editor of their rival newspaper.

‘OK then, darling,’ Steffi touched Claudia’s glass with hers, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Thirty . . . twenty-five . . . twenty . . . fifteen seconds to on air . . .’

Liz held her breath sitting in the gallery of the transmission studio as the PA did the countdown. In fifteen seconds Metro Television would be on air for the very first time and all her work
over the last few months would stand or fall. It was the most terrifying and wonderful moment of her life. There was only one other possible comparison. Giving birth. Only when you’re having
a baby eight million people aren’t watching, thank God.

‘Settle down studio please,’ warned the floor manager to the assorted technicians who were taking life rather too casually for Liz’s taste and still reading their papers.

‘Ten seconds to on air. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five seconds to on air. Three. Two. One. Roll Titles. That’s it everybody! We’re on air!’

Liz sat and watched Metro’s brilliant title sequence for what seemed like the millionth time and still loved it. An unseen person, represented by the eye of the camera walked through
London streets witnessing highlife and lowlife, culture and crime, politics and party-going all on one single unedited shot. It would have people arguing all over town about how they’d done
it. And a freeze-frame from it would be on the front cover of
TV Week
tomorrow.

As the titles ended in the about-to-be-familiar station ident of a big red M with a lightning flash through it, Liz sat down and closed her eyes. Upstairs a huge party of advertisers,
journalists and Metro broadcasting bigwigs awaited her. She stood up. And then she realized that everyone in the studio and the gallery had got to their feet too. They were giving her a standing
ovation.

‘You’re hot news, Lizzie! The phone’s been ringing non-stop!’ Conrad hissed the moment she walked into the room.

‘Every paper in the country wants to talk to you,’ interrupted Cindy, Metro’s PR girl, ‘as well as the colour supps and the women’s mags. Boy are you going to be
busy!’

Liz felt as though she’d just been given some very bad news by the doctor. The last few days had been a nightmare as they’d struggled to put the finishing touches to their launch
programmes. She’d seen the dawn coming up over the river more often than when she was a bright young thing at Oxford. And she wasn’t a bright young thing any more. She was
knackered.

Yet as she posed elegantly for the photographers against the backdrop of the river in a hastily bought sunshine-yellow Arabella Pollen suit, which had cost more than she usually spent on clothes
in a year, she knew it was great news for Metro, even if she did feel like an exceptionally chic zombie. And as Cindy handed her a glass of champagne she smiled and began to enjoy herself.

As the photographers rushed back to their papers to print up the shots, Cindy bore down on her with a sheaf of interview details.

‘Feeling strong as a horse, I hope? You’ll need to be! I’ve set up four interviews today for the nationals and two or three more tomorrow for magazines.

‘Here’s the schedule.’ Cindy handed her a typed sheet. ‘The
Daily Mail
at two, the
Guardian
, natch, at three-thirty,
Today
at five. Then ITN
want to catch a quick word with you for the news.’ The girl looked at her pad, sounding puzzled. ‘Oh, and Steffi Wilson from the
Daily World’s
after you too.’ She
smiled encouragingly at Liz. ‘I didn’t think it was her territory but with four million readers, she’s not the kind of person you turn down. Do you know Steffi?’

‘Only by reputation. The Acid Queen, don’t they call her?’

‘They do indeed. Out to make her name as the new Julie Burchill and doesn’t mind leaving a few corpses on the way. Anyway she’s asked to meet up tomorrow evening, at your home,
for more colour. Maybe I should be with you for that one?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Liz sounded a lot more chirpy than she felt, ‘I’m a big girl now.’

‘I hope so.’ Cindy’s tone was unnervingly worried. ‘You’ll certainly need to be.’ And as she handed Liz the list of interviews she wondered if Liz had seen
the story in that week’s
Press Gazette
about how the
Daily World
was nudging the
News
out of its niche as top tabloid.

Steffi glanced in her rear-view mirror as she parked outside Jamie’s nursery school. It had been easy to work out which of the handful of small, private schools two
thrusting media professionals would send their kid to. Then all she had to do was ring and check if he was a pupil. Now she just needed to mingle as though she were picking up a kid. The trouble
was she didn’t look like a nanny or a mum. A croupier maybe or possibly a high-class madam. She’d just have to pretend to be some brat’s wicked auntie. She’d enjoy that.

Good, there were one or two mothers waiting there already and one of them looked like a prime target for spilling the beans. Big and badly dressed, she was clearly a professional mum who
believed that the first twenty-one years of a child’s life should be spent in the exclusive charge of its mother. No doubt she’d taught her children to read, write and play Mozart piano
sonatas by the time they were eighteen months. And if Steffi knew her sources she was just the person to blow the whistle on a working mother.

She watched the woman lean over to a friend and whisper in her ear, glancing surreptitiously round before she did. That’s my bitch, thought Steffi, a world-class curtain-twitcher if ever I
saw one.

Thank God at a school this size the mothers would know all the dirt about each other. Smiling sweetly Steffi introduced herself as Sophie’s aunt. There was bound to be a Sophie amongst
this lot for Christ’s sake, toffee-nosed little brats.

Steffi leaned on the school fence. ‘Did you see Jamie’s mummy in the papers today? She’s in charge of that new TV company. That must be hard work. A job like that and two
kids.’

The curtain-twitcher, who had given up a stagnant career in advertising to look after India-Jane herself, visibly bristled. ‘Those poor children! She never sees them you know. If she drops
them off she can’t wait to get back into that ridiculous car. And has she ever been seen at a school event? Never. Well, hardly ever, anyway.’ She paused for effect and moved so close
that Steffi felt like stepping backwards to get away from the aroma of Nappysacks and puke. ‘She missed the Medieval Evening, the Family Quiz Night
and
the Welly Boot Throwing
Contest in aid of the Under-Fives Library Fund. I know. I organized them.’

‘How frightful.’ Steffi tried to sound suitably appalled.

‘Why she bothered having them, God knows. But Susie, their nanny, is wonderful. She’s been a tower of strength. Though even she can’t stand it any longer.’ She lowered
her voice dramatically and leaned closer to Steffi. ‘She’s thinking of leaving you know. She can’t take any more.’

Susie pushed Daisy’s buggy down the street as fast as she could and swore under her breath. She was going to be late to pick Jamie up from school.

By the time she got there nearly all the children had gone. Oh God, there was that frightful Maureen Something-Something. Noticing she was deep in conversation with an over-made-up woman in a
pink suit, Susie hoped she wouldn’t notice her. But it was too late.

‘Susie,’ she boomed, ‘come and meet Sophie’s auntie. She’s new to the area and doesn’t know anyone.’

Steffi turned to Susie and smiled. ‘That’s right. I’m looking after Sophie for a couple of weeks and I don’t know a soul. I don’t suppose I could buy you a cup of
coffee and pick your brains about how to meet people. I gather you know
everyone
.’