Never Too Late (38 page)

out and she’d only asked automatically.

So Olivia hated having to say ‘no’. But she had to. She

hadn’t seen any researcher and had no idea what she was

supposed to do.

‘I’m afraid not,’ she said candidly.

‘Shit!’ Linda said. ‘I’m sorry, Olivia, they were supposed

to bring you up to speed on what we’ve organised … I’ll

fucking kill that stupid Carol. I told her to talk to you.

You’ll have to wing it - we’ve only got another half an

hour before the camera men’s shift ends.’

Thinking that things couldn’t really get any worse,

Olivia idly wondered if everyone in television swore like

troopers and how did they stop when the cameras were

rolling? Nancy’s tongue could rival any docker’s, yet she

never lapsed into ‘shit’ on air.

‘You don’t mind winging it?’ Linda asked.

Olivia, feeling remarkably calm for a woman who’d

needed valium to get her through a wedding the previous

week, grinned at her. ‘As long as you give me a brief

explanation of what I’m supposed to do.’

‘You’re a star.’ Linda patted Olivia’s arm and led her

over to the cookery set. Stuck in the farthest corner of the

studio, the cookery set was actually a high-tech stainless

steel kitchen with everything you could possibly need,

from a giant American fridge to a sleek double oven and

state of the art microwave. Windows complete with

flower-filled window boxes looked out on to a fake city

scene of shimmering skyscrapers. The kitchen was so

perfect that it was hard to imagine it didn’t belong to some

sprawling loft apartment in Manhattan.

The only difference between it and a normal kitchen

was the long TV-style freestanding unit with another sink

and two hobs where the cook stood and faced the cameras. On the unit lay a bizarre assortment of foods: one shrivelled, schizophrenic pepper that wasn’t sure whether it

was yellow or green, a bunch of bananas, some creamed

coconut, two small onions and some crusty bread.

Olivia laughed out loud. No researcher needed to tell

her what she had to do - it was like those TV cookery

programmes where a celebrity spent a fiver buying the

most ludicrous combination of food and then a harassed

chef had to turn it into a reasonable meal.

‘Carol hasn’t worked on the cookery slot before,’ Linda

said with a sigh as she looked at the groceries. ‘She hasn’t a

clue. What we want is for you to talk us through making a

dish with this stuff. You can just start the dish, you don’t

actually have to cook it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘We

don’t have time, really. But if you start and we film you,

we’ll get a good idea how you perform, right?’

‘Right,’ Olivia replied evenly. It was funny feeling this

calm, she thought. Ironic really. The thing was, because she

hadn’t been prepared properly by the TV people, she

could hardly do a very good job, could she? So if she failed

miserably, they’d think it was because of that, not because

she was a useless coward who quaked in her boots at the

thought of teaching 3A.

When it was all over, she’d just slip out quietly and

never set foot in a TV studio ever again. She’d promised

Max and she wouldn’t break a promise. But never again.

She’d be terrible, she knew it, but all she had to do was

get through this next half an hour calmly and leave. That

was all.

Linda spoke into her radio mike: ‘Can we get a sound

person over here to mike Olivia up?’

In two minutes she was wearing a microphone, the

bulky unit attached to the waistband of her trousers at

the back.

‘You’ll be great,’ Kevin said encouragingly, as he opened

cupboard doors to show her where everything was.

‘I hope so,’ she replied fervently.

‘Afterwards, I’ll steal some of Nancy’s champagne so we

can celebrate,’ he whispered wickedly.

‘Nancy’s champagne?’ asked Olivia. ‘I thought she …’

‘Didn’t drink champagne?’ Kevin grinned. ‘She doesn’t

drink it - she slurps it up like a dehydrated camel. If she

gave up Cristal alone for a month, she’d lose a stone!’

Olivia was still laughing when Kevin left her alone on

the kitchen set. She found a couple of knives, a chopping

board and some Chinese-style dishes. The cupboards

yielded some interesting spices and store cupboard staples.

The last cookery person had known her stuff, Olivia

thought, discovering treasures that would make her

banana-and-onions combo edible. She knew exactly what

to do.

‘Ready to go whenever you are,’ said a strange voice.

Olivia whirled around to find two cameras on her and the

crew of radio-miked, clipboard-wielding people staring at

her with interest.

For a moment, her mind went blank. She stared at the

camera directly in front of her and there was nothing in

her head. Nothing. Her mind felt the way it was supposed

to when you couldn’t sleep and tried to imagine nothing at

all so you’d drop off instantly.

During sleepless nights, Olivia found she just couldn’t

imagine nothing and ended up worrying about all the

things she had to do the next morning.

But today, in front of an entire television studio, her

mind was like the blackboard before a lesson - utterly

blank. Why was she here? She’d been mad to think she

could do this. Absolutely mad! Those Brandy Alexanders

Max had bought her, the row with Stephen and a false

sense of bravado had got her into this hideously embarrassing

mess and now she was going to screw up publicly and

desperately.

Feeling herself start to sweat with fear, she looked

around the studio in a panic, looking for Linda so she could

beg to go home and apologise for wasting all their time.

And then she saw Nancy. The presenter was still sitting on

her raspberry couch and staring at Olivia with interest. The

sort of emotionless interest assassins display in films before

they pull the trigger on their quarry. Or perhaps not that

emotionless, Olivia realised, as Nancy smiled spitefully at

her predicament.

The famous, pink-lipsticked mouth curved up in a

contemptuous smirk, one that clearly said: ‘Amateurs.’

God, she was a bitch but she could turn on her TV

persona like turning on a kettle, Olivia realised. A viper in

real life, Nancy could switch on her television charm

instantly because she had to. She couldn’t possibly display

her real self on TV so she acted. Well, if acting was all that

was required, Olivia could do that too. She was acting all

the time at home these days - acting happy families and

acting as if she wasn’t going slowly mad. Acting was a

doddle. She eyeballed Nancy, took a deep breath and faced

the camera again.

‘This,’ said Olivia, smiling as she held it up in one hand,

‘is a pepper’ Her voice was nervous and slightly quavering.

She had to make it firmer, slower. Concentrate, Olivia!

Imagine you’re in the classroom with a schools’ examiner

down your back, scrutinising your every move.

‘Peppers are wonderfully nourishing and incredibly

sweet and rich if cooked properly. They’re the basis of lots

of simple sauces. But what do you do if you’re rushing in

and out of the supermarket and end up at home with a sad

specimen like ours?’

She was getting into her stride now. ‘Bin it and send out

for a pizza? Or get inventive with your store cupboard

contents and make a delicious meal?’

From the corner of her eye, Olivia could see people

watching her. They were interested, actually interested in

what you could do with a mean little pepper that probably

had less flavour than a used teabag. They weren’t like 3A,

bored rigid by the very notion of making things with

peppers.

Olivia smiled at her audience, feeling a surge of confidence.

If she treated the studio people like an interested

class, she could do it. She might even enjoy it.

‘The answer,’ she said, her face animated, ‘are these

things.’ Whisking out a jar of chilli flakes, a container of

sun-dried tomatoes and some dried porcini mushrooms.

‘Wait till you see what we can do with these,’ she added

enthusiastically.

Kevin’s face, lit up with a huge, congratulatory grin,

leapt out at her from the crowd. It was working, Olivia

realised.

‘Now who knows what to do with chilli flakes?’ she

asked.

She could see Linda looking suddenly nervous, as if

Olivia had made the fatal inexperienced-TV-person mistake

of expecting the technicians to join in. But Olivia,

accustomed to asking questions in class and answering

them herself because bored students doodling pop song

lyrics on their textbooks couldn’t be bothered, hadn’t

actually expected anyone to answer. Seamlessly, she

explained exactly what you could do with chilli flakes. She

chopped, she pureed, she sautéed … and she had her

audience in the palm of her hand.

Afterwards, when she wondered how she’d actually

stood in front of around thirty people and two cameras

and talked to them for ages, she realised the secret was that

she’d forgotten about the cameras. She’d tried to concentrate

on the people watching and on the actual cooking,

which she loved. And it had worked. These people looked

at her with fascination as she spoke passionately about

creating a beautiful meal with fresh ingredients.

Fourteen year olds couldn’t care less about healthy

eating and how a little garlic was one of the best medicines

around. They wanted three-minutes-in-the-microwave

food so they could go out afterwards and flirt with

seventeen-year-old boys.

But the grown ups in front of her loved the idea of

making their own tomato sauces and relished the thought

that a couple of little jars from the delicatessen could

rescue them from a daily diet of heat-and-serve dinners.

Even if they didn’t actually make tomato sauce, they liked

knowing how to do it.

They let her run on for fifteen minutes, five longer than

originally planned.

‘Fantastic,’ enthused Linda when the cameras went off.

You’re a natural!’

Olivia slumped against the unit, suddenly exhausted by

her efforts. ‘Really?’ she asked, suddenly doubting herself.

She’d thought it was OK, but how could she tell? She

hadn’t been hopeless but she was hardly up to broadcasting

standard, surely?

‘Brilliant,’ said the floor manager.

‘Absolutely brilliant,’ echoed Kevin. ‘You are a complete

star, Ms de Were. I can’t believe you’ve never done that

before.’

‘I just kept imagining the worst class I teach and

thinking you lot were nicer, so it was easy,’ she said.

They all laughed. ‘It certainly worked,’ Linda confirmed.

‘I was hungry just listening to you talk. I’m going to the

canteen for something as soon as we’re finished. Come on

and watch yourself in the control room.’

Olivia blanched. ‘I couldn’t.’

‘You will and you’ll be amazed. You were great. In fact, I

reckon you’re hired, although I can’t say officially until

Paul sees the tape.’ Watching herself on video in the

control room, Olivia felt she was in a dream. The glamorous

blonde woman who behaved as if being in front of the

cameras was the most natural thing in the world couldn’t

be her, could it? Her onscreen self smiled at the camera

tranquilly and shook her curtain of shimmering golden hair

out of the way occasionally, a habit she’d noticed in Sasha

but which Olivia had no idea she shared herself.

And her eyes … they looked huge in her face, like two

silvery orbs shining with enthusiasm. She looked, Olivia

thought with utter surprise, beautiful. Not doll-like or

expressionless, the way she felt when Stephen told her she

was beautiful, but lively, vivacious, animated.

‘You look great on television,’ Linda repeated, peering

carefully at the screen. ‘Very natural. I thought you weren’t

going to be all right in the beginning, you hesitated and I

thought, “Oh-oh, rabbit on road in front of oncoming car

time.” But you gathered it all together and gave us quite a

performance.’

Olivia, feeling a little shell-shocked by everything,

grinned to herself. She couldn’t very well tell Linda that

the sight of Nancy Roberts smiling like a venomous

Cheshire cat had spurred her on to perform in a way she’d

never thought possible.

As if she was reading Olivia’s thoughts, Linda said: ‘You

must meet Nancy before you go.’

Olivia wasn’t sure that she wanted to but she could

hardly say that.

‘If you’re going to be working with us, you’ll be working

specifically with Nancy. She hosts the cookery slots and

you two should … er …’ Linda hesitated ‘… get on.’

Obviously, the producer wasn’t going to say that getting

on with Nancy was vital to remaining on the show but

Olivia could read between the lines. She briefly wondered

if the previous cookery person had got on with Nancy.