What a Carve Up! (9 page)

As for that decision, it was arrived at soon enough. Earlier in the week I had received a bank statement, and this morning I had opened it to discover, not very much to my surprise, that I was heavily overdrawn. In which case, something would have to be done about the pile of manuscript now lying on my desk. With luck – perhaps with the aid of a miracle – there might just be money to be raised on it: but I would have to read it through as quickly as possible, so that I could decide how to approach the relevant publishers.

I started on this task as soon as I got back to the flat, and had managed to read about seventy pages when Fiona called by in the early evening. She brought two large paper carrier bags, one of which had foliage spilling over the top.

‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘You look different.’

(I remember these rather absurd exclamations of hers, now. ‘Gosh’ was one; ‘Crikey’, another.)

‘Do I?’ I said.

‘I caught you on a bad night, didn’t I? Last evening, I mean.’

‘Maybe. I’m feeling more … with it, tonight.’

She put the carrier bags down on the floor, saying: ‘I brought these round right away. They need re-potting. If I can leave them here, I’ll just go and freshen up and things, and then I’ll come and give you a hand.’

When she had gone I took a peek inside the bags. There were plants in one and a couple of fair-sized earthenware pots and saucers in the other, along with some bits of shopping, and a newspaper. It was a long time since I had looked at this particular tabloid, but remembering that today was a Friday I took it out of the bag and thumbed rapidly to a page near the middle. When I found what I was looking for I smiled a private smile, and started to read through it: without much interest at first, but then, after a few lines, I frowned and something chimed within my memory. I went into my spare bedroom, the one I used as a study (the one I never went into), and came back with a large box file full of newspaper clippings. I was looking through these when Fiona returned.

She took her bags through into the kitchen and set about repotting the plants. I could hear the noise of things being moved about and taps being turned on and off. At one point she said: ‘I must say your kitchen’s awfully clean.’

‘I’ll come and help in a minute,’ I said. ‘I really appreciate this, you know. I must reimburse you.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘Ha!’

I had found the cutting, which I pulled out of the box with this small cry of triumph. It was a vindication of my powers of recall, apart from anything else. I laid out today’s paper on the dining table, opened at the appropriate page, placed the cutting next to it and read both items again carefully. My frown deepened. When Fiona came in carrying one of the plants, she said: ‘I wouldn’t mind a drink.’

‘Sorry. Of course. Only I was just looking at this column. What do you make of it?’

When she saw that I was looking at her newspaper, Fiona became defensive: ‘I didn’t buy that, you know. I found it on the tube.’ She glanced at the identical pictures of Hilary Winshaw which headed each page, and grimaced. ‘That dreadful woman. I hope you’re not going to tell me you’re a fan.’

‘Not at all. But I do have a professional interest. Read them while I get you something, and let me know what you think.’

The column had been running for more than six years now and still bore the title PLAIN COMMON SENSE. The photograph at the top hadn’t changed, either. It was here, every Friday, that the great television mogul and media personality could be found airing her views on any topic which happened to seize her wandering fancy, holding forth with equal conviction on issues ranging from the welfare state and the international situation to the length of hemline sported by members of the royal family on recent social outings. Countless thousands of readers seemed to have been charmed, over the years, by her endearing habit of professing almost total ignorance of any subject which she chose to discuss – her speciality in this regard being a willingness to put forward the most strident opinions relating to controversial books and films while cheerfully admitting that she had been unable to find the time to read or see them. Another winning feature was her way of making the reader feel generously included within her circle of intimates, by being prepared to write at extraordinary length about the minutiae of her domestic arrangements, in tones which would rise to a pitch of righteous indignation whenever she described the vagaries of the successive builders, plumbers and decorators who seemed to be in permanent attendance at her enormous Chelsea home. It’s an interesting but little known fact that for pouring out this torrent of nonsense, Ms Winshaw was paid a yearly fee equivalent to six times the salary of a qualified school-teacher and eight times that of a staff nurse in the National Health Service. I’ve got proof of that, as well.

The two items which I’d chosen for comparison found Hilary in a political frame of mind. Although they were separated by roughly four years, I present them here as Fiona and I read them that day: side by side.

Fiona finished reading and looked at me for a few seconds. ‘I’m not sure that I understand,’ she said.

Hilary

In the summer of 1969, shortly before they went up to Oxford together, Hugo Beamish invited his best friend Roddy Winshaw to stay with his family for a few weeks. They lived in a huge, cluttered, slightly dirty house in North West London. Roddy’s sister Hilary was invited too. She was fifteen.

Hilary found the whole thing excruciatingly tedious. It was perhaps marginally better than spending the summer in Tuscany with her parents (again!), but Hugo’s mother and father turned out to be almost as dull – she was a writer, he worked at the BBC – while his sister, Alicia, was nothing but a crashing bore with buck teeth and terrible spots.

Alan Beamish was a kindly man who noticed quickly enough that Hilary wasn’t enjoying herself. One night as they all sat around the dinner table, with Roddy and Hugo loudly discussing their respective career options, he watched her pushing a mound of tepid pasta around her plate and asked a sudden question:

‘And what do you see yourself doing in ten years’ time, I wonder?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Hilary hadn’t given this matter much thought, taking it for granted (rightly, of course) that something glamorous and well-paid would sooner or later fall into her lap. Besides, she hated the idea of sharing her aspirations with these people. ‘I thought I might go into television,’ she improvised, lazily.

‘Well you know of course that Alan is a producer,’ said Mrs Beamish.

Hilary didn’t know this. She had got him down as a company accountant or at best some sort of engineer. Even so, she was not in the least impressed: but from that moment on, Alan, for his part, chose to take Hilary under his wing.

‘Do you know the secret of success in the television business?’ he asked her, late one afternoon. ‘It’s very simple. You have to watch it, that’s all. You have to watch it all the time.’

Hilary nodded. She never watched television. She knew she was too good for it.

‘Now I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,’ said Alan.

What they were going to do, it transpired – much to Hilary’s horror – was to sit down in front of the television and take in an entire evening’s viewing, with Alan talking her through every programme, explaining how it was made, how much it cost, why it had been scheduled at a certain time, and where its target audience lay.

‘Scheduling is everything,’ he said. ‘A programme stands or falls by its scheduling. Understand that, and you’ll already have a march on all the other bright young graduates you’ll be competing with.’

They started off with the news on BBC
I
at ten to six, followed by a magazine programme called
Town and Around.
Then they switched channels to ITV and watched
The Saint,
with Roger Moore.

‘This is the kind of show the independent companies do best,’ said Alan. ‘Very sellable abroad: even to America. High production values, lots of location work. Snappy direction, too. It’s all a bit shallow, for my liking, but I wouldn’t knock it.’