Three weeks in, Petroc found me crying in my new office. I wasn’t making a noise or anything, just silently weeping while I emailed the series commissioner of MHMH to tell her we’d found a fortified manor house in Fife and a gypsy caravan in Pembrokeshire. He caught me unawares, tears rolling down my face as I typed, and there was nothing I could do but hastily rub my cheeks with my sleeve.
‘I feel that way whenever I email Channel Four,’ was all he said. He’d come to ask if I knew a particular producer he was thinking of hiring, so we had a brief but enjoyable bitch about various people we’d worked with, and then he asked if I wanted to go for a ‘snifter’ later. During a marathon drinking session in the pub around the corner, he provided eye-opening details of some of the sexual encounters and punch-ups at previous Red Eye parties, including a Christmas lunch that ended in arson, gave me the lowdown on company finances (‘completely shot’) and told me off for the doughnuts.
‘You’ll get a reputation,’ he warned, signalling to the barmaid.
‘As what?’ I mumbled, through a packet of salt and vinegar crisps.
‘A crowd-pleaser,’ he replied.
‘Isn’t that a good thing? To please a crowd? Like, Lady Gaga or Beyoncé?’
‘More like Vera Lynn putting out for the armed forces,’ he said. ‘You want to sharpen up your act.’
Drunkenly, I confessed about my new appointment, which Vince had never announced because he knew it was a dubious management decision, and I’d never mentioned, because I was too embarrassed to admit I’d been coerced into doing two jobs for the price of one. As he listened, Petroc’s lip curled, making me more ashamed than ever, but all he said was ‘Leave it with me.’
I thought no more of it, mainly because my memories of the evening were hazy, but the next day, Vincent came to my office and said he’d had a rethink, and that he’d decided to hire a proper head of development instead. In fact, he asked me to do the hiring for him, which was another thing on my plate, but this was more of a swiftly dispatched amuse-bouche instead of the hellish feast with a long spoon I’d previously been condemned to endure. I went for a woman called Naomi Horowitz, who was terrifyingly clever with a finger so on the pulse it was pretty much tapping directly into the vein. But, of course, she was very much in demand, and decided to take another job at the BBC, so instead we ended up with Ian Gittings, whose finger is pretty much circling his own arse crack, but at least he’s nominally in charge and I’m left to get on with my actual job, which is making programmes and watching PowerPoint slides.
A few weeks later, during another post-work drinking session, I plucked up the courage to ask Petroc if he’d had anything to do with Vince’s change of heart. He grinned and tapped the side of his nose.
‘I told him I’d heard on the grapevine that Light Fantastic were looking for a new head of development.’
I squinted into my drink, puzzled. Light Fantastic was a hot new indie run by an ex-ITV commissioner who specialized in big-budget entertainment shows. ‘Why did that make him change his mind?’
‘Because to find a new head of development, standard procedure is to go round all the other indies finding out who their HoD is. Which means that eventually they would have come to you.’
For a long time, I didn’t say anything, just ran my finger around the rim of my glass. ‘Thank you,’ I said eventually. ‘I owe you one.’
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘One day I’ll call it in, and you can repay the favour.’
I didn’t forget what I learned that night. First, Vincent didn’t want to lose me, and second, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. I assumed that to get what I wanted, I’d have to storm around, making a scene, chucking my toys out the pram. And because I couldn’t do that, I thought I was stuck. But sometimes, you just have to know what buttons to push. Quietly, in a darkened room, flicking a switch here and there, to get the precise cut you want.
11
Little Donkey is the best burrito joint in the world because they have a long bar with about four hundred and eighty-three different fillings, and you can put them all in a tortilla which they roll up really tight so it fits everything in. They can always fit it in. Usually, I don’t allow myself to go there because, firstly, lunch breaks don’t exist at Red Eye – you eat a limp canteen sandwich at your desk, spilling crumbs between the keys of your computer, or fight over a warm tray of sushi in a meeting. Secondly, I suspect the calorie content of their burritos is verging on bacchanalian, and despite the fact that I adore eating and am really good at it, I started restricting myself when I hit forty. It’s just something I felt I had to do (because my mother told me to), like waxing my chin and applying anti-ageing hand cream before bed. But not today. Today is outside the normal rules; today nothing counts; today I will have my fill.
We queue up. I order a Stuffed Donkey Special, which makes Petroc massage his temples when he sees how much is packed in there. He orders a salad, which is a total waste. We sit outside because of Lafayette, who insists on perching on Petroc’s knees. I look at my burrito nestling in its wicker basket and sigh in anticipation. I might actually start dribbling if I don’t eat this immediately. An al fresco lunch! How decadent. We’re next to Clifton Arcade, a pretty, bustling row of shops with a great vibe. I’m bringing my own great vibe, it’s all groovy.
Shaking out my napkin, I lay it carefully across my trousers before taking my first bite. God, it’s wonderful. Chewy and umami, morsels loitering around my tastebuds, caressing them with their beautiful rich flavours. I am going to eat the hell out of this. Might have another one after, like a burrito chaser. The second mouthful is even better than the first, building on the salty, piquant tang – I cup my hand under my chin to catch the falling fragments and cram them back in. Yum yum.
‘Shhno. Wut zzzz yoo dup shnul frintl?’
Petroc pauses with a piece of lettuce speared on his fork. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t catch that. Your diction leaves a great deal to be desired.’
‘Sorry.’ I swallow. ‘So, what’s your made-up Astral1 intel? What do the big streamers want?’
He lances an olive pensively. ‘They want stuff that’s bold? Ground-breaking?’
‘Empowering? Candid? Raw?’
‘Good, good. Keep it coming, I’ll take notes.’
‘Bring us the ideas you wouldn’t take to anyone else, because they’re too chicken-shit. Let’s blow up the moon. Get Ricky Gervais to push the button.’
‘Think bigger. What about Jupiter, and James Corden?’
‘Nice. Can you put in a call? We’ll pay thirty K per hour.’
We’re sniggering but it’s not funny at all because we have actual conversations like this, meetings where by the end of the hour you have a page of scribbled notes that say things like ‘Would Dame Judi Dench jump from space?’ and you feel tearfully despairing at the prospect of making an unmakeable big budget entertainment show with a national treasure for the price of an online short. Commissioners also have the ‘what if . . .’ devil at their shoulder, but he’s more of a sadistic puck who says things like ‘What if we made a scale model of the Eiffel Tower, but with cheese? And what if we made Joanna Lumley eat it? Or Nigella put it in a fondue? Come on, I’m just riffing.’
‘Humph!’
I’m laughing and chewing, and when the noise cuts through our chat, initially I don’t hear it, or it doesn’t register.
‘Give me a life-endangering celebrity journey! Someone world-famous who’s never been on telly before. Must have a regional accent, and travel by camel.’
‘Just sitting there!’
‘I want Prince Harry to parachute into a volcano.’ Petroc’s still going, but there’s a robotic tone to his voice now, as he tunes in.
‘Butter wouldn’t melt!’
Still holding my Special like a priceless artefact, albeit one I’m in the process of destroying, I turn towards the voice. It’s coming from an old woman sitting next to us. Wearing too many layers for a summer’s day, she’s the shape of a slowly deflating balloon, and she’s glaring at us like we just gobbed in her soup. She definitely does not have a great vibe. For a second, I fret about what this means; maybe I’ve somehow offended her, she considers my unparalleled greed a disgrace. But then I realize her little jackdaw eyes are directed towards Petroc. What’s wrong with him? The salad is a disappointing choice, certainly, and I guess eating with a dog in your face might be considered unsavoury. But I can’t really see what that has to do with her. Picking at his leaves, Petroc now has a pink tinge to his cheeks as the woman rambles on.
‘Shoving his politics in our faces!’
I put down my burrito and lean forwards. ‘Sorry, what’s wrong?’
‘Leave it,’ murmurs Petroc, determinedly jabbing at his meal.
