‘Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Tell him to call me straight away – I can’t rest until this is put right.’
Hanging up, I immediately call Susie. ‘Where are you right now?’
There’s the sound of traffic. ‘I just left the house on Cheltenham Avenue that I told you about.’
‘The collector? What’s it like?’
‘Incredible.’
‘Has he got paintings and stuff?’
‘Everywhere. It’s practically the Louvre.’
‘And where is he now?’
‘Dubai, I think. Why?’
‘Because I need his house.’
‘What?’
‘Just for a bit. Can you meet me there?’
‘No. What are you talking about?’
‘I just want to hang out there for a bit. You’re always saying I should see these places.’
‘I don’t trust you. You’re crazy today.’
‘Half an hour, that’s all.’
‘I don’t understand.’
There’s another call coming in. ‘Thank you, love you, see you there, bye.’ I switch lines. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, is that Clover Hendry? This is Art Andra.’ He has a kind of strangled American accent, like Loyd Grossman.
I give a little gasp. ‘Mr Andra! You don’t know what an honour this is. Thank you for taking the time, for picking up the phone, for blessing me this way.’ Since he has an interesting accent, I decide to have one too, and go for something vaguely Eastern European.
‘I’m very upset about this.’
‘Of course you are. Of course. I can’t imagine . . . But please, I can explain everything. I wondered if you would do me the additional honour of coming to my house—’
‘I don’t think so—’
‘—my house on Cheltenham Avenue, so that I can offer you a proper apology, an explanation, and perhaps some light refreshment?’
There’s silence at the other end, the address doing its work. Cheltenham Avenue is the most desirable street in Bristol – the average house price is at least two million. Everyone wants to live there, or at least have a
nose around.
‘It’s near the gallery, with lovely views of the green.’ Before this I was just a random woman; now I’m a random rich woman.
‘As you wish,’ he says, as if he’s doing me a huge favour.
‘Thank you so much, you’re too kind. Shall we say five p.m.? I’ll message you the address.’
As I hang up, Danny catches my eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘Playing a deep game, ain’t ya.’
I clasp Bigwig against my chest. ‘You have no idea.’
24
That’s what TV producers do; we clear up the mess. Sometimes we make it too – omelettes, eggs and all that. But firefighting is a prerequisite of a good programme-maker; fearlessness in the face of chaos. Sometimes things unravel quite spectacularly – presenters throwing strops, contributors backing out, the production haemorrhaging money, commissioners shifting goalposts. The producer keeps a steady hand at the tiller, guiding everyone through. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
The problem is, normally, I don’t do fearlessness. Tidying up is OK, stemming the frenzy, keeping things together, ticking over – that’s doable. But managing all that without bricking myself is something I’ve never quite achieved. Pretty much every production I’ve ever worked on has added years to my life in terms of stress and anxiety, repeating Other Delia’s mantra ‘It’ll all come out in the edit, it’ll all come out in the edit . . .’ to calm myself down. In our catch-ups with Vince, I’d listen to my fellow executive producers Petroc and Oz casually mentioning the various production issues they were battling, and find it hard not to grab a paper bag to hyperventilate into – how were they not made dizzy by the things they had to deal with? As execs, we were near the top of the tree, production-wise, which meant that lightning struck us first. Of course, they were delegating the worry down to someone else, which is something I’ve never been able to do. Sometimes, you clear up the mess by giving everyone a broom and telling them to get on with it.
After he helped me out with Vince and the head of development job, Petroc and I had become friends, regularly sneaking off to the pub round the corner to snark about colleagues, commissioners and the industry generally. He’d been at Red Eye for longer than I had and, although professionally we were equals, I’d come to rely on him as a sounding board – or at least someone I could let off steam with. He has a certain sagacity – laced with sarcasm of course – that I find reassuring. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes he fucks up, just like everyone else.
One day, I was in my office watching casting tapes and eating honey-and-sesame-coated almonds that someone had brought back from Turkey. We have what Vince inappropriately calls the ‘Fat Shelf’ in the communal kitchen, where people leave treats out – chocolates they’ve been given, leftover birthday cake, holiday harvests. It’s where I left my doughnuts, where I leave my bagels – ostentatiously, so everyone knows I’m being generous. Someone had left the almonds out that morning, and after telling myself I definitely wouldn’t have any, I took a handful and lined them up on my desk, resolving to only eat one when I came across a contributor I liked on the tape. I’d eaten three almonds when Petroc burst in, looking grey and unhinged.
‘Kill me now.’
He threw himself into my armchair, which is a prop from a celebrity interview show we made. It’s orange, designed to pop on camera, which only served to heighten the zombie tones of Petroc’s face. He looked distraught, so I offered him a nut.
‘I can’t eat, I feel sick,’ he declared, passing a hand across his sweating brow.
‘What’s happened?’
