‘What about a game show?’ offers Tom. The look on his face suggests that he thinks he’s just invented electricity.
‘Good,’ I assure. He’ll be the first to go, when the P45s are being dished up. ‘Now try and think of what type of game show.’ I consider whether, if the worst comes to the worst, I could retrain as a primary school teacher. I have all the core skills.
We bandy a few game show ideas around but they’ve all been done before. Often on bigger budgets than we have available. We talk it round and round.
‘We could diversify. We could buy a publishing house or a football team,’ suggests Gray. He’s thinking of the free tickets that he could blag for his friends.
That’s a stupid idea,’ comments Di.
‘Gary, the commercial director, likes it.’
‘I think it is a great idea,’ says Di.
‘Can we keep to the point, please,’ I instruct. It’s getting hot and late. I call out for more coffee and Coke. The rest of London’s workforces teem out of their offices and escape into pubs for a long cool lager. This isn’t an option for my team.
‘How about a “fly-on-the-wall” programme?’ asks Jaki. ‘They are cheap and popular.’
‘Absolutely. On which subject?’
‘The police force?’ offers Mark. ‘We could expose their ruthless tactics and racist tendencies.’
‘They do a pretty good job of that themselves, without TV,’ points out Jaki.
‘The fire brigade?’ offers Ricky. I know he’s simply getting hot and sweaty over the idea of them swinging down their pole. He’s a sucker for uniforms.
‘Been done.’
His disappointment is criminal.
‘Banker-wankers ?’
‘Same as the police force, really.’
‘The gas board?’
‘Done.’
‘Electricity?’
‘And water. Nothing left to be said on the utilities scams.’
‘Or builders or mechanics.’
‘It’s all been done before,’ sighs Mark. ‘It’s all too undemanding and formulaic.’
‘We are talking about an escapist medium,’ I remind him. ‘No one wants demanding. Demanding is how we describe our kids, red bills and the lover we no longer want to have sex with.’
We fall silent again. I look at the trash that’s lying on the table. Numerous empty cans of diet Coke, overflowing ashtrays, curling sandwiches. This mountain of debris and my Patek Philippe watch tell me it’s time to call it a day.
‘OK, go home. Go and see your partners and kids.’ I flop back into my chair and put my head on the desk. The cool surface is a relief. ‘But don’t stop thinking about this. The idea may come to you on the tube or in the bath or whilst you’re making love.’
‘You’re sick,’ grins Jaki. She seems to think that part of her job description as production secretary is to tell me how it is.
‘Look, Jaki, football is not a matter of life and death, it’s more important than that. And TV? TV is more important than football.’
She laughs and closes the door behind her.
But I’m not joking.
3
I live on my own, in a spacious pseudo-loft apartment in a trendy part of East London. I say pseudo because it’s not in the loft, it’s on the second floor. But I do have exposed brickwork and genuine iron girders that keep the roof from falling in. My space is the antithesis of both the abandoned family home in Esher and my mother’s two-up-two-down in Cockfosters. It’s modern and light and empty. I only allow things into my flat if they are both useful and beautiful. Except for the men who visit, which would be asking too much. My two favourite possessions are my charcoal-grey B&B Italia couch that seats umpteen and my B&O TV, which is the size of a screen at a small local cinema. I love my flat and Issie hates it, for the same reason: it’s clinical and impersonal. Issie keeps trying to introduce chintz by buying me floral bathmats and tea cosies for Christmas. I return the favour by buying her aluminium, slim-line pasta jars, which she can’t open.
Josh and Issie both have keys to my flat, as I do to their homes. We are Londoners so we don’t literally drop in on one another. But sometimes we make arrangements to go round to each other’s pads for supper, as it’s nice to occasionally come home to the smell of cooking and the clink of someone pouring you a G&T. Tonight I’m delighted we’ve made this plan. I need their company. I push open my door and am hit by delicious cooking smells.
‘You’re late,’ shouts Josh from the kitchen. He’s responsible for the delicious smells. I drop my bags