no money in that. Someone needs a makeup artist, they don’t call me, they go on Instagram and see who has the most likes. Same with a photographer. People think knowing how to use filters is the same as knowing how to take a great photo. Photography is an art. Don’t come to me demanding ten grand a day until you’ve got a herniated disc in your neck from holding up a fucking reflector eighteen hours a day for five years. No one wants to learn the skills, no one wants to pay their dues. Drives me fucking insane.’
‘So you decided to work with a grizzled old veteran like Snazzlechuff?’
She snorted out a laugh that turned into a prolonged smoker’s cough.
‘He might be a little twat but he is talented,’ she replied, pressing a hand against her chest as she finished her hacking. ‘Admittedly, that talent is not curing cancer or even being able to remember to shower twice a day, but at least it’s honest. Someone was going to take him on, I figured it might as well be me. Every wanker with a pair of AirPods thinks he’s an agent these days and they’re all out to take advantage, lining their own pockets rather than looking after the client. I am actually attempting to look after the little bastard.’
Who would have believed it? Underneath it all, Agent Veronica had a heart.
‘But you didn’t answer my question,’ she continued, pushing my coffee across the island. ‘What’s gone so wrong that working with my little shitstain is the best you can do with your life?’
Or maybe not.
‘I think all kinds of stories have value,’ I said, clinging to something I once thought was true. ‘Snazz has a perspective to share that no one else does. There aren’t many people in the world in his position.’
‘Thank fuck,’ she replied flatly.
‘In all honesty, the job came to me but I’m really glad it did,’ I said, trying to sound convincing. I wrapped my hands around the mug, freezing cold in my jeans and T-shirt, even though it was still scorching outside. Snazz wanted you to know his house had air conditioning and he was not afraid to use it. ‘I was in radio before this, producing news shows, culture shows. I worked on a show called The Book Report, you might have heard of that?’
Veronica locked her steely eyes on mine before bursting out into a throaty cackle that, against all the odds, I found endearing.
‘You’re funny,’ she gasped. ‘I like funny. No, Ros, I haven’t got time to read a book, let alone listen to a podcast about reading books. Last novel I read was that one about that daft slag who had everyone thinking her thick husband killed her but then it turned out she staged it all because she was a mental.’
I digested her capsule review for just a moment.
‘Do you mean Gone Girl?’
‘That’s the one,’ she nodded. ‘What a waste of fucking time. Went on a mad rampage just because she didn’t like taking it up the arse. Just dump him, love, there was no need.’
‘I don’t remember that being her entire motivation but I hear what you’re saying,’ I replied weakly. We’d interviewed Gillian Flynn on The Book Report and I wished we’d had Veronica’s capsule review back then. ‘Maybe you ought to have your own podcast instead of Snazz.’
Veronica clacked her long, blood-red nails on the kitchen top.
‘Sad truth is more people will take an hour out of their day to listen to Snazz and his mates chatting shit than they would to listen to a forty-eight-year-old woman with something useful to say,’ she declared with a resigned shrug. ‘The world’s fucked.’
‘You never know until you try,’ I said, avoiding the sad fact that she was probably right by checking the time on my phone. ‘Is the young master ready for me?’
‘He is,’ she said with a deep breath in. ‘But I’m not sure what you’re hoping to get out of him. PodPad came to us with the idea of doing a podcast, he said he was into it and so I did the deal, but I’ve got to tell you, you’re fighting an uphill battle. Don’t take this the wrong way but I think they’d have done better pairing him with someone who didn’t mind doing all the work themselves.’
‘I’ll do the work,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m not afraid of hard graft.’
‘That’s not really what I meant,’ she replied, leading me back through the designer