Best of Friends. Cathy Kelly

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      ‘Why would anyone want to keep this?’ demanded one of them, holding up a faded stuffed toy that the tear-stained client had kept since her now thirty-year-old son was an infant.

      Because it means something to her, Abby’s inner voice said.

      ‘What do we say to this?’ said the US beauty, dangling the toy.

      ‘Get It Outta Here!’ chorused her two colleagues.

      ‘This show is huge,’ commented Roxie, fast-forwarding through the advertisements. ‘It’s bitchy, yes, but the ratings are big because everyone loves to see someone else getting it in the chops. This is the way forward.’

      Abby watched Roxie’s little foxy face with something approaching dislike. She couldn’t imagine Roxie ever clinging on to a pile of old letters or a single broken earring because they had been given to her by a long-gone lover. You couldn’t dejunk anyone’s life without having some vague understanding of what made people tick. Memorabilia was precious, and laughing at a person’s precious things was plain cruel. Therapy by scalpel.

      Roxie wasn’t finished yet. She hit ‘play’ and the show started again. Abby began to write down what she didn’t like about it.

      Too hard on the people involved.

      Very unsympathetic.

      Difficult to get new guests once they’d seen the trauma caused.

      She glanced at Stan, Brian and Flora, assuming they would agree with her. But the three of them were watching the show intensely and Flora was twirling her long black plait obsessively, her face rapt.

      ‘That’s the way to bigger ratings,’ said Roxie. ‘Not that I’m criticising what you’ve done up to now, but we’ve got to ratchet it up another level. Seventy per cent of TV shows have just two seasons in them, apart from the really successful concept quiz shows. We want to be in the winning thirty per cent with a show that runs and runs. Our new series is make-or-break time for us. We need to freshen it up.’

      Abby sat rigidly in her chair, waiting for someone else to speak, to say, ‘No, that’s not what Declutter is about.’

      But they were all nodding thoughtfully.

      Abby felt the blood rush to her head. She never lost her temper at work but she felt perilously close to doing so now. They couldn’t possibly expect her to become such a TV bitch. She couldn’t do it – she wouldn’t do it.

      ‘I can’t behave like that, I can’t,’ she said fervently, standing up and staring at the three people round the table she thought were on her side. ‘People trust me; they know I’ve got their best interests at heart and that I want to help them simplify their lives. That’s what the show is about – helping people move on, not destroying them or laughing at them.’ This show was her baby; she’d made it what it was. She’d walk if they wanted to ruin it. ‘I’d leave before I’d act like a bitch to people.’

      ‘Abby, we understand that,’ said Roxie silkily. ‘Part of your charm is how gentle and kind you are.’

      Abby grimaced. Roxie made kindness sound as much of an asset as herpes.

      ‘There’s no question of you leaving,’ insisted Brian. ‘You are Declutter, Abby.’

      ‘You make people feel warm and fuzzy inside, that’s great,’ added Roxie, ‘but we have to move on. We need a harder edge. Someone with a harder edge.’

      As quickly as it had come, Abby’s anger departed and she stared stricken at Roxie.

      ‘My plan is to recruit one or two new presenters to work alongside you, Abby. You’ll be the host, of course, but we need fresh faces. I’m thinking young, maybe a male/female team,’ she said, addressing Stan and Flora now. ‘Abby will be the host and do the main links as well as being the primary de-junker, but we’ll have the added interest of two new people. We could do a whole house per show with more people. And,’ she ended triumphantly, ‘this is the biggest change, make the show an hour long. The advertisers would love us.’

      She didn’t need to tell all of this to Brian, realised Abby with a sinking feeling. He was sitting back in his chair, watching his team’s reactions. He knew in advance what Roxie was talking about and he clearly agreed with her.

      ‘Think about it,’ Roxie continued. ‘We’ll be broadening the appeal of the show, we’ll be able to get some chemistry going with the two new leads, and we’ll have more airtime plus more advertising revenue. Think of three ad breaks instead of just one.’

      Abby felt like Coyote watching the huge rock fall on his head while Road Runner whooped happily in the distance. She wouldn’t do bitchy, so they would find people who did – she’d walked right into the trap.

      ‘I don’t know,’ said Stan. ‘Would the show work in an hour-long format? And with regards to new presenters, shouldn’t we get some figures on the appetite for this type of change? I don’t want to mess up the formula. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

      Of course, Roxie had an answer for that. ‘We could always make some pilot shows, just to see if the idea works,’ she said smoothly.

      ‘Youth is the way forward,’ philosophised Brian, sitting back in his leather chair and giving them all an even better look at his belly, which was straining against the buttons of his Charvet shirt.

      He hadn’t been able to afford handmade French shirts before Declutter had been so successful and transformed Beech’s bottom line, Abby thought furiously.

      ‘Definitely. Youth makes television magic,’ he added. ‘No offence, Abby.’

      ‘None taken,’ she said from between gritted teeth.

      ‘Presenters are getting younger and younger,’ Roxie put in.

      ‘Youth is where it’s at,’ Brian repeated pompously. Everyone nodded sagely.

      Abby glared at them. Youth? What did they know about youth? Brian was a childless man in his early fifties with thinning hair, and the nearest he got to exercise was propping up the bar after he’d watched a soccer match. Stan was a skinny single guy on the wrong side of thirty-five with a forty-a-day Benson & Hedges habit, a fondness for junk food, and the unhealthy pallor of someone whose arteries were furring up at the speed of a Formula One racing car. Flora had recently celebrated her fortieth birthday with a big, booze-fuelled party and had dramatically insisted that everyone wore black to mourn for her lost youth.

      Being young was just a memory for all of them, yet they were able to pontificate to her about age. Only Roxie, who was twenty-five, max, and, with the hubris of youth, probably thought that old age happened to other people, could claim to understand youth culture.

      After some discussion about casting new talent, during which Abby sat with a fixed smile on her face, the meeting ended.

      ‘Great to meet you,’ Roxie said to Abby. ‘I love your work.’

      ‘Thanks,’ Abby said mechanically. She was too shattered to say anything else. She made her way to the ladies’ room across the hall, and Flora followed her.

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