Coming Up Next. Penny Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ on her makeup. Less is more, she thought, as she expertly applied base and powder. A touch of mascara and pink lip-gloss, and she was ready. Her hair, specially blow-dried for the event, framed her face with its soft, black shininess.

      With one last glance in the mirror, Keera set off for the twelve o’clock appointment. Friday was always the best day to see anyone who worked in breakfast TV. No programme on Saturday – people could let their hair down. The Boss was guaranteed sober if caught before lunch. Too late in the day and he’d be under a table, if not under a woman. He’d once been found with a fifty year-old Russian countess in a broom cupboard at the Savoy Hotel after a particularly late lunch. It had been hushed up but, like most things in the media world, the news had leaked out. No journalist could resist a juicy piece of gossip like that.

      Laughing coquettishly and doing a Princess Diana-type peep up through her lashes, Keera had asked The Boss if he could limit the number of people he told to the bare essentials. She thought, as he laughed too, that she had made some sort of joke about being naked. She could have hugged herself. ‘I’m on my way. I do know where I’m going,’ she hummed, as she left the building.

      To tell Mike – or not to tell Mike? He was a bit of a prude and would probably be mildly – if not hugely – horrified. However, if she didn’t keep him in the loop he was likely to be severely miffed and do that horrible thing he used to do to Katie when he was in one of his pre-menstrual moods: he had turned his back on her when he was interviewing someone on the sofa, not responded to comments and – the only thing Keera was scared of – made witty comments she didn’t entirely understand.

      On the other hand, she knew the viewers were on her side. They liked her natural girl-next-door approach. Never mind that someone had described her within earshot as a lobster short of a seafood platter. They’d got rid of Katie because she was too sharp. Unpleasantly so. She tried to think of a simile. As sharp as – a lemon?. No, she was partial to lemons.

      As sharp as a shark! she thought triumphantly. If she, Keera, was like a lobster, then Katie was a nasty old shark. A nasty old dead-in-the-water shark. Yes, the lobster was taking over the aquarium. Although, now she came to think of it, sh e wasn’t sure she wanted to be a lobster. But, then, was there anything pretty in the sea?

      At that particular moment Mike wouldn’t have cared if Keera had told him she was having sex with a panther for GQ, wearing a strap-on dildo and a pair of reindeer ears. He was having a major worry about his nocturnal visits. He had ‘taken the dog for a walk’ the night before and been spotted by a drunken viewer who had yelled at him in his car. He was seriously concerned that, with papers paying thousands of pounds for news of scandalous activities, the now sober viewer might be doing a deal to feather his no doubt filthy and unkempt nest.

      Would it come down to their word against his? He hoped so. He’d always been very careful. But careful wasn’t abstaining. He couldn’t do that. No way. Should he wear a disguise? No, that would be too silly. And even more embarrassing if it ever came out. Maybe he’d have to keep his head down for a bit, though.

      He should have been going out with his wife that night to a charity function but had told her he was too tired, and would try to have an early night. He only went to those unspeakably tedious events to up his profile. He really couldn’t be doing with the usual people you had to converse with at them.

      He had come into the house as the sun was glinting obliquely through the trees on the drive, and told her he was going to have a literally early bath. His think tank, as he described it. He sat there, long legs splayed out, steaming. It’s an odd phenomenon, he thought, that the more you sit in water, the more wrinkly you get. He rubbed his fingers together, noticing how they were furrowing as the boiling hot water did its work. Eventually he got out, noticing in passing, that he was as red as a skinned tomato.

      He wrapped a towel round his waist and went downstairs to pour himself a whisky.

      ‘Yes, it is two fingers of whisky,’ he said loudly to his wife, who was doing sit-ups while watching Richard and Judy. ‘Do you want anything?’

      He knew the answer before she said it. Of course she wouldn’t be having anything. She’d have her bottle of water with her and, later on, she’d guzzle an entire stick of celery. If she was really hungry.

      He took the whisky and stood at the door, watching his wife putting herself through her endless routine. She had her feet under the side of the chintz sofa so that she could see the television, and was counting under her breath. She was up to 129 … 130. What an awful lot of effort, he thought, when there are so many fun ways to get a workout.

      If the viewers didn’t get in the way, that was.

      He wondered how much she had minded being told that tonight was off. He had said she could go on her own if she wanted, but she hadn’t wanted: nobody would take her photograph if she wasn’t with him, so what was the point? She had gone to one ball at which she hadn’t spoken to anyone the entire evening. As they had sat together in the black Mercedes taking them home, she had said that some of the other guests had tried to make conversation, but they were dull. ‘Why do we have to sit with non-celebrities?’ she’d asked. ‘Surely they know we want to talk to other interesting people.’

      Secretly Mike agreed with her, but was aware that the driver was overhearing their conversation so he confined himself to a comment about the raffle.

      ‘How’s it going?’ he asked now, nodding to the leg lifts she was embarking on.

      ‘Fine.’ She grunted.

      He watched her for a while, wondering how she could bear to spend so much of her life lifting separate bits of her body like a daddy-long-legs trying to get through a patch of strawberry jam.

      ‘Be careful not to overdo it …’ he threw over his shoulder, as he made his way upstairs. As he turned the corner, he finished the sentence ‘. or they’ll turn into antennae.’

      He and Sandra had separate bedrooms – a result of ten years doing breakfast television with its unpleasant early-morning regime. Not that Mike could complain. A huge salary and a four-hour day because he was arrogant enough to think he could get away with minimal preparation. He woke up at five-thirty a.m, although in every interview he said it was three.

      His bedroom was enormous, the giant bed covered with carefully coiffed cushions. That was Sandra’s touch. She had also forced him to have dark green sheets and duvet cover because he insisted on reading newspapers in bed. ‘I’m not having white sheets with black streaks in my house,’ she had said. And, actually, he wasn’t bothered. She could do what she liked, within reason. As long as she never found the little hiding places.

      Katie’s mother had forced her to go shopping. ‘I do love you,’ she said, ‘but since you’ve come to stay, and show no sign yet of going, you may as well make yourself useful. We’re down to dog biscuits and tinned rice pudding unless someone makes the effort to drive into town and get some food.’

      There was a pause. And a look.

      ‘And drink. We’re out of everything apart from sherry.’

      It was Katie’s first trip out among the public since she’d been sacked. She was looking forward to it in the same way that she looked forward to having her verrucas frozen by Nigel at the chiropodist’s in Marylebone. No, on second thoughts she didn’t mind that too much because it felt like she was getting tidied up. She was looking forward to it like. She pulled her mouth into a line, pushed it out into a cat’s bottom shape, and decided it was like looking forward to A-level economics. Knowing you were going to hate it, СКАЧАТЬ