After the Break. Penny Smith

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СКАЧАТЬ be bothered to explain that to Kent. He was besotted with Keera and would have been happy to watch a three-and-a-half-hour programme of her applying her lipgloss. Mind you, she thought wearily, it would be a damn sight cheaper than going on the road.

      She wished she’d taken the job at the BBC when it had been offered five years ago. It had been a lot less cash, but she wouldn’t now be dreading going on the road with Keera. She was difficult enough to nursemaid when she was at the end of a button hard-wired into her ear…

      In his office, Simon sat at his keyboard and rattled off an email to Rod, Keera and Dee. He smiled. Sending emails that he knew would disrupt his presenters’ lives was one of the delights of the job. He wondered how long it would be before he got the phone calls, and in which order they would come. He looked at his watch.

      Keera was having a meeting with her new agent. At least, she was hoping he’d be her new agent. She had accidentally sacked the first one. She really didn’t like it when things were unplanned. She had phoned to tell him to pull his finger out. ‘I really should be doing better than I am,’ she had said. ‘I’m a high-profile presenter but what have I been offered? Nothing that I want to do. You need to get out there and be hustling on my behalf. It’s up to you to make it happen. I said I wanted my own show, and I see no sign of it happening.’

      She always liked to hear herself sounding firm. In control. Serious. She even drummed her burgundy-lacquered nails on the table as she was talking, admiring the way they looked.

      But he had told her that if she felt like that, perhaps it was time for them to part company. Taken by surprise, she had agreed.

      The agent had not been unhappy. He was relieved to see her go, despite the money she brought in for his company. She was high maintenance, constantly demanding more meetings, more action, more show reels sent to more people who couldn’t possibly have anything to offer. He could do without her running his staff ragged in pointless exercises.

      So Keera had phoned Matthew Praed, who was considered one of the best. He also charged a punitive commission, and demanded his clients follow his advice even if they felt it was against their morals, principles or best future interests. For her first meeting with him, she had chosen a slim-fitting black suit and high red stilettos.

      ‘Obviously, most people know me as a war correspondent and journalist,’ she said, to his amusement, since most people knew her for the naked photo shoot she had done shortly after joining Hello Britain!. ‘But I don’t really see myself as a newshound.’ She crossed her immaculately stockinged legs, giving him a flash of black-lace panties. ‘I want to be more famous than the people I interview. Actually, I probably am more famous than most of them. But I want to be someone whose name is so well known that I’m just Keera, no surname required. I know that sounds a little, perhaps, ridiculous…’ She tried out the latest smile she had been practising, which involved a shy look up through her fringe, then polished it off with the laugh she felt she had almost perfected. As it rang out, she wondered whether there should be a touch more bass. ‘But if you can’t be honest with your agent,’ she finished, ‘then who can you be honest with? I suppose my dream job would be my own show. Michael Parkinson, only younger and more female.’

      Matthew was not surprised that she wanted her own show. Every presenter did. And he liked her sheer determination and naked ambition. It was what had driven him from his first job in a relative’s nascent porn-film business to the über-agency he now ran out of a smart address in London’s West End. He had many famous names on his books, and was well aware of the money that could be made at the high end of television. Normally he would have turned over a breakfast presenter to one of the five agents who worked for him, but he decided that until he had added her to his burgeoning number of bed notches, Keera would be under his aegis.

      Matthew Praed was a renowned philanderer, and few women had not succumbed. He was a committed collector, and a commitment phobe. Today his well-honed body was clothed in an Ozwald Boateng brown suit, with a thin orange stripe, and a white T-shirt. Absolutely,’ he concurred. ‘One should always be honest with one’s agent. Best to set out your stall straight away. What else are you doing at the moment apart from Hello Britain!? And I assume you’d leave the programme if the right job came up?’

      ‘Too right I would,’ she responded with alacrity. ‘And as for other things that I’m doing, well…all I keep getting offered are programmes where I have to strip off.’

      ‘Hmm. Perhaps that’s understandable, considering that you’ve done a number of photo shoots where you’ve appeared naked.’

      ‘Yes, but I don’t have to tell you how different it is doing a photograph naked and being naked doing a television programme.’

      ‘Of course not,’ he said soothingly. Before their meeting he had enjoyed looking through the magazines and newspaper articles featuring Miss Keethley. She was a very knowing model, he thought. ‘So where would you draw the line?’

      Keera pursed her lips. Then, worried that she might not look very attractive in that pose, she relaxed them. She made sure her voice was well modulated and began to explain. ‘As I said, I don’t want to be seen only as a journalist. But I’m aware that the news side of it does carry a certain, erm…What’s the word?’

      ‘Cachet?’ he supplied.

      ‘Yes. Probably,’ she said. She had thought a cachet was something you kept your jewellery in. But obviously not. And I don’t want to lose that entirely by prancing about in my swimwear.’

      ‘I see,’ he said, smiling encouragingly and glancing towards her short skirt as it edged up slightly.

      She was delighted to notice that. Apart from hosting my own show, I think what I would like to do,’ she said, wriggling slightly in her seat, ‘is to keep that journalistic allure, as it were, while actually going more entertainment-based. You know that I got the job on the sofa because of my war reporting.’

      It had been something of a standing joke in the newsroom. Her first report had been so unutterably bad that the producers had had to write the rest and fax them to her so that she could rehearse them. What she had done well was deliver the words. And obviously no one could dispute that she had actually been in a war zone–albeit a very well-protected part of it.

      ‘So I’m talking more…Oh I don’t know…more University Challenge than Love Island.’

      Matthew was enjoying this meeting. He liked Keera’s chutzpah, no matter how misguided she was. He tried not to let his face show his incredulity. University Challenge! ‘I think Jeremy Paxman’s got that pretty well wrapped up,’ he said, ‘but I get where you’re coming from.’ He leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles, admiring the soft leather of his Italian brogues. ‘I’m sure we can get something brewing. If you’re OK with our terms and conditions, I’ll get my secretary to send over a contract. And in the meantime I can start setting up some meetings. I have quite a good relationship with Wolf Days Productions, who are big players in the television world, as you know,’ he said.

      She nodded. ‘They were one of the ones who wanted me to do a programme wearing nothing,’ she said, with a complicated sigh that was supposed to indicate it was understandable that everyone wanted a piece of her.

      ‘Yes, well, they’ve always got something on the go, and it doesn’t hurt to put your name out there,’ he said, then dragged a large desk diary towards him. ‘How are you fixed at the moment date wise?’

      She reached into her Chanel bag for her BlackBerry. She noticed that an email was waiting from Simon, and quickly read СКАЧАТЬ