Penny Smith - Coming Up Next

For Mum and Dad, and Mrs Windsor

Cover

Title Page Coming Up Next PENNY SMITH

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Copyright

About the Publisher

In hindsight, the holiday had probably not been a good idea. Two weeks earlier, Katie Fisher had presented the Friday-morning programme, said, ‘Thanks for watching,’ to a nation in nightwear, and gone to collect her suitcase from the newsroom. Then, an unusual occurrence: she had been called in by the editor. He was normally too busy shouting at his minions to notice the presenters coming and going.

She had stepped breezily into his office and waited for him to say something. It was such a long time coming that, mentally, she started to take his clothes off. Yes, she thought. Unattractive underpants with his skinny little legs hanging out the bottom like spotty Twiglets. Possibly a fat pudenda, lightly sprinkled with ginger hairs. So, I have to make one choice to save the life of my brother. Lick the Twiglets. Or cut off my hand. No, too easy. Lick the Twiglets or …

‘Sorry?’ she asked.

‘I said,’ he put his fingers together, ‘that the annual research had thrown up some interesting information.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’

‘Well …’ He paused.

She got the impression he was enjoying this.

‘They seem to be having a few problems with your, erm, allegedly quirky sense of humour.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘The viewers – and therefore the advertisers – appear to find your brand of humour unappetizing. Unappealing. Unfunny. Irritating.’

Katie had never been good at concealing what she thought. The viewers could always tell exactly how she felt about the celebrity she was interviewing, or the story she was telling. So Simon could see that she hadn’t been expecting what he’d just told her. And, yes, he was enjoying it. He didn’t like Katie. She had made it quite obvious that she thought he was repulsive, despite his considerable efforts when he had arrived at the breakfast-television station.

‘So, what do you want me to do about the fact that viewers have a problem?’

‘Nothing, really. I mean, it’s you, isn’t it? You’re the queen of the lame joke. The princess of puns. Top banana of the never-ending once-upon-a-story. The managing editor suggested I told you, in line with procedure. That’s all.’

In line with procedure? What was he talking about? ‘Well, thank you,’ she had said, after a pause, with a tight smile. ‘Thanks very much. In that case I’ll have a lovely holiday, shall I? Good. See you in a couple of weeks, then. And I’ll go via the humour-bypass surgeon and see if I can check in for a quick one. I’ve got BUPA, after all.’

On the plane, though, she had spent the entire flight worrying.

No matter which way she cut it, with a vodka and tonic or the next passenger’s roll and cheese (‘Are you sure you don’t mind? Just that I haven’t eaten since five this morning …’), it didn’t look good.

The advertisers ruled the airwaves. They wanted mothers with children – they craved mothers with children. If they didn’t get their mothers with children they were like King Kong after a back-sac-and-crack wax. They were hurt and angry. They wanted to be soothed. Unlike King Kong, they were more articulate. They’d be demanding changes. And while nobody editing or managing a show would fire the presenters just because the advertisers said so, they’d certainly have a quick look at them.

At thirty-five thousand feet, Katie couldn’t stop wondering if her career was coming off the rails. Four years of four a.m. starts and going to bed at eight p.m. Four years of relationships crashing on the rocks of her bedtime. And possibly, if she was honest, her bed. She had never used the excuse that she had a headache. There had been no need. The faint snoring usually gave away her terminal tiredness. She would be ready, waiting, willing and able in her rubber nurse’s outfit, with a Rabbit vibrator primed and ready to go, but if the foreplay lasted longer than five minutes, the Rabbit was the only thing still buzzing.

She wasn’t old, she thought. Strictly, yes, she was middle-aged, if you considered middle age to be halfway through life, but she didn’t look old. How she felt was a different matter: more Volvo than Ferrari, more bedsocks than stockings.

Had her jokes gone off?

Or had they only just noticed the smell?

She groaned out loud. Which seemed to upset the man in the aisle seat. She was feeling bloody-minded and did it again, with gusto.

He gave her a look, but no more.

That was the wonderful thing about travelling with the British: in general, they didn’t like to make a fuss.

If they sacked her, would she go quietly?

Right, she thought. I’ll think about this for half an hour and then I’ll enjoy my holiday. Do what Dad says: ‘Don’t worry about the things you can do something about. Just do something about them. Don’t worry about the things you can’t do anything about, because you can’t do anything about them.’

Having made that decision, she proceeded to get more and more depressed about it. She thought about all the worst things that could happen. They gathered around her, looking worse and worse and worse.

Eventually she checked her watch, flagged down a passing stewardess and ordered the equivalent of an elephant tranquillizer in vodka.

The hangover had lasted two days. But most of the holiday had been wonderful. She had gone to Barbados to stay with some friends in a beautiful house on the west coast. She had rarely seen daylight. Barely eaten a meal.

She had kissed assorted men, none of whom she’d be able now to pick out in a police line-up, and only put on a pound. She could hazily remember an odd incident with a banana. Had she eaten it? Who was that bloke? And then she had answered the call on her mobile from her agent.

Jim Break had been brusque and to the point. ‘Hi, Katie. I’m not going to beat around the bush. They’re not renewing your contract. I understand you spoke to Simon before your holiday …’

Katie, eight hours away by plane, five hours behind in time, had been about to drink her first coffee of the day. She put down her cup with a shaky hand. So it had happened. Her lovely job – her lovely, well-paid job, which she had worked so hard to get – was an ex-job.

‘Katie?’

‘I’m still here,’ she said.

‘We’ll have a longer talk when you’re back from Barbados,’ he said, ‘but I do need you to make a decision now, about whether you want to go back on air for the weeks you’d be owed, if you got paid to the end of your contract, or take it as holiday. You don’t have to tell me right now, but by the close of today. As in, within the next … what time is it now? … three hours. Remind me what time it is there.’

‘Ten in the morning.’

‘Right. So, if you ring me before lunch?’