After the Break. Penny Smith

about her and sniffing appreciatively. She loved coming home to the grey-stone house, even if her mother did sometimes make her feel unwelcome by using her old bedroom as a repository for the detritus from her discarded hobbies. ‘Incidentally, Mum,’ she said, pouring milk into her coffee, ‘I think Hercules may have rolled in some fox poo. He was smelling very ripe when I passed him.’

      Hercules was their ageing Labrador.

      ‘Wretched dog,’ said her mother, without heat. She took her coffee, raised her voice and, without looking round, said, ‘lack. Your dog has been rolling in fox poo.’

      He was lost in contemplation of a hollyhock and didn’t respond.

      ‘lack. Hercules smells,’ she said, louder this time.

      ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on to it. Excellent. Coffee. Have you poured me one?’

      Katie passed him his cup and he took a big gulp. ‘Your mother’s turning into a right old cantankerous trout,’ he said quietly, but with feeling.

      ‘Was she ever different?’ asked Katie, who had always had a difficult relationship with her.

      He didn’t answer but put his cup back on the table and went off to get some secateurs.

      ‘Are you going to wash the dog, Jack?’ asked Lynda, annoyed.

      ‘I’ll do it in a minute,’ he responded curtly.

      Later, when Katie phoned to let them know they had got back to London safely, her father told her that he had taken up fishing to get out of the house more. And, in passing, he mentioned that Bob was a frequent companion.

      She hadn’t said anything at the time, but that night, lying between crisp sheets and reading Private Eye, Katie acknowledged a twinge as she thought of her father and the handsome landscape gardener casting their lines into the cool waters of the river.

      All her friends loved Adam, but Dee had expressed reservations. ‘He seems just a teensy-weensy bit self-obsessed,’ she told Katie, during a drunken night out with the girls.

      Now, eight months on, Katie had to confess that she was beginning to feel she came a poor second to his business. He was expanding Wolf Days Productions, and they were taking on new staff. He did invite her to some of the business dinners, but they were dull, involving talk of editing suites and cabling. She had tried to lighten one up by brightly announcing that coconuts killed 150 people a year. Adam had had the temerity to tell her to be quiet. In front of everyone. It had taken her so much by surprise that she had immediately phoned her friends to discuss the state of her relationship.

      She met her perennially single friend Kathy at their favourite budget café, its gay plastic tablecloths covered with garish pictures of vegetables. They ordered enormous frothy cappuccinos. Katie took all the foam and chocolate sprinkle off the top of hers and ate it before she addressed the matter in hand. ‘He seems really keen one minute, then cools off the next,’ she said. ‘I know he’s busy businessing at the moment, but it’s making me feel needy. And I hate feeling needy.’

      ‘Maybe it’s because you don’t have a job,’ said Kathy, who was juggling two, and still not earning enough to make ends meet.

      ‘Thanks for reminding me.’

      ‘Well, you are what you do, and you’ve done bugger-all of any consequence for rather a long time.’

      Katie had been limping along by writing for newspapers and magazines, hosting awards ceremonies and standing in for people on local radio. ‘There’s not much about,’ she said ruefully. ‘I was offered Celebrity Masterchef, but I hate cooking anything that’s not vegetable soup. And I couldn’t do the meat thing. A mate of mine, who was training to be a chef, gave it all up after he had to debone a whole pig. Apparently shot the shoulder ball, or whatever it was, into an enormous trifle made by the head pastry chef. Nobody saw it happen, but he was convinced that if he confessed the pastry chef would kill him. And that if he didn’t, he’d be up before the beak for killing a trifle-eater with E. coli or whatever you get from uncooked pork.’

      ‘Tapeworms.’

      ‘Nope. Don’t think it was a tapeworm. Anyway, he said he felt sick, drove home and never went near the place again. He presents some show on BBC4 now.’

      ‘Food?’

      ‘No, thanks. Unless they have one of their special lemon meringue pies. Why? You hungry?’

      ‘I meant, does he present a programme about food?’

      ‘Oh. No. I think it’s vaguely intellectual. He was telling me something about Einstein’s brain being bigger in one area than another and scientists trying to work out whether it developed like that or had always been that way. It seemed to me that it was a bit difficult to prove. I mean, it’s not as though you can cut the top off people’s heads to look at their brain–like peering into a boiled egg–to find out whether nature or nurture is responsible for what’s going on in it.’

      ‘What was his answer?’

      ‘I don’t recall.’

      The inside of the café was steamy. Katie rested her hands on her cup to warm them. ‘Hey, talking telly for a minute, did you see that beast Keera Keethley on Hello Britain! this morning?’ she asked.

      ‘Why do you watch that programme? It only annoys you,’ said Kathy, who had witnessed the hurt Katie had suffered when Keera had replaced her on the Hello Britain! sofa.

      The new presenter was exotically beautiful, with long black hair and blue eyes. She was also hugely ambitious, and employed publicists to make sure she was constantly in the public eye. She rarely drank alcohol, appeared at all the right events and in all the right places, and never left the house without checking in a mirror…unlike Katie, who had appeared in numerous periodicals and publications coming out of the wrong sort of places in the wrong sort of state.

      ‘So what did she do this morning?’

      ‘She was interviewing this chap from some massive quango about what they were going to do for consumers. And then–because, as we know, she’s as thick as a Scotch pancake–she asked in that sugary little-girl voice she does, “But do you have any teeth?” And he looked bemused, smiled and said, “Of course I do.” And then she looked confused. And Rod Fallón rescued her with, “Yes, she obviously doesn’t mean it literally. What Keera means is what teeth does your organization have?” And then there was a two shot with Keera looking thunderous. It was hysterical.’

      ‘You know, Hello Britain! suddenly sounds like it’s worth watching,’ said Kathy, rolling her eyes.

      ‘Yes. All right. Maybe you had to be there.’

      ‘Anyway. As for the Adam stuff, I’m sure he’s in love with you, just as they always bloody are.’

      ‘Being, as I am, the most gorgeous creature alive,’ said Katie, deadpan.

      ‘Frankly, I don’t know what it is. You’re an ugly muppet with no personality. It must be the smell of your feet,’ said Kathy, glancing at her watch and doing a double-take. ‘Damn. I really have to go. Enjoy your relationship for what it is. That’s what you tell me when I occasionally get lucky. See you.’ She grabbed her things.

       CHAPTER TWO

      All was not well at Hello Britain!. The ratings were down, and the editor was blaming everyone but himself. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely his fault. He had had a new male presenter foisted on him by The Boss. Rod Fallón had all the presence of a sock. He had been brought in as a safe pair of hands to replace the previous male presenter, who had been unveiled as a kerb-crawling sex pervert. Mike had been the consummate breakfast-television host. He had looked good, sounded good, and could do a good interview. He had been able to turn a difficult situation into must-watch