Out of the Blue. Isabel Wolff

off her coat. ‘I thought what he said about Chechnya was absolutely spot on. He said he thinks the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe should be much more involved in the negotiations, and I must say I totally agree.’

      ‘Oh, do you really?’ said Terry.

      ‘As for the sneaky way the Russians are flogging their nuclear expertise to Iraq,’ she added as she switched on her computer, ‘well, it’s an international scandal, don’t you think?’

      ‘Ra-ther.’

      Terry is thirty-nine – or so he claims – and has a third from Wolverhampton poly. He is not adjusting well to having a twenty-four-year-old Oxford graduate with a starred first in Politics, Philosophy and Economics sitting beside him on the studio sofa. Sophie’s appointment came as a bit of a shock. As Terry never tires of saying, she didn’t know an autocue from a bus queue when she arrived. This was true. She’d come from radio, she was an editor at London FM, and Darryl had been invited to take part in a phone-in there about the future of digital TV. So impressed was he with Sophie’s brilliance that he invited her to audition for AM-UK! The next thing we knew, she’d got the job.

      But it’s obvious that Sophie’s much too bright for a programme like ours. I mean – don’t think me disloyal – but most days AM-UK! is more of a dog’s dinner than a successful breakfast show. The mix of items is bizarre. Take today’s running order, for example: celebrity disfigurement – failed face-lifts; heroic hamsters and the lives they’ve saved; psychic granny predicts the future; Tatiana’s profile of Brad Pitt; coping with ovarian cysts; ten new ways with chrysanthemums; and, somewhere in the middle of all that, an interview with Michael Portillo.

      ‘I’m doing the Portillo interview,’ said Terry as he leaned back in his swivel chair.

      ‘But I’m down to do that one,’ said Sophie as she tucked her short blonde hair behind one ear.

      ‘So I see,’ said Terry indolently, ‘but it’s clearly a mistake. I think you’ll find that that one falls to me. I’ve more experience than you,’ he added.

      ‘With respect, Terry,’ replied Sophie carefully, ‘I’ve interviewed Michael Portillo twice before.’

      ‘Sophie,’ said Terry wearily, ‘on this show we all pull together. I’m afraid there’s absolutely no room for big egos, so I’ll be doing the Portillo interview – OK?’ And that was that. Terry has quite a lot of clout, actually, and he knows it, because he’s the housewives’ choice. Moreover, he has a cast-iron two-year contract, so Darryl can’t push Sophie’s cause too far. The atmosphere gets pretty stormy sometimes, but Sophie handles it well. I mean, on breakfast TV the hours are so awful that most disputes tend to be settled with machetes. Things that wouldn’t bother you at three in the afternoon induce homicidal rage at five a.m. But so far Sophie has coped with Terry and Tatty’s provocations with a sang froid that would chill champagne. She simply pretends she has no idea that they’ve anything against her. She’s so polite to them, despite their dirty tricks. For example, Tatiana’s recently taken to sidling up to her three seconds before she goes on air and saying, ‘Not sure that colour suits you,’ or, ‘Oh no! Your mascara’s run,’ or, ‘Did you know your hair’s sticking up?’ But Sophie just smiles at her and says, ‘Oh, thanks so much for telling me, Tatiana. You look lovely by the way.’ It’s impressive, but as I say Sophie’s brilliant at politics and I think she’s playing a clever game. She’s very business-like about her work, and she’s also very discreet. None of us has the slightest clue about her private life. I mean, she never makes personal phone calls, but I think she’s got a chap. Because after the Christmas party last month, I went back up to the office to get my bag and I heard Sophie talking to someone called Alex in an obviously lovey-dovey way. I coughed to let her know I was there and she suddenly looked up and froze. So I just grabbed my bag and walked straight out, because I didn’t want her to think I’d heard. But I had. And that’s the downside of working in an open-plan office – there’s not much you don’t get to know. But my approach is an old-fashioned one: hear no evil; see no evil; and above all, speak no evil.

      So I sat there this morning, engrossed in the weather charts, preparing the bulletins that I do every half-hour during the show. My first one’s at six thirty, so at ten past six I went down to Make-Up on the second floor. The second floor is where all the exciting stuff goes on. That’s where the Studio is, and the Technical Gallery, and Wardrobe and the dressing rooms, and the Green Room, and the Duty Office, where all the complaints and comments are logged. And as I walked down the carpet-tiled corridor, doors were opened and banged shut, and researchers sprinted past me in both directions, clutching clipboards and looking tense. I glanced into the Green Room where various contributors were slumped, comatose, in leather chairs, while Jean, our friendly Guest Greeter, tried to rouse them with cups of Kenco.

      ‘Danish pastry?’ I heard her say. ‘Or how about a nice scone?’ Then someone came flying out of the gallery screaming, ‘Where the hell’s Phil? Where’s Phil? Are you Phil? Right – you’re on!’ In fact things were pretty noisy all in all.

      ‘– could someone page Tatiana?’

      ‘– would you prefer Earl Grey?’

      ‘– the psychic granny’s lost her crystal ball!’

      ‘– I’ve got some nice Assam.’

      ‘– Sophie’s jacket looks a bit creased.’

      ‘– the skateboarding cat’s just arrived!’

      So to go into the Make-Up room is to enter a haven from all this chaos: inside, Iqbal and Marian quietly transform our sleep-deprived faces for the camera. I sat in a gently reclining chair, while Iqbal – we call him Iqqy – put a flowery nylon gown round my shoulders and clipped back my short brown hair. Laid out on the counter before me were serried ranks of foundation bottles, powder compacts, eye-shadows, lipsticks and combs. Canisters of hairspray gleamed in the theatrical lightbulbs round the mirror.

      ‘Ready with the Polyfilla?’ I asked wryly as I surveyed my exhausted-looking face.

      ‘You do look a bit tired,’ he said solicitously. ‘Were you out on the tiles last night?’

      ‘Yes. It was my wedding anniversary – we went out for supper, en famille.’

      ‘How lovely,’ he said soothingly.

      ‘It was,’ I replied. ‘In a way, or it would have been … ’ You see the thing about Iqqy and Marian is that you just want to talk to them. You naturally want to open up. They’re so calm and sympathetic and kind. It’s as though you’re in the psychiatrist’s chair, not the make-up chair, and you want to tell them all your troubles. And as they work miracles on your ravaged exterior, you fancy they can repair you on the inside, too. So it was on the tip of my tongue to tell them that actually I hadn’t enjoyed myself that much last night because my best friend, Lily, had made this very odd remark about my husband, and I’d been trying ever since to work out what she might have meant, and this – and the fact that I’d drunk too much – had resulted in my getting no sleep.

      ‘How many years have you been married?’ asked Marian.

      ‘Fifteen,’ I replied.

      ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You must have married young.’

      ‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘I did.’

      ‘Fifteen years,’ she repeated wonderingly. ‘But then, I’ve already been married eight.’

      ‘And Will and I have been together for five,’ said Iqqy as he pulled mascara through my pale lashes. ‘Although,’ he went on ruefully, ‘we’ve had our ups and downs. But fifteen years, that’s wonderful. No wonder you felt like celebrating.’

      ‘Well, yes, except, actually, it was a bit strange … ’ I began. ‘Because, look, I don’t know what you two think about this … ’ Then I immediately stopped, because Terry had just come in. He needed more powder. And as he sat there,