‘Oh girls, there you are, I was just playing back the tape of the documentary. Jessica, come here and tell me what you think of my interview because you know, in the pub tonight, several people were kind enough to tell me I’m a born natural on TV.’
‘Tell you what,’ I slur, hauling myself up, ‘you watch the bloody thing. I’m off to bed.’
‘Language, Jessica. Don’t you want to see it? It’ll be the talk of the street, you know.’
‘I’ll pass, thanks very much,’ I say, half-way out the door.
‘You sure?’ Sharon says, patting the sofa beside her encouragingly. ‘I mean, at least you’d know what people were talking about in the pub earlier. Plus I’ve lost four full pounds since I was interviewed, wouldn’t you like to see that for yourself?’
I stop in my tracks. Yeah, I suppose it’s no harm to have a little look, is it? I mean, everyone else will have watched it and by everyone else, I really mean Sam. So why not have a peek with my hands over my face at this car crash piece of telly so I can see for myself how bad it is? After all, I am just drunk enough to be able to take whatever’s coming my way.
‘Come on, Jess,’ says Sharon. ‘At least you’re seeing it in the comfort and privacy of home. And if it gets too awful, sure you can just leave the room, can’t you?’
Right then. I sit gingerly on the edge of the sofa, ready to run out of the room in case anything really horrible is said, and Joan helpfully rewinds the documentary back to the start. It opens with a sort of people on the street-style vox pop.
‘Jessie Woods?’ says a young girl of about sixteen or so, interviewed outside McDonald’s on Grafton Street. ‘Oh my God. I, like, never miss her show! She’s soamazing. And funny and fabulous and cool. I just love, love, love her. If you ask me, I think they should put her face on money.’
‘Now what was so bad about that, Jessica?’ says Joan delightedly and suddenly I’m able to breathe again. Then they stop a woman in her mid-thirties wheeling a buggy down the street. ‘Hang on, you mean the one who presents that crappy dare show on TV?’ she snaps at Katie, the interviewer. ‘What, are you deranged? I’ve stopped buying the gossip magazines because I am so sick of reading about her and her fella out partying like it’s the last days of Rome. “Super Couple” my arse. Will someone please tell that girl that she’s not so much a social climber as a social mountaineer. And that for some of us, there’s actually a recession going on.’
‘OK, that’s it, I’m off to bed,’ I say getting up. Had enough. Already.
‘No, wait!’ the other two yell in unison and Sharon forces me back down onto the sofa.
Just in time to see Margaret, Sam’s snotty PA, talking straight to camera. ‘Mr Hughes is in an important business conference at the moment and can’t be disturbed. Though I must point out that he never comments on his relationship with Ms Woods. He did, however, ask me to confirm that he’s been approached about taking part in a forthcoming series of Dragons’ Denand will make an announcement of his own to the press in due course.’
I barely have time to react when next thing Sam’s handsome, chiselled face is filling up the screen, gluing me to the seat. It’s not an interview though, it’s just his photo, while his voice is played over it in the background, sounding like a crackly message left on an answering machine. ‘Oh and don’t forget to mention that my new paperback, If Business is the New Rock & Roll, then I’m Elvis Presley,will be coming out in paperback soon. Available from all good bookstores.’ Then a line flashes up on screen: Sam Hughes, entrepreneur, and at the time of recording this program, Jessie’s long-term partner. This is an excerpt from a voice message he left to the makers of this documentary, approximately five minutes after we spoke to his assistant.
Joan and Sharon both giggle at this and for once, even I can see the gag. I’ve never really said it before, but Sam really does come across as someone who’d sell his mother for a scrap of publicity.
Then Maggie’s on screen. Interviewed here, in this very TV room, on this very sofa. Puffing cigarette smoke right down the camera lens. ‘If you ask me, Jessie should have stuck to being a weather girl. Perfect vehicle for her end-of-pier talents; standing in a mini-skirt and pointing at cloud formations on maps. That sad excuse of a TV show she’s on now is barely worth the electricity it takes to broadcast it. I’d tell her myself only we only see her about once a year, at Christmas. For, like, ten minutes. Mind you, I’ll give her this much; that last magazine she was on the cover of did come in very handy. To prop up a wonky table leg, that is.’
Sheepish looks from the other two in my direction. And then all the Bulmers I drank earlier just takes over. ‘Would one of you please explain to me,’ I say, or rather garble, ‘why exactly she hates me so much? I mean, what did I ever do to her? It’s like her whole chain of rage begins and ends with me. She’s permanently down on me and even on the rare occasions when I try to be civil to her, she still ends up having a go at me. Why? That’s all I want to know. Why?’
‘Oh, come on,’ says Sharon between mouthfuls of the kebab. ‘You’ve got to see where she’s coming from. When we were kids you were always the pretty one who never got spots and who had boyfriends running after her. And you were good in school, andyou were popular and skinny. For feck’s sake, you never even needed braces. I’m not defending Maggie, I’m just saying, life was very different growing up for her, that’s all.’
‘You were the apple of your father’s eye too,’ says Joan, a bit sadly.
‘Then when you left home,’ Sharon continues, ‘every single thing you said you’d do, you just did. It all came so easy to you. Like you led this charmed life. While Maggie was stuck doing the most boring job known to man, day in, day out. I’m not making excuses for her, I’m just saying, she had it far harder than you, that’s all.’
I’m temporarily silenced, wondering if we’d ever have had the moral courage to say these things to each other, sober.
Next thing, Emma’s beautiful face is on screen. Shot outside Channel Six, very late at night, I’m guessing by how dark it is. ‘And how did you feel after Jessie’s contract was so suddenly terminated this evening?’ I can hear Katie the interviewer’s voice probing her. Shit. Which means this bit was taped the night I got canned. Immediately afterwards, I’m guessing. ‘Utterly shocked, naturally,’ replies Emma. ‘However, rules are rules and I’m afraid accepting freebies is just not something any presenter is permitted to do. But of course, I’m hugely upset at this sudden turn of events…’
‘Very sweet girl,’ says Joan over the TV, ‘but is she a bit dim, do you think?’
‘What do you mean?’ I look at her.
‘Well, remember the day she was helping us clear out all the clothes from here and the bags got mixed up?’
‘Do I remember? Will I ever forget?’
‘The funny thing is,’ muses Joan, ‘that when you were in the garage, I told Emma that all black bags with a red tag on them were mine, so they wouldn’t get mixed up. Distinctly told her. Most puzzling that she just…forgot.’
Just then my mobile beeps loudly. It went off a few times in the pub earlier tonight, but I was having far too much of a badly needed laugh to pay the slightest bit of attention.
‘Switch that thing off, will you?’ says Sharon. ‘You’re distracting me.’
So I haul myself up off the sofa and go off into the kitchen to listen properly. Actually glad of the excuse to get out of here.
‘And hurry up, will you?’ she yells after me. ‘My bit is coming up in a minute.’
Two voice messages and a couple of texts. Both from Amy Blake, one of the runners on Jessie Would.A lovely girl, kind of reminds me of myself at her age. Up for it and would do anything you asked without question, just for the privilege of working in the hallowed halls of a TV studio. Both of her messages say the exact same thing. She saw the documentary tonight, felt awful watching it and hoped I was OK. That she’d really enjoyed working with me, was very grateful for the iPod I bought her last Christmas and would love if we could work together again some day (some hope there, Amy love). Then in her second message, she added that she had a whole boxful of stuff from the Jessie Wouldproduction office which she’d been storing for me, and wondered if I’d ring her so she could arrange to drop it off?