Finally, “You’re still there, aren’t you?”
“Yup.”
There were sounds of movement from inside the trailer, and the door opened, revealing an irate-looking Jennifer. Not that there was really any other sort. “You…you know you fucking suck? Just as a person.”
Not for the first time in her life, Audrey wondered if she needed therapy. Because being told she fucking sucked shouldn’t be that reassuring. She half-shrugged. “I can live with that. Come on.”
Jennifer reared back like a pissed-off lamia. “Don’t you fucking come on me. What do you think I am? Your fucking teddy bear?”
“Look”—Audrey made a gesture of despair—“I’m sorry. I drew a line between soft toys and ejaculation that I should never have drawn. Can we let it go?”
“Never,” said Jennifer Hallet. “Now, what’s this about?”
“I want to show you something.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“No,” protested Audrey, her gestures still somewhat despair adjacent. “What I say to all the girls isHi, you look nice. Would you like to get a coffee?Because I’m not a grandstanding swear demon.”
The corner of Jennifer Hallet’s mean but irritatingly tempting mouth kicked up slightly. “Word of advice, Lane. You catch more flies with honey, but you get more pussy with vinegar.”
This was getting further and further from the elderly lady on the hill. Which was ironic because they were actually pretty close to the elderly lady on the hill. “Can youpleasejust humour me?”
Jennifer heaved a sigh so theatrical Grace Forsythe would have been proud. “I suppose I’ll get no fucking peace ’til I do, will I?”
“None whatsoever.”
Audrey led Jennifer back from the trailers to the steps outside the ballroom and stood looking towards the woods, the river, and the Lodge. And between the Lodge and the steps, Doris was still struggling down the hill, about three-quarters of the way along now, the rapidly diminishing sunlight casting a long shadow beside her.
As a print journalist, Audrey wasn’t normally inclined to emphasise the power of visual storytelling over the written word, but there were times when she had to admit that a striking image really added something to an argument.
“And?” Jennifer sounded beyond unimpressed.
“And,” said Audrey, “she does this every day. Twice a day, really, if you count both ways. Four times if she needs to go back to her room for anything.”
There was no trace of a reaction on Jennifer’s face, but she wasn’t looking away. She was just watching Doris’s steady progress down the hill with the cool impassivity of, well, of a professional television executive, if Audrey was honest. “You’ve already told me about this. And I’ve already said we’re not doing anything.”
“I thought it might help to see it.”
Thiswasenough to break Jennifer’s focus. She turned to Audrey with an expression that was probably meant to be withering. Although Audrey was mostly struck by her eyes, which were flecked hazel in the half light. “Oh did you? Because apparentlyshe’s Tiny Tim now, and I’m going to get all upset because you’ve shown me a sad picture of a sick frog.”
Despite everything, despite Doris still working her way down the hill and Jenniferdefinitelynot being worth the time or the energy, Audrey couldn’t quite let that go. “You know Tiny Tim isn’t a frog in the book, right?”
“Muppet version of that story’s the best version. Including the original.”
Was that cause for hope? Somebody with opinions about the Muppets couldn’t be totally unfeeling. “Okay, but she’s not a puppet, she’s a person. She’s a person you could help, and pretty easily, if you’d just stop being an arse.”
“Do you think maybe calling me an arse isn’t the best way to get me to do what you want?”
Audrey made a play of considering the question. “Not really. I think you’ve got pretty thick skin, and I think you also know that this is the right thing to do.”
“How about you stop calling me an arse,andstop telling me what I know?”
“How about you stop making Doris spend two hours a day walking up and down a hill?”
“She does not—” If Jennifer’s instinct had been to quibble about the timing, that instinct faded as her gaze turned, not totally unsympathetically, back to the hill. “Fuck, she is fucking slow isn’t she?”
Seeing Jennifer Hallet, even for a moment, acknowledge that another person was a human being instead of a bundle of story beats and performance metrics was a bit like having a butterfly land right next to your face. Slightly magical. But also liable to poke you in the eye. “Would it help,” Audrey tried, “to think of it as being about production schedules? Isn’t it extremely inconvenient?”
