And then, for the first time, she kissed me.
Week Three
Pies
Wednesday
As it turned out, trying to convince a reality TV producer to let you do something that you were contractually obliged to not do wasn’t just difficult, it was complex. Complex enough that it was forcing Audrey to visit Jennifer Hallet at her office. Rationally, of course, Audrey knew that she did not live full-time in a trailer on the grounds of a stately home, but emotionally it was weird to be heading back to London after years of resolutely having shit all to do with London, just so she could have a meeting with a woman whose career-defining project sold itself as quintessentially rural.
She also knew, rationally, that Jennifer hadn’t chosen to base her production company in the city where everybody bases every production company just to personally annoy Audrey by making her drive three hours out of her way on a Wednesday, but that was emotionally hard to accept as well.
In fact, by the time she’d driven around Holborn for forty minutes looking for somewhere to park her damned car, Audrey was pretty close to blaming Jennifer for London existing at all, as if she’d built a time machine and said to the Romans, “Nowyou listen to me you pack of toga-wearing imperialist fucks, you’d better start building a city on an inconvenient bit of the Thames or I’ll come down on you so hard you’ll think the Visigoths are a band of fucking tourists.”
There was a slight chance Audrey’s imagination was running away with her.
Jennifer’s offices were in a fairly nondescript redbrick building on a narrow street only a few minutes’ walk from the carpark that Audrey had, eventually, managed to find. She buzzed at the door and recognised the voice of Colin Thrimp on the intercom.
“Ah, Audrey. So lovely to see you—well not see you, I can’t see you—let me buzz you up.”
Buzz he did, and Audrey made her way upstairs to the offices of Inveterate Productions, the company that Jennifer Hallet cofounded and had, for eight years, run more or less solo.
She’d sort of expected it to be more impressive, what with it making one of the nation’s favourite TV shows, but she supposed offices were offices, especially in London, where square footage was at such a premium you were often lucky to get square inchage.
“Come in,” called Jennifer’s voice from behind a resolutely closed door, and then when Audrey came in, added, “Oh, it’s you.”
“You knew I was coming.”
“I did. I was being dismissive to keep you on your toes.”
Having learned the futility of waiting to be asked, Audrey sat down in front of Jennifer Hallet’s desk. “You really are always on, aren’t you?”
“Yes, yes, I have a thin facade of hostility that you alone can see through or call me on. Fuck off. Now can we talk about”—Jennifer lifted a tablet that was lying in front of her—“this?”
It hadn’t been an encouragingthis. It had been at best an ambiguousthisand at worst thethisinWhat is this shit?
“Is there a problem?” Audrey asked in her best I-suspect-I-know-what-the-problem-is-but-don’t-want-to-admit-it voice.
“Yes.” Jennifer Hallet gave a slow nod. “Yes I think there might be the tiniest bit of a problem.”
“I can redraft?” suggested Audrey. “If you can point me to the parts that aren’t working for you.”
Although the angle of the screen made it impossible for Audrey to see the text, Jennifer waved her hand over it anyway. “All the parts, sunshine. This is very muchnotwhat I thought I was signing up for.”
“No?” Audrey tried her best to sound innocent.
“No. What you pitched me was an in-this-together story about the blitz spirit. Something that the flag-waving, royal-watching, bunting-fucking, VE-day obsessed, middle England NIMBY pricks whoverymuch keep my lights on would be able to read and think,Ooh, that makes me feel all warm and patriotic and in no way confronts me with anything I might disagree with. What you’ve given me is a story about two teenage lesbians stealing cars.”
There was that. “One car. And they brought it back.”
Jennifer Hallet made no reply. She just glowered. It was a good look on her, in a lot of ways.
“Also, they might not be lesbians. One or both of them might be bi.”
“Oh, well that changes everything.”
One of the nice things about working on a local paper with extremely limited distribution where virtually all your articles were about parking prices and hypothetical ghost barges was that you normally didn’t need to have this kind of conversation. “I hope,”said Audrey cautiously, “I’m just misunderstanding you, because it sounds to me like you’re saying you don’t want me to run this story because it has an LGBTQ+ element.”
“It’s not just an LGBTQ+ element, it’s abe gay do crimeselement. And there’s no sounds like. That’s exactly what I’m saying. This is the BBC, my girl—”
