“I do fucking not. Because they’re a fucking ephemeral concept, and if I tried to wipe my arse with an ephemeral concept I’d wind up with shit on my fingers.” Jennifer paused, definitely more for effect than for breath. “What I do is I look at them and I say,Well gosh, what a tiny pissing number of unique visits, then I go back to my job making one of the biggest shows on television and then I say to myself,I hope no miserable little spunkstain—”
“Please don’t call me a spunkstain,” replied Audrey with a professional calm that she was, in the circumstances, pretty fucking proud of.
“I’m sorry.” Jennifer Hallet didn’t even blink. “Am I being demeaning? Let’s try again.I hope no miserable little bundle of piss-drenched bedsheets comes crawling up here from fucking Shropshire to try and wank her ten minutes of relevance out of my years of back-breaking work. But oh look, it seems Satan has jizzed in my cornflakes again, because here you are.”
Well wasn’t this the beginning of a beautiful friendship? Clearly the politely-set-boundaries plan had failed, so Audrey shifted to the be-visibly-unfazed plan. “You knew where I worked when I applied.”
“I did. You ticked some boxes and we needed a quirky ruralone for this season so I thought I’d take the risk. But Iknowjournalists”—Here it comes, said Audrey’s inner cynic—“You’re like the fucking police.”
“Never off duty?” Audrey finished.
“Pricks.”
“I don’t suppose”—Audrey shifted slightly in a chair she was sure had been deliberately chosen to be as buttock aggravating as possible—“you have a less sweary mode of communication you could fall back on?”
“Fuck off.”
“Thought so.” She adjusted her position again to stop her arse from falling asleep. “In that case, let me just reassure you that I write for a local paper, about local things, and so unless you happen to have a contestant from Cleobury Mortimer, there’s nothing here for me to report on.”
Jennifer folded her arms like a statue of Stalin. “That’s what you say. But I know what you people are like. You get one sniff of—”
Despite not having been told she could go, Audrey stood up. “Look, you’ve warned me not to mess with your program. I’ve told you I have no intention of messing with your program. I’m not sure what more you want me to say.”
Clearly there was more Jennifer wanted to say, but the get-up-and-agree combo had taken the wind out of her sails.
“So I think we’re on the same page?” Audrey confirmed.
Jennifer Hallet looked like she was about to nod and couldn’t quite bring herself to. “Hang on, there’s nowehere.”
The sensible thing to do was to get out. Because while Jennifer Hallet had a number of qualities that made sticking around a very tempting prospect—like legs for days and dark eyes that felt like theycould look right through you if they didn’t always seem to be looking at something else—her temperament wasn’t one of them. And maybe it was the journey, or just being in a strange stately home, but Audrey wasn’t in a sensible mood. So she lingered a moment, and pushed her luck. “We’re having a conversation. That’s awe.”
“This isn’t a conversation. This is a—”
“A what? A scolding? I’ve not really done anything scold-worthy, so from where I’m standing this is either a conversation or it’s you inviting me onto your show—something you didn’t have to do in the first place—then preemptively deciding I’m going to screw you and hauling me into your office to be a dick for no reason.”
“Is that how you see it?” Unexpectedly, the producer sounded almost defensive. In fact if Audrey let herself use her optimistic ears, it might even have been defensiveness with an undertone of grudging respect.
Deciding words had done their job, Audrey nodded precisely once.
“I will admit,” conceded Jennifer Hallet in a tone like she was revealing state secrets, “that I could have blocked your application if I wanted to, and I didn’t.”
“Because?” asked Audrey, aware that if she came across as too curious she’d confirm all of Jennifer Hallet’s worst suspicions.
“Because this season needs to be perfect and you—from a certain perspective—are perfect.”
Audrey knew better than to be flattered by people in positions of authority saying things that seemed superficially positive. Even if they meant it, they didn’t mean what you wanted them to mean. “Perfecthow?”
“Memorable look, interesting job, ticks a diversity box.”
“The gay box or the heavy box?” asked Audrey, determined not to let Jennifer’s tone affect her in any way.
“Both, but mostly body positivity. Honestly the gay thing counts against you—ginger and sparkly from last season are still looking cute all over fucking TikTok, so theallies”—she almost spat the word—“are in the bag. We go too queer this year and we’ll lose the Middle England Tory voter market.”
This was still feeling like bait. “Is that a market you want to keep?”
“Do they have money? Then yes. Plus the fuckers run the country and that includes BBC funding, so we need to reflect the rich and beautiful diversity of these islands while also pretending that we hate immigrants and are very concerned about trans people. That’s public service broadcasting.”
It was a deathly cynical attitude, but one Audrey recognised even if wasn’t usually stated so openly. “You’re meant to be apolitical, which in practice means agreeing with the home secretary?”
