So the minute he got my hysterical messages, he didn’t even think; just jumped into his car and drove straight into the studio. He’s been brilliant ever since too. Normally after a broadcast we’d go into Bentleys, a posh restaurant and boutique hotel in town, which Sam is never out of, then we’d hook up with Nathaniel and Eva. Usually we’d all unwind with a few drinks (ridiculously expensive champagne, what else?) followed by a late dinner and then at stupid o’clock everyone would pile back here for yet more ridiculously expensive champagne, etc. But I was in no condition to show my face anywhere last night, not even with good friends in tow to support me. Sam took one look at the state I was in, called to make our excuses, then brought me straight back here, where he’s been minding me like an invalid with consumption ever since.
Then, this morning, after yet another bout of me howling into his chest, ‘But my job! My lovely, lovely job!’ he gave me one of his motivational speeches, which I was no more in the mood for, but I suppose he meant well. His pep talk fell into three distinct categories; first the inspirational (‘In the words of Barack Obama, yes you can get over this’) followed by a classic (‘When God opens a door…’), all rounded off with the good old-fashioned (‘plenty more jobs out there, etc.’).
You see, to Sam, the world is clearly delineated into winners and losers and, as he’s never done saying, winners are winners long before they win. One of the qualities he says he likes best about me is the fact that I was born into an underprivileged background with a highly dysfunctional family set-up and yet still went on to become a winner. His theory is that everyone gets their fair and equal share of knocks in life, but what sets the winners apart is that they pick themselves up, dust themselves off and start over. Whereas losers just concentrate on the coulda, woulda, shouldas, blaming everyone except themselves, before ultimately sinking under. Which is exactly what I want to do. Now and forever.
Anyway, on his way out to get the Sunday papers, he bounds up to me in the bedroom, all full of positive energy. ‘Get up, get dressed and come with me. Do you good to get out of the house for a bit.’
‘Let’s stick to attainable goals,’ I moan. ‘Maybe, just maybe, in a few hours, with a bit of luck, I might just be able to crawl as far as the bathroom.’
‘Is there anything I can do to get you out of that bed?’ he says, starting to sound a bit exasperated with me now, unsurprisingly.
‘You could tie Prozac to the end of some string.’
Sam doesn’t react, just runs his hands through his thick, bouffey hair, the way he does whenever he’s deeply frustrated, and orders me not to even think about turning on the TV when he goes out.
Shit. I never thought of that. There couldn’t be anything on telly about what happened, could there? Hardly a news story, is it?
‘Now you promise you won’t go anywhere near that remote control?’ he calls up from the bottom of the stairs, on his way out. ‘Remember it’s for your own good!’
‘Promise,’ I mutter feebly.
But the minute he’s out the door I switch it on. Just to be sure. No, at first glance it looks like I’m OK. Everything’s fine, I’m worrying over nothing. Just your typical, normal Sunday afternoon TV, Antiques Roadshow, soap opera omnibuses that start today and don’t finish until next Tuesday morning, that kind of thing. I keep flicking and flicking but there’s nothing strange. Then I get to Channel Six, where it’s just coming up to the afternoon news bulletin.
Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans, I do not believe this. I’m the second news item. The second. I sit up bolt upright in the bed, like someone who’s just been electrocuted. But no, there it is, in full Blu-ray high definition. There’s even a photo of me on the screen right behind the newsreader; a still shot from last night’s show of me kissing the guy from Mercedes who offered me the shagging car and looking like a total gobshite. A wave of nausea sweeps over me and I can feel myself breaking out in a clammy cold sweat. I want to switch if off but somehow can’t find the strength to.
‘In a surprise move last night, Channel Six has ended the contract of TV presenter Jessie Woods, after an on-air incident involving what was seen as a major breach of broadcasting ethics. In a statement released last night, the station announced that Jessie Woods’ position at the centre of their schedule was now untenable, in light of her accepting free use of a luxury sports car during the live broadcast of her top-rated show, Jessie Would. Sources close to Liz Walsh, Head of Television, have said the station had no choice but to take swift and immediate action in response to an unprecedented volume of complaints during the broadcast of last night’s show. And now over to our entertainment correspondent who reports live…’
I switch it off and fling the remote control as far from the bed as I can. I think I might be sick. That’s it; I’ve just been given the kiss of death. Because in TV land, when you hear your name used in the same sentence as ‘unprecedented volume of complaints’, it basically means hell will freeze over before you cross the threshold of said station ever again.
Then my mobile rings. It’s been ringing all bloody morning, but I’ve been ignoring it. I just don’t feel able for a conversation with another human being, apart from Sam, that is; my one link to the outside world. But then the name flashes up on the screen. It’s Emma.
‘Jessie, are you OK?’
All I can do is just stifle a sob.
‘Oh, sweetheart. I’ve been trying to call you ever since last night. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. How are you holding up?’
‘I’m…I’m…’ then instead of finishing the sentence, I just start bawling.
Emma is completely fabulous, as you’d expect. Which is all the more amazing when you consider that my fuck-up has meant that now she’s out of a job too. She fills me in on the whole horrible story from her side of the fence; how she hadn’t a breeze what was happening during the show until it got to the commercial break, when an urgent message filtered to the studio floor from the director up in the production box, saying I wasn’t coming back for the second half of the show and that she’d have to carry it all alone. God love the girl, she was completely numb and shell-shocked, but like the pro that she is, somehow she staggered through it, then was summoned into Liz’s office the minute we wrapped. The show has been pulled from the schedule, she was brusquely told, but in the meantime you stay on full salary while we find another vehicle for you. Which is actually the best news I’ve heard so far during this whole miserable day. Because at least my brainless, witless behaviour hasn’t entirely left Emma in the lurch. In time, she’ll get her own show and no one deserves it more.
‘I’m just so sorry,’ I keep howling over and over. ‘You have to believe me when I tell you I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong. I just reacted on the spur of the moment. Yes I was stupid and greedy but with my own car repossessed and on top of all my other money worries, this just…looked like the greatest bonus I could ever have asked for, being handed to me on a plate…’
‘I know, sweetie, I know. They made it hard for you to refuse.’
Then something strikes me. ‘Emma, did you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘This, like unwritten rule or whatever it is, that we can’t accept freebies? I mean, what would you have done in my shoes?’
She doesn’t even need to think about it. Of course not. Emma is always perfectly behaved and instinctively knows the right thing to say. ‘I’d probably have thanked them, but said it was unlikely the station bosses
