need exploring and generally keeps the content of all our daytime programming ticking. The station broadcasts from Wimbledon (fairly near the All England Club, actually) to all surrounding areas: Richmond, Wandsworth, Southfields, Putney – apparently you can pick us up in Kensington, if the wind’s in the right direction. I love my job, and to be honest, apart from my friends (although they both work here anyway), it has saved me from falling apart since my marriage break-up. I have to sound perky so I’ve had to fake perky. What’s the expression: fake it, till you make it? That’s me. I faked it for a long time, but now I’ve made it and am pretty damn perky for real. I’m quite proud of myself, really. I made it through the dark days of my husband leaving me for my best friend and out the other side, into sunnier times.
My other friend, who also works here, is Peony. She’s a broadcast technician – responsible for all unfathomable techie things at Court FM – and she was in reception when I walked in, chatting to Elaine. I always just feel better when I go into work and this morning was no exception. My hangover lifted just stepping foot in that office. Peony said ‘All right, my love?’ and gave me a wink (Sam had obviously filled her in on last night’s antics). Elaine, clad in lace and ruffles as always, behind the front desk, beamed at me and handed me today’s staff newsletter. Rob Wright, striding across the news area ruffling some papers looked friendly and full of the joys. And even Sam, who should have been as hungover as I was, was smiling and looking great. In fact, she was laughing. I went over to her desk and plomped my big, hungover bottom on a spare chair.
‘Oh my god, Daryl!’ giggled Sam, spinning on her spinny seat. ‘What a day! What a night! Did you go straight to bed after I left?’
‘No,’ I replied, with a slow smile. ‘I thought I’d take some rubbish out to the bin and then lie down on my drive for a bit of a kip and be discovered by my next door neighbour.’
‘What!’
‘Yep.’
‘Will, your hunky next door neighbour?’ When Sam had come over, on my moving day (after her emergency date turned into a false alarm), I’d told her all about Will, and how good looking he was. She’d spent twenty minutes at my kitchen window, snacking on chopped-up green pepper and trying to catch a glimpse of him, but he didn’t make an appearance. She was ever so disappointed. ‘Oh Daryl, you didn’t!’
‘I certainly did. Oh, Sam, the shame of it!’
‘What on earth did he say?’
‘Not a lot. He just helped me into the house. I didn’t see him this morning but I must pop round and thank him. Good god, Sam, we were absolutely hammered!’
‘We were,’ she nodded, then grinned. ‘Good day though.’
‘Very good day.’
‘I’ve told Peony all about it.’
I looked into Studio One and waved at Peony, who was now behind the big console with all the knobs on doing all that technical stuff I don’t understand. Peony is younger than us. She’s only thirty-two. She’s engaged to Max, who’s also a broadcast technician; she’s been in love with him ever since he first walked into Court FM with his goatee and his man bag, and they’re getting married next summer. They’re really in love and do a lot of face-stroking and talking about the wedding at the moment, but she’s a great girl; one of the best.
‘What are you eating?’ I asked Sam, who was dipping a spoon in a pot of something. ‘Surely you have to forego the diet when you’ve got a stonking hangover?’
‘I’ve told you, it’s not a diet. It’s a healthy eating plan. For life. And it’s zero percent fat Greek yoghurt with a drizzle of Manuka honey and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds…’
‘Sounds delicious,’ I said sarcastically.
‘It is!’
‘I’m more in the line for a big old bacon butty with lots of ketchup.’
‘Ha, good luck. I think they’re all gone.’ Max usually brought them in for everyone but I looked over to the table where they were usually piled up in paper bags, and yes, they’d all gone. ‘Can I tempt you with some of this?’
‘No thanks, I’d rather eat my own foot.’
‘Oh, yuck!’
Sam needs to know exactly what she’s eating. She’s a forty-something trim, toned-body freak who’s permanently on her phone entering data into the My Fitness Pal app. She adds up and enters in the calories of every single thing she’s eaten, even if it’s only a Polo mint or a banana (apparently bananas have a whole 110 calories. Who knew?) and makes sure she doesn’t exceed her daily allowance. It’s quite a science. Thankfully for Sam, who does actually love food, there is exercise, which can be offset against anything she eats. She goes to the gym before work every morning (one hour’s cardio burns 405 calories. That happily cancels out beans on toast, or two portions of porridge, apparently) and does loads of exercise DVDs at home. She’s completely bonkers and obsessed and ridiculously focused, but she does look amazing.
‘Surely you didn’t go to the gym this morning?’ I asked.
‘I did,’ she replied. ‘Just an hour’s gentle cardio. It sweated out all the booze nicely.’ Factoring wine into Sam’s daily calorie allowance was quite a feat, although she always managed it.
‘Oh, you’re so good.’
‘Halo polished,’ she said, rubbing the top of her head.
I admire my meticulous friend. I have the willpower of a slug. The only way I lose weight (if I wanted to, which I don’t) is by taking off a bit of (sometimes quite heavy) diamante. I’m quite partial to a bit of bling. I like a brooch, a necklace, a hair clip, earrings. There’s nothing in life a bit of sparkle can’t cure. I’ve discovered that. Today, I was livening up my hangover with a blingy, slightly glittery hair band which also covered up some of my horrible hair.
‘Uh oh,’ said Sam, polishing off her last mouthful. ‘Bob’s been stocking up.’
Bob Sullivan, the station’s editor, was walking into the office clutching a Boots bag.
‘All right, ladies?’ he enquired, like he always did, thumping the bag down on his desk. Bob never expects an answer to his ‘All right, ladies?’ It’s rhetorical. He’s an antiquated old fart, the only dark cloud in an office full of sunny dispositions. He is thirty-seven going on seventy and the proud possessor of old school, sexist charm. Smarmed back hair. A pseudo posh accent (he hails from Staines.) And a nightmare tendency to get frequent colds.
He proceeded to unpack the contents of his Boots bag onto his desk. A chicken sandwich, a packet of cheese and onion crisps, a Diet Coke, a huge bottle of Night Nurse, a box of Strepsils and a box of blackcurrant Lemsip. He has a stinker of a cold at least every couple of months. He never tires of them, he’s an absolute martyr to them and – along with the copious sniffing, the noisy nose-blowing and the indulgent hand-to-forehead plaintive despairing – Bob likes to employ a highly theatrical cough. When enjoying a cold, he coughs all the time. He coughs if you ask, ‘How’s the cough?’ An enquiry to how he is, is answered with a cough. And if you even say the word ‘cough’ he coughs. He announces his presence in the morning with a cough and his departure in the evening with a cough. It’s his unique, germ-ridden calling card.
‘All
