‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this evening’s show. Tonight, for one night only, we would like you put your hands together and give a great big Carlton Rooms welcome to star of stage, screen and television, our very own homespun diva, Miss Helen Redford!’ His voice rose to a crescendo in the darkness.
It was as if someone had thrown a switch. From the auditorium came a sound like heavy rain and then thunder as people clapped, cheered and stamped their feet, the sound filling the theatre, a sound so loud that Helen could feel it pressing on her chest as much as she could hear the noise. The assistant stage manager waved her on and as Helen stepped out into the glare of the spotlight the volume of the applause rose.
She waited for the noise to ebb and then smiled out into the expectant darkness.
‘Well, hello there,’ she said, pulling up the stool that was there waiting for her centre stage. ‘It’s been a long time coming but it’s great to be back here at the Carlton Rooms. I don’t want to think about how many years it’s been since I stood right here on this stage. I’ve been away too long.’ And as she spoke the audience roared its appreciation and Helen’s nerves melted away like snow in sunshine.
ONE
Last Year
‘I just wanted to tell you, Miss Redford – may I call you Helen? – how absolutely delighted we are to have you on board for next season’s TV show. It’s a real honour – I mean really. Now, before we run through a few details, would you like a drink? Tea. We’ve got green if you prefer? Or coffee, mineral water? We’ve got still or sparkling, haven’t we, Jamie?’
Ruth Long, the executive producer of Roots, glanced across at her assistant, and then tried out a smile; an expression that didn’t sit at all well on her plump, rather earnest, face. She had a face made for documentary television, her plain meaty features framed by unnaturally black hair cut into an asymmetric bob so straight and so unmoving that Helen wouldn’t have been at all surprised to discover that it sat on a dummy head beside Ruth’s bed at night. Certainly it didn’t so much as ripple while Ruth made a show of being hospitable.
Jamie, her assistant, stood to one side of the office, skittering in and out of Helen’s peripheral vision as he fiddled with his hair.
‘Actually it was Jamie who suggested you for our programme – wasn’t it, Jamie? He’s got such an eye for a story, it’s a real talent,’ Ruth said fondly. ‘And as he pointed out at our last planning meeting you truly are an icon.’
Helen smiled while her agent, Arthur, leant back in his bucket seat steepling his fingers, and with a sly smile said, ‘Time was when people broke out the champagne when they signed an icon; a nice bottle of chilled Krug to seal the deal. Lunch at the Ivy, or the Groucho –’
For the briefest of instants Ruth looked thrown. ‘Ah, yes, right,’ she said. ‘I’m most terribly sorry – we just thought – I mean –’ she glanced at Helen, and then more pointedly at Jamie.
‘You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the tabloids, Ruth,’ said Arthur. ‘Make mine still, will you? Slice of lime would be nice.’
Helen looked at up at Jamie and smiled. ‘Actually I’d love a cup of tea and what Arthur is trying to say is that I’m not a drunk and never have been, so the clause in the contract about needing a regular sobriety test –’
‘To be honest, Ruth,’ said Arthur, all shark’s teeth and diamond-hard bonhomie, ‘Helen and I were a teensy-weensy bit thrown by that. It could be interpreted in all kinds of ways – as an infringement on our civil liberties for a start – and just a little too American for our tastes.’
On the far side of the desk Ruth Long tried to wave the words away like a bad smell. ‘It’s standard in all our contracts these days, Miss Redford. Helen – you’re happy for me to call you Helen? It’s our insurers who insist on it. Let’s be candid, shall we?’ Ruth leant forward as if to imply she was sharing a confidence. ‘We occasionally have people on the show with, what shall we say – issues? It’s the nature of the beast. Stardom, fame – I don’t have to tell you the price those things exact on a person. And you’re right, it is a very American concept but so far we’ve sold every series of Roots into the States and we’ve got a really good co-production deal going this series, and our American cousins are very hot on that kind of thing.
‘You have to see it from our point of view, Helen. We just want to make sure that if we invest in all the research, the travel, the hoopla, that our guests will be able to string a sentence together when it comes to filming. Everything’s tight round here and everywhere else these days: tight budget, tighter schedule; last thing we want is a tight guest, if you follow me –’ She laughed at her own joke.
Arthur eyed up the tiny glass of water he had been given. ‘And so you’re telling me that you breath-tested Bishop what’s-his-name and that civil rights guy?’
Ruth’s smile held. ‘We just want the option, that’s all, Arthur. Of course we don’t always exercise it. But, for example, we took Lena Paige, series two, show six, all around the world looking for her mother and father – St Kitts to find her mother, New Zealand to track down her father. I don’t know whether you saw it, Helen, but it made the most sensational television – not a dry eye in the house. It was nominated for a TV Times Peoples’ Choice award, a Bafta – I’ll get James to get you the DVD – anyway, her dad was some sort of fighter pilot and then he emigrated and left them all behind. It was all very emotional, but I wouldn’t be letting any cats out of any bags telling you that Lena comes with a certain amount of history. Rehab, hospitalisation – lots and lots of counselling over the years. And of course the whole weight problem.
‘Anyway, while I don’t wish to be indiscreet, it was touch and go at some points, I can tell you. We had to have her sedated in Auckland. So, what I’m saying here, Helen, is once bitten twice shy. We need to know, come show time, that we’ll get something we can use. A lot of this stuff is highly charged and we understand that people always come with baggage. It’s what gives the show its appeal. Digging deep, shaking the dust off, getting down to the heart of our guest – however you like to express it.
‘So that’s why the clause is in there – we reserve the right to test all our guests because by its very nature our show focuses on a lot of –’ Ruth paused, as if searching around for the right word.
‘Icons,’ suggested Jamie, handing Helen a cup of tea.
‘Exactly,’ said Ruth, pushing her designer glasses up onto the bridge of her nose. ‘And you don’t get to be an icon by living the quiet life.’
‘When that bloody woman said icon she meant washed-up has-been, didn’t she?’ said Helen. She was pacing up and down in her kitchen. The sun was streaming in through the windows, picking out Arthur, who was sitting inscrutable as Buddha, at the long refectory table. He was cradling a mug of coffee. Helen was too agitated to sit down.
‘You could see it on her smug little face. Icon, my arse. And she more or less came right out and accused me of being an alcoholic.’
‘But you’re not and it’s still the most fabulous offer,’ said Arthur, rolling a cigar between his fingers like a plump carrot. Helen didn’t like him smoking in the house so he made do with sniffing it instead. ‘And it’s a real coup coming out of the blue like that. Roots is mainstream prime time. Right up there in the ratings and the public consciousness. I know people who would give their right arm for a shot at it. I mean this offer came in right out
