their target. She smiles warmly at Madeline as though she is meeting a hero. Guests do that sometimes. It doesn’t bother me, not really.
After the show, we all shuffle into the meeting room for the debrief. We sit, waiting for Madeline, the room falling silent when she finally arrives. Matthew begins talking through the stories – what worked well, what didn’t. Madeline’s face isn’t happy, her mouth contorts so that it looks like she’s unwrapping toffees with her arse. The rest of us keep quiet and I allow my mind to wander once more.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star . . .
Madeline interjects with a frown.
How I wonder what you are.
She tuts, rolls her eyes.
Up above the world so high . . .
When Madeline has run out of unspoken criticisms, the team stand and begin to file out.
Like a diamond in the sky.
‘Amber, can I have a word?’ says Matthew, dragging me from my daydream. Judging by his tone, I don’t have a choice. He closes the meeting room door and I sit back down, searching his face for clues. As usual, he is impossible to read, void of emotion; his mother could have just died and you’d never know. He takes a biscuit from the plate we leave out for the guests and gestures for me to do the same. I shake my head. When Matthew wants to make a point, he always seems to take the scenic route. He tries to smile at me but soon tires from the effort and takes a bite of his biscuit instead. A couple of crumbs make themselves at home on his thin lips, which frequently part and snap shut like a goldfish, as he struggles to find the right words.
‘So, I could make small talk, ask how you are, pretend that I care, that sort of thing, or I can come straight to the point,’ he says. A knot of dread ties itself in my stomach.
‘Go on,’ I say, wishing that he wouldn’t.
‘How are things now with you and Madeline?’ he asks, taking another bite.
‘Same as always, she hates me,’ I reply too soon. My turn to wear the fake smile now, the label still attached so I can return it when I’m done.
‘Yes, she does, and that’s a problem,’ says Matthew. I shouldn’t be surprised by this and yet I am. ‘I know she didn’t make your life easy when you first joined the team, but it’s been hard for her too, adjusting to having you around. This tension between the two of you, it doesn’t seem to be improving. You might think people don’t pick up on it, but they do. The two of you having good chemistry is really important for the show and the rest of the team.’ He stares at me, waiting for a response I don’t know how to give. ‘Do you think you might be able to work on your relationship with her?’
‘Well, I suppose I can try . . .’
‘Good. I didn’t realise quite how unhappy the situation was making her until today. She’s delivered a bit of an ultimatum.’ He pauses, and clears his throat before carrying on. ‘She wants me to replace you.’
I wait for him to say more but he doesn’t. His words hang in the space between us while I try to make sense of them.
‘Are you firing me?’
‘No!’ he protests, but his face gives a different response while he considers what to say next. His hands come to meet each other in front of his chest, palms facing, just the fingertips touching, like a skin-coloured steeple or a halfhearted prayer. ‘Well, not yet. I’m giving you until the New Year to turn this around. I’m sorry that all this has come about just before Christmas, Amber.’ He uncrosses his long legs, as though it’s an effort, before his body retreats as far back from me as his chair will allow. His mouth reacts by twisting itself out of shape, as though he’s just tasted something deeply unpleasant while he waits for my response. I don’t know what to say to him. Sometimes I think it’s best to say nothing at all, silence cannot be misquoted. ‘You’re great, we love you, but you have to understand that Madeline is Coffee Morning, she’s been presenting it for twenty years. I’m sorry, but if I have to choose between the two of you, my hands are tied.’
I try to picture my surroundings. I’m not on a ward, it’s too quiet for that. I’m not in a mortuary; I can feel myself breathing, a slight pain in my chest each time my lungs inflate with oxygen and effort. The only thing I can hear is the muffled sound of a machine beeping dispassionately close by. It’s oddly comforting; my only company in an invisible universe. I start to count the beeps, collecting them inside my head, fearful they might end and unsure what that might mean.
I conclude that I am in a private room. I picture myself confined within my clinical cell, time slowly dripping down the four walls, forming puddles of dirty sludge that will slowly rise up to drown me. Until then, I am existing in an infinite space where delusion is married to reality. That is all I am doing right now, existing and waiting, for what, I do not know. I’ve been returned to my factory settings as a human being, rather than a human doing. Beyond the invisible walls, life goes on, but I am still, silent and contained.
The physical pain is real and demanding to be felt. I wonder how badly I am injured. A vice-like grip tightens around my skull, throbbing in time with my heartbeat. I begin to assess my body from top to bottom, searching in vain for an explanatory self-diagnosis. My mouth is being held open, I can feel a foreign object sandwiched between my lips, my teeth, pushing past my tongue and sliding down my throat. My body seems strangely unfamiliar, as though it might belong to someone else, but everything is accounted for, all the way down to my feet and toes. I can feel all ten of them and it brings such a sense of relief. I am all here in body and mind, I just need someone to switch me back on.
I wonder what I look like, whether someone has brushed my hair or cleaned my face. I’m not a vain person, I would rather be heard but not seen, preferably not noticed at all. I’m nothing special, I’m not like her. I’m more of a shadow really. A dirty little smudge.
Although I am frightened, some primal instinct tells me that I will get through this. I will be OK, because I have to be. And because I always am.
I hear a door open and the sound of footsteps coming towards the bed. I can see the shadows of movement shuffling behind my veiled vision. There are two of them. I smell their cheap perfume and hairspray. They are talking, but I can’t quite make out the words, not yet. For now, it is just noise, like a foreign film with no subtitles. One of them takes my left arm from beneath the sheet. It is a curious sensation, like when you pretend your limbs are floppy as a child. I flinch internally at the feel of her fingertips on my skin. I do not like to be touched by strangers. I do not like to be touched by anyone, not even him, not any more.
She wraps something around my upper left arm and I conclude it is a tourniquet as it tightens on my flesh. She gently puts my arm back down and walks around to the other side. The second nurse, I presume that’s who they are, stands at the end of my bed. I hear the sound of paper being manipulated by inquisitive fingers and I imagine that she is either reading a novel or my hospital file down there. The sounds sharpen themselves.
‘Last one to hand over, then you can skedaddle. What happened to this one?’ asks the woman closest to me.
‘Came
