a couple of bottles of Prosecco just to sweeten the deal for everyone. I’d enough trouble trying to get people to chip in a few quid for a Christmas present for her as it is.’
‘Cringe-worthy, that’s what it is,’ sighs Tom. ‘The rest of us all have normal family Christmases planned, like you do. And look at the Rottweiler, would you? Up in the production box snapping at us like she does every other day of the year.’
‘She’ll probably start giving out yards to us for chatting on the studio floor in a minute,’ says Greta, ‘and how it’s against regulation thirty-five, subsection B or some shite like that. Wait till you see.’
You’re absolutely correct there, Greta, I think. I could do exactly that. I could speak to you all on your earpieces at any point so you’d know I can hear you perfectly well. But then, of course, you’d know I’d already heard this much and it would be mortifying. Plus there’s something morbidly entertaining about hearing yourself discussed when you’re not around and the gloves are off.
‘Is the Rottweiler really all on her lonesome for the holidays?’ asks a frankly terrifying make-up artist who looks about twelve, with tattooed-on eyebrows and nose piercings, muscling her way in on the conversation.
‘Same as every other year, yeah,’ says Greta sadly, shaking her head and draping the walls with dismal-looking bits of tinsel. ‘She sometimes talks about a mother and sister, but apart from them, she doesn’t seem to have anyone to spend Christmas with. It’s heartbreaking really. All she has is her career and that’s it.’
‘And cats. I bet she has cats. That one definitely looks like the feline type,’ says Tom.
‘She’s going to be working on Christmas Day and New Year, you know.’
‘Only because she has no one else to spend the holidays with.’
‘Are you all talking about Carole?’ Maura, my PA interrupts, briskly barging onto the studio floor with a fresh running order before the lunchtime broadcast.
‘Well, who do you think?’ says Scary Make-Up Artist. ‘I mean, don’t you think there’s a big bang of tragedy off this? Everyone else is going to a big Christmas piss-up tonight and she’s probably going home to a lonely old house that stinks of cat wee.’
‘Yeah … to make up a spreadsheet of tomorrow’s studio running order,’ says Greta. ‘Then she’ll probably email me at all hours tonight to remind me of some last-minute change to the schedule.’
‘Don’t talk to me – I’m so sick of her and her bloody midnight emails!’ grumbles Tom. ‘Just because the Rottweiler hasn’t got a life doesn’t mean the rest of us haven’t either.’
‘Bitch all you want,’ says Maura, tapping impatiently on her earpiece, ‘but Carole is senior news executive around here, which makes her not just your boss, but your boss’s boss too – so in my book, she’s a trailblazer. Oh and it’s two minutes to broadcast, in case anyone’s interested in actually doing their job.’
Good on you, Maura, I think, silently blessing the one colleague who actually stuck up for me. I even make a mental note to give her a pay rise and roster her on the weekday news slots from now on, so she can have the whole weekend off.
‘Oh yeah, because your career is the be-all and end-all?’ replies Isabelle, our news anchor, from behind her desk. Her make-up is being retouched and she’s sitting like a queen bee, the gossipy little hive buzzing all around her.
‘Just mark the words of this married lady,’ Isabelle witters on. ‘It’s one thing to graft at work and scale the corporate ladders, but if you’ve got no one to share it with, what’s the point? So you can end up spending the big holidays all alone? Trailblazing is all well and good but not at the cost of your own private life, thanks very much. You should all take a long hard look at women like Carole and learn from their mistakes. Now, before it’s too late. The woman is like a walking cautionary tale.’
‘Would you even listen to yourselves?’ says Maura, continuing to stick up for me, bless her. ‘You’re all assuming Carole has no one to spend Christmas Day with, but that could be rubbish for all you know. Stop being so presumptuous, will you? And it’s ninety seconds to air, by the way.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, everyone knows Carole doesn’t have any kind of a private life,’ says Isabelle coolly. ‘The woman is here eighteen hours a day, seven days a week. She’s the only executive around who’s actually here to let the cleaners in at five a.m. every single day. It’s beyond sad.’
‘What did you end up buying her for Christmas with the money you made us chip in?’ Tom asks, like he has all the time in the world, even though we’re live to air in exactly thirty-eight seconds and counting. ‘A new litter tray for her cats, maybe? A scratching post?’
‘Houseplants?’ Isabelle puts in from behind her desk, as our show runner plonks a change in her lead story in front of her. ‘The low-maintenance kind would suit Carole. Like a cactus. Something you just throw a bucket of water over once in a blue moon.’
‘I could give her a make-over for her Christmas present,’ Scary Make-Up Artist suggests. ‘You know, take the grey out of her hair, introduce her to Charlotte Tilbury and a bit of mascara. Give me one hour with Carole and I could make her look less like …’
‘Like what? The Wicked Witch of the West?’
‘Well, a bit less like Theresa May for starters.’
‘In the end, I got her a monthly subscription,’ says Greta, giving the hand signal that we’re now ten seconds away from air – not that anyone seems remotely fazed by this. But then why would you want to work when it’s infinitely more interesting to rake over the details of your boss’s personal life?
‘A subscription to what? Feline Lovers Weekly? Walking tours for the over-fifties?’
‘Walking tours? That’s a laugh – Carole never goes anywhere! I’m here ten years and I’ve never once seen the woman taking a single holiday. That one would sleep in the office if she could.’
‘The subscription is for a magazine called Bucket List Monthly. It’s got all sorts of suggestions for mad, wild challenges you can take on. Like abseiling down the Grand Canyon, or doing the Camino de Santiago walk – that kind of thing.’
‘Carole? Abseiling down the Grand Canyon? Don’t be funny,’ snips Isabelle, as the opening news credits start to roll and the studio floor is instantaneously cleared. ‘She’d have a rope in one hand and her mobile in the other, in case she missed anything back at work.’
They all titter at that, as Greta gives the hand signal that we’re live to air and the opening news credits begin to roll.
In fairness, I laugh at that one myself, actually.
*
I pretended to be happy when they wheeled out the Christmas cake in the staff canteen at lunchtime. I even managed a gracious ‘thank you’ when they handed over the subscription to Sad Bastards Monthly, or whatever it’s called. There was a muted bit of chatter as I handed out the gifts I had for them, a lacklustre sing-along to ‘White Christmas’, followed by a brief speech from Tim, our head of current affairs, wishing everyone a magical holiday.
‘See you all in 2018 – and
