‘Honoria Quigley,’ says Honoria, in her most grand voice. She advances regally towards Triona. ‘So nice to finally meet you.’
‘And you!’ says Triona, shaking Honoria’s outstretched hand. She turns to Bernard. ‘Is this your solution to the Adam Pender issue? You brought Ma Cusack back for the anniversary? Why didn’t you tell me?’ She looks genuinely moved. ‘I should be angry you didn’t let me know about this, but I can’t be. This is amazing. This is exactly the sort of big stunt IBC needs right now!’
Bernard doesn’t say anything. And then it hits me. He could take this as a win. He could pretend it was all his idea. He couldtell Triona he came up with a plan to save the anniversary episodes. He could take all the glory. He could let us get away with it, at least for now.
But he doesn’t do that.
‘I had nothing to do with this fuckery,’ he says. He points at me and Art. ‘These two took it upon themselves to set up a little extra shoot. On my lot!’
‘I think you’ll find,’ murmurs Honoria, ‘that it’s IBC’s lot …’
‘I told you it was a mistake changing the way we do things here.’ Bernard’s face is crimson now. Is he going to have a heart attack? Might we actuallykillhim? ‘It was all working perfectly well before. I told you we didn’t need any new writers. But you knew better. You decided to upset everything. And now look what’s happened!’
Fuck it. This is another moment to be brave.
‘We only did it because we knew you were trying to sabotage us!’ I turn to Triona. ‘We heard him say he wanted to blame us for messing up the anniversary episodes.’
Bernard laughs. ‘See? Unprofessionalanddelusional. Well—’
‘Oh my God, you horrible man, will you shutup!’ screams Gina.
There’s a stunned silence.
I’d forgotten Gina was even here.
‘Gina?’ says Triona. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I can’t take this anymore,’ says Gina. ‘I just can’t take it anymore. I’m smoking again, I’m not sleeping, I think my hair is falling out …’ Her voice trails off.
‘You’re okay, Gina,’ says Triona gently. ‘Why did you tell me to come here?’
‘I texted you as soon as Bernard found out Honoria was onthe lot.’ Gina’s voice is shaky. ‘I didn’t know what was happening but I knew it must be something to do with the anniversary and … and I had to tell you what’s been going on.’ She looks directly at Triona. ‘Bernard’s wanted the new regime to fail ever since you told him about it. He’s been doing everything he can to make the new writers quit. And then he made sure Adam couldn’t shoot the anniversary episode. I know I shouldn’t have gone along with it but I didn’t take it seriously at first and now … I can’t, I justcan’tlet him go on like this …’
‘Gina,’ says Bernard, ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you should think very carefully about throwing around wild accusations like this with no proof.’
‘But …’ says Gina. ‘But I do have proof.’
Art and I look at each other, our eyes wide.
There’s a moment of silence and then Bernard laughs. ‘There must be something in the water in this place. You’ve all lost your fucking minds. All right, Gina, show us your proof. Show us your paper trail. Show us the emails.’
‘I don’t have any emails or a paper trail,’ says Gina.
Bernard smirks. ‘See? I told—’
Gina holds up her phone. ‘I have recordings.’
Bernard stops smirking. I grab Art’s hand and he squeezes it tightly.
‘When Bernard first started talking about sabotaging the new system, I … well, I didn’t like it,’ says Gina. ‘But it didn’t seem that serious. Just mind games, you know? He made sure the new writers got the anniversary episodes when we heard the original writers were unavailable, and then he told me not to tell them about the emergency rewrites. But then he started messing with their script notes. He didn’t want them to do a good job.’
‘Nonsense,’ blusters Bernard. ‘I suppose you’re going to say I pushed Adam off that fire escape too.’
‘No,’ says Gina. ‘But after Annie told him about the kidnapping scene and he hurt his knee’ – she swallows – ‘you took advantage of it.’ She turns to Triona. ‘Adam’s consultant is Bernard’s cousin and Bernard asked him to give Adam an appointment that would mess up the anniversary episodes. He wanted all the arrangements made over the phone so there wouldn’t be a paper trail. But I knew he was going too far. It wasn’t fair to Annie and Art and it wasn’t fair toNorthside. And it wasn’t fair to me, expecting me to help him. So the other week when he said he wanted to talk about it privately, I … well, I did this.’ She fumbles with her phone and Bernard’s voice rings out.
‘I wanted to make sure you’d talked to Doctor Comerford again.’
Then Triona Clancy and the entire crew listen to the conversation Art and I heard when we were in the stationery cupboard.