‘I’ve taken this desk. I presume you’re okay with that one.’ Art points towards the one that faces the wall, not the window. Of course he’s bagged the desk with the view. But I’m not going to demean myself by arguing with him about it.
‘Of course!’ I say breezily.
‘So!’ says Susan. ‘You’re our two brand-new hires. The other staff writers were all chosen from our pool of regular freelancers.’
‘Oh right.’ I feel a twinge of discomfort. Stupidly, and rather shamefully, it hadn’t really struck me until now that maybe an outsider like me getting one of these staff jobs meant that an experienced regularNorthsidewriter had not.
‘We’re going to have the staff meeting in a few minutes,’ Susan continues. ‘So why don’t we grab some coffee in the kitchen and I’ll take you to the meeting room?’
‘Perfect,’ says Art.
Am I imagining it or are some of the production staff lookingat us resentfully as we pass through the open-plan office? Are they thinking of their scriptwriter friends who should have got our jobs?
‘So,’ says Susan, putting coffee into the machine, ‘normally we’d just have the tone meeting today, where we go through this block of episodes and brainstorm potential changes, but because this is the first day with everyone working in the office and of course things are pretty hectic at the moment, we’re going to dig into the stories a bit more. And Bernard will be there. He wouldn’t normally attend the tone but he’s making an exception this week because of, well, you know. Everything.’
‘Great,’ I say, though I’m starting to feel nervous about this meeting. This new regime really must be a big change for the entireNorthsideteam.
‘Sounds good,’ says Art cheerfully.
To my relief, we’re the first to arrive in the meeting room. I did not want to walk into a room full of potentially hostile strangers right now. Susan indicates seats on one side of the long oval table and Art and I sit down while she takes a seat facing us. She smiles at me as I take out my laptop and a notebook and pen.
‘Don’t look so nervous, Annie!’ she says. ‘I know it’ll be a challenge but you’ll be fine.’
My heart sinks. I was hoping my feelings didn’t show. I glance at Art, who doesn’t look nervous at all and instead is looking at me with a faintly amused expression on his face. This irritates me so much I stop feeling nervous and feel annoyed at him. Much better.
‘And besides,’ Susan goes on, ‘we’re all in the same boat because of the emergency schedule changes. Did Bernard ring you to discuss that or did you just get the email?’
‘What schedule changes?’ says Art, echoing my own thoughts, but before Susan can answer, the door opens and my new colleagues start to come in. I’m definitely not imagining the unfriendly expressions on some of their faces or the whispers they’re exchanging.
The room falls silent as a sixty-something man with white hair and an aggrieved expression stalks in carrying a pile of printed pages, followed by Gina. He takes a seat next to Susan and looks disapprovingly around the room.
Bernard.
Art stands up and extends his hand across the table. ‘Art Sullivan. Great to be here.’
Bernard ignores the hand. ‘We’ll have introductions in a minute.’
I actually feel sorry for Art as he sits down, though he doesn’t look particularly bothered by the dismissal. Around the table, a few of our new workmates exchange smiles and meaningful glances.
Oh dear.
‘Right,’ says Bernard. ‘As we all know, we’re totally in the shit at the moment.’
Are we? What is he talking about?
‘The fiftieth-anniversary episodes are airing in less than two months,’ says Bernard. ‘We’re shooting them in three weeks.’ He scowls across the table. ‘Which means you lot have three weeks to write the final drafts of the new scripts from scratch, thanks to those two arseholes whose names I won’t even mention.’
I feel like I’d been walking down a flight of stairs and now I’ve missed a step. I look around the table and see that everyone looks very serious. No one looks confused. They all know what’s going on. Everyone does except me and—
‘Excuse me,’ says Art. ‘I don’t quite follow. What arseholes are you talking about? And why do you need new scripts for the anniversary episodes?’
Bernard throws him a look so ferocious I feel myself draw back into my seat. ‘Why?Why?Jesus Christ, did you even read that email before you started this job?’
‘What email?’ Art looks a lot calmer than I feel. It’s almost impressive.
‘The email Gina sent you last week, after she sent your first scene-by-scenes,’ says Bernard. ‘The email about the urgent schedule changes. Which I assumed you’d have bothered to read before you showed your face here.’
‘I didn’t get a second email,’ says Art. He turns to me and says, ‘Did you?’