King of the World by Celia Fremlin

Author:Celia Fremlin [Celia Fremlin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571312788
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Bridget heard the wardrobe door slam shut. Indeed, it had shaken the whole flat, as well as the table on which she was working, but it had not occurred to her to go and find out if anything was wrong. She was busy, making notes on an article on the Polish gas industry which she was going to have to translate from the French tomorrow. She needed to be familiar with the relevant technical terms in both languages before going into the Conference hall tomorrow, and so the banging of the door was no more than an annoying interruption.

It was annoying, though; and it had interrupted her. It had made her feel irritable, all over again, about this tiresome new flatmate of theirs. Her original objections to giving house-room to this unhappy lady had been, she felt, amply vindicated. Further and further complications seemed to be accumulating round the bothersome little creature, and this was affecting everyone. Already, Bridget and Diana had been lured into spending an entire Saturday afternoon on Norah’s problems. Well, no, that wasn’t quite fair. It hadn’t been Norah’s urging that had made them accompany her on the expedition, it was Diana who had been so keen – not to say hell-bent – on exploiting Norah’s traumatic situation for the “Heart to Heart” programmes.

There was nothing wrong with that, in itself. It was her job, after all, to track down photogenic disasters, especially in family situations. “Exploiting” wasn’t quite fair either, because Norah had seemed greatly relieved at the prospect of having company on a distinctly frightening expedition. After all, the oppressive husband might have been there, and it had been Diana who had undertaken, quite inventively, to eliminate that risk.

But now, it seemed, a repeat performance was planned for tomorrow. They would be driving down there again, this time in Diana’s car, and Diana would once again be interviewing the crazy boy presumably in greater detail this time, and with a heavy slant towards action-bites. “We want to avoid talking heads as much as we possibly can,” she’d explained recently, and so she would be setting Christopher up to do – well, what? What did you get a schizophrenic to do which would illustrate his schizophrenia to a sufficiently titillating degree, without offending against the increasingly complex and panicky rules about invasion of privacy which, according to Diana, were proliferating in her trade to a frustrating degree.

And how – why – had Bridget allowed herself to be drawn into this second adventure? This was the really annoying thing, and it was this, really, that had made that slamming door as annoying as it was.

The worst part of it was that Bridget had only herself to blame. She could have said “No”. Even more galling was the fact that her Sunday was still empty of engagements. So there was no way she could say, “Sorry, I’ve got to do so-and-so”. Everyone knew that the cancelled visit to her parents had left her day totally and uncharacteristically free.

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