One Day (Vintage Contemporaries Original) by Nicholls David

Author:Nicholls, David [Nicholls, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780307739308
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2010-06-02T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Two Meetings

TUESDAY, 15 JULY 1997

Soho and the South Bank

‘So. The bad news is, they’re cancelling Game On.’

‘They are? Really?’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘Right. Okay. Right. Did they give a reason why?’

‘No, Dexy, they just don’t feel they’ve cracked a way of conveying the piquant romance of computer gaming to a late-night TV audience. The channel thinks that they haven’t got the ingredients quite right, so they’re cancelling the show.’

‘I see.’

‘… starting again with a different presenter.’

‘And a different name?’

‘No, they’re still calling it Game On.’

‘Right. So – so it’s still the same show then.’

‘They’re making a lot of significant changes.’

‘But it’s still called Game On?’

‘Yes.’

‘Same set, same format and everything.’

‘Broadly speaking.’

‘But with a different presenter.’

‘Yes. A different presenter.’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t know. Not you though.’

‘They didn’t say who?’

‘They said younger. Someone younger, they were going younger. That’s all I know.’

‘So … in other words, I have been sacked.’

‘Well, I suppose another way of looking at it is that, yes, in this instance, they’ve decided to go in a different direction. A direction that’s away from you.’

‘Okay. Okay. So – what’s the good news?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Well, you said “the bad news is they’re cancelling the show”. What’s the good news?’

‘That’s it. That’s all. That’s all the news I have.’

At that precise same moment, barely two miles away across the Thames, Emma Morley stands in an ascending lift with her old friend Stephanie Shaw.

‘The main thing is, and I can’t say this enough – don’t be intimidated.’

‘Why would I be intimidated?’

‘She’s a legend, Em, in publishing. She’s notorious.’

‘Notorious? For what?’

‘For being a … big personality,’ and even though they are the only people in the lift, Stephanie Shaw drops her voice into a whisper. ‘She’s a wonderful editor, she’s just a little … eccentric that’s all.’

They ride the next twenty storeys in silence. Beside her Stephanie Shaw stands smart, petite in a crisp white shirt – no, not a shirt, a blouse – tight black pencil skirt, a neat little bob, years away from the sullen Goth who sat next to her in tutorials all that time ago, and Emma is surprised to find herself intimidated by her old acquaintance; her professional demeanour, her no-nonsense manner. Stephanie Shaw has probably sacked people. She probably says things like ‘photocopy this for me!’ If Emma did the same at school they’d laugh in her face. In the lift, hands clasped in front of her, Emma has a sudden urge to giggle. It’s like they’re playing at a game called ‘Offices’.

The lift door slides open onto the thirtieth floor, a vast open-plan area, its high smoked-glass windows looking out across the Thames and Lambeth. When Emma had first come to London she had written hopeful, ill-informed letters to publishers and imagined the envelopes being sliced open with ivory paper knives in cluttered, shabby Georgian houses by ageing secretaries in half-moon glasses. But this is sleek and light and youthful, the very model of the modern media workplace. The only thing that reassures her are the stacks of books that litter the floor and tables, teetering piles of the things dumped seemingly at random.

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