How to Get Ahead in Television Read online

  ‘Lifesaver. Thanks, Poppy.’ Shannon’s stressed face broke into a forced smile. ‘You can stick around in Scotland for a couple of days to help out with Clan; it’s pretty epic.’

  ‘Thanks, that would be great!’

  Once Shannon had left, I confided in Helen about my concerns.

  ‘I haven’t really done a lot of driving since I passed my test.’

  ‘Poppy, that’ll be least of your problems. Bein’ in car wi’ Valerie Decouz for eight ’ours is what I would be worried about.’

  ‘What was the other piece of advice you were going to give me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, you said: one, say yes to everything, and two… Then Shannon came in.’

  Helen shrugged. ‘Hmm… Don’t agree to drive ol’ battle-axes to Scotland?’

  Great.

  STEP 11* (AMENDED)– SAY YES TO EVERYTHING, EXCEPT THINGS YOU REALLY CAN’T DO

  FROM: POPPY

  TO: NATALIE

  Work want me to drive Valerie Decouz to Scotland for LCS TONIGHT. WTF?? Driverama Disasterpants. Probs won’t be home for 3–4 days. Will call you from Carlisle! Xx P

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, I was driving an insanely large hire car to a smart address in Hampstead. The journey up to this point had not been without incident. I’d been issued with a monster truck-sized Mercedes, had to Google ‘how to drive an automatic’ to get it to start, managed to scrape the wing mirror on my way out of the parking garage, and then accidentally stopped on a double red line to inspect the damage. Suffice to say, my confidence in this journey was not at an all-time high.

  I’d finally managed to navigate my way to Camden to pick up the cameraman, who had proceeded to spend twenty minutes f-ing and blinding at me about how ‘RealiTV are such f-ing cheapskates’ and ‘I can’t believe I’ve got to be in a car with that old bat Valerie f-ing Decouz all the way to f-ing Scotland’.

  I pulled up at the address in Hampstead. The house had a very short driveway that came straight off the main road. I drove in, already worrying about how I was going to reverse out. Jumping out of the driver’s seat, I scuttled over to ring the doorbell. A young redhead girl about my age answered, holding a clipboard.

  ‘Are you from Last Clan Standing?’ she asked in an authoritative voice.

  ‘Um, yes, I’m the driver,’ I said. I had never imagined myself saying those words.

  ‘Right.’ The girl looked down at her clipboard. ‘A few things: you should address Ms Decouz as Ms Decouz; she’ll need to stop for a comfort break every hour or so; if she says she wants to top up her make-up, that’s what she means, okay?’ said the girl.

  ‘Er, okay.’

  ‘And don’t try to make small talk about her life or career. She’ll guide the conversation if she wants to talk to you. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ I nodded.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Um, Poppy, Poppy Penfold.’

  The girl disappeared inside and I heard her talking to someone. If I hadn’t been scared of chauffeuring around the Grand Dame of British television already (which I definitely was), then this bizarre set of rules only served to make me more nervous.

  The girl reappeared at the door with Valerie Decouz, who looked far more elderly and frail than I had imagined she would. She had been presenting television for over forty years and was famously one of the only people the royal family agreed to be interviewed by. She was wearing a well-tailored pale green suit jacket with matching skirt, her hair coiffed into a voluminous helmet of curls. The girl handed her a green snakeskin handbag as she walked out of the door.

  ‘This is Poppy, Valerie. She’ll be driving you up to Scotland,’ the girl said. ‘I’ve packed all your overnight things in this bag, and Trisha will meet you up in Scotland with everything else, okay?’

  ‘You are good, Maria,’ said Valerie in a slow, clear voice, every syllable perfectly enunciated. ‘I don’t like to fly, you see,’ she said, turning to me. ‘My late husband used to fly, but I never took to it. Altitude doesn’t agree with me.’

  ‘Indeed,’ I said, not really knowing what might constitute a suitable response. Having been warned about not pursuing topics of conversation with the woman, I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I thought ‘indeed’ implied agreement and sympathy without appearing to probe.

  The cameraman, Nick, had climbed into the back seat and pulled out copious amounts of paperwork. As Valerie carefully climbed into the front seat, he introduced himself.

  ‘Hello, Ms Decouz. I’m Nick Hill. We worked together on The Royal Interview many years ago.’

  Valerie turned around to look at Nick and took a full minute surveying him before saying, ‘Ah yes, I remember. How are you, Nicholas?’

  ‘I’m good, thank you, Ms Decouz. You are going to have to forgive my rudeness on this trip though, I’m afraid, as I’ve got a lot of shots to plot on the journey so I won’t be the most scintillating company.’

  No f-ing and blinding for Valerie, I noticed.

  ‘I understand entirely, Nicholas. Work must come first.’ Valerie turned to face the front and nodded to me. ‘You may drive, Poppy.’

  I turned the key and pressed the accelerator. Nothing. Valerie raised a wordless eyebrow at me. Oh, D – Drive, hang on. The car started and lurched forward, dangerously close to Valerie’s ornamental stone wall. Right, calm down, Poppy. I gave myself a pep talk. You can do this; you’ll only make a mess of it if you get stressed. Right. R – Reverse. The car purred backwards. Phew.

  I backed slowly down the driveway, alarmed to see how much traffic was zooming past on the main road.

  ‘You should have reversed into the drive,’ Valerie said languorously. ‘It is much harder to do it this way.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  I wondered how many questions could be answered with the word ‘indeed’? I prayed to the Road Gods and they came through for me: a small gap opened up just as the car lunged boot-first into the road.

  Just as everything was going so well, I realized I hadn’t reprogrammed the sat nav to take us to Carlisle. I couldn’t really do it while driving – Valerie might think it dangerous, so I’d have to ask her to do it.

  ‘Ah, Ms Decouz. Apologies, do you mind entering a postcode into the sat nav for me?’

  Valerie turned to look at me, confused. ‘A what into the whom?’

  ‘The onboard map.’ I pointed at the car’s control panel. ‘You just need to tap in the postcode and…’

  Valerie was looking at me as though I’d just asked her if she would kindly urinate all over the dashboard.

  ‘You know what, I’ll pull over.’

  I pulled into a bus stop and tapped the postcode in myself. Nick stayed silent.

  ‘You know what I would have done, if I were you?’ said Valerie.

  ‘Um, huh.’ I made a non-committal noise.

  ‘I would have practised this route on your own, before picking up passengers.’

  ‘All the way to Scotland?’ I asked. Was she mad?

  ‘At least the route out of London,’ said Valerie. ‘I was a runner many years ago, you know. 1975 it was. I would stay up well into the small hours preparing for the day ahead. That is the best advice I can give you: never start a task unprepared.’

  Pleased as I was that Valerie Decouz was deigning to give me career advice, I was a bit offended that she thought me unprepared.

  ‘I would have done that, Ms Decouz, but I was only told about this job this morning.’

  A little cough came from Nick in the back seat.

  ‘Excuses are easy, Poppy. I’ve heard many excuses in my forty years in the industry.’

  Another cough from Nick.

  I decided it might be better not to engage in a debate. I’d set the sat nav and we were off again. Valerie opened up her Filofax and started leafing through the pages methodically. I could hear Nick pretending to work in the back. I was not good with silence.

  ‘Does anyone mind if I put the radio on?’ I asked.

&nbs
p; ‘As long as it’s not too loud,’ said Valerie.

  I flicked through a few channels but they were all playing ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ or something equally inappropriate. I turned it off again.

  Before long, we reached the M1 junction, my first motorway. ‘Just merge into the lanes’, that’s what my driving instructor always said. ‘Keep up speed and merge, the cars next to you will move over.’ I kept it at a steady forty as we headed down the slipway onto the motorway. Shit, everyone was going so fast, there were so many cars. I was headed for the nearest lane but no one was moving over… I slowed down as there was no gap, then I sped up thinking maybe I could get ahead of that car… I quickly realized there was no room – no one was making room for me! I slammed on the brakes and verged onto the hard shoulder just as the slipway merged with the closest lane, bottling my ability to get out in time. Valerie was flung forward like a rag doll and made a strangled, squawking noise.

  ‘Fucking hell!’ shouted Nick. ‘What the fuck, Poppy!’

  Cars behind me were blaring their horns, shouting obscenities from their windows as they passed.

  ‘What on earth are you doing, girl?’ said Valerie, trying to get her breath back.

  I pulled the car over to the edge of the hard shoulder, my hands shaking on the wheel.

  ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t driven on a motorway before and I didn’t think I could get out,’ I said, bursting into tears.

  Valerie put her hand on the dashboard to steady herself. ‘You haven’t driven on a motorway before?’ She sounded horrified.

  ‘No…’ I snivelled.

  ‘I am not confident in your driving ability, I’m afraid, Poppy. This is absolutely unacceptable,’ said Valerie.

  ‘Well, we can’t stay here,’ said Nick. ‘I’m not insured. I can’t drive.’

  ‘I will not be driven by Poppy,’ said Valerie firmly.

  I grabbed my phone and jumped out of the car, trying to sniff back tears. I scanned the call sheet for phone numbers. I tried scary Shannon but she didn’t answer, so I dialled the Last Clan Standing production office up in Scotland, praying someone would pick up.

  ‘Hello?’ I sniffed.

  ‘Hello, Last Clan Standing, Rhidian speaking.’

  Oh great.

  ‘What are you doing up there?’ I asked.

  ‘Poppy? Hi. Oh they flew me up yesterday to help. It’s unbelievable, you should see the games they’ve built here, it’s huge… Are you okay?’

  ‘No, no… I’m not okay,’ I sobbed.

  ‘Poppy, what’s wrong? Where are you?’

  ‘I, I… I was supposed to drive a cameraman and Valerie Decouz up to Scotland as a last-minute change of plan, but I haven’t really driven for ages and… and…’ I choked back a sob. ‘Valerie says she’s not confident in my ability and doesn’t want me driving, and we’re on the hard shoulder of the M1 and I don’t know what to do!’ The last words were lost in a wail.

  ‘Okay, okay, calm down,’ said Rhidian. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll sort it out. Is anyone else with you in the car?’

  ‘Nick Hill, the cameraman, but he’s not insured.’

  I was starting to feel calmer. For some reason Rhidian’s voice was reassuring me that this situation might be fixable.

  ‘Okay, listen, you get Nick’s driving licence details for me and I’ll call the car hire company and get him on the insurance. Don’t worry, Poppy, we’ll sort this out.’

  Twenty minutes later, Nick was driving us off the hard shoulder. He was not happy about it, grumbling that he had work to do and ‘what’s TV come to when you have to drive yourself to a shoot’. Valerie hadn’t said a word since her earlier pronouncement that she refused to be driven by me. I sank into the back seat, cursing the fact that I hadn’t taken that extra motorway driving post-test lesson my instructor had recommended. I think I spent the thirty-seven pounds I saved on a pair of really uncomfortable pleather clogs. Damn those bloody clogs.

  We drove in silence for a few miles, me primarily thinking clog-related thoughts, when a phone started to ring. Mine – I’d plugged it back into the car’s phone system to charge. It flashed up on the dashboard screen: UNKNOWN NUMBER.

  ‘Want me to answer that?’ asked Nick.

  It was probably Shannon calling me back. I couldn’t reach my phone to unplug it, so I’d just tell whoever it was I’d call them back.

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  ‘Hello, it’s Ian,’ came a voice through the car speakers.

  ‘Ian?’ I asked, nonplussed, trying to think if an Ian worked at RealiTV.

  ‘Ian Griffith. I texted you. Lorraine’s son?’ Ian sounded embarrassed.

  Ah, Ian, I suddenly remembered.

  ‘Ah! Hi, Ian, I um…’

  ‘Sorry, is this a good time? It’s just I wanted to see if you got my text? I wasn’t sure I had the right number.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t reply, I was going to, but I totally forgot… This new job…’

  I could see Valerie looking disapproving, sensing it typical of my lack of professionalism that I wouldn’t reply to somebody’s text.

  ‘Well I d-didn’t want to bother you,’ Ian stammered, ‘I just wanted you to know that if you did want to talk about a career in banking, I am available to field questions, you know, if I can be of help.’

  ‘Banking?’ mouthed Nick.

  ‘No, no, Ian, that’s fine. Listen, I’ll need to call you back, this isn’t a good time I’m afraid.’

  ‘Ah, right, well, you have my number…’ Ian trailed off.

  ‘I do. I’ll call you, Ian. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Okay, sure.’ Ian hung up.

  After a few minutes of awkward silence, Valerie observed in her slow, languorous tone, ‘Banking would entail a lot less driving, wouldn’t it, Poppy?’

  STEP 12 – NEVER, EVER CRY

  THE NEXT DAY, after the longest, quietest road trip of my life, and a stopover in Carlisle, our sorry little party finally arrived in a small village just north of Stirling called Balquhidder. Two fields had been packed full of Nissen huts, trailers and tents to make a temporary production base for the show.

  Rhidian and a pretty girl with black bob greeted us in the field designated ‘Car Park’.

  ‘Hello, Ms Decouz, how was your journey?’ asked the girl, opening the door for Valerie.

  ‘It was frightful, Trisha. Thank you for asking.’

  Rhidian started helping Nick unload his camera equipment. Trisha was about to whisk Valerie away when Valerie turned to say something to me.

  ‘Poppy.’

  ‘Yes, Ms Decouz.’

  ‘However bad things may get, however awful your day may seem, try not to cry. Nothing that happens at work should ever be worth crying about.’

  ‘Yes, sorry about yesterday, I—’

  ‘No, it’s not about yesterday, Poppy, I’m just giving you a piece of advice for your future career. People don’t like it when you cry at work, especially as a woman. That’s one thing I’ve learnt in my forty years in the industry: never, ever cry. Don’t cry over a man, don’t cry over work – save your tears for a time when it really matters.’

  I nodded subserviently, and then Valerie was gone. I wondered what else, besides men and work, might be worth crying about in Valerie’s eyes. I mean obviously death, but that didn’t happen very often. Natalie once cried when I ate her M&Ms at school. I don’t think Valerie would have approved of that.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Rhidian asked once they had gone.

  ‘Thank you so much for helping me out yesterday,’ I said. ‘I’m not usually that hopeless, I just… I just haven’t driven on a motorway before and I…’

  ‘No problem,’ Rhidian said. He looked momentarily bashful at my thanking him, but then smiled and said, ‘Don’t be too grateful, Penfold, it’s still going on my chart.’ I rolled my eyes at him. ‘The good news is, you don’t have to drive the car back, they’ve asked me to take it south tomorrow.’

  ‘Ah good,
thanks,’ I said.

  ‘But you’re staying up here for a couple of days to help, right? Let me show you around; this production is unbelievable.’

  Rhidian looked like he’d caught a bit of a tan, even in this Scottish September sun. As he took me around the production site, I noticed how many girls said hello to him, or gave him a flirty little wave. We walked up some steps into a trailer marked ‘MAKE-UP’.

  ‘Hey, Sonia,’ Rhidian said to a tall, thin brunette girl. She had swans tattooed on both arms and thick sweeps of eyeliner around each eye. She was wearing tiny hot pants over silver leggings with a T-shirt that said ‘My Way or the…’ and then a picture of a highway.

  ‘Rhidian, sweetie! How are you, hun?’ Sonia gushed.

  ‘You done with everyone’s make-up?’

  ‘Nah, still got a few more to come through later. You want me to do you?’ Sonia stroked Rhidian’s arm playfully with a make-up brush.

  ‘Yes please.’ Rhidian’s face creased into a huge smile. ‘Give me a shadowy-eye look, that’s on-trend this season, right? Oh, Sonia, this is Poppy, by the way.’ He finally introduced me. ‘She’s another runner at RealiTV.’

  ‘Isn’t he a doll?’ Sonia said to me.

  ‘Um, yeah.’

  ‘Look at his arms, grrr…’ Sonia did a tiger impression and grabbed one of Rhidian’s biceps. ‘Couldn’t you just eat him for breakfast?’ she said, letting out a hyena-like laugh.

  I was starting to feel uncomfortable, so I began to fiddle with a few of the make-up brushes on the shelf in front of me.

  ‘Don’t mind, Sonia,’ Rhidian said to me, ‘she’s like this with everyone.’

  ‘Don’t touch those please,’ said Sonia, suddenly serious. ‘All my brushes are in order, I don’t want you moving them.’

  I quickly stopped fiddling. Sonia was evidently not ‘like that with everyone’.

  At the end of the site tour we went back to the car and Rhidian said he’d drive me over to the local Travelodge so I could check in.

  ‘So how are you finding all this?’ he asked me once we were back in the car.

  ‘This show?’ I replied.