Second Chances was full of inspirational advice on how to open yourself up to new opportunities and allow magic into your life. What it was not so good at was telling you how to do so when you were trapped in the bowels of your office with no natural light and a rancid stench that crept in through the walls and was in no way improved by the addition of half a can of air freshener.
‘Ready for the big meeting?’ Ted said, knocking on the studio door before letting himself in. ‘Our boy’ll be here in two minutes.’
‘Ready as I’ll ever be,’ I agreed as I gathered my notes and knocked four empty cans of sugar-free Red Bull into the bin. I’d spent my first week deep in prep but today was the big day. I was finally meeting Snazzlechuff.
‘Come on, we’d better be in the meeting room when they get here, his agent doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’ The corner of Ted’s mouth flickered.
‘What’s the agent like?’ I asked as we climbed the stairs.
‘Impressive,’ he replied.
‘That’s an interesting way to describe someone,’ I said as we emerged back into daylight. I took a deep breath in, slightly relieved to discover the world was still there.
‘Wait until you meet her,’ Ted said, holding open the meeting room door and waving me inside. ‘I think that’s their car outside.’
I looked out the meeting room window to see a huge white Range Rover pulling into the alley down the side of the building.
Ted frisked his oversized hoodie for imaginary crumbs and took a deep breath in.
‘I’ll go and get them. Get ready, Ros, your life is about to change forever.’
I rolled my eyes as I helped myself to a Hobnob from the plate in the middle of the table. The meeting room was nice, big, airy. Just the sort of room in which you’d like to spend eight hours of your day, five days a week, rather than a mouldering pit. According to the pop art painting on the wall, this was the Alexander Graham Bell room. All the PodPad meeting rooms were named after icons of telecommunications: Bell, Samuel Morse, Guglielmo Marconi and, for reasons best known to someone who was not me, Keith Chegwin. Every time I walked past his meeting room, with its bright Cheggers mural on the wall, I couldn’t help but shudder.
‘Ros Reynolds, are you ready to meet a superstar?’ Ted shouted from outside the door. I stood up then sat down then stood back up. What was the correct protocol for meeting internet-famous children? I felt like Mary Poppins without the magic bag. Or the chimney sweep. Or the songs. I didn’t feel that much like Mary Poppins.
Ted flung the door wide, an enormous smile on his face as he ushered in a furious-looking woman with the biggest white leather handbag I had ever seen on her shoulder and a coffee the size of a fire extinguisher in her hand. She had to be the impressive agent. She was followed by a sad-faced man holding a set of car keys in one hand and a four-pack of full-sugar Red Bull in the other. Bringing up the rear of the strange party, was what I assumed to be a Snazzlechuff. He was a shortish human in blinding white jogging bottoms, matching oversized track jacket and enough gold chains to weigh him down to the bottom of the Thames tottered in behind the adults. The outfit alone would have been disturbing enough but, perched on his shoulders was a bizarrely lifelike, furry panda head.
‘This, is Snazzlechuff,’ Ted breathed, holding out his arm as though he were presenting the Christ child.
‘Hey,’ squeaked the panda.
‘Hi,’ I replied, not sure whether to shake his hand or call social services. ‘I’m Ros.’
‘Snazzlechuff,’ he replied, as though he could be anyone else. ‘You can call me Snazz if you want.’
‘Snazz it is,’ I said. I was trying so hard not to stare.
‘We haven’t got long. We need to be in Milton Keynes for the opening of a Tesco Metro by half eleven,’ barked the woman with the handbag as everyone got themselves seated around the table. ‘Let’s hear the new girl’s ideas.’
‘So, I’m Ros,’ I said brightly, holding out my hand. The agent stared at it as though I were offering her a shitty stick. The man didn’t move. Slowly, I pulled my hand back in towards me and bit my lip.
‘Veronica, Ros just joined us from America,’ Ted offered. ‘We’ve brought her in especially for the project, the result of a global search for the perfect producer.’
I looked over at my boss without saying a word. What was he talking about?
‘Fan-fucking-tastic,’ Veronica replied, rattling her fingers against the table before pulling a pen out of her bag and slipping it between her fingers as though it were a cigarette. ‘Let’s hear what she has to say then.’
‘Obviously we know Snazz has a lot of fans,’ I began, watching as the panda reached across the table for a Hobnob, broke it into four pieces and carefully fed it up underneath his mask. ‘And we want to offer them something with the podcast they can’t get anywhere else.’
Veronica nodded, winding her finger in the air, signalling for me to continue.
‘Well, one idea would be …’ I looked down the table to see the panda staring back at me blankly, not moving, not breathing, just a dead-eyed panda with black, blank pits boring into me. I stared into the abyss and the abyss was a YouTuber. ‘One idea would be for Snazz to choose some vintage video games and tell the story of how the game was developed, any social significance, interesting founder stories, stuff like that?’
Veronica looked over at her young charge. He did not move.
‘He hates it,’ she declared. ‘What else?’
I took a deep breath and opened my notebook, pretending to be pleasantly surprised by what I saw when in fact the page was filled with a shopping list of things I needed to pick up from Tesco on my way home from work.
‘What if he interviewed other inspirational young people? I’m thinking Greta Thunberg, Millie Bobby Brown … Malala?’
Veronica quite rightly choked on her coffee.
‘Next,’ she barked.
‘He’s not very chatty, is he?’ I said as Snazz pulled the zip on his jacket up and down and up and down in silence. ‘All my ideas involve quite a lot of him talking.’
‘He’ll be fine,’ Veronica replied. ‘I’ll give him some Red Bull and a Mars Bar.’
Snazz snapped another Hobnob in half and tittered under the mask.
‘Red Bull and a …?’ I whispered, wondering if the number to Childline was still the same.
She fixed me with a cool, level glare. ‘Do you have any more ideas? Because these are just as bad as the ones we heard before.’
Glancing down at my notebook, pages full of suggestions and a dozen or so failed attempts at drawing a house without taking the pen off the page, a cold sense of dread gripped me in my seat. I could not lose this job, I just could not.
‘Ros?’ Ted’s voice cut through the tension like a rusty bread knife.
‘What if he just sat around and talked to his mates while they play video games and we call it Snazzlechuff Says?’ I blurted out.
Ted gasped with either joy or despair, it was far too difficult to tell.
‘CHUFF,’ Veronica barked.
The panda snapped to attention.
‘Snazzlechuff Says,’ she repeated. ‘Yay or nay?’
His narrow shoulders pinched together in what seemed to be a shrug.
‘He’ll do it,’ Veronica declared, snapping her fingers twice.
‘We could record live at WESC,’ Ted suggested, popping up and down inside his too-big hoodie like a designer meerkat. ‘Make a big noise for the first episode.’
‘Love it, two birds one cheque,’ she replied, standing up and clapping in the sad man’s face. ‘Let’s go.’
While Ted saw them all out, I loitered in the staff kitchen, admiring the big pink fridge and reading all the different kind of coffee pods. The longer I could stay upstairs, the better.
‘Good work in there,’ he said, striding back into the office, his chest puffed out like a peacock. ‘Snazzlechuff Says, it’s got a good ring to it.’
‘Why did you tell them you’d brought me in from America to do this job?’ I asked, pocketing a bag of Mini Cheddars to take back down to my lair.
‘It’s more or less true,’ he muttered.
‘No, it isn’t,’ I countered with a laugh. ‘What’s the matter, could you not get anyone else to do the show or something?’
Ted continued to show a very peculiar interest in his shoes and I realized I’d accidentally worked out the truth.
‘I thought this was a dream job anyone would kill for?’ I said, turning my accusatory glare on the rest of the producers in the open-plan office, all of who suddenly seemed very interested in their computer screens. ‘Wait, what did Veronica mean when she said she’d heard ideas before?’
‘Thing is,’ Ted said before clearing his throat. ‘Everyone else here and half a dozen freelancers have already had a crack at it. We were on our last chance with Veronica today.’
My eyes widened and I felt an ever so slightly smug smile growing on my face.
‘Oh,’ I said, possibly a little too pleased with myself. ‘So what you’re saying is, I sort of saved the day today.’
‘You could say that,’ Ted agreed. ‘Sort of.’
‘Well,’ I sucked the air in through my grin and reached for a shiny green apple from the fruit bowl, tossing it up in the air and just about managing to catch it. ‘Well, well, well.’
‘But um, just so you know,’ he said, picking up an apple of his own and shining it on his T-shirt. ‘If this doesn’t work out, we won’t really have a reason to keep you on. So let’s give it everything you’ve got, yeah?’
What are you doing tonight? I really want to see you. Southbank Centre at seven?
I fizzed as I reread the text from Patrick that had sent me sprinting across Waterloo Bridge on a Thursday lunchtime tour of London, readying myself to leave for our second first date. Superdrug for makeup essentials, Chanel for a spritz or seventeen of nice perfume, Topshop to replace my greying old granny pants with a more acceptable date-night thong. I had an entire debate with myself in the changing room. I knew a pair of knickers could not change the course of mine and Patrick’s relationship but I bought the black lacy thong anyway. It never hurt to have one in your arsenal even if, I realized only after I got back to the office, it did really rather hurt my actual arse.
After applying roughly eighteen coats of mascara, slathering my new lip gloss all over my lips and throwing an optimistic toothbrush into my handbag, I left work on time, waving to Ted through his big, beautiful window as I went, and set off to meet Patrick.
He was standing by the railings on Southbank, all of London laid out behind him, and my insides seized up as he turned around and smiled. He wasn’t just there, he was there to meet me. On purpose. By choice. Ridiculous.
‘Hey,’ I leaned forward to meet him for a kiss.
‘You made it.’ Patrick’s face shone with a smile of his own as he cocked his head towards the cinema behind me. ‘Come on, I don’t want to be late.’
‘Late for what?’ I asked, anxiety washing over me. Had I got the time wrong? Had he sent another message I’d missed? And then I saw the tickets in his hand. ‘We’re seeing a film?’
‘Two films,’ he corrected. ‘It’s a Fassbinder retrospective. I was supposed to come with Carlton but he cancelled and I knew you’d love it.’
‘Really? A Fassbender retrospective?’ I was somewhat stumped. Didn’t seem like Patrick’s kind of thing. ‘As long as they’re not showing Shame because I saw that when it came out and I don’t think I could sit through it again, not for all the naked Fassy in the world.’
Patrick laughed and took my hand in his, pulling me through the throngs of people wandering more aimlessly up and down the South Bank. ‘Not Michael Fassbender, Fassbinder. Rainer Werner Fassbinder? The German filmmaker?’
‘Oh,’ I cleared my throat and nodded with great knowing. ‘That Fassbender.’
‘Fassbinder. Tonight they’re showing The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and The Marriage of Maria Braun.’
‘It’ll be great to see him on the big screen,’ I said, choosing my words very carefully. ‘I’ve never seen his films in a cinema before.’
This was all true, although it would be more accurate to say I’d never seen any of his films anywhere before. But lies of omission were allowed in the early stages of a relationship. If everyone practised nothing but radical honesty from the off, we’d have never made it out the caves.
I looked longingly at the stalls of books which lined the embankment outside the lobby as Patrick squeezed my hand and hurried me inside the huge concrete building. All of mine were still in storage. No room for literature in the shed.
‘What are you doing Saturday night?’ I asked.
This was the best way to do it, ask him outright at the beginning of the night rather than spending the entire evening worrying about his response when you had no idea what he was going to say.
‘Not sure, why?’ Patrick replied, showing an usher our tickets and grunting quietly when she told us the cinema was still being cleaned and we would have to wait in the lobby for a couple of minutes.
‘At least we weren’t late,’ I remarked, trying to sound as frustrated as he looked. ‘Anyway, about Saturday night.’
‘Do you want to do something?’ He gave me a smile that made me ache. I hoped The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant wasn’t a long movie. ‘There’s an exhibition of collages on at the ICA from this young American woman who was just sent down for murdering her best friend and I’ve been dying to see it. Apparently she used the same knife to kill her friend that she used make the collages. It’s very intense. Let’s do that then make dinner at my place. I’ll show you how to make real pad Thai.’
‘While that sounds fascinating,’ I started, holding his hand tightly to stop myself from gipping, ‘it’s Sumi’s birthday and I’m organizing her party. Will you come?’
He stared over my head, mouth open, response not fully developed.
‘Patrick?’
‘Eesh!’
He let go of my hand and clapped another man on the back in an official buddy hug.
‘Here for Fassbinder?’ the man asked, giving me a polite smile.
‘We are, we are,’ Patrick confirmed.
His friend’s eyes skittered back and forth between the two of us.
‘I’m Ros,’ I said, sticking out my hand towards him.
‘Ishai,’ he replied as he gave it a good shake. ‘Big Fassy fan?’
‘Huge,’ I confirmed. ‘The hugest.’
He and Patrick both laughed and I smiled. It felt like passing a test.
‘Right, well, I’ve got to get some supplies before they let us in. Can’t make it through a Fassbinder marathon without snacks to offset the emotional trauma,’ Ishai said. My heart sank: so this wasn’t going to be a spiritual companion piece to Jurassic Park. ‘Monica’s running late but she’ll be here in a minute. We should all get a drink after.’
‘We should, definitely,’ Patrick agreed, raising his hand to wave him off. ‘Good to see you, mate.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I called, wondering if we should also be stocking up on reinforcements. If I was going to be bored and/or offended, I should at least get a bag of Maltesers for my troubles. I glanced up at Patrick. ‘Do you want to meet them for a drink after?’
‘God, no,’ Patrick scoffed as the usher opened up the door to our screen. He rested his hands on my shoulders, walking behind me, leaving me Malteser-less. ‘Ishai’s fine but Monica I can’t deal with. She works in publishing which means she knows everything. She’s always trying to give me advice and it’s incredibly patronizing.’
‘Maybe she’s trying to be helpful?’ I suggested.
‘She’s edits children’s books,’ he replied. ‘She doesn’t understand literary travel memoirs in the slightest.’
It did, in fairness, seem as though Patrick’s chosen genre was somewhat niche.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness of the small screening room, following Patrick up to the second-from-back row, making our way to the two centre seats.
‘How is the book going?’ I asked as we sidled past the two men already situated on the end of the row. When someone approaches your row, you stand up, I fumed silently, you don’t shuffle your legs to one side and force me to slide my arse over your knees. Down with the patriarchy.
‘Ugh,’ he rolled his eyes and gagged. ‘Slowly. I really shouldn’t be out of the house. I should be chained to my computer until the end of time.’
‘Right, sounds tough,’ I agreed, wondering if he fancied being chained to me instead. ‘I got a date to record my first podcast with Snazzlechuff today. We’re recording it live at this thing called WESC in a couple of weeks.’
He took his seat and grinned as the screen glowed white in front of us. ‘I only understood about a third of those words and I’m a writer. You’ll have to explain it all to me on Saturday.’
‘So you’ll come?’ I whispered, shifting my inside voice to my inside-the-cinema voice. ‘To Sumi’s birthday?’
He turned his light blue eyes onto me, lit up in the semi-darkness.
‘I’m not saying no but Sumi doesn’t really like me, does she?’ he said. ‘Are you sure she actually wants me there?’
‘She’s desperate for you to come, they all are,’ I lied. ‘What makes you think Sumi doesn’t like you?’
‘Besides the Facebook message she sent me telling me to fuck myself up my own arse with a cheese grater the last time we were dating?’ he replied.
I pressed my lips together as I tried to come up with a positive way to frame that.
‘Well, you don’t have Facebook any more,’ I reasoned. ‘And she’s a lot more friendly these days.’
‘If it’s important to you, I’ll come.’ He lifted the armrest between us and wound his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in towards him. ‘As long as it’s OK with the birthday girl.’
‘It’s more than OK,’ I promised, sinking into my seat and resting my head on his shoulder and smiling. Future plans. Future plans with friends. ‘Thank you.’
He kissed the top of my head as the curtains parted, the movie began with everyone speaking in German and my heart flew so high, not even the prospect of four hours of subtitles could bring it down.