‘Well, no, it’s not that definite,’ Phil conceded.
‘Jesus Christ,’ I said, ‘I thought only films suffered from this on-off-stop-go-red-light/green-light/red-light bullshit. It’s only a fucking telly programme, not Lord of the Fucking Rings parts one to three.’
‘It’s delicate,’ Phil said.
‘So’s my head on a Saturday morning,’ I muttered. ‘I don’t make this fucking song and dance about it.’
Debbie’s new temporary office was almost as far down the light-well as ours. I gazed out at the white glazed bricks. It looked like it might be raining but it was hard to tell. This was Friday; the Breaking News thing was scheduled for Monday. Again. My great confrontation with the beastly Holocaust denier Larson Brogley, or whatever his name was, was back on again. In fact it had been on for over a month now without being cancelled, which was probably some sort of record. It might actually be going to happen. I felt nervous.
Of course I felt nervous, I thought, as Station Manager Debbie and Producer Phil argued the toss about how definite was definite like a pair of bishops trying to settle how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. It was okay for these guys; they thought the only danger was me making a fool of myself or bringing the station, or by extension Sir Jamie, into disrepute; they had no idea what I was planning to do (if they had, they would, of course, have been appalled and either tried to argue me out of it – and maybe warn the Breaking News production team – or just cancelled the whole deal and threatened me with the sack if I insisted on going ahead without their blessing. That’s what I’d do if I was ever in a situation like this… if, that is, the talent concerned had been daft enough to tell me what he was thinking of doing).
Fucking typical; usually these TV things came up and happened really quickly. If I’d had my brilliant but dangerous idea for any other appearance or even proposed appearance it would all have been over months ago and I’d long since have been dealing with the consequences, whatever they’d turned out to be. For various reasons, but especially 11 September, this one was running and running, and so I was being given plenty of time to stew.
‘… follow it up with a phone interview on the show?’
‘Hmm. I don’t think…’
Yeah, let the poor, deluded fools debate. They didn’t know how lucky they were, not knowing. Only I knew about my great idea, my great, risky, probably mad, certainly criminal idea. I hadn’t shared it with Jo, Craig, Ed; anybody. I’d started dreaming about it, though, and worried that I might say something in my sleep that Jo would hear. This was, certainly, better than dreaming about death squads raping Jo and leaving me dressed like a Nazi waiting to drown, but it still wasn’t much fun. I’d got used to having pretty mundane, even boring dreams over the years, and the last run of nightmares I’d suffered had been in the run-up to my last-year exams at school, so I wasn’t psychologically prepared for having bad dreams about Nazis in TV studios and being tied to a chair and people waving guns about.
On the other hand, I’d probably crap out at the last minute. I’d do the planning, take the equipment, but fail to follow through. Some Imperial Guard of good sense, still loyal to the idea of keeping me in a job and out of court and prison or whatever, would storm the gates of the occupied Palace of Reason and effect a counter-revolution, a coup for common sense and decent standards of behaviour. That was, if I was being totally honest with myself, the most likely outcome. Not by far the most likely outcome, but still the most likely one all the same.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I said, interrupting Debbie, who was faffing on about shared legal insurance against slander and who should pay what proportion. I almost wanted to tell her that me only saying something outrageous and criminal was the least of her worries, but I didn’t. ‘Let’s just do it, can’t we?’
‘Okay,’ Phil said. ‘But we’re holding out for an afternoon recording.’
‘Whatever. I don’t care. I just want it over and done with.’ They both looked at me, as though surprised at something like this getting to me. Whoops, possible security breach here. I spread my hands slowly. ‘Oh, I’m just getting fed up with the hanging around,’ I explained calmly.
‘Okay, then,’ Debbie said. ‘Monday it is.’
‘Halle-blinkin-lujah.’
‘Listen.’
And that’s enough. Here we go…
‘Jesus. Got enough wee funny lights in here?’
‘Rough, innit?’
‘Oh, totally rough.’
It was the Friday night. Ed and I were due to be limo’d to a gig in Bromley in an hour, but he’d wanted to show off his newly redecorated and refitted place, so I’d come to the family house; a much knocked-through and creatively mucked-about-with complex taking up two terraced houses in Brixton, one of them an end-terrace incorporating what had been a small supermarket on the ground floor. Ed could have afforded a mansion in Berkshire if he’d wanted, and I suspected he still kind of hankered after one, but I respected the fact he’d chosen to stay here with his mum and extended family, adapting the house he’d grown up in and buying the one next door too, plus the shop underneath, rather than get the hell out of his old ’hood the instant the money had started rolling in.
I’d been slightly worried that Ed had heard from his mum that I’d been trying to get hold of his Yardie pal Robe, guessed that I was still after a gun, and wanted to shout at me or something, but nothing like this had happened so far; we’d met up in the big main living-room on the ground floor and been suddenly surrounded by a chaotic, laughing crowd of Ed’s aunts, cousins and sisters (several of them pretty damn attractive), and a couple of male relations and boyfriends. His mum hadn’t been there because she was attending some night class, which had saved any potential embarrassment. Ed had made our apologies and we’d got away upstairs but he still hadn’t said anything about Robe.
Ed’s own place within the communal house ran the length of the two lofts. The big dormers just looked out onto other roofs but the views inside were more striking; a long, mostly open space in warm ochres and deep reds with splashes of yellow. Trust me; it was a lot more tasteful than it sounds. It all smelled very new. The only certifiable style-lapse was in Ed’s moderately vast, impressively uncluttered bedroom.
‘Mirrors, Edward?’
‘Yeah! Wicked, eh?’
‘Mirrors? I mean, on both sides-’
‘They’re wardrobes!’
‘But on the ceiling? Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.’
‘Wot? Just cos nobody’d want to watch your sorry white ass when you’re bangin some bird. Me, I’m a picture. If I wasn’t straight as a bleedin die, I’d fall in love wif meself.’
I’d folded my arms, taken a step back and looked at him. Eventually I’d just shaken my head.
‘Wot?’
‘No,’ I’d said, ‘you got me; I’m lost for words.’
‘Fuck me. Hold the showbiz page.’
‘Come on; I’m off duty.’
Now we were in Ed’s study/den/studio, and he’d turned on all his music gear. I gazed round the six stacked, angled keyboards, the three man-high, nineteen-inch racks and a mixing desk you’d struggle to touch both ends of even with your arms outstretched and your face jammed against the pots. There was a bunch of other bits and pieces too; much-be-buttoned units lying on desks, a set of drum pads, and at least three pieces the functions of which I could not even begin to guess at. Most of the gear was twinkling in the heavily curtained darkness; hundreds of little LEDs in broad constellations of red, green, yellow and blue, plus dozens of softly glowing pastel screens with dark, blocky writing on them. Two wide-screen monitors bigger than my TV flickered into life as Ed’s Mac powered quietly up. Ed’s monitors were giant Nautilus jobs, thirty grand’s worth of gleaming, shoulder-high, spiked blue ammonites with bright yellow cones sitting on the far side of the room and aimed at the big, black, leather chair poised in the epicentre of all this cool-tech gizmology.