Our Story
‘Russ.’
He shakes his head. ‘Don’t say it, Joe, I know.’
‘No, I think what you’ve done is brave,’ I say, my toes squeaking in my shoes as they curl. I said I’d never brown-nose anyone to get ahead in this business. Some moral bastion I turned out to be. ‘But I do have one suggestion to make the team even stronger.’
He stares at me.
I slap on my most earnest expression.
‘Fine. Let’s walk.’
He’s speedier than normal and I struggle to summon enough breath to speak as we power around the building. I can’t mess this up. There’s too much riding on it.
‘Let me work with Otty.’
‘You? Why?’
‘You saw what she did with Rona. The best writing comes when you have a team firing off one another’s talent. Flint on flint. I can be that with Otty. You put her with someone who doesn’t push hard, she’ll be forced to back off, too.’
‘You think Tom’s a slacker?’
‘No! No – Tom’s great. He’s a safe pair of hands and we need that to give this series weight, dependability. But Otty’s a firebrand. She’ll shine if she has the right tools.’
‘Are you calling yourself a tool, Joe?’
I feel like a tool, scurrying after you like a yelping Yorkie. ‘Maybe I am. Maybe I need a flint to spark off, too.’
Russell stops and I almost career into him. ‘Maybe you do.’
It’s the world’s tiniest opening, but it’s a way in. ‘And you like Otty. You want to protect your authentic voice – you said it yourself, Russ. She’s the one that’ll silence the critics who say all drama is middle-class, middle-aged white-guy-led. She’s my housemate, my workmate… Imagine if she were my partner, too. Writing partner,’ I add quickly, realising how dodgy the previous sentence sounds.
‘My wünderkind and my workhouse apprentice, together at last. Flint on flint. The ultimate meet-cute.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t term it exactly like that…’
‘I like it! Good call, Carver. Let’s go back in.’
So I watch as Russell relays the new plan to the surprised team and shrug my pretend surprise when Otty stares at me. I keep my expression steady, sit up in my chair like everyone else and pray nobody can see the way my heart is hammering inside me or the beads of perspiration peppering my palms.
It’s a huge risk. If it goes wrong, it could cost me everything.
But it’s done. We’re as safe as we can be.
Now all we have to do is make this work.
Chapter Fifteen
OTTY
Something weird is going on.
Joe assures me it’s all good, but I don’t feel good about it.
Sharing a house with him is cool. Working in a team with him is great. But writing with him? That’s a huge step.
And then there’s the enormous fact that Russell just axed a chunk of our team and everyone is carrying on like it never happened. I know it isn’t the first writers’ room cull Joe and a few of the other original writers have seen, but it’s my first and it was horrific. Brutal doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I hang back as they all leave, unable to share the relief they all clearly feel at surviving Russell’s cull. I told Joe I have a headache and I’m heading home, so he’s right in the middle of them, laughing and talking too loud as they head for a bar in town. I don’t feel like celebrating someone else’s misfortune, which is how this feels. I just need a bath, a takeaway and a night in front of the blandest telly I can find.
‘Otty.’
There’s a figure by my car. I jolt as I see him, hood up, shoulders hunched against the chill of the evening.
‘Josh?’
He slips off the hood. He looks terrible. ‘Can we talk?’
My heart sinks. ‘Actually, I was just on my way home…’ I look over to where I last saw Joe, but he’s gone. It’s just Josh and me – and I can’t get to Monty because he’s blocking my way.
‘I just need a minute,’ he says. Hollow eyes bore into mine. ‘Please?’
I know I should go. What can I possibly say to him? I have a job and he doesn’t. It wasn’t my decision but I still feel to blame.
I offer him my hand but Josh bypasses it completely and before I know where I am, I’m in the middle of a too-tight hug that lasts just a little too long. When he eventually breaks it, I step back and he flushes a little.
‘How are you doing?’ It’s the most ridiculous question, but it’s the only one I can think of.
‘Crap,’ he says, sorrowful grey eyes mooning over his ginger beard.
‘What happened?’
‘I got a message to call Russell, and when I did he told me I hadn’t made the cut. No thank you, no good luck for the future. It just came out of nowhere.’
‘We were shocked, too,’ I say, adding, ‘All of us,’ in case he might be thinking otherwise.
‘This just keeps happening, Otty. I don’t know why. This was my last chance. My big break. I don’t know how I’ll pick myself up again.’
‘You will.’ You’ll have to. What choice do you have?
‘I mean, I thought my writing was good…’
‘It was. It is.’
‘Not good enough to impress King Russell though.’
I don’t want to be here. I never volunteered to be the sole Ensign spokesperson. Why didn’t Joe stay a bit longer?
‘Then he’s an idiot. You’re great, Josh. Everyone thought so. Joe said…’
‘Yeah, well, I haven’t heard from Joe, have I? Which says a lot. I’m sorry, Otty, I know you live with him but seriously the guy is a snake.’
I’m so surprised I can’t speak. Instead I stare, goldfish-mouthed, at him.
‘He’s so cosy with Russell all the time. And he’s survived all the other writer culls. You can’t tell me he didn’t know it was coming.’
‘He didn’t.’
‘I think Joe Carver knows exactly what’s going on. I think him and Daphne are in it with Russell and he’s as much a part of the decision process as they are.’
It gets worse. Josh starts to reel off every bad experience he’s had in writing teams, identifying a Joe Carver in every one. The guy – it’s always a guy, according to Josh – who’s everyone’s friend until it counts. The best mate of the showrunner, the one who’d sell his family to succeed. I heard this from Daphne, but it meant nothing then.
It means nothing now.
Josh is upset. He needs a target and he can’t yell at Russell. All the same, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to doubt Joe, not for a second.
‘I’m so sorry this has happened. There’s something a million times better out there for you. I’m sure of it.’
I don’t feel sure of anything. But Josh seems to take the hint.
‘Cheers.’
‘Take care, Josh.’ I go in for a hug, Josh thinks he’s kissing my cheek and we meet in an awful half-cheek-half-lips collision that sends both of us stepping back in horror. I need to get out of here.
‘Sorry. We can keep in touch, yeah?’
‘Sure,’ I lie because I want to get away.
Josh nods and steps back from Monty. I’ve opened the door and am in the driver’s seat before he can say anything else. But as I’m closing the door, his hand catches it and he leans in.
‘Just be careful, Otty. With Joe? He’s more involved with Russell than you think. You’re too lovely to be sullied by someone like him.’
I’m shaking as I speed away.
I don’t want to believe it. But even driving home, my brain is making connections I don’t want it to. Joe is very close to Russell. Could he have known what was going to happen? They’re always going off for private discussions – were they discussing this?
And even though I think Daphne talks out of her bum most of the time, what she said to me before about Joe refuses to go away. I’m angry that he didn’t do the decent thing and contact Josh himself. No matter how innocent he is of all the other stuff, his silence is damning. And, while I know Joe couldn’t have known Josh would show up at work this evening, I’m furious that Joe’s insensitivity made me feel obliged to hear all this.
By the time I park outside the house, I’m ready for a fight.
‘Oi, love, give us a smile,’ Joe grins as I power into the kitchen.
And that’s the only spark this powder keg needs.
‘Get stuffed.’
Joe’s eyebrows make a bid for the ceiling. ‘It was a joke?’
Ignoring him, I switch on the kettle and chuck a teabag into a mug. After the day I’ve had, I need tea and then bed, not Joe Carver being a dick.
‘Otts?’
‘I don’t feel like smiling, okay?’
‘You should. There’s plenty to be optimistic about. We’re still on the team and Russell wants us working together. And the hipster beard and hair-flick ratios have significantly lowered in the writers’ room.’
I stare at him. ‘You are unbelievable.’
‘Okay, do you have a problem with me?’
‘Yes, I have a problem. Your writing partner just lost his job – along with several of our colleagues – and you’re cracking jokes?’
‘Oh, come on, Otts, that’s not fair. You laugh or you die, that’s how you survive this. How we survive this.’
‘You worked with Josh. You wrote part of the Eye, Spy pilot with him. Did you even send a text to offer your condolences or thank him for the work he did?’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because it’s decent, Joe! Because it’s human.’
‘It’s the business we’re in. Yes, it sucks, but it could just as easily be us next time.’
‘And that makes it all okay?’
His groan echoes around the kitchen. ‘I didn’t say that. There’s just no point in getting comfortable with anyone in that room because nothing lasts.’
‘So I guess you and I shouldn’t be friends then?’
I know I’ve pushed the point too far, but I’m horrified by Joe’s attitude. As soon as the words leave me I can see I’ve lost the advantage.
‘No, I think we should, Otty. But hey, if you reckon it would be a liability being friends with a heartless android like me, maybe we shouldn’t bother.’
I grip the back of the chair and stare at the old grain in the kitchen table. I hope Joe will walk out but he doesn’t move.
‘And how do you know how Josh is, anyway? He might be fine. Furious with Russell, probably. But already applying for new writer jobs if he has any sense. It’s what you do in this business.’
‘He’s devastated.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he was waiting by my car tonight.’
He stares at me. ‘Oh, Otts, you didn’t talk to him…’
‘What else was I supposed to do? He’s just lost his job and he is crushed by it. Panicking about how he’ll pay his rent this month. Thinking his career is over. This isn’t the first writing job he’s been axed from. But I’m guessing you didn’t know that because you don’t believe in getting too attached…’
Joe snorts. ‘Well, at least it saves me from kissing him better.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
‘Work it out.’
‘I didn’t kiss him better. I listened to him, like the rest of you should have done. It was the decent thing to do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he just lost his job!’
‘That wasn’t your fault.’
‘I know that. But nobody else appears to be bothered by it. We’ve just spent weeks working with him – I couldn’t pretend that hadn’t happened.’
‘And why should you feel responsible? You didn’t make the decision.’
‘No, but he thinks you did.’ That does it. I shouldn’t have said it, but I am far too angry to back away.
‘What?’
‘He thinks you’re in league with Russell. That you planned the whole thing.’
‘How can he…?’ Joe’s expression stills. ‘Is that what you think?’
‘You go off with Russell all the time. He seems to consult you on everything else, so why not this?’
‘Yes, he talks to me. Because I’ve known him the longest. But we don’t discuss who he’s going to fire. And if you think that about me, then I don’t see how we can move forward.’
‘I don’t know what to think.’
We stare each other down. I can feel my anger ebbing and the approach of tears but I’m not letting Joe off the hook.
‘Russell made the wrong decision, Joe.’
‘Maybe he did. But that’s his business. And if Josh wants to survive this gig, he’s got to accept this stuff happens. No amount of sympathy is going to change that.’
‘I did the right thing talking to Josh.’
‘Fine.’ He folds his arms. ‘So, did it make you feel any better?’
I can’t lie, even though every cell in my body wants me to. ‘No.’
‘Bloody hell, Otty.’ He rubs the back of his neck. ‘Do you need a drink?’
I shake my head.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
I don’t, but then the words won’t stop. ‘It was horrible, Joe. Gut-wrenchingly horrible. How can Russell do that to someone and feel no remorse?’
‘It’s the business…’
‘No, it isn’t. And if it is, maybe I don’t want to be a part of it.’
I see his eye-roll and wonder if he’s ever gone through this. Has he always been so detached from his work? ‘Otts, you can’t save everyone. It’s not your responsibility. Don’t let this distract you from the brilliant job you’re doing.’
‘It doesn’t sit right with me.’
‘I know. But what matters is what you make of it. Words are all we ever have any power over. Everything else is bollocks.’ He catches the smile that sneaks onto my lips before I can stop it. ‘I have beer in the fridge. We can find a really bad TV movie to slag off?’
It’s a lame offer and the weakest excuse for a white flag, but the blandness appeals.
I’m still not okay about this. I won’t ever think Joe’s approach was right. It’s an uneasy truce, but we need to move on. Because tomorrow, we become writing partners – and we have to make it work.
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