‘I do not like this idea,’ said Pylyp, shaking his head. ‘My mother respected brain surgeon. She must not bring home the young men to sex.’
‘I meant the occasional dinner date,’ said Beverley. ‘Or a glass of wine down her local beer hall.’
‘I understand what the women of this age are like. They want to find the young man and get him to bang, bang, bang like the stallion all day and all night. Is not what I want for my mother.’
‘I hope you’re not referring to me when you say such things,’ said Beverley, feeling wounded by the insinuation.
‘No, you still have the husband, but there is no bang, bang, bang. I not talk about you. I talk about the Ukrainian women. And the Moldovan women, these are worse again. They look for the boys in the short trousers who still have not the hair on the chests.’
‘I feel like we’re drifting into uncomfortable territory,’ said Beverley. ‘Of course, I don’t know what the women are like in your part of the world, but they’re certainly not like that here. Which is where you belong.’
Pylyp said nothing, his face darkening so much through the screen that Beverley wondered whether she needed to adjust her brightness settings.
‘Is that your suitcase in the corner?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes and looking over his shoulder. He turned and looked at the item in question, which appeared to be fully packed, its handle extended, his coat hanging off it. ‘Are you coming home today? Please tell me you are.’
‘Is sitting there since Monday,’ he replied, not sounding particularly convincing. ‘I must move it.’
Beverley sighed. ‘The truth is, I’m having a terrible time of it,’ she continued, when the silence became uncomfortable. ‘I’ve hired a new ghost and I’m not sure I made the right choice, George has caused some sort of kerfuffle at work and the children are causing no end of drama. I miss your touch, Pylyp.’
‘And I miss Ustym Karmaliuk,’ said Pylyp plaintively.
‘You do know how to make a girl feel special,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I’ll give you that. Did I ever tell you that I had a pet when I was young?’
‘This must be during the wartime blitzes, yes?’
‘No,’ said Beverley. ‘Because the war had already been over for almost twenty years by the time I was born. It was during the early seventies. I had a gerbil, but John Lennon killed it.’
‘Who is this John Lennon?’ asked Pylyp. ‘You want that I should punch him in face for what he does?’
‘John Lennon,’ she repeated, but louder now. And slower. ‘As in John Lennon.’
Pylyp shrugged. ‘I know not who this is,’ he said. ‘He is man on your street? Or different writer, maybe? One who says your books are the trash?’
‘The Beatles.’
‘You had a gerbil and some beetles?’
‘What is wrong with you today, Pylyp?’ cried Beverley. ‘Can’t you just listen to what I’m saying? John Lennon. From The Beatles. The band. You must have heard of The Beatles?’
‘Of course,’ said Pylyp. ‘The music band, yes? From olden days. “Hey Jude”,’ he chirped, tunelessly. ‘You must take the sad song and then you must make it better.’
‘Yes, something like that.’
‘I am finding myself in the times of trouble and the Mother Mary, she comes on me.’
‘Comes with me,’ corrected Beverley. ‘Comes to me.’
‘I know all of this. But why we talk of The Beatles? Is crickets you must give Ustym Karmaliuk, not beetles.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Beverley, beginning to understand what might lead an otherwise sane, professional woman to run down the street, ripping her clothes off so they could later be fashioned into the Bedspread of the Damned. Just tell me this, Pylyp, when are you coming back? You’re not staying in Ukraine for good?’
‘Yes, I am coming back. I would never desert Ustym Karmaliuk. And when I do, I bring big surprise for you.’
‘The only big surprise I want from you is – wait! Who’s that? It’s that girl again! Pylyp, why is that girl in your apartment? Pylyp? Answer me! Pylyp?’
But it was too late. The line had gone dead, the screen had gone black, and Beverley was left on her own in the room. She looked around to see Ustym Karmaliuk, who had abandoned Politics Live and somehow made his way into her writing room but got himself into difficulties and overturned. He was lying on his shell, his little legs cycling pointlessly in the air, and Beverley felt a sense of grief as she righted him.
‘This is what it’s come to,’ she muttered under her breath.
AN ’UMBLE MAN
When George exited the lift on the fourth floor of Broadcasting House, Ben Bimbaum was waiting for him, wearing a T-shirt that displayed a man’s groin area from navel to just above the knees, the genitals mercifully covered in a pair of black Calvin Klein boxer shorts. He was old enough to remember when everyone at the BBC wore a suit and tie and a person was suspected of being a communist sympathizer if he so much as removed his jacket or rolled his sleeves up.
‘Is that entirely appropriate?’ he asked, grateful that the producer’s lanyard was covering the bulge at the heart of the image.
‘What?’
‘Your T-shirt. Do I really have to look at that for the rest of the day?’
‘It’s Justin Bieber’s crotch,’ said Ben, sounding offended. ‘This cost me two hundred pounds.’
‘Christ alive,’ replied George, walking in the direction of his office. ‘Why would you wear such a monstrosity? Remember when we had him on the show?’
‘Vividly.’
‘And you still liked him afterwards?’
‘More than words can say.’
George shook his head. He’d tried to put that particular Saturday night, one of the most exasperating Cleverley interviews he’d ever been forced to conduct, from his mind.
‘Well, that’s the closest you’ll ever get to that particular hot spot, my old son,’ he said. ‘Anyway, speaking of cocks, I suppose I’m in for a bollocking, am I?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ said Ben, picking up his pace, for George was walking in the West Wing style that he favoured, keeping the flow of conversation going as he slipped around corners, water dispensers and those uncomfortable red pods where the young creatives met to interface and dialogue, and to discuss cross-platform activity and millennial branding.
‘And who will be delivering this rebuke? You or Margaret? Please God, say it’s you. At least then I won’t have to pretend to be paying any attention.’
‘I’m afraid not. It’s Margaret.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Indeed.’
‘How’s her mood?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen her yet. Apparently, I’m in for one too.’
‘But you have nothing to do with any of this,’ protested George, who preferred not to let innocent people take the fall for any of his blunders. ‘I posted the tweet. It wasn’t as if you were looking over my shoulder as I typed it.’
‘Upstairs seems to think that we producers have some power over our talent,’ said Ben.