‘Snow can be surprisingly deceptive,’ replied Lord Husbery. ‘It gives off an air of courteous serenity but, underneath, it’s just waiting to rip the throat out of its next victim.’
‘A bit like Emily Maitlis,’ suggested George.
‘Although, in my case, it was an ankle, not a throat.’
‘Are you on painkillers?’ asked Margaret.
‘I am,’ he replied. ‘A glass of Macallan Estate single malt Scotch, administered orally, every hour on the hour. And the occasional Nurofen Plus. Together, they do the job quite nicely. Now,’ he said, pressing his palms down on the desk before him, and George noticed how his wedding ring appeared to be fused deeply into the skin on the fourth finger of his left hand. ‘It appears that we have a situation on our hands, yes? I’ve been reading about it in the papers, of course, but I thought I should hear your version of events before deciding what to do. That’s what HR insisted on anyway.’
‘This really has nothing to do with me,’ said Margaret. ‘So, if you’d like me to go back to my office, then that’s perfectly fine. After all, I didn’t post the original tweet, nor did I approve of its sentiments. I’m afraid that Mr Cleverley went rogue on me.’
Lord Husbery narrowed his eyes and stared at her. Approaching eighty years of age, he had long deplored the presence of women in the workplace. Women, he believed, were best kept in the home, like a budgerigar or a vacuum cleaner.
‘And yet, Miss Roberts,’ he declared, ‘were you not the person who encouraged him to take part in an interview on the Six O’Clock News with a lady journalist?’
Margaret hesitated for a moment as the wheels in her head rotated. ‘That’s true,’ she replied. ‘But I assumed that with so many decades of experience in broadcasting, George would know better than to say something that would only make matters worse. I didn’t for a moment think that one of our longest-serving presenters—’
‘Some might say a national treasure,’ interrupted George.
‘Would have to be physically lifted from his chair and held down with a grip’s hand over his mouth while we dragged him from the studio. I was under the impression that I was dealing with a professional.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying so, Miss Roberts,’ said Ben Bimbaum, leaning forward, ‘that’s a little unfair to George, who at the time was under great duress and probably should have either pre-recorded the interview or been better prepped for it. Although, that said, I agree with everything you say and think you acted completely correctly.’
George turned his head to look at his producer with respectful awe.
‘Personally, I don’t see what all the fuss is about,’ said Lord Husbery, sitting back in his wheelchair now and extending his arms wide. ‘So, you don’t like nancy boys. A man has a right not to like nancy boys. Of course, here at the BBC, we’ve always loved them. They’re tremendous fun on gameshows, for example, or charitable endeavours like Children in Need. As it happens, my loader is a nancy boy.’
‘Your loader?’ asked Margaret.
‘Yes. On shooting weekends.’
‘I think many of my antagonists would like me to take part in one of those,’ said George. ‘They’d wait for me to enter the woods, then take aim.’
‘You really can’t use the term nancy boy any more,’ said Ben, tentatively.
‘It’s my office,’ replied Lord Husbery.
‘Yes, but it’s offensive.’
‘To whom? To you?’
‘Yes, actually.’
‘But you can’t possibly imagine that I care about your opinion, surely?’ he asked, looking genuinely baffled. ‘You’re a low-level producer of working-class stock and I’m the Director-General of the BBC.’
‘It’s a new world, Your Eminence,’ said Margaret. ‘Such phrases are considered outdated.’
‘It’s Your Lordship. And don’t get me wrong, what a chap gets up to with another chap after lights out is entirely his own affair. I went to Eton, after all, so I do know something of these matters. What term would you prefer me to use, then?’
‘You could just say gay people,’ suggested Ben.
‘Fine. Gay people. So, you don’t like gay people. A man has a right not to—’
‘I have absolutely no issue with gay people,’ insisted George, sitting up in his chair, offended by the allegation. ‘And while I despise people who pretend to take offence over the slightest blunder, I do find that an unfair suggestion. Some of my best enemies are homosexuals. And, of course, Ben here is married to a man named Mark—’
‘Matthew.’
‘Let them do what they like in the privacy of their own homes,’ said Lord Husbery. ‘But not where others have to watch. Wouldn’t want to scare the horses, and all that. I make a point of never showing any affection towards my wife in public. Or in private, for that matter. And I don’t hear her complaining about it.’
‘If I may say,’ said Ben, sounding annoyed by the direction the conversation had taken. ‘If I may just say …’ He paused for a long time. ‘If I may say—’ he repeated.
‘Look, the issue here isn’t about what George may or may not have said,’ interrupted Margaret. ‘It’s what we’re going to do about it.’
‘No, you’re wrong there,’ said George. ‘The issue is very much about what I said. Firstly, Lord Husbery, it was not homosexuals who I didn’t attack, it was men and women of the transgender persuasion. But, as I say, I did not attack them. I offered support and encouragement to one of their number. But because I used the wrong pronoun, all hell broke loose. I was actually trying to help but, in their wisdom, the great collective minds of social media decided that I wasn’t helping in the right way. And so, with nothing else to fill their morning, having already spent half an hour checking that all their fingers and toes were present and correct, they took their anger out on me. But, you know, just because you’re part of a minority does not automatically qualify you for sainthood. You can still be small-minded, you can still be narcissistic and you can still be a bully.’
‘But it’s not just that, George,’ said Margaret, shaking her head. ‘It was also your use of the word coloured.’
‘I admit, I got that very wrong,’ said George, looking genuinely remorseful. ‘And I feel terrible about it. But the terms keep changing and it gets increasingly difficult to keep up. I would never intentionally say something racist, because I’m not racist. Nor, for that matter, would I deliberately insult a transgender person, because I’m not transphobic. But people don’t want to believe that because if they can put these labels on me, then they have a living, breathing human being upon whom they can take out their anger about inequality and injustice. But they’ve chosen the wrong person and it’s deeply unfair. I remember being both criticized and praised for going on the Black Lives Matter march and—’
‘Oh, please,’ muttered Lord Husbery, rolling his eyes. ‘All lives matter.’
‘No!’ shouted George, standing up suddenly and kicking his chair from beneath him in a fit of spontaneous fury. ‘It is simply wrong to say that!’