‘And the racist ones, don’t forget,’ said Denise.
‘I hadn’t forgotten.’
‘And the ableist ones.’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘And the anti-Semitic ones.’
‘Now, that’s just not fair,’ replied George, sitting forward in his chair and taking another drink from the water and the beer, and this time downing half the double whisky. ‘I never actually made any anti-Semitic remarks. I hold my hands up to the others but, for the life of me, I don’t know where that rumour came from. And now, everyone is sticking pins in voodoo dolls of me.’
‘I’m sure they’re not.’
‘Well, the girl at the door gave me an awful look when I came in,’ he continued.
‘Don’t let it upset you, darling,’ said Denise. ‘It’s all bullshit. You know it, and I know it. When you respond to these people, all you do is give them oxygen and validate their miserable little existences.’
George simmered down slightly and looked at her with a beseeching look in his eyes. ‘You really think that no one pays any attention to them?’
‘No one, darling.’
‘So shall I assume that the BBC will just be ignoring them? And that they won’t be taking any further action against me?’
‘Ah,’ said Denise, biting her lip. ‘Well, not quite.’
‘Then they do have a voice.’
‘They make a certain amount of noise, it’s true. And the problem is, when you’re surrounded by noise, when it grows so loud that it becomes deafening, well, what do you do?’
‘Turn it down?’ suggested George.
‘Turn it off,’ said Denise.
‘And how do they plan on doing that?’
Denise breathed in heavily, like a doctor preparing to tell a patient that the operation for an ingrown toenail has resulted in the amputation of both legs. ‘No one can deny that you’ve had a good run, George,’ she said. ‘More than thirty years with Auntie.’
‘Oh, Christ, they’re not firing me, are they?’
‘No, no, of course not.’
‘They’re not?’
‘Well, yes. They are.’
‘They’re firing me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then why did you say of course not?’
‘Well, I didn’t want you to get upset.’
‘Jesus … can we just … are they firing me or not?’
‘They are, I’m afraid.’
‘When?’
She glanced at her watch. ‘About seven minutes ago. In fact, your security pass won’t work if you try to get back into the building. They’re sending your belongings on.’
George sat back in his chair and felt a shooting pain charging through his chest. He gripped his arm, wondering whether he was having a heart attack, and rather hoped that he was, as it would probably force the corporation into giving him his job back.
‘Darling, you’ve gone quite pale,’ said Denise.
‘I’ve spent my entire adult life at the BBC,’ he replied quietly. ‘I’ve given them everything. I thought I’d die there.’
‘Well, who would want that? Perhaps you should look at it as early retirement.’
‘I’m only sixty! I had another fifteen good years in me. And I haven’t been given any lifetime achievement awards yet. And what about my knighthood? I was hoping for a knighthood. Even Anthony Blunt got a knighthood, and he was a Soviet spy!’
‘They are giving you a very healthy severance package.’
‘It’s not about the money,’ he snapped, raising his voice now, so some of the stars around him buried their faces in their Eggs Benedict. ‘It’s the betrayal. The backstabbing. The ingratitude. The shameless capitulation to a generation of morons whose hands are surgically attached to their smartphones.’
‘Darling, tell me how to make it better,’ said Denise, leaning forward. ‘You name it and I’ll do it.’
‘Get me my job back.’
‘No, I can’t do that. Sorry.’
‘Then what else is there? Christ alive. This is a … a … a humiliation. And really, when it comes down to it, what the fuck did I even do? They’ve created this narrative built around me being some sort of monster, and it doesn’t matter what I say or do, they’re going to see it their way and damn the consequences. I could withdraw every penny I have from the bank and give it to the homeless and they’d say that I was destabilizing the local economy. I could cure cancer and they’d say I was creating unemployment among oncologists. They want to ruin me – they have ruined me – and once they’re done they’ll start on some other poor unsuspecting bastard and ruin his life too. Bullies, that’s all they are. You realize that, don’t you? All these brave little souls hiding behind their keyboards, spitting out their venom. I blame Steve Jobs. And that Zuckerberg fellow. All those clever little psychopaths who couldn’t get laid in high school but make up for their sexual inadequacy by inventing technology that destroys humanity. They’re the Oppenheimers of the twenty-first century.’
‘Darling,’ said Denise, pressing her hand against his forearm on the table. ‘Please. You have to lower your voice. People are staring. You’re getting overexcited.’
‘Of course I’m getting fucking overexcited!’ he shouted, practically hovering over his chair now. ‘Thirty-five years of my life, down the drain. My reputation in tatters. Look’ – he glanced to his right, where a copy of that morning’s Daily Mail was sitting on an empty table – ‘I bet if I pick up that newspaper, I’ll find some story in there saying what a horrible human being I am.’
‘Darling, that’s not a newspaper,’ said Denise. ‘It’s the Daily Mail.’
He reached over and grabbed it. ‘How much do you bet?’ he asked before unfolding it. ‘Come on? How much? Twenty quid? Fifty? One hundred quid that there’ll be something about me on the first five pages.’
He let the paper fall open and emitted a cry of horror when he saw that half the front page was, in fact, filled with his face.
‘Christ alive,’ he said. ‘What the hell have I done now?’
And then he saw a second, smaller picture, of a woman sitting on a sofa and looking off into the distance wearing an expression of sadness. He was so surprised to see her there that he didn’t even recognize her at first, and it was only when he read the headline that his jaw dropped open in surprise.
CLEVERLEY GOT ME PREGGERS AND THEN
DIDN’T WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH ME
‘She went to the papers,’ cried George, barely able to get the words out. ‘She went to the bloody papers. And all because I forgot to phone her. I said I would be there for her if she wanted me to be. In fact, I told her that I would prefer to be part of the child’s life.’
‘There is no child,’ said Denise, who had read the story shortly before he arrived. In fact, it was her copy of the Daily Mail that George was now holding, but she’d tossed it aside quickly when she saw him coming through from the reception area to the bar.
‘You don’t mean she got rid of it?’ he asked, looking remorseful.