And even if I do make the writers’ room of Ensign Media, will they decide I’m too old to be there? Or too uncool? I imagine the writers’ table populated entirely by twenty-three-year-olds – guys in cropped drainpipe chinos and striped tees with identical hipster beards, wafer-thin women in vintage print tunics over skinny jeans with huge scarves and expertly messy up-dos.
I have to stop this.
Positive panda, my nan used to say. ‘If you’re thinking it will be bad you’ll be right. If you think it’s going to be good, it just might be.’
I smile. Nan would be all over this if she were here. Striding into that room like a woman half her age, charming the socks right off Russell Styles. I wonder if she can see me today from wherever she is now. Is she cheering me on from the edge of her armchair, fists in the air and verbal Fs flying, like she used to while watching her beloved American wrestlers?
I score a parking space between two huge 4x4s, which even though it means a squeeze out of my door a contortionist would be proud of, is still one box ticked on today’s list. I glance at my poor overloaded Monty as I walk towards the building that houses my dreams, praying security don’t think he’s a potential bomb threat. Would a terrorist cover their boxes in pink felt-tip-pen-drawn hearts, with bubble-letter labels like Hunky Hardbacks and Lifesavers and Weepie Treats? I don’t think so.
At West One’s imposing entrance I stop, letting my gaze rise with the steel and green-tinted glass twenty-two floors up to the leaden Birmingham sky. A single, brave shaft of sunlight is pushing through the stubborn clouds up there.
That’s me, I think. Ottilie Perry, terrified new apprentice screenwriter, doing her best to shine.
I take a breath, shoulder my rucksack and walk in.
Chapter Four
JOE
‘We don’t need any more writers.’
Script co-ordinator Daphne gives me a look like I’ve just suggested oxygen should be optional, her eyebrows rising above the retro tortoiseshell rims of her glasses. A year ago that would have reduced me to a gibbering puddle of compliance, but not today. Today, I am beyond that.
‘Scared they’ll all be better than you?’ she purrs.
‘Of course not,’ I snap back. ‘Nobody’s better than me.’
‘Keep telling yourself that, Joseph.’
She reaches past me a little too close for comfort and smiles as she empties the last of the filter coffee into her eco-mug. I watch her sashay back to her desk. Thanks for nothing, Daphne Davies. I yank open a cupboard door in the ‘office kitchen’ – which is the biggest use of hyperbole in this place – and scrabble around for filters and ground coffee.
I’m not scared. I’m not.
But what if one of them is brilliant? Like, Phoebe Waller-Bridge brilliant?
Leaving the coffee machine complaining loudly as it brews a fresh pot, I wander back to the windowless writers’ room where the newly appointed scriptwriters will join the rest of us in an hour’s time. Each place at the large, oval, beech-effect laminate table is marked by a blank pad of paper, a freshly printed series bible and a tented strip of whiteboard plastic, upon which each person will write their name. I think about how easily the dry-wipe-marker names can be removed and remember the scene last week when Russell fired half the team. Their names erased in one stroke, their seats ominously empty as the script meeting continued without them. In the pit of my stomach, a ball of nerves begins to roll.
Russell rates me, I remind myself. I was first on this team. But some of the writers he fired were really good. And now there’s a whole new bunch to contend with.
I sneaked a look at the new intake’s names on the sign-in sheet earlier. If I were casting them as characters in this unfolding drama, what personality traits would I assign them? Their names suggest mostly middle-class upbringings, the Charlottes and Jakes, the Jens and Joshes. But one sounds like she’s coming straight from Swiss Finishing School – Ottilie, for crying out loud. Her last name reins it in a bit – Perry, a pretty common surname around here – but still. What kind of monster lumbers their kid with a name like that?
Are the new writers ambitious? Genius wordsmiths? Or are they the kind you find in any writers’ room, the ones that keep their heads down and do the donkey-work? Sometimes it pays to be anonymous but consistent in this business.
I have no intention of hiding. This is my gig, my domain. And no got-in-through-a-training-scheme hustler is going to dethrone me.
‘Mr Joe Carver, as I live and breathe!’
My professional smile snaps into place as I turn to see to my employer. ‘Russ, hey.’
‘Good to have you still on board, man.’
‘Good to be here.’
Showrunner Russell Styles is a little flushed from his journey up. A heart scare at Christmas has him yomping up eleven floors-worth of stairs to get to work every day and he’s very proud of it, even if he can’t breathe well for a while afterwards. Not that it does much to counter the constant diet of high-fat, high-sugar crapness found in the writers’ room, or the indulgent industry dinners he’s a first-call guest for these days. But every little helps, I guess.
He slaps a comradely arm against my back and I’m drawn into a half-hug I wouldn’t volunteer for. ‘Now, don’t worry about the new writers. That bright-eyed eight will likely be a stoic two by the end of the week.’
I remember the sudden sackings last week and swallow hard. ‘Not worried, RS. I know you need me.’
His eyes twinkle. ‘Always, Joe. Always. So, shall we prepare the bear pit?’
An hour later, the writers’ room is a quivering mass of bravado and fear. My colleagues who survived the cut sit a little taller in their seats, but I know they’re weighing up the newbies as much as I am. Lots of beards this time. All identical in shape, which is impressive if a little disconcerting. Beyond that, the standard cropped-chino-slash-brogues-without-socks ratio is strong here. Four women: two of the hair-flicking, oversized scarf-sporting variety; one rocking a buzz cut and impressive painted Doc Martens, who looks like she means business; and one – well – surprisingly normal-looking one. She has bright pink tips to her hair and rather lovely eyes, but beyond that she could be any person in any street. She looks scared to death. She should be.
The door opens and Russell strides in. As one, the writers rise and applaud. He feigns embarrassment but not convincingly. It’s all part of the theatre of the writers’ room: the scene of more drama than ever makes it to the screen.
‘People,’ he says, eventually signalling for the applause to end. There’s an unholy concerto of scrapes as seats are resumed. ‘Welcome. Before we begin, let me say this: every writer sitting here has earned their place in this room. There are no hangers-on. You are here because I believe in you.’ The new intake blushes, gazing at Russell with even wider eyes. Those of us who survived Friday’s cull aren’t so comforted. ‘Now, we have work to do. We’re running this as a script-to-screen outfit. Three months to beat out at least a pilot and four episodes, preferably six, with a view to a full commission and a fast move to production.’
I see frowns being battled around the table by the newbies. It’s new – the way a lot of emerging drama is happening in the US – and those of us with more experience are wary of it. More work, less time to do it in and significantly less money for doing it. But it’s Russell Styles. And Ensign Media is one of the hottest properties in the business right now. I glance over at the girl with the pink-tipped hair. She looks like she might burst into tears.