The Second Wife aka Wives Behaving Badly

younger audience. We need to think interactive. I need someone who knows people, who has a hinterland.’

I liked the idea that I might possess a fertile hinterland. ‘My husband,’ I told him, ‘is chief executive of Vistemax. We entertain all the time.’

That did the trick too.

So, three days a week, I schmoozed with journalists, authors and agents, kept tabs on anniversaries and big public events. I watched television, listened to radio, read books, magazines and newspapers. I learnt rapidly that, far from being scarce, ideas were ten a penny but their implementation was a different matter. Ideas fluttered round the office but few, so few, soared.

Now, when anyone asked what I did, I replied, ‘I’m a deputy development producer with Paradox Pictures,’ which took a little time to articulate but was all the better for that. Certainly, it took longer to say than ‘I’m at home with twins.’

‘Morning,’ said Syriol, the receptionist, who spoke four languages and was studiedly casual in Sass & Bide jeans with striped plimsolls. She was eating a bowl of granola with one hand and sorting the post with other. The script she was trying to write in her spare time was flickering on her screen. Thriftily, she had based it on life in a television company.

‘Morning,’ I echoed, picked up the stack of newspapers and headed for my office where I dumped them to read later.

On Friday we had the weekly ideas meeting and, armed with a file, I took myself off to the meeting room. It was an oblong box, with natural light and a coffee-machine. It emitted a smell that scraped the back of my throat. Barry was already in situ wearing a white linen suit with a black shirt, which suggested he was in an executive frame of mind. Deb, the current development producer, in combat trousers and a denim jacket, was logging his every move.

‘You seem a bit pale.’ Barry had looked up from the enormous Filofax he preferred to an electronic diary. He complained that it was so heavy it gave him tennis elbow, but he couldn’t help it if he was an old-fashioned bloke at heart.

I took the chair next to Deb. ‘It’s the excitement.’

Barry grinned at me over Deb’s head. As a boss, he was tough but nice, the sort of person who did not allow everyday exasperations to get to him. ‘She gives a cracking dinner party. She’s a wife and mother. She looks good. For God’s sake, she reads.’

From this I deduced that Barry had gained something at our table. Yet there was the tiniest suggestion of a bared fang buried in the praise. Barry expected his employees to give their pound of flesh.

‘Easy when you know how, Barry. Ask Lucy,’ I said, cucumber cool.

The first idea came from a book, Vanishing Rural Crafts. ‘It would make a series.’ (Plus point: more money could be squeezed out of the television companies for a series than a one-off.) ‘It would be a valuable social document with archive footage.’ (Minus point: if it includes black and white film, it’s likely to end up in a late-night slot.) I cited an example of a rush-basket business on the Somerset Levels. For generations the Bruton family had passed on their expertise from son to son (NB no daughters). A Bruton basket lasted a lifetime, which might have been a self-limiting market but for the success of their increasingly popular willow coffins. The quote from John Bruton was lovely: ‘My job is my life. The two are bound together. Like this landscape, and the water that makes the willows grow.’ I had scribbled in the margin a potential title: From the Cradle to the Grave.

Barry did not take the bait. ‘Sounds a bit regionaltelly. You might get some local funding but no foreign deals. Pass. Anything else?’

‘Women Between the Wars: A Lost Generation’. The homework had produced: ‘In 1921, there were 19,803,022 females in England and Wales, 9.5 million of child-bearing age. There were 18,082,220 men, of whom fewer than 8.5 million were of marrying age. Thus, the women were not so much lost as surplus to requirements, which resulted in depression, low self-esteem, poverty and emigration.’ I looked at Barry. ‘It was a terrible collective experience of loss. Loss of expectation and ideals, not to mention a comfortable future.’

Barry shrugged. ‘Maybe. Who are you targeting?’

‘Ben Pryce at History is planning a two-week season around the First World War. He says he’s run out of Nazi stories and needs material. But the main target must be Channel 4.’

Barry gestured at Deb. ‘Pour us a coffee.’

I knew then that it was a non-runner, but I ploughed on: ‘One of these women, a Maud Watson, set up the Feline Rescue Association.’ I read out a quote from Maud: ‘“I was an old maid and a useless one for I could never have been a doctor or a lawyer. Men were stupid enough to kill themselves on the battlefield and I couldn’t stop them, but I could save cats…”’ Mistake. I should have been talking about a signature director, foreign sales and hourly rates. I should have been talking lunch.

Barry stirred the tar-like coffee. ‘Half of today’s audience won’t have heard of the First World War.’ He exchanged a glance with Deb, which excluded me.

Barry’s assistant, Gabrielle, appeared in the doorway. Her Lycra top strained over her breasts and the waistband of her jeans marched across the dangerous area between her belly button and her groin. ‘Barry, chop- chop.’

Gabrielle bit a glossy lip, her teeth nesting on the pink platform, and looked important. ‘The meeting,’ she explained, to the now five-year-old Barry. ‘With Controller Two. You’re due at the restaurant in five minutes.’

‘I’d forgotten.’ Barry jack-knifed to his feet. ‘Deb, I’ll hear what you have to say this afternoon.’

And that was that.

Deb swept up the plastic cups, dumped them in the bin and rubbed a tissue over the table top. ‘No green lights today. We’d better have a chat, Minty. Tomorrow.’ She checked herself. ‘Oh, but you’re not here tomorrow, are you? You won’t be in till next week.’ Her expression was quite nasty and she had scrubbed so hard that the table was dotted with balls of wet tissue.

*

‘So…’ Gisela arched her eyebrows ‘… Rose and Nathan are in touch.’ She was giving me lunch at the Cafe Noir as a thank-you for dinner. We had talked long and hard, which had given birth to confidences I had not intended: I had found myself explaining to Gisela how I had discovered that Rose and Nathan were in contact. Gisela’s eyes sparkled. ‘Did you read the diary?’

I owed Nathan some loyalty. ‘No.’

Gisela did not believe me. ‘Have you talked to him about Rose?’

It had been a relief to confide in her. ‘No, but I will.’ I reached for my water, so stuffed with ice that I had difficulty drinking it. ‘It’s complicated. Nathan and I haven’t got to the stage where we’re each other’s best friend. Perhaps that’s where Rose fits in.’

‘Perhaps not.’ Gisela had sounded a warning note. ‘Perhaps not, Minty.’

The ice clinked against my teeth and sent an unpleasant frisson through the enamel. ‘Technically, can you commit adultery with an ex-spouse?’

‘You think it’s like that?’

‘No,’ I said quickly. I changed the subject: ‘I’m thinking of going back to work full-time.’ I recollected Deb’s nasty look. ‘There are tensions when you work part-time, and I never feel I’m giving it my full attention.’

‘I admire you for working in an office. I could never do it – have never done it.’

‘You entertain, run the houses. Not hard work? I think it is.’

Gisela spread out her hand, nails sculpted and polished, skin creamed. ‘Remember, I have time to concentrate on one thing. I don’t have children or a job, so I can give my all to the husband of the day. Nice. And simple.’ She closed her eyes briefly. ‘But tiring, from time to time.’

Her mobile shrilled. Gisela gestured towards it apologetically. ‘Do you mind? It’ll be Roger. He likes to check up on arrangements at about this time.’ No one could accuse Gisela of shirking her duties as she ran through Roger’s schedule. ‘Meeting at two thirty tomorrow. Three thirty-five, you’re seeing Mr Evans in Harley Street. Remember Annabel’s birthday… And, Roger, the guests are arriving at seven o’clock sharp.’ There was more in this vein, so much so that I had finished my apricot and arugula salad by the end of the call. ‘Minty, I’m sorry. Such bad