She says, “What interview?”
“The one in the weekend supplement, about all the evictions. You look lovely in the photos. Behind the mask, that is.”
Precious says nothing. Tabitha is in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher. Precious can hear the clink of cutlery and crockery in one ear, and her own silence in the other.
Marcus continues, “You’re getting quite a following. The things you’ve said about property ownership and renting and gentrification and all that have really hit a nerve. You’re a major hashtag.”
“I know,” she says.
“How many interviews is this now? I’ve counted twelve.”
“Fifteen, including the radio ones. I was on BBC Radio London and LBC.”
“I should be keeping a scrapbook, for the grandchildren.”
“Marcus—”
“I think it’s great what you’re doing, Mum. You’ve got a real talent for this kind of thing. You should’ve gone into politics or something.”
Precious is silent again.
“Anyway, Nicky’s making lunch, I should go and help her. But I’ll see you next weekend, yeah? And maybe talk in the week.”
“Okay,” says Precious.
“I love you, Mum.”
“I love you, Marcus.”
Precious presses the red dot on her iPhone to hang up the call. Tabitha comes through from the kitchen with a dust-cloth and a bottle of furniture polish. She notices the grave look on her friend’s face.
“You all right, love?”
“Yeah,” replies Precious, unconvincingly. She puts the phone face down on the sofa and gets up. She goes through to the kitchen to pour herself another coffee. She places the filled mug in the microwave. As she waits she leans forward with both hands pressed onto the kitchen counter. She goes back into the other room before the microwave has finished. She says, “You know that thing we were talking about the other night?”
Tabitha is at the table, brushing crumbs from its surface into her hand. She turns towards Precious and makes a noise of recognition.
“I’m thinking of going for it. I mean, what have I got to lose? Other than, for example, my self-respect.”
Tabitha sprays the furniture polish onto the table and scrapes the white foam across the wooden surface with the cloth. “You won’t embarrass yourself,” she says. “How could you? You’re so good at this stuff.”
Tabitha takes a handful of crumbs to the kitchen and deposits them in the bin. Then she brings through a couple of glossy holiday brochures that were on the countertop. She and Precious have been idly contemplating a European city break.
“Budapest or Bucharest?”
Precious does not respond. She has sat back down on the sofa and is swirling the dark steaming coffee in her mug, waiting for it to cool.
“It turns out Marcus knows all about what I do for a living,” Precious says.
Tabitha nods. “I thought he probably did, love. He’s not daft. Ashley too?”
Precious shrugs. “I didn’t ask about that. I assume so. To be honest, that would explain why he hasn’t been answering my calls recently. Marcus was okay with it though.”
Tabitha comes to sit next to Precious. The sofa springs squeak as she settles herself. “Marcus has got that nice girlfriend. She probably set him right on it. Ashley is a bit younger, more hot-headed. He’ll care more about what his friends might think, but he’ll come round.”
“Do your family know?”
“What family?”
Precious nods.
“They weren’t my family long before I went on the game though,” says Tabitha. “It’s different with you. You’ve had a different life.”
Precious takes Tabitha’s hand. “If I’m going to stand, I’m not sure there’ll be any time for either Budapest or Bucharest. It’ll be campaigning round the clock from the sound of it. That all right by you?”
“That’s all right by me.”
Birds of Paradise
Filming is behind schedule. Tempers flare. Systems of accountability and delegation break down. Budgets are stretched. The set is a mass of cables and switches and lights and cameras and actions and glass and metal and plastic and rubber and silicone chips and electrical pulses and duct tape and health and safety notices and Perspex and full technicolor and folding chairs and building facades with no backs and boxes with no contents and books with no words and fine powder the shade of any conceivable skin tone and powder of every other shade that shimmers and sparkles and is painted onto ladies’ eyelids so their faces flash like birds of paradise. There are blunt swords and hollow war hammers and dogs and horses, and digital devices that pretend to be analogue and electronic devices that pretend to be mechanical, and blue and green screens and sensor dots all over people’s faces and hands and ice buckets of champagne and healthy options in the canteen and a gym for keeping fit and an on-set masseuse and a ban on mobile phones, and gossiping in the hallways and—for other people—lots of admin, and—for Lorenzo—lots of self-enforced networking, lots of making the most of things, lots of giving it everything, and then sometimes lots of hiding in dressing rooms, lots of slipping away to the local village for a solitary pint, lots of reminding himself of why he wanted this in the first place, lots of smiling and nodding and “Yes please” and “Fine, thank you” and false laughter he hopes sounds real.
Lorenzo isn’t due on set until 2 p.m. and is sitting in a little rented cottage on the edge of a small village called Coomby, which is somewhere in Yorkshire. The studios are at the other end of the village, housed within a series of converted aircraft hangars on an old RAF base. There’s a scrubbed wooden table and a wood-burning stove. He feels like he’s on holiday, only his days are filled with sitting about in a converted aircraft hangar with no natural light.
Lorenzo spends the morning flicking through yesterday’s Financial Times, which he picked
