Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
‘What the actual fuck is going on here?’
No. It can’t be. Not now. Not when we’re so close …
But it is.
Walking towards us, looking like he’s about to burst with rage, is Bernard.
‘And what the fuck,’ he says, pointing at Honoria with a quivering finger, ‘is she doing here?’
‘Lovely to see you too, darling.’ Honoria is utterly unfazed.
Bernard ignores her. ‘Gina and I were on our way to the car park,’ he says, ‘when one of the security crew said he was happy to see Ma Cusack’ – he says the name as if it makes him feel sick – ‘back at IBC. And when I asked him what he was talking about, he said he’d let her in at the security gate half an hour ago.
Which was a surprise to me, especially when he said she was heading to the lot in full costume. ’
I notice Gina hurrying onto the set.
‘All right, Bernard,’ says Art. ‘We can explain.’
‘You!’ Bernard’s voice is pure vitriol. ‘I should have known you’d be involved, you pretentious Hollywood prick.’
‘That’s enough,’ I say sharply.
Bernard turns to me. ‘And of course you’re part of this too.’ His voice is getting higher. ‘What am-dram bullshit have the pair of you been plotting? Getting that old hag back to do a few sketches?’
‘We’ve been trying,’ I say, ‘to give IBC something people will actually want to watch for the anniversary episode.’
‘Like you’d know,’ snaps Bernard. ‘I can’t believe this.
You actually thought you could film on my lot.
Well, I hope you had fun because this is the last time you’ll ever set foot in this place.
You’re both fired, effective immediately.
And I’ll take great pleasure in telling Triona Clancy just how well her big plan for Northside has worked.
Putting Adam out of action was bad enough and now this lunacy!
’ His eyes fall on the actor who plays Paddy, who’s lying back in the hospital bed sucking on a vape.
‘Jesus Christ, Charlie, you too? Is there no loyalty in this place?’
‘Loyalty has to be earned,’ says Des.
‘Oh, does it, you jumped-up mechanic?’ Bernard’s face is so red and angry it’s genuinely scary.
‘Seriously, Bernard, that’s enough.’ There’s steel in Art’s voice. ‘You need to calm down right now.’
‘Calm down?’ says Bernard. ‘Calm down?’
He’s pointing his finger right in Art’s face now, but Art doesn’t flinch.
Oh my God, could Bernard actually hit him? It seems very out of character but I’ve never seen him so angry before.
And I am not going to let anyone hit Art again.
‘Bernard.’ I glower at him with all the ferocity I can muster. Which is a lot. ‘Take one step closer to him and you’ll have me to deal with.’
Bernard laughs incredulously. ‘Are you threatening me?’
And then a female voice cuts through the air. ‘Would someone care to explain what’s happening?’
Every head turns to see Head of Drama Triona Clancy, terrifyingly elegant as ever, standing in the doorway of the studio.
Oh God, this is not how we wanted her to find out about this. We wanted to present her with a fait accompli, a magnificent alternative to a dud of an anniversary episode. We didn’t want her to find out from Bernard ranting and roaring.
‘Bernard, I just got a text from your assistant saying there was an emergency on the lot and—’ Triona literally does a double-take as she spots Honoria.
‘Honoria Quigley,’ says Honoria, in her most grand voice. She advances regally towards Triona. ‘So nice to finally meet you.’
‘And you!’ says Triona, shaking Honoria’s outstretched hand.
She turns to Bernard. ‘Is this your solution to the Adam Pender issue? You brought Ma Cusack back for the anniversary? Why didn’t you tell me?
’ She looks genuinely moved. ‘I should be angry you didn’t let me know about this, but I can’t be.
This is amazing. This is exactly the sort of big stunt IBC needs right now! ’
Bernard doesn’t say anything. And then it hits me. He could take this as a win. He could pretend it was all his idea. He could tell Triona he came up with a plan to save the anniversary episodes. He could take all the glory. He could let us get away with it, at least for now.
But he doesn’t do that.
‘I had nothing to do with this fuckery,’ he says. He points at me and Art. ‘These two took it upon themselves to set up a little extra shoot. On my lot!’
‘I think you’ll find,’ murmurs Honoria, ‘that it’s IBC’s lot …’
‘I told you it was a mistake changing the way we do things here.’ Bernard’s face is crimson now.
Is he going to have a heart attack? Might we actually kill him?
‘It was all working perfectly well before. I told you we didn’t need any new writers.
But you knew better. You decided to upset everything. And now look what’s happened!’
Fuck it. This is another moment to be brave.
‘We only did it because we knew you were trying to sabotage us!’ I turn to Triona. ‘We heard him say he wanted to blame us for messing up the anniversary episodes.’
Bernard laughs. ‘See? Unprofessional and delusional. Well—’
‘Oh my God, you horrible man, will you shut up!’ screams Gina.
There’s a stunned silence.
I’d forgotten Gina was even here.
‘Gina?’ says Triona. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I can’t take this anymore,’ says Gina. ‘I just can’t take it anymore. I’m smoking again, I’m not sleeping, I think my hair is falling out …’ Her voice trails off.
‘You’re okay, Gina,’ says Triona gently. ‘Why did you tell me to come here?’
‘I texted you as soon as Bernard found out Honoria was on the lot.’ Gina’s voice is shaky.
‘I didn’t know what was happening but I knew it must be something to do with the anniversary and …
and I had to tell you what’s been going on.
’ She looks directly at Triona. ‘Bernard’s wanted the new regime to fail ever since you told him about it.
He’s been doing everything he can to make the new writers quit.
And then he made sure Adam couldn’t shoot the anniversary episode.
I know I shouldn’t have gone along with it but I didn’t take it seriously at first and now …
I can’t, I just can’t let him go on like this … ’
‘Gina,’ says Bernard, ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, but you should think very carefully about throwing around wild accusations like this with no proof.’
‘But …’ says Gina. ‘But I do have proof.’
Art and I look at each other, our eyes wide.
There’s a moment of silence and then Bernard laughs. ‘There must be something in the water in this place. You’ve all lost your fucking minds. All right, Gina, show us your proof. Show us your paper trail. Show us the emails.’
‘I don’t have any emails or a paper trail,’ says Gina.
Bernard smirks. ‘See? I told—’
Gina holds up her phone. ‘I have recordings.’
Bernard stops smirking. I grab Art’s hand and he squeezes it tightly.
‘When Bernard first started talking about sabotaging the new system, I … well, I didn’t like it,’ says Gina.
‘But it didn’t seem that serious. Just mind games, you know?
He made sure the new writers got the anniversary episodes when we heard the original writers were unavailable, and then he told me not to tell them about the emergency rewrites.
But then he started messing with their script notes. He didn’t want them to do a good job.’
‘Nonsense,’ blusters Bernard. ‘I suppose you’re going to say I pushed Adam off that fire escape too.’
‘No,’ says Gina. ‘But after Annie told him about the kidnapping scene and he hurt his knee’ – she swallows – ‘you took advantage of it.’ She turns to Triona.
‘Adam’s consultant is Bernard’s cousin and Bernard asked him to give Adam an appointment that would mess up the anniversary episodes.
He wanted all the arrangements made over the phone so there wouldn’t be a paper trail.
But I knew he was going too far. It wasn’t fair to Annie and Art and it wasn’t fair to Northside.
And it wasn’t fair to me, expecting me to help him.
So the other week when he said he wanted to talk about it privately, I …
well, I did this.’ She fumbles with her phone and Bernard’s voice rings out.
‘I wanted to make sure you’d talked to Doctor Comerford again.’
Then Triona Clancy and the entire crew listen to the conversation Art and I heard when we were in the stationery cupboard.
As the recording goes on you can see Bernard’s dawning realisation that his precious Northside career, the one he sacrificed his personal life for, is falling apart. And not on his terms. Despite everything he’s done to me, to Art, to Honoria, to all of us, I kind of feel sorry for him.
But not that sorry.
When the recording ends Triona says, ‘Can you explain this, Bernard?’
Bernard opens his mouth and stares first at Gina, who looks slightly stunned as she puts her phone away, and then at me and Art.
‘You!’ He points at us with a trembling finger. ‘You two must have put Gina up to this. You’ve been plotting against me from the start.’
Art shakes his head. ‘We really haven’t.’
I look at him, the pathetic little tyrant who almost broke my spirit.
‘I was so happy when you first called me,’ I say. ‘I never wanted things to turn out like this.’
‘No one did,’ says Triona sternly.
Then Bernard says, ‘All you cunts will be hearing from my lawyers,’ and walks off the set, and I stop feeling sorry for him at all.
For a moment we all stare after him and then everyone starts talking at once.
‘Did Gina just save the show?’ I say, and before Art can answer, Triona Clancy appears by our side and says, ‘We need to talk.’
Unsurprisingly, Triona does not approve of the whole guerrilla soap-opera shoot.
‘If you’d presented me with these scenes after the fact, we would have had to think very hard about letting them air,’ she says, after leading us off the hospital set and onto the exterior part of the lot. ‘What you did was completely unacceptable. You do know that, don’t you?’
‘We do, and we’re very sorry,’ says Art, impressively humbly. ‘But we knew Bernard was up to something. And we felt we had to do something to save the show from him.’
‘We believe in Northside,’ I say. ‘We know how important it is.’
‘We’ll talk more about this later,’ says Triona. ‘But for now … well, I suppose I should let you keep shooting.’
‘Thanks so much,’ says Art. ‘We’ll give you something great. I promise.’
‘I think you’ll make the viewers very happy,’ says Triona. ‘But next time you have any last-minute ideas for an episode, come to me and Susan first.’
And before we can reply, she walks away.
‘Well,’ I say, ‘at least we’re not fired.’
Art grins at me. ‘We’re definitely not fired.’
I smile back at him. ‘So I suppose we’ll be starting on those new scripts next week after all.’
‘Looks like it,’ says Art.
‘Want to weld some of the widgets with me?’ I say.
‘McDermott,’ says Art, slipping his arm around my waist as we walk back to the hospital set, ‘there is nothing I’d like more.’