Three
“OK. We’re all prepped!” I announce cheerfully, steering Adam over to the kitchen table. He looks nervously at the waiting laptop, like a man approaching the scaffold.
“Are we going to get into trouble for doing this? Isn’t this fraud? You know I’m too pretty for jail.”
“Yes, I know. You mention that on a surprisingly frequent basis. Look. It’s a Zoom interview for an online magazine. We’re not talking about laundering money for the mafia. They’ll never know. Anyway, you’re the one who’s always telling me to take risks,” I tell him.
“I meant things like bungee jumping in New Zealand or staying out past 8pm. Not conning some magazine into thinking you’re a bloke.”
“It’s a white lie. They really liked my samples. Anyway, why shouldn’t I be an Agony Uncle? I can be just as dumb as any guy. All you need to do is stick with the plan; it’ll be fine.”
As Adam takes his seat, I position myself on the other side of the table with my trusty whiteboard and marker pens.
He still looks stricken, so I soften my tone slightly. I can’t have him taking flight the second the phone is answered.
“Look,” I say in my most soothing tones. “It’ll be a thirty-minute video chat. Stick with the script, and remember to pull on your earlobe if you need input. You’ll be absolutely fine.”
I smile at him beseechingly, but he just grimaces slightly and takes on a somewhat greenish hue. Deep breaths. The room has turned from a scruffy Clapham kitchen into a gangster’s den – all plots and secret signals. Suddenly, the laptop starts ringing with the incoming Zoom call. I keep my most reassuring smile plastered across my face, which I’m worried looks to others like a face from The Shining , and signal for Adam to answer. He does, with a nervous “hello”, at least an octave higher than his normal pitch.
From my position by the whiteboard, I can just hear the tinny voices of a panel of men going through introductions and a summary of what they are looking for from their agony uncle. Bloke’s bloke… blah blah… but sensitive… strong writer … someone who spends more time in the pub than the theatre. The expected spiel.
“Can you tell us a little about why you want to write for Ladditude ?”
Adam visibly relaxes. This was one of the obvious questions we had rehearsed. An avid reader of Ladditude . He’s a writer who keeps his finger on the pulse of men’s issues. It trips off the tongue. Adam may not always be the most reliable flatmate, but it turns out he’s an outstanding pet parrot.
“And we notice you’ve written for quite an unusually broad range of publications. How would you describe your interests?”
Adam fidgets and pulls his ear lobe. I spring into action, and my marker pen squeaks across the whiteboard.
“Pretty esoteric,” I hold up.
“Er,” Adam stalls, “pretty erotic.” I drop the whiteboard and my trusty marker pen rolls under the table.
I hear a slightly nervous laugh from the laptop. “Erotic interests? In what way?”
At this point, Adam is pulling his earlobe pretty much down to his shoulder. The brief pause seems to last forever as I speed write ‘just open about sex’ on the board.
Adam lets go of his ear. “Just open-air sex,” he tells the panel. I almost smash the whiteboard over his barely literate head.
There’s definitely another nervous laugh from one of the panel and an agonising silence from the rest. Then one voice says decisively, “I like it. Exhibitionism. Dogging. Some of the sexual taboos people never want to talk about. You’re an interesting man, Alex. One other question: We’re looking for a talented writer but also someone who will connect with our readership. Tell me, what’s the most laddish thing you’ve ever done?”
I freeze for a moment. I remember the hours I spent coaching Chris before his interviews in London, and one of the key things I kept stressing to him was the importance of connecting with the readership . Chris was – is – an immensely talented writer, but he occasionally comes across as a little patronising in his writing. We spent hours prepping, with me as chief cheerleader and supportive critic, getting him to change his tone from lecturer to equal.
Connecting with the readership. It’s amazing how a single phrase can jolt you back down memory lane. I suddenly snap back to the present. I unstop the marker pen and desperately start scribbling, aware that leaving Adam to his own devices can never be a good thing. I’m writing almost before I know where I’m going, but it’s too late. Before I even finish thinking of a story, Adam offers, “I once threw up on a nun.”
How dare he improvise. I wave my arms at him in a little dance of rage.
“A nun? You were sick on a nun?” I hear one of the panellists ask.
“I was on a bus. And hungover. I had just got my GCSEs, so we’d had stuff to celebrate,” Adam says by way of explanation.
Instead of being uncomfortably silent, the panel members are all laughing. They LIKE the mildly sacrilegious chunder story. Adam, always a crowd pleaser, follows up with a couple of stories you really shouldn’t even tell your best mates down the pub, let alone in a job interview, but they seem to lap it up. A few more questions, and then the panel tells him that’s it for now and they’ll be in touch in a few days.
As the call ends, Adam leans back smugly in his chair, “I think I pretty much nailed that.”
I feel more conflicted. “You told them Alex Taylor is into outdoor sex.”
“I thought that’s what you wrote on your dumb whiteboard,” Adam protested.
“And you didn’t even wait for my words before you launched into your nun tale.”
“I was trying to, but you looked like a Basilisk had petrified you. I couldn’t wait. And was it going to be better than my story?” he challenged.
Determined not to smile at his Harry Potter reference, I grumble, “Yes, as it happens – but it doesn’t matter now. Do you think they really liked the answers?”
“Totally,” says Adam breezily. “You didn’t see their faces. One guy almost fell off his chair with the open-air sex bit.”
Well, it’s all done now. My name is either on their shortlist or a watchlist.