All to Play For (5 page)

“Are they framing you?” he asked quietly. Les sighed, chewing his lips. He shrugged. Nicky frowned, then sneered. “Her Majesty’s Glorious Police Force. All my life I’ve been waiting for the moment when I could be part of it. And just when it’s about to happen, they turn out to be the bleeding KGB. Well I’m glad I found out in time, Dad.”

“What d’you mean?”

“There’s no way I’m going to join the organisation that shafts my dad. Not you. How could they?” His grey eyes blazed with anger and disgust, as he sought to reassure his father by affirming his faith in him. Les blinked back at him anxiously, and began to speak, then stopped. He struggled to hold Nicky’s honest gaze, then gave up, allowing his head to fall as he covered his eyes with one hand. In that moment Nicky realised the truth: Les was guilty. It swept over him with terrifying clarity and left him breathless. He stared at his dad, unable to marshal his thoughts, then abruptly got up and left the house.

“Was that Nicky going out?” asked Doreen, popping her head through the serving hatch in surprise.

“Yes, he’s a bit upset,” Les muttered. “Isn’t sure he wants to join up, now.”

“Well that’s understandable. Not to worry, it’ll all blow over.”

Nicky took the tube into the West End, and sat in a coffee bar off Leicester Square. He stared into his glass of coke and tried to come to terms with the day’s revelations, feeling as though his childhood had come to a sudden end in a cataclysmic explosion. He tried to reason it through from his father’s point of view: Les had never been a Dixon of Dock Green; he wasn’t above pinching a bit of stationery from the office, and frequently parked illegally, he even drove after drinking on occasion. But he had always been very clear on the essential morality which society depended on and the police enforced. He said he knew who the real villains were, he was after them, not the regular citizens who over-stepped the mark by a few inches. It was a game of strategy, he said, you know who they are, and they know you know, but can you find the evidence to convict them? It was this cat-and-mouse game that had always appealed to Nicky. His favourite pastime at home was watching
Columbo
with his dad.

So how come Les was in the villains’ pocket? The only explanation was that Les was a hypocrite, a bent cop, worse even than the villain who paid him to keep quiet. He had not only deceived the force and society itself, he had deceived his wife and son. Nicky couldn’t forgive him that. Les couldn’t even forgive himself. It had been written all over him. Doreen didn’t see it, it was easy to pull the wool over her eyes, and her simple-minded blind faith in Les would carry her through, provided he never confessed to her. But Les and Nicky were closer than that, and understood each other better. Father and son, they were almost the same person save for the age difference, or so he had thought up to now.

It took Nicky an hour and a half to break away from his youth. He simply sat and thought, looked at the situation from all the angles he could think of, and came back to the same conclusion. He was finished with his dad, with the police force, with his whole life as he had believed it to be. It was all built on lies. He would start again. He would bury the hurt and the bitterness he felt, he couldn’t possibly enter the police force knowing what he now knew. He would find a job, anything, keep looking around until something turned up that interested him. He would keep his own counsel, do as he thought fit, be completely independent. He was his own man now. He wouldn’t leave home just yet, he would keep up the charade for his mother’s sake, but inside he would be different.

He left the café and bought a copy of the
Evening Standard
, took it to a bench in the middle of Leicester Square and sat down to read the Situations Vacant.

He circled a number of possible jobs, and since one company was based in Soho, he went to look for their office. It was nearly six o’clock when he found it, but all the lights were on in the building – it was in a scruffy, narrow street in which every doorway carried an assortment of bells and nameplates. He pushed the bell marked Magenta Television Productions Ltd and walked in when he heard a buzzer. Magenta was based in two tiny offices on the second floor, up a steep, lino-covered staircase. He found it atmospheric and not at all intimidating.

An Asian man of indeterminate age greeted him and shook Nicky’s hand when he said he had come about the advert for a runner, congratulating him on being the first applicant.

“We like people who show initiative. I’m Haris Maqbool, Finance Director. My partner’s on the phone in the other office, but if you’d like to wait we could interview you right away.”

“Sure,” said Nicky, trying to create a good impression. Not wanting to let on that he didn’t know what a runner was, he set about asking questions which might elicit the information without betraying his ignorance.

“Can you tell me a bit about the company, and the post?” he asked boldly, sitting himself on an old wooden chair.

“Of course. We’re a newish outfit, very small as yet, but we’ve just won a commission to make a daytime quiz show for a regional ITV station. We’re very excited. It’s a terrifically good project, and has a wonderful star. Our company is going to do extremely well. As our runner you will be an assistant in all matters, from top to bottom. You will make the tea but you will also learn the business, if you wish. You will earn very little to start with but a very great deal in the long run. This is a truly wonderful opportunity.”

Growing up in the East End had not made Nicky naïve, and he knew Haris was embroidering the truth. He also knew that embroidery was a key skill when you had something to sell, and thought Haris was probably rather good at his job.

“Sounds just what I’m looking for,” said Nicky.

“Let me fetch my partner,” said Haris, and disappeared into the next room. Nicky looked around the walls, seeing little to attract his interest apart from a poster featuring Marilyn Monroe. If Magenta Productions had made any shows so far, they had little in the way of publicity to show for it.

“Alright, me old son?” rasped a cockney smoker’s voice, as a wiry man with a boxer’s physique and greying wavy hair entered the room, followed by Haris. He wore a creased shirt with purple braces and a loosened tie, blue suit trousers, yellow socks and no shoes. He shook Nick’s hand very hard, and scrutinised him.

“Rex Barclay. So you’re the new runner, are you?”

Nicky was taken aback. “If you think I’m suitable.”

“Haris thinks so. He’s a great judge of character. Tell us about yourself, then.”

Nicky talked about his experience in school and in the youth theatre, omitting any reference to the police, and said he was interested in a career in television but didn’t know much about it so far.

“Of course you don’t, how could you at your age?” said Rex. “The point is, are you keen to learn?”

“Yes, definitely,” said Nicky, so convincingly that he even believed himself.

“Then the job’s yours. On a month’s probation. If it don’t work out we’ll part company. If it does, great.”

They shook hands on it, and Rex winked at him. “You seem a likely lad. Handsome too. Matter of fact, you remind me of myself at your age. Now if
I’d
had a Rex Barclay to work for when
I
was seventeen, I’d be running the BBC by now. As it is, it’s going to take me a few years yet. There we are, that’s life. Alright Nicky, start on Monday, ten o’clock.”

“Great. Thanks a lot. I’ll see you then.”

Nicky felt extremely proud of himself, although he had no idea what he was in for. He liked television as much as anybody, so it might turn out to be interesting. He travelled home feeling at least three inches taller, and entered the house to find his parents eating fish and chips at the kitchen table. His mother jumped up solicitously.

“Oh Nicky, are you alright? I didn’t make you dinner in case you was having something out.”

“It’s okay Mum, I’m fine. Listen, I’ve got a job. I’m going to be in television.”

They stared open-mouthed as he announced coolly that he would be cancelling his interview at Hendon: he had decided on a different career.

“Oh, well done!” said his mother at last, nonplussed. “It’s a bit sudden though, ain’t it?”

Nicky smiled tightly. “Yeah, well. It’s been a funny old day. I think I’ll nip out and get myself a burger. See you later.”

“Bye dear,” said Doreen, and looked anxiously at Les, whose pale face had remained mute. He watched as his son left with only the briefest glance in his direction, and sank even lower into his chair. Doreen, oblivious to their unspoken tension, continued her campaign of jollification.

“Come on Les, eat your chips before they go cold, you know you don’t like them soggy.” He did as he was told.

Chapter Three

Now I’m going to jump forward a few years to the dawn of the nineties. After I’d been a teacher for a few years I knew that directing the annual school play wasn’t going to satisfy my ambitions, and I looked to the wider world. I managed to get a researcher’s contract on
Grange Hill
, the BBC1 school drama series, which happened to be set exactly where I’d been working. I was thrilled silly to get this lucky break, which allowed me to work my way up to script editor in the space of two series. I was able to contribute my experience whilst learning everything about television production from the bottom up. I worked at least sixty hours a week and I loved every minute – I was young enough not to suffer physically. I couldn’t do it now!
Grange Hill
was a first rate show, and many of the creative staff went on to become famous names, even Oscar winners. I think they’d all agree that we learned our craft there, honing our skills on the strop of the relentless weekly schedule… our young audience demanded that we reflect their lives truthfully, and we spared no effort to achieve that.

Around the same time Maggie, whom I was soon to meet and befriend, was growing weary of touring feminist socialist plays and had begun to see the appeal of a mortgage and a home to call her own.

Maggie didn’t see television as a sell-out, as some of her comrades insisted. She saw it as an opportunity to reach a much wider audience. A six-month tour with a successful new play was likely to attract a total audience of six thousand people at the most, whereas a single episode of
EastEnders
could reach up to twenty million.

She approached her career change with typical thoroughness, studying as much television drama as she could whilst working most evenings (few people possessed a video recorder then) and keeping a scrapbook of cuttings from the
Radio Times
in order to learn who were the producers and directors she most admired. She was looking for a guru, someone she could admire unreservedly. She would be happy to take a lowly post at the BBC provided she had access to a brilliant producer who would teach her how to make world-shattering, award-winning contemporary drama. Anything less wasn’t worth bothering with. She was confident that she had the talent to succeed, she was willing to give her all in the cause of art, and knew she could climb to the top of the meritocracy.

She had narrowed her list of potential gurus down to two, but had yet to meet either of them. They were Basil Richardson and Stewart Walker, both of whom had been at the BBC for years, and who had between them produced nearly all Maggie’s favourite dramas: work which had caught the spirit of the age, given voice to the underdog, and pushed back the boundaries of television. She felt they saw the world from her own point of view, despite being men at least twenty years older than her, because she recognised in their work her own sense of outrage against exploitation and oppression.

She wrote to each man asking if they needed a script editor or reader, but received politely negative responses. Undaunted, she continued to assault the drama department until she was eventually offered a three-month contract as a trainee script editor. She would have to read unsolicited scripts every day, but there was the potential to work her way up to producing. It wasn’t exactly the start she had hoped for, but it was a foot in the door, and she intended to make the most of it.

As her letter of employment had given a starting date but not a time, she had thought it wise to arrive at Television Centre at nine o’clock. Finding nothing but locked doors on the fifth floor, she had wandered aimlessly round the circular corridor, reading the names on the doors and the deeply uninteresting health and safety notice boards. At nine thirty she found the Head of Drama’s outer office open and a stern but maternal-looking middle-aged woman sitting behind a pile of the day’s papers, looking through a huge appointments diary.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Fenella Proctor-Ball. I’m the new trainee.”

“Isn’t she in her office? Better come in and sit down then. She’s usually here about ten o’clock. I’m Vera, Peter’s PA. The tea bar will open soon if you want to get a coffee. I’ll keep trying Fenella’s office for you.”

“Thanks very much.”

Maggie sat on a saggy, grubby sofa by a coffee table laden with broadcasting periodicals for most of the morning, listening to the distant battering of pneumatic tools. She tried not to feel annoyed as she sat pretending to read the magazines, but couldn’t relax and began to feel a complete idiot as the morning unrolled. Busy people came in and out of the office, glancing in her direction, so she tried to wear a pleasant, unconcerned expression. She had arrived well-prepared and raring to go, imagining that she would be quickly absorbed into the organisation and given a desk piled high with scripts to read and reports to write.

A grammar-school girl from Huddersfield, Maggie had (not unlike myself) grown up regarding the BBC as a magical Olympian paradise which existed somewhere in the ether that was London. It was peopled by urbane, charming men and glamorous women, all of whom spoke like royalty, knew about everything, and conversed articulately with astounding insight and hilarious wit. It never crossed her mind to aspire to work there herself. Instead she worked hard to get into Bristol University, where she read just enough English literature to scrape an average degree, and fell in love with the theatre, which had satisfied her desire to change the world for ten years.