Acquired Tastes (5 page)

Philip glanced at his watch. Vanessa was nearly twenty minutes late for the meeting. He sighed. He suddenly felt very old.

A pair of worried brown eyes met his and he manfully summoned a weak smile. Rosie Brandreth smiled encouragingly back, but her round, good-natured face betrayed her concern.

For almost twenty years, since joining the BBC as a young trainee, Rosie had been Philip's production assistant and right hand. When he left the BBC to set up Right Pryce Productions, Rosie went with him, leaving behind the security of the only job she had ever known.

Philip had felt a little guilty at the time. He knew that he could never offer her the job security with guaranteed pension that she had at the BBC. However, Rosie had insisted that she would go wherever he went, saying that she could never work for anyone else. His friends all joked that she was in love with him, a charge he hotly denied, but she did have this disconcerting way of gazing at him when she thought nobody was looking. Rosie was in her late thirties, but, to his knowledge, had never had a regular boyfriend and still lived at home with her mother and a collection of cats, whose photographs covered her desk.

He had been scrupulous in never giving her the least cause to imagine that he was interested in her, but even so, he would be the first to admit that in some ways they were like an old married couple. After twenty years there was little Rosie did not know about him - from his collar size to how many crowns he had on his teeth. Sometimes her dogged devotion was embarrassing, but right now, he needed all the sympathy he could get, and he had a feeling that he would not get much from the other members of his present production team.

With the contracts for two documentary series already signed, he had recruited his first team from people he knew at the BBC, and for the first two years of its life, Right Pryce Productions had been a tightly-knit band of like-minded people. They worked together and played together like one big happy family and it had shown in the profits. Philip had sold his comfortable Victorian semi in Kentish Town and bought a large Regency terraced house in one of the better squares in Islington. But the profits had trailed off almost as suddenly as they had started, and Philip had discovered that family loyalties could be as fickle as any other when his team started to drift away to other jobs. Angry at what he considered to be his betrayal by so-called friends, Philip decided to create a dynamic new production team of young, enthusiastic people with fresh ideas, people who would look up to him and to whom he could play a kind of
éminence grise.
Unfortunately, things had not turned out quite as he planned.

As he looked across at Hugo Gordon, his Creative Director, Philip unconsciously smoothed his thinning hair. The mid-afternoon sun streaming through the high arched windows, which were the office's only redeeming architectural feature, provided a perfect back-light for Hugo's slender, ethereal form, suffusing his feathery blond hair with a pale, golden halo. The picture would have been almost angelic had it not been for the dissolute expression which marred Hugo's choirboy features.

Philip felt a sharp pang. He had hoped for so much from Hugo. Hugo reminded him of himself at twenty-five, so he had decided to take a chance on him even though the sum total of his experience was the directing of three pop videos which, while described as iconoclastic by one magazine, had done little to advance the musical careers of the bands involved. Philip hoped that Hugo might see him as a mentor - someone older and wiser who would help mould and guide his talent - but Hugo had shown little sign of wanting either moulding or guiding. Philip had rarely seen him since he joined the company six months ago, his main communication with him was via mobile phone. When questioned, Hugo was always vague as to his whereabouts, only that he was in conference with other 'creatives'. He rarely came into the office, and his body language seemed eloquently to suggest he resented attending the meeting today. Philip made a mental note to have a little chat with him. Perhaps a firmer hand was called for.

A firm hand was most certainly called for with his new researcher, Vijay Seth, who was slumped dejectedly in a chair next to Hugo. Behind his round granny glasses, Vijay's dark eyes stared sightlessly at some far away place; a few wisps of dark hair, straying from his ponytail, drifted unheeded across his face.

Philip liked to believe he paid more than lip service when it came to supporting equal rights for minorities, but Vijay seemed to lack the industriousness and application for which his race was famed - most of the time he appeared to live in a world of his own. Philip had offered him a job where many wouldn't, yet Vijay walked around looking as though the world was about to come to an end.

Philip checked his watch again and then carefully realigned his blotter and letter tray so that they were at right angles to each other. Vanessa had been his biggest mistake. Once again his liberal principles had betrayed him. He had thought it would be good to have a woman as his second-in-command, and Vanessa had the added bonus of being glamorous, a quality that mattered in an industry where image was so important. She also seemed to know everyone from managing directors to commissioning editors, and while Philip prided himself on his contacts, they were predominantly old BBC hands so it was important to have someone who knew her way around commercial television. It was an industry that was changing more rapidly than Philip liked, and he needed someone whose telephone calls were returned and lunch invitations were taken up. But while Vanessa had certainly lunched a lot, at both great length and expense to his company, not one commission had yet been clinched. However, as he had told her in no uncertain terms last week - lunchtime was over.

Almost on cue, the door to Philip's office swung wide and Vanessa stood poised on the threshold.

'Philip,
darling.
I really am most terribly sorry to be late, but I'm sure you will forgive me when I explain why. I've had
such
a busy morning tying up the last few loose ends on the proposal I have been working on, but please, don't let me hold up the meeting anymore.'

Vanessa swept into the room, her smile beacon-like before her. To Philip's irritation she pulled up a chair so that she was seated on his immediate right, facing the others. She placed her bag on his desk and crossed her legs.

'Now, I'm all ears. What was it you were talking about, Philip darling?'

The meeting was in her hands.

Philip placed his hands palm down on his desk as though to anchor himself. He took a deep breath.

'As you all know, the purpose of this meeting is to discuss programme ideas. By the end of this afternoon, I intend to have targeted at least one idea for development into a fully fledged pilot.'

He looked around. 'I hope I need hardly say that all our futures may depend on it.'

But even as he spoke, he knew it wasn't true. They were all young, their futures were ahead of them, and they had plenty of time to start again, but time was running out for him. He had mortgaged everything, including his pension, to set up Right Pryce Productions. If it went down, so did he and, according to the extremely uncomfortable meeting he'd had that morning with the old Cambridge friend turned financier who had persuaded some City investors to back him, that moment was nigh.

In an undignified manner, that even now made his palms go sweaty at the memory of it, Philip had pleaded for mercy, mortgaging the only thing he had left to mortgage - his pride. When he had finished begging, he had been told to wait outside the door like some errant schoolboy, before being summoned back in to be told in most un-Cambridgelike terms that he had three months to deliver the goods or else.

Nearly thirty years of being a member of what he fondly considered the private gentlemen's club of the BBC, where he was only expected to produce two arts documentaries and an occasional intellectual late-night chat show a year, had not prepared him for the world outside. Not a day passed when he didn’t wish that he had kept to his original plan and taken early retirement from the BBC. It had all been worked out: he would buy a suitably rustic villa in the South of France, or maybe Tuscany, where he would spend some leisurely years penning the novel which would earn him a paragraph or two in the
Times Literary Supplement.
Now he would be lucky if he could afford a room in a B&B in Brighton.

Philip blew his nose loudly and then carefully folded his handkerchief before placing it in his pocket. He needed time to get this sudden, overwhelming sense of his failure under control before he made a fool of himself. As it was it threatened to make his voice shake. He cleared his throat and then began again.

'Since no written programme proposals have been submitted to me as requested, I suppose I must accept oral submissions. As Head of Development, would you like to take the floor, Vanessa?'

'I think we should hear other people's ideas first, don't you, Philip? I really wouldn't like to upstage anyone, ' Vanessa looked around the room, 'that is, if anyone else has anything to offer.' She sat back.

Vijay un-hunched his thin shoulders and glumly dug around in his pockets. He didn't know why he was bothering. He was sure someone had put a curse on him,
nothing
he did seemed right.

His mother had warned him that no good would come of his chosen career as a journalist. According to her, no one from a good family would become a journalist in India - where was the respect in it? He tried to point out that he had been born in England and was therefore more English than Indian, and that in England journalism was an honourable profession, it was the Fourth Estate. But she had merely tinkled her many gold bangles at him as she wagged her finger, and told him yet again to mark her words, no good would come of it.

And so far she had been right. He had worked for three publications, all of which had closed down. The first had been a new magazine aimed to bring together the views of anti-racist organisations from all over Europe, however editorial disagreements had descended into a bitter feud with charges of racism on all sides. Not even one issue had reached the newsstands and the magazine had folded owing money to all concerned.

His second job had been on a men's style magazine. That had lasted for nearly eight months, but an injudicious article about the sexual habits of a politician had resulted in a libel trial which had bankrupted the magazine. From there Vijay had moved to a weekly alternative music paper, but within two weeks of him joining, that, too, had closed down.

He had decided to make a clean break of it and try his hand as a television researcher, but it seemed the curse had followed him. Within the first week of joining Right Pryce Productions, Heather invited him to share a sandwich and a cappuccino in Soho Square, where she had confided that the company was having financial problems, and this morning she pulled him aside and whispered that Philip had returned ashen-faced from a meeting with his accountants, which could only mean one thing.

Vijay had always dismissed curses as superstitious nonsense of the kind that held countries like India back from fulfilling their true political and economic potential, but he was beginning to change his mind.

He at last found the crumpled piece of paper on which he had written his programme idea and attempted to smooth it out on his thigh.

'Ah, Vijay.' Vanessa's smile glittered. 'Is that your little way of signalling you have something to say?'

Vijay pushed his round granny glasses over the bridge of his nose. His mother said he should get contact lenses as they would make him more attractive to nice Indian girls, but he felt his glasses gave him added intellectual weight.

'I'd like to make a few comments about the criteria you gave us.' His words were pointedly addressed to Philip.

'Ah, a speech.' Vanessa's voice was as soft and sweet as candyfloss - a dangerous sign.

Hugo sensed entertainment and sat up. Vijay was so easy to bait.

Vijay ignored Vanessa and cleared his throat.

'You see, I feel that those of us who have access to the means of mass communication have a moral responsibility to the audiences we serve, and therefore all programming, not just that which is objectively political, should be subject to analysis.'

'And your point is?' Philip asked wearily.

'Well, your criteria for any programme idea was that it should be cheap and that it should have broad-based audience appeal, codewords, if I am not mistaken, for abandoning the principles of public service broadcasting in the interests of profit.' Vijay was warming to his thesis.

Philip held up a hand as Vijay opened his mouth to continue. 'Vijay, I must stop you there. I think we, in this room, are all aware of the dangers of which you speak, but I hardly think that by producing a hopefully commercially successful series, we will precipitate the downfall of Rome.'

Something suspiciously like a snort escaped from Hugo.

Vijay hunched his narrow shoulders. 'Look, what you don't seem to understand is that if we produce opium for the masses, we become a tool of the media barons. Is that what you want - tabloid television? What I'm talking about is television that will make the audience think. The working class may be oppressed, but it does have a mind of its own.'

'I hadn't noticed,' murmured Hugo.

Vijay gave him a malevolent look.

'Perhaps we could move on,' Philip intervened. 'This conversation has ceased to be constructive. From now on, could we all please confine our remarks to the issue at hand.'

Vijay flushed angrily, stung by Hugo's baiting. 'But I do have a proposal,' he insisted.

'Then we'd all like to hear it, Vijay. Your contributions to our meetings are always valued, even if they are sometimes a little unorthodox,' Philip said dryly.

'I think we should do a quiz show,' Vijay announced. 'This satisfies both your criteria of cheapness and popularity but it has the merit of being educational. I thought we could go out to the factories and workplaces of the nation and pit assembly-line workers against white-collar office workers, that sort of thing. You could have a good rock band on the show and a comedian too, as long as they were non-sexist and non-racist.'