God’s sake, will you let me past? There’s no time for this; I have to get to the studio, they’re all waiting in there…’
‘I’m afraid it’s a no,’ she insists a bit more firmly this time. ‘I’m sorry but my instructions are very clear; I’m not to let you in, under any circumstances. Now will you please just go? Liz is already in her office waiting for you.’ As if to ram the point home, she even stands legs astride, blocking the studio door. Like a bouncer in a nightclub.
Third sign that something’s amiss: I’m completely winded and now my head’s reeling. As I stagger down the deserted corridor to Liz’s office I can see a TV monitor on in the background, with the show just coming out from the ad break. Emma’s looking a bit frazzled, which is most unusual for her, and she announces in a wobbly voice that there’s been a slight technical hitch and that I won’t be coming back into studio after all.
A slight technical hitch? But there’s no technical hitch! ‘No! No, I’m here, just outside the door, ready to finish the gig! Why the fuck won’t they let me in?!’ I scream at the TV monitor with sheer frustration, can’t help myself. I’d kick the shagging thing only it’s hanging about three feet from the ceiling. Right now, I’m starting to feel like I’m stuck in a horror movie, where I’m screeching away and no one can hear. What the hell is happening? Why won’t they let me finish the gig?
I can hear Emma telling the audience that I did actually manage to beat the professional driver’s time and the good news is that everyone in the audience who bet on me to win is going home tonight with a voucher for two people to the Multiplex cinema in Dundrum, valid for three whole months of free movies. Her voice is reverberating loud and clear the whole way down the empty corridor and it’s beyond weird to be hearing it from outside of the studio. Then I hear the audience cheering and stomping their feet, deafening and thunderous, all while I continue to stumble on, head pounding, sweat sticking to me, still in my racing gear with a helmet tucked under my arm.
This is turning into a nightmare. The door to Liz’s office is open and she’s already standing there, waiting for me, hands on hips, like in a western. Unheard of. Normally, on the rare occasions when you’re summoned to this office, you’re left outside making small talk with her assistant for at least a good twenty minutes.
So in I reel, nauseous with tension, almost ready to pass out. Liz is tiny, smart, sassy and I’d ordinarily describe her as the coolest, calmest woman I know. But right now, the look on her face would stop a clock.
‘Close the door and sit down,’ she all but barks at me.
‘Liz, I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is…’ Bloody hell, I’m actually stammering. Heart pounding, mouth dry as a bone. Doing 140 miles an hour around a race track was a breeze compared to this. My heart is twisting with the worry and I swear to God, I’ve lost the feeling in my legs.
Mercifully, there’s never a preamble with Liz. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you or didn’t you just accept the use of a free sports car? Live on air? In front of six hundred and fifty thousand viewers?’
‘Well…yes, but…’
‘You are presumably aware that it’s an unwritten rule and an absolute no-no for a presenter to accept a freebie of any kind whatsoever?’
‘Emm…as a matter of fact, no, I wasn’t. But…’
‘I’m afraid I can’t accept your ignorance of the basics as any kind of excuse, Jessie,’ she barks, snapping open a bottle of water and knocking back a gulp. ‘After all your years of working here, you’re honestly telling me you didn’t realise you can’t just shamelessly use your profile to go around accepting free commercial handouts? Have you the slightest idea how it looks? How compromising it is for you and for the show? And, by extension, for me?’
‘But Liz, that guy just sprang it on me!’ I almost yell at her, my chest about to burst with anxiety. ‘I found myself saying yes before I barely knew what I was doing…’
‘In the last fifteen minutes, the phone lines have not stopped hopping, with a lot of people understandably furious about a national TV personality accepting such an extravagant gift while the rest of the country is in the throes of recession. The press department is in meltdown and the director general has just been on to read me the riot act about your stupid, thoughtless, selfish behaviour.’
‘But I didn’t know!’
Now, there’s a horrible pause and suddenly I feel like I’m locked into a death dance.
‘I’ve championed this show,’ Liz eventually says, more sorrowfully now which is actually far, far worse than if she yelled at me. ‘And God knows, I’ve championed you. Because no matter what we throw at you, you do it and come up trumps. You’re a looker, you’re virtually unembarrassable which is a huge asset in this game and you’re completely at ease in front of a camera. Most of all though, you’ve got something that can’t be bought or sold; the likeability factor. In spite of crap reviews saying that this programme has all the tension of an ancient piece of knicker elastic. In spite of my bosses saying Jessie Would was a carnival of frivolities that had had its day. That’s the exact phrase they used, you know. I fought like hell for this show and this is how you repay me.’
‘But…but…Come on, Liz, surely to God we can fix this! Can’t I just put out a press release saying it was a horrible, stupid mistake and that I’m really mortified and then…just give them their car back?’ I’m feeling a tiny bud of hope now. Because there’s no problem that’s unfixable, is there? And it’s not like I’ve ever messed up before. Never. Not once.
‘Jessie, you don’t realise. They’re lusting for blood like barbarians out there. I can’t be seen not to take immediate and decisive action over this.’
‘Come on, Liz…Everyone’s allowed to slip up once, aren’t they?’
‘Not on live TV they’re not.’
And like that, hope is guillotined. Now it’s like despair is circulating instead of air.
‘But I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong! Please Liz, please. Let’s just consider my wrists slapped…’ I’m actually begging her now, my voice faint and croaky with tension.
‘I’m afraid it’s not that simple.’
‘So I took a risk on this one and it blew up in my face. But you’re always encouraging me to take risks. I mean, that’s what makes me good!’
‘No, Jessie. That’s what makes you fired.’
This feels like a bereavement. And believe me, if there’s one thing I know all about, it’s bereavement. In fact, if it wasn’t for Sam, I don’t know what I’d do. It took me ten years to build up my career and ten minutes to bring the whole thing crashing down in flames.
It’s sometime on Sunday afternoon, couldn’t tell you when exactly, and I’m still in bed. Can’t move. Don’t want to either. At least here, in the safety of my own home, I’m not a national laughing stock. I’m doing my best to block out most of last night, but horrible fragments keep coming back to me in painful, disconnected shards. Word spread like a raging forest fire and before I barely had time to digest the news myself everyone, absolutely everyone, seemed to know. But then that’s typical of Channel Six; there’s times when it’s more like a colander than a TV station.
I remember bumping into a few of the audience streaming out after the broadcast and a middle-aged couple being very kind and concerned and saying they were relieved to see me alive and well. They thought something terrible must have happened to me and that’s why I never came back to finish the end of the show. I wish. Right now I’d kill to be lying on a hospital trolley with a few cracked