I have no intention of appearing on your programme.’ Simon spoke very distinctly and with exaggerated patience, as if addressing a naughty child. ‘I don’t need time to think about it now, just as I didn’t need time when you emailed me the first time, or when you rang me for the fourth. My answer was no then, just as it’s no now, and as it is always going to be. N. O. No. It’s a very simple word. Do you understand what it means?’
Of course she understood. She might not be an academic like the rest of her family, but she had mastered the English language. It was Simon Valentine who didn’t understand how important this was.
‘If I could just expl—’ she began desperately, but Simon, it appeared, had had enough explanations.
‘Please do not try and call me again, or I will get very angry.’
And he cut the connection without waiting for her reply.
Clara slumped, making a face at the phone as she switched it off and tossed it onto the desk in defeat. Now what?
‘Well? What did he say?’
She spun her chair round to see the director of Romance: Fact or Fiction? hovering in the doorway. ‘I’m sorry, Ted,’ she said. ‘He’s just not going to do it.’
‘He’s got to say yes!’ Ted wrung his hands, the way he had been wringing them ever since Clara had first come up against a flat refusal from Simon Valentine. ‘Roland’s already promised Stella that Simon Valentine is on board!’
‘Ted, I know. Why else do you think I’ve been harassing him?’ But Clara was careful not to snap. Ted was one of her closest friends, and she knew how anxious he was about the new flat he and his partner had just bought.
More wringing of hands. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘I don’t know.’ With a sigh, Clara swung back to contemplate her computer screen. Simon Valentine gazed austerely back at her, the inflexible set of his lips taunting her with the impossibility of ever getting him to change his mind.
Puffing out a frustrated breath, Clara stuck her tongue out at him. Maturity was everything.
‘Why can’t Stella front the programme with someone else? Someone more approachable and more likely to take part? The Prime Minister, for instance, or—I know!—the Secretary General of the United Nations. Now there’s someone who’d make a great presenter. I could give the UN a ring now … I’m sure it would be easier than getting Simon Valentine to agree.’
Her mouth turned down despondently. ‘Honestly, Ted, I’ve tried and tried to talk to him, but he just isn’t interested. You’d think he’d at least consider it after doing that programme on micro-financing, but he won’t even let me explain.’
‘Did you tell him Stella was super-keen to work with him?’
‘I tried, but he doesn’t know who she is.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Ted gaped at her. ‘I don’t see how he could have missed her!’
‘I don’t get the impression Simon Valentine watches much daytime television,’ said Clara, ‘and I’m guessing the Financial Times doesn’t devote much space to footballers’ wives and girlfriends. This isn’t a guy who’s going to have a clue about celebrities.’
Ted grimaced. ‘Better not tell Stella he’s never heard of her or the fat really will be in the fire!’
‘I can’t think why she’s so obsessed with Simon Valentine anyway,’ grumbled Clara. ‘He’s so not her type. She should be going out with someone who’s happy to be photographed all loved-up in Hello!, not a repressed economist. It’s mad!’
Ted perched on the edge of her desk. ‘Roland reckons she wants a relationship with Simon to give her gravitas,’ he confided. ‘Apparently she’s desperate to shake off her WAG image and be taken seriously. Or maybe she just fancies him.’
‘I just don’t get it.’ Clara studied Simon’s photo critically. Even allowing for the vague Christopher Plummer resemblance, it was hard to see what all the fuss was about. Talk about buttoned-up!
‘Did you hear that audience figures for the news have rocketed since he’s been doing those analyses of the economic situation?’ she said, mystified. ‘Women all over the country have been switching on specially in the hope of seeing him, and now they’re all tweeting each other about how sexy they think he is.’ She shook her head at the photograph.
‘They’re calling him the Dow-Jones Darling now,’ said Ted, and Clara snorted.
‘More like the Nikkei Nightmare!’
‘You ought to watch the news. You can’t understand Simon Valentine’s appeal until you’ve seen him in action.’
‘I do watch the news,’ Clara protested. She wasn’t entirely superficial! She caught Ted’s eye. ‘Sometimes, anyway,’ she amended.
‘I made a point of watching the other night before I called him the first time so that I could tell him how brilliant he was—not that I ever got the chance to suck up,’ she remembered glumly. ‘I can see that he knows what he’s talking about, but the whole he’s-so-gorgeous thing has passed me by. He didn’t smile once!’
‘He’s talking about the global recession,’ Ted pointed out. ‘Not exactly laugh-a-minute stuff. You can hardly expect him to be cracking jokes. What do you want him to say? Have you heard the one about the rising unemployment figures?’
‘I’m just saying he doesn’t look as if he’d be much fun.’
‘Simon Valentine appeals to women’s intellect,’ said Ted authoritatively, and Clara rolled her eyes.
‘Like you’d know!’
Ted ignored that. ‘He’s obviously fiercely intelligent, but he explains what’s happening in the financial markets so clearly that you can actually understand it, and that makes you feel clever too. He only got invited to comment that first time because someone else wasn’t available but he’s a natural on camera.’
‘I know. It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s not as if he’s incredibly good-looking or anything.’
‘It’s not about that,’ said Ted with all the authority of a film director. ‘It’s about a complete lack of vanity. He clearly doesn’t care what he looks like, and he’s talking about a subject he’s utterly comfortable with, so he’s relaxed, and the camera loves that. I can see exactly why the BBC snapped up that documentary. There’s a passion about the way he talks about economics … it is kind of sexy.’
‘If you say so,’ said Clara, unconvinced.
‘It was Simon who sold the proposal when Roland pitched it to Channel 16. The suits loved the idea of putting him with Stella.’
Clara could just about get that. Stella Holt was a popular daytime television chat show host, famous for her giggle and revealing dresses. Who better to contrast with her than Simon Valentine, the coolly intelligent financial analyst who had somehow managed to make the global recession a sexy subject? The commissioning editors at Channel 16 had lapped it up, just as Roland Richards had said they would.
You didn’t need to be Simon Valentine to know that the economic outlook was bleak for small television production companies like MediaOchre. They were incredibly lucky to have a programme commissioned at all, as Roland kept reminding them. If it wasn’t for that, the whole company would be folding.
As it was, they had the money—an extraordinarily generous budget under the circumstances. They had Ted as an award-winning producer, and a camera and sound crew lined up. They had the locations chosen and deals set up with airlines and hotels. They had Stella Holt to add the celebrity glamour that would pull in the viewers.
All they needed was Simon Valentine.
As Roland also kept reminding Clara.