The Wish List (39 page)

Sadly, the heel of one lands directly on my little toe, which achieves the same effect as the techniques employed by Vlad the Impaler in the fifteenth century, and leaves me hopping about while
wondering whether the toe might regain any feeling before the end of the year.

I chase the other shoe round in circles, attempting to get it on my foot solely with the aid of my big toe. The mesmerised assistant finally steps in, kneels on the floor and bulldozes it onto
my size six foot in a way that makes me think she was taught by an ugly sister.

‘It’s . . . definitely you,’ she smiles hesitantly. The ‘definitely’ isn’t as definite as I’d have liked. ‘Have you thought about . . . a
twelve?’

I glare at her – and she instantly realises her error.

‘Not because I’m saying you necessarily
need
it,’ she adds hastily. ‘I thought it could be an option. Some people like a size bigger, just to leave them . . .
the option.’

The option of
what
– I can’t help but think. Eating loads of cakes?

‘I know it’s a bit of a squeeze, but I’m sure it’ll be fine by the party.’

‘Oh, you’re on a diet?’ she asks, relieved.

‘Not yet, but I will be.’

‘Lovely,’ she smiles, returning with me to the cubicle. ‘So when’s your party?’

‘Saturday.’

She freezes. ‘
Next
Saturday?’

‘Yes,’ I reply defiantly.

She opens her mouth, but manages to say nothing, clearly thinking that the only way my wish will be granted is via a violent bout of dysentery.

On Monday afternoon, I’m called into Perry Jnr’s office, where he and his father are looking very worried indeed.

‘It’s all over, Emma,’ says Perry Jnr, leaping from his desk to gaze dramatically out of the window.

‘I thought we weren’t due to find out until the end of the week?’ I ask.

‘We weren’t,’ he replies, his lip wobbling like a school-canteen blancmange. ‘But I’ve had an email.’

I glance at Perry Snr and suddenly become convinced that this is more than the usual theatricals from his son.

‘Come and sit down, Emma,’ he says solemnly. ‘We’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell the rest of the staff. Nothing’s official yet.’

Perry Jnr sniffs back tears. ‘I emailed Mark McNally – twice – to ask if they were close to making a decision. I know I shouldn’t have done, but not knowing was
torture
! I couldn’t sleep! My Night Nurse was powerless. I found myself up at three a.m. watching the subtitled version of something called
Loose Women
,’ he says, with
wide-eyed air quotes. ‘
This
is the sort of hell I’ve been going through, Emma.’

Perry Snr looks away, clearly believing this move to have been as well-judged as packing an inflatable doll in your honeymoon suitcase.

Perry Jnr continues, ‘He replied to say that the decision-making process was ongoing, but that an announcement would be made on Friday and he’ll write then officially. He added . . .
well, let me read it to you.’

He opens up his email and begins quoting: ‘“Off the record, however, I can say, in strict confidence, that it was felt that your proposals for the next series on the Bingbahs may not
be enough for our requirements.”’

‘Oh no,’ I reply under my breath.

He swallows and looks at his father, then back at me. ‘We’re stuffed, Emma. Comprehensively stuffed.’

Maybe losing the Channel 6 contract was meant to happen.

Unemployment is the one thing that frees me up to go and live in France with Matt. I have a dream to that effect on Monday night – one in which I move to rural France, certain that
I’m doing the right thing.

In the event, the only gainful employment I can find is as a goatherd, a job that involves skipping over hills dressed as Little Bo Peep, complete with gravity-defying pigtails and freckles the
size of Cadbury’s chocolate buttons.

I wake up at the moment I realise I’ve managed to lose every one of my charges – and acquired several hundred mutant frogs in their place.

‘Are you okay?’ Matt whispers into my hair, stroking my arm. ‘You sounded like you were having a funny dream.’

‘Was I ribbiting?’

He laughs gently. ‘I don’t think so.’

I curl into his chest. ‘Sorry if I woke you.’

‘You didn’t. I couldn’t sleep.’

I kiss him on his lips, glad that the dim light hides the glistening of tears in my eyes. ‘You’ve got a lot on your mind, I’ll bet.’

He hesitates. ‘Yes.’

‘What time is it?’ I ask.

He leans over to pick up his mobile, fumbling with it furiously to find the clock. ‘I hate this phone.’

‘When’s yours ready?’

‘Saturday.’

The mere mention of that day sends a wave of misery through me.

‘What time will you have to set off?’

‘Late afternoon is about the latest I’ll get away with, if I’m to catch the ferry.’

I suddenly bitterly regret the fact that I persuaded him it was okay to miss my party. I swallow and look at him, overwhelmed with emotion.

‘I love you, Matt.’

His face crumples with pain as he closes his eyes and shakes his head, clutching my hand. ‘We’ve both got to snap out of this, Emma. It’s no good . . .’ He kisses me on
the head and sniffs. ‘Are you excited about your birthday?’ he asks, changing the subject.

‘I suppose so. Part of me doesn’t feel grown-up enough to be thirty.’

‘You’ve done virtually everything on your list, haven’t you?’

‘I’ve knocked off most of it. Although the skydiving eluded me. And the one-night stand.’

‘I wouldn’t worry too much about those.’

‘And . . . there was that other one. About finding love. Finding the man I’m going to marry.’

‘Oh, yes.’

I rest my head on his shoulder and gaze at the wall, contemplating a hideous but all-too-pertinent question: will it be another thirty years before I feel anything like this about someone
again?

Friday is an odd day. The whole company is aware that this is when the Channel 6 announcement is due, but only the two Perrys and I know the verdict already. It feels like
waiting for the firing squad when everyone else is poised with party poppers and champagne.

Giles – who’s blissfully ignorant of what I know – is tense but optimistic, a state it’s so unbearable to be around that I suggest a trip to the pub at lunchtime.

I rarely do this – daytime drinking and I generally don’t mix. After even just half a pint of lager, I return to my desk unable to focus on the screen and proceed to write scripts
that are comparable to some of Hunter S. Thompson’s work when he was riddled with psychedelic drugs (and are inevitably destroyed the following morning).

We go to a bar round the corner from work, so Giles can buy me a pre-birthday drink. It isn’t
entirely
the merry experience it sounds.

‘God, I hope we get this contract,’ he sighs, glugging Guinness like a man who’s trekked across the Sahara and is so dehydrated he can’t see straight. ‘I
don’t know why – I have a good feeling about this.’

‘Do you?’ I whimper.

‘Yep. And I tell you: I need some good news at the moment.’

‘Oh. Why?’

He shrugs. ‘This situation with Cally has been getting to me lately. And you know me; I never usually look on anything other than the bright side of life.’

I take a sip of my drink to prevent myself from commenting.

‘Maybe this is what being in our thirties is going to be like,’ he proffers. ‘Maybe we just have to get used to this sort of shit.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know . . . relationship woes.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s
you
I feel sorry for,’ he continues generously. ‘I’ve got it bad enough with Cally.
You
on the other hand are going into your thirties and
the one bloke you’ve
ever
felt anything for is emigrating. You must feel like
crap
. A great big bag of crap. A great big bag of crap that’s been thrown into a hand
blender, turned on high, and liquidised into an even crappier bag of crap. You must wish—’

‘—that you’d
shut up
.’

He pauses, shocked – and I suddenly feel the need to get some things off my chest.

‘You know what, Giles? You’re right. Things haven’t turned out perfectly, for you or me. And they might continue not to for the foreseeable.
Maybe
we won’t get
the Channel 6 contract’ – he frowns defensively – ‘but we’ll find new jobs. I’m sure of it. We’re bloody good at what we do and we’re
survivors.’

He straightens his back, liking this description.

‘As for Cally . . . and Matt . . . and love . . .’ I swallow. ‘Things might not have worked out as we’d hoped. But, Giles, you and I need to hold onto this thought: we
had something special. We
felt
something that not everybody feels.’

He closes his mouth.

‘And, okay . . . so Cally isn’t in love with you. Does that mean you wish you’d never met her? If you’d never met her you’d never have felt the pleasure and pain
and sheer intensity that love means.’

He says nothing, just nods.

‘I’d gone through thirty years of my life and never felt anything like I’ve felt with Matt. And yes, I’m going to lose him,’ I say, my voice breaking.
‘Frankly, that thought is killing me. But at least I
had
it. At least I
felt
it. My thirty-year wait has been worth every minute. Even knowing it’s going to
end.’

He goes to speak, but I interrupt him again. ‘I read a quote once, Giles: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” That’s how I’m going
to look at this.’

‘Who said that?’

I squirm. ‘Dr Seuss. It was on someone’s fridge.’

‘It doesn’t have to, though . . . does it?’ Giles points out. ‘You could always . . .’

‘The goatherder option,’ I mutter, staring through the window.

‘What?’ He scrunches up his nose.

‘You mean I should go with him, don’t you? To France?’

He hesitates. ‘How remote is it, exactly?’

‘I’m starting to think that maybe I should find out.’

By the time I’ve walked back to the office I’ve replayed my Little Bo Peep dream so many times, it’s involved six outfit changes – like I’m Lady
Gaga on tour – none of which sets off the pigtails any better. As we walk into reception, Perry bursts out of his office like a man looking for two buckets of water after his feet have caught
fire.

‘
Emma!
Get in here . . .
Quickly!
’

I enter his office and Giles follows, uninvited but unapologetic, as Perry leaps into the seat behind his desk.

‘I need you both to tell me I’m not having some sort of . . .
trip
! I took one too many of my beta blockers on top of three Lemsips this morning and have felt a bit iffy
since then.’

I perch on a chair in front of his desk. ‘Is this about the decision?’

‘Yes! It’s an email.
The
email. From Mark McNally.’

He starts blathering away – that’s the only term – reading bits and pieces of the email, until Giles and I walk round his desk and read it ourselves.

‘Blah, blah,’ Giles begins. ‘“You’ll recall that I mentioned our requirements went above and beyond another series of
Bingbah
.”’

We all look at each other. ‘That wasn’t quite what he said,’ Perry says, scrunching up his nose.

Giles continues: ‘“The team would like you to work up a proposal based on the brief ideas you mentioned about the talking garden implements. In the meantime, I would like to confirm
officially that Channel 6 will be commissioning the next series of
Bingbah
and add how delighted we are to be working with you and your team again.”

‘Wait – it goes on,’ Giles says. ‘“May I add that the decision to promote Emma Reiss to Creative Director on the show was inspired – and I have no doubt will
ensure that the next series of
Bingbah
is the best yet.”’

Perry looks at Giles, then at me. ‘
We did it! We plonking well did it!
’

He starts leaping up down – literally – undertaking one grand jeté after another, before almost pirouetting out of the window.

Giles and I burst into laughter. ‘
You
did it, Perry. You deserve this. You were great at the pitch.’ I turn to Giles. ‘I told you he was great.’

Giles is shaking his head, grinning as he leans in to shake our boss’s hand. ‘Perry, mate, well done.’

Perry shakes his head and pauses, leaping to his computer again. ‘I couldn’t have done it without . . .’ Then he rereads the email, his face contorting with incredulity.
‘
They liked my idea
.’

‘I know.’ I grin, slightly taken aback myself. We’ve spent so long being bombarded with Perry’s crap ideas that when he finally came up with a good one I barely
noticed.

‘Emma, Giles,’ he says triumphantly, ‘the next series is going to be
amazing
. Nothing less. And with Emma as creative director, this company is once again going to be
right where it should be: at the very top.’

I laugh nervously. ‘Oh, I’m sure you’d manage it whether I was creative director or not.’

Perry shakes his head, grinning as he throws his arms round me. ‘We need you, Emma. I need you. Giles needs you. The whole company needs you. I’m going to make you never want to
leave.’

It’s my last night with Matt and neither of us can bear spending the evening surrounded by boxes in his flat, so we simply get a takeaway and eat it in my living room,
which is even more crowded since I put up the Christmas tree.

‘How are the kids feeling about moving?’ I ask.

‘Distinctly unhappy, Josh in particular. But glad I’m going with them. At least I can keep an eye on things.’

‘Oh bugger!’ I gasp, poised with a forkful of Chinese food. ‘I forgot I’m meant to be on a diet.’

Matt scrunches up his nose. ‘Why are you on a diet? You’re perfect.’

‘I’m glad you think so, you poor deluded fool,’ I reply, rolling my eyes. ‘Unfortunately, the size ten dress I’ve got for tomorrow night indicates the
opposite.’