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Authors: Jane Costello
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early hours of
the morning I have whipped myself into a mild panic.
What if they’ve found out about the merger and want to run a story about it before anyone’s ready?
The irony of my failure to drift off while lying in the world’s most comfortable bed is not lost on me. In fact, it irritates the hell out of me. Which only keeps me awake longer. Worse, I
know full well that neither Roy, the PR agency nor a phone call from a journalist qualifies as matters that should be vexing me so badly. The most that should tax my overworked brain on this
holiday is deciding between a Cosmopolitan or a sangria.
I wake up just after ten, having missed the hotel breakfast. Meredith is still asleep and, for the first time in ten hours, not emitting the sort of snores you’d expect from an 18-stone
truck-driver after a binge-drinking competition. I am briefly contemplating attempting to go back to sleep when my phone rings.
ROY!
I sit bolt upright and maniacally scrabble around my bedside table until I find something phone-shaped. I start jabbing at buttons, desperate to finally make contact, at which point I am
assaulted by a pyrotechnical array of activity: the curtains fly open, then close; the television bursts into a medley of flamenco music; Meredith’s bedside light flashes on and off.
She leaps up in wild-eyed bewilderment, her hands to her bird’s nest head. ‘Answer the bloody phone!’
I glance at my hand and register that I’m holding a remote control that seems so omnipotent, I’m half wondering if I’ve inadvertently launched a missile somewhere in the
mid-Atlantic.
I chuck it onto the quilt before locating my phone under the bed and hitting ‘Answer’.
‘Ms Imogen! Copeland! I mean . . . Imogen!’
Groggily, I wipe my eyes and clear my throat. ‘Oh, Laura.’
‘That reporter’s been on the phone again,’ she says breathlessly. ‘He left a message first thing. No one got back to him yesterday from the PR company.’
My blood runs cold. ‘What about Roy?’
‘He said not. I’m so sorry to be bothering you with this – I feel awful. It’s just that they said that the story’s going in tomorrow, at least they think so, and
they need a quote from us.’
‘Right. And it’s about Teeny Pops?’
‘He didn’t mention them.’
‘What did he say it was about, then?’
‘I don’t know quite how to put this. It’s . . . kind of X-rated.’ I check my ears for residue from the panty liners, but they remain disturbingly clear. ‘What did
you say? X-rated? In what way?’
She swallows. I can hear the mortification in her voice as she speaks. ‘I’ll read to you my verbatim note of what he said.’ She clears her throat. ‘“We’re
running a story that’s been picked up by one of our agencies about a senior Peebles executive being thrown off a flight from Stuttgart after getting frisky in first class with the woman next
to him, another executive.”’
‘“Getting frisky”? Tell me they mean he was doing aerobics.’
‘“Fellow passengers reported witnessing the executives drink copious amounts of champagne in the first-class lounge two hours before the flight. Then, on the plane, laugh and flirt
hysterically before reclining their seats to the lie-flat position and disappearing under their complimentary blankets.”’
‘How do you “flirt hysterically”?’
‘“A series of loud and inappropriate noises was heard to come from their direction and, when questioned by an air hostess, it was discovered that the female executive had at some
point during the course of events become topless.”’
‘This has got to be a joke.’
‘“They were both asked to refrain, but seemed to consider the whole thing to be extremely funny, until the plane landed and they were arrested and charged with being drunk and
disorderly and indecent exposure offences.” Then the reporter asked if he could have a comment. So, without putting too fine a point on it . . . can
the morning I have whipped myself into a mild panic.
What if they’ve found out about the merger and want to run a story about it before anyone’s ready?
The irony of my failure to drift off while lying in the world’s most comfortable bed is not lost on me. In fact, it irritates the hell out of me. Which only keeps me awake longer. Worse, I
know full well that neither Roy, the PR agency nor a phone call from a journalist qualifies as matters that should be vexing me so badly. The most that should tax my overworked brain on this
holiday is deciding between a Cosmopolitan or a sangria.
I wake up just after ten, having missed the hotel breakfast. Meredith is still asleep and, for the first time in ten hours, not emitting the sort of snores you’d expect from an 18-stone
truck-driver after a binge-drinking competition. I am briefly contemplating attempting to go back to sleep when my phone rings.
ROY!
I sit bolt upright and maniacally scrabble around my bedside table until I find something phone-shaped. I start jabbing at buttons, desperate to finally make contact, at which point I am
assaulted by a pyrotechnical array of activity: the curtains fly open, then close; the television bursts into a medley of flamenco music; Meredith’s bedside light flashes on and off.
She leaps up in wild-eyed bewilderment, her hands to her bird’s nest head. ‘Answer the bloody phone!’
I glance at my hand and register that I’m holding a remote control that seems so omnipotent, I’m half wondering if I’ve inadvertently launched a missile somewhere in the
mid-Atlantic.
I chuck it onto the quilt before locating my phone under the bed and hitting ‘Answer’.
‘Ms Imogen! Copeland! I mean . . . Imogen!’
Groggily, I wipe my eyes and clear my throat. ‘Oh, Laura.’
‘That reporter’s been on the phone again,’ she says breathlessly. ‘He left a message first thing. No one got back to him yesterday from the PR company.’
My blood runs cold. ‘What about Roy?’
‘He said not. I’m so sorry to be bothering you with this – I feel awful. It’s just that they said that the story’s going in tomorrow, at least they think so, and
they need a quote from us.’
‘Right. And it’s about Teeny Pops?’
‘He didn’t mention them.’
‘What did he say it was about, then?’
‘I don’t know quite how to put this. It’s . . . kind of X-rated.’ I check my ears for residue from the panty liners, but they remain disturbingly clear. ‘What did
you say? X-rated? In what way?’
She swallows. I can hear the mortification in her voice as she speaks. ‘I’ll read to you my verbatim note of what he said.’ She clears her throat. ‘“We’re
running a story that’s been picked up by one of our agencies about a senior Peebles executive being thrown off a flight from Stuttgart after getting frisky in first class with the woman next
to him, another executive.”’
‘“Getting frisky”? Tell me they mean he was doing aerobics.’
‘“Fellow passengers reported witnessing the executives drink copious amounts of champagne in the first-class lounge two hours before the flight. Then, on the plane, laugh and flirt
hysterically before reclining their seats to the lie-flat position and disappearing under their complimentary blankets.”’
‘How do you “flirt hysterically”?’
‘“A series of loud and inappropriate noises was heard to come from their direction and, when questioned by an air hostess, it was discovered that the female executive had at some
point during the course of events become topless.”’
‘This has got to be a joke.’
‘“They were both asked to refrain, but seemed to consider the whole thing to be extremely funny, until the plane landed and they were arrested and charged with being drunk and
disorderly and indecent exposure offences.” Then the reporter asked if he could have a comment. So, without putting too fine a point on it . . . can
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