Page 11 of Christmas at the Movies
As Sarah walked Iris out, she caught sight of the poster she’d hung up earlier. She hated to admit it, but her former colleague’s success had really got under her skin. She couldn’t ignore the feeling of resentment and frustration bubbling up inside her – the feeling that she had somehow sold herself short.
Maybe I should dig out my screenplay, she thought. It was in a drawer, somewhere. Then she shook her head. No, who was she kidding. She wasn’t a writer any more. That was a whole other lifetime ago, before she was ‘Holly’s mum’ or ‘Nick’s mum’ or ‘James’s wife’.
When she’d been still just Sarah.
30th June 1999
‘What are you still doing working?’ said a voice. ‘It’s officially the weekend.’
Sarah looked up and saw her best friend, Pari Johal, standing by her desk. The BBC drama department was practically empty, the clock on the wall reading 6.10 p.m. She’d been so engrossed in her work she hadn’t noticed her colleagues departing for the weekend.
‘I’m still not happy with the last scene,’ fretted Sarah, chewing on her red pen. She was editing an episode of a popular television series calledThe Vicarage Mysteries, about a vicar in the Cotswolds who solved crimes. The episode concerned a poisoning at a cake sale. ‘It just doesn’t make sense. How could the killer have known the victim was going to buy the poisoned lemon drizzle cake?’
‘It will keep until Monday.’ Pari tugged the script out of Sarah’s hands. ‘We’re going out. It’s payday and we need to celebrate your promotion.’ She perched on theend of Sarah’s desk and picked up a box of freshly printed business cards. Taking one out, she read it aloud: ‘Sarah Goodwin – Script Editor.’
Sarah loved how her new title sounded. She grinned at her friend. ‘Drinks are on me,’ she said, shoving the script into her handbag.
A head poked out of one of the offices and a slim young man with dark, slicked-back hair approached them. ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, leering at Sarah. ‘If it isn’t my two favourite ladettes.’
Rupert had been in their graduate intake as well and had already been fast-tracked to the commissioning team. It helped that his uncle played golf with the director general. He looked Sarah up and down, taking in her long legs in their sheer black tights and ballet flats. She tugged the hem of her skirt self-consciously.
‘Congratulations on your promotion, Sarah,’ he said, putting his arm around her. ‘I put in a good word for you. I’m heading down to my parents’ place this weekend, if you want to get out of the city for a bit. I’m sure a creative girl like yourself could think of a way to thank me—’
‘Get lost, Rupert,’ said Pari.
‘I wasn’t talking to you.’ He sneered. ‘I know you’ve probably got an arranged marriage lined up. Or, wait a minute, are you a lesbian? You certainly look like one in that outfit.’
Pari was wearing combat trousers, trainers and a cropped T-shirt that showed off her belly-button piercing.
Sarah extricated herself from Rupert’s arm. ‘Um, thanks, but I’ve got plans.’ She couldn’t afford to be rude to him. Not if she wanted to keep her job.
The girls linked arms and headed for the lift. Once the doors had shut, Sarah shuddered. ‘Ugh. What a slimeball.
I worked my butt off for that promotion. How dare he make it sound like I only got it because of him.’
‘He’s a triple threat,’ said Pari. ‘Sexist, racistandhomophobic.’
‘He’ll probably be running this place in a few years,’ said Sarah. Their male superiors adored Rupert, whose main talents seemed to be name-dropping and taking credit for other people’s ideas.
‘Not if we feed him a poisoned lemon drizzle cake,’ quipped Pari.
Sarah looked at their reflection in the lift door. She towered over Pari, who had recently got a pixie cut. Pari worried that it made her look like a ten-year-old boy, but Sarah had assured her that it was the height of fashion. They made an unlikely pair, and not just because of the height difference. Wanting to look professional, Sarah had taken her nose ring out, grown out her purple streak and bought herself a suit. But her fearless friend was never less than her authentic self at work – which was probably why she hadn’t been promoted yet.
She and Pari had become the very best of friends after arriving at the BBC as graduate trainees. Pari, an aspiring stand-up comedian with a law degree from Cambridge – where she’d performed in Footlights – had started as a joke writer for a chat show. Sarah had been an assistant in the drama department. They’d quickly banded together against the posh public schoolboys who’d comprised most of their fellow trainees. Together, they’d endured wandering hands and inappropriate comments. And they’d had to work twice as hard as their male peers to get noticed for their talents.
‘It’s just office banter,’ said Sarah’s mentor, Rosemary, when she’d mentioned Rupert’s relentless overtures. ‘Youdon’t know how lucky you are – women weren’t even allowed to wear trousers back when I started here.’
So Sarah did her best to ignore it. She didn’t bother complaining again, just made sure she was never in the lift alone with him.
‘Where should we head?’ Sarah asked as they left Television Centre.
‘Let’s go to Pharmacy,’ suggested Pari.
It was such a nice evening that they walked from the BBC’s headquarters in White City to Notting Hill Gate. Smokers and drinkers clustered around tables on the pavement outside pubs festooned with hanging baskets, as tourists flocked towards Portobello Road.
‘This area has been so busy ever since that Julia Roberts movie came out,’ complained Pari. She had grown up in nearby Shepherd’s Bush, before that corner of west London had been gentrified.
Sarah, the world’s biggest romcom fan, had adoredNotting Hill.
