The Cinderella Reflex Read online

  Tess and Andrea exchanged sceptical looks. New voices my arse. It was obvious Helene had just had some big freebie offered to her in return for a big plug on Atlantic 1 FM. But Helene was a disaster on-air.

  Tess had seen cases where people walked into the studio appearing to be really coy and shy, and then, as soon as the red light came on, they suddenly became charged with adrenaline and performed to perfection. Helene was the opposite of those people.

  On the few occasions she insisted on doing a broadcast her face had glowed as red as the on-air light, with a nervous rash spreading all over her face and neck. She’d stumbled through her scripts, her normal acerbic fluency deserting her as she ummed and ahhed and rambled down all sorts of blind alleys without ever really getting her point across. Nobody ever told her this, of course. Everyone simply tried to discourage her from ideas that would involve her going on-air.

  But today, she was fired up with enthusiasm and would not be deterred. She was rummaging through the enormous pile of papers she had dumped on the table, her voice getting higher as she spoke.

  “Let me explain. The Spa Fantastic is keen to get more publicity and they’ve offered us a weekend of Ten Years Younger treatments! Now where did I leave their blurb? Ah yes, here it is!” Helene separated a pink sheet of paper from the pile in front of her and began to read:

  “‘The Spa Fantastic Experience can make you feel ten years younger. In this oasis of me time you can take a break from the stress of day-to-day living. Take the time to be pampered with our fully trained therapists. Have a four-handed hot stone massage ...’ Four hands? What the hell does that mean?” Helene glanced on down the page, “Blah blah blah ... well, we get the idea anyway.” She tossed the leaflet to one side and looked around the room for reaction.

  “How is it going to work on radio?” Tess ventured. “I mean, nobody will be able to see the result of the makeover.” No one answered, so Tess tossed out an idea.

  “Maybe we could run a competition? We could ask the listeners to email us as to why they feel they need to look ten years younger in the first place? We could get a very interesting debate going about why our society is so obsessed with youth. It would be great material for us and the contestants would feel rewarded for listening to This Morning.”

  “Excuse me?” Ollie sat up straighter in his seat. “Since when did listeners need a reward to listen to me?” he asked icily.

  “I meant a bonus,” Tess amended hastily.

  “I’m sure you did!” Ollie turned to Helene. “I think it would be best if I did the Ten Years Younger slot myself, Helene.”

  “And how would that work?” Helene raised an eyebrow. “You interviewing yourself about your experience at the spa? I think not, Ollie.”

  “It’s me the listeners are interested in!” Ollie persisted. “Maybe we could go together, Helene?”

  Helene slammed the Spa Fantastic Experience brochure down on the table with considerable force. “I am going to do it, Ollie. By myself. That’s the end of the discussion. Tess! Can you get on the case and set it all up for me? The weekend at the Spa Fantastic will be just the start. For instance, Botox. Does anyone know if it hurts much?” Helene looked directly at Ollie’s suspiciously smooth forehead. Ollie narrowed his eyes, but didn’t respond.

  Helene shrugged. “Tess, find out if Botox is painful!”

  Andrea doodled ‘Get Sara to do it,’ on her notepad and leaned it towards so Tess could read it. Tess hid a smile. Sara, who still hadn’t shown up, would have the beauty industry thinking their product name was being heard by hundreds of thousands of listeners instead of simply hundreds, purely by virtue of her snooty attitude. At that moment, the door opened and Sara burst in. Helene went through the same routine she had with Andrea, looking at the wall clock with a pained expression. But Sara just put on her most stuck-up impression.

  “Bloody traffic. I simply couldn’t get parking. You’d want to be driving, like, a Smart car to get parking in this town. And Daddy wouldn’t put up with that at all – he says it would make him the laughing stock of the golf club if he bought me one of those!” Sara slipped into one of the seats and looked expectantly around the room. Her pale blonde hair fell in an expensive cut around her exquisite, heart-shaped face, and her outfit, Tess calculated, probably cost the equivalent of six months’ wages.

  Helene muttered something under her breath, but she seemed almost embarrassed to be chastising Sara. Yet she’d practically bitten the head off Andrea earlier. Tess sighed. No matter what treatments they drummed up for Helene, none of them were going to make her ten times nicer. When was someone going to come up with a serum for that, she wondered.

  Helene turned to Sara. “We’re thinking of doing an item on Ten Years Younger. Do you have any ideas about that, Sara?”

  “Me?” A bewildered look passed over Sara’s beautiful face. “Why would I want to know anything about looking ten years younger? I mean, if I looked ten years younger, I’d only look about twelve. I already have trouble getting served drink unless I have ID with me. Of course,” she looked around the room thoughtfully, “it’s probably a good idea for the rest of you. Would you like me to do some research on it, Helene?” she asked kindly.

  “You can give Tess a hand,” Helene muttered.

  “Now. Can we have your ideas for the week please, Andrea?”

  Andrea looked panicked. “I don’t have anything nailed down at the moment. But,” she added hurriedly as Helene’s features darkened, “I do have a few ideas floating around in the ether!”

  “The ether?” Ollie cut in. “That’s the place to have them all right!”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic, Ollie!” Helene admonished him. “We must all be positive together now! We are losing listeners but we can turn it around! Can’t we, people?” she looked around the faces at the table. Nobody said a word.

  Then Ollie spoke. Or rather shouted.

  “HOW can we turn it around? HOW?” His face was flushed and his brown eyes were bulging. “Will we get more listeners with Andrea’s ideas – out in the ether? Or with Tess’s stories about pooper scoopers? As for your idea, Helene! How to look Ten Years Younger! That is just a ruse to get a freeloading weekend and I am so stressed right now I could do with one of those myself. But how is it going to improve my figures?”

  “Your figures are not my only problem, Ollie,” Helene said coolly.

  “You can say that again, lady!” Ollie jumped to his feet. “And trying to look ten years younger won’t help your problems either! Try ten decades. Ten decades of the Rosary that is!” And with that Ollie stormed out, nearly taking the door off its hinges as he slammed it behind him.

  Inside the room there was complete silence. All Tess could hear was the ticking of the wall clock. She focussed hard on her notebook, pretending to be reading over her notes.

  Finally Helene broke the silence. “So!” she beamed around the room. “That was a frank exchange of ideas! Lots of creative tension – that’s good! That’s what we need to turn this station around, folks. And now I have another meeting to attend to. You can all go now.”

  As Tess stood up to leave she could hear Helene clicking and unclicking the top of her biro compulsively – the only outward sign that Ollie’s tantrum had rattled her in any way whatsoever.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Helene strode out of the office and into the street, stumbling slightly as her stiletto caught in a ridge on the pavement. She blinked in the sunshine, not quite sure where to go. After Ollie Andrews had belittled her in front of her staff like that, she’d had to invent a bogus meeting just to get out of the office. Damn Ollie, she seethed. She had brought him into Atlantic 1 FM and now she found herself in the peculiar position of having to defend someone she had come to despise.

  It had all been so different when she’d poached him from a rival local radio station, luring him over with the promise of a glittering career. But that was five years ago, when she, like everyone else, had thought the station was
going national. Now it was becoming clearer that that wasn’t going to happen and Ollie was holding her responsible. Helene had told him to his face that he was as much to blame himself. More, in fact. He was meant to be the shock jock, courting controversy and building publicity and listeners in equal measures. Well, he was shocking all right, she thought darkly. Shockingly awful.

  He annoyed Helene on an almost daily basis, alienated the rest of the staff and – this bit was the most important – aggravated the hell out of the listeners. Ollie insisted on mixing heavy current affairs with a mad mix of music – from country to middle of the road, light opera, and on the days when he was feeling particularly bad-tempered, a blast of heavy metal could be heard thumping out of the studio.

  This Morning was the flagship programme for Atlantic 1 FM and as each set of figures showed that his show was collapsing Ollie had become more needy, more panicky and perversely, more arrogant. He had taken to phoning Helene at all hours of the day and night with demands and complaints and whinges.

  A gust of wind whipped Helene’s long dark hair across her face and she started to walk towards the coast road. Killty was a seaside town on the commuter belt for Dublin and was populated with young couples starting their families and wealthy retirees who frequented the health food stores and alternative treatment centres that were scattered along the main street. The town was big enough to be anonymous if that’s what you really wanted – and Helene did – but she liked how the people still seemed to be interested in each other and she often found herself eavesdropping on the friendly banter in the shops and cafes.

  She reached the seashore and stood for a few minutes watching the waves breaking in white frothy patterns on the sand. It was early spring and people were emerging from their winter hibernation; an elderly couple sat on a bench on a patch of grass above the sand, their cocker spaniel wheeling around in wide circles on the strand in front of them.

  A couple of joggers passed her by, earphones in their ears and their eyes firmly ahead.

  Helene turned and started striding in the same direction, walking as fast as her heels would allow her, trying to work off her temper. According to the tiny tourist office the town offered stunning walks along the sea cliffs, and abundant wildlife, but Helene had never ventured into those straggling bits of it. Maybe it was time to find out what Killty had to offer apart from work and stress. Twenty minutes later she had run out of road. She was standing on the edge of the town, on a deserted, dilapidated street with just one, slightly grubby looking cafe. Helene crossed the road to reach it with a sense of relief. A strong coffee would psyche her up for going back to the office.

  She pushed open the blue door of the cafe gingerly, the hinges groaning as it creaked opened. Helene stood for a few seconds while her brain made the transition from the sunny afternoon outside to the dim interior of the cafe. There was a strong smell of fresh paint and when her sight finally adjusted, Helene realised the cafe was in the process of being renovated. Damn. She’d been looking forward to a breather.

  She spotted a sandy haired man standing at the counter, his shoulders hunched over a sheaf of papers he was studying. He looked up absent-mindedly, rubbing his hand on the blue and white check tea cloth tucked into his trouser waistband.

  “Hi, can I help you?” He was mid-thirties, Helene guessed, clean-cut and fit looking. He was dressed casually in cotton black trousers and a blue striped shirt.

  “Are you open?” she asked. He raised an eyebrow, looking around the ramshackle room. A paint-splattered wooden ladder leaned against one wall; tall stacks of books were piled up beside it.

  “Er ... do we look open?” His smile softened the question.

  “I just wanted a coffee.” Helene gestured at the bubbling coffee machine beside him.

  “Oh, that ...” his eyes flickered to the machine. “I was just about to have one myself, so I suppose I can let you have one too. You can be my guinea pig if you like.”

  “Fine,” Helene agreed. As he busied himself with the machine, Helene sank into an ancient armchair by the window. “Cappuccino,” she specified to the owner. She looked around the room critically. It really was run-down – even the cacti on the scuffed yellow-pine table in front of her looked ancient.

  He poured out the coffee and ambled down to her. “You’re my first customer, so it’s on the house – I’m Matt, by the way.” He beamed as he placed the mug on her table. Helene looked at him suspiciously. What did he have to be so cheerful about, trying to run this dump?

  “Thanks.” She turned away, staring out the window. All the buildings seemed to be either empty or in the process of being renovated and she wondered absently where Matt thought he was going to get his customers from. He coughed slightly.

  “So?” he asked expectantly. “You’re my guinea pig, remember? What do think of the coffee?”

  “Oh!” Helene glanced down at the mug of cappuccino, and noticed how there was a heart-shape of chocolate traced onto the white froth. “That’s a nice touch,” she acknowledged. She sipped the coffee. “It’s good. So when are you opening?” Matt scratched his head, looked around helplessly.

  “It was supposed to be last week, but it’s all got a bit overwhelming to be honest. It’s a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.” He placed his own mug of coffee on the table and sat down opposite her. Helene looked at him with alarm. She hoped he wasn’t going to start chatting. She needed to think about how to handle Ollie Andrews and ... oh, a million and one other things. She looked at him pointedly.

  “I’ve given you free coffee because chatting to a potential customer is a perfect guilt-free break for me,” he told her.

  “Sorry, but I’m a bit busy.” Helene pulled a notebook and pen out of her bag. She needed a break herself – and preferably in a five-star hotel, not in this back street, run-down cafe. But she had to work out her strategy for how to revive Atlantic 1 FM’s dwindling audience. She stared into the froth of the cappuccino, one part of her brain automatically calculating its calorie content, the rest of it wrestling with what to do about Ollie.

  Richard, her boss, was breathing down her neck about him day and night lately. He seemed to have decided that the entire future of the station depended on the success, or otherwise, of the This Morning show and that it was up to Helene to make it work. That’s why he had promoted her to executive producer he’d reminded her a few days ago – on the strength of her self-professed talent for good ideas. He had said it half-jokingly, but Helene didn’t miss the ill-concealed barb. She frowned at the memory. She had claimed to be a good ideas person, not a bloody miracle-worker. How could anyone have predicted that Ollie Andrews would turn out to be so volatile? He had been super charming when they’d first met – but that was probably because she had just agreed to double his salary, Helene acknowledged bleakly.

  “Maybe I can help?”

  She snapped out of her reverie and looked up to see Matt was still sitting there, looking at her quizzically.

  “I doubt it.” Helene flicked open her spiral jotter and stared at the blank page, biting on the end of her biro. “I’m looking for ideas for a radio show. This Morning with Ollie Andrews – do you know it?” She looked around the cafe, realising the radio wasn’t on. By rights, Matt should have Atlantic 1 FM on, keeping him company.

  “I think I’ve heard it once or twice,” he said vaguely. “To be honest, I have too many problems with this place to be distracted by the radio.”

  Helene looked down at her notebook and began to write. Now he’d have to take the hint and leave her alone. She scribbled down ‘Ideas’ and underlined the word twice. Underneath she added ‘Ten Years Younger/Me’. She smiled and relaxed a little. Seeing her ideas down in black and white always cheered her up. And the Ten Years Younger project was a win-win situation for her. She’d get a break at that top spa and look a lot younger – or better anyway – at the end of it. But what else? She thought of what Matt had just said. “I have too many problems with this place to
be distracted by the radio.” That was it! The radio version of a problem page! People were always fascinated with other people’s problems.

  She looked up at Matt and smiled. “Actually you’ve just given me an idea!”

  “Really?” Matt was astonished. “What is it?”

  “It’s a problem slot. For radio.”

  “Okay.” Matt looked mystified. “Well, I’d better get back to getting this place up and running. It has to open next week!”

  Helene turned her attention back to her notebook and scribbled down the line ‘Agony Aunt of the Airwaves’. She looked at the words, her pulse quickening. It was bound to be a success. Helene alone had enough problems to fill that slot for months! As her thoughts drifted to her personal life Helene turned onto a new page and jotted some of her problems down, partly as a way of working out how the agony aunt slot might work, and partly because she thought it would be good to get them off her chest for five minutes.

  One. Milestone birthdays. Helene rested her chin on her hand, eyes fixed on the middle distance. Her big Four-O was coming up. The birthday that had been hovering on the horizon for ages and now was nearly here. Is that why she’d been so unsettled lately, Helene wondered? Feeling as if she was at a particularly precarious crossroads in her life and that one false move could spell disaster.

  She would wake up with a start at night, a feeling of impending doom settling like a swamp in her stomach. The clock on her bedside locker always flashed the same time – thirty minutes either side of four a.m. – the figures displayed in mocking red neon and then she’d start to panic because her alarm was due to go off at six and the panic woke her up even more.

  She had spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the feeling was about exactly. It wasn’t just connected to her job. There was also the vexed question of Richard to consider. Reluctantly she scribbled down, ‘Richard’.