We were typical students. We avoided lectures, joined clubs and societies – rugby (Josh), Literary Soc. (Issie), wine appreciation (me); we drank copious amounts in the Uni. bar, relied on last-minute cramming for exams and shagged relentlessly. We were atypical in that none of us fell victim to the statistic that says one third of all graduates meet their long-term partner at university. We were all hopeless at anything long-term. Issie fell in love with every man she shagged. It was a warped attempt at respectability. She shagged until the men she was shagging got fed up with her reading metaphysical poetry as foreplay. Josh fell in love with every woman he screwed, at least until he’d eaten breakfast and sometimes for days on end. He was forever breaking hearts. I never fell in love and often got bored before the first post-coital cigarette.
This youthful pattern set us on the path we would follow throughout our twenties and, likely as not, until we draw our pensions. This thought doesn’t bother Josh or me. The law chambers which he so successfully wafts around offer enough intelligent and willing women for him to fall in and out of love ad infinitum. The same can be said of my job in the media. The abundance of loose-moralled young men is a necessary criterion for any job offer I accept. I have no illusions about commitment, which makes me a deeply attractive proposition to men who have no intention to commit – 99.99 per cent of them. So I use and abuse. It’s easier all round. Actually, I don’t do too much abuse. To abuse someone they have to be emotionally involved and in my experience men are happy to forgo this nicety if good head is on offer. So when I leave their beds failing to leave my telephone number on the empty fag packet or when I shoo them out of my flat with the empty promise that I’ll call, no one really minds that much.
Issie is a lab technician at a huge pharmaceutical company. Her white coat is quite fetching but I know Issie is still looking for something more than a quick game of doctors and nurses. I’m always telling her it will be a fruitless search and she wants to count herself lucky that we have each other to love.
‘Can I offer you a drink?’ I never say yes to this question without first checking out the origin, however busy the bar is. I look up and see Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome. On cue. He is presumptuously holding a bottle of Bollie and a fistful of glasses. I like presumption, extravagance and the recognition that my friends will want a drink too. He has sparkling green eyes and the floppy-haired look that was all the rage when I was nineteen. I resist telling him that since Brideshead Revisited, no man (other than Hugh Grant) has ever successfully pulled off this look. I resist because besides the height, eyes and cheekbones, I like his suit.
‘Fine.’ I grin.
He does the usual stuff: he asks me my name, and I tell him it’s Cas and he says, ‘Oh, what’s Cas short for?’ And I explain it’s short for Jocasta and I grin and add, ‘I was named after my father’s mother, very Oedipal.’ And sometimes they get this reference and sometimes they don’t but it doesn’t matter because either way they grin maniacally. Because usually by this time the men I talk to are well and truly in lust with me. They may not be interested in references to Greek plays but they are extremely interested in the possibility of steamy foreplay. They are checking out my full, pert tits or my long, brown, muscular legs, depending on whether they are breast or leg men. And, if their tastes are more sophisticated and long, black, glossy hair, or clear skin, or slim hips, or blue eyes, or straight white teeth turn them on, I can offer all these things too.
Believe me, I know I’m blessed.
I wear my hair long, because it drives men wild. They look at me and see a sexy bitch or a nineteenth-century heroine, whichever is their bag. Strictly speaking, I think my personality would suit a razor-sharp, chin-length bob, but I work in television and ‘give them what they want’ is my war cry.
I ask his name and try to commit it to memory. I ask what he does, and he does something or other. It doesn’t matter. His prospects only matter to women who want a future. I notice he has very large feet and this is exciting. In my experience (wide and varied) the old adage is true. I constantly touch him. Little light touches on his arm and shoulder. I even pick off an imaginary piece of lint from his breast pocket. It always amazes me that men fall for this clichéd crap but they always do. I run my tongue around my lips, my teeth and the olive in his Martini. He is not vulnerable. He knows this routine. He’s played it himself on countless occasions. He’s a little bit taken aback that it’s being played to him but my audacity excites. He tries to regain control of at least the conversation and asks what I do for a living. I tell him that I’m a TV producer for the new terrestrial channel, TV6, and this, if we were in any doubt, clinches it.
My glamorous job has huge pulling power. My job is glamorous, especially in comparison to most people’s jobs. It is an affectation of those who work in TV to continually deny that the job is fun or alluring. It’s a way of neutralizing our guilt at the hideously high salaries we earn. It is undoubtedly more glamorous to sell TV airtime than baked beans at a leading supermarket. It is unquestionably more exciting to spot Des O’Connor in the lifts than Dave Jones from accounts. However, TV is also bloody hard work. I’ve been in the business for twelve years now. I started as a gofer on Wake Up Britain straight after Uni. The pay was a pittance but I was thrilled. I had a job in television. I spent most of my time in a state of perpetual fear. I had no responsibility so the level of misdemeanour that I could aspire to was putting sugar in someone’s coffee when they’d distinctly asked for saccharin. My most constant dread was that my clothes, hair, figure, accent, jokes were unacceptable. I spent all my money on the right clothes (black) and the right hairstyles (long, short, very short, long again, black, blonde, red, black again), happily reinventing myself until I could be myself. It was vital to me to do well. Not just well but best. No job was too small for me to accept it cheerfully. No ambition was too large for me to hold it greedily. I worked obscene hours, even working once on Christmas Day, which wasn’t really a hardship. Holidays bore me. It was worth it. I leapt ahead of my peers and by the time I was twenty-three I was chief researcher. I rushed through the ranks of associate producer and producer, and I reached the dizzy heights of executive producer the week before my thirtieth birthday. It’s who I am. It’s what I am.
‘That must be fascinating,’ Mr Tall, Dark, Handsome with Green Eyes comments.
‘It is. As we are now living in the digital age and there are hundreds of extra channels all fighting for the consumer mind share, it’s extremely tough.’ I don’t bother to tell him that besides the terrestrial channels, BBC 1 and 2, ITV, Channels 4 and 5 and TV6, there are 200 digital satellite channels, 500 digital cable channels and 70 digital terrestrial channels on offer, not to mention interactive television, the Internet and home shopping. Yet viewing time per capita has declined. The more we have to watch, the less often we tune in. So the challenge hasn’t let up; I’m constantly being asked to introduce more demanding or aggressive promotions, programmes or plans. I don’t bother to mention it because even Josh, my most devoted listener, glazes over when I give too much detail. I know I can be boring about my work but it means so much to me. I try to think of an entertaining star story. In the corridors of power I often bump into someone famous, especially those who are famous for being famous – they make themselves very available. I like them the least and admire them the most. It’s much harder than being famous for being talented. I know a story about has-been soap stars won’t interest.