Page 41 of Too Busy for Love

‘Yes.’

‘Number one. It’s horrible and disgusting, and the people who wrote it should be ashamed of themselves, but you’re not in any danger. These people are just keyboard warriors, impotently pouring their rage out at anyone and everyone. They’re not coming for you; they never are. If they met you in the street, they’d probably run away. Have you heard me?’

‘Did you see what they wrote?’ I ask him incredulously.

‘I did. But this is the second thing I need you to hear. You are not alone. I guarantee you that pretty much every woman who has even the smallest public profile has had this kind of abuse directed at them. It will be of little comfort to you, but I’ve seen much worse. They’re not targeting you specifically, you just happen to have caught their eye today. They’ll move on.’

‘Of course they’re fucking targeting me,’ I snarl suddenly. ‘They’re not threatening to do those things to you, are they?’

‘No,’ he admits. ‘It’s a mainly misogynistic hate crime. But I know countless women in our industry that it’s happened to, and I can promise you that, although it’s equally upsetting for them, nobody has harmed them.’

Our conversation is interrupted by Dom bursting in. ‘Hold the firing squad,’ he announces. ‘Something extraordinary is happening.’

Firing squad?

‘What is it?’ Gus asks.

‘OK, so live viewing figures for last night’s show were disappointing, as you know. But it seems the Beatrice situation is stoking interest and the online figures are climbing through the roof. She might just be our ticket out of trouble.’

‘Were you going to fire me?’ I ask in disbelief.

‘One at a time. Jeez, let me think.’

‘Oh my God. You were! All that mister nice guy stuff was just an act. You’re unbelievable.’ I start to get to my feet.

‘I wasn’t going to fire you,’ Gus says firmly enough to stop me leaving the room. ‘But I was going to reassign you, I admit.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I was going to take you away from front-line duties and keep you in the background, helping Rosa and translating.’

‘Yeah, about that. I have an idea,’ Dom interjects. ‘What if we didn’t do that? We’re hanging by a thread here. If we don’t pull a rabbit out of this shitty hat soon, HQ is going to shut us down.’

This is also news to me. ‘What do you mean, “shut us down”?’

‘Dom’s right,’ Gus sighs. ‘Not only were the viewing figures poor, but the reviews were terrible. People are saying there’s no chemistry and that it all feels so fake, we’re probably not even in Mallorca. We’ve been given until the end of the week to turn it around, otherwise they’re pulling the plug.’

‘So here’s my idea,’ Dom says enthusiastically. ‘Normally, we’d do exactly what Gus is suggesting. We’d whip you out of the limelight, probably fire you, issue some statement along the lines of “we had no idea but she’s gone now, sorry everyone,” and hope that resolved it. But what if we took all this and used it to our advantage? Give Beatrice more screen time, not less, and give her the opportunity to call out her abusers.’

‘Wouldn’t that just be stoking the fire?’ I ask tentatively. ‘I don’t want this to get any worse.’

‘What were you thinking?’ Gus prompts, ignoring me.

‘Flo,’ Dom replies simply. ‘She’s got loads of experience of being trolled, so she’d be a great person for Beatrice to talk to. We engineer a conversation on camera, where Beatrice talks to Flo about what’s happened, maybe shows her some of the comments, and we make a thing about it. Start a conversation about the damage this stuff does to people.’

‘I’m not sure HQ would like us going off-piste like that,’ Gus tells him.

‘HQ want good viewing figures and reviews. I don’t think they care beyond that.’

‘Even if we shoot it, there’s no guarantee they won’t cut it. It’ll probably be a waste of time.’

‘Then we call them and sell them the idea. We need to do something, and this might be good for both Beatrice and the show. Let’s talk about something that bloody matters for once, rather than our usual “celebrities being absolutely hopeless at ordinary life tasks” bollocks.’

‘Fine. You sell it, and you go under the bus if they hate it. Still want to do it?’

‘Yup. What about you, Beatrice? Are you up for it?’

‘I’m still not entirely sure what the plan is,’ I admit. ‘But if it gives me an opportunity to tell my side of the story, I’m in.’

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