The Cinderella Reflex

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Published 2016

by Poolbeg Press Ltd

123 Grange Hill, Baldoyle

Dublin 13, Ireland

E-mail: [email protected]

www.poolbeg.com

© Joan Brady 2016

Copyright for typesetting, layout, design, ebook

© Poolbeg Press Ltd

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781781992241

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photography, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

www.poolbeg.com

About the author

Joan Brady is a journalist and freelance writer. She started her career as a features writer and newspaper columnist for the
Irish Independent
and
Evening Herald
. She’s also worked as a researcher and producer with RTÉ radio on programmes like
The Gay Byrne Show
,
Today with Pat Kenny
,
Liveline
,
Drivetime
and
The Late Debate
.

In between, she’s found employment as a waitress, a secretary, an agony aunt and a bartender.

The Cinderella Reflex
is her first novel.

Joan lives in Portmarnock, Dublin.

Acknowledgements

I would like to say a big thank-you to:

My three writing buddies, Tara Sparling, Bernadette Kearns and Carolann Copland – between us all, we got Cinderella to the ball.

My agent Tracy Brennan of the Trace Literary Agency for all her enthusiasm and hard work.

All at the Focal literary festival in Wexford for re-igniting my creativity, especially editor Mary McCauley, who told me about the Date With An Agent event, and author Carmel Harrington for all her encouragement.

Gaye Shortland for helping to make the story better and Paula Campbell for loving Cinderella as much as I do.

Pat Costello and Kate Shanahan for reading the manuscript and all their good advice.

Noreen McDougall for not allowing me to forget that I’d always said I’d write a book one day.

And a special shout-out to Jane and Dave who’ve been with me on my writing journey from the beginning, back in the day when I was wrestling with a certain character called Johnny One. I told you both it would all come to something one day.

For Vera,

who inspired me to write in the first place with these words of wisdom:

“All you have to do to get good marks in English is to make things up.”

Chapter One

There were days when Tess Morgan wished she was back in Bali. Like today. Her boss, Helene Harper, was standing behind her, hands on hips, the pointy toe of one red shoe tapping impatiently on the floor. In front of her, Ollie Andrews, presenter of
This Morningwith Ollie Andrews
, Atlantic 1FM’s prime-time radio programme glowered out at her from behind the soundproofed glass window of his studio.

“Are you asleep or what?” Helene’s voice cracked through the room. “Ollie has just got his facts wrong!”

Tess peered in at Ollie. His popularity – such as it was, considering his plummeting listenership – was a bit of a mystery to her. He had dark bushy eyebrows dominating a pale, almost waxen complexion, a mouth curved downwards in perpetual disappointment and thin hair dyed black in a ludicrous attempt to hold back the years. He managed to look somewhere between forty and forty-five but Tess happened to know he was actually nearer to fifty. She had googled him one day when he had been particularly vile to her and discovered from an old gossip column that he customarily shaved years off his age. She could understand why he was trying to look young though. ‘
Youth Audience’
seemed to be the mantra for the media industry. And while Atlantic 1FM had once been tipped to get a national licence and put everyone working there on the map, today it held only the faint whiff of desperation as people sensed their careers sliding silently down the drain.

Tess leaned forward, trying to catch up with the conversation between Ollie and his telephone guest. They were perfectly audible but with all the other things she had to do in studio – making sure she had another guest lined up, checking the ad breaks were ready to go, and always having to keep an eye on the clock to make sure the programme fit into the time allotted – it was easy to forget you were supposed to be listening to them as well.

In fact, when Helene had burst in behind her a few minutes before, Tess had been in a pleasant daydream of how different her life had been this time last year. Beach in Bali. Blissed out and suntanned. No responsibility.

She dragged herself back to the present. They seemed to be trying to unravel the complex labyrinth of the banking crisis and the fact that the country was now up to its neck in hock for generations to come. At least that’s what Tess thought they were doing.

“Eh, Ollie, go easy there, will you? We wouldn’t want to libel anyone!”

Ollie Andrews flicked a switch on his mike so the listeners couldn’t hear him.

“I can’t get any more out of this numbskull!”

Tess sighed. She had tried to put Ollie off this particular item but he had insisted that the banking crisis was still hot among the trendy young business-heads. Tess wasn’t sure she followed his logic. As far as she knew, the banks were now a complete bore to everyone. But she was still relatively new to the job and had assumed he must know something she didn’t.

But now it seemed that even Ollie was getting bored. Tess clenched her fists as she watched the telltale signs. He was sighing and pushing his hands through his hair and muttering. But if he finished this item too early it was going to leave her with a gaping big hole to fill. In a show that was going out live. Not to too many people, if the programme’s figures were anything to go by. But still. Dead air was the cardinal sin of the radio producer.

And Tess couldn’t afford any more mistakes. She needed this job. She flipped the talkback button.

“Ask him …” She looked down at her notes, trying to frame a question which would enable Ollie to prolong the interview. But she was too late. Of course she was! Ollie Andrews was on-air again.

“So thank you so much for that insightful if controversial analysis of the situation. Of course we could talk about this subject all day, but time, I’m afraid, has run away with us again. So let’s take a break!”

As the ad-break jingle filled the room, Tess heard Helene Harper sighing dramatically. Tess’s eyes flicked to the wall clock. Her next item up was about a gangland killing in Dublin. But the eyewitness Tess had talked to earlier was nervous and she couldn’t rely on Ollie to draw him out – not when he was throwing her dagger looks through the glass.

“Sara!” Tess turned to her assistant who was busy examining her nails – long oval talons, varnished carefully in thin red and black stripes. “Ring Mandy Foley – she’s a councillor in that neighbourhood. Maybe she can add something to prolong the discussion.”

Tess jumped as Helene gave one more theatrical sigh and barged back out of the studio, slamming the door behind her.

Sara raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “We tried Mandy earlier. She’s not available this morning. Like, have you forgotten?”

Tess stifled a sigh. She had forgotten. She was thirty years old, and the fresh-out-of-college, super-confident Sara could make her feel ancient. And incompetent. And not too well groomed either. She put the eyewitness through to Ollie, consulting her dog-eared address book at the same time. Tess didn’t trust electronic gadgets, not since her computer had caught a virus two weeks before and wiped out all her contacts.

“Try Adam Ellington then.” Tess scribbled a telephone number on a scrap of paper and pushed it across the desk. She jiggled her foot, mentally urging Sara to hurry as she leisurely pressed out the number with one perfectly painted finger.

Ollie’s interview about the gangland killing was a disaster. The man was giving monosyllabic answers and Ollie was doing nothing to save the item. If he finished up this one early too …

“Hi, Atlantic 1FM here,” said Sara. “Mr Adam Ellington, please? Oh hello, Mr Ellington!”

Tess felt herself relaxing slightly as she realised Sara had got her man. Ellington was a well-known human rights lawyer who liked nothing better than the sound of his own voice, preferably on the airways. He’d definitely take a call.

“Streptococcal throat? Right … yeah … we understand. You need to go to bed and get yourself a hot drink and an aspirin … right …”

Tess resisted the urge to reach over and slam down the phone. ‘Like’, could Sara read the clock?

“Sara!” Her voice rose semi-hysterically and Sara replaced the receiver with a dramatic sigh.

She followed Tess’s glance at the studio clock. “I’ll try Simon Prenderville.” She was already punching out his number before Tess could protest.

Tess’s shoulders slumped. Ollie would hate it! Prenderville was a local politician who was on the warpath about making pooper scoopers mandatory for dog-walkers. It would sound ridiculous coming after the gangland killing, but she was up against the clock and she didn’t have an alternative. She listened tensely as Sara went through the drill.

“Hi, Mr Prenderville, you will be on-air in just a minute, okay? No, we won’t be covering any other topics. Only pooper scoopers, yeah.”

Tess took a deep breath and pulled back the talkback button.

“Ollie? Er … Simon Prenderville is on the line for you. He wants to talk about his plan for more pooper scoopers for Killty.”

“What?” Ollie’s features flushed scarlet. “We had him on only last week!”

Actually it was two weeks ago, Tess thought. But luckily she didn’t have to reply. The red light was shining and they were back on-air. She leaned back slightly while Ollie and Simon Prenderville talked about pooper scoopers. Ollie would make her pay for this of course. But the main thing now was that the item would bring themto the end of today’s programme. And tomorrow, in the immortal words of Scarlett O’Hara, was Another Day.

And finally, there it was. The sweet sound of Ollie wrapping up the programme.

“So okay, Councillor Prenderville, thank you for that scoop,
ha ha ha
! And that’s all we have for you today, listeners. Until tomorrow then, when you can tune in to
This Morning
again and hear more of the stories you
really
want to hear … Bye-bye now!”

As the music faded away the smile drained from Ollie’s face. Sometimes, Tess mused, he seemed so angry she thought his head might do a 360-degree-turn rotation like a scene out of
The Exorcist
. She stood up, swooping up her pile of manila work files and clutching them to her chest like a shield. She had to get out of here before Ollie stumbled out of his little glass box.

She nodded at Sara. “Er … I have stuff I need to do. Can you tell Ollie I’ll talk to him later?”

Sara gave her a disapproving look. “He’ll want to talk to you about the show,” she reminded her.

Tess shrugged. She’d have to listen to him soon enough about the bloody show. This afternoon to be precise. At the post-mortem meeting where everyone would put in his or her tuppence-worth about what had worked and what hadn’t worked.