Page 6 of Christmas at the Movies

‘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 called The 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 the end 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, racist and homophobic.’

‘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. ‘You don’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 adored Notting Hill.

She wished she could live there, in a pretty pastel house.

But instead, she and Pari had been sharing a flat in Acton for the past year.

It had damp walls, draughty windows and a barking dog next door, but they’d filled it with houseplants, books and colourful tapestries.

Sarah loved her bedroom, which had a futon and a desk she’d found in a charity shop.

When she was sitting at it, working on her screenplay, she had a beautiful view of Acton Park.

The flat was perfectly situated halfway between Sarah’s job at Television Centre and James’s dad’s flat in Ealing.

James was still living at home to save up for a deposit on a place of his own.

Sarah liked James’s father, Sean. He was a quiet, gentle soul.

But he smoked like a chimney, and James’s childhood bedroom was only big enough for a single bed, so James usually slept over at her place a few nights a week.

As fun as it was to live with Pari, Sarah hoped that James would ask her to move in with him when he eventually bought a flat.

They’d been going out together for three and a half years – since her first year of uni – and Sarah was more than ready to take the next step of living together.

She loved the thought of making a home with James.

Sometimes, when she went shopping, she lingered over the soft furnishings and fantasised about picking out cushions and china together.

Not that she would ever admit her daydreams of domestic bliss to Pari, who would probably tease her about betraying her feminist principles.

Sarah and Pari went inside the restaurant, which had a stark white interior decorated to look like a chemist’s shop.

Acid jazz played softly in the background.

They ordered Cosmopolitans, making them feel like characters in Sex and the City, which they watched together every Wednesday night over a takeaway.

‘Here’s to not having to make the tea any more!’ said Sarah, clinking glasses with her friend. They had both made more than their fair share of hot drinks over the past two years.

‘How are you going to spend your massive pay rise?’ asked Pari, sipping her cocktail.

Sarah laughed. Her salary increase had been negligible, but she was proud of the title she’d worked so hard to get.

She didn’t mind putting in long hours because she absolutely loved her job.

She loved crafting stories, helping writers make their work even better.

Sarah had a knack for spotting what wasn’t working in a script and finding creative solutions to problems. In a weird way, it was similar to what James did – except he looked for bugs in software and found ways to fix them.

‘I was thinking of maybe getting a DVD player for the flat,’ said Sarah.

‘Do you really need one?’ asked Pari. ‘You and James are always going to the cinema.’

Their dinners arrived, looking like works of art.

Pari’s spaghetti was moulded in the shape of a haystack, perched on a delicate puddle of tomato sauce.

Sarah’s pork medallion was surrounded by baby vegetables and colourful dots of sauces arranged artfully on a square white plate.

There was a tower of perfectly rectangular chips stacked on the side.

‘It’s almost too pretty to eat,’ said Sarah.

‘Then I’ll eat it for you,’ said Pari, cheekily pulling out a chip from the bottom of the tower and bringing the whole stack tumbling down.

‘Hey!’ protested Sarah in mock indignation.

‘How’s The Ghost Writer coming along?’ asked Pari.

‘It’s nearly finished,’ replied Sarah. ‘I’m going to do some work on it this weekend.

’ In her free time, she was writing a screenplay.

The story was about a romance author with writer’s block, who fell intensely in love with the ghost of a nineteenth-century duke haunting the house where she was staying.

The ghost told her the story of his life, which the author used as inspiration for her novel.

But as soon as the book was written, the ghost vanished.

She’d shown one of her colleagues – a writer named Jack – some scenes and he’d praised them, saying she had ‘a great ear for dialogue’.

‘I’d love to read it when it’s done,’ said Pari.

A buzzing noise came from her handbag. Pari took out her Nokia mobile phone, which James had helped her set up. He wanted Sarah to get a mobile, too, but she really couldn’t see the point. What phone call couldn’t wait until you got home?