Page 46 of I Know How This Ends
By Friday morning, I am fully prepared.
Not just for my test shoot, but also for my weekend away with Henry. I got a proper haircut and have been shopping and panic-bought
a lot of items that—now I’m thinking about it with a slightly clearer head—are probably a little too keen for a casual getaway.
Lace, silk, things that float, things that cling, things that lift, things that do barely anything productive at all. I appear
to think I’m going to be starring in some kind of ’90s pop video, wafting around a four-poster bed while I delicately eat
macarons in heels and lingerie.
It’s not an image I hate, if I’m being honest.
Luckily, Henry seems equally excited because he’s giving me a countdown:
FOURTEEN HOURS!
BARELY THIRTEEN HOURS MARGOT!
Twelve! I turned caps lock off.
Nine! Are you impressed by how well I can assess my clock?
With every single text, I feel my insides rise a little.
Last time I went on a “sexy weekend” in Scotland with Aaron, he spent half of it watching football on the fancy hotel bath telly on his own, so, no, I will not be managing my expectations this time, thank you very much.
Grinning, I text back:
You really do seem to have an extraordinary grip on time.
I CANNOT WAIT :) xxx
Beep.
I’ll pick you up at 7. Go smash your big audition and get ready for ALL THAT JAZZ. Xxx
I grin at the tiny emoji of a saxophone as Polly starts bellowing outside.
“Maggie, I’m yelling!” she shouts. “I’m outside and I’m yelling! Get out here, Margot the Meteorologist, so we can take the
world by storm!”
Smiling, I briefly pause in front of the mirror.
I am, without any doubt, now wearing a “costume.” Rainbow-striped tights and a little denim pinafore dress with big shining
suns embroidered on the front and back, both made by Polly. In my ears are raindrop earrings, around my neck is a raindrop
necklace, and there’s a big, sparkly lightning-bolt clip in my hair. My shoes have been personalized with glitter and little
fluffy clouds, and Pol even made a matching handbag, though I told her that I have never, ever seen a television presenter
with a handbag on set. “It completes the look,” she said with a shrug. “Also I got a bit carried away with the kids’ glue
gun and it was fun.”
I should look ridiculous—I probably do look ridiculous—but I also feel more like me than I have for a long, long time. Eve was right: navy really does wash me out. Jules was also right: I have never successfully “looked French.”
“Take the world by storm,” I say as I open the front door and carefully pick up Cheds, who is marching out to come with me. “I like that as a catchphrase.”
“Oooh!” Pol thinks about it, wearing a very sophisticated gray suit that definitely doesn’t have glitter stuck to the front
of it. “Yes, I do too. Let’s put it on the list and try it out.”
“Great. Not today,” I add firmly as Cheds makes another desperate bid for the great outdoors. “You’re too little to go wandering
the streets on your own just yet, I’m afraid. You’ll have to leave cheating on me with the neighbors for another few weeks.”
With infinite care—as if he’s a precious Amazon package with FRAGILE written on top—I place him down in my hallway and fondly
watch him march off jauntily on wobbly little legs.
“Wait!” Polly is regarding him carefully. “I see no reason why you can’t have a cat.”
“That’s good,” I say dryly. “Because I do, as you can see, have a cat.”
“No.” She laughs. “I mean, this is children’s television, right? We’ve seen how much my kids love Cheddar. If we want to be
truly dastardly and manipulative, we could try to win over the children of the country with a ridiculously adorable animal too.
If they get bored of you, they can just watch whatever Cheds is doing.”
“Rude.” I look at his face: it’s cuter than mine. “But fair.”
Cheds squeaks loudly and makes another attempt to get past me into the street: I suspect I’m going to spend the next decade
sighing, “ Now who’s bloody fed my cat?” and “Why does he stink of Nina Ricci?”
“That’s a yes, then.” I pick him up and gently wrap him in a scarf I grab from the hallway hook. He immediately falls asleep.
“I think we’ve found something we can do with the handbag.”
Charlie is more excited than either of us.
“Margot the Meteorologist!” She greets us at the door of the studio with a wide smile, two coffees and an assistant behind her with two slices of cake. “Don’t you look incredible? This is exactly what I had in mind. Nice embroidery, Pol.”
“Thanks very much.” Polly grins. “You mocked it at uni, but I see you’re not mocking it anymore.”
“My tastes have broadened.” Charlie gestures us through reception as she hands out passes. “Everything is ready, and it’s
looking even better than we hoped. We took your ideas and ran with them, Margot.”
She opens the door with a proud flourish.
Polly and I both gape at the set, which looks like some kind of magical Dalí-inspired hallucination. Rainbows painted everywhere,
hanging raindrops, sunset lamps, an entire wall dedicated to the seasons, and bright pink chairs that look like clouds. Scattered
around the biggest one—mine, I assume—are tiny yellow beanbags with sunrays stitched into them, and the carpet is covered
in little blue stars as if somebody flipped the sky upside down.
Charlie didn’t run with my ideas: she got in a rocket ship and shot into space.
“That’s where the kids will sit!” Charlie points at the beanbags with unbridled excitement. “My kids have demanded to be first,
but I’ve said that we don’t do nepotism in this family, so they’ll just have to apply on the internet like everyone else.
And there will be a lot of applications, I assure you.”
I’m still staring at the set: suffice to say, it is quite the upgrade from a dyed green bedsheet hanging on my wall, held up by two drawing pins I hammered in with a saucepan.
“This is...” I say faintly “...way bigger than I had in my head.”
“It’ll be bigger if we get commissioned! This is just for an initial test shoot.” Charlie grins. “But I wanted to get the
feel across. Your vision was so fun—a bit Willy Wonka, but with weather instead of—”
“Casual child abuse,” I say without thinking.
“Quite.” She laughs. “Now, before we start, I’m just going to pop you over to make-up to get a few extra flicks of powder—
Oh!”
My kitten chooses this moment to pop his head out of my bag and start yelling.
“We thought... a cute sidekick?” This suddenly seems like the world’s most unprofessional plan. “To, uh, go with Lenny?
But who probably asks a lot fewer questions and might also sometimes pee on the carpet?”
I look around the room again as it hits me how momentous this all is. There are dozens of people in black wandering around, enormous cameras, lights, fluffy squirrel things on sticks
(microphones?). It’s not just me anymore, sitting in my bedroom. I’m part of a team , just like I was at the Met Office (albeit with fewer labored puns about “getting the drift” or being “a bit under the weather”).
“Hmm.” Charlie and Cheds regard each other warily before one of them—not the cat—gives a nod. “Let’s give it a go, see how
it pans out. They did it on Blue Peter , after all. I don’t see why we can’t try it too.”
With a pleased little yawn, Cheds disappears again: job done.
After a few quick flicks of powder and a lot of bronzer, I’m settled down on my big comfy pink cloud chair like a Grecian
goddess. The kitten is asleep on my lap, and I’ve been told exactly where Lenny is going to pop up whenever he wants to ask
a question. My script is on the prompter, so I don’t have to remember not to swear. But possibly the best, most exciting thing about this whole situation is that @J8571823405 isn’t going to be able to write nice tits shame about the nose under the video when it’s done.
“Right.” Charlie and Polly both stand behind the big camera positioned in front of me. “Are you ready, Margot the Meteorologist?”
Nodding, I breathe in and stroke the cat’s head like a furry little stress reliever.
“Quiet on set! Sound?”
“Set.”
“Camera?”
“Set.”
“Roll sound.”
“Sound rolling.”
“Roll camera.”
“Marker.”
I jump as a guy in a black T-shirt claps his little board thing together like I assumed they only did in the movies, but apparently
it’s a real thing.
“ Weather or Not , test shoot, roll one, take one.”
“Action.”
A wave of calm washes through me. I can do this. I will do this. Because I’ve seen that it will happen. I suddenly wonder how many other parts of my life are going to be infinitely
easier just because I know the outcome from the beginning.
“Greetings, mini meteorologists!” I beam into the camera.
“I’m Margot, and this is the very first episode of Weather or Not .
This is Cheddar”—I hold a sleepy cat up to the camera and he gives a tiny squeak—“and this is Lenny, who is here to ask any questions you might have. Details of how to contact us are right here, and we would love to see any drawings or projects you make, if you’re feeling inspired. ”
I point chirpily at the area to my right where my little cloud friend will be digitally added in afterward, then at the bottom
of the screen, where there are various social media handles, as well as a postal address for the less technologically inclined
five-year-olds.
“So, let’s start with the most important question. What is meteorology? Well, it’s simply a fancy word for the science of weather, and it comes from the very famous and very cool ancient
Greek philosopher Aristotle , who was alive thousands of years ago . ” I point to my right, where there will presumably be a photo of a marble statue with a nose half missing. “He called it meteorology
because in his language meteoron meant ‘high in the sky’ and ology meant ‘knowledge.’ So what we meteorologists do is study the sky .”