COVER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Frances Leviston is the author of two collections of poetry: Public Dream, shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Jerwood-Aldeburgh First Collection Prize; and Disinformation, shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. In 2015 she was shortlisted for the BBC Short Story Award. She lives in Durham and is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Manchester.

DEDICATION

For Paul

THE VOICE IN MY EAR

The first production team have gone to an awards ceremony in King’s Cross, the anchor to the Portland with foetal distress. This is Claire’s big break. She takes her mark, and feels the hiss of the open channel flood her head.

—Sixty seconds.

Sprayed ends of hair shine and shake in her peripheral vision. A soft brush whisks across her nose, a roller across her lapels. The earpiece feeds her the end of the buffering ads, Maybelline and Dolmio, then a trailer for a costume drama, before the continuity announcer begins: ‘And now, standing in …’

—Ten seconds to air. Eight. Seven.

Her hands are cold, her feet on another planet. She looks squarely down the autocue and reads, ‘GOOD EVENING. I’M CLAIRE ASHBY.

‘TONIGHT: AS CONSPIRACY CHARGES AGAINST FORMER GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTORS ARE UPHELD AT THE COURT OF APPEALS, WE ASK WHICH OF THE SUTHERLAND ENQUIRY’S RECOMMENDATIONS HAVE BEEN IMPLEMENTED, AND WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.

‘BUT FIRST: RELIEF AS THE LONGEST AND MOST EXPENSIVE STRIKE IN SOUTH AFRICAN HISTORY COMES TO AN END – FOR NOW – WITH A DEAL PROMISING PLATINUM MINERS A THREE THOUSAND RAND PAY RAISE OVER THREE YEARS. BUT AT WHAT COST TO LONG-TERM JOB SECURITY, AND WHAT COST TO THE ANC?’

She pictures the white Meccano rigging and dove-coloured silos of the Anglo-American platinum mine on the B-roll that is now being cued. She cut it herself that morning.

‘Almost two years ago,’ the voiceover begins, ‘this mine in Marikana …’

Her ears pop. She wiggles her toes inside the hard shoes. She’s done it, the first bit, and now she is huge and triumphant, a carnival queen on her float of light.

—New positions. Camera three ready.

The next angle jumps up on the monitor. She watches herself enter the frame and settle behind the desk. Now the studio guests come in, stepping over cables, broaching the circle of lights. The first of them, a woman, only four or five years older than Claire, tall and heavy-bosomed in a tailored blue dress, offers a handshake that is nothing more than a touch of palms, then sits and stares up at the rig. Some kind of childish torpor keeps forcing her to smother huge yawns.

‘Look at Claire,’ says the woman acting up as floor manager. ‘Look at each other. Don’t look down the camera, just pretend it’s not there.’