The Heart Broke In by James Meek Page B

of fruit and a basket of bread rolls. As Ritchie walked towards him Val stood up, lifting the chair back with his free hand, and began to end the call, signalling a welcome to Ritchie by widening his eyes. The long walls of the room were panelled with the same dark oak as the corridor. Instead of paintings of editors there were framed pages from the newspaper. The room’s short walls, incongruously, were windows – clear glass from floor to ceiling, framed with anodised metal. Through the glass at Val’s end of the table Ritchie could see Tower Bridge, the choppy broth of the Thames and the grey and yellow clouds driven low over London by the gusting September wind.
    Val put the phone away, shook Ritchie’s hand and said that he hoped he didn’t mind if the two of them had lunch in the boardroom. Val seemed in such a good mood, more chatty and funny than Ritchie had seen him, and seemed so interested in the O’Donabháin film, that Ritchie relaxed. Val was tactful and open about his sister. He said early on, tucking in his chin while he looked at Ritchie, as if there was something he was having trouble swallowing, that Ritchie probably knew he and Bec had broken up; and Ritchie said yes, his sister had emailed him from Tanzania, and he was sorry. Val said he hoped Bec was doing well in Africa, that she was a remarkable woman, and that whatever had happened between the two of them, he wasn’t going to let it spoil his lunch with Ritchie Shepherd.
    A young man in a white tunic and apron came in with a trolley and carved a chicken for them and a waitress offeredwine. They were left alone. Val bent his head over his plate and cut a small slice of chicken breast in half with a sawing motion that Ritchie found finicky.
    ‘Is this going to be the last season of your show?’ Val asked, looking up and putting the chicken in his mouth.
    Ritchie felt a hollowing, but laughed. ‘I haven’t checked my messages in the last sixty seconds,’ he said. ‘The ratings don’t lie. They’d be insane to cancel.’
    Val nodded, finished chewing and took a drink of water. Ritchie put his knife and fork down, leaned back in his chair and watched him.
    ‘I haven’t heard anything,’ said Val. ‘I’m sure you have your enemies. Don’t you?’
    ‘I have a strategy,’ said Ritchie, taking up his cutlery again and setting to work folding a leaf of crispy chicken skin onto the tines of his fork. ‘Don’t give anyone a reason to hate you.’
    ‘Enemies inside the BBC, I mean. Those who might think making a market in setting children against each other wasn’t a good use of the licence fee.’
    ‘That’s not really what
Teen Makeover
’s about,’ said Ritchie cheerfully. ‘Is that what you think?’
    ‘You’re way ahead of them,’ said Val. ‘This film project of yours is a bold thing. Perhaps it’s the start of a new career. You’ve done that before. Changed course. Kept them guessing. And made it work, which is more than can be said for most.’
    What does he want?
thought Ritchie, enjoying the praise. He’d only abandoned The Lazygods after three albums flopped in a row, but he remembered it differently. It seemed to him that he’d put music aside when his creativity pulled him in another direction, when producers and critics were still urging him to keep recording.
    ‘Your father was the kind of genuine British hero we should be celebrating more often,’ said Val.
    ‘It’s about honouring his memory,’ said Ritchie, wondering if the girl was coming back with pudding.
    ‘Honour. That’s exactly the word. Just because the guy he refused to give up seems to have been a nasty shit doesn’t change that. He was loyal. Didn’t crack.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Ritchie, frowning out of respect for his father’s suffering. ‘It’s going to be hard for me to look O’Donabháin in the eyes, knowing what he did, but—’
    ‘Is he a Catholic?’ said Val.
    ‘Who? O’Donabháin?’ Ritchie grappled with the strangeness