A wave of approval crosses the room; edgy, we like edgy. Louise jabs a pencil towards me. “We’re keeping that under wraps, of course, in case those bastards from Emmerdale try and jump in with a beheading or something. We won’t see the actual suicide bombing, obviously.”
“Right.”
“No, it all gets read out in a letter from her Nan. But we’ve got some great ideas for Lenny.”
Martin/Marcus/Matthew dives in again: “We envisage Lenny becoming even more central. Central, and more layered.”
“More layered?”
“Yuh, yuh…we think Lenny should be less of a git.” He says the word “git” as if it were in italics. “And start behaving with more nobility.”
“Why?” I ask, flat and fast. Martin/Marcus/Matthew looks flustered.
“Kelly did some audience research.”
Kelly? Which one’s Kelly? Oh right, the one with the folder. She looks eleven.
“In the light of the trial outcome,” she begins nervously, “it seems there’s now a widespread audience perception of you as a victim…who bore his ordeal with nobility.”
“A ‘widespread audience perception’?”
“Yes,” asserts Kelly.
“You mean a focus group.”
“Yes.”
“Of how many?”
“Twenty.”
I laugh heartily, can’t help myself.
“They are an accurate cross-section,” croaks Kelly.
Hang on, I remember her, she was a runner.
“You’re going to have to get used to it, Kevin,” drawls Louise. “In a totally unexpected turn of events, people now like you.”
Where are they going with this?
“So we need to reflect this new reality. We want to make Lenny more nuanced…” Nuanced? On this show? “We need to give him more varied scenes. No more ‘shut it, you slag’ stuff. No more socks full of billiard balls. We want viewers to get a chance to see what a good actor you are…”
This is bullshit of the highest order.
“…and for you it could be the springboard to bigger things.”
Well, I knew she was trying to manipulate me, of course I did, but I thought it was worth considering at least. My agent agreed. And Mac had a view.
“Tell them to shove it up their arse with a barbed-wire broomstick.”
“A barbed-wire broomstick? That’s a development.”
“They cashed in on your predicament big-time, now they want to cash in on your vindication. They’re scum, just walk.”
“It might lead to better things.”
Mac lets rip with a quick burst of unintelligible Glaswegian before telling me that I am away with the fairies.
“It might, y’know…if I get better storylines.”
“Listen, pal, the moment ratings start to dip, they’ll have you back strangling coppers and biffing wee girlies.”
“Well, maybe so, but…”
“What are you scared of?”
Good question. One that Sandra asks me when I phone her with my dilemma.
“Are you scared of obscurity? Is that it? People forgetting you, no longer recognising you?”
“No, I think it’d be very nice not to be recognised.”
“Nearly convincing, but I’d try for another take, if I was you.”
She laughs that laugh and for a moment I’m younger and stronger.
“…Are you ‘plus one’ at the moment?” I ask.
“Mind your own business. Are you plus one?”
“No.”
“Oh…right…heigh-ho.”
“Yeah…heigh-ho.”
There are no inhibitions quite like the inhibitions between two people who know each other too well, are there? Socking great razor-wired fences of the unspoken.
She was right about my fear, of course she was. I liked being recognised, especially now that I had been recast as the hero.
At a garage, I am shouted at by a white kid who wants to be black: “You’re the man! Hear what I’m sayin’? You’re the man!” He flicks his fingers at me.
“Thanks.”
“That bitch will burn in Hell, man.”
“Well, I don’t—”
“No, she will, man, she’s gonna burn, after what she tried to do to you, she deserves a good slap. You give her a slap, man, a slap. Like you did before.”
“Well, no, actually that’s Lenny who—”
“They should put her in prison, sick kiddie or no sick kiddie.”
“N…no, she…she doesn’t have a child, not in real life, see she’s—”
He speeds away on his bike, calling over his shoulder: “You’re the man!”
“…Cheers.”
Not everyone who expressed their support was like him. Some of them had a brain. Mostly, people gave me a wan smile, and maybe a nod, as they passed me in the street. It felt a bit like being a vicar.
But, with every smile I saw, I couldn’t help wondering if a few weeks earlier that same person would have called me a cunt. The whole experience – Jade’s accusation, the trial, the press campaign – had sluiced the last drops of trust out of me. I was wary now, all the time, ears permanently pricked.
It took me a while to make up my mind but, in the end, I decided to return to the show. Why? Probably because I didn’t have the guts to say no. An unmapped alternative was too daunting. Where would I start? What if I disappeared?
But the decision brought me no real satisfaction and, as a sop to my self-esteem, I told them that I would only accept a three month contract to be going on with, to see if Louise’s promises were kept. I also told them that, before I would resume filming, I required six weeks paid holiday. Louise said she understood perfectly, although I could see a small muscle twitching behind her jaw.
I rented a cottage on the Isle of Skye. For the first weeks I did virtually nothing but sleep. Even when I wasn’t sleeping, I felt leaden and bone-tired, like you do after a bereavement. But then, gradually, I began to embrace the change. It was liberating just to wake up each morning, at whatever time I pleased, and know that my day wasn’t spoken for, wasn’t already calibrated in deadlines – lines of death – that had been decided by outside forces.
That felt good.
And yet. And yet. Somehow, nothing felt as good as I had anticipated. Even though my waking hours were illuminated by deep blue skies and blinding surf-pounded beaches, I could not shake off a sense of anti-climax. What was wrong with me? This place was perfect.
To try and lift my spirits, I threw myself at activities. I went on long wind-battling hikes. I tried fly-fishing, kayaking; I went out in boats and saw sea-eagles and dolphins. I black-and-blued my shoulders on rocks while white-water rafting. I even jumped off the side of a mountain and hang-glided in curving, lazy spirals down into a field of scattering sheep. I overloaded my senses as much as I could, but still nothing.
From time to time, I ventured into the nearest village. Some stared, a few asked for selfies, but by and large, I was left alone. They could probably see the wariness in me.
Increasingly, my favourite pastime was to sit by the stream which ran through the bottom of the cottage’s garden and simply stare into the perpetuating shapes of the water, letting my brain empty. I could do that for hours, till it felt like there was nothing left in my mind at all; not even the smallest shard of memory.
Then, one golden evening, when the sun is refusing to go down, I find myself sitting by a salmon stream, feeling calm and unimportant, when I suddenly hear my name: “Kevin? Is that you?”
I turn to see a man wearing a kagoul, even though there’s not a cloud to be seen. For a moment, I can’t recognise him – he’s silhouetted – but as he walks towards me I feel my stomach turn light and head towards my throat.
“Kevin? I don’t believe it! What are you doing here? Well I’ll be jiggered.”
My God, no. I try to paint a smile: “Derek…hi.”
“How the devil are you, Kevin?”
“I’m
fine, yeh…and yourself?”
“Oh, mustn’t grumble, y’know. Not when there are people dying from starvation.”
A crow flies past, cackling. I’m struggling to think straight.
“Are you up here on holiday then, Derek?”
“Yeh, staying at Dunvegan, I come here every year. Are you on your own?”
“Um…yeh.”
“Me too. We both like our own company the best, eh?”
He picks up a stone and walks to the water’s edge.
“This is a lovely spot, isn’t it?”
“Stunning,” I reply.
“Fancy bumping into each other up here. What a coincidence, eh?”
“It’s not a coincidence, you lying bastard, so don’t insult my intelligence,” I say, but only inside my head. The truth is, I am horribly rattled. As I watch Derek skim his stone across the water, my brain spools through countless possibilities. Hang on, he’s saying something, what’s he saying?
“Stalking’s great fun.”
Is this some kind of confession? He sees my knotted expression.
“Stalking,” he repeats. “The deer. Only with cameras, mind. You should try it. I did it the other day. There’s a place just along this road, they take you out on the hills – ‘the Wildlife Safari…something’. Saw some stags fighting. Magnificent sight.”
“Right, I’ll, erm – I’ll look into that…thanks.”
Derek is smiling at me and I am smiling back at him. Why doesn’t he say something? In the woods behind us a pigeon takes off with a clumsy crack of its wings. He is still smiling at me. I hear myself speak.
“Well, we should go out for a meal, you and I.”
“Good idea. I’m free tonight.”
I had panicked. It was the silence that spooked me. But, on reflection, I was glad I had panicked, because I needed to spend some time with him to straighten things out. It would have to be handled sensitively. It was important not to upset him.
To create the right mood, I take him to a very exclusive restaurant – one that doesn’t demean itself by having its name visible on the outside, menus chalked on small squares of slate, that kind of thing. Derek is very taken with it, and soon becomes expansive.
“The thing is, and this is going to sound funny, but I’ve always felt a kinship with you, y’know, whenever I’ve seen you playing Lenny, I’ve always thought to myself: ‘I bet if we met, he and I could be mates’.”
I watch Derek lay into his prawn cocktail.
“…You told the court you didn’t have a TV.”
“Well,” he chuckles, “I told the court a lot of things.” He wipes mayonnaise from his chin. “Are you going back into the show?”
“Um…yeh…for a while anyway.”
His face brightens. “Oh great. We can meet up for a regular beverage down in London then, ’cos I live not far from the studios.”
“…Right.”
“We can go out together on the pull.”
“…Right. Look, Derek—”
“We’ll make quite a team.”
“Yuh, look, Derek—”
“Actually I’m thinking of going back into acting.”
“Really, look, Der—”
“’Cos I trained as an actor. At drama school. In Ipswich. Did two months till…well, the tutors complained I was taking up too much of their time. But I think they couldn’t handle my quest for perfection, y’know. Anyway, the past is another country – the thing is, I was wondering if maybe you could give me a little bit of coaching, y’know, maybe have a few sessions, and then maybe a meal afterwards.”
It is now that the full horror of my situation finally strikes home. I have been targeted by an attention-seeking missile. He has locked on to me, hard, and I need to take evasive action. I interrupt him as he starts to tell me about how he was once nearly cast as Coriolanus.
“Look, Derek, I have to be honest with you…what you’re asking for…the coaching thing…well, it isn’t…” I search for the softest adjective, “…realistic.”
“…Realistic?”
“Yes.”
“…Isn’t ‘realistic’ in what sense?”
“In the sense of…being connected to reality. I…I’m not a drama coach and…well, I’m not sure it’s…viable –” Viable? Not a great choice. “– for us to be…mates.”
Derek blinks. His bland, regular features give nothing away. “Why not?”
I make a conscious effort to make my voice as kind and gentle as possible.
“Because…we’re not mates, are we?”
“We can be if we want to. We can be whatever we want to be.”
“No, no, we can only be what we are. We are two very different people…with very different lives…and different personalities.”
He goes to say something but I head him off. “Al-so – and this is a very big also – it would be bad news for us if we were seen around together a lot, y’know, after the trial…if we seemed…connected, especially if I was seen to be helping you, people might start asking questions.”
I clasp his hand for emphasis. This has to be a big finish.
“Now, I will always, always, be extremely grateful for your very kind…intervention…you got me justice and I will never forget that…and I will always appreciate it…but I don’t think it should go any further than that.”
He takes his hand away – and stares into the table.
“I’m sorry, Derek. I’m just being honest.”
He nods. But he looks shaken and I misjudge the moment.
“Are you OK for money?”
Slowly, he looks up. “I don’t need your money. It was never about money.”
“No, fine, sorry, I didn’t mean – I just, well, I dunno I was – look, I was just trying to express my gratitude. Sorry, I didn’t mean to…y’know, imply…”
He reaches for the inside pocket of his corduroy jacket.
“Well…if you really feel the need,” he begins, with a hint of a tremor in his voice, “you can make a donation to this charity.”
A card is offered, I take it.
“They run hospices…and they’ve lost some grants.”
“Right, OK. Will do.”
His chair scrapes back and Derek is on his feet, smiling limply. “Well, I’d better go. There’s nothing more to say really, is there? I’m sorry if I’ve embarrassed you.”
“No, it’s fine, you haven’t, of course you haven’t. Please, stay and finish the meal.”
“No…best not.”
He offers his hand. “Well…goodbye then, Kevin.”
I shake his hand, warmly, perhaps too warmly? Too big, doesn’t fit the moment.
“Goodbye, Derek. And, again, many thanks.”
“Think nothing of it,” he says. And then he walks out of the restaurant.
At the time, I convinced myself that I had handled the situation quite well, on balance. It was a very tricky and delicate conversation and, yes, he was a little hurt, but he seemed to understand. I couldn’t see any other way I could have managed it, without stringing him along or raising false expectations.
I returned from Skye partially refreshed, and as the weeks rolled by, Derek gradually faded from my thoughts. I went back to the studio and started to lose myself in the reassuring rituals of work. As promised, there was a change. Bigger scenes, less shouting, more telling people I was there for them.
Mac split up with his wife. Inevitable really, once she got to know him.
Autumn came and went. Winter stripped the trees bare. Snow arrived with no warning. Initially, the TV channels greeted it with photos that viewers had taken of cheery snowmen. But then people started dying on icy roads and so the bulletins led with newsreaders shouting things like “Britain’s Winter Wonderland Turns Lethal.” Almost every snow-dusted stranger seemed to say, “So much for global warming, eh?” as if they had coined that thought themselves.
The show’s figures remained stable. Around mid-January they dipped a little, so Lenny killed tw
o low-lifes. Four cast members left the show. One died, one was written out and two had to leave because they got drunk at an awards ceremony and told a revolting joke about a necrophiliac trying to have sex with the late Queen Mother.
Louise couldn’t finesse that one.
My life dribbled on pretty much as it had before all the madness of the trial. I was neither happy nor unhappy. The only oddity was that I caught myself increasingly thinking about Sandra. She rang less nowadays. She had found a man. His name was Pete. Decent bloke. A photographer. Lies in the bushes all night to get a shot of a badger.
Then, one rainy evening in April, she rings. “Kevin, you’ve—”
“Hey! I was just thinking about you, and not in a sordid way, how’s things?”
“Switch on the television,” she says rapidly.
“Eh?”
“ITV. Switch it on, now, I’ll ring you back.”
So I turn on ITV and there is Derek, sitting in a moody pool of light and being interviewed by one of those compassionate presenters whose head is permanently tilted to one side. She is putting a question to him in a low, soothing voice: “And it was at this stage that Kevin Carver suggested to you that you commit perjury on his behalf?”
Derek nods sorrowfully. “Yes.”
“And did you feel comfortable with that?”
“No.”
“So why did you go along with it?”
“I felt sorry for him, I suppose. I personally believed his version of events – that he’d been wrongly accused – and he seemed to be in a lot of pain…I wanted to ease his pain.”
There is a stretched span of several moments before I start to take in what is happening. It is – cliché coming – like a bad dream. That is the only way to describe the experience of watching this man spew his lurid perversion of the truth into millions of people’s living rooms.
“Have you stopped to ask yourself why you felt this need to try and ease his pain?” she asks; she’s a nurse at his bedside.
“Oh, many times, yes.” He is instinctively pitching his voice at the same note as hers. “And that’s not easy to answer, but I think it dates back to my having an alcoholic and abusive father…which meant that I grew up with an exaggerated sense of responsibility for other people’s feelings, a kind of guilt that means I’m always trying to make people happy.”
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