Inconceivable

by Ben Elton

Anyway, long story short as Lucy would say, there I was, post deeply unsatisfactory shag, sitting at Claridge’s ‘doing’ Coco Pops and kedgeree with three of Britain’s brightest motion picture talents. Justin Cocker, an estuary Oxbridge mid-Atlantic drawler who called the toilet the ‘bathroom’ and asked if they had any bagels and lox. A snarling Scot called Ewan Proclaimer, who took one look at the Claridge’s breakfast room and said, ‘God, I fuckin’ hate the fuckin’ English. I mean they are just so fuckin’ English, aren’t they? D’you ken what I’m saying here?’

  Also a pencil-thin woman called Petra. On the phone the previous day I had asked Justin Cocker if Petra had a surname and he said that if I needed to ask that question I did not know the British motion picture industry. Which is right, of course, I don’t. Which is why I work for sad old telly.

  Weird meeting. Like a summit between people from different planets. The BBC being vaguely located on earth, and Above The Line Films being located somewhere far beyond the galaxy of Barkingtonto. The extraordinary thing is that they think that they are the ones who live in the real world. This is because the BBC is publicly funded and is hence some dusty old pampered 1940s welfare state relic which thinks the eighties never happened.

  Amazing how these days it’s hip to assume that the money supplied by vast multinational media conglomerates (writing off their tax losses) is somehow more tough and real and proper than that raised by the public for the purposes of their own entertainment.

  Anyway, on this occasion licence fee money appeared to be good enough. (It certainly paid for the breakfast, anyway.) I told them that the BBC was interested in co-producing more films with a view to theatrical release prior to TV screening and that my special area was comedy. It seemed I had come to the right people. They said if I wanted comedy they had comedy. Real comedy. Not crap comedy, they assured me; not all that fuckin’ crap that the BBC passes off as comedy, not shite comedy, but sharp, witty, edgy, in-your-face, on-the-nose and up-your-arse comedy. ‘Two words,’ they said, ‘Zeit’ and ‘Geist’. In other words, ‘Tomorrow’s comedy today.’

  Well, I can’t deny I was excited. This surely was what we wanted.

  I had only to steer this lot towards Nigel and my standing would again ride high. Ewan Proclaimer produced his script, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his film Sick Junkie, which had been ‘hugely successful’, i.e. some American critics liked it, although it was actually seen by less people than watch the weather on Grampian. Sick Junkie had been a career breaker for Ewan, but now he explained that he wanted to move totally away from all that stuff.

  His new script is called Aids and Heroin.

  ‘It’s a comedy about a group of normal, ordinary kids,’ said Ewan Proclaimer, ‘all heroin addicts, of course. Probably Scottish, perhaps Welsh or Irish…’

  ‘Although we’d shoot it in London,’ interjected Pencil Petra.

  ‘Well, of course we’d shoot it in London!’ Ewan snapped. He was clearly not a man who liked to be interrupted. ‘Morag and I have only just got wee Jamie into a decent school…Now these kids survive on the edges of society, right? Dealing drugs, stealing, whoring, ripping off the social. The movie is a week in their ordinary mundane lives. They inject heroin into their eyeballs, they have babies in toilets, they get Aids, they try to raise veins on their private parts in order to inject more heroin, they kill a social worker, they have anal sex in exchange for heroin which turns out to be cut with bleach and kills them, they have abortions, they’re raped by gangs of English policemen…’

  My head was spinning at this apocalyptic vision.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I risked an interjection. ‘I hope I’m following. This is a comedy we’re discussing here?’

  ‘Total comedy,’ Ewan assured me, ‘but real comedy, about what’s actually happening to kids today, not escapist English crap.’

  It all sounded very post watershed to me, but you never know these days. Things are moving so fast I confidently expect to see them making bongs out of Squeezy bottles on Blue Peter. But anyway, broadcastable or not, I wasn’t having any of it. Well really, it makes me so tired. This never-ending diet of sex and drugs and urban horror that well-heeled highly educated young film makers seem to feel duty-bound to serve up as stone-cold naturalism. For heaven’s sake, I know that life is tough out there but not exclusively so. There are more adolescents in the Girl Guides and the Sea Scouts than there are teenage junkies, but nobody ever makes a film about them.

  I finished my Coco Pops in a marked manner, resisting the temptation to drink the chocolatey milk out of the bowl, and rose to leave.

  ‘Well, thanks for explaining your idea to me, Ewan,’ I said.

  ‘Unfortunately the BBC is not in the business of funding cynical tales about drugs and prostitution which purport to reflect everyday Britain merely so that the fashion junkies who make them can swank about at Cannes and then bugger off to work in the States the first chance they get.’

  ‘Look, bollocks to the English bullshit,’ Ewan Proclaimer replied.

  ‘Do you want the picture or not?’

  ‘Ah dinnah,’ I said in what I hoped was a Scottish accent, although it almost certainly wasn’t. Then I took up the bill and left the room feeling proudly self-assertive. I may not be able to write myself but I can at least protect the public from the self- indulgent witterings of those who can’t either.

  By the time I got back to Television Centre I had worked myself into a right old self-righteous lather. The first thing I did was to get Daphne to take down a sarky fax telling Above The Line Films where they could shove it. I had no sooner finished doing this and was contemplating a calming game of Tomb Raider on my PC when Nigel called and summoned me to his office.

  I trudged along the circular corridor convinced that this was it, that the long-awaited shafting was about to be administered. It seemed obvious that Nigel intended to get rid of me before the Prime Minister’s imminent visit (set for this Saturday) so that he could take all the credit himself. As I entered the hallowed office, however, it seemed that I was wrong. Nigel was positively beaming at me and actually asked if I wanted a coffee.

  ‘Sam!’ he said. ‘I just heard you did breakfast with Above The Line and met with Justin, Ewan and Petra.’

  I was about to protest that I had only been following orders but he gave me no choice.

  ‘Congratulations, mate! Excellent move. Ewan is a genius and a God-sent antidote to all the crap your department normally commissions.’

  Alarm bells began to ring.

  ‘Yes, that’s what he said,’ I replied limply.

  ‘He’s just the kind of raw, edgy talent we need for the new film initiative. It would be absolutely sensational if you could bring him and the whole Above The Line ethos into the Beeb. As it happens I’m having dinner with Justin and Petra at Mick and Jerry’s tonight so I’ll do everything I can to push it along. OK, mate? Well done.’

  My coffee had just arrived but I was already rushing out of his office, scarcely bothering even to attempt an excuse. I ran as fast as I could back round the circle, bashing into internal mail trolleys and PAs with trays full of tea as I went. I arrived back in my office just in time to see the fax I had dictated to Daphne emerge from the machine having been transmitted as instructed.

  Fate deals me blow after blow.

  Dear Penny,

  I’ve decided. Since the next medical step for me is a laparoscopy, which is intrusive and not to be entered into lightly (like my bellybutton), it is foolish for me to ignore other possibilities.

  Tomorrow is a full moon, my traffic light says I’ll be ovulating and Sam will just have to like it or lump it.

  Oh my God.,

  I got home today and Lucy told me that tomorrow night, at midnight, she wants me to take her to the top of Primrose Hill, which is a public park, and shag her under the full moon.

  I’m still hoping that this is some kind of joke.

  Dear Penny,

  Tonight is the night! Full moon! What’s
more, the forecast is for a mild night with gentle breezes. Perfect. Perhaps the fates are finally going to be on my side.

  Drusilla and I went to a fairy shop in Covent Garden at lunchtime and got some crystals. I don’t really believe in that sort of thing but I must say they really are rather beautiful and Drusilla assures me they’ll help. We sat together on a bench in Soho Square and energized them. This involved squeezing the crystals in the palms of our hands and, well, energizing them. Drusilla made a sort of low groaning noise but I just concentrated. I had a tofu pitta bread sarnie from Pret A Manger in the other hand so I imagine that I energized that too, which can’t hurt, can it?

  I’ve also bought a nice thick picnic rug from Selfridge’s, because you want to be as comfortable as possible on these occasions. Also one of those inflatable pillows that people use in aeroplanes. This is to prop up my bum afterwards because I want to give Sam’s sperm as good a downhill launch as I possibly can. I have this vision of millions of them tumbling down some sort of water shoot (like the Summit Plummit at Disneyworld), hurtling off the end and then getting knocked unconscious in a fruitless effort to penetrate my cold unyielding eggs.

  I also went to Kooka’i and bought an incredible new frock. It’s just a sheath, really, and I’m afraid my tum will bulge, but I’ll hold it in. The dress cost an entire week’s wages but Drusilla insists that this must be a sensual and erotic event, not just a sly bonk in a park. There’s to be wine and candles and I must reek of musk and primrose oil and ancient pagan scents. I really didn’t know where I was supposed to get ancient pagan scents in London on a Friday afternoon but Drusilla had it all sorted out. Rather conveniently, Boots do a set of soaps that cover the lot and she’d bought me a box as a present.

  She also reminded me that I must remember to wear my silkiest pair of split-crotch panties and when I told her that I do not possess

  pairs of split-crotch panties, silky or otherwise, she was quite surprised. Drusilla is definitely a dark horse, except I shouldn’t be surprised really; in the end being a witch is just about sex, isn’t it? Anyway, she insisted that we go immediately to a sex shop and buy some erotic underwear, but when we got in there I just couldn’t. It wasn’t that I was embarrassed, I was just laughing too much. I mean these places are ridiculous. They have these dildos the size of draught excluders! What on earth you’re supposed to do with them I just don’t know. Stand them in the hall for people to hang their hats on, perhaps? They also had these sets of Oriental Love Balls, which a girl is supposed to push up and then walk around with them in. I was just saying that I didn’t believe any woman ever walked around with Love Balls up her doo-dah when the assistant came over and said, ‘How are the Love Balls going, Drusilla?’

  ‘Lovely,’ replied Drusilla dreamily, giving her hips a little jiggle and smiling.

  Do you know, I swear I heard a clanking sound. I am

  so parochial.

  In the end we agreed that the most sensual thing of all would be to wear no knickers at all. I’ve always thought naughty underwear was curiously sexless. Except perhaps a sheer silk teddy, or French knickers, but I don’t think they’d be right for Primrose Hill and I doubt that you can get grass stains out of silk.

  I played Celtic music and clannaed on my Walkman on the tube on the way home to get me into a mood of fertile pagan spirituality. I’m quite excited in a funny sort of way. It’s not often I shag alfresco these days. Quite frankly, it never has been a common occurrence with me. Insects and bare bums don’t mix.

  I hope Sam cheers up about it, though. I regret to have to report that last night, when I told him what was expected of him, he was

  most unenthusiastic. In fact he got quite hostile. Obviously I can sort of understand his doubting the effectiveness of the plan. It’s a long shot, certainly, relying on the faint echoes and rhythms of the ancient world to jolly his sperm along. I’m highly sceptical myself, but I do wish he’d see that we must try everything. We’ve now been infertile for sixty-two months and all the doctors can think of doing about it is to pump me full of dye and video my uterus. Well, forgive me if I sound feminist, but with that in prospect I feel I have a right to expect Sam to explore every other avenue first.

  It’s always the way, though, isn’t it, Penny? The poor woman gets the short end of the stick. Our bodies are so

  complicated! It’s like with contraception. The things women have to go through (all pointless in my case, it seems) and yet still men only worry about their own pleasure. I remember when Sam and I first started doing it regularly he wanted me to go on the pill or have a coil fitted because he didn’t like condoms. He said they were a barrier between us (well of course they are, that surely is the point). He said that they spoiled the sensual pleasure of our love-making. Basically what he was saying was that he didn’t want to put his dick in a bag. So instead would I mind either filling my body with chemicals or having a small piece of barbed wire inserted into me? In the end, I got a Dutch cap and God was that a palaver! Trying to put one of those in when you’ve had a bottle and a half of Hirondelle is not easy. The damn thing was always shooting across the bathroom and landing in the basin. Then there was that awful cream you had to put on. The nights that I nearly shoved toothpaste up my fanny and brushed my teeth with spermicidal lubricant! Makes my eyes water just to think about it.

  Anyway, I’m digressing. As I often do when on the subject of the selfishness of men. Well, let’s face it, there’s just so much scope. But as I was saying re the Primrose Hill bonk, I just have to give everything a try, it’s a matter of life and…Well, I don’t know what, life and no life, I suppose, which is a pretty terrible thought. And anyway who knows what strange and powerful forces there are in the world? I mean the moon does definitely affect people, we know that. You only have to look at dogs. They go potty at full moon. And as Drusilla has pointed out, even vaginal juices have a tidal flow and so, when one comes to think of it, does sperm. I mean it might all just be a case of never having done it when the tide’s in. As for ley lines, well I admit that it sounds pretty unlikely. On the other hand certain places

  do have a special energy. I can remember once feeling very strange during a walk in the Devil’s Punchbowl in Surrey, and that’s supposed to be a mystic place, I think, isn’t it? Sam claims it was the macaroni cheese I’d had for lunch in that pub, but I know it wasn’t.

  And what’s more, apart from any spiritual and mystical considerations, I had hoped that Sam might find the whole idea a bit raunchy. After all, we are lovers, aren’t we? Besides being boring old marrieds? Surely we can see all this in the light of a naughty, saucy adventure?

  No chance, I’m afraid. Sam didn’t get home until half an hour ago (last-minute preparations for the PM tomorrow), and he’s insisting that he still has some calls to make. I’m writing this while he whinges and whines about comedy in his study. This was supposed to be our time, a time of erotic and sensual reflection. I’ve had my bath (by candlelight with rose petals floating on the water) and used all the soaps. I was really beginning to feel quite goddess-like and fertile and Sam is acting like it was just any other bloody night.

  I bet Carl Phipps wouldn’t be in his study making calls about stupid comedy programmes while his lover lay damp and scented and naked upon their bed below.

  No! I must

  not think that sort of thing. It’s wicked.

  Sam has agreed to do it and that’s the main thing. I can’t expect him to suddenly turn into a romantic lead. All I need him to do is shag me at the appointed time and place.

  T’will be dark in an hour. The moon is on the wax and the witching hour is nigh. Do you know, Penny? I’ve got this funny feeling that it might just work.

  Dear Self,

  It’s four o’clock in the morning and we’ve just got back from the police station. They were quite nice about it in the end, once they let me put my trousers back on. I thought I handled the whole matter pretty well, actually.

  do not

  Dear
Penny,

  Sam was ridiculous tonight, quite bloody ridiculous. I mean you just

  give false names to the police, do you? Particularly ‘William Gladstone’. What chance is there of there being a man called William Gladstone having it off on the top of Primrose Hill in the middle of the night? I honestly think that if he hadn’t tried to give them a false name they would have let us go. I mean bonking isn’t illegal, is it? But of course when he claimed to be a nineteenth-century prime minister they asked for ID and immediately the game was up.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Sam, ‘that’s it, I remember, my name’s Sam Bell just like it says on my credit card. Ha ha. Samuel Bell, William Gladstone; William Gladstone, Sam Bell. Easy mistake to make.’

  When they asked him his occupation I said, ‘Prat,’ which made them laugh and helped a bit, I think. He looked like one of those men who stand on the end of train platforms. Not much of a turn-on at all. I explained to him as patiently as I could that Drusilla had insisted that a steamy passionate atmosphere was essential. We must both be highly, throbbingly almost primevally sexually charged. Timeless animals of passion, caught up in the eternal spinning vortex of all creation. After all, I pointed out, if we can’t be bothered to put the effort in then we can hardly expect the ancient gods and goddesses of fertility to do so either.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said and nodded in a kind of stunned way.

  Anyway, I made him go and put on his black tie and dinner suit, which he wears to the BAFTA awards every year. He’s always been disappointed when wearing that suit, having never won a single award. They always give them to someone fashionable with smaller ratings. I prayed that the ancient and timeless deities of the firmament would change all that tonight and give him the most important prize of all.

  Lucy made me put on black tie, which quite frankly made us look like Gomez and Morticia, particularly since she’d really gone to town with the black eyeliner. I must admit, though, she did look fantastic. Like a beautiful model, I thought. I really did and I said so. ‘You look like a beautiful model,’ I said and she said, ‘Oh yeah sure, I do not.’ Odd, that, the way women react to compliments. They’ll expend any amount of energy telling you that you never say anything nice to them and that you don’t fancy them, but when you do pay them a compliment they say, ‘Oh yeah sure, I do not.’ Nonetheless, I think she was pleased.