Inconceivable

by Ben Elton

  I managed to get my treatment down to just under a thousand words which in my experience is about right. You don’t want to offer too much at first, just a few crisp ideas succinctly put.

  That’s what I used to long for when I was reading people’s treatments. God, the depression when something the size of a telephone directory lands on your desk and you’re supposed to respond to it overnight. Besides, Trevor and George had agreed to meet me right away, being such good mates, and I didn’t want them to have an excuse for not having read it. I biked it over to the BBC first thing this morning and we all met up at noon at Quark, meeting for the first time as suppliant and God-like commissioners, rather than as honoured partners in lunch. I can’t deny I was nervous.

  When I arrived Trevor was alone. I didn’t bother with any of the smalltalk that’s normally the rule on these occasions. Dammit, I’ve known Trevor for years.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked.

  The news was good. He loved it. I cannot describe the relief.

  ‘I think it’s a fantastic idea, Sam,’ he said with real enthusiasm.

  ‘Dark, dramatic. Even the Controller’s excited.’

  I was amazed. ‘You’ve shown it to Nigel?’

  ‘We didn’t tell him it came from you, of course.’

  This was extraordinary news. Bringing in a network Controller at such an early stage was scarcely common. In fact it was unheard of.

  ‘It’s the Zeitgeist, Sam, the issue du jour,’ Trevor explained to me, as if I didn’t know. ‘For Christ’s sake, everybody knows somebody who’s doing it. The whole country’s obsessed. That IVF documentary we ran got eight million viewers even on the repeats and there wasn’t a laugh in it.’

  Just then George came up. He was late because he’d been up at the Royal Free taking Cuthbert for a check-up. Cuthbert appears to be getting back to his old self, insomuch as George was still trying to get sick out of his breast pocket.

  The gorgeous waitress who had so humiliated me on my previous visit to Quark was hovering about waiting to take our order. I longed for George to say something loud and forceful about my treatment, which would let her know that I was not a sad git at all but a hot new screenwriter with a project hurtling towards a green light. He didn’t, though. George doesn’t let anything get in the way of his ordering food. He made up for it, though, once we’d ordered and even without a sexy young audience it was still pretty heady stuff.

  ‘Now look here, Sam,’ he said. ‘We’ve all had a gander at your idea and everyone thinks it’s marvellous…’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been telling him,’ said Trevor.

  And suddenly they were both talking at once.

  ‘The scene in the restaurant where she rings up and demands her Restricted Bonking Month bonk.’

  ‘And then the bloke can’t get an erection.’

  ‘Brilliant. Did that really happen?’

  I admitted that it did.

  ‘I love it when she spills the tea because she’s propped herself up on the pillows,’ said George. ‘How’s Lucy taking it, by the way? I mean, it’s pretty intimate.’

  This was, of course, a pretty tricky point. After all, Trevor and George are both friends of Lucy’s and here I was, hoping to convince them to enable me to betray her.

  Just then the waitress arrived with our starters and of course everything had to stop while George went into his ‘Modern restaurants are crap’ routine. He has a particular hatred of what in the 1980s was called nouvelle cuisine i.e. small portions pretentiously presented.

  ‘Hate these poncy joints,’ he said, loudly, so that the waitress would hear. ‘Plates the size of dustbin lids, portions so small you think you’ve got dirty crockery and it turns out to be your main course.’

  If the gorgeous, icy young waitress cared what George thought about the food or its presentation she certainly did not let it show on her sullen, impossibly perfect countenance. She simply smiled her ‘You’re not so special, I meet two thousand wankers like you a day’ smile, turned and left, leaving George and me to gape at her wonderful bottom as she returned to the kitchen. George observed that she could probably crack walnuts between those splendidly athletic-looking buttocks, which he knew would annoy Trevor, who asked him to keep his witless, sexist, juvenile heterosexual banter to himself.

  After this we returned to the difficult subject of what Lucy would say about my treatment.

  ‘I’m amazed she’s letting you do it,’ said Trevor. ‘I really am. I mean, I know it’s a story and not about her but all the same, you’ve had to get your research from somewhere.’

  It was time to come clean and admit that I hadn’t actually told her about my plans yet. After all, I reasoned, there was no sense in getting her all excited if it came to nothing. Movies are a notoriously dodgy business.

  ‘Even if you do give me a commission, I’m going to keep my new job in radio and work incognito.’

  I could see that George and Trevor were not entirely convinced that I was embarking on a sensible course of action, but it is not really their problem and one thing I’m sure about is that they love the treatment, as, it seems, does Nigel. Astonishingly, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I seem to be getting somewhere.

  .’ Well, I mean to say!

  Dear Penny,

  I went back to work today and there was a note in an envelope on my desk. It was from Carl. I knew it was from him because the envelope was made out of pressed rag paper and it was sealed with wax! I simply do not know anyone else rich enough or theatrical enough to deliver a note in such a manner. This is what it said.

  ‘You are obviously hurting in some way. Perhaps I have hurt you. I know that I never meant to. The truth is, Lucy, that I have felt drawn to you from the very first day we met. It is not just that I find you beautiful, although I do, but there is also a kind of sadness about you, a longing from within that fascinates me and makes me want to know you more. Of course I have no right to feel this way. You are a married woman and the thoughts that I have about you are entirely wrong and inappropriate. Therefore I shall not come into the office again if I can help it and I promise that I will do my best to keep out of your way from now on. Always know, though, that I am your friend and am there for you if you need me. Yours respectfully, Carl Phipps

  That has to be the loveliest note that anyone has ever sent me. How does he know so much about me? A longing within? I mean it’s absolutely spot on, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve ever met such an intuitive man in my entire life! I mean I’ve never told him about my wanting a baby…Well, I suppose I might have mentioned it, but only in passing, so it’s still amazingly sensitive of him. And so generous not to be furious about my answerphone message. I mean, for heaven’s sake! I called him up and told him to forget about sleeping with me when he hadn’t even asked to (well, not in words anyway).

  Oh well, it’s all over now, isn’t it? All over before it even began, which is the best way, and I’m really pleased. Of course in a different world, on another planet, it might have been nice to… No! I mustn’t think that way, it’s pointless and shameful. Carl has shown me the way with his dignified restraint.

  But how amazing. I do believe he’s actually got a crush on me.

  Dear Sam,

  Lucy had her laparoscopy today. Superb material. I feel awful writing this because obviously it wasn’t much fun for her but really, this script is going to write itself. I’ve never felt so motivated. I do wish I could share this sense of purpose with Lucy because it’s just what she’s always been wanting for me, but for obvious reasons I must keep my own counsel.

  We got up at five-thirty. Lucy was not allowed to even have a cup of tea because of the operation. The drive was a nightmare, of course. Rush-hour starts at about three in the morning these days. I’ll definitely be voting Green next time. The frustrating thing is that transport is the only area where we all collectively agree to ignore the evidence of our eyes and believe instead in the myth. I’m worse than anyone
. I mean, let’s face it, the propaganda that the car industry puts out would give Goebbels and Stalin a run for their money in terms of pure Utopian disinformation. They always advertise cars by showing some smug smoothie driving at speed along a gorgeous empty road, with not another car in sight. When in the real world did anyone ever drive along an empty road? I don’t think that I’ve once been in that position in twenty years of driving. They always tell you what the make of the car is. I don’t give a toss what the car is.

  Why don’t they tell me where the road is? Just once in my life I’d like to drive on a road like that.

  It really was a near-surreal experience, sitting there in fifteen thousand pounds’ worth of machinery, machinery that was supposed to liberate mankind, crawling along at a walking pace, hating every other car owner on earth. That’s what we were all doing. Every single person for miles and miles and miles sitting in a steaming metal box hating every single other person. Every morning in every town in Britain virtually every adult gets into his or her tin box and starts hating. Then, having taken all day to calm down, we get back into our boxes and start hating all over again. Yet when asked the question ‘Why not get on a bus?’ I’m the first person to say, ‘No way, they’re horrible.’

  Dear Penny,

  I’m writing this while sitting alone in a depressing, plain little hospital room waiting to be done over like a kipper.

  Sam drove me to the clinic this morning, which was nice except for the fact that he insisted on doing his ‘This traffic is insane,’ rant as if somehow we weren’t as guilty as everyone else. Not easy to stomach without so much as a cup of tea inside me. On the other hand he was solicitous about my forthcoming ordeal, asking lots of questions which I thought was good of him since I know he hates the whole ghastly business. As indeed do I, but as I say, I appreciate him showing an interest.

  I took the opportunity of the traffic jams to get some background detail out of Lucy regarding the laparoscopy. I must say it sounds absolutely dreadful, but not without its comic possibilities.

  I know what happens backwards from the eight million books about fertility I’ve read in the last year or two. Sam was fascinated; he even jotted one or two things down when the car was stopped in traffic. First they feed a tube into your tummy and pump you full of gas so that they can see your insides better, then they make another hole just above your pubic triangle, or map of Tasmania as Sir Les Patterson would say (I can’t believe I’m writing this), and they shove a probe in to move things about a bit so that they can take their pictures. They also pump in a lot of dye which apparently will bring out the finer features. Sam actually laughed at this, but I think it was just because he was nervous.

  It’s amazing what women have to go through, so weird. I wonder if it would be funny to have a scene where the doctor (possibly gay) offers the woman a choice of colour dyes to see which one would go nicest with the shade of her intestines. Maybe a bit over the top. I’ll have to think quite carefully about the tone of this script. I mean, is it mainly funny with a bit of emotion, or mainly emotion with a bit of funny? Somewhere in between, I think.

  Anyway, once they’ve got everything pumped up and dyed and prodded into position they make a hole just under your belly-button and put a long fibre optic telescope through with a camera on the end. God, what a thought. As I was telling Sam, I was actually beginning to feel sicker and sicker. It was lucky that I didn’t have anything in my stomach to throw up as we’ve just had the car valeted. One strange thing was that as I was telling Sam the gory details I suddenly remembered that I’d meant to have my bikini line done and I was really annoyed that I hadn’t. I mean why would I worry about that? It’s absurd. I never worry about a bit of escaper normally, not for smear tests and all that, sometimes don’t even bother for the beach. But for some reason today I just felt like looking my best. I can’t imagine why. Perhaps this whole business makes me feel less like a woman and I wanted to reassert my softness and my femininity.

  One brilliant thing Lucy told me was that she had wanted to have her bikini line waxed! Superb stuff! I improvised a line there and then…I said, ‘Blimey, Lucy, it’s a laparoscopy, not lap dancing,’ which I think cheered her up and I’ll certainly keep it for the script.

  Sam just made stupid jokes, which was a bit irritating, although I know he meant well. The thing is that I don’t think he really understands how demeaning and dehumanizing the whole process is. You’re not a woman any more, you’re just a thing under a microscope, like in biology at school. I shan’t write any more now because I can hear a trolley clanking in the corridor and I fear my hour has come.

  Lucy was pretty zonked out when I picked her up this afternoon, so I couldn’t get much out of her on the journey home. The doctor said it had all gone fine, anyway, and that they would give us the results in a few days, ‘When we’ve got the photos back from the chemist,’ he said. I hate doctors who crack glib little jokes like that. I mean, that’s my wife’s internal organs he’s talking about! I think I’ll use him in the movie, though. Stephen Fry would play him brilliantly.

  The trip home was even worse than in the morning. What are we doing to the world? Actually, more to the point, what are we doing to ourselves? At one stage I spent twenty-five minutes in a virtually stationary battle to prevent a bloke getting in front of me from out of a side street. Every inch of road that became available I filled, in order to prevent him from edging in, never once allowing myself to catch his eye. Why? Why did I do that?

  It’s something about cars. They shrink our souls. If I met the same man on foot I’d say, ‘Oh, excuse me,’ and make way.

  Instead I spent twenty minutes of my life, when I could have been relaxing, obsessed with stopping a bloke getting two feet in front of me in a stationary queue. I really am pathetic.

  When we got home Lucy went straight to bed. I’d intended to spend the evening doing some more work on my script but somehow I don’t feel like it. What with Lucy in a drugged sleep upstairs, I’m feeling a bit cheap. Guilty conscience, I’m afraid. I do hope I’m not weakening. I must see this through. It’s the first thing I’ve felt genuinely excited about in years.

  Dear Penny,

  Well, yesterday I had the laparoscopy and today I’ve got a very sore throat. Sam was particularly interested in that, wondering how you could end up with a sore throat when the business was so very much down the other end. He seemed quite excited for a minute as if there might be some extraordinarily exotic reason for this phenomenon. When I explained it was just where the anaesthetist had stuck a breathing tube down my throat he actually seemed quite disappointed. Very strange.

  I think this new job at Radio is getting him down. I must say, it doesn’t sound very stimulating.

  Dear Book,

  There really is no job for me at Broadcasting House. They just made one up to avoid a run-in with the union. Ostensibly my responsibility is to commission youth-orientated comedy, but I have absolutely no money whatsoever to do this with. The entire youth entertainment budget, and I mean all of it, has been spent on Charlie Stone’s wages. I couldn’t believe it when I found out.

  The breakfast show is considered such a flagship for the station that every resource has been sacrificed to its success, which basically is Charlie. I dropped in on his show again this morning to have another look at what we’re paying for, and because, frankly, I had absolutely nothing else to do. It was rather traumatic for me actually, as he was interviewing a couple of the grrrls from Grrrl Gang. I’m afraid it brought back very painful memories of my Livin’ Large disaster.

  ‘All right,’ said Charlie, and those words alone cost the licence payer about five pounds. ‘Coming up now we’ve got Strawberry and Muffy from the all-conquering Grrrl Gang, and my trousers are swollen to bursting point. No doubt about it, these girls give me a third leg! You should see them! Grrrl Gang? More like Phwoar Blimey Gang from where I’m sitting! Anyway, grrrls, I know that it’s very important to you that you write a lot of your own l
yrics. Tell us a bit about where the band is coming from.’

  ‘It’s about everything, right!’ replied Strawberry or Muffy, I don’t know which. ‘It’s a whole philosophy! It’s whatever you want it to be. It’s about having a totally positive attitude and kickin’ it big for your babe mates and all your sistas! So get on the case!

  Get a grip! Get with the plot! You gotta go out and grab whatever you want! Like a degree in physics or a cute bloke’s buns! Just grab it, grrrl!’

  I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything quite so fatuous in all my life. Certainly not since I last attended a BBC targeting and strategy meeting (entitled ‘Meeting the Future: Policing the Gateway’).

  I was glad I popped in, though, because it strengthened my resolve about my film. I mean I can’t spend the rest of my career pretending to laugh at Charlie Stone’s knob gags, I just can’t. My script development is my way out. Lucy would understand, I know she would.

  Not that I’m going to tell her.

  . I am still not fucking preg!

  Dear Penny,

  Sam and I went to see Dr James, my consultant, today. Actually I think he’s called Mr James. I’ve always found that confusing about consultants. It seems that the higher a person rises in the medical profession the less grand the title they get. Probably quite healthy really. Stop them getting too pompous.

  Anyway, the good news is that they’ve found nothing wrong with my innards. I do not have endometriosis, which is an enormous relief. Also there are no adhesions on the abdominal cavity and I have recently ovulated.