by Jonathan Coe
‘I don’t know,’ said Alison. ‘She’ll probably spend a lot of it on studio time.’
‘She deserves another hit record, that’s for sure. I really loved the last one. She’s a very talented lady, your mom. And don’t mind my husband, with his nosy questions. He’s never had any manners.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Alison. ‘I don’t mind answering questions.’
‘I’ve got one,’ said Malikah, one of Selena’s younger sisters. ‘Can I feel your false leg?’
At nine o’clock, they sat down together to watch the programme. Alison was nervous, but this time it wasn’t too much of an ordeal: partly because Selena’s family kept up such a lively running commentary, and partly because her mother was hardly in this episode at all. There was quite a jolly scene in the last five minutes, when somebody brought a guitar into camp and Pete and Danielle did an entertainingly terrible performance of ‘Yellow Submarine’. Val could be seen singing along with the chorus: she was smiling and looked like she was having a good time. Apart from that, she was barely even glimpsed on screen.
‘Ah, that was funny,’ said Ashley, muting the television when the news came on. ‘Really, that silly girl couldn’t sing to save her life.’
‘Fuck me, she’s fit though,’ said Navaro. They were practically the first words he’d spoken that evening.
‘You mind your language, mister,’ Ashley said. Then, turning to Alison: ‘I wonder why they didn’t give your mom the guitar to play? That would have been nice.’
‘Don’t know,’ said Alison. ‘She’s quite shy, my mother. I know that sounds weird, for a singer, but she really is. Very shy, in fact.’
‘Well, that’s probably the reason,’ said Ashley. ‘But I still think it’s a shame. We would all like to have heard her voice again.’
*
A few minutes later Alison left, and Selena offered to walk with her to the bus stop. It was a cold night, enough to make their teeth chatter as they stamped their feet to keep warm and waited for the Number 11 to appear. Once again, Alison found it hard to believe that this, a few days ago, had been her mother’s world, and yet now she was sitting around a camp fire in Australia with a guitar and a bunch of minor celebrities. She should have grown used to the unreality of it, by now, but it continued to stagger her.
‘By the way,’ she said, trying to put this thought aside, ‘I wanted to tell you something. Something about me. A little secret.’
‘Oh God,’ said Selena. ‘Not another one. It’s not your other leg, is it?’
Alison shook her head, smiling.
‘Glass eye?’
‘No.’ But now, some undertone of urgency in her voice made Selena fall silent, waiting for the revelation. ‘I’m gay,’ Alison said finally, in a quiet, neutral way.
‘Oh.’ Selena had been staring at the pavement. Now she looked up brightly. ‘Well, that’s no big deal really, is it?’
‘Isn’t it? You sure?’
‘Of course.’
Alison let out a deep breath and smiled and hugged her. ‘I’m so relieved.’
‘Why?’ said Selena, clasping her tightly in return. ‘What did you think I was going to say?’
‘I don’t know … People react in funny ways sometimes.’
‘They do?’
‘Well, actually I’ve only told two people – you and my friend Rachel. But she took it so badly it’s made me a bit nervous.’
‘Why, what did she say?’
Alison traced a careless pattern on the pavement with her right foot as she began to explain: ‘I’ve known Rachel for years. We were at primary school together. She lives in Leeds but we’ve always stayed in touch. So a couple of months ago, I wrote her a letter. And then the next day, I sent her a message on Snapchat, asking if she’d got the letter. And she sent a reply, saying that she had. And then I asked her what she was doing that night, and she said …’ (Alison swallowed hard) ‘… I mean I can hardly believe she said this, but she said she was going to be sleeping with her brother, and it was just the sort of thing I liked doing.’
Selena gaped at her. ‘She said what?’
‘Yeah. Being gay, for her, apparently, is just like fucking your own brother.’
‘Is that what she said?’
‘I only saw the message for a few seconds, because that’s how it works, but that’s pretty much what she wrote. I asked her where she was and she said: “With my brother. We’re doing the incest thing tonight.”’
Incredulous, half laughing and half frowning, Selena was almost lost for words: ‘Wow. That’s a … pretty weird thing to say. And a weird way of saying it, actually.’
‘Well, it was handwritten, and, like I said, it wasn’t on the screen for long. But that’s what it looked like. And then she said, “Right up your street I would have thought.”’
‘Shit,’ said Selena. ‘That’s harsh. Is that it? I mean, is that the sum total of her response?’
‘She did write me a letter, but I couldn’t face reading it. I chucked it away.’
‘Is she … is she, like, a born-again Christian or something?’
‘Not the last time I looked,’ said Alison, and then the bus swung into view. They managed a quick kiss on the cheek – fumbled but tender – before she climbed on board.
*
Danielle and Val followed their guide along the jungle path. They had no way of knowing it, but it was only ten thirty in the morning. The air was already dense and sticky, and the path was heavy going.
‘Can I ask you something, Val?’ said Danielle, over her shoulder.
‘Of course.’
‘It’s about your song the other night – which was really lovely, by the way.’
‘Oh, thank you.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about it, actually. Can’t stop thinking about the words.’
‘Yeah? Well, that’s a good sign, I suppose.’
‘It’s just that line: “I need your breath, Like the moonshine controls the water.” Have I got it right?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘I was just wondering … what does that mean, then? How can moonshine control the water? Is it just like … something you made up?’
Val hesitated, not sure whether this was a joke or not. She decided it wasn’t. ‘Well no, I was just talking about … you know, the moon, and the tides. The gravitational pull of the moon.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know – how when the tide goes in and out, that’s because of the moon.’
Danielle stopped and turned. Now she was the one suspecting a joke.
‘Are you winding me up?’ she said.
‘Of course not. I’d never do that.’
‘That’s why the tide goes in and out? Really?’
Val nodded.
Danielle’s beautiful eyes widened. This was a revelation to her, it seemed, and a very important one.
‘That’s incredible. Just fucking incredible. When we get out of here,’ she said, turning back to resume her progress along the path, ‘I want to spend a lot more time with you. You know so much. How did you get to know all these things?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Val, almost tripping on a creeper. ‘It helps if you work in a library, I suppose …’
In a few more minutes, they emerged into a wide clearing, where their chortling hosts, inevitably, were waiting to greet them.
‘Morning, ladies!’
‘We’ve got a nice little treat for you today.’
‘Yes, today we’re going to do not one but two jungle trials!�
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‘But there’s a twist, as always.’
‘Yesterday we asked the viewers at home to say who was their favourite person in the camp.’
‘The person with the most votes is going to do the first of today’s trials, which is a pretty easy one, to be honest. It’s called The Fluffy Jungle Path of Pink Marshmallows and Cuddly Toys.’
‘Unfortunately, the person with the smallest number of votes is not going to have quite such a nice time. She’s going to be entering something called The Cave of Evil.’
‘So, are you ready to hear the results of the vote?’
They both nodded.
Val wasn’t surprised, of course, to hear that Danielle was the most popular person in the camp. But it was a shock to learn that she herself had been voted the least popular. As soon as the news was broken to her, with the hosts’ typical cheeky, ironic grins, her stomach turned over and she felt her legs were about to buckle. The least popular? How on earth had that happened? All the hard-earned confidence acquired over the last few days drained out of her. She barely knew what was happening as Danielle was led away in one direction and then she felt herself being taken by the arm as the other host (which one was it? She never could tell them apart) propelled her in the direction of a steep, intimidating escarpment at the other end of the clearing.
‘Now, Val,’ he was saying, his voice dripping with boyish charm, ‘how are you with the old creepy-crawlies?’
She had no idea what he was saying, what she had just been asked. All she knew, as her eyes slowly came back into focus, was that she was being pointed in the direction of a low, narrow aperture in the rock, which seemed to lead into nothingness. There was just about room for a human being to crawl through it, and a few seconds later she was inside.
*
Alison stood in the kitchen, her hands over her ears. She’d been in this situation countless times before: on her own, in the kitchen, trying to block out the sounds of the TV, which Val always turned up too loud. What could be more mundane, more banal? Except that tonight there was a crucial difference: tonight, the sounds coming from the television, the sounds she was trying to ignore, were her own mother’s screams of distress.
They were awful sounds. Keening, animal howls coming from thousands of miles away: from somewhere in the depths of a cave in a corner of the Australian rain forest, captured as digital information and beamed faithfully into Yardley via the television’s speakers. This latest ordeal would have taken place several hours ago, of course, but that was little consolation to Alison, who was having to live through every moment of it now, in real time. Sometimes when the screams died down she could hear the chortling host intervene with comments like ‘OK Val, here comes the next lot!’ or ‘Ooh, these are nasty little fellas all right, aren’t they?’ But otherwise there was no respite from her mother’s lacerating, inhuman screeching. How long had it been going on for, now? No more than a couple of minutes, surely. But she wasn’t sure that she could stand it any longer.
‘Selena!’ she shouted towards the living room. ‘For fuck’s sake turn it down.’
The TV was muted and a few seconds later Selena came into the kitchen. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘It’s finished. They’ve gone over to the adverts.’ She saw that Alison had been crying, and took a Kleenex out of her pocket. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Let’s clean you up a bit.’
‘Fuck,’ said Alison, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. ‘That was rough.’
‘She didn’t cope too well, did she?’
‘Of course she didn’t fucking cope! That would have been her worst nightmare. She’s claustrophobic for a start.’
The cave into which Val had been made to crawl had been no more than two feet high, and not much wider. Once inside, she had been told to lie on her back, and then the entrance had been sealed with a rock.
‘She also has nyctophobia.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Fear of the dark. And entomophobia.’
‘Fear of … insects?’
Alison nodded. ‘The silly cow. She should have fucking … told them.’ She grabbed another fistful of Kleenex from the box, and blew her nose. ‘Were they all over her? What were they?’
‘I don’t know – cockroaches, mainly. And some spiders.’
‘Shit. She hates spiders.’
‘It’s over now, Al. She’s got through it.’
Selena took Alison in her arms and held her close, and for a while they just stood like that, not moving, beneath the glare of the kitchen’s strip lighting. Selena waited for Alison to relax, to soften beneath the embrace, but it wasn’t happening.
‘She was here,’ Alison said eventually. ‘This time last week she was here with me. A week later she’s in the Australian jungle and someone’s buried her alive and she’s got spiders crawling into her mouth. I mean, what the fuck …? What happened to us this week?’
Whatever it was that had happened, it was soon over. At the very end of that night’s episode, the show went live to Australia, where it was now eight o’clock in the morning. It was time for the first of the celebrities to be voted off. Forlornly, Alison and Selena sat on the sofa, wielding two mobile phones and a landline, repeatedly punching in the number that was supposed to save Val from expulsion. But they were wasting their time (and money). She was, by some margin, the contestant with the fewest votes, and just a few minutes later she had left the camp and was being ushered into the makeshift outdoor studio where she would have her final interview with the two hosts. Sitting down beside them, she looked tired and skeletal. Her eyes were blank with shock and exhaustion. Her skin was grey. When the interview was over, she was directed to walk across the little suspended wooden bridge to the spot where her car and driver would be waiting. The cameras followed her as the programme’s theme tune played out. To Alison, her mother looked older and more frail than ever. Her stoop was worse. At the far end of the bridge, Alison could glimpse Steve, holding out his arms in expectation. He greeted her mother with a brief, amicable hug. The credits came to an end and Alison turned off the TV.
‘Well,’ she said. ‘That’s that.’
She poured a glass of wine for herself and another for Selena, who looked at it doubtfully.
‘I should really be getting home in a minute,’ she said.
‘Well … Just one more. Won’t do you any harm.’
Forty minutes later, the telephone rang. It was Val, calling from Australia. She was back at the hotel, crying down the line. Alison tried to comfort her at first but it soon became clear that all her words of reassurance (‘No, really, you came across very well … Everyone here’s been rooting for you …’) were beside the point. The point being that Steve had dumped her. Apparently, while the celebrities had been in the jungle, all their partners and guests had been taken out on organized day trips, and in the process a romance had developed between Steve and Jacqui, Pete’s aunt. This afternoon they were flying up to Cairns to spend a few days surfing together.
‘I’ve got to stay here for another week,’ Val said, between snivelling breaths. ‘What am I going to do, all by myself?’
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ said Alison. ‘I can tell you what you shouldn’t do.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Go online, or read the papers.’
She hung up when it became clear that her mother was too tired to speak any more. Selena had overheard most of the conversation and was already fuming with sisterly indignation.
‘Has what I think just happened, actually happened?’
‘Yep. I should have warned her. I should have warned her
about that fucking creep. Next time I see him, I’m going to get him on the floor, and give him such a kicking …’
‘Can I join in?’ Selena asked. ‘I’m pretty good at kicking. I’ve got two good legs, for a start.’
Alison gave a long, grateful laugh, and instinctively reached out to touch her friend on the cheek.
‘I don’t suppose you could stay the night?’ she said.
*
Perry Barr – Handsworth – Winson Green – Bearwood – Harborne – Selly Oak – Cotteridge – Kings Heath – Hall Green – Acocks Green – Yardley – Stechford – Fox & Goose – Erdington – Witton – Perry Barr.
Shit!
Did you say that out loud? Did you scream? Why are they all looking at you?
Must have dozed off.
– Yardley – Stechford – Fox & Goose –
Same thing. Same images. Same sensations. The darkness, first of all. The knowledge that the roof is just above your head, that you can’t move. And then the noises. The scurrying noises, as they empty the first load on to you, from somewhere up above, through some hole in the rock.
No sleep again last night. Not a wink. This seems to be the only place you can sleep now. But you don’t want to. As soon as you sleep, you hear them again. Feel them crawling. Up your legs, inside your trousers, down the front of your shirt. Oh fuck.
– Fox & Goose – Erdington – Witton –
Two months now. Two months since you got back. Two months and no change. Nothing. Same old shit, day after day.
– Witton – Perry Barr – Handsworth –
Doctor says it’s only a matter of time, a matter of waiting, but what does she know? All they do is give you pills anyway. She doesn’t understand. Nobody understands, knows what it’s like. ‘Look on the bright side,’ for fuck’s sake.
– Handsworth – Winson Green – Bearwood –