CHAPTER 63
Each of the children was taken through the notes made by the researchers at their preliminary interview and was reminded of anything relevant they had said at the time. The presenters would prompt them but it was up to them to pick up the cue and repeat a particular anecdote or comment.
After this, the three children and the presenters assembled on the set for a run-through. Some of the studio audience had already begun to arrive; they were welcomed by junior staff and diverted to a waiting room. The two presenters made their preliminary speech about unusually gifted children, mentioning gifts of art, sport and music and skimming over them to focus attention on the kind of gifts exemplified by their guests. They whisked through the influence of genetics and inheritance, good luck or bad luck in being born with certain gifts or handicaps, and came to rest on the power of a child's individual character to develop those gifts or overcome the disabilities with which nature or destiny had equipped them.
This introduction was delivered with smiles, earnest expressions, confidence and, Eldred considered, a total lack of conviction. Simon, who stood in the corner wearing headphones almost bigger than his head and who appeared to be in charge of the whole operation, smiled and raised his thumb and seemed satisfied with Janice and Peter's performance. Eldred dared to hope that the standard they would require of him would be equally undemanding.
Keith was wheeled on to the set by his mother, who then took her seat in the front row. Several seats behind her were occupied by studio staff, who were instructed by Simon to look in turn absorbed, curious, sympathetic and amused and finally to give a round of applause, while the cameras turned on them.
'I thought this was just a run-through,’ Eldred said to Lulubelle, as they waited where they had been put, in the wings of the little set. 'Why are they filming it?’
'Rachel said they'd film all the bits with Keith in,’ said Lulubelle, 'in case he gets taken ill and can't finish it. Then they could use the runthrough as the actual thing, with those people sitting behind his mum as though there's a whole studio audience. And if he's too tired to stay on the set while we do our thing, they'll take the cameras off him and wheel him off. They're going to tell the audience not to applaud him if he goes off while we're doing something.’
Eldred was concerned. 'Is he likely to get ill?’
'He might. His mother told my mum he could die at any time,’ Lulubelle said.
'Not here!’ said Eldred, terrified. 'Why don't they just take him home?’
'He wanted to do it,’ said Lulubelle. 'Let him have a bit of excitement.’
'If it kills him?’
'Better to die doing something you enjoy,’ she said philosophically. 'I'd rather fall off a high wire without a safety net than lie for months in hospital with tubes up my nose or something.’
'Would you?’ Eldred had never thought about it.
The mock studio audience gave a round of applause as Keith answered his first question.
'Ssh,’ Lulubelle told Eldred. 'I didn't hear what he said then.’
'He said he'd had fifteen operations, eight on his body and seven on his legs,’ said Eldred.
Her eyes filled with tears suddenly. 'Poor kid,’ she said. Eldred took her hand and she squeezed his fingers painfully. Eldred didn't resent it, remembering that her mother would be annoyed with her if she cried and smudged her eyeliner.
The crew went silent while Keith talked about his life, the things he enjoyed, the highlights - family visits, television programmes, trips to the pantomime, receiving letters and cards in answer to letters he drafted on his modified computer - and the sufferings. With no change in his voice, he talked about operations that hadn't worked, scars that took months to heal, eagerly awaited holidays missed and the sadness of watching other children play football, go on the swings in the park or dress up for the disco.
Lulubelle, listening, wept, regardless of her make-up. Eldred stood very still, focusing on Keith. He felt that if he listened very hard, he might begin to understand what it was like to be Keith and then he might, in some way, be Keith, so that Keith would no longer have to bear the whole burden of being himself on his own. He took deep breaths, breathing in Keith, trying to absorb the essence of him. His self-preserving instinct impelled him to take the opposite route, to shut Keith out of his consciousness and close his heart to the painful recognition of how it felt to be Keith, but Eldred resisted it and felt his heart expand, contract, ache and flinch as Keith spoke.
When the boy stopped talking and Peter thanked him, there was a moment's stillness before everyone recollected themselves and clapped. The crew, Eldred could sense, were no longer pretending to be a studio audience applauding but were being themselves, applauding Keith. Several of them were discreetly applying handkerchiefs to their noses and eyes, including, Eldred noticed, Mildred.
'Ouf!’ said Lulubelle softly. 'How do you follow that?’
'You're on in a second,’ said the girl with the clipboard who had showed them where to stand while they waited their turn. 'As soon as Peter finishes this bit of talk.’
Lulubelle panicked. 'I can't go on and do cartwheels after that!’
'Now!’ said the girl, giving her shoulder a slight shove.
'No,’ said Lulubelle. 'I can't.’
'Hold it!’ the girl shouted.
'Okay, cut,’ said Simon, removing his headphones. 'That part was fine, thanks. What's the problem over here?’
'Stage fright,’ said the girl.
Lulubelle stamped her foot. 'I do not get stage fright!’ she said furiously.
'What's up?’ Simon asked.
'You heard him,’ said Lulubelle, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. 'Could you go on and leap about all over the place, after him saying he got upset watching kids play football when he can't?’
'Oh, right,’ said Simon soothingly. 'Right. I take your point. You relax and take a break, love. Go and have a chat with your mum. I'll have a quick word with Peter and Janice.’ He went.
'He's going to make them talk me into it,’ said Lulubelle.
'Yes,’ said Eldred. 'I think so.’
'What would you do?’ she asked.
Eldred thought. He closed his eyes and tried to feel like Keith again. 'Go on and do it,’ he said. 'Keith wants to see what you do.’
'How do you know?’ Lulubelle asked.
'He's come on this programme because he wanted to,’ Eldred pointed out. 'He knew about me and you. You said yourself, "Let him have a bit of excitement.” Well, there's nothing more exciting than watching you.’
Her eyes widened. 'Is that true?’
'True as true,’ Eldred assured her.
'I've got an idea,’ she said. 'Is my make-up smudged?’
He inspected her face. 'Not much. One corner of that eye.’
'I'll get Mum to fix it,’ she said. 'Then watch this space, Eldred. This is going to be spec-tac-u-lar!’ She did a quick somersault in the air for emphasis and sprang off in the direction of her mother, leaving Eldred breathless at her sudden change of mood.
He watched and waited. Lulubelle, looking confident, suffered repair by her mother, spoke to Simon, Janice and Pete and then to Keith. Everyone stood back. The set cleared.
'We're not rolling the cameras,’ Simon said, 'but treat this as if it was for real. Okay, go.’
Lulubelle appeared at Eldred's side. Holding both hands against her diaphragm, she drew in her breath and then let it out very slowly, very controlled. Eldred dared not move in case he distracted her.
She moved out of the wings into view, walking on her hands with exaggerated lifts, raising her head at each step so the audience could see her face. Peter, Eldred noticed, had wheeled Keith into the middle of the studio space. He wondered why he had done that.
Lulubelle pivoted round on one hand and flashed into the routine she had shown Eldred, the series of backward flips. Even though he had seen it before, he gasped at the speed. Keith, folded in his wheelchair with h
is head tilted sideways on his fragile neck, was open-mouthed. As Lulubelle shot towards him, apparently set for a fatal collision, he let out a delighted, high-pitched laugh. His mother half-rose from her seat, her hands over her mouth.
At the very last minute, Lulubelle threw her weight on to her left hand and still going backwards, flipped round him in his wheelchair. The timing was perfectly judged, without a second's loss of speed. The whole studio erupted in applause.
When it faded, Keith's laugh, infectious and exhilarated, still rang out. Eldred found, without knowing why, that his eyes were full of tears. Simon took Lulubelle aside. 'We should have filmed it,’ he said. 'Can you do it again?’
'Sure,’ she said.
'Would you rather we filmed it first,’ he said, 'without the audience here? To be on the safe side?’
'No,’ she said. 'I'm better with an audience.’
'Honey,’ he said sincerely, 'it would be hard to better that. You're something else!’
That, Eldred thought, was the turning point. After that, he didn't feel nervous at all. His own run-through went as Lulubelle had predicted: the visual tests they set for him, projected on to a screen the audience could see above his head, were easy enough to begin with. When he coped with them with no difficulty, Simon made signs to the operator to speed the problems up, then to cut the next few sequences and move straight to the ones that were more difficult.
What a very strange little boy, thought Keith. Jumpy and fidgety all the time, his expression ever-changing, his eyes constantly roaming, registering everything around him, then suddenly still, as if turned to stone, the moment someone asked him a question. Not only his quicksilver mind but even his body appeared to be thinking, suspending all activity till the answer arrived.
And ‘arriving’ did seem to be what the answers did. Eldred didn't appear to be working them out; there wouldn't have been time for it. No, he was frozen in time and space, totally concentrating, listening - then the answer came out of his mouth, while his normally mobile face was expressionless. Keith was mesmerized by him.
Eldred, conscious of Lulubelle and Keith behind him, willing him to be brilliant, forgot about the presence of everyone else and concentrated on the screen. They gave him a buzzer to hold in his hand and click when he found the right answer. The clicks got closer and closer together, the answers came faster and faster, till he was hardly aware of thinking at all, nor of the mounting excitement in the observers. He jumped when, after a final sequence of jumbled shapes in various patterns had been correctly selected to match their assembled forms, some of the crew shouted, 'Yeah!’ and ran forward to slap him on the back, while the others applauded.
He looked towards Lulubelle and Keith. Lulubelle raised her fists in the air in a victory salute and Keith grinned and nodded as fast as he could.
'Terrific!’ said Janice, kissing him on the top of his head. 'Do you need a break, Eldred? Before you do the random maths test? We can do the interview in the middle if you like, then go on to the other tests, or we can do them all now in one block.’
'Do them now,’ he said. He was high on adrenalin. He could see why Lulubelle thrived on applause, how it could bring her to life when she had been crying a moment before. She was glowing now, smiling and giving him the thumbs-up sign, as thrilled by his success as by her own. Keith's eyes were bright and he smiled his wide smile without tiring.
They practised the maths test. Pete stood with Eldred, facing the make-believe audience, a few of the crew primed to shout out numbers and mathematical signs. Seated behind Peter, Janice sat at a computer ready to tap in what was called out. The computer would do the sum and flash the results on the overhead screen, while Eldred did the calculation in his head and spoke the answer into the little microphone clipped to his shirt.
'Start with low numbers and plus or minus signs,’ Pete instructed.
Eldred was tense, his fists clenched by his sides. Pete patted his shoulder reassuringly. It was all right for him, Eldred thought; he didn't have to do anything.
'Thirteen!’ came the first shout.
'Forty-five!’
'Plus!’ shouted the person who had volunteered to call the signs.
Eldred took a deep breath, as he had seen Lulubelle doing, and let it out slowly, in his own time. He answered clearly and politely, a few seconds after the computer had flashed the solution on screen.
They moved on to division and multiplying.
'Sixteen!’
'Thirty-five!’
'Multiply!’
Eldred's attention wandered. 'Five hundred and sixty,’ he said absently. You weren't meant to look the camera in the eye but was it permissible to look around it, to try to see how it worked and how it was manoeuvred, or would that come out as Eldred staring straight out of the television screen into someone's living room?
The contest was not going as well as expected. He sensed disappointment around him.
Rachel Hicks came forward. 'Can I have a word?’ she asked Simon.
'Go ahead.’
She murmured something in his ear. 'Sure,’ he said.
'Eldred,’ said Rachel. 'You've really slowed down on this one. Are you enjoying this test or are you bored?’
'It's all right,’ said Eldred, glancing in Mildred's direction. She had told him to be polite.
'Can you think of a way to make it more fun?’ she asked him.
Eldred considered this. 'Keith was part of Lulubelle's act,’ he said. 'Couldn't they both be part of mine?’
Genius Page 63