Nailed It!

by Mel Campbell

  ‘Oh Dave,’ Rose hugged him. He smelt like rubber and salt and his hair was full of sand in her face, but at that moment she never wanted to let him go. ‘This show isn’t good for you,’ she whispered.

  ‘I know,’ he whispered back.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, staggering to her feet. ‘Let’s get you back on dry land.’ She saw Steph quickly talking to the camera­man beside her. ‘And if that camera follows us, I will be very unhappy.’

  Slowly they shuffled back down the pier. ‘This place really is a mess,’ Dave said, kicking aside a discarded pair of thongs. Rose couldn’t help but laugh.

  Her good mood soured when she saw who was waiting for them at the end of the pier. Leary was standing there in front of his massive black SUV, his arms spread like a welcoming uncle, a huge grin on his face.

  ‘Rose! Darling! I knew you’d come through.’

  ‘You didn’t know shit,’ she said.

  Behind him Michelle climbed out of his SUV, pulling on her shirt. ‘So what happened?’ she was saying to Leary, not looking up as she did up her buttons. ‘Not that it matters, really – if he gets the wood that’s great; if he gets in trouble I get to be the concerned wife, so –’ She finally looked up and saw Dave and Rose standing there. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah, “oh”,’ Rose said.

  Leary carefully took two steps to the left, staring over Rose’s shoulder. She looked behind her: Steph and the cameraman were behind them, obviously filming, and Leary was trying to sneak out of shot. Steph had picked up a boom mic and was holding it over their heads; anything they said would be going out live to air.

  ‘You set Dave up,’ Rose said. ‘You of all people knew he couldn’t stand water, and you tricked him into a challenge where he’d have to dive into the ocean.’

  ‘That is … not true,’ Michelle said. ‘Why would I want to do that to my husband?’

  ‘Because I’m not your husband,’ Dave said. The cameraman gasped. ‘I’m only on this show because you said the only way you could get on the air is if you were married.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought I was helping out a friend.’

  ‘This is fucking gold,’ Rose heard Steph mutter.

  ‘Aren’t you going to stop him?’ Michelle shouted at Leary. Leary took another step to the left, silently shaking his head.

  ‘Last night,’ she shouted, clearly starting to lose it, ‘when we were in your car making lurve –’ the cameraman made a gagging noise ‘– you promised me you were going to use this show to make me a star! Not leave me playing second fiddle to the inventor of the goddamn Poisoniser!’

  ‘It was the Purisiser,’ Dave said. ‘And at least I was trying to help people for real, not get them to buy shitty cupcakes.’

  ‘My cupcakes are not shitty!’

  ‘Well …’ Leary said.

  ‘So how long have you been sleeping with a contestant?’ Rose said to Leary.

  ‘I wouldn’t say we were “sleeping” together,’ Leary said. ‘Michelle is a very lovely woman and a credit to the show, but the integrity of Mansions in the Sky always comes first.’

  ‘It sure isn’t me coming first,’ Michelle said. ‘And we’ve been fucking since he hit on me during the initial auditions.’

  ‘Wow. So you only got on the show because you were sleeping with a producer,’ Rose said. ‘And this is a show where the producer sleeps with the contestants.’

  ‘We’re all consenting adults,’ Leary said. ‘I’ve been MeToo’d enough times to know how important that is.’

  ‘Boss,’ Steph said, ‘maybe you’ve said enough?’ She turned to the cameraman and made a cutting motion.

  ‘Are you sure?’ the cameraman said. ‘Because I don’t think he’s going to be the boss for much longer.’

  Steph looked at him for a moment, then turned back to Leary and Michelle, pointing the boom mic back at them. ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘This is all bullshit!’ Michelle shouted, turning on Leary. ‘I can’t believe you’d deny we’re sleeping together. Dave already admitted he’s not actually my husband – so we’re not doing anything wrong!’

  ‘I think it’s the fact you’re a contestant on a show he’s producing that’s the problem,’ Dave said. ‘It’s probably not something the other contestants are going to be too happy about.’

  ‘Who cares what they think? Leary already told me I’m going to win, so their opinions don’t really matter, do they?’ She turned to Leary, who smacked his palm to his forehead. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘I really hope those cupcakes were worth it,’ Rose said, hugging Dave tight.

  ‘You want to get out of here?’ he whispered in her ear.

  ‘Hell yes,’ she said. ‘My fifteen minutes of fame are over.’

  ‘And that,’ Rose said, smiling into the camera, ‘is how you make an environmentally friendly barbecue pit.’

  ‘And cut,’ the assistant director said with a smile. ‘Looking good, Rose.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Are we doing the interior filming next?’

  ‘Yep, it’s all set up,’ the AD said. ‘They’ve really made a mess of things inside.’

  ‘They stuffed up this barbecue pit pretty badly too,’ Rose said, walking towards the house. ‘Lining it with newspaper was not a good idea.’

  It was six months now since the ‘Rose’s Rescue’ episode (as it had become known) of Mansions in the Sky had gone to air. It had sent ratings through the roof – until viewers realised Rose wasn’t coming back. Neither were Dave and Michelle, though for very different reasons. Dave had cited stress and a breakdown in trust between him and the producers in a Facebook post that he put up the night of his rescue. Michelle simply wasn’t asked back after her outburst.

  Getting rid of Leary proved to be slightly more difficult, as he repeatedly stuck to his ‘hey, we’re consenting adults’ line whenever it was suggested that sleeping with a contestant wasn’t a good look. It also turned out that due to a complicated corporate structure at Endeavour Productions, he reported to a board of which he was also a member, making him his own boss.

  Fortunately for everyone but Leary, all the media attention Mansions attracted after Rose’s dramatic live rescue meant that Lil Perp’s representatives found out about the show’s unlicensed use of his song as its theme and took legal action. It turned out that while Leary’s fellow board members were fine with him sleeping with contestants, they were slightly more concerned that he was costing them money; now Cody would be the executive producer of next season’s reboot of Mansions in the Sky.

  Rose and Dave had laid low – as it were – for a week after the rescue. They’d holed up in Moss the Boss’s house while he was away on tour; Nicola was their only contact with the outside world. Not that she was much help after the first day or so, when her Japanese Harry Potter fan came back and turned out to be extremely impressed by her owl-handling skills. She’d also been getting romance tips from the love robot, going by the increasingly explicit descriptions she was texting Rose of their bedroom adventures. She was meant to be returning to the country soon; she’d promised Renton she’d bring back a hard drive with his girlfriend on it.

  When Rose and Dave finally surfaced, it was to a raft of media offers and interview requests. Ironically, it was Rose’s parents who persuaded her to take the media offers seriously. They still didn’t think much of reality television, but seeing Rose rescue Dave had opened their eyes to the artistic potential of the genre.

  ‘It was performance art,’ Alan had said. ‘Sheer brilliance.’

  ‘And Plato’s Grave want us on as their new reality television experts,’ Sarah said. ‘So we can hardly afford to be so dismissive.’

  Most of the offers had been short-term things Rose had no interest in doing, but she was still considering an offer from the Mansions team to come back next year as Moss the Boss’s replacement. It turned out hi
s musical act was actually pretty popular – whether you believed that Moss was really a spirit medium channelling the souls of dead rappers, or simply very good at impersonating their signature flows. His tour had sold out, there was talk of moving it to larger venues, and he was seriously considering touring full time.

  Rose’s bad feelings towards Mansions had been largely swept away when Gino and George finally found the body of their dead friend Spider, and Len used it as an excuse to stage a full-scale communist uprising in protest against the shabby working conditions. The season had been called off – all the houses had to be demolished due to a combination of unsafe workmanship and being part of an active crime scene.

  The media had covered the scandal for days – one subeditor had dubbed the street ‘Coroner’s Court’ and later received a journalism award for Best Headline. It wasn’t a complete loss, though; Len had really captured the mood of the people on Struggle Street when he seized the offices of production, waving a massive Soviet-era flag and singing ‘The Internationale’. His new series Smash the State, Mate was already a hit.

  The one show Rose had agreed to was Life Savings, where she would visit people’s homes and advise them on how to restore and recover after failed renovations. But there was a twist: she insisted on having Dave be her on-air partner.

  They proved to be a winning combination. Dave was the bungling everyman who was there to give a sympathetic ear as the guests explained how their good intentions had led them astray. Then Rose would come in with the useful information on how to set things right. And Dave was getting better with his advice, too; he’d started a carpentry apprenticeship, and Rose could see he was learning fast.

  ‘How’s it going in here?’ Rose said, sliding open the back door of the latest house they were trying to save.

  Dave was in the kitchen, deep in conversation with a field producer, but he looked up and smiled. ‘It’s not too bad, really,’ he said. ‘Though they did somehow manage to arrange the heating flue so it directs hot exhaust directly into the upstairs bedroom.’

  ‘They said it was energy efficient,’ the field producer said. ‘It heated the whole house … with toxic fumes.’

  ‘Lucky we got here in time,’ Rose said.

  ‘You’ve always been good at last-minute rescues,’ Dave said, kissing her lightly on the lips. ‘I know,’ he added, ‘don’t mess up the make-up.’

  ‘Fuck the make-up,’ Rose said, pulling him close. ‘Remember what I taught you – if you’re going to do something, do it right.’

  Their kiss was sloppy, messy, and went on for a very long time.

  ‘How was that?’ Dave said when she finally pulled back.

  Rose smiled. ‘Nailed it.’

  Acknowledgements

  Mel and Anthony thank:

  Our commissioning editor Angela Meyer; our ever-supportive agent, Alex Adsett; the capable and enthusiastic team at Echo Publishing, including copy-editor Liz Robinson-Griffith and typesetter Shaun Jury; and Alissa Dinallo for another delightful cover design.

  Our friends in the Secret Film Critics Thread.

  Our favourite food and beverage haunts, where we wrote and discussed the book. It was at Mario’s that we first vaunted the idea of a book set on a reality television show. We returned to Panini Bar, Jungle Juice Bar, Trotters, Tre Bicchieri, Small Victories, Cremorne Hotel, and the Geelong McDonalds on Shannon Avenue.

  Jo Case, Rochelle Siemienowicz, Jess Lomas and Myke Bartlett, for advice on writing and guidance on the publishing industry.

  … and all the tradies working silently behind the scenes to make the magic happen.

  Anthony thanks:

  My mother Lois and my sister Angela, whose support has been essential to this book and whose comments about The Hot Guy I (largely) took on board.

  Aileen Smith, Guy Davis, Lee Zachariah, Thomas Caldwell, Greg and Andrew Jarman, Alison Bean, Melissa Cranenburgh, Rebecca Harkins-Cross, Anna Hoskin, Dan Baker, and everyone else who once again had to suffer through the many bad jokes and poor one-liners that eventually found their way into this novel.

  The movies Akira, Blade Runner and The Running Man, for creating the grim dystopian vision of 2019 that forms the background of this novel if you look really, really hard.

  That Channel Ten reality show that happened to be on one Saturday afternoon when we really needed some specific information on how to renovate a bedroom.

  And most of all I’d like to thank the delightful and extremely well-read Mel Campbell for toning down many of my excesses, putting up with my repeated demands to blow stuff up, and generally adding style and flair to what otherwise would just have been a collection of ‘sexy’ sound effects with the occasional World War II reference thrown in. Once again she’s made me look good, and if you’ve enjoyed this novel it’s entirely due to her.

  Mel thanks:

  My parents and family, with whom I’ve watched – and commentated on – many a television show, from The Walking Dead to Grand Designs. My cat Graham’s favourite show is Bird TV, aka the window to my back garden. He gets no thanks from me.

  The dear companions of my club-based lifestyle: the PLC coven, the Living Dords, the Monday Morning Writing Group, the Dud Avocados and Period Club, and The Block maven Penny Modra. Thanks for the murder-shack minibreaks, the lunches and dinners, the rivers of tea and coffee, fountains of wine and sparkling seas of spritz.

  And of course I’d like to thank Anthony Morris, my co-conspirator and comrade, constant provider of moral support and weeper with laughter at his own dreadful jokes. His upsettingly large library was in part the inspiration for Rose’s mum Sarah’s stack-based book storage system. It has meant a great deal to have his sardonic presence just a text message away at any time of the day or night, but especially at 4:20pm.

  Mel Campbell is a Melbourne-based freelance journalist, critic, copywriter and editor. Her most recent book is the novel The Hot Guy (2017), also written with Anthony Morris; her first book was the nonfiction investigation Out of Shape: Debunking Myths about Fashion and Fit (2013). Mel is a columnist on writing at Overland literary journal, and a sessional university lecturer and writer-for-hire on film, television, literature and media. She is a frequent radio and podcast guest and member of public discussion panels. She tweets at @incrediblemelk and her personal website is The Look: reviews and essays about film, TV, clothes and history.

  Anthony Morris is a Melbourne-based author, freelance journalist and critic. His first novel was The Hot Guy (2017) also written with Mel Campbell, and he’s been writing about film, television and pop culture for over twenty years. He’s the Film Editor at Forte magazine, and reviews on average around 250–300 films a year for a number of venues. He writes regularly on film and television for a range of outlets including SBS Online, Broadsheet, Screenhub and The Big Issue. His short fiction has appeared in Interzone, Aurealis and Eidolon, and he tweets at @morrbeat

  Echo Publishing

  An imprint of Bonnier Books UK 80-81 Wimpole Street

  London W1G 9RE

  www.echopublishing.com.au

  www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

  Copyright © Mel Campbell & Anthony Morris, 2019

  All rights reserved. Echo thanks you for buying an authorised edition of this book. In doing so, you are supporting writers and enabling Echo to publish more books and foster new talent. Thank you for complying with copyright laws by not using any part of this book without our prior written permission, including reproducing, storing in a retrieval system, transmitting in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, or by photocopying, recording, scanning or distributing.

  First published 2019

  This ebook edition published 2019

  Cover design by Alissa Dinallo

  Page design and typesetting by Shaun Jury

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of
Australia

  ISBN: 9781760685805 (paperback)

  ISBN: 9781760686086 (ebook)

  echopublishingau

  echo_publishing

  echo_publishing