Chart Throb

by Elton, Ben

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, hotels, cruise ships. That’s good, I think. We’ve got this blind boy who is obviously obsessed with music. I think Chart Throb’s one of the few places where his disadvantage can actually help him.’

  ‘Emma, listen to yourself!’ Tom protested.

  ‘Let’s change the subject,’ Mel suggested, having heard this conversation before.

  ‘No!’ Tom insisted. ‘Emma is basically saying that because her fucking show is going to exploit this bloke’s blindness somehow they’re doing him a favour!’

  ‘Well, aren’t we?’ Emma snapped. ‘Certainly Calvin will be interested in the human sympathy angle but so what? He’ll still get to sing, he’ll still be heard. I’m sure every time his blindness puts him at the back of the queue Graham must be thrilled that at least nobody’s exploiting him. Yes, we take the piss out of saddos and we get to play on people’s emotions but we’re the only show on TV where a saddo gets even half a chance. What have you ever done, Tom, to give a break to somebody with a massive disadvantage in life?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, Emma, I had no idea Calvin Simms was running a charity. There was me thinking he was a cynical, manipulative, money-grabbing shit. You should have said.’

  Emma bristled further. ‘God! Why is everybody I know so down on Calvin?’

  ‘Come on, Em,’ said Mel. ‘You’ve often said he’s a bully.’

  ‘He plays the bully. I don’t know that he actually is one.’

  In answer to this Tom merely shrugged and ordered more poppadoms.

  ‘The point is he’s an entertainer. An act, putting on a show. And he loves it. That’s the point, he loves pop and he loves TV and he loves . . . He loves entertaining. And he does it bloody well, which is why he’s so huge and also why everybody’s so jealous and mean about him.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mel after a pause. ‘We’re very defensive of Mr Simms these days, aren’t we?’

  ‘No. It’s just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’

  Emma didn’t reply, concentrating instead upon her food. Her silence was enough.

  ‘Oh my God!’ her friend exclaimed. ‘I thought so. You’ve got a crush on Calvin bloody Simms!’

  ‘I have not. Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Emma,’ said Tom, ‘you can’t fall in love with Calvin Simms!’

  ‘I haven’t!’

  ‘It’s the Dad thing yet again.’

  ‘Tom. Fuck off.’ Emma lit a cigarette, ignoring the fact they were all eating. ‘Every fucking time I show an interest in a man you bring up my dad.’

  ‘Because you always show an interest in arrogant middle-aged bastards.’

  ‘Shall we not go there?’ Mel appealed. But of course they had already gone.

  ‘Don’t you understand, Tom? My dad walked out. He dumped me and my mum. I hate him for that. The last thing on earth I’m going to try and do is replace him!’

  Tom raised his eyebrows, while Emma sucked furiously on her cigarette.

  ‘It’s so ludicrously oversimplistic,’ she said finally. ‘Freud for fucking five-year-olds.’

  Not in Love Either

  ‘No one noticed him,’ Dakota drawled through exquisitely glossed, half-closed lips that hovered lazily at the salty rim of her margarita. ‘Ah confess, Ah am most surprahsed!’

  She and Calvin were in Sardinia, having a breaking-up summit aboard their boat, a seventy-foot, ten-berth fun palace with a hot tub and bar on the foredeck, and Dakota Simms had made no secret of the fact that she was looking forward to taking possession of it the moment Calvin failed in his mission to turn her chosen ringer into the winner of Chart Throb.

  ‘So far anybody who bothered to look at him at all thought he was a lookalike. It’s amazing, he’s just such an unassuming man and when you put him in a crowd of crazy pop hopefuls he sort of fades into the background.’

  Dakota’s sparkling, ice-cold eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  ‘Hey, if y’all sell him as a lookalike tha bet is ahff. Ah said you had ta git tha Prince o’ Wales ta win, not some guy preetendin’ ta be tha Prince o’ Wales, even iffn he really is tha Prince o’ Wales. Ah hope Ahm makin’ sense, precious, because tha agreement we drew up is verrah verrah specific.’

  ‘I know what we agreed, Dakota. Don’t worry, the minute we go to air the whole world is going to know just how low fame and rank has fallen in its ambitions to meet the standards of celebrity.’

  ‘An’ then you are gonna be furked, Calvin, because evahbody hates thait poh, dull may-un. Did you see tha papers this mohnin’? Ah declare Ah was sharked.’

  That morning’s papers had indeed presented more unpleasant reading for the beleaguered heir. In the latest royal ‘revelations’, an unnamed source ‘close’ to the Prince had suggested that the Queen Mother’s death at the age of a hundred and one had not been from natural causes, as previously thought, but that the Prince had cunningly poisoned her with a Duchy Originals organic pistachio and nutmeg biscuit which he had intended for the Queen. The papers were quoting ‘palace insiders’ as saying that the Prince’s general air of gloom and melancholy of late was due to his being increasingly racked with the guilt of having murdered his much-loved grannie when he had in fact intended to top his mum. Stories had also surfaced claiming that he’d spent countless thousands of pounds of public money having heating devices installed in his sporrans so that he might wear his kilts in the traditional manner without risking chilblains on his crown jewels.

  ‘I’m well aware of the depths to which His Royal Highness’s stock has sunk,’ Calvin replied. ‘But I accepted your challenge and I intend to follow it through.’

  ‘We-ell, you’d better ’cos it’s all or nerthin’ fer you an’ me, baby, an’ Ah plan ta git it all.’

  Calvin stared at his beautiful soon-to-be-ex wife and wondered how he could ever have been such a fool as to marry her. Everything about her that had seemed so right when he had proposed now seemed so utterly wrong. Her sophistication was exposed as nothing more than cynicism, her joy in luxury mere greed, her wit and intelligence just low, sly cunning and even her glamorous beauty was now an ugly maggot baiting the steely hook of her soul.

  Why couldn’t he have chosen somebody real? A sweet girl, a pretty girl. An honest girl. A girl like . . . like . . .

  How strange, he thought . . . Why had he thought about her?

  ‘Whart you thinkin’ ’bout, honey?’ Dakota enquired.

  ‘Nothing,’ Calvin said quickly, surprised and angry with himself at what he had been thinking about. Calvin did not like his mind to wander; above all things he liked to stay focused and in control.

  ‘Well then, Ah’ll thaink you not t’ sit there lookin’ lahk you swallowed a June bug, Calvin. Jerst because we are no longer close does naht preclude us bein’ civil.’

  Suddenly Calvin was angry. Furious, in fact. Perhaps it was thinking of the other girl that made him so frustrated with Dakota.

  ‘Oh, do fuck off with all your hypocritical airs and graces!’ he snapped. ‘You’re not a lady, Dakota, you’re a lying, cheating tart.’

  ‘We-ell, Calvin,’ Dakota drawled across her glass, ‘mebby Ah aim, bert iffn Ah aim a tart, thain Ahm a tart who’s fixin’ ta furk you rigid.’

  Later that day Calvin took a private jet home to London, leaving Dakota to enjoy the spacious luxury of the boat that she was certain would soon be hers and hers alone. Sitting on his plane in solitary splendour, Calvin attempted to turn his mind to the game plan he must prepare in order to achieve his goal of making the Prince of Wales popular and fashionable. A huge task, a seemingly impossible task. A task which he must accomplish while simultaneously creating another smash-hit series of Chart Throb. A task upon which, therefore, he must focus.

  And yet he could not focus, for his mind was wandering and a wandering mind was something Calvin could not afford.

  He was thinking of Emma. The girl from the office. The girl whose skirt and hair had been lifted by the win
d in the car park at Brize Norton. The nice one whom he had smiled at when she dropped her glasses on the plane.

  Calvin frowned angrily and lit a cigarette. He had no business to be thinking of Emma. He had no business to be thinking of anything other than the enormous task in hand. He did not want to think of Emma, he didn’t know the girl, he did not wish to know the girl. The only girl he needed to be considering in the near future was the Southern princess whom, like a lunatic, he had married and who was currently attempting to furk him rigid.

  Calvin continued to frown for the time it took him to smoke three cigarettes, lighting one from the other. He drummed his fingers and paced about the cramped confines of his jet. The smartly uniformed hostess enquired if she could get him anything but he ignored her. Finally he sat back down and took up his telephone.

  ‘Trent?’ he said. ‘I want you to do something for me.’

  Arranging for a Lift

  Having dealt with her stepdaughter’s artistic self-doubts, Beryl called Carrie, her long-suffering American agent, to discuss the timing for the next season of The Blenheims.

  ‘I don’t care if it is two in the fucking morning,’ Beryl snarled. ‘Has Fox agreed to the delay? I’m starting to look like Cruella De Vil again and I need to get my eyes softened. There’s not time before we start work on Chart Throb so I need to squeeze it in afterwards.’

  ‘Beryl, you’re crazy. You look great, you don’t need any more work done . . .’

  ‘Yeah, you were saying that when I still had a scrotum. Listen, we’re scheduled to start with The Blenheims straight after we’re done with Chart Throb but I need a one-week window for my eyes. Priscilla has found me a new guy who she says is absolutely the best, he improves teenagers, he could have turned Mother Teresa into Jessica Simpson.’

  ‘Can’t you just get a little collagen refill? That takes a day.’

  ‘Can’t have any more collagen, Carrie. You know that. I already have trouble pulling any expressions, it’s like my face is set in plaster. I have to do a facial workout before I can smile. I need a little lift and Priscilla’s guy has me booked for the fortnight after the finals. I just need a one-week delay on The Blenheims.’

  ‘Fox have their schedule locked, Beryl, this is very hard for them. Can’t we make the first episode about your face work?’

  ‘Fuck OFF, Carrie! I have that work done so I won’t look shit on TV. You think I’m going to invite the cameras in while I’m Frankenstein’s monster? You never show people the process, that way they can half believe it’s natural. I need that postponement.’

  ‘OK, OK, I’ll talk to them again, see what I can do.’

  ‘Do it now.’

  Refocusing

  Emma rose early and picked out her wardrobe with care. She had originally intended to wear a short skirt and possibly even a cropped midriff-baring T-shirt but decided eventually on some slightly less flirtatious figure-hugging jeans and a pretty blouse. She then put her glossy, freshly washed hair into a cute ponytail, smoked a cigarette, brushed her teeth and set off for the tube station.

  By tradition, inner London’s commuters call the Northern Line the misery line, but on this particular morning, as Emma took her seat and tried to focus on her research notes (one of the very few advantages of living so far out was that she did at least get to board the train before it turned into a sardine can), she could not stop an involuntary smile from flitting across her lips.

  Soon she would be in the same room as Calvin. She had not seen him since sharing a cramped private plane with him over RAF Brize Norton. He had not noticed her much then and she was realistic enough to believe that he would not notice her much today either. Nonetheless she was happy that morning and she was happy because of him. It was truly shocking to Emma how quickly this obsession (for how could she call it love when it was so entirely one-sided?) had come upon her. One moment she had thought him an attractively roguish bastard whom any sensible girl would do best to avoid and the next she was sitting dreamily on the tube, falling prey to romantic musings in which he whisked her off to isolated moorland cottages where he would see to her needs like Heathcliff ought to have seen to Cathy’s. It was so strange, she had gone through the whole of the previous series without any such thoughts, although if she were honest she had to admit to herself that towards the end her feelings had begun to grow. On this series, however, it had hit her with the force of a sledgehammer and, ridiculous though it was, she knew she was in love.

  Emma emerged from the tube at Tottenham Court Road, made her way along Oxford Street and, after picking up the obligatory pint of coffee-flavoured froth at Starbucks, joined the throng of other attractive young people crowding into the beautiful offices of CALonic TV, the company Calvin had turned into a global entertainment colossus. Contemplating the golden legs and naked midriffs of the majority of her colleagues, Emma could not avoid a feeling of jealous resentment. Did these girls have to be so obvious? Most of Calvin’s employees were attractive young women, but unlike Emma they were generally tall. Calvin famously liked tall women.

  Emma was about to enter the crowded meeting room when a voice behind stopped her.

  ‘Emma, could I have a word?’

  It was Trent. He led her into his private office and half closed the door behind him.

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this so I shan’t attempt to find one,’ he said. ‘Calvin is no longer happy with your work. You’re to leave the company forthwith.’

  Emma did not reply. She couldn’t, she was too shocked.

  ‘Of course you will receive your full entitlements and the company will supply you with a reference.’

  ‘Not happy with my work?’

  ‘That’s right. I’m sorry. It does seem unfair but, as you know, Calvin acts on his instincts. Human Resources will be contacting you to discuss your departure package but of course we are all on short-term contracts.’

  It was finally sinking in and Emma was blinking back the tears.

  ‘Calvin is firing me?’

  ‘Yes. Now. You’re to leave immediately.’

  For a moment she stood still, seemingly unable to move. The blinking was faster now.

  ‘Please don’t cry,’ said Trent. ‘There’s any number of options out there.’

  He looked at his watch. He seemed nervous, impatient to be rid of her.

  Emma turned to go.

  ‘Oh, could you leave your research notes please, Emma?’ Trent said.

  ‘What?’ she asked distantly.

  ‘Your notes. I want them.’

  ‘My notes?’

  ‘Yeah, in fact they’re not really your notes as it happens. They belong to CALonic. I mean, you were paid to make them, legally they’re ours . . . I don’t need the folders. They belong to you, of course.’

  Without speaking, as if walking in a dream, Emma took out the sheaves of notes upon which she had been working over the previous months and handed them to Trent.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Keep in touch, right?’ And he rushed out of the office.

  Emma followed him and made her way towards the stairs. Standing at the top of them, she paused. Some instinct made her turn and look in the direction of Calvin’s office. The door had been closed a moment before but now it was open a few inches. She saw his face, watching her, and then it was gone and the door closed once again.

  Her face reddened. She strode towards the door and knocked on it. Receiving no answer, she knocked more loudly. She put her hand on the handle and half turned it. Then she stopped. Glancing round, she saw that a number of her ex-colleagues were looking at her.

  Then she left the building. She went to Soho Square and sat down on a park bench, where finally the tears which she had fought for so long flowed freely.

  Final Selection

  Bang on the appointed hour Calvin burst into the room holding a coffee, a croissant and a cigarette all in the same hand.

  ‘Morning, all,’ he said, lighting his cigarette, which was of course illegal in
a crowded workspace but nobody would have dreamed of complaining. Everybody knew that Calvin played by different rules. It was what made him so special. It was because he played by different rules that they were all in work, and not just any old work but working on the most successful and talked-about show on television.

  ‘Morning, Calvin,’ the team replied and there was applause and one or two whoops.

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Calvin said impatiently. ‘We’re not in America, for God’s sake.’ He looked around at the smiling throng. ‘Right. Let’s get on with it, shall we? Trent?’

  ‘Yo,’ Trent replied, jumping up and bounding towards the end of the room where the audiovisual equipment had been set up.

  ‘Yay!’ squeaked one or two of the younger girls as he passed. ‘Go, Trent. Bring it on! Yay!’

  The room burst into more applause. Everyone was excited. Months of painstaking research and development were about to blossom into another smash-hit series of Chart Throb, the biggest show on TV, and the room was alive with a back-to-school buzz.

  ‘Steady on, girls,’ said Trent, smirking. ‘Easy now. Keep it real. Lotta work to get through, long way to go.’

  At twenty-eight Trent was the senior member of the team. He had been there at the beginning, three years before, when everybody had been saying that this kind of TV was just stupid and demeaning crap and that it was all wrung out anyway. It was impossible to imagine now but there had actually been a time when people had even questioned the commissioning of Chart Throb, asking whether television really needed another talent show. They didn’t question it any more, not now that it had saved terrestrial TV. Not now that even the Prime Minister admitted to having voted in the final of the previous series.

  Not now that the Prince of fucking Wales was going to appear.

  Impeccably suited and booted, Trent stood before the enormous plasma screen like the favoured son. His high-button collar, knitted tie and Dolce & Gabbana spectacles gave him the air of a hip intellectual, which in a way was what he was, as he had done an MA in FMZ (Film, Media and Zeitgeist) at Hull. He made a sweeping gesture towards the table on which lay four stacks of photos and biographies accompanied by a pile of DVDs. ‘Calvin. May I present to you our Singers, Clingers, Blingers and Mingers?’