by Elton, Ben
‘No,’ she said. ‘I suppose I don’t mind although I do feel ridiculous.’
A few seconds later the faint rustling resumed and it was two or three luxurious minutes before she spoke again.
‘Are we done?’ she enquired sweetly.
‘Yes. We’re done,’ Calvin gasped. ‘You can stop now.’
‘Good.’
‘That was sort of wonderful.’
‘I’m glad, although I didn’t actually do it, I’m afraid. I rubbed the phone on the carpet.’
‘Bitch!’
‘I think it’s funny.’
‘Please say you took your trousers off.’
‘Nope.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Sorry. Will you call me tonight after your dinner?’
‘I’m never going to call you again.’
‘Please.’
‘All right.’
As Calvin dressed, he truly wondered what had happened to him. He had enjoyed sex with Emma more than he could remember enjoying anything in years. And he had not even had sex with her. He hadn’t even had telephone sex with her. He’d had telephone sex with her carpet. And yet still he had loved it. For a man used to being in control it was all most confusing.
Keen to Be Mean
Downstairs Rodney had been waiting for some time.
The three judges had agreed to meet at seven thirty in the hotel bar, so Rodney had been there since seven. Calvin arrived shortly before eight and Beryl, not surprisingly, was nowhere to be seen.
Rodney’s ill humour was slightly assuaged by the fact that, unlike earlier in the day, Calvin now seemed disposed to be pleasant.
‘Well, something’s certainly put a smile on your face,’ Rodney observed.
‘Yes,’ said Calvin bluntly but declined to illuminate further.
‘Champagne?’
‘Of course. But not that crap,’ Calvin said, nodding towards the bottle that Rodney had chosen and which he had in fact almost emptied during his hour’s wait. ‘I’ll order something decent.’
‘You always were a bit of a wine wanker, weren’t you, Calvin?’
The booze was having its effect on Rodney and he was taking a tone with Calvin that he would never have taken when sober. Calvin merely smiled.
‘I was wondering,’ Rodney continued, hoping to capitalize on his companion’s sunny mood, unaware that he was fast deflating it, ‘if you’d given any further thought to what we discussed in the restaurant the night before we shot the travelling stuff?’
‘What was that then?’ Calvin asked without looking up from the wine list.
‘Oh, come on, Calvin. We were talking about me being meaner, tougher, wittier this time round, and all I’ve heard of your plans for me this year is more of that bloody ridiculous business of Beryl throwing stuff over me which I’m quite sure everybody knows is staged.’
‘Are you, Rodney?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Well, in my view if the British public will accept that the twelve people we annually offer up to them are the best new performers with the most star quality we could find in the whole of Britain, then they’ll believe anything.’
‘Look, Calvin, let’s cut to the chase here. I want to be tougher this time and I won’t accept anything else. What’s more, Beryl’s not throwing any coffee over me. All right? I won’t have it. I mean it. I won’t.’
‘Cristal ’96,’ Calvin said to the wine waiter. After that he said nothing.
‘Did you hear what I said, Calvin?’
‘Yes, I heard.’
‘Good.’
There was a long and uncomfortable silence which once more Calvin forced Rodney to break.
‘So we’re agreed then? I mean . . . are we?’
Calvin smiled, a weary, long-suffering smile. The champagne arrived and he allowed the waiter to open it and pour two glasses before speaking again.
‘Do you really think being tough is your thing, Rodney? I mean we should all play to our strengths, don’t you think?’
‘I’m tough.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes! You should have seen the way I laid into the receptionist this morning when I found out I was in an executive room . . .’
The words tailed away. Rodney had not intended to air this particular grievance. He was not drunk enough to fail to understand that by complaining about his inferior room he could only increase its significance. Rodney had promised himself that he would maintain a dignified silence on the issue but now he had blown it.
‘You’re not happy with your room, mate?’ Calvin enquired, his voice full of sympathy.
‘No, no, it’s fine. It’s fine.’
‘So what were you complaining about to the receptionist?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I’m sorry, I thought you said you’d laid into her?’
‘I did.’
‘Why?’
For a brief moment Rodney was consumed with an internal struggle. He was not a stupid man nor did he lack human experience. He was well aware that complaining about room status would make him look weak and pathetic, something he already suspected Calvin thought him to be. His intellect informed him that the only sensible course would be for him to make up a broken kettle or an asymmetrical trouser press to explain his confrontation with the receptionist but the righteous anger that burned deep in his soul, fuelled by a thousand real and imagined slights that he had suffered throughout the previous series, plus nearly a whole bottle of champagne, forced him to speak.
‘I’m in a room, Calvin. A room!’
‘Yes?’
‘And you and Beryl are in suites. Houses, as a matter of fact. You have your own houses by the lake.’
‘You asked the receptionist what sort of rooms Beryl and I had?’
‘Well . . . it just came up. I was asking about my room and . . . yes, it came up.’
‘Don’t you think that makes everybody look a bit stupid?’
‘Uhm, no. Not really. I enquired casually.’
‘So this wasn’t when you were laying into her?’
‘No.’
‘That happened at another point in the conversation?’
‘Uhm, yes, sort of.’
‘Would you like my room, Rodney?’
‘No, that’s not the point . . .’
‘You’re very welcome to it. I can pop back after dinner and pack my stuff. I’ve only used a couple of towels and the bed’s been remade.’
‘No, that’s not what I want. That isn’t the point I’m making.’
‘What do you want? What point are you making?’
‘Nothing, I’m . . . Look, we were talking about my image.’
‘Rodney. You’re a mate. A good mate. We are good mates, aren’t we?’
‘Yes, I hope so.’
‘I value you enormously as a senior member of the Chart Throb team and truly respect the contribution you’ve made. But you have to understand, mate, that there can only be one producer here. You do see that, don’t you?’
‘Well, of course.’
‘I have to follow my instincts for the good of us all. You do understand?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘I knew you would.’ Calvin gave Rodney a little hug. ‘Thanks, mate. You’re a true friend and a true pro. Look, Beryl’s obviously not coming down and to tell the truth I’m knackered. Reckon I’ll just get room service. You have the Cristal.’
With that Calvin got up and left, leaving Rodney to drink another bottle of champagne on his own.
The following morning Calvin approached the young woman at reception.
‘Miss, were you here on duty yesterday?’
‘Yes, I was, sir.’
‘When Mr Root made a fuss about having a smaller room than I have?’
‘Uhm . . .’
‘Come on, love, we’re mates, we’ve already had a laugh about it.’
‘Well, yes, he did complain about that and at first he refused to use the golf buggy to get to the summer
house. I believe he tried to drive there in his limousine, even though the summer house is in the middle of the golf course.’
Calvin laughed out loud and produced a copy of the Sun newspaper which he had opened at the Bizarre page.
‘Do you see this “gotta story?” phone number? They pay very good money for star titbits. Why not give them a call and tell them all about it? You know, just for a laugh, eh?’
Calvin left the newspaper with the receptionist and, still chuckling, went outside to his car.
An Auditions Day: There’s a Kind of Hush
Shaiana, the Quasar, Graham, Millicent, the blokes from Bloke, The Four-Z and Suki were all there, and so were Latiffa and Blossom, and Troy clutching his comic. So were a hundred and fifty or so other hopefuls and the funny old fellow who looked a bit like the Prince of Wales.
They were all sitting in the holding area they had been directed to on arrival.
But where were the rest? It was so quiet. So still.
‘I must say I thought there would be oodles of us,’ said the man who looked like (and indeed was) the Prince of Wales. ‘That’s how it looks on the television, doesn’t it? Or has muggins here got it wrong again? I often do, you know, my boys tease me endlessly, the rotters. I do think they’re mean.’
The vast Birmingham Bullring Conference and Leisure Centre echoed with emptiness.
Where were the crowds, the vast hordes of hopefuls who could be seen cheering and shouting throughout all the early episodes of Chart Throb in an effort to win the attention of the three famous judges?
They were there already, duly recorded and digitized and sitting in the editing computer at the Chart Throb production offices, awaiting their moment to cheer once more when cut back into the footage that would be recorded today.
For the time being, however, they were gone and everything was strangely quiet.
An Auditions Day: Priming Vicky
Chelsie began her second day in Birmingham teeing up Vicky, the sixteen-year-old Minger, and her mum, who were destined to trigger a coffee-throwing incident between Rodney and Beryl.
‘She’s been dreaming of this,’ said Mum. ‘It’s all she talks about. It’s her life.’
‘I’m not surprised. She’s a very talented girl,’ said Chelsie, pressing another styrofoam cup of coffee into Vicky’s mother’s hand. ‘She’s going to rock their socks.’
‘She can’t wait for this, it’s her dream. It’s all she wants.’
‘It’s my dream,’ Vicky confirmed. ‘It’s all I want.’
‘I’ve talked to her about having other dreams,’ Vicky’s mum added, as if suddenly concerned that the family might appear a tad single-minded. ‘But she won’t have it.’
‘I won’t have it,’ Vicky echoed.
‘She won’t have it at all,’ Vicky’s mum reiterated. ‘“It’s my dream, Mum,” that’s what young madam here says and she won’t have it any other way. Will you, little Miss Showbiz? You just want to be a star.’
‘I just want to be a star,’ Vicky assured her mother.
‘It’s her dream,’ Mum reiterated.
‘It’s my dream,’ said Vicky.
‘She’ll never stop dreaming her dream,’ said Mum.
‘Nor should she,’ Chelsie assured them both. ‘Today is Vicky’s big chance. A girl like Vicky should dream her dream because special is as special does.’
‘That is so right, Chelsie,’ said Mum.
Chelsie was on fire. She needed to be, because while today was most certainly not to be Vicky’s big chance it was definitely going to be Chelsie’s. Having been given temporary promotion on the Chart Throb team to the position previously occupied by Emma, she had enhanced her status by securing for Calvin the battered wife he had requested from Trent. Now she was determined to confirm that promotion by delivering the auditionees to her boss in perfect psychological condition to play their roles in the stories allocated to them.
In Vicky’s case this required her being convinced against all the physical evidence that she really was the next Judy Garland. Her subsequent disillusionment and humiliation would then provide the catalyst for a major confrontation between Beryl and Rodney, which it was hoped would run throughout the entire episode. Vicky’s fall therefore had to be totally convincing.
‘You can’t fake catharsis,’ Calvin was fond of saying.
Chelsie was born to the job. Even before she had joined the Chart Throb team she had instinctively understood how the process must work. Her innate cunning and understanding of human nature had told her that the extraordinary cockiness and belligerent self-belief of such ludicrously untalented people must be at least partly tutored. It was simply not possible that the village idiots at whom the nation howled as they assured Calvin that they were the new Justin Timberlake could act as they did without at least some prompting. Of course the human material had to be there in the first place, these people had already to be insanely self-deluded – but that was a given since most of them had of course applied for the show of their own volition. It was Chelsie’s job to nurture those pathetic delusions until the victims appeared before the judges truly believing that they were going to win. Only then could those precious shots of television gold be gathered, the looks of shock, fury, disbelief, the slowly dawning realization that not only had they failed utterly but that they were being roundly laughed at and insulted by those whom they had fondly imagined would be their saviours.
‘You can’t fake hubris,’ Calvin often remarked. ‘First rule of drama. Before the hero falls he must first be exalted.’
While much on Chart Throb could be faked, that could not. Both the pride and the fall had to be genuine or it wouldn’t work, which was why Chelsie was taking such trouble bigging up Vicky and her mother.
‘You know what, babes?’ Chelsie said, taking both mother and daughter by the hand. ‘I truly believe that if you truly believe, that dream of yours just might be about to come true.’
And with a little squeeze of the hands and a group hug Chelsie was gone, off to school a room full of weeping and shaking Clingers.
An Auditions Day: The Judges Arrive
In another part of the hotel and leisure complex, the three judges were shooting their ‘arrival’ shots. This required two sets of costume for Beryl since once the shots were edited it was to appear that in their obsessive search for talent the judges had visited the city more than once.
‘Meanwhile,’ Keely would later be saying in her voiceover, ‘the judges have returned to Birmingham. Will they be lucky this time?’
There was also to be a third costume change to cover virtual Dublin.
‘I still don’t see why we need to construct this whole fucking Dublin fiction,’ complained Beryl. ‘I mean if we can’t be fucking bothered to go there why lie about it? Who cares about the Micks anyway?’
‘Telephone votes, darling. The Irish are big phoners. We need their revenue. We have to include them and pretty much have to have an Irish act in the finals. It makes a big difference to the money we make on the phones.’
When she had finally been presented with an argument she could understand, Beryl squeezed herself into a new jacket, pinned a shamrock to her lapel and got back into the limousine. Her pet pig was installed on her lap and the massive extra who had been booked to play her intimidating minder was placed by the limo door.
‘Do you think people really believe that we’re followed about all the time by huge security guards?’ Calvin asked Trent. ‘I mean that bastard’s so fat he wouldn’t even fit in the lift with me. If he tried to ward off an assassin he’d have a heart attack. Maybe next series we should get little Japanese ninja bodyguards. That’d look pretty good, wouldn’t it?’
‘Great thought, boss,’ said Trent. ‘Duly noted.’
The big fat extra playing the minder opened the car door and Beryl was filmed getting out and bustling self-importantly into the lobby of the building.
‘Maybe I should say something cute as I pass the camera,�
� Beryl suggested. ‘Like “Oh God, Fifi’s weed in my Cartier handbag and it was a fucking gift from Elton and David” – how about that?’
‘Great, Beryl,’ Calvin shouted, anxious to get on.
‘Uhm . . . I’m afraid you’re not mic’d,’ said the sound operator nervously. ‘We have this down as a mute shot. It’s to be dropped into the credits.’
‘Well, sling the fucking boom in, dickhead!’ Beryl snapped. ‘I’ve thought of a line, I am being spontaneous.’
‘I’m afraid the boom’s in the truck, Mrs Blenheim. It’ll take ten minutes to—’
‘In the fucking truck!’
‘We have this down as a mute shot. We discussed it yesterday at the meeting . . .’
‘And what if I want to be spontaneous? I thought the whole point of me being on this show was because I’m so fucking spontaneous! I have an Emmy for my spontaneity. Have you seen the award-winning Blenheims barbecue episode where the pet pig eats the steaks so we barbecue the pig?’
‘Uhm . . .’
‘I made that up! And fortunately when I did make it up no fucking sound guy said sorry I forgot the fucking microphones!’
‘Yes, but at the meeting . . .’
‘Have you any idea just how fucking spontaneous I can be? I shit spontaneity!’
Keely, the comely presenter, had been standing by ready to shoot an opening link. Only the previous evening she had flown home from shooting a travel show in Mustique, so she was tired, but being a genuinely nice person and a team player (ex-girl guide) she was always anxious to help.
‘Perhaps I could voice your gag, Beryl,’ she suggested helpfully. ‘You know . . . “Beryl’s in a terrible rush because Fifi’s about to wee in her Cartier” . . . Would that help?’
Beryl’s face turned cold as stone.
‘Are you trying to pinch my joke, Keely?’
‘No!’
‘It fucking sounds like you’re trying to pinch my joke.’
‘No! Really, Beryl, I was just trying to . . .’
‘Here’s a thought, eh, Keely? You stick to looking cute and leave the clever stuff to me, OK?’