by Elton, Ben
‘Can I have Damian, please?’ Chelsie shouted.
Damian was a youth of twenty-two, a veterinary student. He had been selected as a featured quickie because he had buck teeth. Spectacularly buck teeth, the sort of teeth normally seen only in a horse, in fact the sort of teeth normally seen only in a horse with buck teeth. Damian was short-sighted too, spectacularly short-sighted. Damian’s vision began to blur a mere inch and a half beyond the bridge of his nose. In fact, had Damian’s optician and Damian’s dentist ever met they might have had an interesting conversation about which reached further beyond Damian’s face, his eyesight or his teeth.
When Damian had been pre-selected by Emma on the previous Chart Throb visit to Birmingham he had been wearing glasses, thick glasses, glasses with the sort of glass they use in the windows of Tiffany’s. Glasses that would stop a bullet. Everyone had loved the glasses almost as much as the teeth.
Chelsie was concerned to see that Damian was not wearing his glasses now.
‘Not wearing your bins, babes?’ Chelsie cooed.
‘Uhm, no.’
‘Loved those bins, babes,’ Chelsie added.
‘Really?’ Damian replied, surprised.
‘Oh yeah. Buddy Holly meets Elvis Costello meets Thelma from Scooby-Doo,’ Chelsie assured him. ‘Gotta respect your bins.’
‘Actually I thought I’d probably wear my contact lenses when I perform,’ Damian replied.
‘Bad move, babes!’ Chelsie protested. ‘So not loving it. Glasses are fierce, babes. Gotta remember the geek factor. Very hip. Very now. Nerd is the new hunk.’
‘Is it?’ Damian enquired eagerly. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘They make you look vulnerable, babes,’ Chelsie continued. ‘Beryl loves the vulnerable boys and you know how soppy Rodney can be.’
‘You think I should wear my glasses then?’
‘Duh!’ Chelsie urged. ‘It’s a slam dunk. Of course you should wear your glasses!’
And so Damian was ushered before the famous judging panel wearing his glasses. Staring myopically through lenses that grotesquely magnified his eyes, he parted his enormous teeth and announced that he would like to sing ‘Everything Is Beautiful’.
The song had been Chelsie’s suggestion.
‘Something upbeat but also soulful, babes,’ she had assured him, by which she had meant that this highly dubious thesis would have a particular comic resonance when coming from ugly little Damian.
Damian couldn’t sing at all. Calvin knew he couldn’t sing because he’d watched Damian’s video during the final selection. Nonetheless Calvin assumed an expression of stunned incredulity as if taken utterly by surprise. Then just as Damian reached the third line Calvin called a halt.
‘Thank you!’ he shouted. ‘It’s a no. Goodbye.’
Now it was Damian’s turn to be stunned. He knew the way Chart Throb worked, he had watched the show, the contestants sang their whole song. They got a moment to argue their case. They received constructive criticism. Then all three judges were called upon to vote.
‘But can’t I—’ he began.
But Damian did not know how the show worked. He did not realize the pre-assessment of him had been that he had no potential Cling or Bling at all, he was pure Ming. He would not plead pathetically and he was too sensible a lad to be persuaded to claim to be the new Justin Timberlake. The only interesting things about him were his teeth and his glasses. These had been duly committed to camera and would later be included in a two-second bite as part of a Minger montage. Chart Throb was done with Damian.
As if from nowhere, a security man (a real one, not one of the enormous bald extras who featured in the show) suddenly appeared in the company of a pretty junior PA. The good and the bad cops then marched Damian directly from the room.
‘Next up is Doreen,’ Trent said. ‘Chelsie’s got her all bigged up and ready.’
Trent had noticed Calvin’s clear approval of Chelsie’s performance and he was far too clever to try and kick against that particular shit. Much better to go with the flow and try to colonize Chelsie’s ascendancy as if it had in fact been him who had nurtured it.
‘Which one is Doreen again?’ Beryl enquired with weary martyrdom, as if she was a saint to put herself through the gruelling process of making television.
‘Tic Toc,’ Trent informed her.
Tic Toc was Chart Throb slang for Toothless Old Crone.
‘Oh God,’ Beryl lamented. ‘Is she a smack head?’
‘Didn’t like to ask.’
Doreen, a terrifying social casualty, skeletal, toothless, ancient long before her time and with a distinct aroma of urine about her, was duly brought before the judges. The fleshless quality of her cadaverous frame was emphasized by the fact that her minidress had a heart-shaped hole cut in the front revealing the grey, dry skin of her stomach and the deep, hollow navel. Doreen had arrived wearing a leather jacket but Chelsie had assured her that she would be so much prettier with it off. Doreen’s cheeks were sunken into her toothless mouth and her dyed black hair had been falling out in chunks. What was left of it hung greasily from a centre parting, framing the face of a woman who looked sixty but wasn’t.
‘How old are you, Doreen?’ Calvin asked.
He knew the answer, but he wanted to hear her say it.
‘I’m forty-three, Calvin,’ Doreen said, at which Calvin pulled his stunned mullet expression. He then proceeded to engage Doreen in a brief discussion about her ambitions to be a singer, which, had it been broadcast in full, would have revealed her to be a damaged, hopelessly inadequate, almost certainly drug-addicted borderline mental case who had lived an appalling life of deprivation and abuse. However, the two or three bites that would emerge from the edit just made her look like a mad, nasty, arrogant old bat.
‘I’m a singer, Calvin. I reckon I can show them little girlies it’s experience that counts . . . I got glamour I have, I’ve turned heads. Just let me show you what I got to offer . . .’
Then Calvin invited her to sing. They gave her three lines of ‘Amazing Grace’ and then let her have it.
‘If you were the only contestant in the competition you’d lose,’ said Calvin.
‘You might get work at Hallowe’en,’ said Rodney.
‘Have you thought about investing in a hair weave?’ said Beryl with croaky-voiced sincerity, for it was her special talent to be able to look both sympathetic and contemptuous all at once.
In the depths of Doreen’s malfunctioning brain a tiny light bulb lit up and in a rare moment of clarity she suddenly recognized something which would have been blindingly obvious to her, had she had all her faculties. She’d been had.
‘That fucking woman told me my hair looked lovely!’ she suddenly screamed, pointing at Chelsie, who had poked her head round the partition. ‘She told me you like the natural look!’
Chelsie was very grateful to have confirmation of her grooming process delivered to Calvin straight from the horse’s mouth.
‘I wanted to keep me hat on,’ Doreen protested.
But further discussion was superfluous. Doreen’s story was done. The good and bad cops appeared and she, like Damian, was ushered quickly from the room.
‘Next up, Madge, another oldie,’ Trent informed them.
‘Please not another ex-crack whore,’ Beryl pleaded.
‘No, a Moby.’
Moby was Chart Throb slang for Mad Old Bat.
Calvin featured a couple of Mobies every year, frail but feisty grannies who wanted to sing ‘proper songs’. They were good telly and they helped support the outrageous fiction that Chart Throb, unlike other talent shows, was genuinely oblivious to age.
‘Hello, hello,’ said Madge, hobbling in on her Zimmer frame. She had wanted to leave her coat and handbag outside but Chelsie had assured her that it would look great if she had all her bits and pieces with her.
‘Hello, Madge,’ said Calvin, assuming his expression of bemused tolerance.
‘Hello, darling!�
� shouted Beryl, pulling the cloyingly protective face that she reserved for babies and Mobies.
Rodney grinned with what he imagined was a wry twinkle.
Once again an inordinate amount of the judges’ time was allocated to a person who had no more chance of being a Chart Throb than an actual corpse would have done but who would provide, when suitably edited, a minute or so of good telly.
‘I just think it’s time to give us old ’uns a go,’ Madge was coaxed to say. ‘Do you mind if I play my ukulele? I can dance, too, you know. A lot of chaps think I have very fine ankles.’
Then in a sweetly quivering voice Madge sang ‘Daisy, Daisy’. It sounded suitably grannie-ish, as if it was a song from her youth, although it had in fact been an oldie when Madge’s own grannie was young. When it was over Rodney and Beryl voted to put her through, which was how the notes Trent had given them suggested they should vote. Calvin looked suitably stunned at their decision even though it was he who had given the instructions. The three then briefly ‘debated’ their ‘choice’.
‘You honestly think Madge could be a Chart Throb?’ Calvin asked.
‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ said Rodney. ‘I think she has something.’
‘You think Madge could cut it live? In a studio?’ Calvin insisted.
‘You’re being ageist,’ Beryl claimed. ‘What is the point of us having no age restriction if you dismiss someone like Madge?’
When Calvin felt the pantomime had gone on long enough he called a vote and at two to one Madge was through to the next round. Calvin then helped her from the room, carrying her bag and coat. Outside, Madge was hugged by Keely while Calvin assumed his long-suffering look.
There followed in quick succession a whole host of Minger quickies, one-shot wonders whose ambition was pitiable enough to raise a laugh but who were not sufficiently interesting or insane to get a story to themselves. Shouters, screamers, midgets, beanpoles, porkers, baldies, speccies and goofies. Nutters in fancy dress, half-naked Druid couples, axe-wielding Vikings and Bacofoil-clad aliens. All were paraded in quick succession before an amusingly astonished judging panel before being just as quickly ejected.
Finally it was time to chuck the coffee over Rodney.
Resignation
‘This is all wrong!’ shouted Beryl. ‘I did NOT sign on for this. You know what, Rodney, you’re a great mate and I love you big time but you have just walked right through the edge of my envelope!’
They had retreated to the hospitality area to shoot the final part of the Vicky story. Beryl ranted and raved while Rodney, dripping wet, fondled a vol-au-vent nervously.
‘I just didn’t think she’d cut it in our business,’ he whined.
‘She’s sixteen, Rodney. The girl was sixteen!’
Behind her, Calvin was studying the sandwiches. Beryl rounded on him.
‘You know what, Calvin?’ she said. ‘I’ve had it, I didn’t buy into this, this is NOT what I signed up for. I’m out of here, that’s me done. Someone get me my fucking car! I’m going home. I love you both but I think you’re both horrible. I’m done!!!’
And with that Beryl swept out of the room.
‘Cut!’ shouted Chelsie before either Trent or the director had had a chance to.
Beryl swept straight back into the room.
‘Any good?’ she enquired. ‘You can bleep the “fucking”, can’t you? I’m not doing it again whatever you say, that was the third take and I have a shitload of calls to make.’
‘No, Beryl,’ Calvin assured her, ‘that was very, very good.’
Beryl then gathered up her phone and retreated to the make-up area.
‘OK, we’re done on that sequence,’ Trent called out. ‘We take fifteen and when we come back we’ll pick up Rodney apologizing to Beryl and her agreeing to stay.’
With that the crew began to lay down their equipment and Calvin too took up his phone.
‘Hang on!’ Rodney said firmly. ‘Hang on, hang on, hang on! What about our discussion, Calvin? Beryl leaves and we then have a blokey chat about how she gets too emotional and how it’s unprofessional and eventually for the good of the show I volunteer to try and coax her back.’
‘Not doing it, Rodney,’ Calvin explained. ‘No time. The item’s getting top heavy. Our chat’s been binned.’
Calvin was heading for the door.
‘HANG ON!!’ and this time Rodney shouted. ‘What do you mean, “top heavy”? It’s top heavy all right. Top heavy with Beryl! All we have is Beryl being mumsy, Beryl chucking coffee over ME, Beryl being all moral and righteous and Beryl walking out on the show. What exactly do I do?’
‘You apologize to her. We’ll shoot it after the break.’
‘EXACTLY. I apologize to BERYL! It’s her item again. What is it with you and this woman, Calvin?’
‘Beryl’s a mum, Rodney. It’s good telly.’
‘She’s a transsexual stepmum!’
‘People love all that. She’s lived, she’s suffered. Now we have only eight minutes left on the break, mate, I suggest you grab a cup of tea and get your make-up redone, you’re covered in coffee.’
‘How about this, Calvin?’ said Rodney, red with rage. ‘How about instead of Beryl pretending to resign, how about I actually resign? How would that be?’
Calvin thought for a moment then turned to Trent.
‘Trent,’ he said, ‘we need to cover this. This is gold. Real rage beats fake rage every time. I’ll pay the overtime, get the cameras back up to speed.’
Everyone in the room put down their coffee cups and took up their equipment. Once more Calvin turned to Rodney.
‘Rodney, mate, I know you’re pissed off but you are under contract so if you really are going to resign I’m going to have to ask you to hold for a couple of minutes while we get the cameras lined up.’
Rodney looked about him like a cornered animal.
‘You’re . . . you’re joking of course,’ he said, trying to smile.
‘Are you?’ said Calvin, smiling back.
‘Yes . . . yes, of course I’m joking.’
‘Good,’ said Calvin finally before standing the crew down once more.
‘Seven minutes on the break,’ Chelsie cried out, then, ‘Crew A with me please to the gents loo to shoot Planet Mars putting his make-up on.’
Words of Love
Calvin was finally able to grab a moment to put a call through to Emma. Standing discreetly in the corridor, he pressed autodial and found a frisson of pleasure even in the appearance of her name on the screen.
‘We just shot that spotty stage-school girl and her mum,’ Calvin said. ‘Do you remember them?’
‘Yes,’ Emma replied. ‘You weren’t too hard on her, were you?’
‘No, no. Not really. But come on, Emma, it’s a game, they all know what they’re buying into.’
‘I suppose so,’ Emma replied doubtfully.
‘Don’t go too soft on me, Em,’ Calvin said. ‘I’m doing what you want over HRH but I still have to make a show, you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ he heard her say. ‘And I suppose you do make some dreams come true, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do. That Quasar bloke’s going to get a meal ticket for life. Lots of them do.’
‘Yes.’
‘What stuns me is the way people buy into the whole “we love Beryl” thing. The woman is so evidently a lying, self-obsessed, bullying bitch. I’ve seen her diss Mingers this morning like you wouldn’t believe. We had this half-dead skeleton of a crack whore in and Beryl asked her if she’d thought of a hair weave! You can’t get much meaner than that, but five minutes later she’s pretending to give a shit about some sixteen-year-old human zit with attitude and we all believe her. The woman’s a genius. A fucking genius.’
‘Everybody hates her on the team, you know.’
‘You amaze me!’ Calvin grinned. ‘Guess what, Rodney just threatened to resign again!’
‘You amaze me!’ Emma laughed back. ‘Did you let him?’
‘Of course. Told him I wanted to film it.’
Emma laughed. ‘You know, Calvin, I think that’s why people like you. I think deep down they understand that you know this whole thing is a joke. That you are actually enjoying the pantomime as much as the audience.’
‘Do you like me, Emma?’
‘You know I like you, Calvin. If you hadn’t been such a prick I’d be there with you now.’
‘But I’m making back the ground, aren’t I? Slowly?’
‘Yes. Slowly. Just don’t forget your promise.’
‘I think about it every day, Emma. It’s going to be hard but I will save the future King from himself.’
‘I can’t believe how confident you are . . . Confidence is attractive.’
‘I’m in love with you, Emma.’
‘I have to go.’
‘Are you in love with me?’
‘I . . . I’m trying to take things easy. Control my emotions.’
‘I’ve controlled absolutely every aspect of my life for years. Falling in love with you was the one thing I couldn’t control and yet it’s the one thing that makes me happy and excited. You should try losing control.’
‘I’m not like you, Calvin. I’m the opposite. You need to loosen up, I don’t. Not being in control has always been my problem. I need to be in control now.’
‘But why?’
‘Because, Calvin, that day when you sacked me and tried to fuck me . . .’
‘Oh, not that again.’
‘Yes, that again.’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’
‘And I’ve no doubt you are, Calvin, because you showed me something of your true self that day and I am in no doubt that if I’d slept with you that night and taken my job back you wouldn’t be in love with me now. It’s because you can’t have me that you care so much. You just love a challenge, Calvin. You can’t resist one.’
‘Will you ever love me?’
‘When I can trust you. Look, I have to go, I’m in Sainsbury’s. Will you ring me later?’
‘Of course.’
‘Bye.’
Calvin turned off his phone, both frustrated and thrilled. He knew that she was right. He did love a challenge. He had to get that girl.