‘How do you feel about it, babes?’ Chelsie would ask, flinging an arm round her victim. ‘Do you feel devastated? Angry? Used? Bet you do, babes, don’t you? And I’m not surprised, I was listening at the door and I thought you were brilliant. I can’t believe they’ve blown you out, you’re
so
much better than the others. Why don’t you come with me into the Bite Back Box and you can tell that Calvin Simms exactly what you think of his crappy show?’
The ones who complained and protested that their talent had been overlooked went into the Blingers group, those who cried and spoke of God and how hard they had worked went with the Clingers and the old, the stupid, the ugly and the physically and mentally challenged went into the Mingers.
Emma and Chelsie began to make their way towards the Bite Back Box.
‘Let’s get the Clingers out of the way,’ Emma sighed. ‘I always feel so
mean.’
And so she and Chelsie sat together in the booth as one Clinger after another was brought before them.
‘It’s all come to nothing, hasn’t it?’ Emma breathed sympathetically.
‘The dream’s over,’ Chelsie whispered. ‘You’re going home with nothing.’
‘How do you feel?’ cooed Emma. ‘You must be gutted, you must just want to break down and cry.’
‘Why don’t you tell us that God gave you a gift and Calvin has hurled it back into God’s face?’
And with any luck the person who had spent months dreaming of stardom would cry and wail and another stitch in the tapestry of distraught sad acts would be created.
Next came the Blingers.
‘Do you think you’ve got it?’
‘Yes, I’ve got it, I’ve got what it takes.’
‘Could you be a star, babes?’
‘Yes. Yes, I could, I could be a star!’
And the Mingers.
‘Do you think you’re sexy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t just say yes, say it all, tell the world, say, “I think I’m sexy.”’
‘I think I’m sexy.’
‘Repeat after me, “I am one badass, kickass, rock-steady mother lover and I am going to rock the world with or without you, Calvin Simms!”’
Sometimes Emma and Chelsie would cheat, cajoling from their victims words which, when edited, could be placed in an order that would entirely misrepresent the speaker. These were called Frankenbites.
‘I am not claiming I’m the next Elvis’ could easily be cut down later to ‘I’m the next Elvis’.
After all, every candidate had signed a form saying that they would abide by the rules of the competition no matter how often the producers changed them, ‘including and at any time, verbally’, as the form made clear. The producers could do exactly what they liked and it made Emma feel deeply uncomfortable, almost ashamed.
‘You’re in the wrong job, babes,’ Chelsie opined with exaggerated sincerity. ‘What you’ve got to realize is that whatever we do to these people and however we misrepresent them, they are
still
getting on the telly and that is always better than not getting on the telly. No matter what.’
Emma was not so sure.
Peroxide and Blossom
Emma looked at her watch. The day was getting away from her and she still had three ‘stories’ left to shoot. What was more, they all required crowds and the crowds were thinning. People were drifting away and who could blame them? Their great day, the day of which they had dreamed for weeks and weeks, was clearly coming to an end and what a disappointment it had been. Hours of standing around and being ordered about had been rewarded for the most part by a minute or so in front of a bored-looking stranger. Some posh girl had heard them sing their song, thanked them, possibly taken down a few details and basically fucked them off. There had been no Calvin, no Beryl, not even any Rodney. No chance to proclaim their self-belief, no opportunity for banter with the judges, nothing. Yes, there was still hope, they had after all been asked to wait around, but the brighter minds among them were beginning to notice that those who had been seen were rarely seen again. They just sat about, stood about, milled about and occasionally Gary and Barry would ask them to shout, clap or cheer. The day was definitely losing its fizz. A couple of students dressed as Danny and Sandy from
Grease
(in ‘The One That I Want’ mode) had begun to write an article for their college paper about the way they were being used. It was at this point in the day that Trent always made his little speech, gently but firmly reminding everybody of the Terms and Conditions part of the entry form which they had of course signed.
‘Listen up, people!’ Trent said. ‘Hey, you all love
Chart Throb
or else you wouldn’t be here. You know that we are a great entertainment show and each year we make dreams come true. Now of course, like with any telly show, not everything you see on screen reflects
exactly
what happens off screen – that’s showbiz. And what we don’t need is any killjoys and spoilsports pissing on the parade, OK? Every magician has his tricks and yes, we have a few up our sleeve, but that doesn’t make our show any less true or real. We DO make stars. We DO find talent and if this year it wasn’t you, hey, watch the show, enjoy the dream and better luck next year. And always remember, that contract you signed is a
legal document.
Anyone who breaks it breaks the law and believe me, the full weight of the law will be brought to bear upon them. Calvin Simms will
take your house
! He will
bankrupt you
! He will
close you down
! Read the contract again before you leave. Don’t forget, you may not talk to
anybody
, about
anything
that happens here today. OK? That’s it. There’s coffee and biscuits coming, enjoy the rest of your day.’
Emma always thought that Trent laid it on a bit thick about Calvin closing people down. She believed it was more of an act with Calvin.
Chelsie came bouncing up to her. ‘We’re ready for Peroxide. Where are they?’
‘Peroxide please,’ Emma called out. ‘I need Georgie and Michelle.’
‘Meanwhile in the holding area,’ Keely would explain when the episode was edited, ‘two old friends of the show have turned up unexpectedly. Who could forget Georgie and ‘Chelle, better known as Peroxide!’
The truth was that meanwhile, in the toilet, one of the old friends of the show was throwing up. The other one was standing outside the door, waving at Emma.
‘She’s all nerves,’ the older member of Peroxide said as Emma and the crew scuttled over. ‘Come on, Georgie. Emma wants to do a piece to camera.’
As an old
Chart Throb
hand, Michelle knew exactly what was expected of her. She also knew how busy the production team were and was anxious not to miss her slot.
‘I’ll only be a minute,’ Georgie called from her cubicle, her voice sounding harsh and rasping.
Emma transmitted the news to Trent in vision control.
‘Move on to Blossom,’ Trent barked back. ‘We’ll try to hoover up the slappers later.’
Emma winced at the casual contempt with which her colleagues referred to the contestants, although looking at Michelle she could not deny that ‘slapper’ did rather sum things up. The girl was wearing nothing but erotic lingerie, stiletto heels plus lacy knickers and bra. The only mild concession she had made towards costume was a short and entirely transparent sarong knotted on her hips. She had a coat but she was carrying it, being of the opinion that if it was worth flaunting at all then it was worth flaunting all the time.
‘We’ll get back to you,’ Emma said to Michelle, then she shouted: ‘I need Blossom Rochester.’
Turning on her heel, Michelle Peroxide disappeared into the toilet, screaming blue murder and instructing her younger partner to get her fucking fingers out of her throat and mind not to get any puke on the sarong because the silver sheen would certainly not stand the stomach acid.
‘Meanwhile, in Birmingham,’ Keely would later explain, ‘life may be about to take an unexpected turn for Blossom, a singing cleaning lady, who had no idea the auditions were taking place at the exhibition centre but has decided to have a punt.’ It was true that Blossom was a cleaning lady, but not at the exhibition centre. She worked up the road at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, but when her application came in it struck Trent as too good an opportunity to miss.
‘We’re not actually
lying
,’ he had told Emma. ‘She is a cleaning lady and she didn’t know where the auditions were being held. The fact that she’s turned up in a nylon housecoat with a mop and bucket is her business, and if the audience choose to infer that she has been cleaning the exhibition centre then that’s theirs.’
So Emma dutifully set up the shot with Blossom, a big jolly lady, standing over her mop and bucket and shrieking with laughter at the end of every sentence she uttered.
‘Yes, I’m just a cleaner,’ she cackled. ‘But under this coat maybe there’s a star! So when I saw they was auditioning for that
Chart Throb
I thought why not. Now I’m going to put away my mop and go in there and rock their socks!’
Blossom had in fact auditioned earlier in the day, when she had turned out to have a pretty useful voice, and that and her ‘story’ now ensured her passage through to sing for the real judges.
Having got Blossom out of the way Emma returned to the ladies’ toilet, where Georgie was just emerging. She looked different from last year, Emma thought, more drawn, her cheekbones more prominent. On the other hand she was a year older, girls did change at that age.
‘Hi, girls!’ Emma said. ‘We don’t have long so let’s get straight over to the queue.’
Emma led the two girls across the hall to where, with some difficulty, Gary and Barry had managed to assemble a small group of ‘contestants’, all of whom had been given extra biscuits and promised ‘fun bags’ that would contain
Chart Throb
merchandising.
Having placed the girls in the middle of the group, Emma made ready to shoot.
‘Hang on,’ cried Michelle. ‘Get your coat off, Georgie.’
Georgie took off her coat and Emma could not help gasping. She was so
thin.
All her ribs showed beneath the bra, which was obviously padded. Her collar bone stood out from her shoulders and the hips upon which hung her silver-sheened sarong came to two little bony points.
‘Well,
hello
!’ she heard Trent exclaim over the radio. ‘God, she looks
fantastic
!’ Glancing down at the television monitor in her hand, Emma had to admit that Georgie did look good on screen. The camera always added a few pounds and by the standards expected of young female entertainers today Georgie filled the bill. In real life, standing only ten feet away from her, an almost naked eighteen-year-old with not an ounce of fat on her, she looked distinctly worrying. Once more Emma felt that she was looking at a victim but, unlike Shaiana, this was a victim upon whom the assault had already begun. Georgie had been attacking herself.
First Time
On the drive home to Leamington Spa, Millicent and Graham struggled to get over their mutual feelings of anticlimax.
‘I suppose it was pretty stupid to imagine that we’d get up in front of Calvin and Beryl, first shot,’ Graham said.
‘It wasn’t stupid. That’s what they make you think is going to happen,’ Millicent replied grumpily.
‘Yes, but if you think about it, it’s obvious it can’t,’ said Graham. ‘I mean you only have to do the maths.’
Conversation lapsed for a while. Graham turned on the radio, tried a number of stations and then turned it off again.
‘Milly,’ he said, ‘let’s get a room.’
‘Oh my goodness, Graham!’ Millicent could feel herself reddening as she said it. Whatever it was that she would have liked to say to such a suggestion, ‘Oh my goodness, Graham’ was not it. But it was such a surprise. The truth was that neither of them had referred to the kiss they had shared since the day it had happened. They had both wanted to but failed to do so when they next met, so the opportunity had been missed. As the days went by, it had become more and more difficult to think of a way of raising the subject, until both of them had begun to wonder if it had ever happened at all.
‘Because when we kissed . . .’ Graham continued. ‘We did kiss, didn’t we? I didn’t make it up?’
‘No, Graham,’ Millicent said. ‘We definitely kissed.’
‘Well, when we kissed, I liked it . . . and I thought you liked it too. Did you like it?’
‘Yes. I liked it.’
Conversation lapsed once more. Graham could think of nothing to add and Millicent could find nothing to say in reply. After a while Graham felt the car slowing and pulling off the road.
‘It’s a service station,’ Millicent said. ‘I expect they’ll have some machines in the toilets. They usually do. Have you got some pound coins?’
Graham searched in his pockets and, having found his change, felt for Millicent’s outstretched hand. Briefly he touched her and she was gone.
When she came back, they drove on in silence until once more he felt the car slowing.