They did know, for Calvin had told them, often.
‘Some weeks you can get there with twenty-five thousand sales! It used to take
half a million
in an ordinary week. Twenty-five thousand CDs or fucking
downloads
, God help us, doesn’t pay for their own marketing! Singles are worthless, they’re meaningless, they’re history. The
only
reason we need our winner to get a number one is to validate the process, to give the show some semblance of meaning. We are a
people
show and if I could find a format where we could do
without
the singing, if I could find a way to attract eight million viewers and two million phone calls a week
without
having to sit through a bunch of deluded pricks murdering “The Greatest Love Of All” and “Unchained Melody”, believe me, I would. And, my God, haven’t people tried? There’s been cooking, dancing,
fucking skating
, for Christ’s sake, which sort of worked, but none of them have proved themselves as neat and simple a way of introducing the public to our menagerie of clowns, dysfunctionals, egomaniacs and emotional casualties as singing a song!
‘We are a
people
show!’ Calvin repeated. ‘And 99 per cent of our job is to find the right people. The Singers. The Clingers. The Blingers and the Mingers! Now most people aren’t very interesting, are they? No. You lot have just spent six months sifting through nearly a hundred thousand of them and I’ll bet you’re bored shitless. I’ll bet that you’re even bored shitless by the few hundred you’ve whittled the final selection group down to. I’ll bet you’re wondering whether out of this tawdry bunch of inadequate fuck-ups we even have the makings of a show. Am I right?’
Once more the group were reluctant to answer but it was clear from the embarrassed manner in which some of the younger ones stared at the carpet that Calvin was right. The research team had indeed been driven nearly mad with boredom searching through the endless similar applications and they had most definitely at times despaired of discovering a sufficiently interesting group of contestants to maintain the high standards that the public had come to expect from
Chart Throb
.
‘Of course I’m right,’ said Calvin. ‘And that’s because, in spite of the myth which this show was invented to propagate, the world is
not
teeming with undiscovered Aretha Franklins and Elvis Presleys, nor is the average person who
believes
themselves to be mad, amusing, charismatic or sexy
actually
mad, amusing, charismatic or sexy. We’re all the fucking same! Everybody has a dream, everybody wants it all and everybody’s mum is either dead or will at some point die. Our job is to find something,
anything
, on which to build, on which to hang our stories, to
create
our characters. If some dick once spent a summer driving a tractor on a dairy farm he’s an ex-cowboy, if some bird was a movie extra she’s an ex-body double. Every cancer scare is a “life and death struggle” to us and two parking fines is a criminal past from which the sinner is struggling to release himself through song. And
you
, Trent, you come to the final selection meeting, the point at which decisions have to be made and our audition group assembled, and tell me that you have a blind lad and his pretty partner but you don’t know whether they’re having sex!’
‘I don’t think he’s given her one,’ Trent said. ‘Leastways that’s how I read it. No exchange of fluids so far.’
‘Why not?’ Calvin asked. ‘You said you didn’t know.’
Trent’s eyes flicked down once more to Emma’s carefully prepared, neatly handwritten notes.
‘They belong to the same choir.’
‘You think people in choirs don’t have sex? What do you think they join choirs for in the first place? Because they can’t get laid, that’s why.’
‘Well, maybe they’ll get round to it,’ Trent replied, trying to sound confident and knowledgeable. ‘I reckon this singing thing’s a surrogate, gotta be. Two nineteen-year-olds meet in a choir, he’s blind, she’s . . .’ he was reading verbatim now, ‘member of the school council, Duke of Edinburgh Award recipient, first-year theology student.’
‘A
theology
student? Fucking hell,’ Calvin mused. ‘This is
nice.
Normally only the black ones go on about God. The show could use a bit of non-ethnic faith.’
‘He’s her project,’ Trent continued. ‘She thinks she’s Helen Keller. Imagine what school was like for this chick. She’s a swot, she’s in a choir, she’s a fucking Christian, for God’s sake! The other chicks must have
hated
her. Then she meets the blind kid . . .’
‘Graham, his name is,’ Chelsie chipped in. She had, after all, been working with Emma and was anxious to remind Calvin that now Emma was gone this research initiative was not Trent’s, it was hers. ‘Graham and Millicent.’
‘Millicent!’ Calvin barked. ‘This is perfect!’
‘Yes, and actually she’s nineteen and he’s eighteen.’
‘She’s older, better and better. I like it.’
‘That’s my point, boss,’ Trent barged back in. ‘He’s younger than her! She’s colonized him.’ Trent spoke as if he’d been aware of the age disparity all along, indeed he spoke as if he’d planned it. In order to ward off any further attempts by Chelsie to elbow her way on to the agenda he pressed Play and Graham and Millicent leaped into life on the screen.
‘Hi, everybody,’ said Millicent with a little wave. ‘I’m Millicent.’
‘And I’m Graham.’
‘Hi, everybody,’ they said together, waving at the camera. ‘We’re Graham and Millicent.’
‘Loving the décolletage,’ Calvin observed, pressing the pause button. ‘Nothing sexier than girl nerds in glasses trying to work their tits.’
‘Yes,’ said Chelsie with a defiant stare at Trent. ‘She definitely thinks she has nice boobs, I could tell when I interviewed her that she likes to give the boys a little squiz.’
Millicent, although primly dressed in jeans, blouse and pale green cardigan, was obviously proud of her bosom and had deliberately chosen to leave the telltale third button open.
Calvin pressed Play and the voice of the sacked Emma could be heard speaking from behind the camera.
‘Hello, you two,’ Emma said. ‘What are you going to do for us today?’
Calvin scowled but said nothing.
‘We’d like to sing “When Will The Good Apples Fall” by the Seekers,’ said Millicent with the slightly overassertive confidence of someone who had only recently been head prefect.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Graham agreed, with considerably less aplomb.
‘Oh,
yes indeed
,’ muttered Calvin. ‘The Seekers, I
like it
!’
Emma had been right, they weren’t bad at all. They could hold down a two-part harmony and still deliver the tune, but Millicent was clearly the stronger singer of the two. Graham did his best to cover his lack of range by affecting some gravelly rock ’n’ roll vocal mannerisms but there was no disguising his failure to reach the high notes and his dodgy pitching. He also stood very awkwardly and his right hand strummed along in a rather offputting manner, as if he would far rather be playing than singing.
Calvin let the two of them complete their entire verse and chorus, the first time he had let anyone get that far all morning. When it was over Emma’s voice could be heard once more congratulating the singers. A flicker of irritation, perhaps even pain, passed across Calvin’s face and once more he cut her short with the pause button.
‘What’s he like behind the sunnies?’ Calvin enquired. ‘Nice blind or weird blind?’
‘Chelsie?’ said Trent quickly.
‘Weird blind, I’m afraid,’ Chelsie replied, making a point of speaking directly to Calvin. ‘I got him to take off the shades, bit distracting to be honest. He’s got really deep hollows with half-closed lids set into the skull. I don’t know much about blindness and didn’t like to ask but I’m not sure if he actually
has
any eyeballs. You couldn’t really tell.’
‘Doesn’t matter, he can stick with the shades. The Big O never took them off,’ Calvin replied. ‘This is looking very, very tasty, there is
so
much journey potential here, from nerd to sexy, from friends to lovers, from chaste to horny, from dull, repressed, God-bothering choristers to rock ’n’ roll sluts! AND the kid’s blind! How good is that? I am
so
loving these two. Next!’
Trent pressed the forward button on his control.
A boy band appeared. ‘We’re the Four Busketeers and we are in it to win it.’
‘No, you’re not. Fuck off. Next,’ said Calvin.
An overweight housewife with a strong Dorset accent and a lisp.
‘Moi name’th Thuthan an’ Oim goin’ ta thing “Thomething” by George Harrithon.’
‘Definitely. Love her for a one-shot Ming,’ said Calvin. ‘Next.’
Two nerdy sisters with glasses and big hoop earrings.
‘Fine,’ said Calvin before they could open their mouths. ‘Ming montage. Next.’
A boring-looking middle-aged man.
‘Hi. I’m Stanley.’
‘Why’s he here?’ Calvin asked.
‘He can sing and he’s a single dad,’ piped up a researcher from the back.
‘That’s right, chief,’ Trent reiterated unnecessarily. ‘He can sing and he’s a single dad.’
‘Does he have a job?’
‘No, he’s bringing up his kids on benefits.’
‘OK, we’ll have him. Next!’
A sweet old grannie.
‘Not sweet enough. Next.’
A cute, precocious five-year-old kid.
‘Not cute and precocious enough. Next.’
A plain-looking girl with a crew cut.
‘Hmm, not bad,’ Calvin said. ‘Tell me about her.’
‘Name’s Tabitha,’ said Trent.
‘Lesbian?’ Calvin enquired.
‘Yes,’ said Chelsie. ‘The girlfriend’s gorgeous, totally gorgeous, a real classic lipstick lezza
and
she strips. Professional pole dancer, don’t you love it? The guys want to screw her but she’s a lady’s lady.’
‘The girlfriend, not her?’ said Calvin, indicating the rather severe-looking plain Jane on screen.
‘No.’
‘So why isn’t the girlfriend fucking auditioning?’
‘Well, she didn’t—’
‘Will the girlfriend be prepared to feature?’
‘Definitely, she was with Tabitha at the audition.’
‘Good, make sure she’s there. Next.’
The next person to appear on the screen was Shaiana. Glancing at Emma’s notes, Trent could see that she had marked her down as a real prospect.
MAJOR CLINGER
was written across her photograph in the turquoise ink of Emma’s neat, attractive, feminine hand.
‘I think this one’s a goer, boss,’ said Trent. ‘Major Clinger.’
Calvin studied the young woman frozen on the screen.
‘Yes, she does look pretty intense, doesn’t she?’
Shaiana’s thick make-up and severe fringe gave her face a slightly masklike look, as if it might shatter at any moment.
‘Certainly wouldn’t want to meet her in a dark alley,’ said Calvin. ‘Right, she’s in. Next.’
And so the long day wore on. They plodded through the gruelling process of choosing the finalists and also-rans who would be brought before the three judges, that pre-selected group who would make up the principal ‘characters’ in the
Chart Throb
story and the ones who, after a lengthy period of ‘auditioning’, would or would not ‘win’ a place in the finals. It was of course possible that Calvin would change his mind along the way as characters developed; nonetheless, the decisions he was making in that room would effectively shape the course of the entire series.
This meeting was probably the most important one in the whole development process and yet, as the afternoon progressed, Calvin appeared to be finding it harder and harder to concentrate. He snapped at people unnecessarily, he asked questions twice, even lost his thread mid-sentence, which made him furious. Nobody had ever seen Calvin lose his thread. Nobody had ever seen Calvin distracted. Something was on his mind but of course nobody dared ask what.
Unemployed Girl
The reason for Calvin’s deteriorating concentration had sat in Soho Square for almost an hour, quite numb with shock.
After that she decided to go shopping.
She could think of nothing else to do with herself. She was certainly not hungry and she could not face going home to her flat in the middle of the day, that flat from which she had emerged in such a sunny mood only a few hours before and to which she must at some point return, rejected and unemployed.
She decided to walk along Oxford Street and get the tube from Oxford Circus to Harvey Nicks. Who knew when she would next be in town? She was out of work and had been sacked from her last job, so she would scarcely get a glowing reference. What could she do now? Retire to South Wimbledon and try to make ends meet, she supposed. Leave London, which she could probably no longer afford, and try to find work elsewhere? Her first job had been writing features for estate agents’ magazines – perhaps she could do that again?