‘That was an incredibly brave decision, Iona,’ Beryl cooed. ‘You stripped it all back, you let your voice do the talking and you
owned that song.
You sung like only a Scotswoman can sing and I can say that because I love the Scots and I’m a woman.’
Troy sang ‘Angels’, a song which rarely failed for anyone. Despite the fact that Troy knew the song backwards, having sung it a thousand times, Calvin suggested that he might like to take a lyric sheet on with him. Calvin had the director inform Troy that all the camera angles had been changed (due to safety regulations) and that Troy should refer to his lyric sheet at the end of each line in order to find the number of the camera he should sing the next line to. The result was that Troy spent the whole song staring at the sheet, desperately trying to work out which camera he was supposed to look at.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Calvin explained solemnly afterwards, ‘Troy wanted to do that song but he did not know the words. He therefore decided with incredible bravery that he would attempt to
read
them despite the fact that he cannot actually read. Troy, I salute you, for that alone you should win this contest.’
Next Graham did ‘I Can See Clearly Now’, which made Beryl cry.
‘For a boy who is blind, unsighted and cannot see to sing a song that is actually about being
able
to see showed so much incredible bravery and courage it wasn’t funny,’ she croaked. ‘I salute you, babes. You owned that song.’
Finally the Prince of Wales took everyone by surprise by singing ‘Do Ye Ken John Peel?’ ‘I should like to dedicate this song to all the foxhounds that have had to be put down since the hunting ban was introduced. People think it’s a song about love of killing foxes but really it’s a song about love of the
countryside
and I do think that’s important, don’t you?’
People didn’t. It was the first major own goal for the Prince of Wales and one that landed him in the bottom two of the popular vote alongside The Four-Z. This was exactly as Calvin had intended. He did not want the process of favouring the Prince to become too obvious and he had judged that ‘Do Ye Ken John Peel?’ with an introductory video package sympathetic to hunting would provoke sufficient negativity to place HRH’s rapidly growing popularity briefly in doubt.
‘If there’s one thing I know about the British public,’ Calvin said with confidence, ‘it’s that they don’t like cruelty to foxes. They hate it, they loathe it, they strongly disapprove of it. They don’t mind a twenty-piece bucket of KFC with a couple of Big Macs on the side and a nice big sausage made of mechanically recovered meat to follow, and they don’t mind the last cod in the western hemisphere being coated in batter and stuck in a deep-fat fryer, but they cannot and will not abide a couple of hundred posh snob snooties chasing a fox.’
Therefore the Prince faced The Four-Z in the sing-off at the end of the show. Once more Jo-Jo fronted up ‘Cop Killa’ and HRH sang ‘Do Ye Ken John Peel?’ and most observers judged that the fox killer got slightly more boos than the Cop Killa. However, the decision was down to the judges and during the final advertising break before the vote Calvin took Beryl into the hospitality room and instructed her to vote for the Prince.
‘You want me to vote for a fucking fox-hunter!’ she replied, absently sucking down a couple of oysters followed by two cocktail sausages and a mini Yorkshire pudding with roast beef.
‘Yes,’ Calvin replied. ‘Rodney is nurturing The Four-Z so he can’t and I want the Prince to stay in.’
‘Why? He’s a posh snob fox-murderer!’ Beryl replied, pulling a bit of gristle from her teeth. ‘I’m a mum, I’m one of the people, I’m the people’s mum, for fuck’s sake! I can’t vote for a fox-killer.’
‘And I am the producer of this show and I’m telling you to vote for the Prince.’
‘I won’t do it!’ Beryl shouted, and a piece of half-chewed rare roast beef landed on Calvin’s jacket. ‘I’m not voting for a fucking murderer. I’m an ambassador for PETA, for fuck’s sake! Anyway it’s fucking absurd, how can we possibly vote through an ageing fucking ponce against four gorgeous boys?’
‘Who have just sung “Cop Killa”.’
‘I don’t care. I won’t do it. I’m not voting for the Prince.’
‘If you don’t do what I tell you, Beryl,’ Calvin said firmly, ‘you’ll be gone from this show before the credits are finished.’
‘You wouldn’t do it. You need me.’
‘I would and I don’t. I will not have my authority on this programme challenged, not by you, not by anybody. You will vote for who I tell you to or you will fuck off, Beryl.’
‘What about my integrity?’
‘Beryl, darling,’ Calvin said quietly through a big, broad, icy smile,
‘Chart Throb
made you a proper star, it turned you from a novelty act on
The Blenheims
into a genuine cast-iron mainstream celebrity. Three times National Mum of the Year. Do you really want to throw that away over your integrity? Try to remember that you don’t
have
any integrity.’
Beryl nodded.
‘Oh, all fucking right,’ she said.
In the end the choice of song that Calvin had forced upon the boy band made it perfectly plausible for Beryl to vote as she did.
‘Look, I’m no fan of fox-hunting,’ she said, ‘people know that about me, but boys,’ and suddenly her eyes were brimming with sorrow, ‘I love you big time so much it isn’t funny, you
know
that. But how can I vote for you? It would be a vote against the British police force, it would be a vote for crime, it would be a smack in the face to every widow and orphan who has lost a hero in the line of duty. I’m sorry, boys, but killing cops is wrong even in the world of pop music.’
And so quite suddenly The Four-Z were rejected.
For a day or two or even a week afterwards Michael and his friends imagined that the dream might not yet be over. After all, how many times had the expert judges solemnly pronounced that they were stars? That they had huge recording careers ahead of them? That they were better than The Commodores? A new Jackson Five. Surely the ‘record contract’ that Rodney had regularly stated should by rights be theirs must now be forthcoming? Surely it had not all been unmitigated bullshit?
But it was. The world was full of good-looking lads who could sing and they were just four more of them (three not counting Jo-Jo). The pompous promises made on
Chart Throb
were valid for exactly as long as it took to utter them and so The Four-Z returned to the lives they had hoped to leave behind for ever.
Weeks Eight and Nine
Troy went out in week eight in a vote-off with HRH, who was still suffering from the hunting controversy of the previous week. Calvin manoeuvred Troy to the bottom of the pack by simply repeating the device of staging Troy’s song as if the lad was attempting to read the lyrics. The public had loved this manoeuvre the first time round but when Troy did the same thing again they reacted negatively to what appeared to be a clumsy attempt to manipulate their sympathy.
Calvin knew that Graham would prove a much tougher job to bring down. Graham had risen to a height of popularity second only to The Four-Z during the early live rounds and if he were allowed to get through to the final he would prove difficult to control. Week nine was therefore Calvin’s last chance to deal with him.
‘We need to turn people against him,’ he explained to Chelsie and Trent, ‘and the best way to do that is to stitch him up in the pre-show profile.’
‘How about using the fact that he dropped Millicent so easily?’ Chelsie suggested.
‘Good girl!’ said Calvin. ‘Exactly what I was thinking. We need to make him look selfish, uncaring and mean.’
‘Do you think we can do that to a blind boy?’ Trent enquired dubiously.
‘Of course we can,’ Calvin replied. ‘All the best villains in literature were disabled, look at Long John Silver.’
Trent was dispatched to the rehearsal room with a camera crew and ordered to manipulate Graham into incriminating himself. However, he returned disappointed.
‘He really likes the chick,’ Trent explained. ‘In fact it’s pretty clear he’s in love with her. What’s more, he knows he’s no singer either. I couldn’t twist him round at all.’
‘Let’s look at the tape.’
Sitting in an edit suite, Calvin, Trent and Chelsie watched the tape of the interview.
‘I don’t like to think of Millicent not being here with me,’ Graham had said. ‘If I’m honest, I truly believe she’s got the better voice, which makes me feel like a sad, selfish no-talent, like I don’t care about anybody but myself. Sometimes I just hate myself and don’t even want to win. I love Millicent and I always will. She’s always been my friend and respected me and not patronized me or treated me differently because I’m blind.’
‘You see?’ said Trent. ‘The bloke just won’t play ball.’
‘I think he will,’ said Chelsie.
‘What, you think you can get him to diss his girlfriend?’
‘Of course I can.’
For a moment something of Trent’s old self-assertiveness returned.
‘Well, go and interview him then, babes. See how far you get.’
‘I don’t need to interview him,’ Chelsie said, ‘you already did.’
‘Oh, come on, Chelsie! You think you can get a Frankenbite out of that?’
Chelsie smiled, took up the typed transcript of Graham’s interview and began to cross things out:
I don’t like
to think of
Millicent
not being here with me. If I’m honest
, I truly believe she’s
got the better voice, which makes me feel like
a sad, selfish no-talent,
like
I don’t care about anybody but myself.
Sometimes
I just
hate myself and don’t even
want to win.
I love Millicont
and I
always
will.
She’s always been my friend and respected me and not patronized me or treeted me differently
because I’m blind.
When she had finished she showed the result to Calvin and Trent.
‘You are
good
,’ Calvin said, smiling approvingly.
Trent bent with the wind once more.
‘Yeah, superb effort,’ he conceded. ‘Do you really think we can smooth it out?’
Chelsie did not bother to reply. Instead she turned to the editing machine and with expert fingers began cutting up Graham’s interview. In time-honoured
Chart Throb
Frankenbite style she used cross-fades and jumpcuts and different camera angles, all stitched together with moody music and distant traffic noises to cover the cuts. The end result made Graham sound convincingly if nervously conversational, the constant cuts and changes of angle lending the pieces a painful urgency.
Calvin was extremely impressed.
‘That, Chelsie,’ he said, ‘is a textbook Frankenbite. I intend to use that in my tutorials. Watch and learn, Trent.’
‘I’m on it, chief.’
‘How about we invite Millicent to be in the audience for the show?’ Chelsie suggested.
‘Brilliant,’ said Calvin, ‘just fucking brilliant. Trent . . .’
‘Already on it, boss,’ said Trent, picking up the phone.
Millicent was duly invited to attend the live broadcast of week nine, having of course received no warning of the content of Graham’s brutally edited interview. The hovering cameras captured every moment of her devastation and humiliation.
‘I don’t like Millicent
,’ Graham appeared to be saying.
‘I truly believe she’s a sad, selfish no-talent. I don’t care about anybody but myself. I just want to win and I will because I’m blind.’
Millicent was crying by the time Graham appeared on stage (oblivious of the upset he had caused) and she continued to cry throughout the first half of Graham’s chirpily ill-judged performance of Kylie Minogue’s ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, after which, unable to take any more
lucky, lucky, luckys
, Millicent ran weeping from the studio.
Graham plummeted to the bottom of the telephone vote and was duly rejected by the judges in a unanimous and popular decision.
The Final, Part One
Emma accompanied Calvin to the grand final and had her first taste of what it was like to be seen out on the arm of the world’s biggest television star. It was the first time they had acknowledged their relationship in public. Emma had been reluctant at first to go with him but so confident was Calvin of ensuring the Prince’s victory that he insisted on her presence on this night of nights and even held her hand as they navigated the red carpet through the flickers of lightning produced by an army of flash photographers.
Calvin had not, of course, shared his confidence about the Prince’s final triumph with Emma. The whole point about his promise to her was that it was supposed to represent a sacrifice on his part, a near-impossible job that he had only undertaken to prove his love and commitment and trustworthiness. He therefore did not wish Emma to imagine it was going to be easy.
‘Things have gone well so far,’ he said, looking noble and serious, ‘but now comes the hard part. Quasar and Iona are both hugely popular figures and have been well ahead of HRH up until now.’