Chart Throb (19 page)

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Authors: Ben Elton

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‘Travelodge,’ he heard her say. ‘Not very romantic.’

‘You make your own romance,’ he replied and they both laughed.

They went inside, booked a room, bought two Bacardi and Cokes from the vending machine and made their way upstairs.

Afterwards, lying peacefully together, they spoke once more of their audition.

‘If only they’d let me play my guitar,’ Graham said. ‘You know I can’t sing.’

‘They won’t, not until the later rounds. We just have to get that far. You can sing a bit.’

‘You carry me, we both know that. I’m a musician, a songwriter.’

‘Yes, and if we can just do well enough to get through the early stages then maybe people will listen to your songs.’

‘You’re the singer. You should have entered on your own.’

‘Graham, I only want to do it if it’s with you.’

‘Supposing they try to break us up? They do that sometimes, when they think one of a group is better than the other.’

‘Graham, I would never leave you . . .’

‘Why not? I mean if it was one of us or none of us. You’re a great singer, you love to sing.’

‘Because . . . because I love you.’

There, she had said it. It was out at last.

‘I love you too,’ Graham replied, and he reached for her again.

I Will Survive

Beryl and Serenity were working on story ideas for the upcoming series of
The Blenheims.

‘How about we get a sit-on lawn mower?’ Beryl suggested.

‘Don’t we have a sit-on lawn mower, sweetness?’ Serenity mumbled through her massively inflated lips, like two glossily painted draught excluders. ‘Isn’t that what Juan mows the lawns with?’

Once more Beryl attempted to explain to her wife the realities of ‘reality’ television.

‘I
know
we’ve got a sit-on lawn mower that Juan mows the lawns with, babes,’ she said gently, helping her to open the can of Diet Coke with which Serenity, with her talon-like false fingernails, had been struggling for the previous few minutes. ‘But in our show we don’t have Juan, do we? We don’t have any servants because we’re just a good old ordinary family, aren’t we? So who do you think mows the lawn, babes?’

‘Uhm . . .’

‘
You
mow the lawn, babes.’

‘I’ve never mown a lawn in my fucking life, cherry ripe. I don’t even wax my own legs!’

‘Exactly. Which is why it will be so funny when we decide that the lawn needs mowing and we get you a sit-on mower and you run over a dog and drive it into the swimming pool!’

Serenity pushed a straw between her semi-lifeless lips and sipped her Coke thoughtfully.

‘OK, honey. Whatever you want me to do.’

At that moment a burst of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’ interrupted their conversation.

It was Beryl’s phone.

Beryl loved ‘I Will Survive’, believing that if ever three words were required to sum her up those three would do it. She had thought about asking in her will for them to be written on her gravestone, until Priscilla had pointed out that this might present something of a contradiction in terms.

Nonetheless ‘I Will Survive’ was Beryl’s motto and her theme tune because Beryl Blenheim saw herself as a fighter, a survivor, a battler, a martyr to the shit that happens. She never tired of assuring people that she had had it tough, she had taken the knocks,
hard
knocks. The crap that she had had to deal with would have defeated a lesser woman. It would have defeated anyone. But Beryl Blenheim was not a lesser woman, nor was she just anyone.

I am a strong woman and I have survived
was the opening line of her celebrated autobiography.
I even survived being a man
.

The fact that she was enormously rich and had never wanted for anything in her entire life only seemed to add to the mystique of her fabulous gutsiness. The fact that the majority of what shit she
had
had to deal with had been self-inflicted, brought about by her own greed, jealous ambition, hedonism and relentless self-promotion, never seemed to occur to her, nor did it to the numerous interviewers who nodded knowingly as Beryl, with tight-lipped sincerity, catalogued her tough life as a businesswoman and working mum. It was simply and uncritically accepted that Beryl’s education at the University of Hard Knocks had actually been
further
complicated by all the weirdness and heavy shit that inevitably accompany wealth, power and fame. That it was these things which had in fact created the tough lady with the big heart that the world loved so dearly.

Beryl retrieved ‘I Will Survive’ from the depths of a handbag that would have cost her two thousand pounds had she not got it for nothing from the goody bag at Elton John’s post-Oscar party.

‘It’s Priscilla,’ Beryl said, glancing at her mobile’s display.

Beryl stuck the Bluetooth in her ear.

‘Mom, you fucking bitch,’ her daughter shouted down the phone without even giving Beryl a chance to greet her. ‘We debuted at forty-eight, you swore we’d be top forty on pre-orders alone!’

‘What are you doing with a fucking phone? They don’t allow you a phone!’

‘I fucking checked out. Mom, the album is a turkey. I wanna die!’

‘You
checked out
?’

‘I
just said
my album is a—’

‘Priscilla, you have a drug bust hanging over your head! I told the media you were working through your problem! Dealing with your issues!’

‘Mom, that was
six fucking days ago
! Do you think anybody remembers any more? It’s history. You wanna know what’s front page today? Another sleazoid thrash metal singer selling downloads of Paris Hilton sucking his dick. The world moved on.’

‘Well, you’d better be right because we have a new season coming up and you’re in it and we are
not
allowed to film in state correctional institutions.’

‘Mom, listen to me. Didn’t you hear?’ Priscilla’s voice was suddenly less strident, less confident. ‘My album stiffed. I’m a fucking failure.’

The contrast in accents between the two women was startling: a Swindon battler and a Los Angeles princess. Nobody would ever have picked them for members of the same family had not Beryl arranged for their private lives to be broadcast in weekly instalments on the Fox Channel.

‘You’re not a failure, darling,’ Beryl cooed.

‘I am, I am. I can’t sing. I have no talent.’

‘Of course you have talent, darling. You’re a big star. My God, you should count your blessings. How many magazines have you been on the front of, young lady?’

‘Do you think I can sing, Mom?’

‘Of course I do, darling. I’m one of your mothers.’

‘No, but really?’

‘Yes, yes, yes, dear. You can sing. You can sing. You can sing. Now I’m sorry that the album flopped but it isn’t the end of the world . . .’

‘I’m, like, so embarrassed.’

‘No, darling, don’t be embarrassed. We’ll spin it, buy fifty copies in Albania, get you to number one and say you’re big in Europe. Now did you get me in with your London surgeon?’

‘Yes, yes, yes. He does everybody, he’s the best.’

‘Good, because I want to get in straight after the
Chart Throb
final and before we start
The Blenheims
.’

‘Did Fox agree to postpone our start date?’

‘They will. I’m working on them.’

‘Mom?’ Once more Priscilla’s voice softened and the brittle accent could not disguise the yearning. ‘Do you
really
think I can sing?’

Not in Love

After Birmingham, Emma, Chelsie, Trent and the team visited Glasgow, Newcastle, Manchester, Dublin, Belfast, Bristol and London, reducing the few thousand people who had been selected from the thousands who had sent in applications or attended the mass audition days to those whom they would offer up to Calvin for selection to feature in the show.

The night before the final selection was scheduled to begin, Emma went out for a curry with friends. She had been intending to stay in and study her character notes but she badly needed a break. The general selection process had been
so
gruelling, much worse than the previous year, and sometimes beer and chicken tikka masala was the only answer.

‘I think it’s because I understand the workings of the show so much better,’ she explained. ‘I
know
what these people are getting into.’

‘I thought that was going to make it easier,’ her friend Mel replied. ‘That’s what you said: forewarned, forearmed. I’m sure I remember somebody who looked
exactly
like you sitting in that
exact
same chair four months ago swearing that she was going to remain aloof and not get emotionally connected this time.’

‘I know, I
know
,’ Emma replied unhappily. ‘But it’s hard. There’s this girl Shaiana, she’s so
intense
. . .’

‘God, where do they get these names?’ Mel’s boyfriend, Tom, butted in. ‘I mean how do their mothers
know
? It’s as if when they’re born everybody says, twenty years from now she’s going to be making a fool of herself on
Chart Throb
. Better give her a fucking stupid name.’

‘And there’s a girl who’s coming back from last year who’s anorexic, or at least I think she is.’

‘Look, Em,’ Tom said, ‘you said it was a freak show. They told you that when you started. Clingers, Blingers and Mingers . . .’

‘And
some
singers,’ Emma protested. ‘It’s not
all
freaks.’

‘Have it both ways. You always do.’

Emma found it very easy to be critical of her situation while becoming defensive when others agreed with her.

‘Some people really do get something out of the whole thing,’ she said. ‘Last year’s winner sold a lot of records and three or four of the other finalists are still singing professionally.’

‘Where?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, hotels, cruise ships. That’s good, I think. We’ve got this blind boy who is obviously
obsessed
with music. I think
Chart Throb
’s one of the few places where his disadvantage can actually help him.’

‘Emma,
listen
to yourself!’ Tom protested.

‘Let’s change the subject,’ Mel suggested, having heard this conversation before.

‘No!’ Tom insisted. ‘Emma is basically saying that because her fucking show is going to exploit this bloke’s blindness somehow they’re doing him a favour!’

‘Well, aren’t we?’ Emma snapped. ‘Certainly Calvin will be interested in the human sympathy angle but so what? He’ll still get to sing, he’ll still be heard. I’m sure every time his blindness puts him at the back of the queue Graham must be
thrilled
that at least nobody’s
exploiting
him. Yes, we take the piss out of saddos and we get to play on people’s emotions but we’re the only show on TV where a saddo gets even half a chance. What have
you
ever done, Tom, to give a break to somebody with a massive disadvantage in life?’

‘Oh, sorry, Emma, I had no idea Calvin Simms was running a charity. There was me thinking he was a cynical, manipulative, money-grabbing shit. You should have
said.’

Emma bristled further. ‘God! Why is everybody I know so down on Calvin?’

‘Come on, Em,’ said Mel. ‘You’ve often said he’s a bully.’

‘He
plays
the bully. I don’t know that he actually is one.’

In answer to this Tom merely shrugged and ordered more poppadoms.

‘The point is he’s an
entertainer.
An act, putting on a show. And he
loves it.
That’s the point, he loves pop and he loves TV and he loves . . . He loves
entertaining
. And he does it bloody well, which is why he’s so huge and also why everybody’s so
jealous
and
mean
about him.’

‘Well,’ said Mel after a pause. ‘We’re very defensive of Mr Simms these days, aren’t we?’

‘No. It’s just . . .’

‘Just what?’

Emma didn’t reply, concentrating instead upon her food. Her silence was enough.

‘Oh my
God
!’ her friend exclaimed. ‘I
thought
so. You’ve got a crush on Calvin bloody Simms!’

‘I have
not.
Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘Emma,’ said Tom, ‘you
can’t
fall in love with Calvin Simms!’

‘I haven’t!’

‘It’s the Dad thing
yet again
.’

‘Tom. Fuck off.’ Emma lit a cigarette, ignoring the fact they were all eating. ‘Every fucking time I show an interest in a man you bring up my dad.’