Chart Throb (42 page)

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Authors: Ben Elton

BOOK: Chart Throb
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Calvin let the silence sit a while. He looked down, he looked up, sucked his pencil, he threw his body backwards against the chair and stared at the ceiling.
‘Girls,’ he said, ‘I am
so, so
disappointed.’
Another pause. ‘Chelle tried hard to nod wisely as if she was still prepared to learn and to grow. Georgie began to shake.
‘You know what?’ Calvin continued. ‘I really, really wanted you to be good. You showed talent last year and I was absolutely ready to give you the benefit of the doubt. But you know what? You’ve lost your innocence. You’re trying to
look
like pop stars instead of
being
pop stars. I’m sorry, girls. It was terrible, like two drunk bridesmaids at a wedding.’
‘No!’ Beryl protested. ‘Calvin, behave!’
‘Really, Calvin,’ Rodney chimed in, ‘I didn’t think the girls were that bad. Yes, it was a massive disappointment but the costumes were great and—’
‘OK, Rodney, bottom line. Sentiment aside. Ours is a tough game. What’s your vote?’
Now it was Rodney’s turn for a dramatic pause. He stared at the two near-naked teenagers as if he would have traded his life to put them through.
‘Please . . .’ ‘Chelle quivered. ‘We’ve worked so hard . . .’
‘This industry’s tough,’ Rodney replied, feeling Michelle’s pain. ‘I just don’t think you’re tough enough to cut it.’
‘We are, we are! We’re strong! We’re strong women. We’ve grown. Please . . .
Please.
’
‘Girls, I’m sorry,’ Rodney said, staring at them manfully. ‘Last year you showed promise but we didn’t think you could cut it, this year you’ve proved that we were right. In a way you should see that as a positive thing. You have closure.’
‘Yes or no, Rodney?’ Calvin snapped.
And despite the fact that it was already abundantly clear that it was a no from Rodney, he went for yet another pause, a pause so long that even though he had just told them they had failed entirely it was almost possible for the girls to believe Rodney might be contemplating a yes.
‘It’s a no from me,’ he finally concluded.
‘Beryl?’ Calvin asked.
Beryl could not speak. Her lip was quivering (within the icy constraints of the Botox that filled it) and her eyes were brimming with tears. All she could do, for that moment at least, was stare.
It was in fact ‘Chelle who found words first.
‘Please, Beryl,’ she said. ‘This means everything to us. Please.’
‘Don’t,’ Beryl stammered. ‘Don’t say that. Don’t
do
this to me.’
‘It’s our dream, Beryl.
Please
.’
‘Calvin!’ Beryl snapped. ‘Why have you put me in this position? Why are you doing this to me?’
‘Because you have to make a choice, Beryl. That’s your job,’ Calvin replied calmly.
‘Well, I don’t
want
this job! I don’t
want
to destroy people’s dreams. This shouldn’t be what it’s about.’
‘I need your vote.’
‘Please, Beryl!’ begged Michelle.
Once more a pause. Once more the two near-naked girls were forced to stand, shaking, pleading, crying, as time crawled towards the foregone conclusion.
‘Oh
God
,’ Beryl wailed. ‘I
wanted
it to be good. I
so
wanted it to be good. I love you girls, you’re strong women, you’ve grown but . . . I’m sorry, girls.’ Her voice was that of a six-year-old who smoked forty fags a day. ‘I think you’re going to have to find yourselves another dream.’
Yet again, despite the fact that Beryl had clearly pronounced her judgement, Calvin managed to string matters out one more time.
‘I need an answer, Beryl,’ he said. ‘Is it a yes or a no?’
Once more the pause. One final plea from Michelle.
‘Please, Beryl. We’ll do anything.’
One final plea from Beryl.
‘Don’t
do
this to me, Calvin.’
One final opportunity for Calvin to pretend to be the clear-headed professional unaffected by the maelstrom of emotion around him.
‘I need an answer, Beryl.’
‘I’m so sorry, girls,’ Beryl said. ‘It’s a no from me.’
‘And it’s a no from me too,’ said Calvin bluntly. ‘Thanks for coming to see us, girls.’
They couldn’t move. They simply could not move. Every fibre of the two young women’s beings was struggling to comprehend the shocking, stunning reality that it was over
already.
That they had failed to progress through a
single round
of the judging. That they had done
even worse
than last time. This was the genius of Calvin Simms. Anybody could have seen the drama in having the girls back, bigging them up through the early stages and
then
dropping them. But to drop them
instantly
, to claim that their performances the previous year had actually represented their
peak
, that was truly electric drama.
Georgie cracked first, the tears exploding suddenly and with force. ‘Chelle only began to weep after Beryl had rushed round the table to hug them.
‘Come here!’ Beryl shouted. ‘Come here, girls. You know what? You don’t need this, you’re better than this. Let me give you a hug.’
As Beryl began to usher the girls from the room, Costume and Make-up hovered close, Wet Wipes poised, ready to clean the girls’ snot from Beryl’s shoulder pads.
When the devastated girls had gone and Beryl had returned to her seat, the judges made ready to shoot their impromptu ‘discussion’. This supposed eavesdropping on the judges’ private thoughts followed each of the staged auditions and was supposed to lend an air of care and consideration to the proceedings.
‘Everybody happy?’ called Trent. ‘Ready with what you’re going to say?’
The three judges indicated that they were.
‘Can you huddle a bit closer together?’ Trent asked. ‘It looks so much more honest and intimate.’
The judges reluctantly shuffled their seats a little closer. Calvin even laid a hand on Rodney’s shoulder.
‘Action!’ cried Trent.
‘What a disappointment,’ Calvin said. ‘I had real hopes for them.’
‘Pretty girls and very nice,’ Beryl added, ‘but they just can’t cut it.’
‘Look,’ said Rodney, ‘they had a whole year to get better and they didn’t. Ours is a tough game.’
‘I admire them for coming back and having another shot though,’ said Calvin, his serious face firmly fixed. ‘That took a lot of guts and at least now they know.’
‘It’s better in the end this way,’ said Beryl croakily. ‘They’ll learn, they’ll heal, they’ll grow.’
‘Or shrink in the case of the little one. Fuck me, she’s got thin,’ said Calvin, indicating to Trent that he felt they had had enough eavesdropping chat.
‘Great,’ Trent called out. ‘Rodney, we were a tiny bit unclear with you. Can we take your line again.’
Rodney collected himself, thrilled to get a single shot.
‘Look,’ Rodney repeated, ‘they had a whole year to get better and they didn’t. Ours is a tough game.’
Trent was happy with the second take.
‘Calvin,’ he called out, ‘since we’re set up can we knock off some funny drop-ins?’
‘Got to do them some time,’ Calvin replied wearily.
‘Right,’ said Trent. ‘We’ll start with Beryl.’
The principal camera closed in on her.
‘Good, so blank stare to start with . . . bit of open-mouthed amazement . . . comical horror, you’ve just seen a
real
Minger . . . Could you shake your head in disbelief?’
Beryl went through her gamut of amusingly stunned faces.
‘Thanks, Beryl, that’s you done,’ said Trent. ‘Right, Rodney, could you give us your bent-mouthed bemusement? People
love
that one . . . As if Calvin’s asked you to pass judgement on a
total Minger
and you are just lost for words . . . Lovely. That is
so
funny.’
Chelsie Delivers Shaiana
The sound of Peroxide wailing could be heard up and down the corridors of the leisure complex.
‘We just wanted it
so much
.’
In the holding area everyone knew how Peroxide felt. They all wanted it and every single one of them believed that they wanted it the most. Particularly Shaiana, who had sat all day in a series of yoga positions awaiting her moment, waiting to put her foot on the first step of the ladder to Carnegie Hall.
When the deeply ambitious senior researcher walked her from the holding area towards the audition room, she kept up a constant, urgent, half-whispered mantra of intense encouragement. Not encouragement to sing but to cling, to impress upon the judges just how heartfelt was her desire to win.
‘You
know
they love sincerity, Shaiana,’ Chelsie whispered. ‘They
love
it and you give
major
sincerity. You are
so not
insincere. Never forget that being a Chart Throb is about
so much more
than having a great voice. To survive in this business you have to be able to cut it emotionally and to do that you have to
want it
, babes! And you
do
want this, don’t you, babes? You really, really want it.’
‘Yes,’ said Shaiana through pursed lips, speaking almost perfunctorily as if conserving her energies, like a boxer before a fight, not wanting to release an iota of her pent-up tension until the time came to unleash its full force.
‘Then
tell
them, girl!’ Chelsie breathed. ‘You go in there and tell them what you
feel
, what you
believe
. Tell them it’s your dream, tell them you’ll die if you fail, tell them that nothing in this universe or the next could compare with your need to do what it is that you have to do, and that is to sing a verse and chorus of “The Wind Beneath My Wings” like you never sang it before, babes, like it was the last song on earth. Like you were the last singer, babes. Like
God
was listening. Like God was
singing through you
, babes.’
Further Frustrations
Calvin could scarcely believe it. Emma had agreed to spend the night with him in a hotel but only in
separate rooms
. It was extraordinary, he was forty-two years old, he was worth hundreds of millions, he was arguably the most powerful man in show business, he wasn’t even bad-looking and yet he and his girlfriend were going to sleep in
separate rooms
.
He hated it. But much, much more than that, he loved it.
He was finding the process of
courting
, of deferred gratification, intensely exciting, partly of course because he loved a challenge but also for the way this new experience of denial had so invigoratingly sharpened and focused his interest in sex. It had been
years
, decades even, since he had
craved
a woman, since his entire physical being had homed in specifically on one individual in this way, to the point where he was uninterested in the idea of sex with anyone else. Calvin was clever enough to understand that this exaggerated desire was very much a result of the fact that he was being denied what he wanted, but that did not decrease the intensity of his need. He
liked
the fact that Emma was standing up to him, teasing him. He admired her for it and he was grateful to her for reawakening things in him that he had forgotten even existed.
When the auditions day in Birmingham had finally ended, Calvin had scarcely bothered to say goodbye before hurrying off to phone Emma from the privacy of his car.
‘I am
so
knackered,’ he said. ‘I think we saw over seventy people today.’
‘
Seventy people
,’ Emma replied sarcastically. ‘So only about two thousand days to go then and you’ll have seen all ninety-five thousand of them.’
‘Look, I have to see you, Emma. Sorry but I do. I’m on my way to the Cliveden House Hotel, do you know it?’
‘I know
of
it. The scandal place.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, that was over forty years ago. It’s just a lovely hotel now. All the luxuries. I’ve sent a car for you, will you get in it?’
‘What, now?’
‘Now-ish,’ Calvin replied. ‘I’ve only just ordered it so you’ve probably got half an hour to pack a toothbrush. It’s Saturday tomorrow so I presume you’re free.’
‘Well, I’m not working if that’s what you mean. I do have a life.’
‘Oh, never mind about all that. I’m supposed to be editing, but I can do a lot of it on my computer once they’ve digitized the tapes. You could go to the spa and have your toenails done.’
‘I don’t much like all that pampering stuff,’ Emma lied.
‘All women like the pampering stuff.’
‘Calvin, you don’t know anything about women.’

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