Geek Tragedy (4 page)

She looked at him pityingly. ‘Oh, I suppose so… One does sometimes get misty-eyed for the old days.’

The voice from the corner floated up again. ‘That’ll be the cataracts, dear.’

Vanity continued talking without missing a beat. ‘But it’s so difficult to be nostalgic about it… Unlike
some
actresse
s
it wasn’t my whole career, just a very small part of it…’

‘Yes… You did have a very
long
career. What was it like, working with Muffin the Mule…?’

‘No dear, I’m so forgetful about those days…faces…scenes…scripts… I can’t remember any of my lines any more… What about you Katherine? Do you still remember your
line?
’

Thankfully, it was nearly ten o’clock, and a couple of stewards came in to take the actresses to the stage. They all set off to tell the attendees their chummy backstage anecdotes. For an hour, their bitchiness would be buried beneath a practised air of bonhomie. Mervyn smiled. Through their networks, fanzines and exhaustive research, the fans knew about every temper tantrum and spat the women ever had. Vanity and Katherine wouldn’t be fooling anybody.

Simon glided past, and Mervyn grabbed his arm.

Simon recoiled like he’d been touched by a passing vagrant.
It was always the paradox of these conventions,
Mervyn thought.
The fans love us, and want us to be with them, but hate us for having nothing better to do BUT be with them
. ‘Actually Simon, I wondered—’

‘Lumme, it’s been an utter nightmare out there, I have to say. The dealers are at war over their tables. One’s got a wobbly one and is worried about souvenir mug breakage…’

‘Actually Simon; could I have a word about my room? You see, it’s right over the car park, and I did ask if I could—‘

‘Ah, sorry Mervyn, hotel’s completely chocka. I’d like to help, but they’re being difficult as it is, and I don’t want to give them more ammunition in the Blu-Tack war.’ Simon pulled a tight little expression intended to show some kind of regret, which was as insincere as a spam e-mail informing you that she’d seen your profile on a website, was waiting for you at the end of a phone line and was as horny as hell.

‘Is that all right?’

‘No problem,’ said Mervyn lamely, but his response was drowned by an eruption from the other side of the room. Morris had just told Vanity something she didn’t like.

‘What? I’m
where
?’ she screeched. ‘First floor? With the plebs?’

Simon hurried over and flashed his teeth. ‘Vanity, the room you’ve been given is perfectly adequate.’

‘Well that’s easy for you to say. You rub shoulders with these “people” all the time. There’s an aura I have to cultivate, a distance. They’ll be pushing notes under my door and trying to pick my lock to get at my knickers.’

‘Husband finally got you to wear that chastity belt, then…’ muttered Simon, not quite under his breath.

If Vanity heard him, she chose not to mention it. ‘God knows, I can see I’ve done far too many of these things. I’m old news, far too ubiquitous to be given decent treatment any more. I’m a convention whore. A fixture.’

She gestured around the room to the inoffensively offensive hotel décor and focused on Mervyn. ‘I’m always here, Mervy. You can just nail me up on the wall with the fire-regulations and pictures of fruit. Oh no. He wouldn’t do that.’ She eyeballed Simon. ‘Not allowed to use nails on the hotel walls are you? Perhaps you could stick me up using a combination of Blu-Tack and pin boards?’

Simon glared at her. ‘We do have a rule, don’t we Vanity, the one about hissy fits at conventions…?’

‘Not this time, Simon!’ She levelled a finger at him and jutted her jaw defiantly. ‘Not now my autobiography is out! Not this time and not any more!’

She turned abruptly, the coat draped on her shoulder swirling around her like a cloak, and left.

CONVIX 15 / EARTH ORBIT ONE / 10.00am

EVENT: VANITY MYCROFT, Katherine Warner INTERVIEW

LOCATION: Vixos Central Nerve Centre (main stage, ballroom)

EVENT: ‘ASSASSINS OF DESTINY’ PART ONE, EPISODE SCREENING

LOCATION: The Catacombs of Herath (video lounge—room 1024)

EVENT: PHOTOS, PAUL CHESTER-ALLEN

LOCATION: Transpodule Chamber (room 1030)

EVENT: AUTOGRAPH PANEL—NICHOLAS EVERETT, WILLIAM SMURFETT, ANDREW JAMIESON LOCATION: Arkadia’s Boudoir (room 1013)

EVENT: WHAT IS ‘CANON’? VIXENS EXPERTS PANEL with Graham Goldingay, Fay Lawless,Craig Jones, Darren Cardew

LOCATION: The Seventh Moon of Groolia (room 1002)

The convention was getting under way.

Mervyn remembered the routine. All around the hotel, confused convention attendees who didn’t know when anything was happening were talking to other confused attendees who didn’t know where anything was happening, and seeking out stewards who didn’t know when
or
where or
how
anything was happening, if indeed anything was going to happen at all.

There were one or two elusive people who did know when, where and how everything was going to happen, but they were hiding in the green rooms with the guests who didn’t need to know what, when or how everything was going to happen as they were shepherded everywhere by attentive staff for the whole weekend.

Even further down the evolutionary scale from those getting their bearings in the foyer was the sad collection of people who had just got to the hotel, and were milling around reception, carrying coats, lugging holdalls and dragging suitcases on wheels.

Mervyn did know where he was going. He didn’t trust anyone to show him anywhere, so for his journey to the autograph room, he’d marked it very clearly on his little map with felt pen. He didn’t like nasty surprises. But he got one anyway.

The moment he left the hospitality room, someone leapt out and grabbed his arm. He screamed with sheer brain-addled terror.

‘Roddy! You nearly gave me a heart attack!’

‘Is he about?’ Roddy blurted.

‘Is who about?’

‘You know very well, old chap. Him. The Quisling.’

He must have meant Simon. ‘He’s just left.’

Roddy stared at him with wide, poached-egg eyes. ‘He keeps us here against our will you know… We can’t leave.’

‘Roddy. It’s a hotel. You can leave whenever you want.’

‘Nonono… He won’t let us… Because his masters won’t let him.’ He nodded his head downstairs. ‘The ones…down there. His robot masters.’

‘What?’

‘It’s like the Japs all over again. The war’s over, but they won’t admit it… There’s only one way out of here and that’s in a wooden box.’ A thought seemed to strike him. ‘Unless…well, there is a way out, isn’t there?’

‘What’s that?’

A sly look flickered in the old man’s eyes. ‘I’m not going to dig a tunnel, am I, old boy?’

Not for the first time, Mervyn wondered how much of Roddy’s bewildered bluster was an act, and how much was a whisky-induced plunge into fantasy.

‘Really, Roddy… That’s very… Interesting.’

Mervyn retrieved his sleeve from Roddy—not without some difficulty—and stumbled to the lifts.

CONVIX 15 / EARTH ORBIT ONE / 11.00am

EVENT: THE DVD TEAM INTERVIEW: ROBERT MULBERRY, TREVOR SIMPSON, IVOR QUIGLEY LOCATION: Vixos Central Nerve Centre (main stage,ballroom)

EVENT: ‘PRISON PLANET’ EPISODE SCREENING

LOCATION: The Catacombs of Herath (video lounge—room 1024)

EVENT: AUTOGRAPH PANEL—VANITY MYCROFT, BERNARD VINER, MERVYN STONE, PAUL CHESTER-ALLEN

LOCATION: Arkadia’s Boudoir (room 1013)

EVENT: PHOTOS, RODERICK BURGESS

LOCATION: Transpodule Chamber (room 1030)

EVENT: WRITING VIXENS FAN FICTION, FAN PANEL with Graham Goldingay, Fay Lawless, Craig Jones, Darren Cardew

LOCATION: The Seventh Moon of Groolia (room 1002)

Back in the mists of history, when he was introduced to his first ever autograph session, Mervyn thought it looked like a sweatshop.

Two hours and several hundred signatures later, after he’d lost the feeling in his wrist, he realised it
was
a sweatshop.

This one was like most others. There were the stars sitting behind tables against the far wall, and there was an incredibly long queue of fans stretching through the hotel lounge, clutching books, posters and bits of paper. Every so often the stewards would allow a half-dozen of them through, and they would rush eagerly to their chosen idol.

Posters were everywhere (attached to the wall with Post-it notes, which weren’t proving very effective as some were already peeling off). On them, scrawled in fat, hostile capitals, were the words:

PLEASE NOTE!!! 1) ONLY
ONE
AUTOGRAPH PER PERSON! 2) ONLY
OFFICIAL
MERCHANDISE! 3) PUBLICITY PHOTOS WILL BE AVAILABLE FROM THE STARS
FOR A FEE
IF YOU HAVE NOTHING TO SIGN!

Simon Josh was there, a grin sliding around his face. Mervyn remembered Roddy’s words, and it did strike him that Simon was strolling around in a way not unlike that of a Nazi commandant of a prison camp.

Tucked in at the end of a long line of tables, Mervyn could see a spindly man with greasy hair and shiny black eyes, sitting like a sinister teddy bear, magic marker at the ready.

He couldn’t be here could he? Signing autographs? Not him? But yes, it was Bernard Viner.

Bernard was the special effects supervisor on
Vixens
, and a deeply angry person. He was a man who constructed grudges as slowly and methodically as he constructed little model spaceships, and he had a huge grudge against Mervyn. Mervyn had lost Bernard his job on
Vixens
, and even though it was pretty much Bernard’s fault, he hadn’t forgotten and hadn’t forgiven. Mervyn made a mental note to avoid him as much as he possibly could.

Bernard hadn’t lost his touch. Every so often he would snarl at a luckless fan: ‘I told you—I do signatures only! I don’t do personal messages. Are you deaf or something?’ When he did sign a picture, it was done slowly and methodically and in complete silence.

Mervyn hoped this wasn’t going to be too arduous. With any luck this convention was full of fans uninterested in the behind-the-scenes team and they would flock to the actors instead.

As if on cue, one of those actors made a fashionably late entrance into the hall. Vanity Mycroft sashayed in through the double doors like a catwalk model, surveying the room with a graceful sweep of her whole body before striding in. Assorted fans and hangers-on chugged along in her wake, like tiny boats tooting the homecoming of a mighty battle-scarred warship.

At first, Mervyn assumed she had dressed down—jeans, jacket and plain blouse—but as she got closer he realised that the ensemble was a riot of labels; Gucci this, LaCroix that, Paul Smith the other. Mervyn wasn’t an expert on such things, but even he could recognise the studied casualness of designer clothing when he saw it.

Wait a minute… As she got
closer…?

She was heading straight for him. Mervyn realised with a start that the seat next to him was empty, and the tiny printed card on the table by his right elbow read ‘V. Mycroft’.

She threw herself into the seat, and addressed her entourage. ‘Right. Mummy’s on duty now. Off you fuck.’ Her fans dribbled away, save for one thin-faced girl in a cardigan who produced a number of sparkly magic-marker pens, an ashtray and a packet of Benson and Hedges and arranged them in front of Vanity. The girl then pulled a number of photos from a folder and fanned them out on the table. Vanity pulled her sunglasses down her nose and turned her bottle-green eyes towards Mervyn.

‘Mervyn darling, what a lovely surprise. How are you?’ She grabbed his knee with surprising force.

Close up, Vanity was impressive. She had a striking, chiselled face, well preserved by alcohol and botox. A face which had only recently begun to curl at the edges. In ten years’ time it would probably implode, the wrinkles would mesh together to form the gnarled look that was the trademark of oak trees and the long-term chain-smoker, but for the moment she was an impressively attractive woman.

Vanity didn’t bother to introduce the girl, who had meekly taken a seat and was lurking somewhere to her right. Presumably she was a personal assistant and general dogsbody.

The actress pulled a cigarette out of the packet, slotted it in her mouth and ignited it with a huge gold lighter (
did anyone ever have the courage to tell her the hotel was non-smoking?
he wondered). Her face almost turned inside-out with pleasure as she took a grateful drag.

‘Ready for another hour of legalised slave labour under the lash of Mr Josh?’ she drawled. ‘Greasy little bastard wants a pound of my flesh. I should have sent him the off-cuts from my last surgery.’

‘I noticed you weren’t happy with him,’ said Mervyn.

‘You could say that, darling. All settled now. Tripled my fee and got a better room so I don’t have to choke on the great unwashed’s BO. I showed that pubic-headed prick who’s boss, thanks to my book. If the pen’s mightier than the sword, I’ve given him a good hard jab in the arse with my biro.’

Mervyn was curious. ‘Good autobiography is it?’

‘Of course it is, darling. It’s all about me.’

‘Am I in it?’

‘Darling! How could you not be in it?’ And she winked slyly.

He looked down. Nope, they were still there. He could have sworn her eyes had just scorched the buttons off his shirt.

‘So how does your book tame Simon Josh?’

‘Read it and find out, darling. It’s very reasonably priced on Amazon. Apparently they’ve taken 40% off me—just like my second husband. Bastard. Anyway, time to open shop. The barbarians are massing at the gates.’ She gestured towards the doorway. Through it, Mervyn could see that her entrance had been noted and the ordered queue was swelling into a sizeable crowd.

‘Looks like you’re going to have your work cut out getting through that lot,’ he said.

She sighed. ‘Yes. One does yearn for a shorter name, Sue Bloggs or something chavvy like that. Writing “Vanity Mycroft” a thousand times in a row does make the fingers ache somewhat.’