A single clear male voice sails up to the gantry. ‘ Wanker!’
Dexter seeks out the heckler, a skinny, grinning twerp with Wonder Stuff hair, but it gets a laugh, a big laugh. Even the cameramen are laughing. ‘My agent, ladies and gentlemen,’ replies Dexter, and there’s a ripple of amusement, but that’s all. They must have read the papers. Is this the most odious man on television? Good God, it’s true, he thinks. They hate me.
‘One minute everyone,’ shouts the floor manager, and Dexter suddenly feels like he’s standing on a scaffold. He searches the crowd for a friendly face, but there are none and once again he wishes Emma were here. He could show-off for Emma, be at his best if Emma or his mother were here, but they’re not, just this leering, jeering crowd of people much, much younger than himself. He has got to find a bit of spirit from somewhere, a bit of attitude and with the laser logic of the drunk he decides that alcohol might help, because why not? The damage is already done. The go-go dancers stand poised in their cages, the cameras glide into place, and he unscrews the lid of his illicit bottle, raises it, swallows and winces. Water. The water bottle contains water. Someone has replaced the vodka in his water bottle with — Suki has his bottle.
Thirty seconds to air. She has picked up the wrong bottle. She is holding it in her hand now, a clubby little accessory.
Twenty seconds to air. She is unscrewing the lid.
‘Are you keeping hold of that?’ he squeaks.
‘THAT’S ALRIGHT, ISN’T IT?’ She bounces on her toes like a prizefighter.
‘I’ve got your bottle by mistake.’
‘SO? WIPE THE TOP!’
Ten seconds to air and the audience starts to cheer and roar, the dancers hold onto the bars of their cages and start to gyrate as Suki raises the bottle to her lips.
Seven, six, five. .
He reaches for the bottle, but she knocks his hand away laughing.
‘GET OFF, DEXTER, YOU’VE GOT YOUR OWN!’
Four, three, two. .
‘But it isn’t water,’ he says.
She gulps it down.
Roll titles.
And now Suki is coughing, red-faced and spluttering as guitars crash over the speakers, drums pound, go-go dancers writhe and a camera on wires swoops down from the high ceiling like a bird of prey, soaring over the audience’s heads towards the presenters, so that it seems to the viewers at home as if three hundred young people are cheering an attractive woman as she stands on scaffolding and retches.
The music fades, and all you can hear is Suki coughing. Dexter has frozen, dried, dead on air and drunkenly crashing his own vehicle. The plane is going down, the ground looming up to meet him. ‘Say something Dexter,’ says a voice in his earpiece. ‘Hello? Dexter? Say something?’ but his brain won’t work and his mouth won’t work, and he stands there, dumb in every way. The seconds stretch.
But thank God for Suki, a true professional, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘WELL PROOF THERE THAT WE’RE GOING OUT LIVE!’ and there’s a relieved little flurry of laughter from the audience. ‘IT’S ALL GOING VERY WELL SO FAR, ISN’T IT, DEX?’ She jabs him in the ribs with a finger, and he springs to life.
‘Sorry about Suki there—’ he says. ‘The bottle’s got vodka in it!’ and he does the little comic wriggle of the wrist that suggests a secret drinker, and there’s another laugh, and he feels better. Suki laughs too, nudges him and raises a fist, says, ‘Why I oughta. .’ Three Stooges-style, and only he can see the glint of contempt behind the bubbliness. He latches onto the safety of the autocue.
‘Welcome to the Late-Night Lock-In, I’m Dexter Mayhew—’
‘—AND I’M SUKI MEADOWS!’
And they’re back on course, introducing the Friday night feast of great comedy and music, appealing and attractive like the two coolest kids at school. ‘So without further ado, let’s make some noise please—’ He flings his arm out behind him, like a ring-master ‘—and give a big Late-Night Lock-Inwelcome to Shed! Seven!’
The camera swoops away from them as if it has lost interest, and now the voices from the gallery are chattering in his head over the sound of the band. ‘Everything alright there, Suki?’ says the producer. Dexter looks at Suki pleadingly. She looks back, eyes narrowed. She could tell them: Dexter’s on the booze, he’s drunk, the man’s a mess, an amateur, not to be trusted.
‘All fine,’ she says. ‘Just went down the wrong way, that’s all.’
‘We’ll send someone to fix your make-up. Two minutes, people. And Dexter, keep it together, will you?’
Yes, keep it together, he tells himself, but the monitors tell him there are fifty-six minutes and twenty-two seconds to go, and he’s really not sure if he can.
∗ ∗ ∗
Applause! Applause like she has never heard, rebounding off the walls of the sports hall. And yes, the band were flat and the singers sharp, and yes there were a few technical problems with missing props and collapsing sets, and of course it’s hard to imagine a more forgiving audience, but still it is a triumph. The death of Nancy leaves even Mr Routledge, Chemistry, weeping and the chase over the London rooftops, with the cast in silhouette, is a spectacular coup de théâtre met by the kind of cooing and gasping that usually greets fireworks displays. As predicted Sonya Richards has shone, leaving Martin Dawson grinding his teeth as she soaks up the largest round of applause. There have been ovations and encores and now people are stamping on the benches and hanging off the climbing apparatus and Emma is being dragged on stage by Sonya who is crying, God, actually crying, clutching Emma’s hand and saying well done, Miss, amazing, amazing. A school production, it is the smallest imaginable triumph but Emma’s heart is beating in her chest and she can’t stop grinning as the band play a cacophonous ‘Consider Yourself’ and she holds the hands of fourteen-year-olds and bows and bows again. She feels the elation of doing something well, and for the first time in ten weeks she no longer wants to kick Lionel Bart.
At the drinks afterwards, own-brand cola flows like wine, and there are also five bottles of sparkling perry to share among the adults. Ian sits in a corner of the sports hall with a plate of mini kievs and a plastic cup of Beecham’s Powders that he has brought to the party specially, and he massages his sinuses, smiles and waits patiently as Emma soaks up the praise. ‘Good enough for the West End!’ someone says, somewhat unrealistically, and she doesn’t even mind when Rodney Chance, her Fagin, boozy on spiked Panda Pops, tells her that she’s ‘pretty fit for a teacher’. Mr Godalming (‘please, call me Phil’) congratulates her while Fiona, ruddy-cheeked like a farmer’s wife, looks on, bored and bad tempered. ‘We should talk, in September, about your future here,’ says Phil, leaning in and kissing her goodbye, causing some of the kids, and some of the staff, to make a ‘whoooo’ noise.
Unlike most showbusiness parties it’s all over by nine forty-five, and instead of a stretch limo, Emma and Ian take the 55, the 19 and the Piccadilly Line home. ‘I’m so proud of you—’ says Ian, his head resting against hers ‘—but I think it’s settled on my lungs.’
As soon as she enters the flat she can smell the flowers. The vast bouquet of red roses lolls in a casserole on the kitchen table.
‘Oh my God, Ian, they’re beautiful.’
‘Not from me,’ he mumbles.
‘Oh. Who then?’
‘Golden Boy, I expect. They came this morning. Completely over the top if you ask me. I’m going to have a hot bath. See if I can shift it.’
She removes her coat and opens the small card. ‘Apologies for sulking. Hope it goes well tonight. Much love Dx’. That’s all. She reads it twice, looks at her watch, and quickly turns on the TV to watch Dexter’s big break.
Forty-five minutes later, as the final credits roll, she frowns and tries to make sense of what she has just seen. She doesn’t know much about television, but she is pretty sure that Dexter hasn’t shone. He has looked shaky, actually frightened sometimes. Fluffing lines, looking at the wrong camera, he has seemed amateurish and inept and as if sensing his unease the people he has interviewed — the rapper on tour, the four cocky young Mancunians — have responded with disdain or sarcasm. The studio audience glares too, like surly teenagers at a pantomime, arms crossed high on their chests. For the first time since she met him he appears to be making an effort. Might he be, well, drunk? She doesn’t know much about the media, but she can recognise a car crashing. By the time the last band plays out her hand has come to cover her face, and she knows enough about TV to know this is not ideal. There’s a lot of irony about these days, but surely not to the extent that booing is good.
