Dead Famous

DAY ONE. 4.15 p.m.

“It’s brilliant, wicked, outrageous. I feel just totally bigged-up and out there,” Kelly gushed breathlessly from the main monitor. She had come to the confession box to talk about how thrilling and exciting it all was.

“I mean, today has just been the wickedest day ever because I really, really love all these people and I just know we’re all going to get along just brilliantly. I expect there’ll be tension and I’ll end up hating all of them for, like, just a moment at some point. But you could say that about any mates, couldn’t you? Basically I love these guys. They’re my posse. My crew.”

Deep in the darkness of the editing suite Geraldine glared at Fogarty. “And that’s what you want her to say, is it?”

Bob cowered behind his styrofoam cup. “Well, it’s what she did say, Geraldine.”

Geraldine’s eyes flashed, her nostrils flared and she bared her colossal overbite. It was as if the Alien had just burst out of John Hurt’s stomach.

“You stupid cunt! You stupid lazy cunt! I could get a monkey to broadcast what she actually said! I could get a work-experience school-leaver pain-in-the-arse spotty fucking waste-of-space teenager to broadcast what she actually said! What I pay you to do is to look at what she actually said and find what we want her to say, you cunt!”

Fogarty threw a commiserating glance at the younger, more impressionable members of staff.

“Who is Kelly, Bob?” Geraldine continued, throwing an arm towards the frozen image of the pretty young brunette on the screen. “Who is that girl?”

Fogarty stared at the television. A sweet smile beamed back at him, an open, honest, naïve countenance. “Well…”

“She’s our bitch, Bob, she’s our manipulator. She’s one of our designated hate figures! Remember the audition interviews? All that pert ambition? All that artless knicker-flashing. All that girl power bollocks. Remember what I said, Bob?”

Fogarty did remember, but Geraldine told him anyway.

“I said, ‘Right, you arrogant little slapper, we’ll see how far you get towards presenting your own pop, style and fashion show once the whole nation has decided you’re a back-biting, knob-teasing fucking dog,’ didn’t I?”

“Yes, Geraldine, but on the evidence of today she’s turned out to be really quite nice. I mean, she’s a bit of an airhead, and vain, certainly, but she’s not really a bitch. I think we’ll find it quite hard to make her look that nasty.”

“She’ll look however we want her to look and be whatever we want her to be,” Geraldine sneered.