Dead Famous

DAY TWENTY. 6.15 p.m.

“It’s two-fifteen,” said Andy the narrator, “and after a lunch of rice, chicken and vegetables cooked by Jazz, Sally asks Kelly to help her dye her hair.”

Geraldine stared at the screen showing various camera angles of Kelly applying shampoo to Sally’s mohican haircut prior to dyeing it.

“A new low,” mused Geraldine. “I thought Layla’s cheese was our nadir but I reckon watching some great lump of a bird getting her hair washed has got to plumb new and unique depths in fucking awful telly, don’t you? Fuck me, in the early days of TV they used to stick a potter’s wheel on between the programmes. Now the potter’s wheel is the fucking programme.”

Fogarty gritted his teeth and continued with his tasks. “What shot do you want, Geraldine?” he enquired. “Kelly’s hands on her head? Or a wide?”

“Put Sally up on the main monitor – the close-up of her face, through the mirror. Run the whole sequence, right from where she bends down over the basin.”

Fogarty punched his buttons while Geraldine continued her reverie. “Tough time for us, this. Eviction night tomorrow but no eviction. That cunt Woggle has deprived us of our weekly climax. We are in a lull. A low point, a stall. The wind is slipping out of our fucking sails, Bob. The Viagra pot is empty and our televisual dick is limp.”

Andy the narrator emerged from the voiceover recording booth to get a cup of herbal tea. “Perhaps I could tell them what everyone had for pudding,” he suggested. “David made a souffle, but it didn’t really rise. That’s quite interesting, isn’t it?”

“Get back in your box,” said Geraldine.

“But Gazzer didn’t finish his, and I think David was a little bit offended.”

“I said, get back in your fucking box!”

Andy retreated with his camomile.

“Always trying to grab himself a few more lines, that bastard. I’ve told him, if he does one more beer ad voiceover he’s fucking out. I’m going to get a bird to do it next time, anyway… Stop it there!”

Fogarty froze the image of Sally’s face. Dribbles of shampoo foam ran down her temples; Kelly’s fingertips could be made out at the top of the screen. Sally’s hand was at her mouth, frozen in the moment of inserting a segment of tangerine into it.

“Run it on, but mute the sound,” Geraldine instructed.

They studied Sally’s silent countenance for a few moments, as her jaw moved about, her lips pursed and her cheeks became slightly sucked in, then the lips parted a fraction and the tip of her tongue licked them.

“Very nice,” Geraldine observed. “I love a bit of muted mastication, the editor’s friend. Right, chop the tangerine off the front and run that sequence mute under Kelly’s dialogue about finding head massage sensual.”

Fogarty gulped before replying. It really seemed as if this time he had had enough. “But… but, Kelly made that comment to David while they were having the rice, chicken and vegetables that Jazz cooked. If we drop it over Sally’s face it will look as if… as if…”

“Ye-es?” Geraldine enquired.

“As if she’s getting a thrill out of massaging Sally’s head!”

“While Sally,” Geraldine replied, “with her grinding jaw and tense cheeks, sucky-sucky lips and little wet tongue tip, is positively creaming her gusset, and we, my darling, have got what can only be described as a half-decent lezzo moment.”

The silence in the monitoring bunker spoke loudly of the unease felt by Geraldine’s employees. Geraldine just grinned, a huge, triumphant grin, like a happy snarl.

“We are in a ratings trough, you cunts!” she shouted. “I’m paying your wages here!”