Fat Girls and Fairy Cakes (7 page)

My heart skipped a beat. What the hell was he talking about?

“A – a criminal?” I spluttered, my voice breaking slightly. This was going to be tough to get out of.

He nodded, slowly and deliberately.

“I had no idea, Peter. Who? I mean…”

The hand went up again and he raised his voice, “Your garden designer, Gerard Wilkins, is an ex-con. You realise that this contravenes all our health, safety and social regulations. It is NOT our policy to employ serious offenders,” he said, in full Shakespearean mode now.

 “For God’s sake, Stella, there are some very young, vulnerable women on this production team. They could be taken in by this…this potential serial killer.”

The thought of all those young, vulnerable girls had stopped him mid-sentence and he was clearly conjuring an image for his own use later. It gave me a few seconds to collect myself. I was genuinely shocked about Gerard – despite his musical interludes he’d seemed such a kind, gentle man. I wondered what he could possibly have done to be deemed a serious offender.

“I’m so sorry Peter, I knew nothing about this. What do you want me to do?”

Peter gazed into his tea; “Stella, unfortunately this matter has gone further than I would have liked. I was advised by a trusted colleague to take the matter higher – I mean, I need to be crystal-clear and think of my career. I can’t be held responsible for this. Now the big boss is threatening all kinds of...”

“Oh, you went
that
much higher?” I said. Obviously the fact that I had compromised the whole production was now not only public knowledge back at Media World, but Frank Moores had also been told.

 “Peter, please. We’ll pull the shoot immediately.” I said, my chin trembling slightly.

“Pull the shoot? I don’t think so! I’ve bought a whole new wardrobe for this show,” screamed Denise as she burst into the kitchen, followed by a very sheepish Al. Sporting her ‘workout’ gear, which consisted of a very tiny top and fluorescent cycling shorts, Denise had obviously dressed up (or rather, down) for Peter. As he turned to speak to her I swore I saw a light flicker in his eyes.

 “Well hello,” he said, Latin Love God taking over, kissing her hand rather vigorously. “I’m Peter. I’m the Executive Producer.”

“And I’m Denise. We haven’t met but I’ve heard all about you!”

He went from angry manager to lustful lothario in a millisecond. “And I’m sure you will be on everyone’s lips too before long,” he oiled. It was actually quite impressive.

“Ooh, thank you kindly Peter,” Denise said, coquettishly pulling a seat up right next to him.

“Now what’s all this about?” she asked, all wide-eyed innocence and tight top.

“Denise, Denise, Denise,” he smiled, playing with her name on his tongue in a rather inappropriate way. “We have a teeny-tiny staffing problem. Nothing for you to worry about.”

“Well Peter,” she paused, making full eye contact, her tongue pushing hard through chewing gum in a very provocative manner. “Al was filming me doing me push-ups in the hall and we couldn’t help overhearing your conversation. Now who’s been saying that lovely Gerard’s a criminal? That’s slander isn’t it? I happen to know he
did
spend time in Strangeways a few years back but he’s hardly Jack-the-bloody-Ripper.”

 “Really Denise, do tell,” Peter leaned forward, his eyes at cleavage level.

 “Well, years ago, Gerard had a panties stall on Sheffield Market. Fabulous stuff Peter, lacy thongs and teeny-tiny little brassieres,” Denise said, waggling her breasts for emphasis. “The problem was, he was buying it cheap and selling it cheap. He says he didn’t know they were hot – stolen – but fifty pence for a pair of frillies? He sold ‘em for a pound a pair and made a bloody fortune!”

Peter was staring at Denise, mesmerised.

“He got twelve months,” she went on, “the judge was making an example of him. Did him a favour really, ‘cos that’s when he got the gardening bug. He learned all about garden-design in prison.”

My head was spinning. If this was true, then I might be off the hook but would it be enough to save the shoot? I looked over at Peter and to my relief he was looking more relaxed.

“Are you sure about this, Denise?” he said, without taking his eyes off her fluorescent top.

“Ooh yes Peter,” she replied. “He’s really quite proud of how he’s turned his life around after prison. It’s quite inspiring,” she added, with an exaggerated arm stretch.

“Well. It’s still less than ideal but perhaps not quite the disaster I feared. You still should have checked this Stella, it’s very unprofessional – but maybe, in light of this, we can carry on for the time being. I’ll see if I can sort this with the office, “he said, still staring at Denise. They were gazing at each other intensely, as though Al and I weren’t there. I felt like a gooseberry and could see Al was about to open his mouth, so before he told them to get a room I grabbed him and we went to find Gerard. We needed him to confirm he wasn’t a mad, spade-wielding sex-murderer, just an ex-market-stall holder who couldn’t resist bargain lingerie. Career crisis had been averted – for now.

“This whole Gerard thing could have caused me a massive problem Al,” I said angrily, as we walked back to the garden together.

“I know Stel, and I feel terrible about it,” he said shaking his head.

“I’ve told you before, you can’t just find people for the screen off the Internet. It’s not safe and they can tell you anything about themselves. As it happens Gerard isn’t dangerous, but he might have been.”

“Stel, I told you earlier, I didn’t find Gerard on the Internet. He was a personal recommendation.”

“Where the hell from? Some ex-convict convention?”

“From MJ.”

I stopped in my tracks and pulled him round to look at me.

“I’m sorry Al, what did you just say?”

“MJ told me just before we came here that she knew a really brilliant garden-designer who would make our programme special. And, well, I knew she wasn’t your greatest fan but I never thought...” started Al, looking as if he wanted the ground to swallow him up.

“That scrawny, manipulative witch!” I yelled. “She put Gerard our way, and then when he was settled and the programme was about to be filmed she told Peter that he’d been to prison.”

Al bit his lip. “I feel awful. And stupid.”

I put my arm around him, still shaking with anger. “Fortunately for us, Denise knew the truth and is a shameless flirt. It’s lucky she’s so nosy, or we’d both be packing.”

“I know,” said Al. “I’m so sorry Stel. I promise never to listen to MJ again.”

“Let’s get back to work” I said, taking a deep breath to calm myself and turning towards the melée, “we’ve got a show to run.”

And with only hours to go until the first live broadcast, we needed every spare second.

By teatime I was in a cold sweat. I drank ten cups of coffee and went through the final script. Bernard was the main man and yet he’d barely ever
seen
a TV-camera before. We were asking a lot of him but I was just hoping he’d recruited some heavenly help – after all, it was Sunday. Just before the final run-through, my phone beeped. It was a text from Lizzie.

TXT: Good Luck darling. Remember, Jesus loves you.

I smiled, and put the phone in my pocket.

I met up with the presenter, a brunette news anchor called Debbie who I worked with as a humble researcher on
Good Morning Britain
many years ago. She’d been an absolute bitch to me then and had treated me with the utmost contempt.

Debbie was a competent presenter but she didn’t have that elusive star quality and as we had a rather elusive budget we were stuck with her. She’d never made it to prime time and that had always made her bitter and tough to work with. She hated anyone under 35 and had a charming way of asking researchers for refreshment, which was: “Coffee. Now!”

Funnily enough when she’d turned up a few days earlier in full make-up, Barbour jacket and pink wellies, it was
she
who brought coffee to
me
. How things change. “Darling its
ages
since we worked together,” she exclaimed, too enthusiastically. She was over-the-top delightful and hugged me like we were old mates. I felt sick.

“I think it was
Good Morning Britain,
” I ventured politely. “I was a researcher then and as all good presenters know, today’s researchers are tomorrow’s producers,” I added, pointedly. Then I sipped coffee, waggled my pen and talked through the script authoritatively. She nodded and smiled and fawned. I was civil but cool and made a mental note to keep my eye on the nasty piece of work should any unsuspecting young researcher come into her orbit.

 “It’s lucky you have no work on and are free for this series. We were trying for Nadia Sawahla but she’s far too busy.” I said, smiling sweetly.
I’m becoming a twisted TV tart
, I thought.
Maybe it is time to get out
.

 If Debbie was nervous about the live broadcast, she hid it well. I wished her luck and she staggered off through the mud while I climbed into the satellite truck. This is where a live programme is transmitted from for an outside broadcast and where the producer and director and the more vital people like technicians sat during the programme. It’s always small and hot and cramped in those things, but the excitement and nervousness was tangible. It was ‘live’ and anything could happen.

Our director Sam told the cameras where to be and the vision mixer switched between all the different cameras, showing off the garden and checking everything was working before we set off on our first ‘journey’. I could see from the monitors that Denise was ready for her close-up and Al was also in the garden giving Bernard a pep talk. I noticed Bernard looked a little pale and pressed the ‘talkback’ button in front of me to find out from Al if all was ok.

“Mmm, he’ll be fine honey. Just a little bit of vomiting. I’m mopping him up now.”

“Christ Al, we’re coming to him in about three minutes, we’re about to go on air. Make sure he’s clean.” My heart was in my mouth. This first show needed to be brilliant so that people watched again. The thought of our leading clergyman vomiting in his own flowerbed seconds before we went on air made me want to be sick too.

As the music started my stomach filled with butterflies and the PA began counting down from ten. It felt like I was in the cockpit of a small plane about to take off. The weather could be calm or stormy and I was filled with exhilaration and dry-mouthed fear at the same time. There was nothing quite like this feeling and for those ten seconds it was actually almost worth all the crap and hard work.

As I watched on the monitors, my heart racing, I could see (with great relief) that Gerard’s violet garden looked a little less lurid on camera. It actually added a bit of colour to a potentially boring backdrop and it was certainly different.

Surprisingly, everything started well. Debbie did an opening piece to camera introducing the programme and establishing our location. She then introduced Bernard; “What a beautiful setting you have here, Reverend Butterworth. How long have you been vicar of this parish?”

Bernard looked straight at the camera and opened his mouth then he looked back at Debbie and back to camera. For what seemed like half an hour – but was only a few seconds – Bernard stood in front of the camera opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. He’d been fine in rehearsals, but like so many people he’d completely clammed up as soon as the camera was whirring.

I looked at Sam and he looked at me; “Shall we do a tight on Debbie?” I was loathe to cut Bernard’s part so quickly in favour of waffle in close-up from Debbie but it had to be better than dead air and it was becoming horribly clear that nothing was coming out of Bernard’s mouth.

I could feel heat rising through my body and the blood rushing to my head. Debbie may not have had star quality, but she was a safe pair of hands on air and with my guidance on talkback we could get through it with Bernard still in vision. “Hang on Sam,” I said, calm taking over. I leapt onto the talkback that Debbie could hear in her ear.

“You’ve been at this parish for twelve years now,” I said in a presenter’s voice over the talkback. Debbie looked calm and repeated the sentence.

 “Get the wife on, quick!” I shouted, hoping that crazy Denise in the role as ‘tainted Angel of Mercy’ would be able to step in and talk lucidly and colourfully (but not too colourfully) about a vicar’s life in a Northern town. She’d been schooled by me on what would be appropriate and warned not to talk about ecclesiastical orgasms or the verger’s weakness for whips.

“Hello Denise. As the First Lady of this parish, what’s life like in this lovely village?”

Everyone in the garden and in the OB truck held their breath.

Denise stepped forward, wobbly on high heels. She was sporting a full-length, tangerine frock which strangely complemented the purple hard-landscaping, albeit in a hallucinogenic-hippie-on-acid kind of way.

“We love this village and its people, there’s such a sense of community here that you don’t always find these days,” was her opening line, which sounded surprisingly sane for Denise. “We also love the rugged landscape round these parts. We like our garden to reflect this with no pretentions, using local stone and native planting, as God intended. The television company have certainly added something different with the vibrant colours – but it works.”

She went on to talk about the seasons in the garden and some of the produce from the vegetable patch; I held my breath throughout. To my amazement and relief, it went brilliantly. Debbie guided Denise expertly through about ten minutes of planting, preening and plucking interspersed with charming (and non-sexual) anecdotes about village life. Then the show cut to some previously filmed footage and my air exploded out of my mouth in relief.

“We roll VT footage for six minutes thirty seconds,” I said to Debbie over the talkback. “So you’re OK for five, then stand by.” On the monitor I could see her relay this to Bernard and Denise and they visibly relaxed. I watched the footage. It was some nice shots of Bernard visiting sick and elderly parishioners, which would hopefully compensate for his stage fright. As the nation watched Bernard dispensing comfort and kindness, Sam and I exchanged a smile. Against all odds, everything was on cue and the end was suddenly in sight. It was all going brilliantly, in fact – right up until the point it went horribly wrong.

Just as we were about to broadcast live again I suddenly spotted our garden designer making his musical entrance and dancing right up to Debbie, holding out the watering can needed for the next shot and humming Britney to himself. “What the hell is Gerard doing? He’s in the wrong place! Get him off the set now!” I hissed over the talkback.

But it appeared that Debbie had become busy with Denise who had just ‘adjusted’ her dress and managed to drop the clip-on mic down her cleavage. “Can I have some help here please?” Debbie yelled, as she plunged her hand between Denise’s voluptuous breasts. “I can’t find it!”

Some of the production crew ran over and Gerard stopped humming long enough to offer some advice. “It’s all right love,” he said to Denise, “just jump up and down and it will fall right out.” Denise began jogging up and down and shaking her breasts left and right to free the mic, with no notable success.

 “Live in ten seconds, Stella,” the PA called urgently.

“Debbie!” I yelled. “
We are on air in ten seconds!
”
But Debbie clearly couldn’t hear me. She was shouting at Denise to stand still, all the while wrist deep in cleavage and her earpiece must have got dislodged in the scuffle. Gerard’s humming turned into full on singing as three of the crew plus Debbie tried desperately to extract the mic. “Oh dear,” Denise beamed at one of the very red faced male runners, “It does seem rather stuck, doesn’t it?”

“Five seconds, Stella!” The PA screamed.

“Debbie!!! Just clear the set!” I yelled. But it was no good – I could see her earpiece dangling uselessly over her shoulder. “Somebody get on set, now!” I shouted, jumping out of my seat.

“Two seconds!”

I lurched uselessly towards the door. But it was too late.

“And we’re live!” said the PA.

Everything went silent in my head. On screen, everyone carried on, unaware that we were broadcasting live to the nation. I could see Debbie thrusting her hand further down Denise’s top and from his excitable gestures, Gerard appeared to be cranking the singing up a gear. I watched them for what seemed like hours. Then suddenly the sound flooded back to me and the full horror of what we were beaming to the nation sunk in. Far from preaching or even pruning, the live TV audience was being treated to the glorious spectacle of Gerard waving a watering can and singing
Oops I did it again
at the top of his voice and the presenter and three runners groping the vicar’s wife. Not realising we were back on air, Debbie finally managed to grasp Denise’s wayward mic and she pulled it out with a flourish. “Got it!” she shouted, “And for God’s sake Gerard, SHUT UP! Jesus!”

At which point my heart stopped. I was probably clinically dead for about six seconds.

I mutely watched Debbie as she realised her earpiece was dislodged. I saw her find it, adjust it, and stand stock still as she listened to someone out of shot. Then Debbie’s ‘safe hands’ flew up to her face in horror as she finally realised we were broadcasting live to the nation. This time, everything really did stop. Denise stopped talking, Gerard stopped singing and our presenter was mute. Everything seemed to go deathly quiet and I could almost see the tumbleweed rolling over the set.

“I knew it,” I spat and glanced urgently at Sam, who had his head in his hands.

“Well this wasn’t in rehearsal, Stella,” he said, looking up.

“Petunias,” I yelled into the talkback, “we need to talk about the vicar’s PETUNIAS.”

As I screamed down the talkback and Sam frantically pressed buttons and moved the cameras around, all hell was breaking loose in the garden. We cut to the petunias, which is where Gerard should have been to give tips and advice. Instead, the petunias sat unattended and the viewers could just make out Bernard in the corner of the shot, once more retching over the flowerbed.

“Debbie!” I yelled. “Leave bloody Denise and get Gerard over to the petunia bed!” Debbie grabbed his arm and sprinted over the lawn, sliding gracelessly into shot and tripping Gerard, who slopped the contents of the watering can all over Debbie and himself. “Argghh! Sam, cut to the next recorded piece whilst we sort this out!” I screamed.

Then, just when I thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, I glanced at the monitor to watch our next VT of Denise drawing the raffle at the WI but to my utter, utter horror all I saw was myself grappling in the mud with Bernard. For a few seconds I tried to process the shots of the vicar/producer mess now being beamed across Britain’s airwaves. I could only imagine this little ‘out-take’ had been meant as a joke for me at the after-show party but some idiot had loaded it into the wrong place.

I wanted to cry. All the planning, all the late nights structuring the programme, all the rehearsals and readings, and then
this
. It was supposed to be petunias here, tease a bit of Jesus to keep them on the edge of their seats there, then launch into huge sunflowers, ornamental cabbages and end with a starry sprinkling of The Holy Ghost and a word from our vicar. When we cut back to the church for said last words from Bernard it seemed that his nerves were actually some form of food poisoning and his sermon – our grand finale – was being punctuated with various ungodly sounds.

As I watched the vicar trying to find words of wisdom whilst battling extreme flatulence on one monitor and an overweight, karaoke Britney-wannabe trying to mop up a terrified presenter on the other, I threw my hands up in the air and gave up. The PA began counting down to the end of the show. “Thank God,” I sighed.

Sam looked at me. “Roll the fucking credits,” he said, “before I die.”

In the little van we just sat there in shock. Outside all was silent. Then suddenly Al’s voice came on talkback. “Er Stella, the vicar’s been sick again, I think we might have to get a doctor. It’s all over the altar.” I looked at Sam and after a few seconds of mutual horror I just started to laugh, then he started to laugh. As we climbed out of the van the crew were looking at us, waiting for a reaction and when they saw that the director and producer were holding each other up and howling hysterically they started too. It wasn’t long before the whole crew were rolling around in the mud and Denise was pole dancing round the sound mic.