Simon Brett - Dead Giveaway

Nick Jeffries’ boxing career had ended three years previously. Its start, his winning of an Olympic bronze medal in the Middleweight division, had prompted the customary excesses of the British sporting press, who promised him a professional career of pure gold and saluted a future World Champion. He had held domestic and European titles for a while, but, when projected on to the world stage, had been so comprehensively defeated by the Number Eight contender that his boxing career virtually ended with that fight. However, his face was familiar to the British public through his many endorsements of sportswear, and since, unlike many in his chosen profession, he was capable of speech, he was taken up by a shrewd personal management and marketed as a celebrity. His long-term aim (which he would not achieve) was to attain that level of lovability which the British public had accorded to Henry Cooper. His short-term aim that afternoon (which would be achieved much more easily) was to chat up Fiona Wakeford.

She was an actress who had risen to public notice in a popular W.E.T. sit com, Who’s Your Friend? , in which she played a pretty but totally brainless actress. Since this did not involve the slightest effort of acting on her part, her career looked set fair to be very successful. She didn’t mind Nick Jeffries chatting her up. In fact, she was so used to everyone chatting her up that she was hardly aware of it. She wasn’t aware of much, actually.

The other woman panellist was a very different proposition. Joanie Bruton had started life as a journalist on local newspapers and then moved towards women’s magazines. The illness of the regular contributor on one of these had forced her one week to write the agony column, and she discovered such an aptitude for this line of work that within three years she had become a nationally-recognised guru, whose advice was solicited and respected on every embarrassing topic. Her petite good looks, forthright manner and boundless energy had quickly established her as a popular television personality. She made no secret of her appetite for hard work, and, when interviewed (which she was quite frequently) constantly paid tribute to the support of her husband, Roger, who had given up his own Civil Service job in the Department of Health and Social Security to manage the business side of her burgeoning career. He was there in the Conference Room that afternoon, a pale, rather breathlessly fat figure, checking through a pile of correspondence with his untiring spouse.

The fourth celebrity also appeared to be working, though the restlessness in his eyes suggested that he was motivated more by keeping up with the Joneses (or, in this case, the Brutons) than from a genuine desire to read the television script in front of him (which of course had nothing to do with If The Cap Fits ; it was for a B.B.C. series called Joe Soap ).

Bob Garston was a television journalist of the ‘New Hearty’ school. He had risen through those programmes of the late Seventies which had taken up serious causes like consumerism and treated them with such unremitting facetiousness that they produced a television equivalent of the tabloid press. He was the sort of presenter for whom no word was allowed out unsupported by a picture and no opinion unsupported by a pun. He worked assiduously on his image as a man of the people, and prided himself on the fact that the audience identified with him. In his heart of hearts he felt superior to everyone, but that afternoon, as he neglectfully scanned the script in front of him, he looked disgruntled.

The door to the Conference Room opened. Quentin, the guardian researcher, glanced up protectively, but then relaxed as Jeremy Fowler sidled in with his customary air of apology.

‘Er, good afternoon. I’m the Script Associate on this show. . I’ve worked out a few lines, you know, that some of you might want to use.’

‘What sort of lines?’ asked Joanie Bruton.

‘Well, you know, er, funny lines. . I mean, there may be a moment when you want to make a joke and, er, well, I’ve worked out a few jokes that might be suitable.’

‘Oh, I’m hopeless when I try to do that,’ confessed Fiona Wakeford. ‘Honestly, I can never remember the line, and I get the joke all wrong and it’s worse than if I hadn’t said anything. I’m terribly stupid.’

No one contradicted her. Joanie Bruton and Bob Garston returned to their work, but Nick Jeffries looked interested. He recognised his limitations in the field of repartee. ‘What sort of lines you got?’

‘Well, erm, a lot of hat jokes. I mean, the show being about hats. . you know.’

‘Like. .’

‘Well, erm, there’s this one about the man whose neighbour’s dog eats his hat.’

‘Who — the neighbour’s hat?’

‘No, no, the man’s hat. And the man goes to complain, and the neighbour gets belligerent.’

‘Gets what?’

‘Gets angry. . And the man says, “I don’t like your attitude”, and the neighbour says, “It wasn’t my attitude, it was your attitude!”’

‘Eh?’

‘It’s a pun. Attitude. ‘At. . ’e. . chewed. Hat. You see, the dog had chewed the hat. Get it?’

‘Not really. I mean, this bloke didn’t like the other bloke’s attitude, I get that. But what I don’t see is. .’

The explanation of the joke might have gone on for some time, had the door not opened at that moment to admit John Mantle, still with his two Americans in tow. He was still playing his delaying game and keeping them out of Studio A. The detour up to the Fifth Floor Conference Room, ostensibly just to introduce the copyright-holders to the panellists, was, he reckoned, worth at least ten minutes. But he knew he couldn’t keep them in ignorance much longer.

While introductions were taking place, the telephone rang and was answered by the researcher. ‘All wanted down in studio,’ he announced, ‘to meet the contestants.’

‘Oh Jesus! I didn’t think we’d have to see that lot till the actual recording,’ complained Bob Garston, the man of the people.

‘Sorry. We’ve got to just run through a bit of rehearsal on the bits you do with them.’

‘Shit,’ said Bob Garston, with bad grace.

John Mantle decided that they’d all go down to Studio A together. He knew that he could no longer put off the crisis, but he hoped his American guests’ reactions might be a little inhibited by the presence of the celebrities.

It was a vain hope. The minute the party walked on to the set, Aaron Greenberg looked up at the red wheel with its silver lettering and screamed, ‘Christ Almighty! What the shit is that supposed to be?’

‘John,’ Dirk van Henke hissed in the Executive Producer’s ear, ‘you have just lost the rights in Hats Off! ’

John Mantle was no fool. He had been prepared for this reaction, and he had planned how to deal with it. For the time being, he led the two furious Americans up to his office and let the wave of anger wash over him.

‘I mean, for Christ’s sakes!’ Aaron Greenberg was spluttering. ‘What kind of a show do you think this is? We can’t have that kind of talk on a show like this. Diaphragms? No way. I mean, this is meant to be wholesome family entertainment. This show will be going out to Middle America.’

‘Actually, it won’t be. You forget that — ’

‘Okay, Middle Europe. Who’s counting?’

‘Not actually Europe. This is England and — ’

‘England — Europe — what’s the difference? The point is that, wherever it is, there are gonna be little old ladies out there who know what they want and who aren’t gonna to want to turn on a show about diaphragms.’

‘That isn’t the first meaning most people will think of when they hear the title.’