Питер Ловси - Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose [Stories]

His wife Karen continued mending the jumper on her lap, oblivious to Albert’s ranting. She didn’t enjoy the programme, and she had a long evening in prospect, repairing clothes. There was no escape from the TV when you lived in a bedsit.

Albert continued, after a belch, “When this show first went out, I reckon most of the clips were genuine. Then they started offering a few hundred quid for new material. Stands to reason people are going to fake the incidents. They set up someone making a fool of himself, roll the camera and cash in.”

He watched in cynical expectation as a grey man in a grey room began painting a door frame. A second later the door opened and the hapless decorator was dowsed in red.

“Well, knock me down with a feather,” said Albert with heavy sarcasm. “I never saw that one coming. It’s like I say, Karen. The whole thing’s a set-up.”

Karen folded the jumper and placed it on her ‘done’ pile, then turned her attention to a black woollen sock. It was one of Albert’s, the survivor of a pair he had worn so proudly on their wedding day, eighteen years ago. Now it contained as much darning wool as original thread, but Albert insisted it wasn’t ready for the rag-box yet.

On the screen a well-dressed woman in a stable yard started walking beside the half-doors where the horses were kept.

“Ay up!” said Albert. “Watch what happens to her big straw hat. There it goes!”

Sure enough, a horse’s head appeared suddenly from one of the stables and got the woman’s hat between its teeth and whipped it off her head and out of reach.

“I bet they rehearsed it three times.”

Karen had looked up and watched the clip, prompted by Albert’s “Ay up!”

“If they did,” she said, “they must have got through more than one hat. It’s very destructive. I’ve never had a hat as nice as that.”

Albert said, “It seems to me all you have to do is buy one of these bloody camcorders and the money’s yours. They’ll take anything, slipping on some ice, falling into a pond, being hit on the head by a football, any bloody thing. You could make one a week, I reckon. Shoot it on Saturday, send it to the television people on the Monday, and, bingo, the cheque arrives on Wednesday. We could live like kings on that sort of money, Karen.”

Karen looked down at her darning again. “Well why not, if it’s so simple? Why not get one of those cameras and try it?”

Albert had no immediate answer. He placed his can on the aged carpet and folded both arms across his ample beer-belly. The best he could manage in response was a smile that was meant to be superior.

Karen said, “You’re all mouth and trousers, Albert Challis. You say it’s all a con, but you don’t have the bottle to prove it.”

Albert found his voice. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly, my sweet,” he said. “You did just suggest buying one of those camcorders, didn’t you? When was the last time you looked in the bloody shop window? Have you any idea of the price of those things?”

Karen shook her head. They didn’t have the sort of money most other people seemed to have. Nothing in their household had been bought new. They got it all secondhand. Whatever broke, burst or wore out had to be repaired.

“They cost a bloody fortune, woman,” Albert ranted. “Hundreds of pounds. Can you imagine that, a little piece of black plastic costing five hundred quid?”

Karen shook her head, returning to the rhythmical comfort of needle and thread.

Albert finished his lager, watching a fat woman being chased across a field by a goat while the studio audience guffawed. “The point is,” he said in support of his apparent caution, “I’m not prepared to splash out five hundred on a camcorder when we only stand to make two hundred and fifty back.”

“But you just said you could make one a week and we could live like royalty,” Karen reminded him. “Soon as I call your bluff, you back off.”

Albert shot her a filthy look. “Don’t you provoke me.”

“It’s not as if we haven’t got the money,” Karen persisted. “We must have more than five hundred in the bank.”

“Never you mind what we have or haven’t got in the bank, Karen.”

“I do mind,” she said. “It’s mine as much as yours. I work to keep us going, same as you. The cooking, the cleaning, the mending. I think we ought to have a joint account and then I’d know how much we’re worth.”

“You’d spend it in a week,” said Albert. “Look, if anything happened to me, God forbid, that money goes to you, right? All my worldly goods. Satisfied?”

The programme was coming to an end. The grinning host was saying, “...be sure to keep your home-movie clips coming in, because you could be the winner of our clip of the series prize, and that’s worth a cool ten thousand pounds.”

“Ten grand!” said Albert, deeply impressed. “Now that might be worth lashing out for. The clip of the series. We’d have to think of something really brilliant. Get me a pen and paper, quick. I’m taking down the address.”

In bed, Karen was trying her best to sleep, drawing the thin blankets tightly around her, thinking of continental quilts, double glazing and central heating. She wondered how much they really had in that bank account.

Albert’s voice broke into her fantasies. “It would have to be a really great caper. Something completely fantastic. They wouldn’t give the money for one more silly kid messing about with a hosepipe.”

Karen said, “Are you still on about that programme?”

“I’m on about ten grand.”

There was an interval of silence before Karen spoke again.

“It would have to be believable.”

“What do you mean?”

She raised herself onto her elbows, any hope of sleep impossible as long as Albert was preoccupied with the big prize. “Well,” she said, “when you see most of those clips, the situation is just unreal. You couldn’t believe in it.”

The bed creaked and Albert rolled towards her. “Go on. I’m listening.”

“Tonight, for instance,” Karen said. “The chap who ended covered in paint. You yourself said it was probably all set up for the programme. I mean, who would want to film a door being painted?”

Albert clutched her arm. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. It’s hardly a prime home-movie subject.”

Karen explained, “That’s why the ones they show at weddings work so well. You know, when they can’t get the knife into the cake and they knock it off the stand. Or a breeze gets under the bride’s gown and lifts it up to her waist. Stuff like that. People accept them as genuine accidents because a wedding is the place where you take your video camera.”

“But you can’t mess up someone’s wedding just to get a laugh on video,” Albert said, misreading the plot.

“That’s just an example,” said Karen. “All I’m telling you is that to win the big prize you’d have to find a situation when it would be perfectly normal to be filming. Then it looks genuine, and it’s funnier, too.”

Albert pondered the matter further. “Weddings, kiddies’ parties, barbecues, village fetes. Where else do people take these little cameras?”

“Holidays,” Karen dreamily replied. She yawned. “Night, night.” She turned over, trying to find a comfortable spot between the thinly-covered mattress springs.

Albert’s eyes were gleaming in the dark. He reached out and fondled Karen’s rump. “You’re brilliant.”

“Shove off,” she said, pushing his hand away.

“What I have, I hold,” said Albert, replacing it. “You and I are going to take a holiday, my sweet. A caravan holiday.”

“A caravan , did you say?”

“And I know where to get one. That bloke across the street who keeps it on his drive.”