Ben Elton - Dead Famous

“It’s day fifteen in the house, and after supper, in order to take their minds off Woggle’s arrest, Peeping Tom sets the housemates a topic for discussion,” Andy the narrator intoned portentously. “The topic tonight is their deepest feelings.”

Coleridge stirred his second mug of tea of the working day. Those he had at home did not count.

Trisha bustled in, pulling off her coat.

“You’ve arrived just in time, Patricia,” said Coleridge. “Our suspects are about to discuss that most significant and sublime of all subject matters: themselves.”

“Suspects and victim, sir.”

It was early, and Trisha was not in the mood for Coleridge’s superior tone, besides which, she felt that some respect at least was due to the dead. Coleridge merely smiled wearily.

On the screen Garry had taken the floor. “I’m not going to mess you about,” he said. “I’ve not always been a very nice person.”

“You still ain’t,” Jazz chipped in, but nobody laughed. Instead they all hung on to the intense, caring expressions that they had had assumed when Garry had begun.

Coleridge pressed pause. “You see how none of them share Jazz’s joke? This is confession time. It’s serious stuff. A matter of faith. Garry is worshipping at the altar of his own significance, and Jazz is laughing in church.”

“Sir, if we have to stop every time any of these people annoy you we’ll never get through even this tape.”

“I can’t help it, Patricia. They’ve ground me down.” But Coleridge knew he was being stupid and resolved to make an effort.

Garry began his story. “Like I said, I was a bit of a geezer, you know what I mean? Little bit o’ this, little bit o’ that, dodgy stuff, done some rotten things that I don’t mind admitting I’m not proud of, but at the end of the day, right, I done ’em and that’s me and I can’t change that. Truth is, I wanted it large and I wasn’t too fussed about who I had a go at to get it. You know what I’m saying?”

There were murmurs of sympathy but not very enthusiastic ones.

“I think the truth of the matter was, right,” Garry continued, “I didn’t love myself.”

Now they all nodded earnestly. This they understood. Garry’s other influences – the fighting, the boozing, the dodgy dealing – might have been different from their own, but when it came to that central subject of not quite loving oneself enough, they understood exactly what he meant.

“I know exactly what you fookin’ mean,” Moon said.

“I don’t think I was letting myself in,” Garry continued.

Coleridge’s resolve to keep quiet had lasted less than a minute. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Why do they all talk as if they’re in therapy! Even Garry . Just listen to him! ‘I wasn’t letting myself in.’ What on earth does that mean? He’s a yobbo , for heaven’s sake! Not a sociology graduate! Where do they learn all these ridiculous empty phrases?”

“Oprah, sir.”

“Who?”

Trisha could not tell whether Coleridge was joking. She let it go.

Back in the house, oblivious to how much they would one day annoy a senior police officer, the confessional continued.

“I just know exactly what you mean, I really do,” Moon was saying, “and I think it’s really dead strong of you that you can say it.”

Nourished by the support, Garry pressed on. Loving himself by pretending to hate himself. “Anyway, I was getting into a lot of coke at the time, you know, quite a big habit, doing five hundred notes a week, bosh, straight up my hooter. Yes, please. Thank you very much. We like that. Blowing a grand was nothing to me. Nothing. I’m not proud of it, right, but that was me, right? I was having it large and what I wanted I fahking had, you know what I’m saying? I was a bad boy. I ain’t proud of it.”

Coleridge thought about remarking that for a man who professed so much not to be proud of his behaviour, Gazzer was doing a pretty good job of showing the world just how proud of it he was. He decided against it, though. He could see that Patricia was getting sick of him.

On screen the rest of the group nodded earnestly at Gazzer while clearly itching for the moment when they could take the floor themselves.

“But you know what saved me? You know what really worked me out?” Suddenly Garry was choking up. There were tears welling up in his eyes and his voice was cracking.

“Don’t go on if you don’t want to, mate,” said David, his voice awash with concentrated sincerity and sympathy. “Take a break. Come back to it. Give yourself space. Now, when I -”

“No, no,” said Garry quickly. He wasn’t losing hold of the conch that easily, not now he was on a roll. “I’m all right, mate, thanks, but it helps to talk about it.”

David sank back onto the couch.

Garry took up the thread of his story. “I’ll tell you what changed me. My little lad, that’s who, little Ricky. My kid. He means everything to me, everything. I’d fahkin’ die for him, I would, I really would.”

There was much sincere and committed nodding at this. The body language of the group was highly supportive. Their eyes, on the other hand, told a different story. As the shot cut from one listener to another the message was clear: it said, “I am bored out of my brains, I do not care about you and your little lad, and I wish you’d just shut up and let me speak .”

“’Cos, like, I have Ricky most weekends, right, and he’s just brilliant, I mean he’s just so amazing, I’m so proud of him and like everything he says is just brilliant, right? You know what I mean? I’m not being funny or nothing, he’s my little kiddie and he’s like the best thing that ever happened to me.” Garry’s voice was choking with emotion but he persevered.

“And one weekend I’d had it large the night before, you know what I’m saying? Did the lot, right, booze, coke, spliff, I ain’t proud of it, and I was feeling well rough, and Ricky’s mum brings him round and she says, ‘It’s your day with him,’ and I’m thinking, ‘Fahkin’ hell! Oh no! This is all I need with a head like a sack full of broken glass.’ So I says, ‘I’ll have him tomorrow,’ but she says, ‘You’ll have him today,’ and she’s gone, right? So I’m thinking, ‘Fahk, I’ll take him round me mum’s.’ But then, little Ricky says, ‘Don’t you want to play with me, then, Daddy?’ And you know what? He cured my hangover, there and then, just with his little smile and by saying that. So I stuck Spot the Dog on while I got myself together and then we went to the café for breakfast and after that we went down the park and had loads of ice cream and stuff. It was just brilliant, I mean really amazing, because I’m so proud of him and there’s so much that I can learn from him, right? And at the end of the day, I know I have to treasure every moment with him and cherish him, because he’s the most precious thing I’ve got.”

Gazzer wiped tears from his eyes. He had surprised himself. He didn’t cry much in the usual run of things, but getting all that stuff about Ricky out had been brilliant. He felt genuinely moved.

The group paused for a nod. They were obviously anxious to leap straight in with stories of their own, but they held back, awarding Garry a moment of reflection and respect. None of them wanted to be portrayed on the television as taking somebody else’s emotions lightly. Particularly when a little kiddie was involved.

It was into this pious pause that Kelly unwittingly slung her bucket of cold water. “So what are you doing in here, then, Garry?” she asked.

“What?”