Catherine O'Flynn - News Where You Are

Frank smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t think too much of my surface. I wouldn’t wear jumpers like this if I did.’

Irene laughed. ‘It does look like it’s seen better days — just like me.’ She looked again at the photo and her face changed. ‘Poor Phil. He was nice enough in his own way, but I’m glad I found a real person to marry in the end.’

As the video clip ends, the doors at the back of the set open to reveal the two guests waiting in a cloud of dry ice waving at the audience. Phil greets them warmly and guides them down to the front of the stage. He has his arm clamped tightly round the waist of the member of the public, keeping her steady and walking in the right direction. With the celebrity his touch is lighter, just a guiding palm. The audience claps and whoops. He looks out into the roaring blackness and is able to make out a few banners being waved; some audience members are standing to applaud. This pair are the favourites to win. As he smiles into camera one, he has a flash of pure blind panic: he can’t remember the guests’ names, he can’t remember his own name, he can’t remember what show this is. It’s gone in less than a second. He’s back in control. The guests are Jane and Toby. He is Phil Smethway. It’s Saturday night and the show is Two Can Play That Game . Eleven million people are watching.

Through Jane’s chiffon blouse he feels tiny subcutaneous vibrations and spasms of terror and excitement. He’s often thought how handling civilians is like handling horses. Easily spooked, quivering and blinking, they need to be spoken to reassuringly. She’s generating enough heat to power the studio. He gets the two of them to their marker.

‘Now then, you two. That was quite an interesting little film we just watched!’ The audience whoop. ‘What on earth were you doing, Toby? Tuna and bacon? What kind of a sandwich is that? Were you trying to put poor Jane here out of business?’

Toby looks rueful and shakes his head. The audience laughs wildly. ‘I was trying to innovate.’

Phil pulls a sickly-looking face for the crowd. ‘Innovate? You’ll make ’em regurgitate, more like.’ The audience groans and laughs. Phil shrugs with mock innocence. ‘No, but seriously. Toby. Jane. Thank you for being such wonderful sports. Haven’t they been wonderful, ladies and gentlemen?’ Rapturous applause. ‘How would you sum up your week doing Jane’s job, Toby?’

Toby’s face is serious now. ‘All joking aside, Phil, I have a hell of a lot of respect for this woman here.’ The applause starts again. ‘This woman here,’ he struggles to be heard over the sound of the crowd, ‘is quite simply a marvel!’ The audience goes wild and he waits for them to quieten down. ‘I had no idea how challenging running your own sandwich shop could be. You know, Phil, you and I both work in TV, and I’m sure we both sometimes like to think we know stress, but, take it from me, you haven’t seen stress till you’ve got a queue of twenty workmen with big appetites all making demands.’

Phil doesn’t have to say anything; he just cocks an eyebrow at the audience and generates a chorus of high-pitched squeals of delight.

Toby carries on talking about sandwiches and Phil examines the side of Toby’s face. He admires the quality of the skin and wonders what products he uses. The colour is perfect. Phil thinks it’s Californian Fall. It makes his own Caribbean Caramel look cheap and overdone. Toby’s had some good work done on his brows too. Phil remembers seeing him for the first time a few years ago on some kids’ programme. He was a good-looking lad, but he’s worked hard since then, or someone’s worked hard on him. Now he’s fully formed. His hair is spectacular. Phil counts at least four different low-light tones in there — a really beautiful job.

He turns now to Jane. ‘Well then, missus. What about you, eh? One minute you’re at the wholesalers stocking up on coleslaw, next you’re the quiz mistress of Clue Sniffers ! Now, what did I tell you before you went off and did the job swap? What did I expressly tell you?’

Jane grins. ‘You told me not to be too good.’

‘Exactly. Don’t be too blinking good, I said, and make the rest of us look like amateurs, and you went and let me down, Jane. How could you?’

Jane laughs and starts to tell the audience about the exciting week she’s had. Phil thinks that she’s not in bad shape for a civilian, but she could be a different species to Toby. The lack of dental work alone gives her away. Her skin is dull, despite the make-up and Phil spots a chicken pox scar above her eye. In her ear lobe he sees the traces of three or four closed-up holes. Teenage piercings — another small sign of lack of care. She has great warmth, though; the viewers have taken her to their hearts.

At the end of the series the winning team will choose a charity to donate the prize money to. Phil will stand behind the piles of bank notes and ask them to nominate the good cause. He will listen gravely as they outline the important work the money will support. He thinks now of the cash he gave to Michael. He wonders if the audience would applaud that donation so enthusiastically. Would they judge that cause to be a good one?

The two guests are thanking each other now and urging the viewers to vote for them. Phil watches Toby in action and feels a thousand years old. He’s conscious of eleven million pairs of eyes mercilessly fixing on his every wrinkle, every age spot, every grey hair. He sees himself laid out naked on an autopsy slab on high-definition plasma-screen TVs across the nation. A brutal overhead light shines down on his withered body and he wants to scream out for someone to turn the bloody lights off. Instead he turns to the cameras and says: ‘Thank you, everyone here in the studio, and there at home, for watching. You’ve been a marvellous audience and we hope to see you again next week. Think you could do better than our guests? Well, just remember: two can play that game!’

He waves, smiling at the camera, and thanks God that this will all soon be over.

Frank looked at the day’s menu, presented on parchment in an elaborate curling font:

Baked winter squash and goat’s cheese cannelloni

Slow-cooked lamb shank with thyme

and roasted winter root vegetables

Pan-fried salmon with crab and herb crumb, and

asparagus and shellfish dressing

Walter appeared at his side. ‘Would a shepherd’s pie be too much to ask for? The occasional egg and chips? I don’t know where they get these chefs from.’

‘It always sounds lovely, Walter — like eating in a top restaurant every day.’

‘I don’t want to eat in a top restaurant every day. Who would? I’m not Michael bloody Winner. I like to eat everyday food every day. I can’t stand this fiddly stuff — it’s no good if you’ve got arthritis in your hands. The other week I spent fifteen minutes chasing two tarragon-buttered prawns around my plate before giving up. I’d be skin and bone if it wasn’t for the cheese and crackers in my room. Course the Gestapo have got wind of those so I get regular little talks from the nutritionist. I’ve told her about the menu, told her it’s not appropriate, but it’s balanced apparently — that’s all she cares about. I told her: “Well, it’s not the food I was raised on. I’m not bloody French.” That was an error, though. Turns out her husband’s French and she thought I was making a point. Me and my big mouth.’

Frank laughed.

They sat at a table and Walter shook the dominos out. Frank looked over at the television while the tiles were arranged. A middle-aged couple in blue T-shirts were jubilant that the plate they’d bought for £15 at a car boot sale, had sold for £18 at auction. The man punched the air and whooped. Someone changed channels.