Unknown - Game Over

‘Oh, horrible thought. Bye now.’

I put the phone down and do my best to push Josh’s reserved response to the back of my mind. Instead I focus on the fact that Bale is as grateful as I could hope. He has offered to pay me a bonus related to the ratings we secure. I’m likely to make a killing. My success has duly subdued Fi and I have decided to be magnanimous. I don’t trust her, but practically speaking she is my assistant and I need her to be closely involved in this project – there is so much to do.

We start with the advert.

Are you about to get married? Do you trust your affianced 100 per cent? Is there an ex in his or her past who could still affect your future? Please write in complete confidentiality to P.O. Box…

Such a simple call to action.

‘Will it work?’ asks Fi.

‘If I know anything about human nature, this will work.’

‘Where should we place the ad?’

‘Initially in the sad, loser magazines, Gas and Gos.’ I throw a couple of mags over to her. I respect Fi enough not to expect her to be familiar with them. She picks up the mags and begins to flick through them.

‘My God, these are obscene. Don’t these people have any self-respect?’

I don’t look up from my budget sheets. ‘No.’

She starts to read the contents page. ‘“I Had Sex with 100 Men in Three Years”, “I had a Threesome with my Mate and his Girlfriend”, “The Crotchless Knickers are by the Booby Drops – Working in a Sex Shop”, “We’re Sex-perts – Women Who Really Rate Themselves in Bed”!’

‘It’s ideal,’ I interrupt. ‘The readers are willing to bare their souls and their bodies for a measly fiver and a couple of column inches on the letters page. These people are looking for platforms. They’re a gift. However, Fi, I don’t want to be another Jerry Springer. I don’t simply want the oddballs of this world. We are going to have to think of an extremely clever incentive to attract normal people.’

Fi groans. ‘But it will be easier to get horrid people on the show. They have no self-awareness and also they’ve had fewer opportunities.’

I glare at her. Easy (unless relating to my sexual morals) is not a word I like in my vocabulary. I know that the success of the show will lie in whether I can make the average viewer feel uncomfortable. There are zillions of fly-on-the-wall and chat show programmes where the guests are modern-day ghouls. Normally the viewer sits back, cushy on their chintz. They comment that the characters on talk shows are priceless, pure escapism. Chat shows do a public service: people watch and thank God that their own lives are better than these are. I want Sex with an Ex to be a different sort of show. I want cosy couples to stiffen in each other’s company. I want them to struggle for conversation in the ad break. I want them to move apart a fraction and doubt each other. This show is their lives, whatever class, age, race or religion they are.

‘So who do you want to attract?’

‘Joe and Joanne public. The people we trust. Policemen, nurses, librarians, teachers, the guys at Carphone Warehouse.’ Fi eyes me sceptically.

Eventually we agree to place the advert on the TV6 web page and the internal electronic noticeboard, to send a researcher to gyms and clubs to do some on-the-spot recruiting, and to place a telephone line after our Don’t Try This Alone programme. It does quite well on the early evening slot.

Any reservations Fi had regarding the number of volunteers we’d find are soon swept away. Within days of placing the adverts we are inundated with responses; they arrive by the sackful. The world, it appears, is full of those who are about to pledge love until death do them part but actually fear a much more secular separation. It was as I’d expected. They are the most depressing reads ever.

My girlfriend, Chrissie, is the sweetest, kindest, most loving woman I have ever known. I’m honoured that she accepted my proposal and agreed to he my wife. We are due to marry in four weeks’ time. We are having a big do, no expense spared. After all, you only do it once. We plan to have a large family and one day live by the sea. I love her and she loves me. She says so all the time.

Do you think she’d ever be unfaithful?

I only ask because my best mate reckons he saw her in a pub with an ex-boyfriend of hers. I’m sure it was innocent but when I asked her about it, she said he must have made a mistake…

I get married in seven weeks’ time. I love my fiancé so much and I’m sure that he loves me, pretty sure. But not absolutely certain. There was a girl he went to college with. She ditched him for an American rower. My best friend got very drunk at a dinner party last night and said some really mean things. She said that I caught him on the rebound, that he’s out of my league. I wonder-if he had the choice, would he choose me?

… I found letters, you see. Why would she keep his letters?

… When you marry you give up your past. You have to. I’m ready for it. But is he? He’s always been a bit of a one for the ladies. Nothing serious. He’s just a flirt. He can’t help himself. He doesn’t mean any harm by it. It doesn’t bother me. Too much. It’s just that my mum says that men like him never change. It’s not that there is an individual ex that I’m threatened by. To be frank there are dozens…

There are a number of psychotics. People who said they’d rather see their partner dead than unfaithful. I believe them and pass their letters on to the police.

We employ a team to trawl through the responses, but Fi and I can’t resist an occasional morbid dip into them. Although the letters are in many ways individual there is a commonality. There is a mustard ripeness of those desperate to confirm their own supremacy in their partner’s affections.

‘Do you think they’ll all look hideous?’

‘Why do you suppose that, Fi?’

‘Well, to be so desperate, so insecure?’

I throw over to her a picture of one of the letter writers. The woman in question is thirty-two, slim, blonde, elegant. She has enclosed a CV detailing that she has a first from Cambridge and a Ph.D. from Harvard. Fi looks amazed. To shake her further, I pass a photo of the fiancé. He is smart and mediocre. Fi looks bewildered.

‘He is so ordinary.’

‘Yup, to you. But to her he is a god.’

‘I don’t get it.’ She shakes her head wearily.

‘Nor do I, babe. Maybe it’s a London thing.’ I don’t believe this, but I think it might be a comfort. ‘Anyway, get her on the show.’

The team is gathering around the mountain of letters, which appear to have a magnetic force. I take advantage of their presence, ‘OK, status. Have you seen the lawyers, Jaki?’

‘Yes. We have to be extremely careful, but the terms aren’t impossible. For those who know they are being filmed and are part of the set-up we can use any footage we like, as long as the punter is informed that the tape is running. “Informing” them can be as simple as posting a notice saying cameras are in operation, and to be super-safe, we must get the guests to sign this.’ She waves a weighty document, about the thickness of the Yellow Pages. ‘The fine print will bore the proverbials off most guests and they’ll sign. You can use CCTV footage as long as the local council agrees. I’m working on clearance. Those cameras are everywhere – shops, garages, on street lamps in dark alleys’ – I like the fact that she’s been thinking laterally – ‘libraries, public car parks, hotel foyers.’

‘I can’t imagine these public and commercial bodies will agree, though, will they?’ asks Fi.

‘As I say, I’m working on clearance but as long as all the correct legal documents are in place no one seems too squeamish about blowing the whistle. Restaurants and hotels see it as free publicity. However, taping the dupe is much more difficult. If someone doesn’t know they are being taped it’s illegal to show footage of them, unless they are committing a criminal act and it’s to help the course of justice.’