Queen Mum (17 page)
Authors: Kate Long
‘You did all right,’ said Tom. ‘Well done.’
I was speechless for a moment. ‘They’ve cut it!’ I said at last. ‘I don’t believe what they’ve done there.’
‘What?’ said Juno, very interested.
‘She dropped that bird in the bin. Your bin! Just dropped it in, cool as anything, like it was rubbish. They’ve edited it out.’
‘I was going to ask what happened to the body,’ said Tom. ‘I didn’t want to dig it up by accident next time I was gardening.’
‘But it’s skewing the truth,’ I went on. ‘The way they’ve shown it, Kim was distraught, nearly in tears. But in real life she wasn’t that bothered. Why have
they done that? It’s not a fair representation of the way she was.’
‘That’s TV for you.’ Tom spread his hands and turned back to the screen. ‘They don’t tell the story you want them to tell.’
‘But it’s biased. It’s going to—’
‘Hello,’ said Manny. ‘Here’s Juno again.’
*
Juno
– I’ve been in this house over a week and I feel I hardly know you two.
Marco
– That’s ’cause there’s nowt to know.
Chris
– Have you finished with my Moonbase CD?
Marco
– No. Haffy’s got it.
Chris
– I never said you could lend it out! Haffy never looks after owt. If he loses it or breaks it, you’re buying me another.
Marco
– In your dreams.
Juno
– Who are Moonbase? Are they a band? My daughters like playing loud music, although I don’t know whether they like Moon—
Chris
– Dad! Tell him.
Lee
– What? I’m trying to read this article Juno’s give me about building projects in Belize.
Juno
– It’s actually very interesting. The local community out there have raised funds by pooling their resources and getting sponsorship from Western
companies.
Chris
– Why does nobody listen to me in this house?
Marco
– ’Cause you’ve got nowt to say, bozo.
Juno
– I’m listening to you, Chris.
Chris
– Yeah, but— You can’t make him get me a new CD, can you?
Juno
– We need to talk this through as a family, don’t we? Firstly, how do we know that the CD is damaged?
Chris
– We don’t. But he shouldn’t have taken it, that’s the point.
Marco
– You gave it me.
Chris
– Exactly. I gave it to you, not your no-brain mates.
Juno
– That’s a fair point, Marco. If you borrow things, you need to treat them with respect.
Marco
– Jesus. I’ll get it back, stop whingeing.
Chris
– Where you going?
Marco
– Where do you think? Get your bloody CD back. ’Cause I’m clearly going to get nowt but grief till it’s back in your sweaty little
mitts.
Juno
– There. That’s solved. Marvellous what a little negotiation will do.
Lee
– Oh aye, in’t it? Very good, Juno.
Chris
– Chur.
Juno
– Pardon?
Chris
– I said cheers. Ta.
Juno
– No problem. Glad to help. So, Chris, tell me what you’ve been up to at school recently. What options are you taking? Do you think you’ll stay on
in the sixth form? Do you have any long-term goals?
Chris
– Er . . .
Juno
– What options have you chosen for next year?
Lee
– He’s going to join me when he leaves school, aren’t you?
Chris
–Yeah.
Juno
– As a builder?
Lee
– No, love, as a circus performer.
Chris
– I do a bit with my dad during the summer holidays. It’s a laugh. Marco tried it but he’s not bothered. You have to train up and he
weren’t interested.
Lee
– On his own head be it. It’s a bloody good trade to be in. I’m turning away work. I can have my pick of jobs. Do you know how much money we
brought in last year?
Juno
– But is that really what you want to do with your life, Chris?
Chris
– Yeah.
Juno
– All I mean is, have you explored all the options? You could stay on and get a few A2s, then you’d have more choice about where you went in life.
Lee
– He dun’t want choice, he wants to be a builder. It’s a skilled trade. It’s worth a hell of a lot more than a piece of paper with a letter
on it. He’ll never be out of work, I’ll tell you that much. Qualified builder gets treated like royalty, you can virtually name your price.
Juno
– I only meant education’s important, it can expand your horizons—
Lee
– You’re not listening, are you? He can take NVQs in Building Services Engineering, anyway.
Juno
– I’m fully aware there’s a lot of money to be made in building. But that’s not the be-all and end-all of a job, is it? What about if he
wanted to become an architect, say?
Lee
– He doesn’t.
Juno
– Have you asked him?
Lee
– Chris; do you want to become an architect?
Chris
– No.
Lee
– Happy?
Juno
– I just thought—
Lee
– You know your trouble, love? You come across as a snob. I’m sorry, but you do. There’s no shame in manual work, especially skilled manual.
Building’s a respected profession.
Juno
– A snob?
Lee
– Yeah.
Juno
– I’m not a snob! What a thing to say. Unless, unless to be interested in, you know, developing your children’s ideas and personalities, and
taking an interest in their education means you’re a snob. Unless wanting to be around them and keep an eye on where they are, and trying to instil in them high moral standards and a
sense of personal responsibility, of citizenship, and helping them grow into emotionally articulate adults is being a snob. In which case, yes, go ahead and call me what you like.
[To camera]
Snob, indeed. I’m really quite hurt, for God’s sake. My children go to a comprehensive. We’re just ordinary, an ordinary family.
*
Kim [To camera]
– Have you seen the prices of baths in here?
Country Living
, this is, one of Juno’s magazines. Four thousand five hundred! For a bath.
It’s mad. Hundred and twenty quid for a table-lamp . . . She’s got a manky old basket out in the garden, right; Manny told me it’s a vintage skep, whatever that is, and it
cost ninety-five quid. I was going to put it out for the bins. It’s another world, it really is.
The credits rolled and a voiceover told viewers that the phone lines were now open for voting. We had an hour to kill.
‘That’s that, then,’ said Tom, avoiding my gaze.
I didn’t know what to say: it sounds weird but I couldn’t decide what I’d seen, exactly. How bad was it? Was it bad? Images from the programme shifted in my memory. An
unpleasant sensation had settled in the pit of my stomach.
But when I came back from phoning my votes in, Juno seemed upbeat; Manny was his usual hearty self. The girls were completely high.
‘Shall we get the karaoke machine out again?’ asked Pascale.
‘I know what we’ll do,’ cried Juno, jumping up. ‘Let’s do a moonlight sports day.’
‘A what?’
‘It’s a beautiful night. Bring your wine outside, everyone. Manny, get the CD player from the kitchen. Pascale, grab the matches; Soph, run upstairs and bring down seven beanie
babies. Tom, you carry the crisps out, will you? Did I see you had a second hand on your watch, Ben?’
‘Can I do anything to help?’ I asked, bemused. Wasn’t this so Juno?
‘I may need you to blow up some balloons for me; we’ll see how it goes. Has Ben got a football we can borrow?’
And so for nearly an hour we played party games by the light of garden torches, with Al Bowlly singing about the girl of his dreams. If I have one snapshot memory of that time, it’s of
Juno’s flushed face after she won the balloon relay and flung her arms round Manny. ‘That’s my girl,’ he said, then Pascale and Sophie ran up and draped a beanie dog on
Manny’s head, and the CD was
Love Is the Sweetest Thing
. I thought, I wish they were filming this.
There’s a gap between the way you first perceive something and how you view it later. By the time we all sat down to watch the results, I felt quite optimistic. Juno was her usual sparkly
self, and I think we were all quite tipsy. Even Ben was mellow enough to let Sophie and Pascale lean against his bean bag.
The phone rang.
‘I know who that’ll be,’ said Juno.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’ asked Manny.
‘Actually, no, if you don’t mind.’ She gave us the thumbs up and disappeared out into the hall.
We saw the final few minutes of
Casualty
, then there was a trailer for a documentary on volcanoes, then the
Queen Mum
logo came on screen.
‘Shit,’ said Sophie.
In the studio, Kim sat on a sofa and talked for maybe thirty seconds to the presenter, Abby Cavanagh. Kim looked good, in a purple velvet dress that hugged her figure and showed off her blonde
hair. Then the screen filled up with a photo of Juno’s face and we heard Abby asking if she was there, and if she was excited. ‘Terrifically,’ said Juno’s voice. ‘I
can’t tell you how much fun it’s all been.’
‘And how have your friends and neighbours reacted to you being on telly?’
‘Everyone’s been marvellous, really marvellous. It’s been a brilliant experience all round.’
‘That’s great.’
‘I wish they’d hurry up,’ said Pascale. The picture of Juno slid back so half the screen was her and the other half Abby, with Kim standing next to her. We saw Abby smile.
‘And the lines are now closed, so we can give you the results. Are you ready, girls?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Juno.
‘It’s now or never,’ said Kim.
‘It’s now,’ said Abby, ‘and the viewers have decided, with a massive eighty-two per cent of the votes, it’s . . . Kim Fox! Kim Fox, you are this episode’s
Queen Mum!’
‘I’ll go through and check she’s OK,’ said Manny, leaping up from his chair. Abby handed over the gold envelope with the hotel details and theatre tickets in it, and then
she popped the tiny crown over Kim’s shiny hair. The last scene I remember was Abby with her arm round Kim’s shoulders, and Kim putting her hands to her cheeks, like she was Miss World.
She looked extraordinarily pleased with herself. If I could have smacked the woman, I would have done.
When Juno reappeared she was grinning and her face was very red.
Tom said, ‘I thought you acquitted yourself well on the phone just now. Beautifully generous. Really nicely done. And now you haven’t got the rest of the series hanging over your
head, have you? You can just forget about it. Carry on as normal.’
I reached out to touch her. ‘That’s right. Don’t let that silly old slapper get you down.’
She shrugged me off at once. ‘It was only ever a bit of fun, Ally. It’s not as if it matters, or anything. Manny’s taking me for a weekend break anyway, when my mum’s
feeling—’
‘We know. That’s great, smashing.’
‘I think,’ said Tom, ‘the way to look at it wasn’t that you were unpopular, it was that Kim was . . . oh, sod it. Like you said, it was a stupid TV show. So,’ he
was edging nearer the front door all the time, ‘we’ll be making tracks now, it’s been a long old evening.’
‘Yes; thanks very much for—’
‘Ben!’ Tom called. ‘Time to go.’
Ben came round the corner into the hall. ‘Do I have to? Pascale wants to show me a game.’
‘Yes,’ said Tom simply.
Outside I could see all the drawn curtains up and down the street. Behind every one
Queen Mum
would have been playing, I thought.
‘They mustn’t have voted,’ I raged as we stepped into our house.
‘Who?’
‘The people in this street. Too damn posh to pick up a phone. That’s it, isn’t it? Kim’ll have mobilized all the neighbourhood, probably got them all multiple-voting. I
mean, how else could Juno have ended up with such a low vote?’
Ben disappeared upstairs in some kind of sulk. As the opening bars to ‘Shamed’ sounded through the floorboards, Tom slumped in the armchair and tipped his head back as if he was
exhausted.
‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘You’re the one who watches it.’
‘The only ones who got lower than that were . . . there was that one who kept wearing a see-through blouse, and that very tall woman who was caught pouring bleach on her rival’s
roses. Nothing like Juno! What I don’t get is why they have to show the stupid percentages anyway. Can’t they just say Won and Lost?’
‘Juno did know that was the format of the show.’
‘But the way it was edited!’
Tom dragged his hands over his face. ‘That’s the name of the game, isn’t it? It’s what editors do, cut sections. If that sometimes colours a scene, that’s the
nature of documentary. Don’t tell me you never realized that before.’
‘Thank you for the lecture in media studies.’
‘Oh, come on. It’s only someone telling a story. Say twenty people watch a sequence of events, then describe what they saw. How many different versions would there be? Twenty.
There’s no such thing as true reality TV, everything’s edited. You know yourself how biased you are with Juno; the woman can’t put a foot wrong.’
‘I’d call that friendship.’
‘Whatever. The point is, your mind edits real life; why should television be any different?’
I could have thrown something at him. ‘God, you’re so two-faced. Ooh, Juno, you acquitted yourself so well.’
‘I’m not. I’m just trying to live in the real world, Ally.’
‘Damn you for being so bloody grown-up,’ I said, and went to run myself a scalding bath. I needed to get behind a locked door so badly I could have screamed.
We knew Juno was in trouble when, a few days later, she got a mention on
Have I Got News for You
. ‘I’m not a snob,’ the contestants kept saying. It was
the running gag of the night. The next afternoon she came round to tell me she’d given up at the shop.