Take a Chance on Me (9 page)

T
he four contestants
on
Nosh for Dosh
sat around a large round glass table dominated by an enormous heart-shaped floral arrangement. ‘So, that's how I became a florist,' said a large man wearing a sequined waistcoat and bow tie. His hair was slicked back revealing a shiny forehead. The man, Maurice, was perspiring heavily having spent five hours attempting to get his special meal prepared under the warm lights that were moved frequently about his kitchen to avoid shadows.

He was the first contestant to cook on the show and the filming was taking its toll. The team trailed about his florist's shop for an entire day retaking shots and repeating questions until he wanted to scream. It was proving even more stressful since they arrived at his home. He had to put up with them monopolising his house and staging the rooms for viewers to get maximum entertainment. An eagle-eyed member of the team spotted his teddy bear collection hiding in a wardrobe and in spite of his protests, pulled several out, leaving them scattered about his bedroom, where later his guests would go and comment on the evening. He was now trying to be very amenable and hoped to score highly by getting his guests drunk on his home-made wine.

‘Mercedes, tell us a little about yourself,' said Maurice.

‘Oh, I'll save that for another day. It's your night, Maurice. The mousse was delicious. Very light indeed. I'm almost tempted to be greedy and ask for seconds but your next course sounds wonderful too and I want to leave room for it.'

‘Yes, it was verrey nice,' agreed the elegant woman seated opposite Mercedes. ‘We make zees a lot en France, Maurice,' she purred. ‘I don't like to eat too much because of my figure. I 'af to be careful.' She smoothed her hands over her flat stomach. When no one commented, she continued, ‘Ow did you get zees flowers like zees?'

‘I used florist wire, Claudine. You can get it heart-shaped, so you don't need to bend it into shape. Looks good doesn't it?'

Claudine nodded in the direction of the camera and opened her mouth to speak again.

‘Okay, we'll cut there. Maurice, do you want to go into the kitchen now and prepare the next course? We'll do a piece to camera in the bedroom with Claudine. Patrick has already done his piece. We'll ask Claudine what she thought of the meal so far, and so on. You know the routine. Then we'll come down and do the main course.'

‘This is 'arder zan I fort it would be,' whispered Claudine. ‘All ze questions. I shall 'av to try to be carefool. Maurice's wine iz verrey strong and az gone to my 'ed. I cannot be responsible for my comments about 'iz soufflé.'

‘Claudine, are you ready to go to Maurice's bedroom?'

Claudine pouted, pulled out a compact and make-up from her handbag, reapplied some deep red lipstick, and then stalked off after the camera in her designer heels. Mercedes smiled conspiratorially at Patrick, who was relaxing with his glass of wine. He raised an eyebrow, ‘We'll have to watch that one. She's definitely out to win. I hope she isn't going to feed us foie gras and frog's legs when we go to her house,' he continued. ‘Poor Maurice, I have a feeling that Claudine is going to have something to say about the teddy bears on the bed, especially the one wearing the French maid's outfit.'

‘
H
appy Birthday to you
,' sang Peggy, Charlie and a bunch of children in unison. Bert bounced up and down on Peggy's shoulder in time to the singing.

‘Hip, hip, hooray!' shouted the children.

Bert, who was wearing a small cone hat, whistled. The children, also wearing party hats, were gathered around watching him. He had played peek-a-boo with them, shown them his ring hoop trick and regaled them with a vast array of whistles, calls and impressions.

Now Peggy cut the cake into pieces for all the children and gave Bert his own special seed cake.

‘It's nice to have the house filled with children and laughter, isn't it?' said Peggy to Charlie. Bert was blowing kisses to George and making him giggle. ‘I was thinking the other day that it would be nice to go to Canada and see my grandchildren. I haven't seen them for three years, and although I speak to them on Skype, it isn't the same as sitting down with them. I wouldn't want to leave Bert, though. It's a shame they can't come over here. Liam's always busy at work and if he gets any free time, he's not likely to want to spend it here, in the UK, in a semi-detached house with me, when he can go to Hawaii, or Argentina, and bask in luxury at a five-star resort. I don't mean to sound bitter. I'm not. I'm glad he's as successful as he is, and he's got such a lovely family. It's just, some days, I feel lonely. It wasn't so bad when we lived on Lanzarote. The weather was so much better for one thing, and of course, I had Dennis. I miss him. Still, mustn't grumble. Ignore me. I'm being a silly old woman. It's because today's Bert's birthday. It reminds me that yet another year's raced by – another year without my dear Dennis. And it reminds me that time's too short. Bert's eleven years old now. I remember when we first got him.'

Charlie patted Peggy's hand. ‘I know what you mean. And, you're not a silly old woman. Look at the smiles on those faces. The children have had a lovely time. They've watched Bert doing all his tricks. What about Oliver's face when Bert meowed at him? It was a picture. You've given them a super tea and even party bags. How many children can say they've been to a parrot's party? And Bert's enjoyed it too.'

A small girl with long dark hair and rosy cheeks was tickling Bert's head. He was chirping in delight. The others tucked into the array of cakes, sandwiches and treats in front of them.

‘It was wonderful, wasn't it? He's very good with children. I think it's because they're so gentle with him. He used to be very content with people until the day one of our clients got very drunk and became aggressive. He marched up to Bert while he was dozing on his perch and prodded him with his finger. It frightened Bert witless. He put up with it for a while but the wretched man kept doing it. Dennis asked him to stop and leave the poor creature alone, but he laughed and stabbed his fat finger right at Bert's eye. Bert went crazy, flapping about and shrieking. Dennis raced over and pulled the man away but not before Bert bit his finger. It bled such a lot. The man started shouting and said he'd have Bert put down. Luckily, the bite was only superficial and Dennis managed to calm the man down.

‘He came back to the bar a couple of days later. Bert remembered him and got very upset. He flew at the man but Dennis stopped Bert attacking him. We asked the man to stay away after that. I never liked him anyway. He was one of those old soaks who spend all afternoon getting drunk and then do stupid things that annoy the other customers. Bert became wary of people after that, especially anyone who'd been drinking. I think he could smell the alcohol on their breath. He became aggressive if anyone who'd been drinking approached him, or Dennis, or me. He was suddenly quite protective of us, especially me. Shortly after that, we sold the bar and came here. Bert seemed happier. He prefers quiet, sober people.'

As young Oliver let out a whoop, Peggy added, ‘Although he seems fine with children, even when they are very noisy.'

‘Does Bert want to play with his new hoop?' asked Sophie. ‘I can throw the ball for him.'

‘No, I want to,' cried Elizabeth.

‘I think he's a little tired of playing now. Bert. What about a song?' said Peggy. ‘Come on everyone let's help Bert sing. Do you know “Zip a Dee Do Dah”?'

Charlie observed the scene. She knew how Peggy felt. She felt it too. Once upon a time, she had a family, a life and a future. Nowadays, she filled up her time with her radio show, gardening, cake baking and the café. She needed to inject something more into it. She thought about Mercedes's proposition. She decided she would do it. After all, life was short.

P
atrick had had enough
of the film crew. By the time his guests arrived he was ready to play up. He was only on the show because one of his hairdressers had dared him. His wife thought it was hilarious. Patrick knew nothing about cookery. Unlike fellow contestants who had asked spouses and partners to hide from the cameras, Patrick was happy to have his wife in the house with him while they filmed. Patrick had taken a dislike to Claudine, decided Maurice was a buffoon and only had time for Mercedes.

‘You could try and take it a little more seriously,' hissed his wife as Patrick marched about the bedroom dressed in a smoking jacket, a copy of the
Times
under his arm and a riding crop in his hand.

‘No. I'm only doing it for a dare. People want entertainment when they watch this show. They don't give a monkeys about the actual cooking bollocks. I'm going to be a man behaving badly. I feel like being controversial.'

‘Are you ready, Patrick?' called the producer. ‘We want to start with you preparing your starter.'

‘Here goes nothing,' said Patrick with a wry smile.

‘Oh, please try to behave just a bit,' moaned his wife.

‘Not a chance,' he replied, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Thank you, love. I'll expect you to run my bath later, as usual,' he called as the cameraman and sound engineer filmed him going downstairs.

In the kitchen he fumbled about looking for his dinner menu. ‘Now, what am I cooking? Gloria was supposed to buy the ingredients. I wonder where she's put them. Glor!' he yelled. ‘Where're the tinned baked beans?'

The cameraman guffawed.

‘I can't do beans on toast without the beans,' he shouted.

His wife, Gloria appeared from the bedroom. ‘Patrick!' she warned.

‘She's no fun,' said Patrick directly to the camera. ‘While you lot are here,' he added with a wink and picked up his riding crop, giving it a meaningful look. The director clapped his hands together silently. This was pure gold.

Patrick set about preparing his meal, a simple menu of minestrone soup and chicken in red wine. He fooled about throughout the preparation and having thrown vegetables all over the kitchen top and decided he had not got the right herbs, he took out a couple of boxes of ready-made soup and poured them into a large pan.

‘And as my French guest, Claudine would say, “voilà!”' he said, wiping his hands on an apron that bore an image of a scantily clad lady. ‘No one will be able to tell. Besides, it's very good quality soup. It came in boxes. It's proper posh nosh. I'll add a carrot piece to each bowl. They'll never be able to tell the difference between it and home-made soup.'

He then poured a large glass of wine to help him through the next course. He insisted on referring to a recipe book throughout the preparation, making comments about Nigella Lawson and sucking chocolate off a spoon.

‘She behaves like a dirty tart,' he said. ‘If Gloria licked her finger like that after dipping it in the food, she'd be in trouble. It's bad manners, isn't it? You should wash your hands when you cook, not drool all over them and the kitchen utensils.'

He had purchased an enormous chicken for the meal. Since the recipe demanded chicken pieces, he needed to debone his bird, a fact he used to its full advantage as he grimaced and huffed while attempting to attack it with a large knife.

‘I don't know,' he complained. ‘It's a lot easier when I go to the pub and Gloria deals with this stuff. This isn't a man's job. Men are on this planet to hunt for food and provide for their women. Women are here to look after us, clean up and prepare the food,' he claimed, draining a glass of deep red Bordeaux wine. ‘Glor! Come down here a moment, darling. I need your female skills.'

Gloria appeared and with hands on hips tried to guide him through the process of deboning a chicken. Patrick clowned about further and ended up being thrown out of the kitchen by Gloria who not only boned the chicken but prepared the sauce. Patrick set the table and read the newspaper while she got on with it. Much later, Gloria let him back into the kitchen and gave him instructions on how to cook the vegetables and chicken.

Patrick finally sorted out the vegetables and made a big song and dance about his desert; ice cream, scooped from a dish and decorated with a fan wafer. He did a little dance with the wafers, decided he better leave the scooping of the ice cream until nearer the time and cried out, ‘Gloria love, could you run me a bath? I'm pooped. I'd like plenty of bath salts and could you bring me up a glass of champagne too? Lovely. See, ladies, us men are really only cut out for the manly difficult stuff. We should leave the cooking to you.'

‘
F
ather Abraham
and the Smurfs singing there. Do you remember those lovable little blue people? If you do then maybe you can answer this question: What colour was Papa Smurf's hat? While you're thinking about it, here's another couple of facts about the Smurfs that might interest you: The Smurfs were originally called Les Schtroumpfs and were invented as a result of a silly conversation over dinner. And how about this? The world record for people dressed as Smurfs
was set in Swansea, in 2009. More than two thousand five hundred people crammed into a nightclub dressed in blue and white, and in order to count toward the record, they weren't allowed to have any natural skin showing. Can you imagine trying to wash all the blue paint off your skin afterwards?' She looked up from reading and smiled to herself.

‘And, in answer to my Smurf trivia question, Papa Smurf's hat was red. Congratulations if you got that correct. How did we get onto Smurfs? Oh, I remember. It all started because Sean brought some jelly Smurf sweets into the studio – very bad for your teeth but extremely satisfying to chomp. Here we go with an appropriate segue – we're all very professional here on City Hospital radio, you know. This is The Searchers with “Sweets for my Sweet”.'

Charlie chewed on another sweet and wondered how Mercedes was getting along. It was day three of the contest. Today they were filming at Claudine's house. Mercedes had been too occupied to phone and fill her in with all the details and Charlie was dying to know what the other contestants were like. Mercedes had tackled the cookery challenge with relish and Charlie was pleased she had done so.

She expected there would be a new challenge for her to try soon and part of her was excited. The belly dancing had ended and she was surprised how much she missed the classes, and the girls. They had all changed since the classes began and not just physically. Susannah had just booked a holiday in Morocco with her husband and Marcia having had several different dates since the classes, was now with Mitch, a sports coach she had met on the Internet.

‘There are so many people in Cyberworld,' she'd told Charlie. ‘I'm so glad I signed up with an online agency. It's really difficult to find men in the real world. They're all married, in relationships or there's something wrong with them,' she'd scoffed. ‘You have to be careful online too. I've been doing this now for almost a year and I have met some right weird blokes. There was one guy who looked really buff. He sent a piccy of himself at the beach and he had pecs to make you swoon. I couldn't work out why he hadn't found a woman. He was an Adonis, I kid you not. I agreed to meet him in a bar. It's always wise to meet in a public place. You never know what they'll be like. If they're dangerous at least you're surrounded by other people.

‘We met in the Wetherspoons pub on the main street. It's usually busy there. I suggested we meet at six-thirty. That's a good time because the pubs have a few early doors punters and guys who grab a drink before they go home, but it isn't too crowded. I walked into the bar and looked about for this hunk. I couldn't see him anywhere. I was about to go and sit in a corner and wait for him when an old bloke, about sixty and bald as a coot, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Marcia?' It was him. He'd sent me a photograph taken forty years earlier. No wonder he was single. I told him he shouldn't do that and he replied, “Plenty of women do it. Hardly anyone looks like their photo on the dating website. I've met some right dogs and I've been out with women much older than me. So far, you're the only one who looks like her picture.” Then he added, “Shame! I'd hoped you'd be a bit older. Never mind. I expect you're a goer.” Cheeky bastard. I stormed out.' Charlie couldn't help but titter at her expression as Marcia had told the story.

‘Then there was the time a married guy met me. He looked tasty enough. He'd put he was single on his profile but I spied a wedding ring on his finger. When I quizzed him about his marital status, he said that he had one of those relaxed relationships where he and his wife banged other people. He got most enthusiastic about it, saying it was incredible the number of people he and his wife had met online who only wanted a casual sexual relationship. They'd tried swinging but they preferred this. And get this, his wife was in the same restaurant at another table with a bloke she'd met from the agency. Talk about crazy.'

Charlie nodded her affirmation at the last comment. Marcia was right. It was nigh on impossible to find male company if you were over thirty, let alone almost forty years old. Charlie did not want to hang about clubs or bars in the hope she would meet a free agent. However, she did not want to try online dating either. She was not sure she had the energy or desire to put up a profile of herself and then follow up all the dating requests. The way she felt at the moment, she was too tired and busy for a relationship anyway. Best to stick to her routine.

‘This is Charlie with you until six o'clock. I hope you're enjoying the music this evening. We've been asking you to come up with songs about the weather and you've managed some corkers. That's songs with titles or artists to do with the weather. I've got some great tracks for this half hour of uninterrupted music, starting off with The Weather Girls “It's Raining Men”.'

She sighed. It was never going to rain men in her life.