Acquired Tastes (6 page)

'By definition that means they wouldn't be a comedian,' Hugo drawled. 'I can see it now.' He held up his hands and gestured quote marks.

' “Tune in to the terminally PC quiz show and win a package holiday for two in Cuba, the only socialist paradise left in the world.” '

Philip raised his hand to silence Hugo.

'A quiz show is not such a bad idea, Hugo,' he said mildly. 'They're cheap, they get high ratings if the format and the prizes are right, and the Network is always on the look out for good ones to act as building blocks in the schedule. My real problem is that this feels a bit dated. Factories are not exactly a Nineties image.'

I think we should consider it.' Vanessa's voice was laced with sarcasm. 'After all, audiences like nostalgia. We could dress the workers in flat caps and clogs as a reminder of the time when they knew their place.'

Vijay flushed an angry red. He looked ready to abandon his pacifist ideals.

Philip held up a calming hand again. 'I'm not dismissing this one out of hand Vijay, but I think we should put it on a back-burner for the time being.' He turned to Vanessa. 'Perhaps you would like to share your proposal with us now, Vanessa.'

Vanessa bathed the meeting with another radiant smile.

'I, too, have an idea for an audience participation show, but one, as they say, with a difference. As we all know, the Network is keen on the Great British Public seeing real people just like themselves on TV - everyone wants their ten minutes of fame…'

'It's fifteen minutes,' Vijay interrupted, 'everyone always gets it wrong. What Andy Warhol
actually
said was that in the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes, although of course one has to fully understand the context in which he…' his flow of words suddenly dried up as he saw the glacial expression in Vanessa's eyes.

'As I was saying, ' she continued, 'people will do almost anything to get their ten minutes of fame and I intend to give them the means to achieve their wish - or should I say fantasy. What I am proposing is that we ask people to tell us their favourite sexual fantasy, we’ll pick the best, and then we’ll film them fulfilling their wildest dreams in glorious Technicolor.'

Vanessa paused and looked around. She had her audience enthralled: like rabbits mesmerised by car headlights.

'This show has all the ingredients of success: sex, wish-fulfilment, and best of all, people making fools of themselves. Audiences will love it.'

She sat back and waited for a reaction.

There was silence.

Philip cleared his throat and in an odd voice asked: 'Have you thought of a title yet?'

Vanessa smiled sweetly.
'Forbidden Fruit'

Philip straightened his jotter unnecessarily. 'Could you perhaps expand a little more on how you see the show, Vanessa. Sex can be such a sticky subject.' He smiled weakly at his double entendre. 'It's not that I'm against sex on television, everyone knows my record as a campaigner for freedom of artistic expression, but one has to accept that in the present political climate, broadcasters must tread carefully.'

'But that's the beauty of my idea, Philip,' Vanessa said triumphantly. 'It's based on new research that says it's healthy to act out our sexual fantasies, so we can use the research to justify the show and win some brownie points for health education!'

Philip stroked his chin.

'Has this research been published yet?'

Vanessa shook her head.

'Could we get the exclusive rights to it?'

'They're already in the bag.'

'And the format?'

'Studio based with an audience,' she said promptly. 'Audience participation always adds atmosphere. Think of
Blind Date.
We could have video inserts for the more exotic locations and even home videos like
You’ve Been Framed
. Think what fun we could have with a whole section of home videos showing what can go wrong - losing the keys for the handcuffs, your mother-in-law calling round unexpectedly - a kind of fantasy nightmare. It could bring a whole new meaning to the warning “please don’t try this at home!” '

Philip drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment, deep in thought. Then he nodded to himself, it was so simple it could work. Sex sold, and what he desperately needed now was a series he could sell to the Network. All he had to do was to dress it up so that it would look respectable, rather than like a streetwalker behind Kings Cross Station.

'I like it. It has definite possibilities. A few problems too, but I definitely like it.'

'But it's exploitative, it's worse than Page Three …' protested Vijay.

'Since it's the workers you think so wonderful who gawp at the bare tits on Page Three during their two-hour tea-breaks, I don't see why you should object to it on television,' Vanessa taunted him.

'I like it too,' Hugo announced suddenly. 'It has strong visual potential.'

He leapt up and began to pace up and down, running his hands through his hair. 'Let me run this by you. Imagine a Roman orgy: mounds of writhing bodies, dancing girls, grotesque dwarves, eunuchs, muscular black slaves, naked except for golden chains, their bodies oiled and glistening. I could shoot it in the style of one of those early Hollywood epics - the stuff they used to do before the Hays lot started laying down the law. We could even go all grainy and black and white like Fellini, but using computer graphics. What do you think?”

Philip cleared his throat again. 'I hear what you're saying, Hugo, and I don't want to rule anything out at this point in time, but I suspect we may have to think of economies of scale.' Hugo shrugged and slumped back into his chair as though exhausted by his effort.

Philip turned to Vanessa. 'Have you given any thought to a presenter yet?'

'I've spent a long time on that one,' Vanessa lied, 'but given the subject matter, I haven't been able to come up with anyone who has the right kind of gravitas combined with the ability to pull in audiences.'

'I think it should be a woman,' Philip was resolute. 'If we had a man it could look like it was mere pornography, just another men's locker-room show. A woman presenter would avoid that accusation.'

He had been thinking fast. The series would be easier to sell to the Network with a well-known name fronting it, but household names were expensive and over-protective about their images. They needed someone who was no longer a front-rank celebrity, but still well-known enough to draw audiences yet willing to take risks with their image. Most of all, they had to be cheap. There was an old friend of his …

'It's a bit of a wild card, but how about Gabriella Wolfe?'

'Don't say she's still alive,' drawled Hugo, 'whatever happened to her?'

'Gabriella has her own very successful satellite chat show in Italy,' said Philip defensively.

'Ah, so she's gone to the great TV personality graveyard in the sky,' Hugo grinned.

'But she's so
passé,'
protested Vanessa. 'I think we should go for someone new and fresh.'

'I disagree,' Hugo interrupted. 'If we're going Hollywood Babylon, then Gabriella, with all that cleavage and those eyelashes, fits the image perfectly: kitschy
and
trashy.'

Philip looked pained.

'Well, I always thought Gabriella was rather nice when she used to read the news,' Rosie ventured, 'and my mother never missed her chat show. She always used to have her supper on a tray so she could watch it.'

'There's our audience for you,' Philip said triumphantly. 'Gabriella it is then. Now, I want a more detailed proposal by … where are we now?'

He checked his desk calendar. 'Let's say by the beginning of next week. We've got to move fast on this one.'

Vanessa started to protest again about Gabriella, but Philip held up his hand.

'I have taken an executive decision Vanessa, let's just get this show on the road, shall we?'

The meeting was over.

Jeremy sat hunched up on Vanessa's front door step. He had been waiting for nearly three hours. He knew he was not meant to be there until six o'clock but he had nowhere else to go. He stared dully down at the suitcase and two overstuffed plastic carrier bags which threatened to spew their contents onto the pavement on the step beside him. They contained all the possessions he owned in the world. Not much for a man who would be forty this year.

Why was he sitting here waiting for Vanessa, of all people? If anyone was to blame for his problems it was her. He had been disinherited by his father, disowned by his mother, he was unemployed, homeless and broke and all because of Vanessa.

If only he'd married Chloe. His mother had said he should.
Everyone
said he should. She would have been such a suitable wife and would have done all the things that wives are meant to do, like have children and cook meals. Not like Vanessa. But if he was being absolutely honest with himself - and he liked to think he could be - that wasn’t that why he had wanted to marry Vanessa? She was different and dangerous, and his mother hadn't liked her.

He was not a natural rebel. In fact, he rather liked things to be in their place. It made him feel comfortable. He had been quite willing to choose his wife out of the suitable girls his mother made sure he met, by inviting them to house parties or suggesting he play tennis doubles with them. He chose Chloe because she seemed fragile and he enjoyed feeling protective towards her. Most of the other girls who moved in his circle were a little too hearty for his tastes. They seemed to be able to deliver a foal, cook a five-course dinner for ten and drive a Land Rover all at the same time. Chloe had been the perfect antidote to all that until he met Vanessa.

It had been a particularly good day for him, or so he thought at the time. It was the first day of the cricket season, and something of a grudge match against the opposing team led by that idiot Gavin. They were at school together, but he had avoided Gavin and his like-minded flashy friends who only talked about money like the plague. So it had been rather galling to discover, years later, that their respective cricket teams played in the same minor league. The competition between them was fanatical, and Jeremy had sworn revenge on Gavin after his team had won the league trophy the season before - but only because the last match was washed out. To win the first match of the new season by bowling out Gavin had made victory even sweeter.

He had been walking back to the pavilion when he first saw Vanessa. She strode towards him like some burnished Amazon and within moments had taken command of both him and the situation.

If only Chloe had been there that day instead of away on some cookery, or was it a flower arranging, course? And if only his mother Henrietta had not been so set against Vanessa, perhaps it would have been a brief affair - one last mad fling before he settled down to the security of marriage with dear little Chloe. But the moment Henrietta and Vanessa met, it had been war, with him as the prize. Both sides had wielded their weapons to inflict maximum damage, Henrietta using filial loyalty and Vanessa sex. Sex had won. He married Vanessa within two months of meeting her.

He thought that everything would change after the wedding. Henrietta would accept Vanessa as his wife, babies would come along, and everyone would live happily ever after. How could he have been so wrong?

It had never crossed his mind to ask Vanessa before they got married whether she wanted to have babies, he had taken it for granted, surely
all
woman wanted babies. After all, what were women for? Her refusal to have any had felt like a physical blow. It made him take a long, hard look at himself and, for the first time in his life, he realised how much he wanted some small being to look up at him and call him Daddy.

His mother made it even worse. He would have liked to talk to her, perhaps even have received some comfort from her, but she refused to have any mention of Vanessa made in her presence and the set of her mouth said it all. She had told him so.

Nanny Greig had been more encouraging. She suggested that he give Vanessa a little more time. According to Nanny Greig, a woman's hormones always took over.

He had taken her advice and he had tried to be patient. Nanny Greig's predictions, like her potions for sore tummies, usually worked. They moved out of their flat in Fulham and bought a five-bedroom, three-reception house near Clapham Common. Vanessa had hated the idea at first because she considered south of the river to be foreign territory, but then she discovered how many media people lived there and agreed. Jeremy had wanted to buy the house because he thought it would make the perfect family home. He looked out at the hundred-foot garden and imagined it strewn with toys and echoing with the sounds of happy children. And while he patiently waited for Vanessa's hormones to do their job, it was to the garden he turned to fulfil his unspoken need to see things grow.

At first his ambitions had been modest: a nice lawn, neat flower beds and a small patio with a barbecue for the garden parties Vanessa wanted to throw for her neighbours. He soon discovered he possessed a surprising talent for nurturing plants and as his sense of achievement grew, so did his sense of adventure. After watching a Channel 4 programme on organic gardening, he carefully disposed of all his chemical fertilisers and insecticides and made a vow to work hand in hand with Mother Nature.

He bought a rotavator, and his carefully striped lawn disappeared under rows of lettuces, Chinese cabbages, radishes and onions, all of which grew lush and chemical free. He agonised over Big Bud Mites and Mealy Aphids, and harboured murderous intentions towards the neighbourhood cats whose unsanitary habits showed a total disregard for his prized kohlrabi.

Being a gardener opened up a whole new world of seed catalogues, garden centres and chats across the fence with fellow enthusiasts. He even joined a local organic gardening club, which was how he met Belle.

Belle was a guest speaker at the club. She gave a talk on the importance of gardening as an expression of feminist creativity exemplified by the efforts of Vita Sackville-West. Jeremy had not heard much of what she was saying as he was more intent on studying her.