Geek Tragedy (10 page)

‘They’re looking for you darling. You’re late for the fancy dress. I’ve come to escort you.’

He gingerly picked up the book and put it on his bedside cabinet—for further inspection.

CONVIX 15 / EARTH ORBIT ONE / 8.00pm

EVENT: FANCY DRESS COMPETITION

LOCATION: Vixos Central Nerve Centre (main stage, ballroom)

Vanity swept down the hotel stairway, accompanied by Mervyn. To the more generous onlookers, she looked like a star in a 1940s musical. To the less generous ones she looked like Bela Lugosi gliding down the steps of his Transylvanian castle. Scuttling alongside was the thin-faced girl in the cardigan, never speaking, never more than three feet away from Vanity.

‘I waited for you darling, and you never came. That was naughty.’

‘Ah. No. Well you know what this place is like. I got waylaid by a fan who kept me busy.’
Well that was only half a lie, wasn’t it?
he thought.

‘Oh drat. And I had such a marvellous surprise for you too. Perhaps later.’

‘Well… Thanks for dropping me a copy off, anyway.’

‘Sorry dear? What did I drop?’

‘Your autobiography. Didn’t you?’

Her mouth twitched with amusement. ‘I didn’t darling. Well you
are
a lucky boy. Someone up there must like you. Don’t get too shocked at what I wrote about you…’ She swanned off, ignoring a gaggle of fans that had congregated in the few short seconds the three of them had been stationary, leaving a very puzzled Mervyn.

Evening fell like a shroud on the hotel. Mervyn watched the darkness cloud the windows of the foyer. And shivered.

The fancy dress beckoned.

*

Mervyn was back on stage in the ballroom, only this time the chairs had been moved towards the wings to create a bit of space and a large banner hung overhead. He was sitting with Nicholas and Smurf, behind a trestle table that had been glammed up for the occasion. It was covered in a white cloth decorated with cut-out stars covered with glitter. There was a vacant chair at the end, labelled ‘Andrew Jamieson’.

Simon took to the stage, dressed in a hideous jacket and bow tie. ‘How marvellous to see you both,’ he oozed, addressing Mervyn and Nicholas. ‘I always knew I could count on you two to show up.’ He gestured off the stage. ‘This should only take an hour, then you’re free to do as you wish.’

Smurf crossed his arms, huffing. ‘Did you see that? Completely blanked me. Charming. What am I, chopped liver? I thought I was only invisible
inside
the bloody costume.’

Simon didn’t hear. He bounced up to the microphone. ‘Hi everyone, I hope you’re ready for a good time! The bar’s been stocking up since February!’

There was a thin cheer from the audience that was intended to sound hearty and hard-drinking. It didn’t.

‘Now, I’m afraid that we can’t seem to find Andrew Jamieson at the moment. But thankfully—and I’m sure you’ll all agree she’s being a super sport to step in at the last minute—everyone’s favourite force-field operator… Katherine Warner!’

‘Oh balls. Here she comes…’ sighed Nicholas as she appeared onstage.

Katherine Warner had been an up-and-coming young actress in 1985, climbing the television ladder with a minor sitcom part here, a small role on
Triangle
there. She was originally considered as Arkadia, and she’d had several meetings with Nicholas in which he’d all but offered her the part.

Unfortunately, along came Vanity.

Vanity was also doing the same minor parts as Katherine, but she’d recently appeared in a Duran Duran video wearing little more than silver paint and a tiny thong. There were rumours of a relationship with Simon Le Bon, spread by Vanity’s agent. Suddenly, every TV series wanted her to be in their casts just to cash in on the publicity. In the eyes of the Beeb bosses, Katherine was suddenly deemed not high-profile enough to front a prime-time BBC drama. Vanity Mycroft’s star was in the ascendant, and the rest was history.

Katherine did eventually get a part in the show—a cameo as a Force-Field Technician in ‘Day of the Styrax’. Mervyn remembered that some wag—he feared it was him—had said that if she put all her
Vixens
publicity shots together in a pile and flicked through them quickly, it would create an animation lasting longer than the time she spent on-screen.

Katherine blamed Nicholas for not having the gumption to stand up to the BBC and cast her, as she regarded herself—rightly—as the better actress. As her career failed to scale the heights of Vanity’s, the bitterness festered; it was mostly directed towards Vanity for usurping her, but there was more than enough left over to vent at Nicholas for betraying her.

Nicholas made a jokey half-attempt to get under the table as she appeared. All the fans knew their history, of course, and some laughed at Nicholas’s mock show of cowardice.

She sat down, shone a glittering smile at the audience, and hugged Nicholas to show there were no hard feelings. During the next round of applause she leaned over to the former producer and whispered. ‘You could have stayed under the tablecloth, Nicholas. The colour of surrender suits you.’ Nicholas laughed back as if she’d just told him the best joke in the world.

Simon continued. ‘As most of you know, it is our custom each year to concentrate on particular eras of this show we all love. This year, for example, we’re concentrating on series two…in particular “Day of the Styrax’, which was, of course, recorded at Betchworth Quarry at Reigate on the 25th to the 28th of May 1987, and in the BBC Television Centre’s studio 8 on the 11th and 12th of June 1987…’

One of the many, many, many things that made Simon so uniquely punchable was his assumption that everyone else had as much of an encyclopaedic knowledge about the show as he did. Mervyn could barely remember the damn story names, let alone some extra who’d played third non-speaking monster on the left 20 years ago.

Simon’s hand flicked up to where the hastily made banner hung limply above them. On it were the words ‘The Sheldon Ellis Memorial Fancy Dress Contest’.

‘Now, I know Sheldon Ellis didn’t work on that particular episode, being let go some three months before the recording of “Day of the Styrax”.’

Nicholas moved uncomfortably in his seat.

‘But it was during the last day of filming, the “wrap” party afterwards…’—his lips curled around the technical TV term, savouring it—‘that he sadly died in a tragic fire at his home in Epping.’

The fans in costume looked very sombre. A few squeezed out tears, which mingled with eye-shadow and ran slowly down their powdered cheeks like tiny black slugs.

‘Sheldon worked on the start of series two, a very popular member of the team,’ Simon continued. Mervyn expected a disbelieving snort from somewhere along the table—he threw a sideways glance at Smurf, but he was remarkably restrained, his face inscrutable. ‘But alas, he never got a chance to return for the climax.’ He paused. ‘And, because this event is dedicated to him, it’s…ahem…going to be a wee bit shorter than usual!’

A profound silence fell across the room, curdling the atmosphere and chilling the blood. Simon’s microphone squealed in pain at the appalling joke.

‘Ahem… Now, by way of tribute, we
were
going to have on this very stage one of the Styrax he used, as a sort of guest of honour. Unfortunately it can’t be here because it’s indisposed.’

Laughter. At last. Simon gave a loud wink at Mervyn.

‘Or should I say, It’s
been
disposed. It’s all piled up in bits in my room.’

More laughter; relief flooded through Mervyn’s body. The fact that Simon was making light of it eased the tension he’d been feeling. ‘See you at the party afterwards!’ Simon shouted, and disappeared from the stage. The fancy dress had begun.

When Mervyn watched the news, it always amused him that whenever they reported on a catastrophe or global threat they always used Wales as a measurement of disaster. It was always ‘the hole in the ozone layer is growing by an area the size of Wales every year.’
What
, he thought,
would they do if Wales was laid waste? How would we know how disastrous it was? What would they compare it to?
He got the answer, when he judged his first fancy dress competition.

He now knew that should Wales crumble, the newsflash strapline would read: ‘An area the size of a
Vixens from the Void
fan in a home-made costume has just been destroyed.’

A dozen contestants thudded into view, the stage lights picking up every lump and nodule of their strange asymmetrical bodies. Half were dressed in Vixen-style kinky boots, lurid basques and silver cloaks. If they were aspiring to approximate the look of the original actresses in their 1980s heyday, most of them weren’t within a light-year. They were all far too fat, squat or scrawny to begin to look vaguely Vixenish. Large dimpled bottoms bulged out alarmingly from fishnet tights, straining against the netting like freshly-caught hauls of whitebait. Pale breasts lay quivering in their corset cups like raw eggs, too flabby or underdeveloped to fill them with any degree of eroticism.

Mervyn tried to assess them as they all stood in a row. The effect was like a fairground hall of mirrors into which had wandered an unlikely transsexual. If Mervyn was able to present an award for complete absence of shame or self-awareness, he would probably give it to the Vixen at the end, who was five-feet nothing and approximately 17 stone.

‘Look at the state of them…’

‘Relax, Mervyn,’ sighed Nicholas. ‘They’re just having fun. It’s a harmless pastime.’

‘You won’t say it’s harmless if that one wins,’ he jerked a finger at the largest. ‘I hear first prize is the chance to sit on your knee.’

‘Actually darling,’ grinned Nicholas, ‘first prize is to attend the celebrity breakfast… With
you
and Vanity.’

‘Oh God.’

Two of the contestants were dressed in purple bathing caps and boiler suits. That fact was the reason behind the angry whispers exchanged between them.

‘I didn’t know you were going to be a Groolian!’

‘Well, you didn’t tell me you were coming as one either!’

‘I didn’t think I had to! What did you think that boiler suit was doing hanging in my shed?’

‘Oh
yeah
! Now you say that, it’s
sooo
obvious!’

They realised Mervyn was staring at them, and they froze, embarrassed smiles jammed on their faces. One pointed at what they were both wearing. ‘Our costumes…’ he stuttered. ‘The same.’

‘Ah.’

‘Bit embarrassing,’ said the other.

‘Oh.’

‘You must think us right ‘nanas.’

‘Noooo,’ soothed Mervyn. ‘Nonono. Not at all. In fact, I thought you’d come as a delegation.’

‘Of course!’

‘Oh yeah! ‘

‘That’s right! We’re a delegation!’

They resumed their positions in the line-up, much consoled. ‘We’re a delegation,’ they said to the immobile Styrax next to them.

As Mervyn ticked off the minutes in his head, he surveyed the ersatz Vixens. Well, there was one who didn’t look too bad… In fact she looked very good indeed. She filled her corset in the best way possible—did he see a cheeky nipple poking its head above the parapet? She was a bit short, but her legs were shapely and the fishnet tights complemented them wonderfully. They didn’t have the ‘pair of large uncooked German sausages’ look that the others did.

The girl glanced across at him and winked. Mervyn’s blood surged. It was Minnie! She somehow managed to wriggle herself along the line-up so she was nearest the judges’ table. She leaned over the desk towards him, so close that he suddenly found himself sporting a pair of earmuffs.

‘Hi,’ she hissed in his ear. ‘I’ve been thinking about you.’

‘Really. I’ve been thinking about you too.’

This wasn’t a lie. He
had
been thinking about her. He’d been thinking:
oh dear, I think I’ve accidentally had sex with a lunatic fan trophy hunter.

Because her cloak was acting as a miniature tent around his head, he was taking in great lungfuls of her perfume. He was feeling quite light-headed.

‘Were you okay after the panel?’

Mervyn nodded dumbly.

‘You went down pretty hard,’ she breathed in his ear.

Mervyn’s blood wasn’t frozen any more. It had unfrozen and was surging towards his penis.

‘I’m fine. You should have seen the Styrax,’ he said stupidly.

‘I’d like to see you going down hard again,’ she hissed.

‘Hoi!’ said a voice. One of the other Vixens was pointing at them. Mervyn didn’t know her name but for his personal identification purposes, he had written ‘Quasimodo’s sister’ on his pad. ‘She’s talking to a judge! Is she allowed to do that?’

Confusion broke out on stage. Simon wasn’t there. Morris’s voice echoed round the room. ‘There’s nothing in the rules to say she can’t.’

Order was restored and they picked a winner. Luckily it wasn’t Minnie. It was a hefty woman who’d squeezed inside a Major Karn costume she’d made out of a traffic warden’s uniform and some bike reflectors. Mervyn was impressed that she’d made an effort with the false moustache. Only to realise, on closer inspection, that she hadn’t.

Smurf presented her with the award. Unfortunately, with Smurf being the size he was, the woman had to bend down further than 45 degrees so he could loop the plastic medallion around her neck. There was a heart-thumping ‘thrrrp’ sound, and the woman’s trousers ripped open right along the seam, less than two feet from Mervyn’s head. For the second time in a few hours, Mervyn had a female backside pointed in his direction, only this was twice as big, and adorned with knickers that had ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’ written on them.

No fee is worth this
, he thought.

Ever the gentleman, he whipped the tablecloth off the table like a conjurer (there the resemblance ended. At that very second, Nicholas had finished pouring himself some water, and placed the jug back on the table. Pens, notebooks and the water jug went flying) and draped it around the fan’s ample hips.

Oh. That was interesting.