The Wall in the Head

by Christopher Beanland

‘Jesus.’

  ‘Don’t moan. If we don’t get this off the ground the powers that be want to do some demented sport-themed game show in the National Indoor Arena, when that opens next year. People chasing each other about like fucking idiots, dressed in spandex.’

  ‘Kill me now.’

  ‘Exactly. I can’t see it happening, don’t worry. But even more reason to make this dogs thing work, right?’

  6

  2008

  I went home and got down face first on the living room floor. I fumbled around with my right hand, fingering the hairy carpet in search of the remote control. I pressed the on button and then the channel up button over and over again: screen after screen of people arguing or food sizzling or animals or cricket or men in police uniforms or adverts for kitchen cleaners or people standing behind a podium with a number and a name on it or cartoon animals or more men in uniform or adverts for nappies or someone travelling on a train thirty years ago. My attention was finally caught by an attractive woman in front of a map of Britain. I rolled over. ‘Millie?’ She’d been in my English seminars at Leeds University. Now she was pointing towards the Hebrides and explaining something about strong winds. She flashed a pearly grin as she finished speaking. The forecast seemed to culminate and an advert for a personal finance product appeared.

  I went next door to the cardboard box of unloved videos and found another VHS tape. I put it in the machine and pressed play. It was I Love My Dog! I groaned and, without thinking, said out loud, ‘What were we…’

  *

  [Title music – absolutely horrendous computer-generated dog noises layered over some kind of pathetic synthesiser track which has been slowed down and manipulated to make it sound friendly to the ears of older viewers.]

  Title card – I Love My Dog!

  [Bob appears from the gap between two velvet curtains, spinning a huge bone-shaped slice of plastic about three feet long. He hands it to a woman wearing a sort of burlesque outfit, who curtsies and blows him a kiss. Bob winks at the camera. What the fuck is he doing? What the fuck was I doing? I wrote the line he speaks next.]

  Bob: ‘It’s… I Love My Dog! I’m going to lead you up the garden path today with two local dogs who want to go from dogsbodies to champion hounds!’ [Applause – but muted as there are only about thirty-five people, and when I say ‘people’ I do mean ‘grandmas and granddads’ – in the studio audience.] ‘In a minute, we’ll have our first challenge – where we’ll see which dog is…’ [Bob widens his eyes and makes a ‘come on then’ gesture of desperate encouragement towards the audience, willing them, pleading with them to join in with the next line. They do, albeit without much fizz.] ‘…barking up the wrong tree!’

  [Burlesque woman wheels out a cardboard tree about twelve feet tall on a trolley. On the trunk it reads, ‘THE WRONG TREE’.]

  ‘So tonight we…’

  *

  Pause. I Love My Dog! lasted for four series. Four. Can you believe that? It was a game show for dogs and their owners, and I had to write the scripts for Bob. He horsed around and petted a poodle or whatever bloody dog it was on the show that week. There were always two dogs, and two owners.

  ‘The things you do for money,’ I groaned. No one was listening, of course. I opened a beer. I had to. Bob was a producer now. In fact, since everyone had fucked off or been fired from Mids, he’d also ended up as programme controller purely by dint of having been squatting there the longest. He’d left that presenting silliness behind him.

  There was only one thing I wrote that I was actually happy with. Really happy with. And it wasn’t even a comedy. Hail To The Brummies. It was a celebration of the city. I wrote the words, Baxter said them, and we got The Rationalists to do the music. This was something I was really proud of, a real celebration of life in Birmingham. No tapes of it remained. They’d all been wiped by some jobsworth at the studios. Maybe if I went back in to work I could also have a nose around and see if they’d left a copy under a filing cabinet somewhere. Hail To The Brummies wasn’t a comedy, it was earnest. It was something proper. Deep down I sensed that writing serious stuff was somehow better, more worthy, more becoming. Seriousness was something to be proud of, comedy something to be embarrassed about at a later date.

  Play.

  *

  Bob: ‘…have two dogs to meet. So let’s meet tonight’s first canine competitor. He’s a beagle from right here in Birmingham called Breuer.’ [Zoom in on my dog.] ‘And here’s Breuer’s owner, please welcome the gorgeous… Belinda!’ [Zoom in on my wife.]

  7

  1990

  ‘How’s the costume? Hot?’

  I tried to make a joke. ‘I think I’m sweating my organs out. Keep your eyes peeled for them.’

  Her lips formed a pout. Her eyes narrowed inquisitively.

  ‘How’s yours?’ I pointed at her dungarees. They looked a bit out of date.

  ‘Fine, thanks. Practical. Why have you come in here?’

  ‘You’re very direct.’

  ‘I’m very German.’

  ‘Do you know where the, er, toilets are?’

  ‘Yes, just over there.’ While still looking at me she pointed towards a corner where two ribbed concrete walls met at a point.

  ‘Over there?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’re leading me astray.’

  ‘Would you like me to lead you astray?’

  ‘Your English is good. I’m impressed.’

  ‘My mother spoke English round the house. It was very easy to learn that way.’

  ‘Was she English?’

  ‘No, she was German.’

  I sat down at the desk opposite, looked into her eyes. She blinked once and tilted her head. She hadn’t taken her hands off the big book – the same big book she’d been holding outside a few minutes ago. I looked at the front cover. It read Birmingham’s Concrete Dreams. The letters sat on top of a photo. A caterpillar straddling a canal seemed to be hiding in the photo. Or was it a motorway?

  ‘Can I ask your name?’

  ‘Belinda.’

  ‘Hi, Belinda.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Would you like to know my name?’

  ‘Not particularly. But I’ll listen if you want to tell me, if you want to get it off your chest.’

  ‘It’s Donald.’

  ‘Now I know.’

  ‘So you’re studying architecture?’

  ‘That’s right.’ She lifted the book up. ‘I’m trying. It takes a long time. Years.’

  ‘Do you like the architecture of this building? Not everyone does.’

  ‘I do. It’s mind-boggling. I think that eventually people will realise that. People might even get sentimental about the age it came from.’

  ‘Brummies aren’t very sentimental, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s a shame. Buildings are so important, so precious. They’re the backdrops to our lives.’

  ‘That’s so true. Are you a romantic?’

  ‘Yes. I’m Prussian. But also romantic. Are you, Donald?’

  ‘Hmmm, am I? I’ve never really thought about it that way before.’

  ‘Does the chicken costume make you feel romantic?’ She raised an eyebrow. It sounded like a joke. I made laughter come out of my mouth on the off chance.

  ‘Not really!’

  ‘And how is that job – wearing a chicken costume? Does it pay well?’

  ‘Not… egg-sactly…’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. Was that a joke?’

  ‘Maybe. You know my job isn’t just to wear this costume? I’m doing it to help out on the shoot today. Our budgets aren’t so huge.’

  ‘I think the lady doth protest too much. It’s fine that you’re a professional chicken impersonator.’ She seemed pleased with this line, and if she was happy, I was happy.

  ‘It’s the scripts that I do.’

  ‘The scripts. You write what the chicken says?’

  ‘I write what a lot of chickens, horses, dogs a
nd even humans say. I’m a writer.’

  ‘A writer. Have you written a book? Is it in here?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. I write things that you watch on TV.’

  ‘I don’t watch TV.’

  ‘One day I’ll write other things too. Maybe. For now, scripts. And jokes. Lots of jokes about Birmingham, especially.’

  ‘Well that sounds interesting. I’m getting fond of Birmingham. Its weirdness is… creeping up on me?’

  ‘Good! I’m a Brummie.’

  ‘Wow, a real Brummie.’

  ‘Do you live in Selly Oak?’

  ‘I do. Do you?’

  ‘No, in Moseley. That’s where you said you worked, right? When we chatted outside just now.’

  ‘Yes, in the Bride of Bescot. A few nights a week. Ever been in there?’

  ‘Do you know what, I have. But I haven’t ever seen you in there. I wish I had.’

  ‘Maybe you will one day. Or if not, then in Selly Oak.’

  ‘I’d like that. Do you think we could arrange something? Could I maybe… maybe take you for a drink one evening? In Moseley. Or Selly Oak. Or somewhere else.’

  She drummed her fingers on the book cover and made a ‘Hmmmm’ noise.

  ‘Or how about a glass of wine?’ She looked confused when I said this. I looked confused. I’m not really sure why I said it or what I meant. Probably that wine wasn’t a ‘drink’ in the sense that drinking pints of Birmingham Bitter was, that it was qualitatively different to going for a drink because it was much more than that – it was a chance to savour something classy rather than getting rat-arsed. It was a chance to impress her.

  ‘How about you go to the toilet then come back? I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Sure.’

  As I was walking back from the toilets I could already see the desk where Bel was just sitting had been vacated. I felt pretty empty. When I arrived I looked around a bit, but there was no sign of her hiding between the bookshelves. Instead I saw a piece of paper abandoned on the desk. I picked it up and unfolded it. It had an 021 telephone number written on it, followed by the letters ‘B’ and ‘x’. I jumped up, punched the air and shouted, ‘YES.’ An elderly reader turned around and stared as if he’d just witnessed a crime. A young woman in an aqua wool jumper glared at me, looking askance at the poultry costume, at me talking.

  ‘Bartholomew’s,’ I decided out loud. ‘Sod the drink. I’ll suggest dinner. A steak at Bartholomew’s.’

  An old lady wearing a plum cardigan and a kindly face sidled up to me and grinned. She beckoned me to come down closer, towards her face. She opened her mouth and whispered, ‘We really don’t care if you’re going to a steakhouse or to the moon. Will you please just shut the fuck up? This is a library. I’m trying to learn about my family’s links to the Quakers. Thanks.’ Then she smiled again and sidled away at a snail’s pace.

  8

  2008

  I parked the car outside the studios. Grey clouds rolled overhead, setting a sombre tone. I sat there for about forty-five minutes, surrounded by mid-range saloons which had been spray-painted the same dour colour as today’s sky by robots in factories somewhere else. I sat there because I was summoning up some courage. I wound the window down and smoked a cigarette. The surfaces on the interior of the car were covered in cheap, grotty plastic. The plastic seemed to attract dust and grease. A car was ultimately just a machine for moving around in, for snacking in, for smoking in, for dropping sweet wrappers in. Brum. This is where cars were born in a previous age. The perfect place to sire these no-nonsense boxes on wheels. The place where the car was more intricately slotted into the fabric of the city than anywhere else in Britain. The place where buildings were designed to be like cars: machines that just did the job in a modern, practical way. No glitz, no shit. When I thrummed my fingers on the wheel the claustrophobia of being inside this tin can was amplified. The silence that existed before and after the thrumming seemed to be turned up. Some cars were even quiet when you were doing 100 mph down the M40. You could fall asleep in them. Bel sometimes slept in the passenger seat as we drove home from a walk in the Malvern Hills or a trip to one of those enormous Scandinavian furniture stores laid out like mazes and which take a day to escape from. I got out of the car, leaned on the bonnet and smoked another. I felt as though I looked like a cop in the kind of shit drama show Mids TV made right here in the 1970s.

  The studios looked sullen. I guess I’d never really examined them before. You don’t, do you? Everyday life passes the everyday chap by. But let’s look at them now. We often called the whole place, the whole of the Mids TV HQ, ‘the studios’, as in ‘Meet you at the studios’, but in fact the complex was split into distinct parts. There’s a big box with curved sides that stretches down towards the canal. That’s the studios themselves. The curvature isn’t even; it’s punctuated by protruding cubes and recessed squares along its length. The suspicion you get is that an ogre wearing a knuckleduster gave the building his best left hook. It’s bashed in. And not just by design. When they used to run motor races around Brum’s closed-off Inner Ring Road (perfect city for that caper, right?) a racing car once crashed into the studio complex. The commentators inside couldn’t believe that they were describing a car crashing into a wall fifty feet away from them. The French driver who crashed escaped any injury, and, when he’d struggled out of the cockpit, nonchalantly lit a fag until the rescue teams arrived looking frantic. The exhaust pipe is still embedded into the outside of the studio. The programmes themselves were made in there: filmed and edited in there. There are no windows because you create unnatural light when you film. It could have been any time of day or night outside, but inside it was either pitch black when the studios were empty, or dazzlingly, sickeningly bright when the cameras rolled. The lights generated so much heat that everyone appearing under them had to wear make-up because sweat poured from you without your say-so.

  Round the other side of the studios, facing the library and Paradise Circus, is a low boxy sort of building, not covered in blackened concrete but instead glazed and grubby. At street level a run of public spaces – shops and some cafes fronting onto a square. Above those public areas, the bar and canteen that all the workers and guests at Mids could use. The canteen was always sparsely filled with people eating their joyless portions of fish with chips and peas, hamburgers and beans, or roast pork and boiled potatoes. The smell that sat in the air reminded me of washing that hadn’t been aired properly, musty and stale and disheartening. The bar was much, much more fun. That smelled of cigs and bad cologne, of pheromones and sweat and hunger. There were chairs around, but no one was there to sit still. And then there was the office tower – tall, 1970s vintage, brave, poised. The office tower I jumped off. Belinda loved it all, of course. She cooed over what a glamorous and utopian spirit it expressed. I took her to the top of the tower, got the keys off the porter, and guided her out to the roof – where you’re not supposed to go. She clung on tight to me as the wind whipped into us. Her cynicism melted. It was murder to light a cigarette up there. Her world was academia and underpasses. I sold her cocktails and skyline views, TV razzle-dazzle, glamour and art for the people. Everything’s relative – in Brum, Mids TV seemed like the last word in metropolitan glitz. If you were up from London, it must all have looked as pathetic as the city it sat in. But to us, it was cool. Decadent and disgusting at the same time – like a prawn korma served with a Peshwari naan.

  Inside the office block, everything looked the same as when I was last here. The spiteful furniture and the tea stains and the dying ficuses. Up on the production office floor where my desk was, Baxter was polishing his glasses. He looked up but he didn’t say anything. He never said anything until he was on camera. Only then would he let rip with a stream of poetic verbiage that dazzled me – and caused Midlands viewers to scratch their heads, reach for thesauri, or simply change channels.

  I walked across the sticky grey ocean of carpet to Bob’s office. He wasn’t in. I tried to fin
d Kate, production manager and drinking buddy; understander of me, somehow. I shuffled over to her desk, but there was just a volcano of paperwork slung all over it. I asked a girl I didn’t recognise if she knew where Bob was.

  Her reply? ‘The bar.’

  The Mids TV bar was where we’d written Welcome To The Masshouse, while shit-faced – on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. I used to think it was glamorous, that we were warriors. When you’re young things excite you; they seem important.

  The walls were made of exposed concrete which looked like bowls of Weetabix had been slung sideways and eventually dried out. Red and black squares of paint appeared seemingly at random. A long, sleek, jet-coloured bar ran down one side; on the other were tall plate-glass windows with low tables and groups of easy chairs with exterior views. The bar was two floors up so you could look down on the street life. I walked out onto the bar’s small al fresco terrace, which jutted out over the piazza. Bob was there, leaning back into a black faux-leather chair, fag in hand.

  ‘The fucking wanderer returns.’ He got up and gave me a chunky, fatherly hug.

  ‘I enjoyed that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Pint?’ I offered.

  ‘Yep.’

  I came back with the beers.

  ‘Have you been drinking with anyone?’

  ‘Nope.’ I hesitated. ‘On my own. A bit.’ A lot.

  ‘Have you been out?’

  ‘Not really… the shops?’ I didn’t mention the suicide attempts.

  Bob’s wrinkles stretched themselves. His big sallow jowls dangled. His eyes reflected my own unhappiness back at me. ‘Come on, sport. Remember that song? The one that goes “Life is like a mountain railroad”? There’ll be ups and downs. We all miss her terribly too. I’m here; you can come in every day and we can just get pissed. It’ll get me out of whatever shit game show I’m supposed to be producing next.’