by Alexei Sayle
Kate buckled up her shiny plastic helmet, gave the straps holding in Milo one last safety check and set off, resolving, for the first time ever, to go head on, into the traffic.
But she didn’t, she couldn’t force herself to do it; she went through the one-way system as usual and was a bit late for work.
Instead Cicely drove into and killed a bicycle messenger called Darren Barley who was a complete waste of fucking space and deserved to die.
CLIVE HOLE
1
Tatum and Cherry were two television producers who were married to each other and who both worked for the BBC. They were having a proper tea at Cherry’s mum’s house. They both liked a proper tea with cakes and sandwiches and scones and clotted cream and home-made jams but Tatum refused to pay inflated hotel prices when Cherry’s mum would do it for free. Cherry was a very handsome woman, like her mother (Tatum sometimes fantasised about shagging them both). Tatum wasn’t handsome, he was the other thing, with prominent buck teeth and a haystack of black hair. What attracted Cherry to him was that he was funny — with an instinctive understanding of comedy, he could make her laugh for hours on end. This was what she loved about him; for her it even excused his remarkable meanness, an unlovely aspect in any man.
Every time Cherry’s mum went out of the room they talked about Clive Hole. Cherry’s mum, who had been an SOE agent in France during the war, had been captured and tortured by the Gestapo and then, after her husband’s suicide, had had to bring up six children alone but who did not work in television and therefore had not had an interesting life, came into the conservatory carrying a spare cake she hadn’t thought she’d need and finding her daughter and son-in-law waist-deep in the same conversation they’d been having since last Christmas said, ‘Who is this Clive Hole you keep talking about? I’ve never heard of him.’
Tatum and Cherry thought themselves pretty unshockable (after all they had devised the TV show Anal Animals) but they were shocked.
They said in chorus, like in one of the bad sitcoms they produced, ‘You’ve never heard of Clive Hole!!!?’
2
‘But I’m Clive Hole,’ said the man sitting in the front passenger seat of the black BMW 7 series, with his feet awkwardly propped up on the dash. The man in the car was wearing a baggy unstructured Armani suit and frantically clutched a silver metal briefcase to himself with both arms. He was in his mid-forties, balding, with a grey-flecked beard.
The BBC security guard on the gate of Television Centre was unmoved.
‘I know who you are, sir, but it doesn’t make any difference, we are at Security State Tangerine, which is a high state and I have to search everybody’s bags.’
‘But I’m Clive Hole, I’m head of media facilitation.’
‘And I’ve still got to look in your bag.’
Clive thought for a minute, had an idea, then pretended to think for a bit longer. ‘Oh … erm, yes … I’ve just remembered I’ve got a meeting with some people from the circus .
He spoke to the large black man who was his driver.
‘Clayton, take me to the circus.
Without a beat, Clayton threw the car into reverse with a cry of, ‘Righto, Mr Hole!’
The car shot backwards into Wood Lane did a hand-brake turn like in the movies and sped away, northwards, fishtailing strips of rubber onto the road. The security guard watched it depart with bemusement.
‘Loony!’ he said to himself in Armenian.
At Clive’s instruction Clayton slowed down and turned left so that they were now running round the rear of Television Centre. On a quiet service road they came to a back lot that was being cleared to build more offices. One part of the chainlink perimeter fence of this building site was sagging so that it was only about two metres high. In the distance between the buildings he could see his office window.
Clive shouted, ‘Clayton, here, stop here!’
When the car stopped he climbed out and stood looking at the fence. ‘Could you give me a boost over?’ he asked his driver.
‘Certainly, Mr Hole,’ replied Clayton. He cupped his hands. Balancing unsteadily on one leg Clive put his foot into those hands and Clayton tossed the other man up into the air and on top of the fence like a little Jewish caber.
Clive straddled the fence like a man clinging to a wild horse that he’d unexpectedly found himself riding, one hand still holding on to his briefcase.
‘Shall I pick you up from the reception as usual at four, Mr Hole?’ asked the driver.
‘Yeah,’ mumbled Clive, then: ‘No, meet me here instead. At this hole.’
‘Righto, Mr Hole.’
Clayton began to get back in the car. Clive hung still semi-impaled on the fence. A thought occurred to him.
‘Oh erm … Clayton, did you get a chance to look at that series proposal from Tatum and Cherry?’
A thoughtful look crossed Clayton’s face.
‘You liked it? You didn’t like it?’ guessed Clive as he swung in the breeze. ‘Not enough black people in it?’
Clayton finally delivered his verdict.
‘I liked it, Mr Hole …’
‘Really? Right … OK … I might speak to them … about it then.’
And with that he fell to the ground, then he jumped up again, waved at Clayton and scurried off through the building rubble in the loping crouch of a member of the Special Boat Service. Taking the back roads of the complex where the little electric tugs rattled past, towing trailers of scenery labelled ‘Gen Game’ and ‘Kilroy — not wanted’, the top executive eventually arrived at the ground-floor windows of his office suite. He tapped on the glass of the secretary’s office. Helen, his assistant, a middle-aged, competent-looking woman glanced up from her work. She did not seem to be fazed to see her boss standing in a flower-bed.
‘Helen, can you open my office window please?’ he mouthed through the double glazing.
Helen got up, went into Clive’s office and opened the window. He clambered gratefully inside.
‘Thanks … thanks a lot. Now I’d like no calls for half an hour please, Helen.’
‘Certainly, Clive,’ she said and left.
Clive crossed purposefully to his desk and sat down, placing the briefcase in front of him. From inside it he took a large colourful box marked ‘Rainbow Valley Ant Farm’, and a jar of honey. Humming happily to himself he crossed over to a corner of the room where there was a large TV and a VCR machine. Kneeling down he took the ant farm out of the box and broke it open. He then poured honey over the fleeing ants. Next, using a pair of tweezers, he began to stuff ants through the loading slot of the VCR, then he poured more honey into the machine. Clive then repeated the process on several VHS tapes that were lying by the machine. He surveyed his handiwork with contentment and then returned to his desk, picked up the phone and dialled an internal number.
‘Paul Cliro, please,’ he said, ‘it’s Clive Hole . .
He continued to hum to himself while waiting for Paul to come to the phone.
‘Paul? Hi, it’s Clive … about those tapes you sent me of actresses for the supporting role in Airport Padre… No, I haven’t looked at them … It’s the strangest thing, when I came to try and play the tape it wouldn’t work and when I looked inside the machine, well blow me, it was full of ants! … Yeah, ants and honey! … You couldn’t make it up, could you? And then I remembered you said once that one of your kids had an ant farm… so I guess somehow the ants got into the tape when it was at your house and then into my VCR … and it’s not just your tape, there are several other tapes ruined, pilots for shows I’m supposed to decide whether they should go to series. Now I’ll have to put the decision off… bloody nuisance, eh? … No, it’s not your fault, mate … no … What I suggest you do is wait about a month then send me the tape of the actresses again because it’ll take that long for Helen to order me another machine … you know how useless she is … no, don’t apologise.’ He laughed merrily. ‘Just tell your boy to keep his ants to himself… speak
to you soon, mate… yeah, bye.’
He put the phone down and sat looking at it for a minute then picked it up again.
‘Helen … can you get me Monty Fife’s agent? I’ve decided to give the go-ahead to that thing about otters.’
He was swiftly connected.
‘Betty? … How are you? It’s Clive Hole here … fine, fine … Listen I’ve got good news for Monty, I’m finally going to green light Mudlark Springs.’ His expression changed. ‘What … dead? When? … A year and a half ago? … Well, I guess I must have … no .
He considered for a second. ‘What about the otters? Extinct, really? … Oh well, bye then.’
He put the phone down and stared as if it was an untrustworthy dog.
3
The next afternoon Clive sat at his big desk made out of logs from New Mexico. He didn’t want to be sitting at his big desk, he wanted to be drinking a diet coke from his fridge, the fridge hidden behind an adobe-coloured door that was built in the South Western-style bookcase that was in the opposite corner of the room to where he sat at his big desk, and was stocked with New World wines, juices and other beverages twice a week by the licence payer. A couple of minutes before the automatic part of his brain, the part that usually gets on with stuff and that you hardly listen to, said, ‘Right, let’s get up, go over to the fridge hidden behind the adobe-coloured door, built into the New Mexico-style bookcase and let’s have us a Diet Coke.’ He was just about to do that thing when another voice, the voice that had for months been stopping him making any decisions about programmes by endlessly weighing the pros and cons of every tiny detail, chose this moment to expand its operations into other areas of his life. It said, ‘Hang on a minute, Clive, are you sure you really want a Diet Coke, how do you really know that is what you want? How do you know you don’t want to have a fruit smoothie? Or how do you really really know that you don’t want to get up and wee on your Navaho rug? How do you know anything, Clive?’ So he had sat there now for twenty minutes, impaled on uncertainty; he was only brought back from this internal inferno of boiling thoughts by the sounds of shouting from the outer office.
Helen looked up from her work as the door was thrown open and Tatum and Cherry bundled in. Before Helen could speak Tatum started talking in a rush.
‘Alright, Helen, we’re here for our four o’clock meeting with Clive and don’t tell us he’s not in because we’ve been watching his office since he came back from lunch and we know he’s still in there.’
Cherry added, ‘And he can’t say we haven’t got an appointment like he’s done the last five times because I recorded him saying we’ve got an appointment on my Psion…’
She held up her personal organiser and pressed a key. First there was the sound of some muffled shouting then Clive’s voice came out of it sounding agitated.
‘Please Cherry, for Christ’s sake, I’m trying to donate sperm here for my wife’s IYF, I’m… oh, oh, oh, Jesus, shit … too late.’ There was a pause, then Clive again:
‘Look are you satisfied? That is never going to come out of suede.’ Then there was some more mumbling, followed by: ‘Alright. OK. This is stupid but alright… do I speak into this here? I, Clive Hole, swear on my word of honour as head of media facilitation that I have a meeting with Tatum and Cherry in my office at four on Thursday… Are you happy now? Can I have my magazine back if you’ve finished with it?’
Helen leant forward and spoke into the intercom on her desk. ‘Clive? Tatum and Cherry are here for their four o’clock meeting.’
Clive’s voice came out of this other machine.
‘Sure, just give me a couple of seconds and then send them right in.’
Tatum and Cherry smiled in triumph, hovered and then entered Clive’s office. The two producers stared about them in consternation: the office was empty, the summer breeze blowing through the open window stirred the curtains.
4
Tatum was feeling terribly agitated because of Clive Hole. He blamed Clive for the fact that he was having this little relapse. He said to the young man, ‘We’ve written this detective thing called Bold As Bacon, it’s about this father and son team who go around the markets of Lancashire selling bacon from a stall, they’ve still got some fabulous Victorian markets… Preston, Lancaster… but they don’t just sell bacon, they solve crimes as well! Plus it’s set in the Seventies so you get all that great glam music for the soundtrack. Took us nearly a year and a half to write six one-hour episodes, I gave C live the scripts nine months ago and since then nothing! I’ve called, I’ve e-mailed, I’ve sent jokey little cards on Valentine’s day and he just won’t speak to me about it. I bumped into him in the street a few weeks ago and he pretended he was a Portuguese tourist.’
The young man just looked bored so they went to the cemetery. Once they had found a nice mausoleum the young man got down on his knees, undid Tatum’s trousers and began to suck his cock. All the time while this was going on the only thing Tatum could think of was Clive Hole, Clive Hole, Clive Hole. On his face was an abstracted and worried expression, his mind miles away and not concentrating on the blow job in hand.
5
The five-a-side pitch was part of the sports centre, the sports centre was part of Arsenal’s football ground. In the British style the building had no aesthetic attributes whatsoever. It was a big ugly shed with a lattice of girders holding up the roof and pitiless neon lights shining down on the ten middle-aged men who huffed and limped up and down the pitch chasing the ball. Their shouts and the squeak of their trainers bounced off the shiny brick walls. Several of the men were strapped into corsets or their legs were encased in bright blue supports, velcro and carbon fibre vainly trying to hold up their drooping muscles. One of the men wearing the most body armour was Clive Hole, he was pretending to be a striker dropping off behind the front two and pulling defenders out of position: in reality he was an old man stiffly running about.
On the sidelines in the banked seating Tatum and Cherry sat watching the men. Tatum was dressed in football kit. He pointed at the men playing football, ‘Look at them, the heads of every major TV channel and production house in the country … what do they think they look like?’
Cherry said, ‘They think they look quite … well, alright; not great, like when they were young but OK. They think that at least they keep fit. And that’ll mean as long as they keep fit and can keep playing football then they won’t die. They’re not playing each other, they’re really playing death.’ Tatum hadn’t been listening.
‘And you think this is a good place to force him to talk to me?’
‘He can’t get away from you if you’re on the pitch with him.’
‘How do you know I’ll get a game?’
Cherry laughed. ‘Look at the state of them. There’ll be an injury in the next five minutes, I guarantee it.
Tatum gave voice to a variant on the only thought he’d had for months.
‘It’s bloody ridiculous this, why won’t he make a decision about anything?’
‘Cos as long as he doesn’t make a decision he can’t be wrong about anything. He can’t be accused of making mistakes if he doesn’t make anything at all.’
‘But he fought so hard to get the job, remember those rumours that went round about Tony Cliff who everybody thought would get the job? Well, it turned out Clive had bought the goat… Oh he loves the job, he loves it so much he doesn’t want to do anything to lose it… like making any programmes. The other neat touch is that he doesn’t like the thought of anybody not liking him. He won’t tell anybody he’s not going to make their show because he doesn’t want to upset them.’
‘But everybody fucking hates his guts!’
‘But he doesn’t know that because people are always nice to his face, they still think he might green light their shows…’
At that moment one of the fatter, balder players dove wildly for the ball, from inside his groin came a snap that could be heard all over Islington. He squirmed on the green-painted groun
d yelling in pain until he was taken away by paramedics.
‘There you go,’ said Cherry. ‘Paul Feinberg, head of programming at LWT and winner of the Christopher Reeve award for self-inflicted sports injury.’
Tatum got up and stood by the pitch.
‘Er … you need another player?’ he said to the men. Several of them recognised him as BBC, one of themselves, so they gave their assent before Clive Hole could stop them.
Tatum jogged onto the pitch and took up the same defensive position as the injured man. After a time Clive got the ball and despite the fact that he knew Tatum was waiting for him he headed for goal. The younger man skilfully got in front of Clive and prevented him from moving forward while at the same time not taking the ball off him. At one point Clive even tried to ‘pass to a team-mate but Tatum simply kicked the ball back to his feet. ‘Clive, I’ve really got to talk to you about Bold As Bacon,’ he whispered into his ear.
‘Can’t we talk about this at the office?’ gasped Clive.
‘I tried to talk to you at the office and you climbed out of the window… And I want you to make a decision, right now, about whether we go ahead or not.’
A look of complete panic came into Clive’s eyes. Abandoning the ball he ran full tilt into the wall, knocking himself out cold. Tatum looked on in exasperation as everybody else gathered round Clive’s prone form. Back in the seating Cherry rose and took off her coat. Underneath she too was wearing football kit.
‘Looks like you need another player, boys?’ she said.
6
Tatum and Cherry were going for dinner at the home of their friends Victoria and Miles. Victoria was a make-up artist and Miles was a set designer at the BBC. They were buzzed into the mansion block via the entryphone. It sounded like Victoria was sobbing but those things often made you sound like that.
