The Wig My Father Wore

by Anne Enright

  * *

  Jo checks her stopwatch and her stand-by stopwatch counts up her durations. Then she checks them again. One of her stopwatches is out.

  * *

  There is a scream from make-up. The Special Branch man drops his sandwich. It takes him three long seconds to get his gun out of the holster. The screaming has stopped. He bursts in through the door and covers the room. The gun goes off. A mirror shatters and Edel’s face falls on the counter.

  * *

  ‘Physically,’ says Frank. ‘Turn the camera physically upside down.’ A pair of feet walks across the ceiling, top of the frame, then spins around and walks across the floor.

  * *

  ‘Great kisser I mean a really classic kisser and he says “Listen, come on” because I wasn’t really interested to tell you the truth, but he was really hot to trot. Talk about Russian hands, talk about Roman fingers! Anyway it was a beautiful night. Really warm, “Fuck this” he says. “Let’s go for a swim” he says, “Everyone’s asleep. We might be the only two people left in the world.”’

  ‘What?’ says Marcus.

  * *

  Jo has synchronised her watches. She puts her hand on Frank’s arm.

  * *

  ‘Nobody move,’ says the Special Branch man. ‘Or I’ll take out my gun.’ There is a man at the back of the room holding a stained sheet. He’s saying ‘Come on. Come on.’ The Special Branch man looks at the floor, where a snake is winding its way around the base of one of the chairs. It is heading this way.

  ‘It’s only a snake,’ says the man. ‘I can’t leave it in my dressing room.’ The Special Branch man is afraid of snakes.

  * *

  I arrive in make-up and Michelle sort of glares at me and indicates with her eyes where the guy is sitting with his snake. Every one is being very professional.

  ‘David, is it?’ I say and shake his hand. ‘What are you up here for? Giving Patrick a lick of Vaseline?’ Patrick is the snake.

  * *

  And that is all before we hit air. Stephen blamed Patrick, but he would, wouldn’t he. He would blame the snake.

  I go up to hospitality.

  ‘So Edel,’ I say, ‘all set?’

  ‘I have a ladder in my tights,’ she says.

  The television is on in the corner. She has switched over to Countdown where Carol is doing a numbers quiz.

  ‘She’s amazing with numbers,’ I say, for the sake of it.

  ‘Why is she always pregnant?’ says Edel. ‘I mean, when is she due?’ And it is true that every time you see her, Carol from Countdown is still pregnant. She has been about seven months gone all year.

  ‘They record them all together,’ I say. ‘They record about twenty shows in a week and then put them out one at a time.’

  ‘Oh right,’ says Edel. But she is not convinced. She looks at Carol like there was one thing she could not count and that was the days left, as if all the numbers in her head had knocked a few out of her belly. And we both look at her bump, where that baby sits from month to month, on the telly, just as happy as it ever was. Resisting time.

  Steady as She Go-Goes

  SO CAMERA 3 is still upside down everybody and we’re WINGING IT. As directed.

  Fifteen seconds to air.

  So Plan B. Coming out on the topshot on 4 followed by the wide on 3. Sorry my mistake.

  Wide on 2. Wide on 2. Check?

  Check. Check.

  Single on 1, applause on 4.

  One here. I’ve just gone upside down Frank.

  I saw that. I saw that. So Plan C. Topshot on 4. Wide on 2 pan right for Damien, track in to head and shoulders. You’re on your own Mick. Check?

  Check. Check.

  Ten seconds to opening animation. Studio two to Pres. Stand by Basketweaving Documentary.

  Two cameras down. Get one back and we can make it.

  Eh Frank

  Yes I saw that. I see that. Camera 2 has just flipped. We are falling off the air.

  Seven seconds. Six. Roll both VTs.

  We are going down.

  VTs Rolling. Opening on VT1 and Basketweaving on VT2.

  Please make sure your tray table is in an upright position. Or No. We can flip the output. Just the output. FLIP THE OUTPUT! Yes. We have three cameras. We’re on our way. Coming to VT!

  And take it! Coming out of the opening animation to 3 on the wide, then MCU on 2 of the fat bastard. Sorry. Plan for Camera 1, applause shots and wide, then singles guys during game.

  Twenty seconds to studio.

  Camera 2 single Damien and wide Damien-plus-game.

  Camera 3 on the singles/two shots guys. I know it’s upside down for you, but it’s coming out clean at the other end. Camera 4 has just flipped. Ten seconds to studio.

  I saw that. Back on script. We hit lucky. We’re back on script.

  Five seconds to studio.

  Coming out of this to four. Back on script.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Go Grams. Cut

  Zero.

  Four.

  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

  Good luck everyone.

  IT’S THE LOVEQUIZ!

  Applause applause. Coming to single on 2. Cue Damien. Cut 2.

  * *

  At home my mother settles in to do her duty and pretend to watch the LoveQuiz. My father is sleeping, as usual, in his chair. During the ads he looks like he is having a bad dream. When the LoveQuiz music comes on he wakes up and looks at the set in surprise. He says:

  ‘Where’s the baskets.’

  ‘It’s Grainne’s programme,’ says my mother. ‘Look.’

  ‘Where are the baskets,’ says my father. He is upset.

  ‘No baskets,’ says my mother.

  ‘Baskets!’ he is shouting.

  ‘It’s the television,’ she says. ‘It was just a dream.’

  When Damien appears on the screen my father grabs his head and shouts.

  ‘Bastards.’

  ‘Basket or bastards. Make up your mind,’ says my mother.

  ‘I know what I’m saying,’ he says.

  She believes him.

  ‘It’s upside-down,’ he says.

  * *

  The cameramen float around behind the peds with cricks in their necks. They can’t frame up properly, the lenses keep drifting towards people’s feet. For a while they check around the side of the cameras to see what is for real. Then they forget real because it is less confusing that way.

  In the gallery all the monitors are showing upside down except for the transmission picture. Jo refuses to see, she just looks at the script, at her watch, at people on the screens, and she reads it like it is. Frank looks like he is in a dream. Not a bad dream.

  * *

  ‘So it’s a new game for the biggest the best the last show of the season. Out of these five contestants, only three make it to round two. But do they go home empty handed? Or do they wander off with a wad of wonga? It depends on how much they put on that table to woo the woman of their dreams when it’s time to … all together … put your money where your mouth is! Thank you. So the lady decides and the fella who gets her, gets half the money on the table—as well as the sneaky stash he hid in his back pocket.

  ‘So let’s have a look at de loverly lady who’s going to pick de lucky fella. Shush! Here she comes … The most beautiful woman in Dublin 14—who laughed?—no seriously, she’s as sweet and gorgeous as you could meet. May I introduce you to Edel from Rathfarnham!!’

  * *

  In short, the show was fine. An unusual number of technical difficulties were reported but no pattern was established. Faults logged included:

  bleeding: Mayo

  tearing: Clones

  break-up: Cork

  vertical hold: Armagh

  horizontal hold: Dundrum

  strobing: Nobber

  double image: Glenageary

  after image: Timoleague

  flare/streaking—from Kilkee to Newbliss<
br />
  cramping/stretching/bending of the picture—general

  snow—also general

  Seventeen people rang in to say that Damien’s flies were open, which I must say I never noticed. My mother thought the laugh track was a great addition, until she realised that it was leaking in from another channel. She realised this when people persisted in laughing at the wrong things.

  The boys played the games. Eddie, Kevin, Sean, Jake and Stephen raced across ropes and mud, to reach a bouquet of flowers, a voucher for a washing machine, a necklace, a collection of silk underwear, or a snake. There was some confusion over the snake. It ended up in the mud and wrapped itself around Stephen’s right leg. He wrestled with the snake and dropped the flowers into the mud. Damien came in to pull the snake off his leg and five people rang in to complain on behalf of the snake, the sixth person said that he was Charles II and knew what we were up to there in Dublin 4 with the niggers and the Jews.

  Later, inside the station it was reported that the LoveWagon was seen snogging with the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, until he turned out to be the Minister for something else. This was after he wandered on to the set by accident.

  ‘Who’s that?’ said Frank.

  ‘Looks like some politician,’ said Jo.

  ‘Cue applause. Cut one. We’ll take a break,’ says Frank. ‘Please get the politician off the set.’

  The LoveWagon was also reported crying in the carpark, laughing in hospitality, drunk in the scene dock, on the ball in Master Control. Rumour had her licking the sound man’s ear, eyeing a cameraman, cutting the editor down to size and giving a stage-hand some manual relief. But as far as I could see, she spent the evening talking to Marcus in an undertone getting her jokes laughed at.

  Inside the LoveBox, Edel was sitting out the games, with a pair of headphones on, through which she listened to 10cc’s Greatest Hits. At home my father sang along.

  The LoveBox has no roof. When Edel looked up at the gantry she saw a woman looking down at her. It was me. We waved.

  Inside the Big Blow the fellas waited for the wind machine and for the trapdoor to release all those twenty pound notes. Eddie grabbed twenty-six of them, Kevin got twenty-one, Sean got seven, Jake got seventeen and Stephen got one.

  ‘OK,’ said Damien. ‘It’s time to Put your money where your mouth is! and remember you guys—the fella who wins the girl also gets half the money on the table—so are you going to risk it? Or will you sneak some into your back pocket?—she’ll never know.’

  STEPHEN put one broken lily on the table with the single £20 he had managed to catch. The audience went AWWWW. Then he reached into his back pocket and hauled out £57.75 in fives and tens and coins. He put it on the table. The audience went WILD. I assume he stole the money from me over the past few months, unless he stole it from someone else.

  ‘And now,’ says Damien, ‘if that wasn’t soppy enough, it’s time to get your LovePens out, remember it’s a two-line poem, it’s for Edel and it’s about LOVE, and while you’re doing that, we’ll go to a commercial break.’

  The ads were as follows:

  An antiperspirant ad set in a jungle

  A car ad set in a desert

  A butter ad set in the family home

  A toilet paper ad set in the family home

  A chocolate ad showing chocolate

  None of them was the wrong way around. The car ad was not set in the family home, it was free of references to butter. There was no toilet paper in the jungle or antiperspirant in the car. There was no chocolate in the ad for toilet paper. The chocolate stayed in the chocolate ad and avoided the family home. The desert was beautiful. I was beginning to relax. At home, my father went up to the bathroom and did not come down for some time.

  The LovePoems were as follows:

  ‘Is that it?’ said Damien.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Stephen. The slut. The boys are sent behind their screen.

  Edel steps out of the LoveBox and her headphones are removed. She blinks slightly at the light. Through the sudden glare, she sees herself in a monitor and smiles. She looks at the table. I can tell that she really wants the washing-machine but I can also tell that she will not choose it. She picks the silk underwear + £450. Then she takes the snake for a laugh, and maybe for the money. She hesitates between the necklace and the flower for simplicity of heart, then goes for the flower because it is more dangerous.

  ‘Perfect,’ says Damien as the snake slips away, only to be caught on Camera 3, which has slid inevitably down to the floor again. And everyone screams.

  The next set of ads had a butter ad showing butter, a car ad set mid air, a famine relief ad set in the desert, and a chocolate ad set in the family home which turns into the jungle when a man falls through a bookcase.

  After the break Damien introduces last week’s lucky couple who sit on the sofa, holding hands. They listen to what they said about each other in the interview and they laugh. My father shouts ‘Prick!’ He shouts ‘Get out of the pool!’—but you probably have got the picture by now.

  Marcus looks at the interview with a feeling in his heart that he will not remember. The LoveWagon says ‘Brilliant.’ He looks at her and does not know what she means.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he says.

  ‘The best this season. For tatty sex and the helpless heart.’ My father pokes the television set with his stick and flicks over to a political debate on the other side, where they are discussing abortion or artificial insemination or in vitro fertilisation or condoms or foetuses in the cosmetics industry or brain dead mothers or gender abortions or infanticide as so often happens in Studio 4, when the snake makes its appearance, causing a lot of discomfort to the Minister, who has begun to feel that it is not his evening.

  ‘It is a snake,’ he says. The presenter keeps his cool and attacks.

  ‘A snake? That has been banished from our shores? Is that what you are saying? Minister?’

  Afterwards the presenter says that he did not even notice the animal under the table. He says that live television has the same effect on your heart rate as going into combat and he has done it four hundred and seventy-five times. He says he should be dead. We give him a large whiskey and make jokes about purple hearts.

  My father flicks back for the end of the show.

  ‘It’s all wrong,’ he says. ‘It’s all upside down.’ So he goes into the corner of the room and stands on his head. The names my mother uses to try to get him to stop include ‘Sweetheart’, ‘Dear’, ‘Sweetheart’ again and ‘Love’. She also calls him by his own, given name, which none of us have heard in a long time.

  ‘Remember me?’ he says. ‘Remember me like this?’

  ‘Come on now love,’ she says, but he stays as he is.

  Edel asks each of the three guys a question.

  Edel to Sean: If we were all alone in the garden would you be a snake in the grass?

  Sean to Edel: I’d be the apple of your eye. I would charm the fig leaf off you.

  Edel to Kevin: Satin and lace is all very well, but what would you wear on that special date?

  Kevin to Edel: My heart on my sleeve.

  Edel to Stephen: Thanks for the flower.

  Stephen to Edel: It’s all yours.

  Edel: It’s a bit smashed.

  Stephen: But it’s all yours. Because television has no smell.

  A set blew up in Templeogue. But the transmission masts stood firm, took the signal and sent it on. Though snow was reported falling on Kippure, a light was seen on Mount Leinster and up around Three Rock, the sheep went mad. The signal took its own time, as fast as now is, as slow as the present. It shot along the link to Cairn Hill, to Trusk-more and Maghera, snaked up to the tip and was hurled into the wide blue. It was caught in Achill and Kilkeaveragh, on Mount Gabriel and Holywell Hill, patted on the head and thrown further on. Fifty times a second it did this, in alternate scans, two half pictures meshing into one so you couldn’t tell the difference, and the televisions in
Kiltemagh and Gowra, in Newry and Inch glowed red and green and blue just like the cameras did, just the same. Because it spun over rivers and graveyards, over chippers and cowsheds, over children running in the dusk and old men forgetting where they were. It spilled westward over the sea from Malin Head to Slyne Head to Valencia over sleeping fish and ghost nets still catching the waves. It dropped without a sigh into a sitting room in Granard, where a woman was bathing a baby, into a front parlour in Carrigaholt where a man left his dishes out in the rain, into a lounge in Abbeyleix where it was still too early for a drink. And everywhere was the slight, heavy smell of lilies.

  ‘You have my heart broken,’ says my mother.

  ‘Sorry’, he says, his feet in the air.

  ‘All these years.’

  ‘Turn that off now,’ he says as the credits roll. My mother goes over to the television. When she turns back to face him my father is standing up again, bald as a coot. The wig is sitting upside-down like a hairy cup on the carpet. He stands beside his little nest, bald as an egg. The bald truth.

  In hospitality the LoveWagon is saying ‘Great show you guys’, because she believes in giving credit where credit is due. Edel and Kevin come in—the happy pair. Kevin is wearing the underwear on his head. The Minister is drunk. The LoveWagon is soothing. We slip off and meet back in the office.

  Marcus and Frank take each other in their arms and, painfully, they start to dance, neither leading. Marcus touches his heavy forehead to the hollow of Frank’s shoulder.

  ‘It’s over!’ says Frank.

  ‘Last show,’ says Marcus as they brush by Jo who is sitting exhausted by her desk. Marcus swings her chair around while Frank holds on to her hair, which twists clockwise as he pulls her up.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen,’ says Frank. ‘I give you Jo’, and he circles her.

  ‘Not me,’ I say as Marcus extends his arm like a flamenco stud.

  ‘Yes you!’ shouts Frank. ‘Bring out your dead!’ and his hand is at the throat of my shirt, pulling me into the dance.

  ‘And change!’ says Jo.

  ‘And change,’ I say. The phone is knocked off the hook and the dial tone purrs out into the room.

  I slip off to look for Stephen, walk through the dead station, along the corridors, with miles of cable still dreaming and muttering under the floor; down the service-lift to the scene dock and past the open studio bays where the cameras stand like sleeping horses. I will always love the station at night. The blind monitors and the deaf mikes and the lights nesting under the rigging with their black wings spread. The offices look like rooms full of clues as to why the world ended, mess immediate and ancient. And Stephen is not there.