“Might be the pollution, hon,” said Timon. “You would have to have a special reaction, wouldn’t you?”
“Hm?”
“Anyone ordinary would get allergic to duck down or nylon, something common like that.”
She rallied. “I can’t help it! And I suppose you’re allergic to even more exotic things?”
“Yeah?” he laughed.
“I bet you’re allergic to peacock feathers. You’d have to have a duvet woven from a peacock’s fan tail, just so you could suffer exquisitely and get everyone’s sympathy.”
“Well,” he said. “You’d have a duvet knitted out of old hair.”
“Hair!” she cried. “You’d have hair pulled out of a baboon’s red backside and you’d love that.”
“I wish the two of you would calm down,” said Wendy. At this rate they would both be hysterical by the time they got them to the stage. They wouldn’t be able to talk sensibly at all.
Their tape, their priceless footage, had gone on ahead of them. It was waiting to be unspooled live on television, unleashed upon a late night audience. The viewing figures for Strange Matter were growing weekly. It was a fairly jokey show that came out live, with the brief to astonish, perplex and outrage the millions-strong public. From Argyle Timon and Belinda had posted a copy of their magic tape and the invite had come almost by return of post. They already knew what they had was hot. And they wouldn’t let Wendy watch it until she came to see the show.
Serena was watching at home with Aunty Anne. They sat on high stools with the portable in her kitchen.
“They’re going to make fools of themselves,” muttered Aunty Anne.
They were watching Beyond The Poseidon Adventure which starred Telly Savalas, and which had to end before Strange Matter came on. The film showed no sign of ending yet.
“Maybe there’s something in it,” said Serena. “Let’s face it, if there was such a thing as visitors from outer space, Belinda and Timon would be exactly the kind to bump into them.” She laughed. “You’re just jealous because it’s you that wants to be on the telly, Anne.”
“I’ve been on the telly.”
“Oh, yes.” Serena remembered Anne’s autumn of TV appearances, a few years ago. She got herself into the studio audience of all the daytime discussion shows. By phoning in and claiming to be the victim of bad holiday insurance, of a mad dog, of a house fire, of a serial killer, of a polygamous rat and finally ‘a woman who can’t say no’. She had managed to get herself onto three Kilroys, two Esthers, four Vanessas and only once on The Time, The Place. Eventually the producers cottoned on and saw through Anne’s disguise of dying her hair for each appearance.
One producer said to her, “You must be the most afflicted woman in the country.”
“I am!” she cried, and left the green room in high dudgeon. Yet she had slaked her thirst for getting on the telly. For the last one, about ‘women who can’t say no’, she was among a number of women claiming to be in their sixties and that they were miraculous grandmothers. One woman wore a very short dress and closed the show lip-synching to Tina Turner’s ‘Simply the Best’. Anne thought it should have been her, flashing her marvellous legs all over the credits. The sight of this other woman sickened her.
“I don’t need the publicity anymore,” said Anne sniffily.
“Timon does,” said Serena. “He’s trying to get on the television, by making a fuss about Belinda and the visitors, just so he can cash in with his book.”
“His book,” tutted Anne. On her way to the loo upstairs at Serena’s she had pushed into the guest room and, after minimal poking around, found the bound manuscript. It seemed complete. A neatly-written slim hardcover with the title page spelled out in a childish hand.
Pieces of Belinda
By Timon.
Aunt Anne flicked through. It began:
‘My name is Belinda. I haven’t moved much in my life, but the things I’ve seen!
It is true, though, that I like a view, but I like to sit with my back turned to it.’
Anne’s hands were damp and she found herself blotting and wrinkling pages. She flicked.
‘I have met a genius only twice in my life and both times it was like a bell rang in my head.
I met Marlene Dietrich, and I met Timon, my lover.’
Anne rolled her eyes. Who would read this?
Then she found what she called to herself, in her own mind, the dirty bits.
Pieces of Belinda, indeed.
With shaking fingers she put the book down, where she was sure she had found it.
She returned to the kitchen, the telly and Serena and tried to put the thing out of her mind. Nothing got her adrenalin going like poking around in other people’s belongings.
As Telly Savalas came to the end of his struggle to find the survivors of the Poseidon wreck, Anne said: “I could fetch his book from upstairs… and we could have a little read, if you like.”
“Anne…” purred Serena. She pursed her lips. “If you must you must. I won’t read a word of it.” She smiled. “So you will have to read aloud to me.”
“This is where the TV license money goes,” said Wendy while they were waiting in the BBC reception. It was a new glass walled edifice with a vast, clean floor. The ceiling high above was white and scalloped. It looked like the inverted hull of a cruise liner. They were called through the bleeping turnstiles and given passes. Belinda had to find the toilet and didn’t listen properly to their directions. Timon studied the map. They were to sit in the studio audience until called down. There were no
