Melt. Lisa Walker
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sinks into his chair. His laser light – previously so jaunty, so cock-a-hoop – moves down the screen and vanishes quietly off the bottom.
Maxine glares at him. ‘Her PA says she is resting comfortably.’ She slams her hand down. ‘This. Is. A. Total. Disaster.’
I remember Jacinta’s story about the Charlie’s Adventure meeting. No-one got out of there alive.
The production team fidgets and I sense they are all thinking the same thing. Cougar on Ice is the new Charlie’s Adventure. Mascara-coated eyes slide away from Maxine’s gaze. One man ferrets around on the floor for an invisible pen. Damien is three shades paler than he was a few moments before – almost Whisper White. The potential for loss of advertising has hit him hard.
Maxine bangs her pen on the table. ‘Don’t just sit there. Suggestions?’ Her eyes are china-doll laser beams, her scarlet lips drawn back from her incisors. Beneath her black silk top I swear there’s a bulge where a fanged monster is about to burst out.
‘She could still go. On crutches,’ pipes up Damien.
I clear my throat. My heart is thudding wildly, but I can’t just sit here – this is my area. ‘They have very strict medical requirements for travel to Antarctica,’ I say in my most efficient production assistant manner. ‘She had to have a lengthy doctor’s examination to be accepted. She won’t be allowed on Australian Antarctic Division transport with a broken ankle.’
‘We could p-postpone the series,’ says Dianne the scriptwriter. ‘Until she is out of p-plaster.’
Maxine raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Summer?’
I am mesmerised by her eyebrow. It is too smooth, too perfect to be real. Perhaps it is tattooed. ‘Well,’ I say to the eyebrow, ‘we can try for another flight in January or February, but, um, if we pull out … They could offer the media spot to Channel Four. There’s a waiting list, you see.’
Maxine bangs her fist on the table again. Her blonde coif sways like a building in an earthquake.
Everyone jumps.
‘There is no way on earth Channel Four is getting that flight,’ she snarls. ‘No way on earth.’
Everyone shakes their heads. Muted murmurs of sycophantic agreement spread around the table.
‘We’ll substitute another presenter.’ Maxine clicks her fingers at me. ‘Who’s available?’
I shake my head. ‘I’m afraid we can’t do that at this stage.’
The table gasps as one. A sea of horrified round eyes fix on me as if I’m holding a gun to my temple. Damien presses his hands to his cheeks.
What have I said? Can’t.
Maxine’s two eyebrows draw together. They are amazingly versatile.
I should be terrified, but I am hypnotised. ‘The application was for Cougar,’ I say to her eyebrows. ‘The place is in her name. If she doesn’t take it herself, we have to begin the application process for someone else. We can’t take that time.’
There is another audible gasp in the room. I’ve said it again. Under the table someone kicks me.
I press on. ‘And I’m pretty sure Channel Four is on that waiting list.’
‘No.’ Maxine’s eyebrows are almost in her hairline. ‘That is not happening. There is no frigging way. Even if I have to dress up as Cougar myself …’ She pauses. ‘Hm, with all that snow gear on’ – she gestures around her head to indicate a puffy hood – ‘who’s to know? Yes, that’s an option – a Cougar impersonator. Who have we got?’
This is the most ridiculous suggestion ever. Cougar’s face is one of the best known in Australia. How can you impersonate her? Surely Maxine can’t be serious?
But everyone else at the table is nodding eagerly. Obsequious murmurs fill the air – great idea, terrific, absolutely.
‘It has to be someone who can build igloos.’ Dianne’s cheeks are flushed. She speaks quickly. ‘I’m finalising a fun Christmas Day script where everyone gathers in the igloo which Cougar has secretly built overnight and they all open their presents and eat mince pies and it’s like, you know, they’re all so far from home and yet she’s brought them all together, it will be beautiful …’ She stops as her breath runs out.
‘Summer can build igloos.’ Damien points his laser at me.
The whole table turns to me as the red dot hits my chest.
I shake my head. ‘No I can’t.’
There’s another audible gasp.
‘You told me,’ says Damien. ‘When you were in Chamonix …’
I stare at him. It’s all coming back to me. Over someone’s birthday drinks a while back I’d told Damien the igloo story. I’d had a few wines at the time and I may have exaggerated slightly.
The True Igloo Story
When I was working in Chamonix, there was a man staying in the lodge who built an igloo for his kids. I happened to be wandering past and admired the igloo. He was patting snow on the outside and I helped him smooth it out.
The Igloo Story as told to Damien
When I was working in Chamonix there was a guy staying in the lodge who asked me to build an igloo for his kids. Going way beyond the call of duty, I built it all by myself and slept in it for two nights with his kids. Because that’s the kind of person I am.
Damien had seemed awed and I saw I’d changed in his eyes – become more adventurous and capable. I wasn’t just a television production assistant anymore – I was an igloo-builder.
‘Once. I’ve only done it once,’ I say.
‘Well, that’s more than anyone else here has done.’ Maxine is unnaturally calm, but the corner of her eye is twitching. She speaks sweetly. ‘Is that correct, or do we have another igloo-builder here? Leanne? Steve? Dianne?’
Shaking heads confirm that Channel Five’s production team does not harbour any closet igloo-builders.
Maxine turns back to me. She puts her head on one side. ‘It could work. There’s a resemblance now I think about it.’ Her eyes assess me. ‘At a pinch. If you’re not looking closely.’
‘But I ca—’ I stop myself. ‘I don’t know anything about—’
Maxine snaps her fingers at Steve, the publicity guy. ‘Photoshop her.’
‘Huh?’ I say.
But Steve pulls out his phone, snaps a photo of me, does something techo on the computer and within two minutes a photograph is projected on the screen. The image is the standard publicity shot of Cougar going over the waterfall. But instead of Cougar’s face, it is mine. I have my mouth half-open, caught in the middle of saying huh? I have Cougar’s hair and body. It’s a strange feeling, like getting an extreme makeover. And the weird part is, I do look a bit like Cougar.
Maxine looks from the image back to me and her mouth turns up at the corner. ‘You’ve got the same nose.’
She’s right. I’ve always hated my long nose. On Cougar though, it is striking and glamorous.
Maxine clicks her pen in and out then waves her finger at Steve. ‘Put her in a snowsuit.’
A couple of minutes later, there I am on the screen again, still with my mouth half-open, but now I’m wearing a puffy, red snowsuit, with the hood pulled up. Steve has split the screen, so the other side has Cougar wearing the same snowsuit.
Everyone’s eyes flicker from one side of the screen to the other and I know I’m coming out of it badly. But … our lips are similar too. On Cougar, of course, they