Confessions of a Film Extra. Timothy Lea
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But Mother is clearly not going to tell anybody anything, except to belt up. She is perched on the edge of her seat and bombarding her cakehole with Maltesers.
‘Mum –’
‘Sssh!’
‘What –?’
‘Sssh! Do be quiet!!’
Cut to the quick by this lack of parental interest, I adjust my peepers to the tellyvision set and listen to the disgusting tinkle, tinkle of ‘Baa Baa Blacksheep’ being picked out on a xylophone. As the sound fades, so a pretty female face fills the screen and a set of perfect gnashers split into a welcoming smile.
‘Hello boys and girls,’ says a voice of such cloying sweetness that I expect to see syrup leaking out of the volume control, ‘are you ready for the music?’ She pauses and nods, and to my disgust I find myself nodding back. ‘That’s good, because when it stops I’ll be back here to introduce my little friends on Kiddichat. The programme where our panel of mini-viewers answer questions from you children at home. So, from me, Miss Mealie, it’s: enjoy the music and see you in a minute.’ She gives a sickening wave and fades out to make way for a bird in a ballet costume who does a little dance to the Dambusters’ March, or some such popular melody. I wait hopefully for her to catch her toe in a crack between the floorboards, but it is not one of my lucky afternoons.
‘Jason is on this lot?’ I ask.
‘Sssh,’ says Mum.
‘Have you got a pin Mum, my leg just fell off?’
‘Ssh!!’
When Miss Mealie reappears, Mum nearly topples off her chair, she is leaning forward so far. ‘There he is,’ she squeals. ‘There he is!’
I look over Miss Mealie’s shoulder and it is indeed possible to recognise Sidney’s first-born with his fingers stuck up his bracket in characteristic fashion. He is sitting at a table with three other kids.
‘Our little Jason, a telly star,’ breathes Mum as if something with a halo round its bonce has started tapping on the window.
‘What is it, Mum, a nose-picking contest?’
‘That’s enough from you,’ snaps Mum and I have not heard her voice so sharp since she caught Dad snogging with Ada Figgins in the Gents at The Highwayman on New Year’s Eve. There can’t be many blokes who have seen the new year in with a lavatory brush shoved down the front of their trousers.
‘Why do they make them wear those stupid shirts?’ I say conversationally. I would have done better to keep my trap shut.
‘I sat up till three o’clock in the morning crocheting that,’ sniffs Mum. ‘Rosie said that the producer thought it was “absolutely super”.’
‘I’m sorry Mum, I –
‘How many times have you been on telly, then, clevershanks?’ says Mum accusingly.
‘He nearly made Police Five a couple of times, though,’ sneers Dad.
It is disgusting isn’t it? Rounding on their own flesh and blood because my mug has never had six hundred and twenty-five lines running through it. The way some people go on about the telly you would think it was some kind of new religion. Certainly not the old one because the only time you see Dad move fast is to turn off the Epilogue. It is as if being exposed to a back to front collar for longer than five seconds was going to kill him.
I should tell them both to get stuffed but I am too fascinated by the prospect of seeing what the infant Jason gets up to.
‘Did you like the dance, Benedict?’ says Miss Mealie engagingly.
Benedict must have been doing something else at the time because he gazes vacantly into the camera as if concentrating on a spot in the middle of it.
‘How about you, Imogen? Imogen!’ The name has to be repeated because Imogen seems totally engrossed in twisting the arm of the small boy next to her. He bursts into tears.
‘Chinese burn,’ says Imogen proudly.
‘Come on, Eric,’ pipes Miss Mealie. ‘You wouldn’t want the fairy to see you cry, would you? Fairies only like brave boys.’
‘They’re keeping the camera off him,’ hisses Ma, incensed. ‘I don’t know what they’ve got against the child. It’s always the same.’
‘Probably waiting ’til he gets his finger out of his conk,’ I say. Mum is so worked up she does not pay any attention to me.
‘He’s the life and soul of the whole programme,’ she chokes. ‘Everybody only watches to see him. There! Look at that.’
Jason has now succeeded in getting both his fingers stuck up his snoz and the camera quickly whips back to Miss Mealie.
‘Is that all he does?’ I say innocently.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snarls Mum. ‘It’s not surprising, is it? Nobody talking to the child. Ooh! I wish I could get my hands on that woman. She’s not as innocent as she looks, you know. Rosie’s heard a few things about her. Oh, yes. I don’t know why she has the little chap on the programme if she’s only going to humiliate him.’
I tune out Mum’s drone and stare at Miss Mealie with fresh interest. She looks the kind of bird who is so simperingly awful that you want to shout ‘knickers!’ into her lughole, but maybe I am doing her an injustice. Perhaps she is a bit of a raver on the quiet.
Eric stops crying when Miss M., quickly shoves a sweet in his miserable little cakehole and at last the camera settles on Noggett junior. The child star has now got his digits out of his hooter and Mum coos with ecstasy.
‘Oh, isn’t he lovely?’
I turn away and look at Dad who winces and shakes his head. I have a feeling that he finds the whole spectacle as nauseating as I do.
‘So, now I can see that Jason is ready to answer our first question. You liked the dancing didn’t you, Jason?’
Jason nods enthusiastically, and you can tell that he is a real chip off the old block. Another crawler.
‘Yeth, Mith Mealie,’ he lisps.
‘Very well, Jason. Here is a question from Sandra Page, aged eight, of Mellow Meads, Wessex Way, South Dene. That does sound a nice place, doesn’t it, Jason? Would you like to live there?’
Jason casts his eyes down and speaks in a thin, reedy treble. ‘I want to stay at home with my Mummy.’
What a pro! I bet that has them crying into their crackers down at the day nursery. Mum nearly bursts a gusset.
‘What a nice thought,’ says Miss Mealie, switching on full beam. ‘Now, let’s have that question. Sandra wants to know what time all the boys and girls on the panel go to bed. When do you go to bed, Jason?’
‘When The Sand Man comes.’
‘And when does he come?’
‘When Dadda goes away. Then Mummy says “You go to bed now, Jason, because Mummy and The Sand Man want–’
‘Yes, well that does sound nice, doesn’t it?’ says Miss Mealie hurriedly.
‘– to be alone together,’ says Jason doggedly. ‘And then sometimes uncle –’
‘Imogen!’ shrieks Miss Mealie, ‘what time do you go to bed?’
‘Depends what’s on the telly,’ says the pretty little mite, starting to chew a pencil she has been jabbing Eric with. ‘If there is a film, I stay up until “bye, bye, light” time.’
‘ “Bye, bye light” time?’
‘When the light runs away through the little hole in the middle of the telly, we say: “bye, bye, light”.’