Friends and Rivals

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‘Yes,’ said Catriona. ‘Wonderful.’

Perhaps the rest of the show’s viewers had also been too focused on the competitors to notice Ivan’s lacklustre judging performance? She did hope so. Things probably seem worse to me because I’m his wife.

‘What the fuck was that? Late-onset fucking autism?’

Don Peters, Talent Quest’s executive producer, didn’t pull his punches when he saw Ivan after the show.

‘I know I wasn’t great,’ admitted Ivan, disconnecting his mic. Following Don into his office, he felt like a naughty schoolboy. ‘But it was my first live show.’

‘Not great? It was crap, Ivan. It was a fucking embarrassment.’

‘Oh, come on. I wasn’t that bad.’

‘You reckon?’ snarled Don Peters. ‘You wanna see the tape?’

Ivan didn’t want to see the tape. He wanted to go home, crawl under the covers and hide for the next six months. The irony was that he’d always assumed television would be so easy. Surely any monkey could stand up and read a few lines off a screen. He was so used to being around artists, performers who loved the stage and revelled in it like a drug, it hadn’t occurred to him that he might actually find a live audience intimidating. Nothing had prepared him for the stage fright he’d felt tonight: the sweating palms, racing heart and dry mouth that had crippled his performance. He’d made a fool of himself in front of twelve million people.

‘Look, I’m sorry, all right? I don’t know what happened. I’ll get it together next week, I promise.’

‘You’d fucking better,’ Don Peters growled. ‘You’re not irreplaceable, you know.’