The Passengers(25)
Oscar let out a noxious odour, at which Sofia turned up her nose. ‘Sometimes you are a disgusting little beast,’ she muttered and went to press the button that wound the window down. Nothing happened. She rolled her eyes, remembering producers from Celebs Against The Odds were now in charge of everything. ‘It must be for the realism … making us feel like we’re trapped probably adds to the tension.’ She dipped into her handbag and removed an almost empty bottle of Chanel No 5, spraying it around the car.
‘What are they expecting of me now? Am I supposed to scream too, or do I sit here grinning to camera like a Cheshire cat until the car reaches the studio? This lighting is a little harsh, isn’t it?’
In an age when appointment television was a thing of the past and viewers watched what they wanted, when they wanted and how they wanted to, Celebs Against The Odds was a phenomenon. It wiped the floor with the competition as celebrities were put through their paces in activities as varied as Formula 1 racing to assisting with a surgeon during an actual operation. None of it was faked. And most participants came out the other side with their reputations intact and their popularity soaring. Sofia was thrilled to be a part of it.
Her biggest adjustment would be growing acclimatised to being on camera twenty-four hours a day for the next week. Just minutes into it, she was already slipping, so she switched from her regular resting face and into a broad smile. She speculated as to how she looked on screen, as she no longer saw herself on the dashboard monitor. The only people to benefit from Ultra High Definition 8K Television were viewers and plastic surgeons, certainly not actors over a certain age like her.
Her focus returned to her competition, the other celebrity contestants. Try as she might, she was unable to put names to their faces. She assumed they either worked on soaps she didn’t watch or had been created on other reality TV shows – a genre whose bubble just wouldn’t burst, no matter how sharp the pin.
Sofia listened intently as they begged to be set free from their cars and shook her head. She doubted any of them had paid their dues like she had, or even knew their Pinters from their Pirandellos. ‘They’re appalling,’ she whispered to Oscar. ‘I don’t know where they were trained but they should be asking for refunds on their term fees.’
She glanced outside as her vehicle made its way along the motorway, unable to keep up with a high-speed super-train on a track close to the road. She thought back to the last time she had travelled by train herself and settled on the 1970s when she and her sister Peggy had made their way to Newcastle to see a Richard Burton play. Sofia had maintained a huge crush on him since her teenage years and he hadn’t disappointed when she’d met him backstage afterwards. She had not told another living soul what had happened in that dressing room, not even Peggy. Even now, the memory brought about a guilty smile.
Without her glasses, she struggled to make out the destination on her GPS map but could just about see it would take an estimated two more hours to reach. She wondered where the studios were located and recalled how it was all so much easier when London was the centre of the British television industry. In the name of diversity, studios were now scattered around the country, making some areas harder to reach. She hoped that Oscar would last the car journey without needing a toilet break. Or her, for that matter.
Sofia felt her resting face had slipped back into place. She removed lip gloss from her handbag, applied another coat, looked into the camera once again and gave it an actress’s smile. Using her little finger, she pushed her hearing aids deeper into each ear in the hope that when she was given further instruction, she could pick up more of what was being said.
She also hoped that upon her arrival at the studio she might find that her agent Rupert had acquired her a new wardrobe. He knew the designers she favoured, even if they no longer favoured her. Once upon a time, they’d be falling over themselves to clothe her for red carpet events. But as she fell from the pages of the newspapers in favour of prettier, slimmer and younger versions of herself, they weren’t as willing to part with their designs when she couldn’t guarantee them coverage.
Sofia last attended a premiere with husband Patrick in February. The film title escaped her now but Patrick’s face lingered. She assumed that by now Rupert had informed him where she was going and that she was uncontactable. Or perhaps he’d been in on the secret since the beginning. She knew all too well just how practiced he was at holding a secret, and as a result, so was she. For forty years, he had made her complicit.
Now she would gain a much-needed break from him while filming for Celebs Against The Odds. The downside was that he was free to do what he wanted without her watching over him. She prayed he was being careful. Over the years his mistakes had cost her a lot of money.
Chapter 18
JUDE HARRISON
‘Jesus Christ!’ gasped Jude as Victor Patterson’s death unfolded before him.
The terror felt by the other Passengers came through his car’s speakers alongside the uproar from the Inquest room. His stomach muscles clenched as a wave of nausea rushed through his body. Having failed to eat for the best part of twenty-four hours, there was little left inside him to make a reappearance.
Jude couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen. Live footage continued from an unidentified second vehicle behind Victor’s burning taxi. It braked and attempted to swerve the fireball ahead. But of all the potential hazards it had been programmed to react to, a car bomb was not one. It smashed into the rear, its bonnet crumpling like a concertina. Jude could hear more screaming, this time from inside that second car, then the car doors opened and its Passengers scrambled to safety. Moments later, a second fireball engulfed that car too and the footage came to a swift end.