Chapter 28 ~ Family Rules – Part VIII
July 16, 2010
It was the first time that Jamie and Chris had argued on camera. The first time that on-screen tension had risen higher than a set-up for some inevitable, telegraphed punch-line. It was the final season of Family Rules! though none of us knew that for certain. The popularity of the show had been waning; format and cast tired, losing their power to pull in the audience every week.
Sure, Jamie was still the number one girl-next-door but somehow all the jokes in the world couldn’t make up for the fact that she kept her top on all the time.
And Chris had filled out, his middle as wide as his chest, a suggestion of a double chin that had been growing for too long.
Sanderson.
I avoided Sanderson. It would take years, and my own miserable dive into avoidance, to realise that the bottom of a bottle is a lonely, desperate place.
So Jamie and Chris fought, in the Producer’s vain attempt to regain some viewers by ripping my family apart.
Joel treated the shoot as if it were a movie aimed at the Oscars; a bull in this room of porcelain egos, raging from one actor to the other.
“Your lines, Chris… Do you know your lines?”
Receiving blank indifference.
“Sure, I get it… I know what you’re up to, you jacked up little ponce. Well you can just come down off that high horse right now… We’re still paying your fucking rent and that movie deal hasn’t come through yet, so you don’t want to start burning your bridges too soon, you never… Jamie!”
He span, roaring over to her. I sat and watched it all – my head turning like a tennis fan at Wimbledon. Somehow, mainly thanks to my age, I’d managed to avoid these tirades so far, my acting coach and minders bearing most of the brunt.
And that was when it happened.
Jamie spoke up.
“Joel,” the calmness in her voice drew our attention.
He continued striding over towards her.
“Joel.”
And this time he stopped, sensing the cobra coiled in her voice, readying itself to strike. He stared at her, silent.
“Listen to me,” she said, “and listen carefully. You are going to stop this. You are going to stop all the shouting and swearing and bullying and criticism and bullshit that you keep throwing at us.”
He looked like someone had torn off his fingernails and doused them with salt. A noise began in the back of his throat that may have been a word or a scream; whatever it was, it rapidly grew towards apoplexy.
“No Joel,” Jamie continued, implacable, standing from where she’d sat reading her lines, “you can just stop that. It’s not going to work. You act like a five year-old. Your tantrums are over.”
She gestured towards me without breaking eye contact with our Director.
“Kenny has more dignity than you’ve ever had. You could learn something from him.”
In that moment, I basked in the glow. Her words meant nothing, her gesture, her inclusion of me, everything. Her hand dropped to her side as she walked towards him.
“This show is going to hell in a hand-cart and we all know it. The game is almost over. We all are. So it’s time you started acting like we all feel. We’re earning money now, delivering to our contracts and no amount of huffing, puffing and trying to blow the house in is going to make the slightest bit of difference to any of us. We are all out of a job at the end of this season, yourself included, so get your head straight and get off our backs.”
Everyone was staring at her. Staring. Like you’d stare at a tiger if it just happened to walk into the room.
Joel, ever the preening ego, didn’t seem to have heard a word of it. His face reddened, veins beginning to stand out alongside tendons in his neck. His eyes flared. His mouth opened and…
“No, Joel. It’s time for you to say nothing.”
She lifted her arm and her hand fell on his chest. She didn’t even look like she was trying.
“There was a time when you had the right to treat us like a bunch of kids. You had that right – we were crap, we were learning, I was learning. But not any more, Joel. Not any more.”
She smiled now and sadness washed her face.
“We’re on the good ship Titanic, my friend. So wake up.”
“But…” Joel squeaked.
“But what?” Jamie fired back. “Are you really so wrapped up in your little world that you can’t even work out that it’s over. Jesus, Joel! There was a time when you were like a father to us all. When you took us in hand. When you pointed us right. When you… When you loved us! Despite all the dramatics and tantrums, I knew you loved us. But you lost it, Joel. You lost it years ago. Somehow, this show, this little world where you’re king of all you survey, somehow that became more important than me, Chris, Kenny and all the others.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Sanderson wince when she didn’t name him; ego pricked.
“When did it happen, Joel? Huh? Was it when we got nominated for that first award? The second? Was it the article in Radio Times? Or the centre spread in the Sunday Times magazine? Because the truth is, Joel, that this thing has been going downhill since then. Since you stopped caring about us.”
There was a tear in Jamie’s eye; her hand still on his chest, resting with little pressure.
“You were like a father to me, Joel. Like a father. And I don’t think you even knew. I learned everything from you. Everything. But not like this. Not this shouting. Not this bullying madness. There was a time…”
Her hand dropped from his chest.
“I thought I needed you.”
A moment of silence. We all stared at something that wasn’t Jamie and Joel; a piece of fluff on the carpet, or a drink stain on the coffee table, or the way the lights cast little shadows across the set, anything but Jamie and Joel.
“Now though,” Jamie hissed quietly, “you can just go and fuck yourself. Let’s get to work.”
She walked off towards the set.
Leaving us looking at whatever had suddenly become so interesting.
Chris blew a little sigh out through closed lips. It sound like he was whistling.
Joel just stood there, looking at the empty space that had held Jamie. Energy radiated from him; vibrating. Jaw clenched, veins almost bursting.
Without a word, his hand dropped to his side and picked up a vase from where it sat on the coffee table. Silent, he hurled it against the wall where it exploded into fragments; water spattered an epicentre on the wallpaper.
“Bitch!” he hissed.
He kicked the coffee table.
Chris and Martin stared at the spectacle, ready to look away the moment Joel chose to look at them.
“I made her!” Joel was raging, kicking the table to punctuate each word. “She was nothing! Just some fucking tart with a good set of tits that they wanted to get on the box! I made her everything she is! Everything! Who the fuck does she think she is?”
I wanted this to stop. I wanted him to stop. It was too scary. Too scary.
“Joel,” I said quietly.
He didn’t hear me. His hand rested on a chair to his side.
“… Jumped up little cow. I thought I needed you? I thought I needed you! She might as well go back to flashing her tits in the newspaper… Not as if she’s got any talent to go on and do anything else, is it? She should just go and fuck the…”
“Joel,” I spoke a bit louder.
And he turned now, hurling the chair in sheer, inarticulate rage; no words, no direction, no intent, just an explosion of anger.
The chair flew through the air. I watched it all the way.
As it came directly at me.
I saw the air it displaced.
And then it hit me in the face, knocking me backwards onto the floor, where I lay, tasting blood in my mouth, seeing red as blood flowed, filling my eyes.
I thought I needed you, Jamie’s words the last to go through my head.
I passed out.
