‘An interrogation. Like the Gestapo.’
‘The Gest … say what now?’
‘The Nazi secret police.’
Mickey looks confused.
‘VE HAVE VAYS OF MAKING YOU TALK,’ Richard says in his comedy German accent. He’s nervous and thinks a bit of communal laughter might loosen him up. He is just about to do a mock salute when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees Gary making a slicing motion across his neck.
Josh 1 comes to tweak Richard’s microphone and fiddle with the pop shield.
‘Right, you good to go?’ Mickey asks.
Richard finds himself nodding as Mickey finally opens his notebook. There is a loose-leaf page of densely typed text inside. Richard, very hot now, tries to mop his face again, but it’s too late because Mickey has already launched into his preamble.
‘Welcome toTalking the Mickey, the podcast where we get to have deep conversations with deep people existing in a shallow society. This podcast ain’t about private jets or dollar bills. It ain’t about what you put on social media or the bling you wear around your neck. It’s about the real stuff, yeah? It’s about what’s in your heart.’
Mickey taps his chest with his hand. His dog-tag necklace rattles. There is a dramatic pause, then:
‘You’re probably not listening,’ Mickey adds, leaning into the mic. ‘But if you are, we’re talking to you.’
Richard has ingested much ofTalking the Mickey’s back catalogue and has heard this tagline several times. It has never made any sense.
‘My guest today, party people, is Richard Take. He’s a politician, but don’t turn off just because of that, cos he’s also become a biiiiiiiig TikTok star, innit.’
Mickey grins. Richard is aware he’s being patronised, but it’s a feeling he’s used to and it’s become second nature to ignore it.
‘My first question, Dick, seems a simple one, but it’s actually really fucking profound when you think about it …’
Richard’s leg is jiggling. He places one hand on his lap to stop it.
‘How are you today? How are you …’ Mickey leaves a significant pause. ‘… really?’
‘I’m terrific, thanks Mickey.’
Mickey squints, clearly unhappy with this. He leaves an even longer pause before he says, ‘I don’t think that’s true, is it, Dick? You’re being disingenuine.’
Not a word, Richard thinks.
‘If you’re honest with yourself, that is,’ Mickey says. ‘And this podcast is all about honesty and vulnerability and showing up as your truest, authenticest, deepest self. So let’s try again, bro. How are you really, given that over the last three months, you lost your job after watching porn on your office computer – I mean, sure, we all love a bit of OnlyFans, mate, but time and place, yeah?’
In the background, the Joshes snigger.
‘Then your marriage ended, didn’t it? And you – Dick Take – became a national joke. That must have felt so … well, so fucking mad. How did you cope?’
Hearing it all so baldly stated under the unforgiving heat of the spotlight is a strangely emotional experience. Richard is horrified to find his eyes moistening.
On the kitchen island, a camera swivels and hums. Richard can imagine it zooming in to focus on his shiny, wobbling face in unforgiving HD. He’s watched the podcast trailers Mickey’s team puts together: short, sharp clips of guests in various states of emotional breakdown saying a series of unrelated things, spliced with library images of prison cells and sad-eyed kids in abandoned playgrounds.
Gary told him it didn’t matter if he cried; that it would, in fact, ‘show your human side’ – as if he possessed another, more noticeable, un-human side. But Richard knew it would look pathetic if he cried about his career. He needed to save the tears for talking about his childhood battles with hay fever which, when you thought about it, was more or less the same as asthma and served to explain his passion for clean energy. The tears recede.
‘Yes, well, ha – when you put it like that, Mickey, it does sound like a lot, doesn’t it?’ Richard says.
‘Yeah, mate, it does.’
‘But I’ve been very lucky with the support of friends and familyand, of course, the most important people – the voters. You know, Mickey, most people in this country are very understanding and compassionate individuals. If you own up to your mistakes, if you hold your hands up and say, “Look guys, I got this wrong,” then most people, I’ve found, get it. They get it. Look, I mean, I’m human, Mickey. I’m not perfect.’
‘Me neither, bro!’
