Phew, I’d landed on it.
“I presume we tart it up, though, right? Get Dorinda seriously glammed up. Give her a central role. Every cast member has to confess on camera how they’re voting and why as they cast their ballot.”
“Boring! I need visuals.”
“Visuals. Right.”
“Drama.”
“Got it.”
The cigarettes came out of Indira’s mouth, clutched in her birdlike claws.
“I need tension. I need the audience at home so on the edge of their seats, so unable to tear themselves away, that bladders are exploding all over Britain. I need living rooms across the country showered in piss and blood. And as they’re getting wheeled into an ambulance, I need them turning to their families shouting,Fuck me, that was good television!I cannot serve the people of Britain a secret… fucking… ballot.”
The cigarettes were straight back in the mouth, glowing as brightly as the fire in the belly of Mount Etna.
“So, we’re looking for?—”
Indira huffed smoke out of her lungs. “A different way to end the series. Yes.”
I could work with this. This was what I was here to do, after all. I might not have landed on a big idea for my own show yet, but I could at least prove my problem-solving talents with this one.
“So we’re looking for something era appropriate, with great visuals, and with solid tension.”
“Piss and blood, Petey Boy. Piss and blood.”
Indira really did not look or sound well.
“Why don’t you go have a lie-down, and I’ll come back with some options this afternoon?”
“Sleep is for pussies. I want options now.”
I sat back in my chair, trying to think of Regency-appropriate competitions—my fingers fidgeting with a biro.
“Something with horses?” I suggested. “A race?”
Indira shook her head. “Insurance.”
“A card game of some sort?” I tapped the pen against the desk.
“Too many rules to explain. It loses the audience.”
“Card cutting, then? Highest card wins.”
“How can we build tension with that?”
I leapt out of my seat. “A billiards match!”
Indira was silent for a moment.
“Great atmospherics,” she said. She seemed to be warming to the idea. “Plenty of rising tension. Wait, is billiards the one with all the red balls?”
“No, that’s snooker. Billiards has three balls.”
“OK, boring,” Indira declared.
I slumped back down into my chair, picking at the plug in the end of the biro until it popped out.
