"Kim Newman - The Serial Murders" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

and musing, "There'll be hell to pay when Mavis hears about this! Bloody hell!"
Loss called for quiet. Finn took a deep breath and began.
Three sentences in, the big studio door slid noisily open, admitting blinding light and a cloud of Lalique.
Outside the stage building was a red box which lit up the word "Recording." June O'Dell must have waited for
it to go on before commanding her entourage to open the door and make way for the Queen of Northshire.
Finn grimly carried on with the "take." Loss chewed his moustache. Jeanne Treece hit herself over the head
with the idiot board.
Marcus Squiers hopped to and danced attendance on his ex-wife. He had to negotiate a way past two tall
young men who flanked the star. They had mullet haircuts, sideburns like the cheek-pieces of Roman
helmets, and had overdone their daily splash of Fr├╝t aftershave. Their knitted rainbow tank-tops showed off
muscular arms.
In person, June O'Dell was tinyтАФthough enormous hair took her height a little over five feet. She had hard,
sharp, glittering eyes, and her skin was shinily tight across the cheekbones and under her chin. Richard had
heard her described as "a cross between Miss Piggy and Charles Manson," but she was more frail than he
expected. The Tank-Top Twins might well be there to rush in and prop her up if a stiff wind blew.
Ignored by everyone, including a dead camera, Dudley Finn finished his scene. Without the board, he was
word-perfect.
"There'll be hell to pay when Mavis hears about this," he said flatly. "Bloody hell."
Jeanne Treece whipped the crew into shifting the cameras to the lounge set and getting it lit properly.
"Madame Moo is prepared to work today," said Lionel. "Lesser morts have to strike while the icon is hot."
"What about the Phantom Phoner?" asked Barbara.
Lionel shrugged. "Scene's scrubberood. Not that many people wrote in. Delia Delyght is in TV limbo now.
Make up your own ending, luv."
"Delia escapes from Broadmoor and comes back chained to an axe-murderer? Then they chop up as many
Barstows as they can get to?"
"Pitch it to Mucus, luv. In a year or two, he'll do it. Folk are always coming back to Northshire to get their own
back. I shouldn't be surprised if British Rail do a Revenge Special Awayday fare to Bleeds."
One of the Twins handed Squiers a thin script, heavily scrawled on in what looked like pink neon. June
pointed a long fingernail at a particular passage and tapped the paper.
"I see the star writes her own lines?" observed Richard.
"Never touches 'em. The pack know how to write Mavis the way Junie likes her. No, she always scribbles
over everyone else's sides. Loves to give the supporting artistes a hard time. She'd force them to run their
lines backwards and on their heads if she could. Eventually she will. Knows all the tricks, that one. How to
cut the heart out of someone else's scene. How to take it all away with a single nasty look. What to wear to
blind the other actors. Of course, Mavis on the show is an evil domineering cow, so Junie's approach might
be method acting."
Squiers looked over June's suggested changes, agreeing with every one out of his mouth, appalled fury
spitting out of his eyes.
Loss had to chivvy Finn onto the lounge set while jamming June's line changes into him. The actor didn't
complain. Squiers, who literally took off his producer's hat when talking with June, diplomatically made a few
suggestions.
The lights came up on Mavis Barstow's Lounge, the most-used Barstows set. Its two walls had shaggy purple
paper that matched the carpet. At least once an episode, the camera would overshoot while panning to follow
the action and afford glimpses of studio blackness and the odd crew member where the other walls ought to
be. Inflatable plastic chairs leaked slowly around a glass-and-chrome coffee table loaded with mocked-up
fictional glossy magazines. A drinks trolley held rattling bottles of cold tea and dyed water. On The Northern
Barstows, no actual products were shown (that was saved for the commercial breaks); everyone drank
"Funzino," "Bopsi-Coolah" and "Griddles Ale." Mavis' mother's old mangle stood in a corner like an industrial
art piece, to remind her where she came from: she would often tell relatives at length about the way her Mam
flattened her hands in a washing accident that threw the whole family into the poorhouse when she were a