In the three years since his story (the details of which are not relevant hereto) Danny had often considered leaving the BBC and signing on under the Jolly Roger, but only when he was in no fit state to make important decisions. He had come as close as typing his letter of resignation on that day which shall live in infamy when they told him that they had no use for his searing revelations of corruption in the sewage disposal department of a major West Midlands borough, provisionally entitled “Orduregate”. That same letter had been typed and stamped when “Countdown to Doomsday”, his mordant exposé of the threat posed by a popular brand of furniture polish to the ozone layer, had ended up on the cutting room floor; while a third edition brushed the lip of the post-box after the top floor suspended filming of the script which would have unmasked a hitherto-respected chiropodist in Lutterworth as the Butcher of Clermont-Ferrand. But he had never done it. The final Columbus-like step off the edge of the world and through the doors of the South Bank Studios was not for him, and he knew it.
The fourth edition of his resignation letter, therefore, remained unwritten, and when he left Quincy’s he returned to the studios and went to see the man who was going to tell him everything he needed to know about sports broadcasting in twenty-five minutes.
“The main thing,” said the expert, “is to turn up on the right day at the right place and keep the sound recordists out of the bar. Leave everything else to the cameramen, and you’ll do all right. That’s it.”
Is it like this, Danny asked himself, in death’s other kingdom? “That’s it, is it?” he said.
“Yes,” said the expert. “Apart from the commentators, of course. They’re a real pain in the backside, but there’s absolutely nothing you can do about them, so don’t let it worry you. It’s basically a question of hanging on and not letting it get to you.”
“Even if they say “Well, Terry, it’s a funny old game?””
“That, my son,” said the expert, “will be the least of your worries.” He paused and looked at Danny curiously. “Aren’t you that bloke who did the thing about the buried treasure?”
“That’s right,” Danny said. The expert grinned.
“I saw that,” he said. “Load of old cobblers. You’re lucky you’ve still got a job after a stunt like that.”
“Oh yes?” Danny said.
“Listen,” said the expert. “I’ve been in this game a long time. The average viewer doesn’t want all that. No goals. No big girls. No car-chases. We’re living in the age of the video now, just you remember that and you won’t go far wrong.”
“Thank you,” Danny said, “for all your help.”
Now that he knew everything there was to know about producing sports programmes, he felt that he was ready to take on his first assignment. He was wrong.
“For God’s sake,” he exclaimed. “You can’t be serious.”
“Someone’s got to do it,” he was told.
“They said that about Monte Cassino.”
“What,” came the reply, “is Monte Cassino?”
“Be reasonable,” Danny urged. “Quite apart from the fact that it’s a fate worse than death, it must be a highly difficult technical assignment. Stands to reason. I’ve got no experience whatsoever. I’ll have no end of problems.”
“That’s right, you will. But you’ll cope.”
“I don’t want to cope,” Danny blathered, “I’m a perfectionist.”
“And look where it’s got you.”
Danny paused, but only because he had spoken all the breath out of his lungs. As he breathed in, a terrible thought struck him.
“This is deliberate,” he said. “Of course, why didn’t I realise it before? You’ve given this to me just so as I can cock it up and you can fire me.”
“You and your conspiracy theories.”
“Stuff conspiracy theories,” Danny snapped, “this is my career at stake. You can’t do this to me. I have friends.”
“Name one.”
Put like that, it wasn’t easy. The life pattern of a television producer is not conducive to the forming of friendships. The only one he could come up with was Gerald, and he probably wouldn’t count for much.
“Contacts, then,” Danny said. “I have contacts. All I’d have to do to get my own show on Channel 4 is snap my fingers.”
“All
“What boat?”
“You have to film it from a boat,” he was informed. “That’s how you film boats. They tell me.”
Danny fumed, like a cigarette discarded on flame-proof furniture fabric, and then said, “All right, you win. Where do I have to go?”
On the other side of the desk a very faint grin started to form, and out of it came the word “Bridport”.
“Bridport? Where the bloody hell is Bridport?”
“Bridport,” said the context of the grin, “is where the Bridport Old Ships Race starts from. Beyond that, I must confess I know very little. Mandy in the front office has an atlas, ask her.”
