The Charleston. Georgia Hill

“I happen to know Bob Dandry who produces and directs the show. He rang me yesterday. One of their celebrity dancers has pulled out at the last moment, pregnant apparently.” She paused and then landed the final punch. “I rang him back this morning and suggested you.”

      “What do you mean, you’ve suggested me?” Merry stared, slack-jawed, at her aunt.

      “You are to report to Fizz TV Studios at ten o’clock on Monday next,” Venetia said, triumphant. “To do the ‘Big Meet,’ as I believe they so quaintly term it, with your dance partner.”

      Merry tried to sit up straight, a difficult task on the slippery leather. “Venetia, what the hell have you done?”

      “I’ve got you a job, darling. One even your parents won’t mind; they’re huge fans of the show.” Venetia raised her glass and then took a celebratory sip of wine.

      Merry slid back down onto the leather. “Wha - what?” One word sank in.

      Dance.

      She was beginning to wish she hadn’t drunk so much. You needed a clear head to deal with Venetia in full sway. She sat back up again. “Dancing? Venetia I can’t dance!”

      “My darling girl, if you ever got your head out from that Oxford scented cloud and into the real world, you’d realise that is precisely the point.”

      “I don’t understand.”

      Venetia looked down her long nose. “Patently.”

      “I suppose it’s too much to expect you to explain?”

      “Then I shall attempt to give you a potted history in popular culture,” she said and grinned malevolently. “More wine?”

      After rising to pour another glass for each of them, Venetia settled back and launched into an explanation about the phenomenally successful Who Dares Dances, part reality show, part dance competition. She told a befuddled Merry that its last series, however, had been dogged by vote rigging scandals and a race row. How the new series was a much shorter one, a special six week run leading up to the annual comedy charity fundraising event in television, Jokes for Notes. Some contestants were to reappear, including winners of previous competitions. The emphasis, Venetia went on, with this series was to be on the money the show raised for its pet charity, Pennies for Pencils, by the public voting to keep in their favourite dancers.

      “So I thought, with you being a comedian, you’d fit right into it all. Luckily, Bob agreed. He owed me a favour after the fiasco that was The Golden Egg.” Venetia referred to a doomed drama she’d been in a few years ago.

      “Oh Lord,” Merry said, “This Bob fellow didn’t have a hand in that, did he?”

      “He did, indeed,” her aunt replied, through thinned lips. “So, he owes me big time, as you young people say. Of course,” she added with her usual assurance, “I was wonderful in it. Just such a shame the leads were so awful.”

      Merry laughed and then stopped short. “So, to get this right then, I’ve got to learn to dance?”

      “Yes, but it shouldn’t be so hard; you had ballet lessons at school.”

      “Venetia, that was years ago!”

      “Oh, it’s better than nothing. And you have natural rhythm, after all. Inherited from me, of course.” Venetia waved Merry’s concerns away.

      “Not sure about that,” Merry said gloomily.

      “Merry, do you want this job or not?” her aunt asked with asperity. “I had to twist Bob’s arm most severely and the little weasel was very difficult. I think it’s about time you took something a little more seriously.”

      “Oh aunty, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m really grateful and so on, but I just simply don’t know if I’m up to it.”

      “Merry, I know you and I know that underneath all that cheer and bravado is a mess of insecurity but I really think you can do this. I’m also assuming the thirty five thousand makes a difference?” her aunt added waspishly.

      “What do you mean?”

      Venetia gave an enormous sigh, “I feel as if I’m dealing with the hard of understanding. It’s your fee, Meredith.”

      “You’re joking!”

      “I assure you I’m not in the least. In fact, my humour is being stretched rather thinly in this conversation. You should know that I never, ever joke about money.”

      “Thirty five thousand pounds!” Merry couldn’t compute being paid such a huge amount of money.

      “That would pay off your student loan, I assume?”

      “And the rest.”

      “Then you’ll do it?”

      Merry looked at her aunt and admitted total defeat. “I don’t have much choice do I?” she said in a mock humble tone and feeling the first stirrings of excitement. Despite what she’d said to her aunt (she didn’t want to give Venetia her victory too easily, after all) she was someone who rose gleefully to a new challenge.

      Venetia beamed. “Not really, darling girl. And, do you know what? I think it might just be the making of you.”

      Step Two.

      In the intervening few days, before Merry had to report for duty, Venetia took her niece in hand. She provided a wardrobe of clothes to replace Merry’s student rags, as she disparaging called them, and put Merry through an intensive modelling and posture course. She then treated them both to a day at a spa, leaving them preened, smooth skinned and primed for action.

      While having their hair done, Venetia also gave Merry a few more details about the programme and its dancers.

      “Apparently, there are a total of eight couples,” she said, over the noise in the salon. “Celebrities partnered with professional dancers, as in the previous series. Each week there is going to be an elimination contest and there will be two couples in the final, in, I think, about two months’ time.”

      “Well, the final’s not something that will worry me,” Merry said mischievously, in an attempt to wind up her aunt. She looked over to the next chair, where Venetia was giving imperious instructions to a harassed looking Alain, who was trying to wield a hair dryer.

      “Nonsense Meredith. Have some faith in your ability. And it’s simply a matter of getting the right partner, you know. You’ll be fine if you get Daniel Cunningham. I knew his mother. She danced with the London Ballet at one point. No!” she cried and waved her hands at the hapless hairdresser. “I said quite clearly I do not want it looking too full. I told you to simply give it a little lift at the crown!”

      Merry shared a sympathetic look with Alain and tried to distract her aunt. “Is there anyone you don’t know, Venetia?”

      “I shouldn’t think so,” she replied smugly and bent forward to finger her fringe into the preferred style. “I remember Daniel as a little boy. Tall and gawky with lovely straw blond hair and unusual eyes. Now, Alain, please concentrate on what I’ve requested.” With that, Venetia turned her attention back to the matter in hand.

      ***

      As Merry wandered around the television studio, on the following Monday, she felt, and looked, very different to the student-like comedian actor who had cycled so dispiritedly through Oxford a few days ago. Her hair had been given a treatment, which made the chestnut lights glow and gave it bounce and gloss. Her skin glowed from the facials and expert make-up lessons, and she held herself high after the posture training.

      As she searched for the adult version of the gangly boy Venetia had described as being Daniel Cunningham, she felt excitement bubble inside once again. She might just enjoy this.

      There were crowds of people in Fizz TV’s Studio One; a mix of press, family and friends, celebrities and dancers.