Page 83 of White Noise

“You know what they’re like. Bloody dickwads, the lot of them. I knew you were all right. I can always tell when you’re off, but people were worried. Then you posted that thing on your Insta, and now Production think you’ve lost your marbles. Sally was rubbish, but it doesn’t matter now—”

“She wasn’t rubbish.” Well, maybe she had been. What did I know? I just rolled with it and pretended everything was OK even if it wasn’t.

“But that’s not the worst of it. It’s been a thing all season. The whole storyline with finding the final prize—you know? The bodies we’ve been looking for?”

Now I was shivering because, yes. There was something taking shape in my head, and it made me feel a little faint. Suddenly it all made sense, and at the same time as this was a bloody genius plot twist, it was also so bloody obvious. I didn’t know why I hadn’t clocked it earlier. How I’d been such a fool?

“We’ve been looking for our own bodies. We’re the ones, the final prize, aren’t we? Rodriguez’s final game? Fuck. FUCK! We don’t make it, do we?”

“No.” She looked a little shocked herself, sucking on that vape like it was oxygen. “This is the end. Which is fine. I’ve been wanting to pull the plug anyway, but this has been my life for so bloody long, and they didn’t even have the decency to give us some notice. Talk us through the fact that we’re being sacked!”

“Not sacked,” I stuttered out. “We’re just not getting renewed. There will be new people to take the lead in the next season. Lucia already told me, but nobody has actually said anything officially.”

“They never do on this shitty production. The communication is awful. Everything is secret and under wraps—I barely know what I’m doing from one day to the next. You know I did that film last year? Totally different vibe on that set, I couldn’t believe it.”

“I know.” I had done other jobs too. “We’re so used to being here, always in the dark like bloody mushrooms, that we’ve become blind to how this awful stupid production works.”

“It’s not a good place, Con. Not anymore. We’re treated like shit, and the crew are starting to grumble. I know at least ten people who aren’t coming back next season.”

“At least they pay us.”

“Yeah, but the new people are cheaper. Production’s being sneaky about all sorts of things, and it’s not just that they’re getting rid of us. They’re getting rid of a lot of good people. I should be relieved. I should be happy I don’t have to resign, but I expected more.”

She was devastated. I was a bit myself, to be honest, and all I could do was stand there and squeeze her arms in comfort.

“I’ll miss you,” I said quietly. “You’ve been in my life for years.”

She smiled, settling my heart rate to a steadier one.

“Please keep in touch,” I begged, and she shook her head.

“Con, you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried. I can finally do an internship and finish my degree. An internship! I’ll need support. I’ll need to call you and scream all my frustration down the phone at you so you can laugh at me and call me an idiot. You’ve always been my sounding board, and my brother and my partner in crime. That’s not going to change. And you have a boyfriend! Thank God you’ve finally come out. I was starting to worry that you’d implode and go crazy. You needed this. And do you know what?”

“What?” I asked, trying to hide that my eyes were watering.

“You’re my favourite person in the world. You always have been. I never know who to trust or who I could talk to or what to even say to people. Yet you were always there making the world a better place. That’s who you are. You’re my Connor. We’ll be fine.” She wiped her eyes. I gave up pretending and wiped mine too. “You need to come for dinner. I want to meet this man of yours.”

“He’s on the Teachers Association’s float…somewhere. I don’t even know where.” I was talking rubbish and rocking on my heels. Caroline laughed at me. “Yes, to the dinner,” I said, trying to make sense of myself. “Are you still with that—”

“God no! That dickhead was shagging everyone else apart from me. And now we need to go ride that float and pretend we’re all happy and everything is fine and that the people we’ve been slaving away for, for the past what…six years? That those people aren’t about to royally fuck us over in every orifice imaginable. No offence intended.”

“None taken.” I smiled. “I don’t know how to feel. It’s a bit of a…”

“Shock?” she filled in, giving me a nervous smile and blowing vape in my face.

“Yeah, but not really. I’ve wanted it to end for a while. I just didn’t expect them to kill us off.”

“Yeah. Me neither. I was hoping we’d finally see the light and get married even if Cass Powell is gayer than this entire parade and Stella is a repressed asexual mess. Honestly, I don’t know why I’ve played her like that, but she’s starting to make all the sense to me now, and it’s made me re-evaluate everything lately.”

“OMG, you didn’t actually start to think? Caroline! You know that’s not allowed! We’re actors! We don’t think! Seriously, babe!”

“I know. No wonder they’re killing us off.”

“And we’re not even allowed to play the dead us. I’ve always wanted to do a death scene.” I hadn’t, but she was laughing, and we needed that now. And I laughed too as Caroline did her worst impression of dying in disgrace.

“That’s why I’m here,” she said, her voice low. “This show has done so much good for people, but the production team is a bunch of arseholes. It’s all about money, and nobody actually cares about what we do. Like this. We do Pride every year, but it’s all about how much sponsorship and how many collabs we can snag, not about giving something back to the community who have, let’s be honest, put us here. So, I’m thinking…”

“Yes?”

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