Strictly My Husband: It's funny, it's romantic and it's got dancing - what's not to love! (15 page)

‘What are satisfaction scores?’ asked a bewildered Carly.

‘Guests get asked every day to mark out of ten how they rate our attractions,’ said Amy scathingly, as if Carly was an idiot for having to ask.

‘But we never get the opportunity to put on a decent show,’ said Tom. ‘And we are stuck out in no man’s land – who’s going to troll all the way over there? It’s not fair.’

‘Like I said, it’s a hot potato,’ said Phillip.

‘What is it with these fucking hot potatoes,’ muttered Jerry under his breath.

‘Investing in entertainment is not an option at the moment.’

‘But it’s not going to cost you anything,’ said Jerry, now bright red with frustration.

‘They won’t see it that way,’ said Phillip.

‘Who won’t see it that way?’

‘Head Office. All they’ll see is a show and they’ll ask me why I’m wasting valuable resources in an area that is considered poor value for money.’

‘But it’s not costing you anything!’ repeated Jerry.

The room went silent.

‘Sadly, I understand,’ said Tom. ‘They’ve got an agenda and anything that distracts from that is seen as a bad thing, even if it’s not costing anything.’

‘Precisely,’ said Phillip, standing up. He reached over to shake Jerry by the hand. ‘Thank you for your very generous offer, Jerry. I hope you understand that it just doesn’t fit in with the corporate objectives at the moment so we will have to decline.’

Jerry stared at Phillip’s hand and eventually took it whilst shaking his head. ‘I tell you, Phillip,’ he said. ‘The bigger the company is that we deal with, the less what they do makes any sense whatsoever.’

‘I have absolutely no doubt that that is true,’ replied Phillip, giving him a sad smile.

‘Can I make a suggestion?’ piped up Amy.

‘Let’s talk about your pay grade another day, shall we?’ said Tom firmly.

‘It’s nothing to do with my pay grade,’ said Amy curtly. ‘I had this idea about how we could increase the food and beverage spend for the Halloween period.’

‘Which department do you work in?’ asked Tom.

‘Let her speak,’ interrupted Phillip. ‘I’ve got a meeting later today with Gillian to discuss how we run our stocks down before the park shuts. So far the commercial team haven’t come up with any brilliant ideas.’

‘Well,’ continued Amy, ‘I was thinking if there was a way we could make people hang around for thirty minutes extra at the end of their day in the cold with nothing to do but buy hot food. That would make them spend more,
wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes it would, Amy,’ said Phillip, sitting down again, deflated. ‘We’ll just lock the gates shall we and stop them leaving to go and buy McDonald’s cheaper down the road?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Amy. ‘But there is another way we could stop them leaving.’

‘How?’ said Phillip, clearly stunned by Amy’s retort and now starting to lose patience.

‘We could put on a show to watch, like a Halloween Show, at the exit, next to all the food outlets. Just a thought.’

There was a moment’s silence.

‘Oh my God,’ cried Tom, leaping up. ‘That’s it. She’s right. We’re putting on a show to stop people leaving so they spend more
money
!’ He looked excitedly over at Phillip. Phillip was thinking. Thinking very hard. He hadn’t said no. This had to be a good sign. He slowly started to nod his head.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Jerry, looking around. ‘Are we putting on a show or not?’

‘Be quiet,’ hissed Amy, staring at Phillip.

‘And we can measure it,’ added Amy. ‘How successful it is. They like to measure, don’t they?’

Phillip nodded. ‘We could compare the spend per head to last year. I’m sure we can extract those numbers,’ he said to himself.

‘So the show could actually make money,’ said Tom, trying to spell it out for Phillip.

‘And we could measure the show,’ added Amy. ‘Ask the guests to score it. Prove we can get as good a score with entertainment as we can with rides?’

Phillip slowly raised his head. ‘Like a test. A test the whole group could learn from?’

‘That’s it.’ Tom nodded vigorously. ‘Amy’s right. We could provide some invaluable feedback to the rest of the group. That shows can actually make money and they can be experienced by lots of people and that they can get just as good satisfaction scores as the rides.’

‘That’s right,’ agreed Phillip, looking straight at Tom. ‘If we can
measure it we can justify it.’ He paused. ‘Shall we say you have a target of over sixty-five per cent of park guests must see the show, that the average satisfaction score must be over eight and we increase food and beverage spend by . . . let’s say five per cent. Reasonable?’

Tom swallowed. ‘Are you saying we can do it?’ he asked.

‘I’m saying that it would be in your interests to make sure you achieve those scores,’ replied Phillip.

Tom nodded. He understood perfectly. He wasn’t just fighting for this show, he was fighting for the future of the Entertainment Department.

‘Will someone tell me what we’ve just agreed here,’ demanded Jerry, still looking confused.

‘We have agreed to leave Phillip as he is a very busy man, right now,’ said Tom, bundling Jerry, Amy and Carly out of the office before Phillip could change his mind.

Chapter Fifteen

Laura

Laura lay semi-comatose on the sofa. There was donut sugar all down her front, a red-wine stain on her top lip and for some reason she was only wearing one sock.

She stared blankly at the TV; she had downloaded the earlier edition of
It Takes Two
thinking that its dissection of the dances on
Strictly
over the weekend would somehow distract her. She knew she really should go to bed but she had two major obstacles in her way. The first was a half-drunk bottle of wine glaring at her from the coffee table. It was begging her not to be relegated to the kitchen counter where it would fester for a long time, rejected again and again in favour of a fresh bottle. Eventually of course it would be downgraded to a possible ingredient for a casserole – or worse a gravy – but by then it was inevitable that it would meet its putrid end down the plughole, the morning after a night before when any trace of opened alcohol had to be banished immediately before it made someone want to heave. The second obstacle was her mobile phone. A device which she often thought constricted just as much as it liberated her movements. The need to be in plain sight of that small digital screen, our window on the world, could stop her doing a multitude of things, like having a life for example. It was the last text she had received that had confined her to her sick-bed sofa as her mind had slid into darkness, helped along by alcohol and donuts.

Great news. Phillip said yes. Staying late to finalise plan of stage and revise show with Carly. Don’t wait up. Xx

He may just as well have written:
With Carly. Don’t wait up. Xx
. How many times was she going to have to hear that over the next week? No doubt the increased scale of the production would bring more opportunities to spend lots of time together. What a bonus, thought Laura dully.

She heard the key in the door and hastily brushed the settled sugar off her shirt and hurriedly took her odd sock off and stuffed it under a cushion.
She had some standards. After hearing soft laughter in the hallway she grabbed the remote control and banished Zoë Ball, who was now interviewing the previous night’s rejected couple, as she was in no mood to encourage a relaxed post-mortem of the dance-off with her husband. A middle-aged man in a grey suit popped up on screen and Laura did her best to look interested in
News at Ten
.

She could see that the newsreader was speaking but couldn’t take anything in. Her ears were straining to hear the muffled conversation that was still going on in the hallway. What were they talking about? Why hadn’t they come in?

Eventually the door swung open and in strolled Tom followed by Carly, who said hello and then plopped herself down on the armchair and swung her legs over the arm in an all-too-familiar way. She kicked off her shoes, letting them drop with a clunk to the floor. Laura wished she’d kept her odd sock on.

‘Sorry we’re late, love,’ said Tom, bending to kiss her and then dropping down on the sofa beside her. ‘It’s been one hell of a day. Did you get my text?’

‘Yes,’ replied Laura, trying to sound upbeat. ‘Really pleased for you.’

‘Great news, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Just to have the opportunity to put on the show I want to. Really exciting.’

Laura looked at him. He was grinning from ear to ear despite his tiredness. He hadn’t looked as excited by a show since he used to perform, before he went into management.

‘It’s going to be great,’ she managed to say.

‘We’ve got so much to do, haven’t we?’ said Tom, shaking his head at Carly.

‘Unbelievable,’ said Carly, hauling herself back up in her chair. ‘You have no idea, Laura. I had no idea. To get this show on the road in a matter of days? It’s like the most exciting and terrifying thing I have ever done.’

‘I’m throwing everything in,’ Tom told Laura. ‘All the ideas I’ve always wanted to do but never had the chance. We’re really going for it. Carly‘s been so helpful today. Don’t know what I would have done without her.’

Laura watched as her husband cast a smile in Carly’s direction. Carly beamed back.

‘I’ve loved every minute of it,’ she replied. ‘I’m learning so much being involved in amping up some of the choreography. The Twisted Tango number at the end could be epic, I know it. I just need to teach everyone a decent tango.’

‘Maybe you should tone down the choreography just a touch at this stage. Give people a chance to feel confident. Add in the more complicated stuff in a couple of days.’

‘Do you think?’

‘I do.’

‘OK.’ Carly nodded. ‘I’m worried about Theo though. The chances of him getting it right are pretty non-existent.’

‘I did notice his top line was all over the place,’ said Tom. ‘The man must stand like this.’ He leapt up, going into hold with an invisible partner. ‘But he stands like this.’ He dropped his shoulder and let his tongue sag out of the side of his mouth.

Carly laughed.

Laura leant to peer round Tom’s obstructing body so she could continue to watch a news story she had no interest in whatsoever.

‘Oops, sorry,’ said Tom, shuffling to one side so she could see.

‘I know,’ said Carly, leaping up out of her chair and inserting herself into Tom’s arms. ‘He gets it right when I place his arms for him, but as soon as we start dancing he goes like a wet lettuce and dribbles all over the place.’

Tom laughed.

‘Seriously,’ said Carly. ‘We go into hold and he can barely keep his eyes off my chest and he dribbles. I mean actually dribbles. I don’t think he’s ever danced with a woman – no, strike that, I don’t think he’s ever touched a woman before.

Tom and Carly collapsed into laughter.

‘Mmmm,’ muttered Laura.

‘What was that?’ asked Tom, turning round.

Laura looked up. ‘What?’

‘You said something?’

They are still in fucking hold, Laura screamed inside. My husband is standing in front of me holding a girl in his arms in my living room. Can they
not see that I’m interested in this news story and I do not wish to see my husband holding another woman in his arms, in my face!

‘I said,’ replied Laura, ‘that David Cameron has had a really rough time in the Commons today. Look, they’re all jeering at him.’

Tom and Carly turned to look at the screen.

Still in hold! Laura wanted at scream at them. How can you watch Prime Minister’s Question Time poised to embark on a tango?

‘Wow,’ said Carly. ‘Politicians are like crazy.’

‘Shall we show Laura what we are thinking for the finale?’ Tom asked Carly, ignoring the Prime Minister’s struggle in parliament.

I don’t want to see it, thought Laura. I’m not sure I can give them praise. Not while they are still in fucking hold!

‘It’s not like perfect yet ’ – Carly glanced over her shoulder to Laura – ‘but I suddenly had this idea, didn’t I?’ she said, gazing back up at Tom.

Don’t look at him like that, Laura wanted to sob.

‘Thank goodness you did,’ agreed Tom. ‘When you said why not do it as a group tango, I was like: genius, utter genius. Don’t you think it’s a great idea, Laura? Can you image two sets of cards? One a set of evil tarot cards and the other happy families characters. They all pair up in a group tango so when they turn you only see either the evil tarots or the friendly happy families cards. Visually brilliant.’

‘I can’t quite picture it,’ replied Laura feebly.

‘We’ll show you. Imagine on my back is a large tarot card with the devil on it and on Carly’s back is – I don’t know – cute little old Granny Smith. And there are ten other couples on the stage with similar cards. So we’ll do the dance like this . . .’

Tom and Carly began to dance the tango in the confined space of Laura’s hearth rug, strutting up and down until they did an about-turn just before they banged into the telly and suddenly Carly’s back was facing her and Tom was grinning over her shoulder.

‘Do you see? The stage would appear to be full of little devils and now, with just one synchronised turn, all you can see is sweet little old ladies.’

Laura blew her cheeks out. She didn’t know what to say and the happy couple was now completely obliterating the TV so she couldn’t even be
distracted by the unlikely welcome sight of David Cameron.

‘Do you get it?’ urged Tom. ‘Do you see what we’re trying to do?’

‘Yes.’ Laura nodded. ‘I get it. I can visualise it really clearly. It will have a massive impact. Now I need to go to bed. I find politics late at night so unsettling.’

‘Oh, me too,’ agreed Carly, finally dropping out of hold with Tom. ‘Another big today tomorrow. Goodnight, guys.’ She squeezed Tom’s shoulder and wandered out of the room.

She’s left her shoes where she dropped them on the floor, was Laura’s first thought. She couldn’t look at Tom. She busied herself looking on the floor for the elusive remote control that she’d used only moments earlier.

‘I’ll tidy up and lock up,’ said Tom. ‘You go to bed, you look as tired as I feel.’