The Hating Game (30 page)

‘
So where are we going?’ she asked whoever was manoeuvring her down some sort of wooden contraption. She could hear the thump of her feet echoing on the boards.

‘
You’ll find out,
’ a smug voice said. Was that Baz? She could tell he was enjoying this. She was wondering where the slimy little cretin had got to. As sad as Nate was, Mr Blobby was preferable to Baz the Spaz.

‘
Take her arm,’ Baz
said to someone who reeked of fish. Mattie felt herself being pulled in one direction, and then plopped down onto a hard cold surface. She heard Adam being brought over and plunked next to her.

‘
Right, guys.
’ The annoying authoritarian voice was really beginning to grate now. ‘When I count to three, remove the blindfold. Ram, make sure you get this.’

Mattie smiled at Ram’s huff of frustration. One day she’d really like to see him haul off and pu
nch Baz right in his smug mouth.

‘
Okay
. One, two . . .’ Baz paused for dramatic effect and if Mattie had been able to see she wouldn’t be able to refrain from hitting him.

‘
Three!’

Mattie fumbled with the blindfold’s strings. Somehow they’d managed to work themselves into a knot, and the fake nails Cyndi had insisted on weren’t helping.

‘
What the–?’ Adam said. She could hear the boards creak as he stomped around.

There was a rumble underneath her and she felt whatever she was in moving. Finally the blindfold gave way and she blinked against the light filtering though the heavy clouds.

Mattie
glanced around, heart sinking. They were on a boat – a fishing boat, judging by the overpowering smell and the nets heaped in one corner – pulling away from the coastline. The wind bit into her bare arms and the sky looked like it was about to bring on a flood of Old Testament proportions.

‘
Jesus Christ
,’ she said as she took it all in. ‘Nate! NATE!’

But both Nate and Baz had conveniently disappeared.

‘
Where do you think we’re going?’ she asked
, joining Adam at the railing and looking down into the choppy grey water. Her teeth started chattering and she rubbed her arms to keep warm.

Adam’s blue lips made him look even more corpse-like. ‘I don’t know. Calais?’

‘
God, I hope not,’ Mattie said. Surely t
here was no way the producers could eke out two weeks in Calais. Apart from cheap booze and illegal immigrants, Mattie couldn’t think of anything else interesting about the coastal French town.

Over in the corner, Ram was
struggling to balance against the sway of the boat as he filmed them. His face was slowly draining of its usual ruddy colour and turning green.

‘
Ram?’ she shouted over the engine
noise and wind. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’

But the cameraman’s
only response was to turn his head and heave over the side.

‘
Guess not,’ Mattie muttered, crouching under the tarpaulin at the front of the boat to try to get warm.

She sighed.
Did it really matter where, given they were still in bloody Britain and not on the way to an exotic location to lounge in the sun? Shaking her head, she reflected on the clothes she’d packed. She was going to freeze her arse off for the next two weeks. But maybe they’d booked a manor house hotel, like the one in Castle Combe? She wouldn’t even need to go outside – she could just spend the whole time in the spa, the pool . . . it might not be so bad.

After what felt like an eternity, t
he boat bumped against a small wharf, nearly throwing her off her feet. Finally Baz and Nate appeared from the narrow space below, holding steaming cups of tea in their hands.

‘
Bastards,’ Mattie mumbled.

Baz
just smiled. ‘We’re here!’

‘
I’d love to get excited,’ said Mattie, ‘but you haven’t exactly told us where “here” is.’ She took in the large white cliffs looming above the shore and racked her limited geographical knowledge. They couldn’t be in Dover, could they? It was the only place she could think of with white cliffs.

‘
Yeah, where are we?’ Adam asked. A seagull swooped over them and a bullet of brown and green goo plopped on Adam’s white shirt. ‘For God’s sake!’ he grunted, holding the shirt out away from him. Mattie put a hand over her mouth to hide her grin. That was the most animated he’d been so far.

‘
Welcome
, Mattie and Adam, to’ – Baz swept a hand across the coastal landscape behind him – ‘the wonderful Isle of Wight.’

‘
The Isle of
fucking
Wight?’ Mattie followed his hand to the coastline, eyes frantically searching for a luxury five-star hotel. All she could see were more scavenging seagulls and a few isolated houses dotted here and there.

‘
It’s really nice,’ Nate said weakly. ‘The biggest island in England! An area of outstanding beauty, lots of beaches, you know.’

‘
It might be nice in the summer,’ Mattie said, taking a step towards the duo. ‘But have you forgotten it’s bloody February?’

As
if on cue the sky opened and precipitation rained down on them.

‘
Come on, let’s get in the car!’ Baz yelled, pointing to a battered Land Rover waiting up ahead.

‘
Perfect,’ Mattie said, climbing into the rusty car. ‘Just perfect.’

Mattie and Adam were silent as the
four-wheel drive – circa 1950, without its original or subsequent suspension – bounced away from the port and along a narrow side road. The view over the clifftops out to sea
was
spectacular, if you liked that kind of rugged, rough outdoorsy beauty. Mattie preferred the tamer environs of, say, Italy or France, where everything looked like it had been arranged for maximum sensory pleasure. The landscape here was untidy and wild, as if it was a painting in progress.

‘
You al
l right?’ she asked Ram, who was jammed in the backseat with them. He was doing his best to film their journey to God knows where, and although the green pallor had subsided he still looked queasy. The last thing Mattie needed was
eau de vomit
mixed with the wonderful smell of oil and fish she was carrying from the boat.

‘
Yeah, I will be now that we’re off that bloody death trap.’ He shot daggers at Baz who was bossily giving Nate directions from the passenger seat.

The
Land Rover turned off the road onto an even narrower one, bumping over potholes the size of craters. Thick over-arching trees made it even darker and Ram switched on the camera light.

‘
Jesus,’ Mattie swore, temporarily blinded
. Adam smiled into the lens and put his hand on Mattie’s leg again.

‘
I’
m really looking forward to spending some time here with you,’ he said, thumb pressing hard into her thigh.

Mattie
shoved his hand off. Gross! Did he actually think he had a shot with her? She’d put an end to that soon enough.

T
he Land Rover jolted to a halt in front of a corroded gate and Mattie leaned forward to try to make out where they were. A faded sign with greying letters spelled out ‘Cliff Top Holiday Park’. Scrawled underneath was a demented-looking happy face beside the words ‘is shit’. Baz got out and opened the gate, waving the car forward.

‘
A holiday p
ark?’ Mattie said in horror. She leaned forward and poked Nate in the shoulder. ‘We’re not going to stay here, are we?’

But Nate just sat t
here like a lump. Baz got back in and the car rolled forward down a narrow paved track that ran between two rows of tightly packed caravans. No other cars or people were around and the whole place was dark.

What
were these two idiots playing at?

It’s like a bloody immigration camp for
senile holidaymakers, Mattie thought, taking in the small, hunched caravans, some no bigger than the size of her lounge in London. She shuddered as she remembered the adverts on telly for holiday parks, where families with snot-nosed toddlers could let their kids run amok while they stuffed themselves with warm beer and every type of thrice-fried food under the sun. At least there didn’t seem to be any kids, she thought, looking around the deserted field.

‘
Right, this is it
!’ Baz said as the car came to a halt. He and Nate opened the doors and got out, but nobody else moved. Rain continued to lash the car windows.

Mat
tie sighed. Surely this was just a ploy to shock them before they went off to a lavish, warm hotel where she could take a hot bath and wrap up in a cosy fluffy robe. So the sooner they got this joke segment over with, the sooner she could do just that.

T
rying to ignore the pelting rain, she walked over to where Baz and Nate were huddled under a small drooping umbrella. They looked so comical standing there practically on top of each other that Mattie almost grinned. She glanced over at Adam. Rain was pouring down the furrow between his eyebrows and dripping off his nose. His blue eyes looked grey in the dull light and he was staring unseeingly into the distance.

‘
At least your shirt is clean again,’ she remarked, but Adam didn’t even respond. Jeez, talk about android. Somebody must have hit the off switch!

‘
Mattie and Adam, I’d like to welcome you to your new home for the next two weeks: Cliff Top Holiday Park!’ Baz turned to Ram who was busy zooming in on Mattie’s horrified expression. ‘Ram, make sure you get this.’

‘
For fuck’s sake! I got it!’ Ram backed up straight into him, nearly knocking Baz into the giant puddle forming beside one of the cement blocks the caravan was perched on.

Mattie walked over
to the two producers. ‘Ha ha, very funny,’ she said. ‘Now show us where we’re really staying.’

Baz smirked
. ‘What do you mean? This
is
where you’re staying.’ He threw out an arm with a flourish.

‘
If this
is our new home for the next two weeks, how come Seamus Leary’s not here to welcome us?’ Mattie asked, tapping her foot. What bloody amateurs. If the TweedleDuo really wanted to fool them, they could have at least trotted out the host.

‘
Er, Seamus won’t be joining us here. He’ll just do a voice-over back in the studio,’ Nate said. ‘He had other contractual obligations.’

‘
Yeah,
with a detox facility,’ Mattie muttered, hoping they locked him away for good.

‘
I’m not staying here,’ Adam said stiffly. He p
lucked at his sodden shirt. It made a sucking noise as it peeled away from his skin. ‘I need access to an exercise facility, my special diet . . .’

Baz
waved a hand in the air. ‘Look around you. You can jog for miles if you want!’

Adam took a step forward, sinister eyes boring holes in Baz.

‘
It’s not t
hat bad,’ Nate piped up quickly. ‘Why don’t you two go check out the inside?’

Mattie shot him a look, then climbed the rickety stairs and threw open a door covered with numerous dents. Ugh. The caravan reeked of stale cigarettes and bleach. It had a miniscule lounge with a battered sofa and a tiny galley kitchen. Down the narrow hall, a small single bed was squeezed into a broom closet cum bedroom.

Mattie took a breath. Okay, so it wasn’t exactly Club Med – more like Club Dread. But she could do this. For two hundred thousand pounds, she could. She plopped her suitcase on the bed. ‘So where’s Adam’s caravan?’ she asked Nate.

Nate pushed
up his specs. ‘Um, actually, Adam’s staying here, too.’

Mattie’s mouth dropped open. ‘What? You can’t be serious!’ she spluttered. ‘There’s only one single bed!’

Nate squirmed. ‘I know. But it’s only for two weeks, and I’m
sure you guys can work it out.’

Baz squeezed into the room and sat down on the bed. ‘Yeah. You can come to an
arrangement
.’ He waggled his eyebrows. ‘It’ll be nice and coz-zy.’

T
hank God Adam wasn’t listening to this. He was still in the lounge trying to figure out where his ‘on’ switch was or something. ‘Shut up, Baz,’ Mattie said. ‘You know nothing’s going to happen between Adam and me.’

‘
You never know,’ Baz said as he backed down the corridor. ‘You just never know.’

Mattie shook her head. It was just like Spaz to try to drum up drama where none existed.

‘
Come on, Nate. Let’s leave them to get settled.’ Nate raised a hand and he and Ram dutifully followed Baz out the door.

‘
Wait! Doesn’t Ram need to stay?’ No way did Mattie want to be left alone with the robot. But the door had already slammed shut, cutting off her words.

Mattie watched them race
off between the caravans. Where were they going? And if they didn’t need Ram to stay and film, did that mean there were cameras installed in here?

Mattie returned to the bedroom and looked up into the corners of the room. Sure enough, a glassy eye returned her gaze. She went into the tiny toilet. Those sickos wouldn’t put a camera in here, would they? She didn’t see one, but she really wouldn’t put it past them. She jimmied the plastic sliding door, trying to close it. Stupid thing, she thought, struggling with the flimsy handle. It was stuck fast.