Fast Fiction: After The Show
"Soap Star Mising'' said the newspaper placard. "Go on then read it out,'' snapped Rod Snale to his companion. Rod was probably in for a nasty shock, as Richard Mallinson's story enigmatically suggests.
At the end of each of his tv chat shows Rod Snale said to any woman guest he fancied, ‘Come back to my flat and we will continue our talk.’
Now and again one would agree, aware that she’d done badly and needing to be reassured.
‘You were special,’ Snale would say but the woman would merely sit and drink vodka and orange while repeating what she’d said on the show (and he hadn’t listened then, either.)
Before long she would ask him to ring for a taxi because she was tired and had to get up early in the morning.
*
One night, a young tv soap actress called Verona Vincent, who had in fact done rather well on the show, came to his flat.
By midnight she was apparently willing to do what he expected all women to do but few if any did - at least not with him.
However, just as he was about to make his move, she fell asleep and, after a few minutes of blind fury, so did he.
*
‘Any luck with anybody last night?’ asked the shaven-headed director of the show when they met for an expense-account lunch next day.
‘What do you mean, any luck?’ Snale asked testily. ‘I don’t need luck - you ought to know that by now.’
After their lunch, they strolled along Oxford Street. Outside the Tube station they saw a news placard saying, Soap Star Missing.
The director bought a copy of the paper.
‘Go on, then,’ snapped Snale, ‘read it out.’
