Gimlet and Finchley 4 - Mario

Mario believe in convention. He believed that children’s entertainers shouldn’t do blue jokes, even when they played to an adult audience. He believed that the eldest son should speak at his father’s funeral, and that stories should be written in the third person, past tense, with an omniscient narrator to get tricky bits of information across to the reading audience.

Mario was in the region of six foot, two inches tall, had dark hair and striking blue eyes, and believed that the physical description of characters was essential in literature to enable the reader to picture the characters. Imagination requires direction.

He stormed into Gavin’s office, because in the novels he read characters always stormed into scenes, it made them more exciting.

“What the fuck?” he said.

Gavin looked blankly at him.

“Bobby fucking Davro! You’ve asked Bobby Davro to speak at dad’s funeral.”

“It’s what the public want,” Gavin said. “A name they recognise.”

“They recognise my name, Elliott, you know, the same name as my dad. They can join the dots from there.”

“I understand,” Gavin said. “But your father was a celebrity, a public figure. The public expect someone famous to speak at the funeral. They’re not interested in someone they’ve never heard of talking about events they know nothing about. They want celebrity anecdotes, some juicy story about Sue Pollard not details of the time Ted was changing your nappies.”

“But dad and Bobby weren’t close. He never came to the house.”

“They did shows together. I tried a few other celebrities, but it was no go at short notice.”

“Oh, I’m sorry dad didn’t fit his death around Mr Blobby’s diary.”

“It’s a done deal, Mario. Bobby’s keen to do the reading, and he’s available.”

“Of course he’s available,” Mario said. “There’s more than one TV channel now, nobody’s going to put Bobby Davro in a programme any more, not when the entire audience could switch to ‘Cats in the Attic’ the second he appears on screen.”

“I think it’s called Cash in the Attic.”

“My point still stands.”