no longer the case. And then the worms turned, taking the piss out of the so-called Island Experts.
It didn’t take a psychologist to work out that the one thing Scarlett couldn’t deal with was having the piss taken out of her. She’d learned the hard way that she was generally considered to be ignorant and stupid. Even the ignorant and stupid can read a tabloid headline, after all. But she hated being condescended to, and in her eyes, when anyone mocked her, they were asking for trouble. And she was the one to hand it out.
Things got fractious fast. They came to a head one evening on the second week. The islanders had earned a case of wine, thanks in part to Scarlett’s willingness to immerse herself in the freezing Firth of Forth to find crab pots hidden on the sea bed just offshore. They attacked the wine with gusto over dinner, and inhibitions began to vanish. Danny Williams, who called himself a landscape gardener but was actually a labourer for a garden design firm, started holding forth about why Scarlett had got the location of the vegetable beds so wrong. He was smart enough to make his sarcasm cut her, and she wasn’t in the mood to take it.
‘Fuck off back to bongo bongo land, you fat black arsebandit,’ she’d screamed at him. Cha-ching. It’s hard to imagine a line that could cause more offence on prime-time TV. The media lit up like the main drag in Vegas. Jackpot time. And of course, somebody’s tame monkey got up in the House of Commons and did the whole ‘a nation is outraged’ number. Scarlett’s goose was well and truly cooked.
Goldfish Bowl pretended they were just as outraged as the country’s moral guardians and that night Scarlett was summoned to the Aquarium. Big Fish did the whole ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ routine and made her apologise to Danny, the rest of the contestants, the country at large and, really, the entire solar system. He made it sound like she could win a reprieve by grovelling enough, but of course the viewers knew it was nothing but a ritual humiliation. Scarlett was going and everybody knew it except her.
I can still remember the shocked disbelief on her face when, after she’d shed her tears and abased herself, Big Fish told her to pack her bag and make her way down to the dock. Everything went on hold for a long moment. Then Scarlett jumped to her feet and stabbed her finger at the camera. ‘You bastard,’ she said. ‘You were never going to let me stay, were you? Well, here’s the truth. I’m not fucking sorry. Not one fucking bit. So stick that up your arse and spin on it.’
I have to admit, right then it was hard not to admire Scarlett.
3
A s far as the watching world was concerned, that was it. Scarlett was whisked away from Foutra in shame. The press camped outside the hacienda were disappointed that she didn’t turn up there next day. Nobody seemed to know where she’d gone. ‘Where is the bitch?’ the headlines screamed for a couple of days, then the circus moved on.
But Scarlett wasn’t destined to stay out of the limelight for long. A week after her ignominy, readers of the Sun were greeted with a world exclusive. ‘“I’m pregnant,” Scarlett reveals.’ We were informed that disgraced reality TV star Scarlett Higgins had been so deranged by the hormones of pregnancy that she’d spoken words that never would have passed her lips in normal circumstances.
To his credit, like any good ghost, the journalist had put some fine sentiments in Scarlett’s mouth. She was apparently devastated at the pain and embarrassment she’d caused Danny; the makers of Goldfish Bowl ; her partner Joshu (‘who is a person of colour too’); her unborn child; and every minority citizen of these islands. What she’d said was the opposite of everything she believed. She loved gay people and black people and especially gay black people (not that she could actually name one . . .). Her own baby would be mixed race, she pointed out. And she was so
It didn’t take a psychologist to work out that the one thing Scarlett couldn’t deal with was having the piss taken out of her. She’d learned the hard way that she was generally considered to be ignorant and stupid. Even the ignorant and stupid can read a tabloid headline, after all. But she hated being condescended to, and in her eyes, when anyone mocked her, they were asking for trouble. And she was the one to hand it out.
Things got fractious fast. They came to a head one evening on the second week. The islanders had earned a case of wine, thanks in part to Scarlett’s willingness to immerse herself in the freezing Firth of Forth to find crab pots hidden on the sea bed just offshore. They attacked the wine with gusto over dinner, and inhibitions began to vanish. Danny Williams, who called himself a landscape gardener but was actually a labourer for a garden design firm, started holding forth about why Scarlett had got the location of the vegetable beds so wrong. He was smart enough to make his sarcasm cut her, and she wasn’t in the mood to take it.
‘Fuck off back to bongo bongo land, you fat black arsebandit,’ she’d screamed at him. Cha-ching. It’s hard to imagine a line that could cause more offence on prime-time TV. The media lit up like the main drag in Vegas. Jackpot time. And of course, somebody’s tame monkey got up in the House of Commons and did the whole ‘a nation is outraged’ number. Scarlett’s goose was well and truly cooked.
Goldfish Bowl pretended they were just as outraged as the country’s moral guardians and that night Scarlett was summoned to the Aquarium. Big Fish did the whole ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ routine and made her apologise to Danny, the rest of the contestants, the country at large and, really, the entire solar system. He made it sound like she could win a reprieve by grovelling enough, but of course the viewers knew it was nothing but a ritual humiliation. Scarlett was going and everybody knew it except her.
I can still remember the shocked disbelief on her face when, after she’d shed her tears and abased herself, Big Fish told her to pack her bag and make her way down to the dock. Everything went on hold for a long moment. Then Scarlett jumped to her feet and stabbed her finger at the camera. ‘You bastard,’ she said. ‘You were never going to let me stay, were you? Well, here’s the truth. I’m not fucking sorry. Not one fucking bit. So stick that up your arse and spin on it.’
I have to admit, right then it was hard not to admire Scarlett.
3
A s far as the watching world was concerned, that was it. Scarlett was whisked away from Foutra in shame. The press camped outside the hacienda were disappointed that she didn’t turn up there next day. Nobody seemed to know where she’d gone. ‘Where is the bitch?’ the headlines screamed for a couple of days, then the circus moved on.
But Scarlett wasn’t destined to stay out of the limelight for long. A week after her ignominy, readers of the Sun were greeted with a world exclusive. ‘“I’m pregnant,” Scarlett reveals.’ We were informed that disgraced reality TV star Scarlett Higgins had been so deranged by the hormones of pregnancy that she’d spoken words that never would have passed her lips in normal circumstances.
To his credit, like any good ghost, the journalist had put some fine sentiments in Scarlett’s mouth. She was apparently devastated at the pain and embarrassment she’d caused Danny; the makers of Goldfish Bowl ; her partner Joshu (‘who is a person of colour too’); her unborn child; and every minority citizen of these islands. What she’d said was the opposite of everything she believed. She loved gay people and black people and especially gay black people (not that she could actually name one . . .). Her own baby would be mixed race, she pointed out. And she was so
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