A Eurovision Calling

A Eurovision Calling

Prologue

He was still in that comfortable twilight world between sleeping and waking.

Sleep didn’t come easy these days and it had taken a few hours to eventually reach the point where he was relaxed and drifting into that dreamy, comfortable state where deep sleep was a possibility.

Then his mind began recognising sounds and he was alert enough to consider whether or not he was dreaming or even if it was real.

And then she said it again. My waters have broken! The baby’s coming!

There was silence for what seemed to be quite a few seconds as he processed what he’d just heard. Then he shot up out of bed and the panic set in. He was fully awake.

She lay next to him on her back and stared at the ceiling. Benny, it’s happening! she said. This time it’s real. He really is coming.

As he stood by the side of the bed he initially felt a little dizzy. He looked at the clock; it was nearly 6.00am so he must have got to sleep only about an hour ago. He so desperately wanted to rest but it wasn’t going to happen – though it might soon be over if junior made an appearance.

He quickly gathered his thoughts. I’ll get everything ready, he said, trying not to sound panicked.

He picked up the phone at the side of the bed and called for the ambulance. It was a landline so they knew where he was already and they knew the baby was due. He didn’t really need to say much as they had his information; it was fortunate that there had been a couple of false alarms.

Little did he know that the emergency operators in the ambulance control room often held sweeps on who would call and he’d been included for that shift. They would be here soon.

Do you need anything, Hannah? I have to get the stuff ready, he said.

Yes, she said and tried to move over to the side of the bed. Help me sit upright. It’s more comfortable.

She’d started doing the breathing exercises the midwife had taught her but it didn’t make her feel more confident.

He helped her sit up and she was clearly in an awkward position but lying on the towels helped her shift easily.

Get what you need. Our son won’t wait any longer! she said through gritted teeth. She smiled up at him and he smiled back nervously. She rested her hand on the bulge, which seemed enormous and swollen. I think he’s turned into an elephant, she said and smiled but then winced when she felt another contraction.

His mind was racing and he grabbed the bag by the side of the bed. There was something he’d taken out last night and needed to get it before they left for the hospital. Damn, what was it? He ran through the checklist in his mind.

The King blanket – check.

The 1972 World Tour toilet bag – check.

The studded, sequinned sunglasses – check.

Stick-on sideburns – check.

Gold lamé cape – check.

CD beatbox – check.

Camera – check.

‘Devil in Disguise’ nappies – check.

The birthing songs CD – not here.

That’s it, he said to himself and grabbed the CD from the coffee table in the living room. Fortunately the Elvis bib and the ‘Elvis has left the building’ onesie were already in the bag.

All was ready and he slipped into the white, two-piece flared suit with the rhinestones and sequinned pattern on the back. He’d put the sideburns on, and the cape, when the child arrived.

Today will be the best day of our lives, he said to Hannah and began singing ‘Love me Tender’ as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. Their son would be born to the sounds of the King.

Hannah was already wearing the black silk shirt and the lightweight rhinestone tunic. It was long and a little more practical for wearing nothing below. Perhaps not too dignified but they weren’t on stage now so all would be excusable when it came to giving birth. They’d already discussed the wig and agreed it wouldn’t be a good idea for Hannah to wear as it was bound to get in her way and would be far too hot. They’d already agreed that he would do the singing and, if possible, she might hum part of the tune.

The ambulance arrived and quickly got them to the hospital birthing room, which they’d already been in twice before. Hannah knew it was the real thing this time; the pain and discomfort were more pronounced.

The labour didn’t last too long and Benny held her hand all through it. The CD blasted out all their favourite tunes and their son was born to the sound of ‘The Wonder of You’. They wrapped him in the King blanket and cried. It was a touching moment.

Benny held him as Hannah shifted and got a little more comfortable while the midwife prepared to take some photos of the pair of them holding their son. Benny was crying tears of joy in the chapel of birth.

This child is a gift from God to us and a present to the world, he said to his wife. The old King is dead. Long live the new King!

The nurses tutted and went about their business; the child was the fifth born that morning already and wouldn’t be the last. But it was the first Elvis-themed birth and made the local papers.

The Turkish-delight Effect

Ring-a-Ding Girl    Sung by Ronnie Carroll / Lyrics by Stan Butcher

Ring-ding-a-ding, a-ding-ding-ding

All the Bells were ringing

Ring-ding-a-ding, a-ding-ding-ding

All the world was singing

It was still early in the afternoon and, considering it was late October, there was a rather cool breeze which would be welcome by the performers at the club and no one more so than Harry. Provence was and is one of the most beautiful regions in the whole of Europe, with long hot summers and the azure blue of the Mediterranean always close by. The narrow roads meander their way over hills and field upon field of lavender and wild herbs. Medieval towns and villages sit precariously atop high rocks like fairy-tale castles from a Disney film and the smell of freshly baked bread permeates every stone building. The summers are long and predictable so a change in the weather, especially a breeze, is often desired – and a welcome release from the uncomfortable stickiness that goes with the beautiful sunshine.

The season was nearly over now and the rest of Europe was getting ready to snuggle down for the winter and start wearing thicker clothes. Women seem to love all the accessories that go with the current fashions, and the cooler months herald the opportunity to wear just that little bit more so the clothes hide bulges brought on by outside dining and pale skin that’s been protected from the ageing rays. Then covering up can be the ‘latest trend’, not to mention a return to comfort food, which over the summer was secretly missed. Salad is a good thing but one can easily have too much of it.

Harry sat on a metal seat under the famous line of silver birch trees in Les Jardins de Paradis on Rue de Marseilles in the centre of Avignon. His ritual was the same each evening for the few months of the working period and had been so for the past four years, ever since the club had become a permanent cabaret venue. Harry had been very lucky indeed to be invited, along with his troupe, to be one of the main performers.

He threw sticks for Conchita and Fernando – his beautiful and quite immaculate bichon frise dogs – and kept an eye on the time. The show for this evening would be the same as it always was. The club executive had talked about changing the act and maybe adding a few lesser-known songs and introducing some new material. Perhaps, but it worked perfectly well and although the whole group was aware that in showbiz you had to change, there was reluctance to get on with it, and especially so late in the season. The style and content were determined by the clientele and they knew best. Provided they kept paying and turning up then all was well, so why fix something if it ain’t broke? The four years of the act had seemed to go by rather quickly and perhaps another season of the same routine was on the cards… or might have been if he hadn’t been approached with an offer that was possibly far too good to refuse.

After all this time, Harry still couldn’t believe that a rather plain-looking man like him from a small town in the British county of Essex was able to end up in such a beautiful place, and doing what he loved. Being on stage was what he lived for and, a few times every week, it still seemed like something that would happen to someone else. If he thought it would work, he might have pinched himself to see whether or not hurting yourself brought you back to reality. But it was true; he really was the performer he’d only dreamt of being in a bedroom in his parents’ home in the UK.

Le Lapin Boule was one of the finest cabaret clubs in the south of France and it was unique as it was a Mecca for every Eurovision fan or starlet or Eurovision tribute act in the whole of Europe. If the guests of the club wanted Europop or Eurotrivia or even sometimes to meet the act who had represented their country in the song contest then this was the place. It had become the place to be and be seen in and many an actor or singer on their way up would stop by the club for a ‘selfie’ which, some day, might be worth a fortune.

But Harry had received an offer – quite a huge one and one of those once-in-a-lifetime offers that might change his whole direction. An offer that suggested that if he stepped out of his comfort zone then it might take him to such heights – a remarkable place that’s right up there, even higher than he’d ever imagined. But it wasn’t only Harry; there were three other people involved… and their lives, their interests and their families had to be taken into consideration too. They’d always worked hard together and had been reasonably well rewarded for what they did. But Harry was about to ask them all to stand back and evaluate what they had… ask them to become ambitious yet again and add inconvenience and a possible unwelcome solitude to their lives, following a dream that may already have passed.

It wasn’t going to be easy and even Harry didn’t know where to go with it. But he knew that he had to share it with the others and it had to be over the next couple of days because he’d carried it for far too long already.

He tried to forget it for the moment and considered where he was in life – spirituality, contentment and happiness. Why did too many choices cause untold issues?

It had all started out as a little bit of a joke. Harry had represented the UK a few years back in the contest. He didn’t win; there’s no surprise there and the details will be covered a little later. But it was after he’d got back home, back to Essex, that he fell back down to earth with a bump and wondered what the hell he was going to do with the rest of his life. He was twenty-nine years old at the time. Not too late to learn something new and take on a new vocation – an alternative passion, if he could find one that ignited his interest. But when you’ve been in front of audiences and entertained them, it can be hard to get back into Civvy Street and take on what the critics call a sensible job.

Now representing your country and being part of the largest, oldest and best singing competition sets the standards rather high. When you get up there and learn to live with all the hopes of a nation, the adulation, the camp innuendo then you realise what a tremendous buzz it gives you. The view from the top is priceless and you don’t want to look down for fear of what you might lose. But when you fall from that pedestal, life becomes meaningless – not worth considering and the worst feeling in the world. Now some would say Oh, for goodness’ sake, get a grip, dear, you silly queen! It’s only a show. Now get back to the real world and find yourself a proper job! Needless to say, it was one of Harry’s ex-friends who said that and Harry has never forgotten the words or the circumstances.

Well, comments and accusations like that simply stink. And for anyone to say that demonstrates that they don’t realise the damage they inflict. Being a candidate and representing the dreams of a nation is an enormous challenge and it’s a very, very long way to fall if it all goes mammaries up and you hit the ground with a bang… and on your arse rather than your feet.

The Eurovision Song Contest is watched by over 600 million people, though perhaps even more now, and after the Second World War it brought the whole of Europe together to celebrate the importance of communities working hand in hand to bring about trade and peace. At its heart, it’s a catalyst for bringing families and people together and showing what we can do when we all set the same goal. That is the idea anyway, though some of the Balkan and former Russian countries may have a different interpretation that involves politics. But it does no harm whatsoever and, sure enough, it’s all cheesy and tacky and (sometimes) a little tasteless but, as they say in Euroviz land, chill out, take a loosening-up pill and let your hair down. We could all be dead tomorrow so go out with a bang and a zing-zang-zong!

Harry was depressed when he returned to the UK after the event and the Eurovision psychotherapeutic counsellor assigned to help him just wasn’t hitting the spot. Yes, and for you cynics out there, there is such a branch of psychotherapy – a specialist framework that analyses and suggests a working process so that the individual patient can come down gently from a high… in this case the Eurovision high (a term probably coined by Freudian and Jungian advocates). But it sometimes doesn’t work. It depends on the level of exposure the candidate may have had. A great deal of time is spent analysing the Abraham Maslow triangle, or ‘hierarchy of need’ as it’s often called, and fulfilment with adaptations to the Kleinian model of self-analysis outside the womb. It’s surprising how much waffle you can get out of it.

Alas, in Harry’s case the treatment wasn’t helping. He’d become quite depressed and withdrawn for a while and in need of a new direction to spur him on. And then a friend of his asked at a bingo club in Romford, So what do all the other has-beens from the contest do? Surely it might be better to put them all together, out to roost as it were with a stage and a microphone? It would seem the kindest thing to do really, said Shane as he filled his rather large mouth with another handful of Turkish delight.

Harry was a little tired of Shane and he would have shoved the Turkish delight and the wooden box that contained it right into Shane’s mouth without a second thought. But he wasn’t that hard and decided to put up with the bitchy comments. He preferred the intelligent ‘bunny boiler’ approach and anonymous messages on social media, which did just as well at belittling him.

But he took on board what Shane had said, though he’d never give credit for anything that came out of his lavatorial and insipid mouth.

The seed was set. Harry didn’t have an answer but the process and the idea was igniting a flame. Surely he wasn’t the only one who found it difficult to move on? What about the friends he’d made in Bostrovia City on that wonderful, memorable but catastrophic night as his world was torn apart by the European juries and the ‘incident’ which we’ll cover later.

Yes, why don’t we get back together? I suspect they have little to do now and we can all get back on stage where we rightly belong and need to be. It’s the right thing to do, he said out loud as he sat thinking to himself on the Central line the following morning. The woman next to him thought it sensible to get off the tube two stops early.

And so the thought process began and the more he considered what could be done to help him get back to the meaningful life he’d once had then the better he began to feel. He emailed some of the other contestants with whom he’d connected – or rather with whom he’d swapped numbers – and promised to call as he blew them air kisses. He thought at the time that they would just be a flash in the pan and he’d never see them again. He’d lost no sleep over it but, oh, how wrong he’d turned out to be!

***

The first one on the side was Brendan Patrick McGloughlan who’d represented Ireland in the contest and had come somewhere near the bottom, which was good news for the Irish Eurovision Board as they didn’t want to win any more. The recession had hit the Emerald Isle badly and they just couldn’t afford to host it again. Have you any idea just how much it costs to send a few fireworks up and have some glitter balls re-blinged, let alone stage a multi-national event? They’d already tried to ensure they didn’t win again with acts like Dustin the Turkey and Jedward. And it wasn’t easy to come up with original intermission acts like River Dance, you know. But Brendan hadn’t known this and he’d given his all, bless his cotton socks. So he was more than pleased to hear from Harry with his idea of a ‘collision of talent’ as he began to call it.

And then there was Ruth Cohen who was positively elated to hear from Harry; she was almost on the verge of hyperventilating when she heard about his idea and the plans for getting them all back under the limelight. Ruth had represented her home country of Israel and the rest of the Nation States who had taken part were unsure as to why Israel was part of the contest. It’s certainly true that the gay clubs of Tel Aviv embraced the contest and most of their singers tended to be drag acts from the scene. But Ruth was different; she was a rather homely girl from Jerusalem and perhaps a trifle (for want of a better word) overweight from eating far too many fried foods. But she had a great voice – maybe even too good for the competition and she had come a mere fourteenth. She took it badly and found it hard to get her career back on track when she returned home after the limelight and publicity faded. But joining Harry and his gang was kind of the making of her again.

Ruth spoke Yiddish, modern Hebrew and English but her pronunciation of French, German and Spanish was excellent, which would be great for performances with other artists in the competition. She had a good memory and a good ear for music so Harry knew from the start she would be a positive asset. What let her down was the increasing weight, which she blamed on the allergies in the air and something to do with chemicals put in the water by the Palestinians? But of course there was no proof, though Harry and the others knew it really was to do with the diet and especially the portion size.

The last one he called was Karl who’d represented his home country of Sweden and with their history and pedigree in the contest then he should have done a great deal better. But the Balkans weren’t going to let a slightly nervous lad from Gothenburg get in their way – especially one with obvious trans-gender sexuality issues, which they considered a slap in the face to God, so poor Karl Hallberg had come sixth from the bottom. It was unusual for a drag act but perhaps it wasn’t everybody’s tipple. But Karl was the real entertainer of the group and had spent years in clubs and bars in some of the seediest towns in Scandinavia. He’d learnt his trade in the face of adversity and was therefore a survivor. He was also destined to play an important part in the events of the contest, which you’ll learn about a little later.

***

It was now a little over four years since Harry had called them all together and it was, frankly, the best decision they’d all made. After much discussion and deliberations, it was obvious that all of them had been let down by their record labels and management agents. Whilst you’re making a little money