A: All Fall Down - Part I

I thought it was a good idea at the time.

A couple of television series where modern day families had been put
into situations where they had to live as past generations had proved
very popular. The participants in these programmes, some would say
victims, but they were all volunteers, had their food, clothes and
general living conditions controlled by the programme makers and large
audiences tuned in every week to see whether they had managed to
survive the week without cigarettes or had sneaked some modern day item
like shampoo into the house.

When I pitched the idea for a modern day family to be put in a house to
live as though they were in the seventeenth century, the board jumped
at the idea. The twist was, the series would be done live, with
occasional live links, an evening update of the daily comings and
goings and a weekly omnibus.

The 1600's House, as I'd provisionally named the show in the great
tradition of its predecessors, sounded like great television. My
history wasn't that great and the thought of watching a middle class
family forced to live in squalor, throwing buckets of slop into the
street appealed to my sick sense of humour and, I gambled, to the sense
of humour of the majority of the general public.

I didn't have the vaguest idea what was entailed in putting this on
television. I was just an ideas man. I cared more about ratings than
anything else. Good ratings meant higher wages and that was the bottom
line as far as I was concerned.

I wasn't that good either. To be honest I don't think I could've come
up with an original idea if I'd tried. I always 'borrowed' and then
enhanced other people's ideas. 'Standing on the shoulders of giants,'
as someone once said. I'll have to get Sally to find out who it
was.

Sally was my researcher. She took care of all the details. She had the
knack of stopping me floating off into space on some of my wilder ideas
and would bring me back down to earth with sobering facts about the
production budget or the ratings.

'It wasn't all shit in the streets,' she said when I told her.
'Besides, we'd never be allowed to do it. The Broadcasting Standards
people would be down on us like a ton of bricks. We'll have to make do
with some kind of septic tank arrangement. No soft toilet paper or
running water though.' She grinned and a wicked glint came into her
eye. I knew that it would be the suffering that would draw the
crowds.

I'd been working with Sally for about five years now, and we made a
great team. We had a mutual respect for one another. I dealt with all
the management and political stuff and she did the groundwork. She
liked it that way, or at least she appeared to. She had no wish to deal
with the money men, she just wanted to get stuck in organising people
and getting her hands dirty.

Over drinks that evening we discussed the set possibilities. My
favourite option was to build a house, complete with hidden cameras.
That way we could control the whole environment. A cheaper option,
Sally suggested, would be to find an old run down cottage somewhere and
renovate it. That way we could recoup some of the money, after the show
was finished, by selling it.

We started looking around for a suitable location. Ideally we needed
some cheap tumbledown cottage somewhere we could do up. The sort of
thing a typical estate agent would call a 'fixer-upper' and what most
people would call a ruin.

After a week or so Sally got lucky.

'Its fantastic,' she told me. 'And well within our budget.'

'Where is it?' I asked.

She spread a map out on the table.

'Its here, right on the edge of the old part of the town. Dede Lane.
Apparently the weaving community used to live there. There are eight
houses, all really close together. The street is really narrow and
there's a small green here,' she pointed to the map. 'But get this,'
she paused, her eyes widening. 'The whole street is for sale. It needs
a fair bit of work, but I've worked it out and it's within the budget.
Think of it. The Sixteen Hundreds Street. It'll be great.'

'Wow, that's fantastic. Do you think that we'll be able to find enough
people?'

'Are you kidding? There's millions of people that want to be on the
telly. We'll put some ads in the papers and we'll be inundated. Wait
and see.'

She was right. It was to be a six month experiment, and at the end the
local council were going to take it over and develop it as a living
museum. The production company was right behind it and we had the help
and support of the local museums and university. We had a massive team
of researchers, carpenters, builders and other specialists who helped
restore the street to seventeenth century glory. Everything was
perfect. The tiny cameras were installed almost invisibly with remote
links to the outside broadcast van parked a short distance away.

Obviously there would need to be some outside interaction with the
street so Sally had arranged for a local history re-enactment group to
act as traders to keep things as authentic as possible.

The series was hyped for several weeks on the channel before it aired.
Eventually the time came for the families to move in.

There were eight families overall, ranging between four and eight
people in each of them. I can't remember all of their names, but a
couple that stick in my mind are the Butchers and the Kilkerrys. The
Kilkerrys, I remember because they were our biggest family, mum, dad,
four children and the grandparents. They all lived in the same house in
the street, number five.

Mr Kilkerry, Bob I think his name was, was the father of the family. He
was a mechanic by trade and very interested in history. Somehow he had
managed to persuade the rest of his family to join him in the
experiment. We were thrilled to be able to get a large family to have
in the street, as most of the other applicants were the standard,
present day nuclear family.

Six months is a long time to take off from work, so most of the
families were either self employed, or had very understanding bosses.
We also had a few students who were on their 'year out.'

Of the other families, I remember the Butchers, because that was where
it all started.

The first week was great. The initial nightly viewing figures weren't
as high as we'd hoped, but I knew from past experience that this was
the kind of thing that spread by word of mouth and people would start
watching out of curiosity. We were right. By the end of the second week
we had hit our target.

The families settled in reasonably well, although most of them treated
the first week as more of a holiday than an everyday life experience.
However, by the second week things were beginning to get a bit tougher.
The seventeenth century sanitation and hygiene was the thing that they
all moaned about the most. The toilet and washing facilities were very
basic and not particularly pleasant. However, they got used to it after
a further week.

As an outsider it was fascinating to watch them in their troubles,
which is why, I suppose the audience figures were fairly large. We
weren't there, and we were so sure that we would cope better if we had
been. So thought the rest of the country.

It was during the fourth week that things started to go wrong.

In retrospect, it was a good idea that, from the fourth week onward, we
went to a weekly highlight show rather than the nightly live links that
we had been doing. It meant that we had a lot more control over what
was broadcast when things started to go awry.

Each house had a private room where each member of the household could
go and record a video diary. It was while I was watching Thomas
Butcher, the head of the family in number three, recording his diary
one evening that something struck me as odd.

'Well here we are, about a month into the experiment and we're all
knackered,' he said. 'Mind you, I'm enjoying it. We're settling down
into our roles and even Meg has gotten used to the pigs in the back
yard. Mind you she don't like the rats, but I s'pose they're encouraged
by the pigs and the smell. I wouldn't mind them either but they're so
bloody big and black, like something out of a horror film. Jenny, our
youngest seems okay, she's got herself an invisible friend, Mr Blotchy
or Scabby or something she calls him. Kids eh? They can make a game
outta just about anything.'

Rats!

There weren't supposed to be any rats. The council would shut us down
immediately if they found out.

'Sally,' I called. 'Sally, we've got a problem in the street.'

She came into the van clutching a polystyrene cup with tea in it.

'What problem?'

'Rats apparently, according to number three. Big black ones.'

'No one else has mentioned anything. None of the traders have said
anything about rats.'

'Well, send someone in to check. Get a pied piper or something. We'll
get shut down if this gets out.'

She smiled a sarcastic smile, muttered something under her breath and
left the van.

The next day the traders from the re-enactment group set up their
market stalls. This was a twice weekly occurrence and the best chance
for the Dede Lane inhabitants to stock their larders. This particular
day, we used it as an excuse to make enquiries about the rats.

When the market was over our 'undercover' rat catcher told us that no
one else had seen anything.

'What did the Butchers have to say?' I asked him.

'Didn't see em,' he replied.

'They were in the market,' I told him.

'You sure guv? I never saw nuffin of em.'

'Yes look.' I ran back the tape I had been looking through and showed
him the footage of the Butchers shopping in the market. They were all
there except Jenny, their youngest daughter.

'Well I never saw em,' said the rat catcher.

'He's right,' said Sally's voice.

I turned from the monitor. 'What?'

'No rats. Not according to the other families and not according to the
inspector either.'

'Inspector?'

'From the local council.'

'You bought a health inspector to the street? What the hell did you do
that for?'

'We have to do it by the book. Its not a game, we're responsible for
those people.'

She was right of course, but I wasn't going to admit it. I muttered
something under my breath and started watching the personal diaries for
the day.

Most of them were the usual, moaning about the toilet facilities, lack
of soap and suchlike. It was quite amusing to hear the adults moaning
about the lack of modern day comforts, when it seemed the kids just
accepted their lot and got on with it.

'Jenny's a bit down today, I think she might be getting a cold,' said
Thomas Butcher in his diary. 'Not surprising though, we've no heating
and the toilet facilities are pretty bad.'

Here we go I thought to myself.

'She's been a bit upset all day. Apparently Mr Blotchy has gone away.
Me and her mum have been telling her that he'll be back but she says
he's gone away for ever. The rats are no better, I think they're hiding
under the floorboards. Can't you lot do something about it? I know this
is s'posed to be authentic, but you can take things a bit too
far.'

I heard a noise at my shoulder. It was Sally. She looked confused. 'But
there are no rats,' she said. 'We checked.'

'Bloody rats,' said a voice from another monitor.

I spun round in my chair to see the face of Eileen Spring who was the
mother of the family at number six.

'Scared the bloody life outta me it did. Good job John were outside,
he'da bin terrified. Hates mice and fings he does and these were big
old ones too, black as the ace o' spades. If you're watchin this, I
reckon you'd better send the rat catcher in.'

'What's going on Sally?' I asked.

'Dunno,' she said. 'Maybe they are hiding under the floorboards like
number three said. We'd better send someone in tomorrow to have a
proper look.'

As much as I wanted to leave the street to its own devices I agreed. I
knew that if this got out to the papers it would not be good for our
careers. The next morning however, I had more to worry about.

'Little Jenny isn't so good this morning.' It was Thomas Butcher again
doing his video diary. He didn't look so good either. He was extremely
pale and sweating very heavily.
'She had a really bad night and has got a bad fever. Whatever it is, it
looks like I'm coming down with it too. Robert's getting a bit sniffy
too. I feel like shit. Sorry, I'm probably not supposed to say that am
I? Anyway, the telephone doesn't seem to be working so can you send a
doctor in please.'

Each of the houses had a telephone in case of an emergency. We had
tested them all before the programme started so I was very surprised to
learn that the one in number three wasn't working. If there were rats
under the floor, I thought, maybe they had gnawed through the
cable.

Just to be sure, I dialled the number for the telephone in the Butchers
house. Through the live link, I could hear the phone ringing. I could
see the family all gathered round the table. Nobody appeared to have
heard the phone at all.

I dialled Sally's mobile.

'Sal,' I said when she answered. 'Have you got the local quack's
number?'

'Why, what's up?' she asked.

'Dunno. The little girl in number three's gone down with the flu I
think. Her dad sounds a bit worried. I don't want anyone to have to
leave this early on if we can help it.'

'Okay, I'll sort it. Maybe we can find one who'll give them some
seventeenth century remedy to keep the atmosphere up.'

About ten minutes later Sally phoned to tell me that she'd found a
doctor.

'He's one of the re-enactment group,' she said. 'So he's going to go in
costume, and he's got some old fashioned remedies which he says he'll
use if the little girl isn't too bad.'

I watched on the monitor as the doctor entered the street. He knocked
on the door of number three and waited.

On the monitor that showed the inside of the house the residents
appeared to be ignoring the knocking. Hayley, Thomas's wife came
towards the camera in a near-hysterical state.

'What the hell are you people doing?' she shouted. 'We need a doctor
now. Thomas is getting bad now and poor little Jenny's got nasty sores
on her arms. And it looks like Robert is getting it too.'

On the other monitor, the doctor was trying the door. It opened and he
entered the house.

I turned my attention to the pictures coming from inside the house and
sat there stunned at what I was watching.

The doctor walked into the room where Hayley and the rest of her family
were. He turned towards the camera and said 'Where are they?'

'What does he mean?' said Sally's voice from behind me. She took out
her mobile and tapped on the keypad. A rendition of tubular bells
played on the monitor. The doctor fumbled in his tunic and brought out
a mobile phone.

'Very authentic,' I mumbled.

'Emergency measure,' said Sally. 'Just in case.'

'There's no one here,' said the doctor.

'What do you mean?' asked Sally 'we can see them on the monitor.'

'The place is empty. There's a bit of a strange smell, but otherwise
its empty.'

'Tell him to hold on, we're coming over,' I said.

Sally and I left the OB van and made our way to Dede Lane. A large
corrugated fence had been built around the perimeter of the site to
keep the general public out and, of course, the participants in. Once
we reached the gates we showed our passes to the security guard.

'No costumes?' he asked.

'No, not this time.'

The gate was opened and we made our way down the street to number
three.

It was market day so most of the families were in the street. They
watched as we passed.

'Problems?' called out one.

'Don't think so, the little girl at number three isn't well, so its
better to be safe than sorry.'

'Oh right. Probably explains why we haven't seen them for a few
days.'

The door to number three was ajar, so Sally and I pushed it open and
walked inside.

The doctor was standing in the centre of the room, waiting for us. I
looked around for the family that I had been watching on the monitor,
but I could see nobody.

'Have you checked upstairs?' I asked the doctor. 'Jesus Christ, what's
that smell?'

The room smelt like a really strong air freshener had been used to
cover the odour given off by a particularly bad case of
diarrhoea.

'The whole house is empty,' said the doctor. 'And the sweet sickly part
of the smell seems to be coming from these.' He gestured to the walls
where I saw that garlands of flowers were hung.

'Where did they get them from? I don't remember seeing anything like
that for sale in the market'

Sally shrugged.

'Sally, while we're here can you check on the Springs at number six.
They were moaning about rats too.'

'Okay,' she said and left the house.

'Haven't seen no rats either,' said the doctor.

Sally came running back.

'No one there either,' she said.

'What? Where is everyone?'

I took my mobile out and phoned the OB van.

One of the assistant engineers answered.

'It's me, what's happening in number six?'

'The family are sitting around one of the boys,' said the voice on the
phone. 'He doesn't look too good. The mother has her hand on his
forehead. I can't hear what they're saying.'

'And here?'

'Well, you're there with the family.'

'Where are they?' I asked. I was getting confused. This wasn't what I
was expecting.

'By the fireplace. They're arguing. Hold on, the mother is coming over
to you. Oh fuck! Oh fuck!'

The voice on the end of the phone was screaming in panic.

'What? What's going on?'

'I... think... you'd... better... Just get out of there. Quick!' the
voice shouted.

We left the house and made our way back quickly to the van.

We arrived to find the engineer sitting in front of the monitors,
looking very pale.

'Watch,' he said.

He played back the footage of the three of us in number three. He was
right. The family were sitting in front in front of the fireplace
having a very intense discussion.

'But...,' I started to say.

The engineer interrupted me.

'Look,' he said.

I watched as Hayley got up turned towards the camera and walked
straight through the doctor.