Spurt by Chris Miles

pretty obvious to everyone watching this, I hope. But a burden?’ He tried to look reflective. ‘Only in the sense of having a lot more to carry downstairs all of a sudden, if you know what I mean.’
    Delilah glanced around the room, as if searching for a trapdoor somewhere. ‘There’s a downstairs?’
    ‘You know what? Forget I said that. The point is, I’m okay with it. Stepping up. Being the man of the house. It’s all good.’
    An image of his dad’s dressing gown and slippers flashed into Jack’s head. He froze. His throat went tight. No, it wasn’t all good at all. The times when he did stop to think about it, he couldn’t decide what was worse: his dad being gone, and how much that hurt, or the fact that sometimes he let himself forget. Either way, the camera was still on him. He had to keep faking it.
    ‘So there hasn’t been anyone else? Your mum hasn’t …’
    Delilah must have noticed Jack trying to look away from the camera, trying to wriggle out from under the glassy stare of the lens.
    ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to …’ She glanced at Todd and Brett. ‘I think we can wrap up there for now.’
    Jack was relieved to see the red light on the camera switch to black. He asked Delilah if she had everything she needed.
    Delilah bunched her mouth up, looking apologetic. ‘I’d kind of like to get some more vision of you around the house, with your family, if that’s okay? I’m thinking, for dinner: do you usually have a sit-down meal or –’
    ‘Probably a barbecue,’ said Jack, without thinking.
    ‘A barbecue?’
    ‘Yeah, it’s a bit of a weekend tradition. Me, cooking snags on the barbie. It turns out I’m quite the tong-master.’
    Delilah turned to her crew. ‘We could film a barbecue. Yeah, that could actually work out well. Nice visual.’
    ‘Great,’ said Jack through a tight smile. ‘That’s … really great that we’re doing that.’ He nodded, and clapped his hands together. ‘Well. I guess we’ll be needing sausages.’

Jack had tried to suggest that a visit to the supermarket to get sausages possibly wasn’t exactly what Bigwigs fans would be craving when they tuned in to the big reunion special, but Delilah said they needed all the vision they could get. ‘It’s all part of the story,’ she’d told him.
    He had to pretend to pay for the sausages four times for the camera. The first time, the cashier had giggled nervously and ruined the shot; the second time, Jack fumbled his change and dropped it all over the floor; and the third time, old Davo had wandered past in his green-and-gold silk tracksuit, stuck his head into the shot and shouted, ‘What are ya doin’, buyin’ sausages, are ya?’
    With the sausages finally secured, Delilah had asked Jack if they could get some footage of him walking down the main street. Luckily, because it was Sunday, the main street was relatively free of onlookers. Those who did crowd around were expertly kept at bay by Delilah, without them actually noticing they were being kept at bay. They gazed at Jack with mild awe, as though the fact that he had a camera pointed at him meant that he couldn’t possibly be an ordinary mortal.
    Embarrassing as it was, Jack also kind of enjoyed the feeling it brought back: the feeling of being big. It was exactly why he’d signed on to do the reunion show. To show everyone he was bigger than –
    ‘Sampson!’ said Jack, stopping dead in his tracks.
    Delilah’s ears seemed to prick. Brett looked up from his viewfinder. Whispers spread through the small crowd.
    Sampson had stepped out of the newsagent two doors down and was staring over at Jack and the crew. Jack noted with a satisfied smirk that he looked slightly daunted by the sight of the camera and the boom mike.
    Delilah seemed to be assessing the situation. She nodded at Brett, who hoisted his camera up again and focused on the viewfinder.
    ‘Do you two know each other?’ asked Delilah.
    Jack realised he needed to get