by Nick Hornby
‘No!’
‘So what do couples do that’s brave, brilliant, witty and important? What do you and June do?’
‘Why are you so interested in me and June?’
‘Because you’re a married couple, half of which is sitting opposite me.’
‘We’re not the same as Barbara and Jim.’
‘Understood,’ said Bill, and laughed.
‘It’s not that,’ said Tony.
‘Isn’t it?’ said Bill. ‘How interesting.’
‘I just meant, you know, we’re not opposites. June works for the BBC, we like the same things, we … Anyway.’
‘But the other business is going all right?’
‘It’s none of your beeswax.’
‘Can’t blame me for being nosy.’
‘I can and I do.’
The other business, predictably, had been a disaster – two disasters, if one were keeping count, a few months apart. He had no idea what had happened, or how much. He had no idea whether he was still a virgin, or whether June was still a virgin, or whether she had been when she married him. They didn’t talk about any of it, even though June had wept after the second attempt.
‘I wish Jim were queer,’ said Bill.
‘I’m glad he isn’t,’ said Tony. ‘Because if he was, we’d be out of a job.’
‘But it’s such a great set-up, the married homosexual.’
‘Bill,’ said Tony, ‘let’s not waste time thinking up ideas that will get us banned from ever working again.’
‘People are interested in anything to do with, you know. Slightly off-kilter sex.’
‘You don’t think people are interested in any kind of sex? They can’t watch it, they can’t listen to people talk about it …’
Bill’s eyes lit up.
‘Right then!’
‘Oh, Gawd,’ said Tony. ‘First episode?’
‘That’s the place to try,’ said Bill. ‘Before they’ve done anything.’
‘You don’t think they’ve done anything?’
‘Maybe not … All of it. They got married very quickly.’
‘Did they? How do we know that?’
Bill shrugged.
‘Comedy Playhouse didn’t go out long ago.’
Tony laughed.
‘All right, then. They got married quickly. So what?’
‘What if nothing happens?’
‘Ever?’
‘For a couple of weeks. Or a month, or something. Someone’s got troubles.’
Tony wrinkled up his nose.
‘What sort of troubles?’
‘Nothing, you know, medical. Psychological.’
‘It should be Jim,’ said Tony.
‘Why?’
‘Because we’ve seen women who don’t like sex too many times already.’
‘Maybe she does like it but she can’t do it,’ said Bill.
‘Why not?’
‘There are conditions.’
‘You’ve gone medical already.’
‘Psychological ones. Where everything closes up. Like a bank vault at night.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about it.’
‘I don’t, really. But I’ll bet there is something like that.’
‘Even if there is, I don’t want to write about it. Do you?’
‘No. So it’s him.’
‘It’s him. The usual.’
‘What variety of usual? There are at least two.’
‘Ah. Yes. Well, the easiest is the nothing-going-on one.’
‘In what sense the easiest?’
‘The easiest to get past Tom Sloan. I’m not sure he’d be so keen on the other one. It’s a bit messy.’
‘All right. Nothing going on. Good. Why?’
‘He’s terrified.’
‘Excellent. It all fits in terribly well with the brackets.’
‘Poor Clive,’ said Tony. Poor Tony, thought Tony.
Tony loved his wife, but ever since the disasters he dreaded going to bed with her. He always made sure he watched the TV right the way through to the National Anthem, in the hope that by then June would have fallen asleep reading a script, or a pile of short stories submitted for broadcast, and he could creep under the covers without disturbing her. They seemed to have reached the unspoken agreement that staggered bedtimes and changes of subject whenever necessary were the best way forward. June thought she understood the root cause of her husband’s problems, and had made it clear that she was prepared to adapt to them in any way he saw fit; she would have been amazed to learn that it was even more perplexing than she knew, and that Tony’s sexuality was a mystery to him as well. He was attracted to June, he knew he was, and in that way too. But he had no idea what to do about it.
He decided that he didn’t want to talk about work at all. Work was suddenly very close to home.
‘But is it going all right?’ said June.
They were eating a bread-and-cheese supper in front of the television.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘You’ll let me read it when you’ve got something you’re happy with?’
June was his first and best reader. Everything that he and Bill wrote she made better; she challenged them when they were being lazy, understood what their characters would and wouldn’t say and do, spotted illogicalities. He would have to be insane not to let her read something that might determine the success of his entire career.
‘Oh, you don’t want to end up reading everything we ever do. You’ve got your own scripts to work on.’
‘I love what you and Bill write. And you’re my husband. And this is the first episode of your first television series. Just tell me what it’s about.’
‘It’s a terrible idea.’
‘Well, don’t do it, then.’
‘Simple as that?’
‘Are you saying it sounds like a terrible idea, but when I read it I’ll see that in fact it’s a work of great genius?’
‘No.’
‘Then, yes, simple as that. Terrible ideas are never a good way of … Well, actually, they’re never a good way of doing anything at all. Is it Bill’s terrible idea?’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you promise me you’ll march in tomorrow and tell him he’s an idiot?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
He sighed.
‘Because it’s rather a good idea.’
She put her plate down on the coffee table, walked over to the TV set and turned it off.
‘I don’t understand anything you’re saying.’
‘No,’ said Tony. ‘I can see why.’
‘Can you help me?’
He sighed.
‘It’s about sex.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Their sex life?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a brilliant idea,’ said June.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘If it’s intelligent and funny, which it will be, everyone will watch it. And it will feel young and contemporary.’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t want to do it?’
‘I do want to do it.’
‘So what on earth’s the matter with you?’
‘The marriage between Barbara and Jim hasn’t been consummated, because Jim is having difficulties.’
‘Ah.’
‘Bill’s idea.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘It’s not supposed to be you and me,’ he said. ‘It just started to go that way, and I didn’t feel I could stop it without giving too much away.’
‘Are they going to sort it all out in the end?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I will enjoy watching it,’ said June.
She stood up, kissed him on the head and turned the television back on.
8
Dennis had been landed with Bert as his director. There had been no discussion, and there had certainly been no choice offered. Bert had just turned up in his office, wa
ving a chit.
‘I know you didn’t think I did much of a job on the Comedy Playhouse,’ Bert said.
Dennis was hoping that Bert might follow up with a ‘but’, indicating his willingness to learn, listen or get it right, but there was nothing. Bert was probably hoping that Dennis would reassure him in some way, but Dennis didn’t see why he should. He had been frustrated by Bert’s apparent determination to make Barbara (and Jim) look like every other comedy programme the BBC had ever broadcast. Dennis appreciated that there was only so much that could be done with a live recording in a studio, but Bert was plodding, uninterested in spontaneity, allergic to anything that might contain collaboration.
‘I don’t want Barbara (and Jim) to look like any other comedy series,’ said Dennis. ‘I want it to feel young and fresh.’
Bert snorted.
‘You’ve got the wrong bloke for that,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’
Dennis did as instructed and saw a grumpy middle-aged man.
‘As long as it’s blocked out by Saturday evening,’ said Bert. ‘That’s all I’m interested in.’
‘What about the show?’ said Dennis. ‘Are you interested in that?’
‘As long as it’s blocked out by Saturday evening.’
‘So that’s a yes. Blocking by Saturday evening creates an interest in the content on Sunday.’
Bert blinked slowly, like a frog.
‘I’ve been thinking about the theme music and the title sequence,’ said Dennis. ‘I want something different.’
‘Oh, Gawd,’ said Bert. ‘Here we go.’
‘Do you ever get involved in that?’
‘No thank you.’
‘So whatever I did would be fine by you?’
‘No. Course not. Not if my name’s going out on it.’
‘Right,’ said Dennis. ‘So what do we do about that?’
‘You go off and get your theme music and your title sequence,’ said Bert. ‘And then I tell you I don’t like them.’
Dennis wanted the music to reflect the differences between the two characters, and he had commissioned something from Ron Grainer, who’d done Maigret and Steptoe.
‘Well,’ said Grainer, when Dennis had told him what he wanted. ‘On your head be it.’
‘Really? I think it could sound rather good.’
‘It’ll sound like a mess.’
And when he played the results back to Dennis a week later, it sounded like a mess. Thirty seconds of a pop chorus, followed by thirty seconds of contemporary jazz, followed by thirty seconds of a pop chorus, and so on. It sounded like two cats fighting on a drum kit.
‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea to chop and change like that,’ said Grainer.
He was being polite, and Dennis was grateful. Grainer could have been forgiven for questioning his professional competence.
‘Any suggestions?’ said Dennis.
‘I’d get either a pop group to play a jazz tune or a jazz saxophonist to do a song by the Beatles or something.’
A couple of days later, he had his theme tune. Ron Grainer had asked a record producer called Shel Talmy at Decca Records to recommend a session guitarist, and Talmy had told him to use a young man called Jimmy Page. Under Grainer’s supervision, Page played Miles Davis’s ‘So What’ in a sort of blues band style, and it sounded terrific, Dennis thought.
‘Oh, hell,’ said Bill, when he heard it.
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘We haven’t written that kind of script,’ said Tony.
‘What kind of script have you written?’ said Dennis.
‘This is all moody and classy,’ said Bill. ‘We’re not moody and classy. Get him to do “Freddie Freeloader”.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s the next cut on the LP.’
‘How does it go?’
‘Daaa, da … Daaa, da … Daaa, da … Daaa, da … Da da, da da, da da.’
Dennis nodded his head thoughtfully along to the music. He could see what Bill meant.
‘It’s not funny,’ said Bill. ‘But at least it’s cheerful.’
Dennis got Jimmy Page to do ‘Freddie Freeloader’ the next afternoon. He had now gone through fifty-eight pounds of the forty-pound budget he’d given himself for music. He’d wanted to get a proper photographer, David Bailey or Lewis Morley, to take a picture of Sophie, and a local wedding photographer to do Clive, but the overspend made that impossible. Instead, he spent an entire day collecting artefacts – lipsticks and pipes and book jackets and miniskirts – intended to represent the couple, and got an in-house chap to snap them all on a background of white chipboard. It looked better than he’d dared to hope. He held the pictures up while he played the theme song and suddenly felt a little thrill of possibility.
Bert hated everything, the music and the photographs.
‘You just want everyone to turn off before the actual programme starts?’
‘I don’t think they will,’ said Dennis.
‘Oh, they will,’ said Bert. ‘I would.’
‘Of course you would,’ said Dennis. ‘That goes without saying.’
‘And my missus will,’ said Bert.
‘You won’t tell her to stick with it because you directed it?’
‘I can try,’ said Bert. ‘But it won’t do any good. Not with that racket.’
‘So it’s the music you particularly object to?’
‘And the pictures.’
‘Right. You and your missus would turn off because you don’t like the photographs in the opening titles.’
‘No,’ Bert said patiently. ‘We’d turn off because of the music.’
‘So if the opening titles were to play silently …’
‘We’d think the sound had gone.’
‘Bert,’ said Dennis. ‘What I’m trying to do here is locate the objection to the images. I understand you don’t like the music …’
‘It’s horrible.’
‘… But what is the problem with the pictures?’
Bert shuffled through them again.
‘I like it when a comedy starts with a little cartoon,’ he said.
‘I thought we’d try something a bit more daring,’ said Dennis. ‘Something a bit different.’
‘Well,’ said Bert, ‘different has never worked before.’
Later that day, after a conversation with Tom Sloan, Dennis became the producer and the director of Barbara (and Jim). He went straight to see the set designer: he wanted the marital home to contain the youngest, most fashionable living room in television. And with every suggestion that the set designer made – white walls! Op art posters on the walls! Danish furniture! – Dennis felt that the ghost of Bert, and the ghosts of stale British light entertainment, were being banished to the Shepherd’s Bush streets.
At the end of the read-through, Dennis made the Big Ben noises intended to indicate that the marriage between Jim and Barbara had been consummated, but nobody laughed or cheered. Bill and Tony were too busy trying to gauge the expressions on the faces of Sophie and Clive; Sophie and Clive, expressionless, were too busy flicking back through the pages of the script, trying to work out precisely what had been intimated about their characters’ sex lives.
‘When I say …’ Sophie began.
‘Yes?’ Bill said.
‘Oh. I see. Right.’
‘Which page?’
‘Fifteen.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well. Does that mean what I think it means?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are we allowed to say that?’
‘We’re not saying it.’
‘Bill,’ Dennis said patiently. ‘I don’t mind making that argument to the Powers That Be. But let’s be fair to our cast. Yes, Sophie. We are saying –’
‘Implying,’ said Bill.
‘We are saying that Barbara is sexually experienced.’
‘Oh, bloody hell.’
‘We don’t have to,’ said Dennis. ‘If you’re not comfortable with it.’<
br />
‘Oh, don’t we?’ said Tony. ‘What else have you got, then, Dennis?’
‘What don’t you like about it, Sophie?’ said Dennis.
‘Oh, just stupid things, you know. My dad, and my Auntie Marie, and …’
‘But they know it’s made up.’
‘Sort of. I’m never quite sure whether they’ve got the hang of it yet. You know, Barbara’s from Blackpool and I’m from Blackpool. She’s called Barbara and I’m called Barbara. It’s confusing.’
Suddenly she was aware of everybody looking at her.
‘You’re called Barbara?’ said Clive.
‘Oh,’ said Barbara. ‘Well, yes. I used to be.’
‘When?’
‘Until the week before you met me.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything when we decided to call her Barbara?’
‘I didn’t know what was allowed then. Please don’t call me Barbara all the time now.’
‘You’re seriously used to being called Sophie already?’
She thought about it and realized she was. A part of her felt she’d only really begun her life when she moved to London, which meant that she’d been called Sophie for most of her life.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Barbara is a fictional character in the series we’re making.’ And she left it at that.
‘Can we talk about me now?’ said Clive. ‘You’re saying in this that I’m a … a virgin?’
‘Oh, you’re like my Auntie Marie,’ said Sophie. ‘It’s Jim who’s the virgin. And he’s not real.’
‘Yes, but … Will people believe it?’
‘Why wouldn’t they believe it, Clive?’ Sophie could see that they were all trying to suppress mirth, but Bill’s poker face was so expert that he had been charged with the job of mickey-taking.
‘I know Jim’s fictional, but I’m …’
‘Yes?’
Clive stopped and tried a different tack.
‘Isn’t it the other way around? Conventionally? The man has had sexual experience and the woman hasn’t?’
Bill groaned and then stared at him pityingly.
‘What?’
‘It is, yes,’ said Tony. ‘That’s sort of the point of the script. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re trying not to do the conventional thing.’
‘In which case,’ said Clive, ‘I will just have to not give a damn about appearing immodest and voice my other objection, which is this: nobody will believe it.’