by David Nobbs
They eat their couscous in silence. It will lie very lightly on their stomachs. She just hopes that those four words, ‘I’ve got an audition,’ will lie equally lightly.
He gets up to go back to work. She has a pit in her stomach.
He kisses her.
‘I’ll miss you if you get work, because I love you,’ he says, ‘but we’ve been into all that, and I meant what I said.’
Did he mean it? Does he mean it now? How can one ever be sure?
He leaves. Whatever he’s feeling, he’ll work it off through exercise. They are in the middle of carefully enlarging one of the scrapes, making room for the increasing number of avocets.
Naomi goes to the computer, opens it up, checks on her emails.
The audition is in St Peter’s Church Hall, 48 Cromarty Street, EC1. It is at 3.30. next Friday.
Her wedding day.
She starts an email, then deletes it, then starts it again, then deletes it again. She feels that she must find the courage to speak to Daphne in person.
But what is she going to say?
There’s only one thing she can say.
‘Could I speak to Daphne, please? It’s Naomi.’
‘She’s on the other line. Will you hold?’
‘I’ll hold.’
She can hear Daphne.
‘The money’s dreadful, darling, but it can never do you any harm to have been in a Stoppard…Excellent. I’ll tell Bunty.’
Naomi is so conscious of the marshes beyond the house, the wide skies, the cries of the wild birds, the distant low rumble of the breakers. The world in which people tell things to Bunty seems so far away and so unreal, yet in fact all worlds, if they exist, are equally real.
‘Naomi.’
‘Hello, Daphne. That audition, it’s my wedding day.’
‘Oh. Can’t you change it?’
‘Well, hardly.’
‘I recall asking you if you’d be prepared to come back from your honeymoon. You assured me you would.’
‘That’s a bit different from the actual wedding day. Everyone’s invited. The marquee’s hired.’
Naomi knows, the moment she has uttered it, that it’s a big mistake to mention the marquee.
‘Oh, well, if you’ve booked the marquee…’
‘It’s a big day in my life, Daphne. The biggest. Can’t I go some other day?’
‘Well, I’ll try, of course.’
Daphne tries, but it’s no use. She soon rings back.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘They’ve got all the leads. They’re only down in London for that day to finalise the minor characters.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ says Naomi.
‘You do that small thing, darling.’
Naomi sits in the garden, looks at the streaked sky, and thinks. How is she going to get good work, really good parts, at her time of life, and with her record? How good is she really? Is she good enough? Timothy was right not to like her Cleopatra. He believes she could be as good as she had been as Juliet. So why hasn’t she ever been as good again? Because she no longer acted instinctively, she thought too much, and the thoughts got in the way, and the magic didn’t happen. Can it ever happen again, or is Timothy’s faith misplaced? Is it a life she really wants to lead, if she isn’t special? All the waiting for the phone to ring. All those directors and producers and casting directors asking her to do trivial scenes five times, now do it a little differently, try feeling hurt, try being Welsh, thank you, that was lovely, there’s the lift, press ‘down’ and go down, down, down into obscurity. The waiting, the recalls, the rejections, it wasn’t that they didn’t like you, they loved you, you were brilliant, it was just that unfortunately you were too tall, too short, too blonde, too dark, too strong, too weak, not right with Philip Quilt who’s already cast (the bastard), and then occasionally when you did get the part, it was so small, so clichéd. The long hours, the egotistical star, the draughty rehearsal room, the venomous critics, the inevitable biscuits, the meals on location, the spreading waistline, the delays, the repetitions, the inhospitable towns, the phone calls home at night, going out of the bar into the cold street so that he doesn’t hear the laughter and think she’s having a good time, and then, after all that, after all the discomforts and difficulties and deprivations, the instant oblivion of the piece.
She rings Daphne again.
‘I’m sorry, Daphne. I’ve discovered I don’t want to do it enough. I didn’t know when I saw you. I do now. Thank you for getting the audition for me. Thank you for thinking that I had something about me. I’ll remember that. But, no, it’s not for me any more.’
‘I see,’ booms Daphne Hayloft. ‘Well, darling, I hope it’s a really nice marquee.’
When Timothy comes home, he’s tired. She tells him straight away.
‘I’m not doing it. I’m not going back into acting.’
She expects her beloved to be delighted, but that would be too easy. He goes very quiet, has that sullen look that she doesn’t see very often these days, she liked it once when he was young, she thought it sexy, not now, now it’s just sullen.
‘I don’t want you not to do it because I don’t want you to,’ he says.
The triple negative, when she has been so positive, makes Naomi snap.
‘I’m not doing it for you,’ she screams. ‘I’m doing it for us.’
She pushes him, across the floor of their tiny lounge, shoves him into the diminutive settee, and says, firmly, ‘Now listen.’
She tells him all the details of the life she would have been letting herself in for. She tells him how long she has waited for him and how much she enjoys being with him, and how happy she is to give up her tiny, probably unrealistic ambition. She tells him that if he doesn’t make love to her there and then on the carpet and to hell with whether it’s Scotchguarded or not, she will hate him for ever.
What’s a poor chap to do? He obliges.
And, as he’s obliging, Scrubber Nantwich pops his head round the door, to see if they feel like popping to the pub, sees Timothy obliging, sees Naomi being obliged, decides for himself that they don’t feel like popping to the pub, and pops out again.
‘M’m.’
He smiles.
There’s love in his smile.
‘M’m,’ he repeats.
William has come a long way on his journey through life, and especially on his journey with Naomi, but he still has his inborn horror of gushing. It’s a beautiful photograph, the bride openly, uninhibitedly radiant, and so very lovely in a delicate mauve outfit, with a little gold fascinator on her head, and the groom, uncharacteristically smart in his dark green suit with a spectacular gold tie and matching handkerchief, fighting a losing battle against his own radiance. It’s a photograph, Naomi feels, that deserves more comment than it has received.
And now William speaks again.
‘M’m,’ he says.
Timothy and Naomi have gone round to the ugly red-brick house to have a bit of supper and show their wedding photographs to their two elderly fathers. Well, to show them to William and describe them to Roly.
It’s a pity that Roly can’t see the photograph. He would say more than ‘M’m.’
And in describing the photograph to Roly, William finds the words that he lacks when considering it himself.
‘It’s a picture of such simple happiness, Roly. I wish you could see how lovely my daughter is in her joy.’
‘I can see her, William. I can see her as she came to number ninety-six on that fateful day. She will be changed, of course.’
‘Changed less than you could imagine.’
‘I imagine so. I’ve seen women who were twenty grow attractively into their forties and fifties. In particular I recall Stephanie Tattersall. I had her behind the bike sheds.’
It’s lucky that he can’t see the open mouths of William, Timothy and Naomi. They’re like a nest of thrushes.
‘And, by Jove, I recall seeing her, not quite so clearly, my sight was going, coming
out of the Odeon twenty-five years later. And if she hadn’t been with that hairy Spanish woman she fell in love with, I’d have had a damned good go at having her again. Anyway, enough of that. I don’t know where all that came from. I’d forgotten all about her. All I’m saying is, I can map the changes through my memories.’
‘And your boy, Roly, there’s such a comical look on his face. He’s like a man who cannot believe his luck, who feels so happy that he’s embarrassed for the world to see it. He feels it might be tactless to show how ecstatic he is.’
‘That’s my boy.’
They move on to the next photo.
‘This is Timothy and Naomi with the best man. What was his name again, Timothy?’
‘Peregrine.’
‘He wore the silliest smile all day. He made…not a very good speech, but…charming. His face, Roly, is narrow, his lips verge on flabbiness, his chin is eager to shrink from life’s bustle. It’s not a face you can imagine a woman wanting to kiss, but it’s an utterly amiable face, and you don’t get many of those to the pound in this world.’
The next picture is of Peregrine with his parents.
‘You may wonder why we invited them,’ says Timothy.
‘Being Timothy’s best man was just about the greatest thing in Peregrine’s life,’ says Naomi. ‘We wanted his parents to witness it. They were so proud of him. We knew they would be.’
‘Also,’ says Timothy, ‘we felt we owed them something. We shagged so violently in their crumbling pile that I’m sure we dislodged several tiles.’
‘Timothy! You’re as bad as your father,’ says Naomi. ‘Two dirty old retired taxidermists.’
Timothy looks shocked, but Roly smirks contentedly.
The next picture is of the two dads, arm in arm, smiling, William shyly, Roly effusively.
It was Naomi’s idea that the two men should share the ugly house beside the river. Timothy had wondered if they would quarrel and fall out with each other, but they haven’t. William has a natural talent as a carer, and Roly has the sense to be happy to be cared for. Their evenings are a joy to them both. Every evening, William reads out loud a section of his History of Ancient Greece. No one else will ever read it. Seven publishers have told him, with varying degrees of kindness, that it’s very good but breaks no new ground and is, in essence, both splendid and unsaleable. And to Roly the history of this astonishing nation, its city states, its battles, its ambitions, its philosophies, its drama festivals, is a revelation. Within a few weeks William will have got to the end of the story, and Roly has told him that, when that day comes, he must start at the beginning again. ‘I can’t possibly remember it all, dear Carer Supreme. Let it be our Forth Bridge that we are painting in the evening of our great journey through life together, my friend.’
After the two dads comes a snap of Clive and Antoine. William had never even considered the possibility that his book would not be published. Its rejections were, at first, a terrible shock. Antoine, on the other hand, has always believed that his works will be rejected. His occasional sales have surprised him. And now…‘Somehow, subtly, standing there on the hotel lawn with his…um…with my son, and without any effort, any show, he oozes affluence,’ William tells Roly. Antoine has become fashionable, suddenly. His unsaleable works now fetch thousands of euros. Clive doesn’t need to teach English any more, and does so only occasionally when some handsome Parisian youth appeals. He doesn’t have sex with them, he is utterly faithful to Antoine, but he likes to have them around. ‘Why spend the day with ugliness when you don’t have to?’ Naomi is just a little shocked by this political incorrectness.
The moussaka in the oven is smelling increasingly mellow. They hurry through the remaining photos.
Julian and Sarah. They did have a bit of a row round about twenty past ten in the evening, during the dancing, but he arrived for the wedding with her, and he left after it still with her, and that was the first time any of them could remember such an amazing thing happening.
‘This time, do you think?’ William asks Clive and Naomi.
‘I’d be surprised, I’m afraid,’ says Clive. ‘I think his arteries are clogged by discontent.’
Naomi knows that she is the only woman for her elder brother. She doesn’t think that the attraction he feels for her is sexual – he has certainly never given any indication that it is, and she doesn’t like the thought that it might be. That evening, on her third wedding day, her perfect day, she sensed that Julian was both happy for her and unhappy, that he resented losing what he’d never had and could never have.
‘Unfortunately, life is a court case to Julian,’ she says now. ‘Julian Walls versus the world.’
They pass quickly over the photo of the lads from the bird reserve, one of whom looks like a bittern in his brown suit. It was a great day out for them, and their affection for Timothy and Naomi was heart-warming. But the moussaka smells almost ready.
Then there are the friends, the new gang of four, the new secret club, Peregrine admitted at last in place of poor Tommo, the four of them smiling like overgrown lads.
There’s Steven Venables, with his houses in Marlow and Marbella and bored, bored, bored. His smile is thin, cool, perpetual.
There’s Dave Kent, also quite rich in his own right. He’s not known for making thoughtful remarks. His wife has divorced him after twenty-one years of hostility, and he’s missing her. He told Timothy, in his cups, that he had a girlfriend but it wasn’t the same. Timothy asked him what she was like, and received one of Dave’s penetrating portraits. ‘She has red hair,’ he had said. Later, in even more of his cups, he had confessed, ‘My memory’s not good. It worries me. I’ve made all my money out of vegetables. They’ve been my life. I don’t want to end up as one.’
And there’s Peregrine, standing tall beside his new chums, oozing pride, awash with the joy of membership. One cannot see into the future, but it’s an orchestra to a handbell that they will never go out on another piss-up together, especially now that Peregrine is a member. But that doesn’t matter. To be part of it is the point, even if there is no it to be part of.
‘This one I do wish I could see,’ says Roly. ‘These two I’ve hardly seen. Hard to imagine them now.’
He is speaking of Liam and Emily. Emily and Liam. The grandchildren. Emily is twenty-three now, and Liam twenty-two. What a lovely picture of them both, together and happy on this great day. Oh, my, oh, my. Smiling together. Lovely kids. A credit to…?
When they discussed who they are a credit to, Naomi said, ‘I think they are a credit to themselves.’
They’ve slept together. They haven’t made any secret of that. They like each other. But. But but but.
Liam is so sporty, so impatient, ants in his pants, finger up his nose, can’t sit in a chair for ten minutes without scratching his arse. Skateboarding, surfing, cycling, climbing, sailing, running. Emily, pale, almost ghostly, reading, sketching, painting, dreaming, strolling, watching, thinking. Emily’s legs are longer than her mother’s, and just a touch too thin, but she is beautiful enough to be a model. On the surface she’s a worrier, but Naomi believes that deep down she’s quite serene. Liam’s chunky legs are pitted with scars from his innumerable accidents. On the surface he’s placid, but Timothy suspects that deep down, in the depths of his ocean, the waters churn.
William places this photograph on top of the pile very gently, almost reverently, and then there is a moment of silence. Are they all thinking the same thing? Are they thinking of the one who isn’t there, who would have been in his twenties now, whose absence will live on for ever as one age that he would have been succeeds another? Are they thinking that it would be wonderful if Liam and Emily married? Or are they knowing that it wouldn’t work, that those very different pairs of legs should be wrapped round someone else in the love affair of life? Or are they thinking, let’s not worry whether they’ll marry or not, I just want them to be happy, I just want the world to remain good enough for them to enjoy?
; Then there’s the gang from the Fishermen’s Arms. Timothy and Naomi have made new friends in the narrow back bar of the pub, fondly referred to in the area as Wally’s Back Passage. They’re all there, smiling. Scrubber Nantwich, and Mrs Scrubber, Charlie Purkiss, Mickey Fudge and his new girlfriend Hayley, Fred and Norma Langridge, Odd Pedersen the Danish painter, and mine hosts, Wally and Linda Cartwright, licensed to preside over some cheery chat and help people escape and enjoy each others’ company in the only real pub left in a ten-mile radius.
Hurry. Hurry. That food’s ready.
There’s a nice picture of Naomi’s acting friends. Rosie, wife of the cuckoo clockmaker in Cobblers in Koblenz, wife of a leading member of the cast of EastEnders in real life. Glenda, the midwife in Nappy Ever After, disappointed that she keeps getting cast as midwives, disappointed that Naomi has given up ‘the profession’, and, above all, disappointed that Naomi shows no lesbian tendencies and is throwing herself away on a man.
Simon, Naomi’s first husband, and his second wife Francesca. Peace was made a long while ago. They have been so good to Emily, it was only right to invite them.
There are other photos, lots of them, but they are all of the same people in different combinations and at various stages of the evening. They can look at those later. The moussaka beckons.
William enjoys cooking for Roly and has become extremely proud of his efforts. His occasional comments give him away. ‘We only do free range.’ ‘We’ve gone all organic now.’ ‘We don’t eat threatened species of fish.’ Naomi found it hard to hide her smile when this man, who couldn’t even boil an egg when he was married, told her, ‘I think I’ve just about got my suppliers sorted out now.’ Oh, how she wished that it was possible for her to believe in God, so that she could imagine her mother looking down on this, her mother’s surprise, yet it wouldn’t work, for it would be surprise mixed with regret – ‘He never did that for me.’
And every dish, of course, was easy for a blind man to eat. William never lost sight of that.
‘Do you know,’ Roly says, as he slowly eats his delicious moussaka, ‘I think I’m the luckiest man alive, to be cooked things like this moussaka every night.’