Prime Time

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  By the time I’d spent three hours preparing my body for this eventuality, changing tops and cleavage-enhancing bras three times and trying on several different pairs of trousers before ending up in the same pair of sparkly jeans – think young, think funky – I’d started with, I already felt like a drink but didn’t dare have one as I didn’t know if he was driving or coming by train. He could need picking up at the station.

  I looked around the kitchen – all the dim sum bits and pieces were laid out neatly on foil-lined baking trays ready for the oven and the duck was already in. I knew from experience it needed twice as long as it said on the box if it was to be really crispy and fall apart, and it could easily be kept warm if he was late.

  By 6.30 p.m. I decided that if he needed a lift, he was going to have to get a cab. I poured a large glass of the Chablis I’d chilled and emptied the hand-fried crisps into a bowl. By 6.45 p.m. they were half gone and I was on tenterhooks by seven.

  The documentary was at nine. Was he just going to roll up? If I sent another text and he didn’t answer, I’d be none the wiser. I’d have to phone. I felt ridiculously nervous and spoke to myself sternly.

  For God’s sake, we had slept together. He had talked in the future tense and he was much too nice to just not turn up – there must be something wrong. I went and plumped up the cushions on the sofa one more time and lit another scented candle.

  Then I pressed his number.

  The phone rang and rang but just as I was bracing myself for the answerphone to cut in, he answered, sounding stressed.

  ‘Laura! Listen, I’m just with someone. Can I call you back in five minutes?’

  So he hadn’t even left yet. It was nearly 7.15 p.m. I had another drink. Five minutes passed, then ten. He obviously wasn’t coming. Disappointment welled up from the pit of my stomach. I felt like I had, aged 14, when Darren from the fifth year had failed to materialise outside the St Peter’s Fish Bar. ‘You bastard,’ I said without conviction.

  But Cal wasn’t a bastard – he was sweet and kind and thoughtful. Why was he doing this? I felt ridiculously close to tears and swallowed down some more wine.

  After 20 long minutes, my mobile rang. I snatched it up, forgetting to play it cool.

  Cal sounded upset. ‘Laura, I am so sorry. I can’t make it this evening. I should have let you know before but –’

  I was barely listening. I realised I’d been hoping he’d say he was simply running late. His voice ran on about a problem with an edit and having been called into an unexpected production meeting. There were voices in the background; I could hear laughter. Someone’s mobile was ringing.

  ‘Are you still there, Laura?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, trying to keep the dismay from my voice, trying to be matter of fact. ‘I’m still here,’ I added as brightly as I could muster, knowing I sounded as if I’d just had both legs amputated.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ he was saying. ‘I wish I could be there, watching with you, I really do, but let’s see each other soon – come up in the week and we’ll go out for lunch and celebrate. I’ll phone you Monday and we’ll sort something out.’

  Not tonight? You won’t phone me tonight when the programme’s over? Or tomorrow? You won’t come to Broadstairs and walk along the beach with me, hand in hand …

  My solar plexus was a tight ball of misery.

  ‘OK then. Well, I’m looking forward to seeing the programme, anyway.’

  He laughed. ‘Yes, you’re a star! I hope you didn’t go to any trouble for me.’

  ‘Oh no,’ I said loudly, as if I wasn’t looking at enough fried rice to keep Shanghai going. ‘Not at all.’

  I sat my waxed, manicured, scrubbed, plucked, perfumed self down in front of prawn toasts for the five thousand and ate all the rest of the crisps in a state of numbness.

  A star, huh? Sat on her own on a Saturday night. I suddenly missed Charlotte with a crushing intensity. She should be here now – waving a champagne bottle about and making rude comments. Someone should be here. Even Stanley – though he’d be rolling his eyes in embarrassment – would be better than sitting on my own.

  If I’d known, I could have invited someone – Clara maybe, or Sarah. But Sarah would be working in the wine bar, of course, and Clara had already said she’d have to video it because she was out with Vicki. Anyway, it was too late to call anyone now.

  I got the duck out of the oven and pulled at a bit of it half-heartedly. I didn’t feel hungry any more. By the time 9.00 came, I just felt sick. I’d taken my clothes off and put on an old pair of pyjamas and my dressing gown and curled up on the sofa with the last drops of the wine and a hollow feeling in my stomach.

  My big moment, my first serious TV début – the shrieking on Rise up with Randolph didn’t count – and I had nobody to share it with. I’d thought that Charlotte might relent and send a good luck text, but my phone was silent. As the opening music began and Prime Time flashed in big letters across the screen, I felt suddenly nervous.

  I found myself clutching a cushion as a young, female presenter – not a line on her face, fiercely upstanding breasts – explained the psychological ramifications of turning 40.

  A bit of background ensued (cut to footage of care-worn woman in droopy cardigan and slippers, lowering herself wearily into fireside chair) with an overview of how things had begun to change (Madonna throwing herself across the stage with two cones strapped to her chest) and then, with lowered voice and dramatic movement of eyebrows (no Botox for her yet), Miss Presenter posed the question: How do women feel about being in their 40s now?

  First up was a pleasant-looking woman, looking nearer 50 than 40, with a couple of grandchildren sprawled across her lap. ‘I am very happy with where I am,’ she said. ‘I am 49 and comfortable with myself.’ Clips of her and husband strolling into an upmarket restaurant. ‘These days, I no longer worry about what anyone thinks about the way I live my life …’

  More film of woman and her husband going to the theatre. Her and small children frolicking in garden, her and daughter shopping for baby clothes. Her at reading group, explaining to fellow members how much she lives for the next Joanna Trollope. It all seemed a very long way away from anything I had done with Cal.

  ‘I am content with the skin I have,’ the woman said, as the camera panned in on her crow’s feet. Where was the Botox and the keeping fit and looking fabulous? Where was I?

  And then, suddenly, there I was.

  Oh Christ …

  Chapter Thirty-six

  I gradually sank into the corner of the sofa, holding the cushion protectively against me, just daring to peep over the top of it, as a cold clammy horror crept up my back.

  ‘Laura,’ the voiceover chirpily informed us, ‘is fighting 40 all the way.’ And there was the first shot of me, leaning across the table, in the tight red dress, unflattering bulges under my arms, explaining how “horrified” I’d been at the big birthday and how I couldn’t even say the F word. I seemed to be having difficulty saying anything at all. I looked and sounded drunk.

  Now here I was again, red-cheeked and sweaty, pounding up and down on the cross-trainer; and there with needles being stuck in my face. I watched numbly as I hauled myself into agonising-looking sit-ups, sat in Sally-Ann’s office with peculiarly dark lips and heavy eye make-up, looking stricken, and again as I twittered excitedly to the doctor over the idea of having my feet pumped up to look younger.

  Any shots of me looking fit and fabulous had obviously hit the cutting room floor. When the presenter announced I’d just completed two weeks of my “rejuvenation régime”, I didn’t look glowing or youthful or even particularly thin – I just looked exhausted.

  When we got to the dating scene, my whole body went into such a deep cringe it sent my back into spasm. I clutched the cushion ever more tightly, and as soon as I’d caught the first sight of myself leaning lecherously across the table at the bloke with his chest hair on display, I buried my face in it.

  Too horrif
ied too watch, too scared not to, I screwed up my eyes and my courage to raise my eyes again, just in time to see myself sashaying down the side of the pool in my bikini, cringing all over again as I wiggled my hips and droopy bottom as though I thought I were 17.

  I sat frozen as frame after frame showed me alternately hyper and morose. One minute I was gushing in a strange, high, false voice that sounded nothing like me about facial treatments that might change my life, the next I was slurring across a table, droning on about how awful it was to be old.

  I didn’t even remember saying half of it. My face burned as I heard myself talk about Charlotte. ‘She’s bigger than me,’ I announced, my face hard, lipstick too bright on my pursed mouth. Hadn’t I said how beautiful she was too? That wasn’t there.

  It was one long, alcohol-fuelled whine. The only time I was seen showing any enthusiasm for anything was when Dr Carling got his needles out. It was so awful I felt numb. Perhaps it would turn out to be one of those weird dreams where it’s so realistic you wake up and think it really happened.

  Perhaps this was a horrible figment of my imagination brought on by too much wine and not enough sleep and eating crisps instead of vegetables.

  I stared unseeing as the credits went up. I’d worked on enough video scripts to know what a judicious edit can do. I should have remembered they had the power to take only the words they wanted. I recalled instead, that day I’d looked at myself in the mirror – in the soft light – in the wine bar with Cal, and had kidded myself I was still young and sexy.

  And I remembered too all that Tanya’s Lenny had said in the green room at the very beginning. Lighting could turn the Madonna into a monster.

  This film was my worst nightmare. I’d been stripped away, revealed for what I was – a sad, ageing woman, clawing at her receding youth, desperate to hang on to any last vestiges she could still grab. One who sounded unbalanced and looked totally mad. I pointed the remote control at the TV and snapped it off.

  What was Cal going to say now? You were fantastic, babe? You looked great? He wasn’t going to say a word. My phone lay silent on the kitchen table. He’d known what he was doing all along.

  I jumped as the land line rang out in the hall. But it wasn’t him. It was Charlotte’s number flashing up on the caller display. I backed away from it. She would be even more disappointed with me now. There’d be no point telling her they’d edited the nice bits out. I’d betrayed her all over again. I sat on the bottom stair and put my head in my hands. What a bloody mess.

  I don’t know how long I sat there but when the doorbell rang, it made me jump all over again. Strangely, for a moment it was hope that jolted through my veins. Even though he’d made a fool of me, I still half wanted Cal to turn up after all. To bound in and make it OK again. To tell me that it was the disappointment of him not coming that had made me see the film with a jaundiced eye. That really, I’d been brilliant …

  As I began to get up, there was a clatter as a small piece of card came through the letterbox and landed on the rug. I bent to pick it up – would it say sorry I’m late? Was it his idea of a surprise? I couldn’t decide if I’d fall into his arms or punch his lights out. The writing looked vaguely familiar.

  Do you fancy a drink?

  I opened the door, remembering too late I was in my dressing gown. It was Andrew. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I snapped.

  He held up a bottle of red wine, unfazed. ‘Stanley happened to mention he was with his dad this weekend. And I thought you might need a glass of something.’

  I glared at him. ‘Why’s that then?’

  ‘I just saw the programme,’ he said quietly.

  I was immediately deflated. And dangerously close to tears. At the mention of Stanley I felt even worse. What would the boys at school say to him now? What had I done to him? I’d promised him I’d sort it but instead I’d failed him in the worst possible way. I tried to make my voice light and failed. ‘Was it that bad?’

  ‘It wasn’t very kind,’ Andrew said.

  I stood back so he could come in, swallowing hard. ‘It’s a nightmare,’ I said. ‘I looked so horrific.’

  ‘They lit you badly. You don’t look anything like that.’

  I looked at him, surprised.

  ‘I used to do a lot of photography,’ he said. ‘Had my own darkroom and all that caper. People say the camera never lies, but it does. If you take someone with a wide-angled lens, they look wide. If you take them in harsh light, they look harsh.’ He gave a small, rueful smile. ‘They didn’t do well by you.’

  I had a rush of emotion at his words. A disturbing blend of anger and embarrassment and disappointment.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ I said. ‘I should have known.’

  I should have known I’d already had enough to drink too, but I still went to the kitchen for clean glasses.

  ‘Oh,’ said Andrew, hesitating in the doorway, looking at the table with its two empty plates and trays of uneaten food.

  ‘I was expecting a friend,’ I said, embarrassed to expand any further. ‘He couldn’t come.’

  ‘Right.’ Andrew looked uncomfortable. I felt him glance again at my attire but couldn’t bring myself to explain.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I said instead, trying not to sound bitter. ‘There’s lots to eat.’

  Andrew shook his head, taking the corkscrew from me and opening the wine. ‘I should have phoned first,’ he said. ‘But I thought you’d either not answer or say you were all right even if you weren’t.’ He looked at me. ‘And I thought you might need someone to talk to.’

  I nodded. ‘That was kind of you,’ I said stiffly. He was being very kind but I still wanted to curl up and disappear. I sat down at the table, taking the glass he held out to me.

  ‘Things any better with Charlotte?’ he asked.

  I shook my head and took a large mouthful of wine. ‘They’ll be even worse now,’ I said miserably. ‘I didn’t just say she was big, I said she was really attractive, but they cut that bit out.’

  ‘She’ll understand if you explain.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’ I felt my chin wobble.

  ‘How’s Stanley?’ said Andrew brightly, obviously trying to divert me.

  It didn’t work. At the thought of my son I dissolved into tears. ‘He’s going to be so embarrassed – now they’ll all tease him even more. He’s already having a terrible time.’ I stumbled out what he’d told me about Robbie.

  Andrew brought his chair close to mine and put a hand on my arm. ‘It will be OK. I’ll make sure he’s OK.’

  ‘How can you?’ I sniffed, fumbling in my dressing gown pocket for an ancient tissue. ‘He says they do it when you’re not there.’

  ‘I’ll have a word,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’ve been such a fool,’ I wailed. ‘I got carried away. I believed all their hype. I thought I was going to look fabulous.’

  ‘You usually do,’ Andrew said matter-of-factly.

  I jerked away from him. ‘No I don’t. I’ve been deluding myself – I am the wrong side of 40, with wrinkles and too much body fat. And all I’ve done is made myself look ridiculous trying to be something else.’

  ‘It will soon be forgotten,’ he said soothingly.

  ‘No, no, it won’t. I won’t forget it. Every time I think about that film I’ll remember how old and decrepit I am.’

  ‘Come off it – you’re not 80.’

  ‘I’m middle-aged. It’s all Daniel’s fault,’ I burst out. ‘He made me feel old and past it and then the film people –’ I couldn’t bring myself to say Cal’s name ‘ made me feel young and attractive again.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Not like I was in my 20s,’ I cried, anguished.

  ‘Well, no, none of us are.’

  ‘They made me think I could turn the clock back and I fell for it.’

  ‘We have to be realistic.’

  He had put his hand back on my arm and now he rubbed it up
and down through the towelling of my robe. It felt warm and comforting. Suddenly I felt child-like and pathetic and wished he’d give me a really big hug. I looked into his face. His eyes were a dark green colour I’d never noticed before and they were fixed on mine, full of concern.

  ‘Seriously,’ he said quietly, ‘you’re a very attractive woman. You don’t look old. You look sexy and curvaceous, and if I might say so –’ He stopped and laughed. ‘Still crumpet!’

  I smiled in spite of myself.

  ‘Haven’t heard that word for a long time.’

  He pulled a face and gave my arm a squeeze. ‘It’s a great expression, I think. Sums up the situation perfectly. Although if my wife, Elaine, could hear me, she’d be furious at me for being so un-PC –’

  At the mention of his wife, I jerked away from him again and stood up, knocking a foil container of noodles onto the floor. For a moment, in my upset, wine-befuddled state, I’d forgotten he was married. I felt as though I’d been slapped for the second time that night.

  ‘You shouldn’t be talking to me like that,’ I said, agitated. ‘You’ve got to go.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve gathered you’ve got someone already. I wasn’t trying to …’

  ‘It’s not about me ,’ I squawked. ‘It’s you – you’re married. What are you doing here when you’ve got a wife? What would she think if she could hear you?’

  ‘She wouldn’t much care. I’ve tried to tell you …’

  ‘Don’t!’ I shrieked. ‘Don’t start doing that stuff. You’ll be telling me she doesn’t understand you next.’

  He gave a grin. ‘She doesn’t.’

  ‘Get out!’ Enraged, I pushed him away from me across the kitchen, just stopping myself from delivering a hard slap while I was about it.