by Jane Fallon
At one point I – and I’m not proud of this – even said ‘Is it because I’ve put on weight?’ Robbie’s always loved my body. I’ve always known that, in his praise of its lithe, slim contours was a buried criticism of the way Paula had let herself go.
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Even I’m not that shallow.’
But something had clearly changed. It wasn’t Paula, he told me. Even though they were getting on better, this wasn’t about them. Their marriage was still dead in the water. It was about him.
Nothing I said would persuade him. It was over. He asked me to respect his decision, not to make things hard at work. At home. I had to agree – what else could I do? Of course, he had no idea that I was friends with his wife. That I would hear the whole story of the past fortnight from another perspective. That I’d find out he was lying to me.
And that’s when I decided I couldn’t let it happen. I couldn’t let him just slide back into his marriage as if I didn’t exist. As if nothing had happened.
And then, when I saw Paula all smug and glowy because she’d won, even though she hadn’t even had any idea she was taking part, it hit me. If I couldn’t have him, then neither could she.
Her face when I told her about him and Samantha – inspired, don’t you think? Given the storyline he has coming up, where he’s going to have to spend hours on set with her every day. What wife wouldn’t be threatened?
She totally bought it. She trusts me. We’re ‘friends’.
And even though she’s taking her time I know that it’s all over for him and her now. I can make sure of that. She’ll tell him to pack his bags and go eventually. Once Georgia leaves home. God, what is it with those two and their precious daughter? You’d think she would barely be able to feed and dress herself, they wrap her up in so much cotton wool. It’s all I’ve heard for the past two years – that’s how long Robbie and I have been seeing each other. Two years – how nothing must upset little Georgia until she’s safely off at uni and making a new life for herself, blah, blah, blah. As if being a hundred miles away is going to protect her from being devastated once it happens.
And, when she does, where will he go? I know Robbie. He’s not one to leave one home without having another all set up to go to. He’s one of those people who could never live alone. And, in the meantime, I’ll break it to Josh that it’s over (I am a little worried that he might end up sacking me or something, but I’m hoping that if he thinks it’s all about me having some kind of mid-life crisis and not about me wanting to move on to someone else, he won’t be that vindictive. He’s not the type anyway. As I said, he’s a thoroughly nice man. Yawn. Haha) and I’ll set myself up in a cosy little flat somewhere nice (note to self: Robbie loves Maida Vale) and wait.
It’s the perfect plan.
21
Paula
I just ran five kilometres. I’m not even kidding. Without stopping once, except to cross the road here and there. OK, so I might have altered my route a couple of times so there were more roads to cross. And I may have stopped at every crossing even when there was no traffic, looking left and right to be sure, while I got my breath back, but I did it. It’s a milestone. I text Chas and tell him. He’s obviously not with a client because I get a typically Chas-ian reply straightaway.
‘Awesome!’
Myra, on the other hand, sends, ‘Freak’ followed by ‘Traitor’, followed by ‘LOL.’
Knowing that Robert’s relationship is with Samantha, not Saskia, leaves me both better and worse informed. I know, for example, that they can’t have been seeing each other for more than two years because that’s how long she’s been on the show. But I know nothing about her home life or whether she’s cheating on anyone herself. I can’t force my way into her life like I did with Saskia, partly because I wouldn’t know how but also because I don’t have it in me to do it again. I haven’t got the energy.
I’ve been trying to remember whether or not she was at Josh’s party, but she wasn’t on my radar at the time so, if she was, I’ve forgotten. As far as I can remember, I’ve never met her. Unlike with Saskia, Robert has never slagged her off. He’s never really spoken about her at all. I’ve always got the impression that the younger actors on the show are a bit cliquey, all hanging out together in the evenings, as if they can multiply their star power by running in a pack.
Of course, I’ve Googled her some more and read a couple of short interviews, although, as one of the lesser characters, she doesn’t command the same column inches Saskia does. Things I’ve learned include: she went to stage school in London from the age of thirteen, she’s a Daddy’s girl (is that the same as having a Daddy complex? I don’t know), she has a small dog who seems to have lost the use of his legs, because in every picture I see he’s sitting in a handbag, she likes cheese and onion crisps. Fascinating stuff.
I found her Twitter page. Photos of the dog. Photos of Samantha and the dog. Selfies with fishy, pouty lips and more than a hint of cleavage. She seems to call people ‘babes’ a lot. All my worst prejudices flooded out and I decided I had to stop looking. Me turning into a bitch wasn’t helping anyone, least of all me.
I decide I need to approach things from a different angle. What does he get from her that he can’t get from me? Yes, yes, I know. Apart from that. Do I need to gen up on One Direction or Geordie Shore? What do they talk about? What do they do when they’re not in bed? They must have something else in common.
‘Do you think she’s got a designer vagina?’ Myra says helpfully when I ask her advice. ‘Apparently, that’s a thing now.’
I don’t even dignify that with an answer.
Georgia is home for a few days, brown as a Dundee cake and full of stories that make my hair stand on end. It’s always easier for Robert and me to bond when our daughter is around but I think that it helps that I no longer care what he’s doing when he’s not with me. I’ve finally told him about Chas and, instead of being dismissive or baulking at the expense, he told me he thought it was great and that it was obviously working because he’d never seen me look so fit and healthy.
For one scary moment I thought he was going to suggest joining me on my sessions, but in the end all he did was suggest we go running together more often, which we’ve started doing. It’s fine. It makes me push myself harder. And while we’re puffing along there’s no pressure to be talking or trying to show him how devastatingly witty I am. It’s all I can do to breathe.
Oh, thirteen stone dead, by the way. Just in case you were wondering. Robert, on the other hand, has gained a couple of pounds. I wonder why that is.
22
Saskia tells me the Robert/Samantha thing is causing a bit of a bad atmosphere on set. Which, of course, means that everyone knows about it. I try to brush away the feelings of humiliation.
‘So they’re not even trying to hide it now then?’
‘Oh no, they are,’ she says. We’re sitting in the café on the ground floor of Fortnum and Mason, rain battering the windows outside. She pours herself more tea, toys with the sugar, decides against it. ‘But that just means there’s this weird tension. They’ve been shooting their first kiss scenes this week, did you know that?’
I shake my head.
‘Anyway, one of the make-up girls told me it was awkward. A bit intense. Usually, people joke around when they’re shooting that kind of stuff. Not that she was saying she thought there was anything going on, it was just an observation. I don’t want you to start worrying that everyone knows.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I mean, I don’t know why, because they must have been seeing each other for a while, so it’s not as if they couldn’t control themselves or anything …’
‘How long ago was it you found out?’ I realize I’ve never asked her this.
She thinks for a moment. ‘About six months ago. Obviously, I don’t know when it started but I’d say it can’t have been long before that or they wouldn’t have been taking such a risk.’
&n
bsp; So not as long as I thought then. I think back to six months ago. Was there any big change in Robert’s behaviour? Nothing that I can remember. We had well and truly drifted apart by then.
‘Maybe it was just the fact that they had to do it in front of other people. They were probably over-compensating or something,’ she says. ‘I don’t think everyone’s gossiping about them now or anything …’
I wish I still had Josh to talk to. Someone who knew exactly what was going on, who would just give me the real lowdown, knowing he didn’t have to try and spare my feelings.
‘How’s Josh?’ I say, partly to change the subject and partly to scratch the itch. I still get flashes of us kissing in the park – the second time, the time I just decided to go for it so I could lodge the memory in my head – and it makes me all warm and fuzzy for a moment, till reality comes crashing in.
‘He’s good,’ she says. ‘Relieved that he no longer has to force-feed me, I think, haha!’
‘It must be difficult for him. Knowing things that are going on behind the scenes of the show and not always being able to talk to you about them.’ This is my penance, trying to make sure Saskia thinks the best of Josh. Trying to make sure they’re OK.
‘He has to do his job, I understand that.’ She shrugs.
Guilt about what I’ve done to Saskia is still eating me up. I can’t ever tell her. Not so much the Josh thing, which was, after all, just a kiss, even though, for me, it’s loaded with far more – and I think for him it was too. But for making him feel differently about her, even if only for a while.
I want to give her something to cement our friendship. I want to make her feel I value her. And, to be honest, there’s an element of self-interest too. If I can’t share my thoughts with Josh, I can at least share them with her, get her take on things. She knows all the parties concerned. Maybe she can help me come up with ways to put a bomb under Robert and Samantha’s relationship. I do worry a bit that she’ll think I’m vindictive and nasty, that it’ll change her opinion of me, but actually I think she might be impressed. She’s been so confused about why I’m not confronting Robert, throwing him out and making a new life for myself. On balance, I decide it’s worth it.
Obviously, there will be glaring omissions in my confession. I can never tell her that this whole thing started because it was her I thought Robert was seeing.
‘Can I tell you something?’ I say as our lunch arrives (seabass fillets for me, fish cakes for her).
‘Of course,’ she says, intrigued. ‘Anything, you know that.’
23
Saskia
So little Paula has a plan. I told you she had hidden depths. It’s not good, though. Not for me.
I was hoping that my telling her some story about him and Samantha would either a) make her throw him out or b) make her so paranoid and suspicious he’d leave of his own accord. Because we all know how much he likes those traits, right.
What I never imagined is that she would go all out to win him back first.
But let’s see how long his rekindled passion lasts when she keeps asking him where he’s going and what time he’ll be back. Because even if she sticks to her resolve not to confront him, she’s not going to be able to keep up the pretence that they’re love’s young dream 24/7. Imagine his righteous indignation if he thinks she’s accusing him of something when, for the first time in years, he’s not up to anything! I’d love to be a fly on that wall.
The good news – for me – is that it’s all over for Robert and Paula in so far as she is concerned. The endgame is that she dumps him.
The bad news is that, by then, she’s hoping he’ll be hopelessly in love with her again. And, if he is, where does that leave me?
She wants me to help her break up him and Samantha, which is genius, given I put them together for her in the first place. I can certainly help her with that, haha!
Between Robbie and me, things are very strained. Obviously, we’re making sure no one picks up on an atmosphere – although most of the crew think we can’t stand each other anyway, so a bit of animosity wouldn’t give anything away – but I’m struggling. I can’t accept it’s over just like that. Just because I doubted him.
Paula is giving me no insight at all. Thankfully, she’s stopped banging on about all the fantastic sex they’re having. I assume because she’s cut him off now I’ve told her my Samantha story. I like to picture him confused, thinking it was all suddenly going well at home and then being shoved out in the cold again. Wondering if he did the right thing giving me the boot after all.
I’m not going to lie, getting older is hard. I’m only thirty-eight (OK, forty-three when no one’s listening, although I’ve practically forgotten that myself), but that’s positively ancient in TV terms for a woman. Not that there aren’t roles, there are. It’s better than it used to be anyway. But mostly those roles are frumpy mum, dull auntie, boring teacher. Nothing juicy. And, God forbid, nothing where you’re meant to be the eye candy. I miss it. I miss being the centre of attention.
Call me shallow (‘You’re shallow, Saskia!’), but there you go. I appreciate I’m not the world’s best actress. I know I’ve always got parts based on the way I look. It never bothered me. I wasn’t trying to be Judi Dench, I wasn’t trying to win Oscars. I was trying to enjoy a bit of fame and fortune. Is that a crime?
I knew I was taking a risk getting together with Robbie with Josh working on the show. Sometimes I wonder if one wasn’t a direct reaction to the other. I suggested Joshie for the job, he got it, and then I immediately felt boxed in. As if I didn’t have anything any more that was just mine. And a part of me has always wondered if Robbie saw it as some kind of competition. He didn’t take to Josh, he made that quite clear. So maybe he thought seducing me was a way of getting back at him. At first, anyway. I like to think he really did fall for me after that. That him suggesting we set up home together (because it was his suggestion, just to be clear; I didn’t ask him to leave his wife) meant he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.
I gambled on the fact that when it all went tits up I would be more indispensable to the show than Josh would. I’m one of the central characters, I won ‘Best Supporting Actress in a Long-running Drama’ at the TV Voters’ Choice Awards after the second series. How could a backroom boy even compete? I never thought that my own position would be threatened.
Now I wonder whether I haven’t had a lucky escape. On the hierarchy of who’s who in Farmer Giles, Hargreaves currently comes a definite second after the farmer himself. I’m probably fourth in importance, after Giles’s wife. And Marilyn is creeping up, hot on my tail. This story with Robbie will give her a massive boost. I’ve started to wonder if I could be vulnerable if Robbie suddenly decided he didn’t want me around any more. If it was a case of ‘either she goes or I go’. There would only be Josh standing between me and unemployment.
So I need to tread a bit carefully. I can’t even imagine what Robbie would do if he found out it was me who started the Samantha rumour; who has poisoned his wife’s head just when they were getting on so well. Lucky for me, Paula has always been adamant that we don’t mention our friendship to him. If we keep it to ourselves, then no one’ll be any the wiser. And then, one of these days, she’ll hit him with an accusation out of nowhere. Who will he think is paranoid then? I’ll look like Miss Super-rational 2016.
He’ll need somewhere to run to and I need to make sure that somewhere is me.
24
Paula
I don’t know whether something has happened to make the production run more smoothly, or whether Robert’s character isn’t being used as much as he used to be, but the days of filming running over seem to be gone, at least for now. Or, what I should say is he isn’t coming home late at the moment. I never really believed it was filming that made him stay back two hours several times a week. Maybe it’s because Georgia’s home – not that she’s really home even when she’s home, if you know what I mean – and he wants to spend as m
uch time with her as he can. Either way, he’s around a lot more in the evenings.
Georgia is planning her birthday. She wants a party but she doesn’t want it at the flat. (Thank God; I had been worrying about how to square it with the neighbours for weeks. Let alone the pressure there would have been to invite them.) We’ve left it a bit late so, right now, I’m desperately phoning around trying to book a venue that says ‘cool’ but doesn’t cost the earth. Robert is in the shower.
I’ve tried three clubs (hopeless), two pubs (no large-enough space) and four restaurants (too short notice). I’m scrolling through half-heartedly on my laptop when I hear a phone ringing. I know it’s not mine because it’s sitting right in front of me, dark and silent. So it can only be Robert’s, because Georgia is out, and anyway, her ring tone is always a song – last count ‘Hotline Bling’.
I track down the noise to a jacket slung across one of the kitchen chairs. It was raining when he left for the studio this morning so he slung it on over his T-shirt. It’s so rare that he leaves his phone unguarded that I can’t help myself. I’m in the pocket like a Jack Russell down a rat hole. I check the caller ID: Sam S.
Samantha.
Really? She’s calling him when she must have a good idea he’s at home? I’m so angry about the out-and-out rudeness of it, the fact that she doesn’t give a shit about whether he’s with his wife and daughter, that before I know what I’m doing I’ve answered.
‘Robert’s phone,’ I say, in a tone I could only describe as hostile. I take a long breath to try to calm myself down. Never show the enemy your cards.
‘Oh, is that Paula?’ I recognize her voice from having seen her on the show. She sounds stupidly young and perky.
‘It is. He’s in the shower, I’m afraid. Can I give him a message?’ I know I sound like an officious secretary but it’s the best I can do at the moment.