by Jane Fallon
‘Just for the record, I wasn’t even born when Woodstock happened. And it was in America. But I take your point that festivals aren’t the same as they were when I was your age.’
‘What I meant was, this is a book festival. There are seven tents serving tea and cakes. And a glass of white wine costs thirteen pounds. No one’s getting off their heads.’
‘So, when are you heading home?’
‘Day after tomorrow. Hold on …’
I hear her barking out directions to someone in a tone of voice I’ve never heard before. It’s as if there’s a whole different, more grown-up, version of my daughter out there in the world. Which, I suppose, there is. I should be proud. It means I’ve done my job. Then she’s back.
‘Sorry. Just had to stop some idiot blocking an exit.’
‘Maybe you should consider a career as a prison officer. Or a football referee?’
‘I’m going to ignore that. I should go, really, we’re not meant to be on our phones …’
‘Of course. Love you!’
I hear a click as the front door opens. ‘Oh, hang on, George. Dad’s just walked in. Let him say a quick hello …’
I head out to the hall, holding the phone out to Robert. ‘It’s George.’
His face lights up, as it always does when there’s an opportunity to talk to our daughter, so it’s hard to tell what kind of mood he’s really in. He looks the same. Not as if he’s spent half the afternoon arguing with the love of his life.
‘Hi! Let me guess. You’re in a field …?’
I leave them chatting happily and go and open a bottle of wine. When he comes in he has a big smile on his face.
‘Sounds like she’s having a great time.’
Nothing about him says he’s had a tough few hours. I pour him a glass of red.
‘She’s loving it. You have a good day?’
‘Great, actually, yeah,’ he says, and he looks as if he means it.
‘Why so good? Anything special?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Just one of those days, you know.’
Someone give that man a BAFTA.
28
Saskia
Hallelujah!
I knew he still wanted me! I knew he wouldn’t be able to stay away forever.
I was relaxing in my dressing room a few days after my little set visit. It was my first day back in since my brief chat with Robert so I hadn’t been able to capitalize on the inroads I’d made. We were running a bit behind and I knew they wouldn’t get to my scene till after lunch now. This is something people never realize about actors in film and TV. Half of your life is spent just waiting around. Even when things are running smoothly, you have hours to kill every day. Dead time.
People handle it differently. Some take up hobbies, so it’s no surprise to walk in on someone and find them knitting or embroidering some ghastly object. Some try and engage whoever else is around in games of poker or canasta. Some even take to drink (mentioning no names, Jez, haha!). It can be deathly boring. You’re not even allowed to go off premises for a walk, in case they suddenly decide to re-jig the schedule. I try to make myself do yoga or meditation. Something that adds value to my life. Of course, when Robert and I were still an item, it was a different story if we found ourselves at a loose end at the same time.
So I was lying on the sofa, eye mask over my eyes (cucumber to reduce puffiness) when there was a tentative tap at my door. I assumed it was one of the runners come to ask me what I wanted from Catering so I just called out, ‘Come in!’ and didn’t move.
Then I heard his voice. ‘Very fetching.’
My heart almost burst out of my chest. I whipped the eye mask off and there he was. Robert. Standing in front of the closed door, looking right at me.
‘Can we talk?’
I sat up, running my hands through my hair to flatten it. Luckily, I was wearing a short, silky robe over just my underwear. I didn’t have to worry whether he’d like what he saw. ‘Of course. Sit down.’
He cleared a pile of clothes and God knows what else off the only other chair.
I opened my mouth to speak again and then forced myself to close it. I had to wait for him to say what he’d come to say. It felt like an hour before he spoke.
‘I just want to clear the air,’ he said. ‘I don’t want us to be enemies.’
‘We’re not,’ I said. ‘We never could be.’
‘Thank God for that. I’ve hated us not really talking for the last few weeks.’
I resisted the urge to say, ‘It was all your decision. I never wanted to separate in the first place.’ I’ve learned my lesson. Don’t be accusatory, don’t be needy; above all else, don’t ask him how things are with Paula.
‘Me too.’
‘Have you been OK?’ he said, and he gave me what I knew was his sympathy look – head slightly tilted to one side, eyes slightly screwed up.
It did actually make me a little teary, I’m not going to lie. I felt as if something had shifted, as if there was a chance we might be able to start again where we left off. I didn’t want to blow it.
‘Mmmm hmmm,’ is all I could manage.
‘I wasn’t …’ he started. ‘I didn’t ever want it to end. You have to understand, I just felt as if you didn’t trust me. Like I couldn’t do anything right.’
You can imagine how frustrating it was. I could never explain to him why I suddenly became jealous. Not because I’d been that type of person all along, and I just hid it well. But because I had proof. I had the words of his wife, telling me how fantastic things were, how he couldn’t keep his hands off her suddenly, how he wanted to spend two weeks of his precious holiday holed up with her in some kind of John and Yoko love-in.
Of course, I said none of this. Now that I’ve poisoned Paula’s mind well and truly against him, I think the love-ins are over. Whether he wants them to be or not.
Don’t get me wrong, I know how pathetic I’m being. It reminds me of a phrase my ex-husband used to say (not Josh, he’s not my ex yet, haha! Simon, who I married way too young and who then drank his way through all our savings. I left one night when he was on a bender, with just whatever I could carry, and I never looked back. I might be being pitiful at the moment but I’m strong underneath. I work hard to achieve what I want). Anyway, sloppy seconds, I’ve always hated that saying. The image it conjours up! Yuk. But there I was anyway, scrabbling around for Paula’s sloppy seconds, content to be second best. Because the thing was, I knew if he gave me a chance I could win him back round. I could make him forget her all over again. But, like I said, I didn’t say any of that.
‘I know, and I’m sorry. That’s not me. You’ve known me long enough to believe I’m not jealous or paranoid or any of those things. I just had a wobble, that’s all.’
He worried away at the cuff of his shirt. He was dressed in Hargreaves’ favourite outfit, a cross between Lovejoy and the Davids Dickenson and Essex. I could just imagine the first costume meeting. What do antiques dealers wear on TV? Dapper but eccentric with a hint of whimsy. That’ll do. No point in trying to be original.
He sighed. ‘I don’t want Paula. I haven’t wanted Paula for years. You never had anything to worry about.’
Stay calm. ‘I realize that now.’
There was a long silence. Neither of us spoke and I started to worry that some idiot runner might come and knock on my door after all, with the list of what was available for lunch. If the atmosphere broke it would take a gargantuan effort to rekindle it. I tried to send out vibes. ‘Keep Away!’
I looked across at him and he was staring at me intently. I held his look, and before I really knew what was happening he was right in front of me, kneeling on the floor, and then his mouth was seeking out mine.
We locked the door after that. Someone did knock eventually, but we stayed really quiet until they went away. And then we started giggling like a pair of schoolkids and I knew it was all going to be OK.
29
Paula
&n
bsp; Saskia looks happy. I find her on a bench in Regent’s Park, where we agreed to meet, because, thankfully, she has a meeting in town. She’s positively glowing, as if it were she that was pregnant and not her character, Melody. I wonder for a second if that might be it. Maybe Josh’s way of showing that he’s fully committed, that he regrets the way he almost threw his marriage away on a misunderstanding, has been to knock her up. Not that I think either of them has any great desire to have a child. And she is, of course, forty-three, whatever she says, which is pushing it a bit to have a first baby, but stranger things have happened.
‘You look amazing!’ I say as we hug hello. ‘Whatever you’re doing at the moment, it’s working.’
‘Don’t even get me started on you,’ she says. ‘I barely even recognize the woman I first met a couple of months ago.’
‘OK, let’s just agree we’re both fabulous.’ I still feel awkward accepting compliments about the way I look. I just don’t have that gracious gene.
We buy coffees (well, I buy a coffee and Saskia gets a green tea because she has a ‘no coffee after lunch’ rule) and then we walk up towards the rose garden, even though the roses are past their best. We catch up with all the mundane stuff but, actually, I find it hard to concentrate because I’m dying to hear the lowdown on Robert and Samantha. When she leaves a rare two-second pause in a story she’s telling me about having her parents over for lunch, I pounce.
‘So you have to tell me what’s going on with Robert …’
‘What? Oh … sorry. There’s me babbling on about God knows what. OK, so, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the pair of them since I gave him the good news, and I would definitely say relations were frosty.’
I take a sip of my coffee. Burn my tongue. ‘Ouch. He seems like his normal self at home, though. Not as if he’s upset about something.’
‘That’s what he seems like at work too, actually. I wonder if he thinks he’s had a lucky escape.’
‘Do you really think they’ve split up?’
‘God knows,’ she says, swatting away an over-excited wasp. ‘But they definitely aren’t acting like love’s young dream any more. We did a big scene in the pub yesterday and he didn’t even look at her. Whereas she didn’t take her eyes off him for a second. Plus, her eyes are all red and puffy. One of the make-up girls told me she’d been crying too. It took them hours to unpuff her eyes, apparently. Is that a word, “unpuff”? If it isn’t, it should be.’
‘And he hasn’t said anything to you?’
‘We haven’t really seen each other since. Oh, I did pass him in the corridor on my way out yesterday, and I asked him how he was and he just rolled his eyes. There were people around, though, so we couldn’t really talk. But I’m sure he’ll tell me what’s going on because, who else can he talk to? Even if he doesn’t like me much, I’m all he’s got.’
It’s huge, but it’s not enough yet. I need to make sure that relationship is well and truly dead.
‘What else can I do to make sure they don’t just pick up where they left off after a few days?’
Saskia thinks for a moment. I watch while a large dog takes a small woman for a walk, straining at the end of its leash like a rabid ox pulling a plough.
She turns to me with a triumphant look on her face. ‘I think you just have to keep on doing what you’re doing. I, on the other hand …’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Think about it. Robert knows I know about him and Samantha. So I can tell him anything. I could make something else up that she’s supposedly said or done that would really piss him off …’
‘It needs to be something that couldn’t be proven,’ I say. I can’t deny I’m getting a buzz of excitement, thinking about it. ‘If he’s feeling like he doesn’t quite trust her because of the baby thing, then even the tiniest hint of something might push him over the edge.’
‘Oh my God, I’ve got it!’ She bangs her tea down on the bench and it slops over the rim of the cup. ‘I’ll tell him I’ve seen her flirting with Jez. Or worse. Kissing him. He’s so terrified of Jez he would never confront him in a million years. He’ll check with her. She’ll deny it. He won’t believe her. I just have to find a way to make sure he doesn’t tell her it came from me. That should be easy enough, given that I’m the keeper of his biggest secret …’
‘God, Saskia, do you think we should? Is it too much, involving someone who’s completely innocent?’
‘Jez’ll never find out.’
‘No, he will, because Samantha would probably tell him. She might go and beg him to explain to Robert that it’s not true. That’s what I’d do, wouldn’t you?’
‘You’re right. I have to think this through. I’ll come up with something.’
‘You know how much I appreciate this, don’t you?’
‘You can pay me back by agreeing to come to a Bikram class one weekend, haha!’
I reach for my default response: no thanks, followed by some kind of disparaging remark about my weight and general lack of fitness. It dies on my tongue, though. Before I know it, I’m agreeing to go.
‘Really?’ she says, raising one eyebrow, something I’ve always wished I could do myself. I used to practise for hours in front of a mirror when I was a teenager because I thought it would give me an air of sophisticated mystery. I never managed it, though, even when I stuck Sellotape over the one I wanted to stay down. ‘I was convinced you’d put up more of a fight than that.’
‘I’m a changed woman.’
‘This Saturday?’
Now I’ve said yes, I’m rapidly losing my bottle. What if I’m one of those passing-out people? It’s all very well doing a bit of yoga (I say, as if I have any idea. I attempted a DVD once, because I thought it looked like the easy, pain-free alternative to real exercise, and I had to give up after ten minutes because I pulled something in my thigh. That’s my sole first-hand experience), but it strikes me as another thing entirely doing it while being slow-roasted.
‘I’m not sure. It’s Georgia’s birthday this weekend …’
‘Chicken. Well, if you decide you’re brave enough, let me know ahead of time, because I’ll have to book you in. And I’ll have a word with Adrienne, the teacher, so she knows there’s a beginner in the room. Otherwise, she’ll just steam ahead, and you’ll end up with no idea what’s going on.’
I tell myself it’s time to be brave. ‘OK, sod it, I’ll do it. Not this Saturday, though. Next.’
Saskia claps her hands together like a small, over-excited child. ‘Excellent. Good girl.’
I can’t wait to tell Myra. This one might just push her over the edge.
30
Saskia
It’s too funny. No, it really is. Paula is going to attempt a Bikram class! I mean, I know she’s lost a shedload of weight, but she’s still a big lady. Still what – if she were me – I would consider too big. I suppose you have to admire her, though, she’s done well.
I thought my suggestion of a fake Samantha and Jez romance was inspired, but she’s right, of course, if any of this were real, Robert would confront Samantha and she would go straight to Jez. I have to keep reminding myself that, even though Robert and Samantha aren’t having a thing (they’d better not be!), Paula absolutely has to believe they are so anything I come up with has to be watertight. No plot holes. Really, I should get one of the writers to come up with something for me. Although, on second thoughts, they never seem to worry if their storylines hold up under scrutiny.
There does need to be something, though, that will help convince Paula that Robert has dumped Samantha for good (or the other way round, of course, but I think this way is more believable, given how I’ve portrayed their relationship for her). The time is coming when she’ll feel she has to kick him out before he dumps her to set up home with – she thinks – Samantha. Georgia must be leaving home in the next few weeks. When do universities start? End of September? So, six weeks maybe. Six weeks for me to convince her it’s well and truly over with t
hem, never to be revived. Six weeks for me to make sure he walks straight out of their flat and into the one I will have lined up for us.
Oh, that reminds me. I’ve booked a day to go and look at a few places. I know it’s a bit premature. Robbie and I have only just made the first tentative steps back towards each other (well, not steps so much, we were lying down most of the time, haha!). So I’m not telling him about it because he’ll feel like I’m railroading him. But I need to make sure I have the perfect bolt-hole ready. And six weeks is tight. By the time I’ve seen somewhere perfect and jumped through all the hoops you need to jump through to secure it (that’s assuming it’s already empty. In fact, I need to tell the estate agent that’s non-negotiable. I don’t have time to wait for previous tenants to get their act together and move out), found a decorator, had any work that needs doing done, bought all the little bits and pieces that make a house a home … well, let’s just agree it’s tight.
So I’m going to view four flats. All in Marylebone. Why, I don’t know, except that I like it around there and it feels sufficiently far away from both Josh in Richmond and Paula in Chalk Farm. You don’t get much for your money so my budget has gone through the roof but I figure, once Robert has moved in, we’ll share the rent and it’ll only be a matter of time until we find a perfect dream home to buy. I’m leaving Josh with the house. Much as it breaks my heart, because I’ve sweated blood making it exactly how I want it. That is, I hired someone else to sweat blood, but it still cost a fortune, and it’s not even finished. But my earning power is greater than his. And given that he’ll be out of work soon, it feels only fair. Not to mention that this whole thing is going to be devastating for him. He has absolutely no idea. So it’s the least I can do. Likewise, Robbie has always said he wouldn’t insist on Paula selling the flat or anything like that.
Three two-beds, one three-bed, although that one is really out of my price range. All with an underground parking space because I know Robbie would stress about trying to find a spot on the road every time he went out. They’re like gold dust in an area like that. I’ll just have to put up with it myself until we work out where we’re going to settle long-term. All with some kind of balcony or roof terrace. All, I have to say, a lot nicer than the place he’s in now.