‘You’re not married now. It made no sense.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. The bastards. They’re broadcasting it under that name without asking me?’
Monty chuckled.
‘They put one over on you, I’m afraid.’
‘Right. That’s it. I’m not doing it. Find me some work, Monty.’
The day after that, Monty left a message to say that they’d offered the part of Jim to Clive’s old nemesis Laurence Harris. Clive knew Laurence Harris wouldn’t take it, not with the brackets. Unless the brackets were magically vanished, for someone like Harris. Of course, that’s what would happen. ‘Oh, well, if Laurence Harris is interested …’
Damn and blast them all to hell.
As luck would have it, he had arranged to visit his parents in Eastleigh that weekend. It was never an enjoyable occasion, Sunday lunch with his parents, for two reasons. The first was his job. It wasn’t so much that they disapproved of his choice of profession. His father was a dentist, but his wasn’t the traditional middle-class strait-laced disapproval of bohemianism; Clive had tried that one and got nowhere. If Clive had been able to earn a decent living, his father wouldn’t have given two hoots about what he got up to, what he wore, what he drank or who he slept with. ‘You’re just no bloody good at it,’ he said, loudly and often.
The second thing that made his visits home so miserable was the permanent and inexplicable presence of Clive’s ex-fiancée, Cathy. They had got engaged when he was eighteen, after his first term at LAMDA, for reasons that Clive could no longer recall, but which almost certainly had something to do with sex. He had broken it off soon after, presumably once he had got what he wanted, but it didn’t seem to have made much difference to her position in the family. As far as Clive could make out, she went to the parental home every Sunday. Cathy had somehow become a daughter-in-law while remaining unmarried. She was a sweet, dull girl, and Clive feared that he would be eating Sunday lunch with his mother’s daughter-in-law once a month for the rest of his life.
He had made the mistake of telling his parents that he was to appear in an episode of Comedy Playhouse, and that this would almost certainly lead to a job in a series. His father asked him about it almost as soon as the fatty lamb and the wet cabbage appeared on the table.
‘How did that BBC thing turn out?’
‘Oh, that. Not as well as I’d hoped.’
Cathy and his mother made sympathetic faces. His father chortled.
‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘What happened?’
Clive briefly entertained the notion of telling his father the truth: that he’d turned down the chance to star in a television programme because he didn’t like the way the title was going to be punctuated.
‘It wasn’t really what I was looking for, so I said no.’
‘You mean it was work?’
‘That’s not fair,’ said his mother. ‘He’s always looking for work.’
‘Hasn’t he just found some? And turned it down?’
‘It doesn’t sound as though that’s what happened,’ said his mother.
Sometimes, Clive didn’t know which parent irritated him more. His mother’s blind devotion could be every bit as dispiriting as his father’s scorn; he was patronized either way. He decided, perversely, to turn on his mother.
‘Were you even listening? That’s exactly what happened. We made the Comedy Playhouse, it went all right, they offered me sixteen episodes, I didn’t like the part.’
‘Believe that and you’ll believe anything,’ said his father.
Clive groaned.
‘I thought that’s what you did believe? And you accused me of being work-shy? I was backing you up!’
‘You hadn’t told us the full story. The full story is not believable.’
‘Why not?’
‘Nobody’s going to offer you sixteen episodes on television.’
‘They just did!’
‘And you turned it down. Now what?’
‘I may end up going to the United States.’
‘Oh, Clive,’ said Cathy. ‘America?’
Clive’s imaginary plans seemed to be driving a distressing hole through their imaginary relationship.
‘Yes,’ said Clive.
His father put down his knife and fork and rubbed his hands.
‘What?’ said Clive.
‘I’m going to enjoy this.’
‘Why?’
‘Because whatever you’re about to say will be both amusing and untrue.’
‘God, Dad. You’re a monster.’
He tried to think of a lie that wouldn’t make his father laugh.
‘I’ve been offered something in The Virginian.’
‘The Virginian,’ his father said flatly. ‘The Western serial.’
‘Yes,’ said Clive. ‘It’s not much, but it might be rather fun.’
‘And do they know you cried when a horse came too close to you in Norfolk?’
‘Yes. I told them. They wanted me anyway.’
‘The Virginian!’ said his father. He was pretending to wipe tears of mirth away with his napkin. ‘So this might be the last time we see you for a while?’
‘Oh, Clive,’ said Cathy.
‘Unless I take the other thing,’ said Clive.