‘But when I’m talking to clever people like you, I might start talking about picnics in Vernon Whitfield.’
‘Oh, he’s no picnic, I can tell you.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Have you seen the TV series Barbara (and Jim)?’ He drew the brackets in the air. He always did that. ‘You’d enjoy it. The girl in that is very intellectually insecure.’
‘Why didn’t you go to university?’
‘I went to drama school instead. Why didn’t you?’
‘You know I couldn’t have gone. I was working behind a cosmetics counter when I was fifteen.’
‘And look at you now.’
‘Anyway,’ said Sophie, ‘poor Dennis.’
‘I don’t know. He may get shot of her.’
‘I’d never be able to have an affair with Vernon Whitfield,’ said Sophie wistfully.
This made Clive laugh a lot.
‘What have I said now?’
‘I think you’ll find that if you were to offer Vernon Whitfield a roll in the hay, he’d be a very, very happy essayist and broadcaster.’
‘I don’t want that sort of affair.’
‘I’m not sure how many varieties of affair there are.’
‘I’ll bet the kind Vernon Whitfield is having with Edith isn’t the kind he’d have with me.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘I might try,’ she said artfully. ‘Just to see.’
‘Be my guest,’ he said, and laughed.
She didn’t understand the laughter until they got to Dennis’s flat: Vernon Whitfield was not a traditionally handsome man. He was short, bespectacled and nervous-looking. Sophie had never met anyone who broadcast on the Third Programme before, but she could see why he’d been given the job. The strange thing was that Edith was actually quite attractive. She wasn’t sexy in the least (too thin, too cold), but she was tall, much taller than Vernon, and she was elegant, and she had a very long neck that Sophie rather envied.
She glided over to Sophie and asked her whether she wanted a top-up. Everyone else Sophie knew had temporarily deserted her for an Awkward Squad reunion.
‘Red wine,’ said Sophie, holding out the glass.
‘Was it the Beaujolais?’ said Edith.
That was all it took for Sophie to begin to feel that she shouldn’t have come to the party, shouldn’t know Dennis, shouldn’t be working for the BBC. It was so stupid. Maybe Beaujolais was a red wine and maybe it wasn’t: who cared? She could have just nodded and smiled and said thank you and drunk whatever Edith brought her. Instead, she just froze.
‘Beaujolais is a red wine, dear,’ said Edith. ‘We’re not trying to poison you.’
And she could have just walked over to the Awkward people and the others would have introduced her to the actors she didn’t know and they would have said things like, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ and ‘Congratulations!’ and ‘We love your programme!’ and ‘We love you!’ But Edith had gone to get her a drink, so she wasn’t allowed to move.
‘Salut,’ said Edith, and chinked Sophie’s glass.
Sophie smiled. Vernon Whitfield wandered over to join them.
‘Do you know Vernon Whitfield?’ said Edith.
‘I’ve heard of you, of course,’ said Sophie.
Vernon Whitfield nodded, as if this was inevitable and also a bit boring.
‘Sophie’s the star of Dennis’s TV programme,’ said Edith.
‘Ah,’ said Vernon Whitfield.
He was the star, in his head, in this room; he was the one who delivered lectures on the Third. Sophie’s variety of stardom – seventeen million viewers now, and on the cover of the Radio Times (with Jim) – didn’t really register.
‘Everyone has a television now,’ he went on, with obvious disapproval.’
‘I don’t,’ said Edith.
‘Good for you,’ said Vernon Whitfield.
‘Isn’t that a television?’ said Sophie, nodding towards the corner of the living room.
‘It’s not mine,’ said Edith.
She snorted at the very suggestion that it might have been, so Vernon Whitfield snorted too. Was it really possible that these two were having an affair? Sophie could imagine them having a good snort together, but that was about all. She had no idea what Dennis was like in bed, and she didn’t want to think about it too deeply, but she could imagine his enthusiasm and kindness. And also, he looked nothing like a frog.
‘It’s funny that you’ve got a television and I haven’t,’ said Sophie. It was true. The Radio Rentals people still hadn’t delivered hers.
‘First, it’s not my television,’ said Edith. ‘And secondly, why is it funny?’
‘What’s funny,’ said Vernon Whitfield, ‘is that because Suzy has no television, she has managed to find the time to read the latest Margaret Drabble and we haven’t.’
This, it turned out, was even funnier than the idea that the television in Edith’s house belonged to her. It was obvious that Margaret Drabble was an author; obvious too that she was an author Sophie was not expected to have read. She wasn’t dim. But these people made her dim. They made her afraid, and the fear resulted in mental paralysis.