They had another argument in the Trattoo, a nasty one. He accused her of being bourgeois, whatever that was – it seemed to involve engagement rings and babies and all sorts of things she wasn’t interested in. He got so heated about them that for a moment she thought he might actually be proposing, in an angry, cack-handed fashion. She asked him about other girls, and he was cagey, and she said she didn’t mind; he asked her about Johnny Foreigner, and she was cagey, and he didn’t speak to her all the way home. He didn’t stay the night.
Tony booked a table in the Positano Room at the Trattoria Terrazza for his wedding anniversary, mostly because Bill told him to.
‘The place in Romilly Street? I’ll never get in there. Isn’t that where they all go? Michael Caine and Jean Shrimpton and everyone?’
‘ “We”. Not “they”,’ said Bill.
‘Who’s “we”?’
‘You and me and Michael Caine and Jean Shrimpton.’
‘Oh, get out of it,’ said Tony.
‘People know who we are.’
‘People in the contracts department of the BBC. And a couple of reviewers. Let’s not get above ourselves. We’re writers.’
‘That’ll be enough to get you a table.’
‘I’m not going to call them and tell them I’m a famous television writer and they have to let me in.’
‘Get Hazel to do it.’
Hazel was their new secretary. The phone in the office had been ringing a lot since Barbara, mostly with offers of work, and they’d employed Hazel to answer it. This occupied perhaps half an hour of her working day, and they didn’t know what to do with her the rest of the time. And they couldn’t work with her in the one-room office, so for the moment they’d gone back to the coffee bar.
‘How is that going to help?’
‘She’ll tell them you’re a famous television writer and they have to let you in.’
‘But then I’ll get there and I’ll just be me and it will be embarrassing.’
‘What night do you want to go?’ said Bill.
‘Our anniversary’s next Tuesday. I was going to take her out Saturday.’
‘Oh.’
‘What?’
‘You’re not Saturday night famous. Take her out on Tuesday night and you’ll be all right.’
There were famous people in the Positano Room, even on a Tuesday night. As Tony and June were waiting to be seated, Terence Stamp looked straight at them, and Tony momentarily lost his nerve.
‘Shall we go somewhere else?’
Mick Jagger in the Positano Room
June looked at him, baffled.
‘Why?’
‘Terence Stamp just looked at me.’
‘Where is he supposed to look?’
‘You can see what he’s thinking. He’s thinking, Who let them in? They’re not beautiful or famous.’
‘Thanks.’
But she laughed. Tony never had to worry about her sulking, or looking for offence and then taking it. It was a miracle that they had stayed married for one hundred weeks, given everything, and June’s view was that they had enough trouble, without looking for it. She seemed determined to find the unintended insults and the accidental ironies funny, whenever she could.
An impressively Italian waiter in a stripy matelot T-shirt that showed off his beautiful dark skin took them to a table on the edge of the room. Their nearest neighbours were two debby girls who were apparently too pretty to talk to each other, or even to eat. Their meals were untouched, and they were both smoking long, thin cigarettes. June was trying not to stare at their long, thin legs and their short skirts.
‘We’re supposed to order the osso buco,’ said Tony as they looked at their menus.
‘Who said?’
‘Bill.’
‘Who did he come here with?’
‘I don’t know.’
Why hadn’t he asked? He might have learned something about Bill’s life outside the office and the rehearsal hall and the studio.
‘Is he happy, do you think?’
June knew as much about Bill’s private life as Tony did.
‘He seems happy, yes.’
‘Why don’t you ever ask him about things like that?’
‘Men don’t.’
‘What do you ask him about, then?’
Tony thought. He couldn’t really remember asking Bill about anything that wasn’t related to the script they were working on. Bill asked him about June all the time, but Tony didn’t ask him anything in return. He was afraid of what Bill might tell him.
‘Oh, you know. Whether he’s got a girlfriend, and things like that.’
June made a face.
‘What?’
‘I’m not that naive. Of course he hasn’t got a girlfriend.’
‘You knew that?’
‘Yes. I mean, not straight away. He’s not a queen. Neither of you is.’
‘I’m not one at all.’
‘You’re a married man, you mean?’
The waiter with the beautiful dark skin came, and they ordered melon and the osso buco, as instructed. Tony asked him for a wine recommendation too. He wanted to ask him about his aftershave, but decided that this was an enquiry that June would misinterpret.
‘There’s something we have in common,’ said June when he’d gone.
‘What?’
‘Him.’
‘The waiter? Really?’
‘Not half. But I think I’d be making the same mistake again.’
‘It isn’t … It wouldn’t be the same mistake. Well, it might be. I’d have to know more about him.’
‘Oh, that old story.’
She laughed. Tony was becoming excruciated.
‘I don’t know what I am.’
June looked at him.
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I thought I did. And then I met you, and now I don’t.’
‘Gosh. So … Right. OK. Golly. I had no idea.’