‘Too subversive.’
Bill knew beyond any doubt that Till Death Us Do Part was going to be very depressing indeed.
Tony and Bill watched the show together, at Tony’s house. June cooked sausages and mash and they all sat down with trays on their laps. The Ramseys, the family at the centre of the programme, were working-class East Enders; docker Alf was a Conservative, as foul-mouthed as the BBC would allow, prejudiced (blacks, Jews, anyone who wasn’t white and British, as Alf saw it), a Churchill-lover, a fervent monarchist. Nobody had ever seen anything like him on television. When Alf’s Scouse son-in-law first appeared, Bill howled in outrage.
‘They’ve nicked our idea!’
‘Because he’s from the North?’ said Tony.
‘They seem to be very different people, him and Barbara,’ said June.
‘And they come from a different place,’ said Tony.
‘It’s the same thing!’ said Bill. ‘We thought of that!’
‘Yes,’ said Tony. ‘We’re brilliant. We had the brainwave of a character who came from somewhere else.’
‘You didn’t, actually,’ said June. ‘Sophie did. She came up with it by actually coming from somewhere else.’
‘Can we all shut up?’ said Bill. ‘I want to listen.’
Till Death Us Do Part was brilliant, savage, fresh, real, and unlike anything they had ever seen. Tony and June enjoyed it a lot, but by the closing credits Bill was sunk in a gloom so deep that he could hardly talk.
‘We’re finished,’ he said eventually.
‘Why are we finished?’
‘They’re ahead of the game. We were something when we started. We’re nothing now.’
June laughed.
‘It’s not even a series yet. It might never be a series. You’re miles ahead of them. And people adore Barbara (and Jim).’
‘Oh, people,’ said Bill. ‘I’m not talking about people.’
‘Who are we talking about, then?’ said Tony. ‘Critics?’
‘While there are still people, you’re not finished,’ said June. ‘That’s what it’s all about.’
‘Why didn’t we set ours in an ordinary working-class home? We lived in ordinary working-class homes.’
‘Yeah, and they were horrible,’ said Tony. ‘I wouldn’t want to look at them once a week, let alone write about them every day.’
‘And the whole point of Barbara (and Jim) is that they come from different classes,’ said June. ‘That was the joke.’
‘Why did she end up in his, though?’ said Bill. ‘Why couldn’t he have gone to live in hers?’
‘Because why would he?’ said Tony. ‘Why would she, more to the point? Why would anyone, if they had the choice? People want to get out of those places, Bill. They’re all being knocked down.’
‘And hers was in Blackpool,’ said June. ‘I don’t know how someone who works at Number Ten goes up and down to Blackpool every day.’
‘Yeah, well, we shouldn’t have had him working at Number Ten, should we?’
‘So you’re saying we wrote the wrong programme altogether,’ said Tony.
‘Yes.’
‘The series that just about everyone in Britain watches every week …’
‘The show that made a star out of Sophie …’ said June.
‘The series that pays you a decent wage because it’s done so well for us … No bloody good?’
‘Tom Sloan hates Till Death Us Do Part, according to Dennis,’ Bill said. ‘Why doesn’t he hate anything we write?’
‘Is that what you’d prefer? That our boss hated what we do?’
‘Yes,’ said Bill. ‘Of course.’
Tony was beginning to realize that he and Bill might want different things. It had never occurred to him before.
‘So,’ said Dennis when they reconvened for the second series. ‘What have we all been up to?’
He was genuinely happy to see them all. He’d been lonely, and he didn’t like any of the other programmes he’d been working on, and he’d missed Sophie, who had achieved mythical status in her absence, a cross between Helen and Aphrodite. When he saw her again, he realized that he’d been selling her short.
‘Well,’ said Clive, ‘Sophie’s been sleeping with French pop stars.’
‘And Clive has been sleeping with anyone he bumps into.’
And they both gave thin-lipped smiles.
‘Oh, Christ,’ said Bill.
‘What?’ said Dennis.
He was bewildered, and appalled. He didn’t want Sophie to sleep with anyone, let alone French pop stars.
‘You had to go and bitch it all up, didn’t you?’ Bill said to Clive.
‘Me?’ said Clive, outraged. ‘How have I bitched it up?’
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ said Tony.
Dennis now understood only that he was the one person in the room who didn’t understand.
‘Am I missing something?’ he said.