‘I don’t care what other people do in their spare time,’ said Bill. ‘But …’
‘That’s not true,’ said Tony.
‘Let’s stick to Jim and Barbara,’ said Dennis. ‘What can we do to make it more palatable to you?’
‘How long does she have to be pregnant for?’ said Bill. And then, when Tony and Dennis were about to provide different versions of the same joke, ‘Yes, yes, very funny. How long in screen time?’
‘Off the top of my head?’ said Dennis.
‘Is there an actual formula you can check later?’ said Bill. ‘Official TV Pregnancy Durations?’
‘First episode of the next series to warm us up, and she can pop it out in the second.’
‘Christ on a bike,’ said Bill.
‘It’s not as bad as you think,’ said Tony. ‘There are things to say.’
‘Give me a for example.’
‘The christening. Jim’s an atheist, I’d imagine. So he objects. We can have a whole episode poking some fun at some soppy Church of England vicar.’
‘We might need to talk that one through first,’ said Dennis. ‘Tom’s a Presbyterian.’
Bill gave him a look of such contempt that Dennis decided he’d rather face Tom Sloan’s Presbyterian wrath.
‘Point taken, Bill, but Tony’s right. Just because they’re going to become a family doesn’t mean you have to stop doing what you’ve been doing. You just have to be ingenious about it.’
‘And some weeks not mention the little sod at all.’
‘If it makes you feel better.’
‘It does.’
Never, thought Tony, has a beautiful girl been impregnated with such irritation and reluctance.
In the end it was Bill’s idea, the scene in which Barbara tells Jim and the people of Britain that he is going to be a father. It was a good one too – so unexpected and clever that it felt to Tony as though Bill’s professionalism, imagination and talent would always trump his reluctance and hostility. In ‘The Surprise’, Barbara simply forgets to say anything to Jim, on the grounds that it’s such a cataclysmic piece of news that he’s bound to know already. Jim wanders into the living room while Barbara is on the phone to her mother, and comprehension, which is signalled by the slow lowering of the newspaper, dawns on him at exactly the same time as it dawns on the studio audience, just as Tony and Bill had hoped. Clive’s expression, when it was finally revealed, was perfect, a moment that ended up representing everything people loved about the show. Tom Sloan came to the recording, for the first time, and was so pleased with what he saw that he caused two bottles of champagne to arrive backstage. And the champagne, in turn, helped Clive and Sophie to find their way back into Sophie’s bed.
Sophie was beginning to realize that there was nothing to be done about actors: they would always end up sleeping with each other. They had always done so, and they probably always would. Actors were more attractive, by and large, than ordinary people. That was one of the gifts with which they had been blessed – perhaps the only one that counted. In a lot of cases, there weren’t any others at all. And these attractive people spent a lot of time together, and other, less attractive people dressed them, put make-up on them, lit them in ways that accentuated their beauty, told them they were wonderful. They were often penned up together in glamorous locations a long way from home. They were frequently given adjoining bedrooms in nice hotels, and everything in their lives encouraged a late-night knock on the door. Clive and Sophie were a permanent irritant to each other, a constant itch that had to be scratched. They slept together, then vowed not to do it again, and then did it again, and they always enjoyed it very much when it happened. There was no harm in it that Sophie could see, but neither was there much future in it, usually; Clive wasn’t someone who could see beyond the next morning’s breakfast. The thing about ‘The Surprise’ was that it provided them with the excuse to romanticize a sort of substitute future.
‘I don’t mind having a baby with you,’ said Sophie afterwards. ‘In the show, I mean. I’m sorry I said what I said before.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Clive. ‘I feel the same way. And I’m sorry too.’
‘I think we’ll make very nice screen parents,’ said Sophie.
‘Maybe this will be good practice for me,’ said Clive. ‘I can poke my toe in the water, sort of thing.’
‘I suppose so.’
She liked his sense of responsibility, and she didn’t want to discourage it, but she felt obliged to keep the conversation grounded.
‘You know it will be a plastic doll, most of the time?’
‘Yes, of course, but it’s symbolic.’
‘D’you think?’
‘Absolutely. I’ll have to become a different person. Someone I’ve never been before. Some people would say, “Yes, but you’re an actor, that’s your job.” It’s not just that, though. Jim’s got to change, and I’ve got to change with him.’
‘I’d say … Jim’s got to change less than you have. No offence.’