‘Thank you.’
Nancy came in after lunch the worse for wear and immediately the atmosphere, sleepy and good-natured but focused in the morning, changed. Sophie became irritable and Clive looked like a man who was walking as carefully as he could through a minefield but knew he was going to lose a leg anyway.
Barbara and Jim were receiving advice from Marguerite about the corrosive effects of jealousy.
‘They’re quite … square, aren’t they?’ said Nancy when Dennis had finished talking about the long marriage guidance scene.
‘Who?’ said Dennis.
Clive started to walk briskly towards the door.
‘Need some air,’ he said.
‘Ha ha,’ said Nancy as she watched him go. ‘So are you, I see.’
Clive ignored her. Sophie was mystified.
‘Why does that make him square?’
‘He’s squeamish,’ said Nancy. ‘Thank heavens women have more sense.’
‘I don’t understand, I’m afraid,’ said Sophie.
‘Jealousy,’ said Nancy. ‘I don’t get jealous.’
‘Good for you,’ said Sophie.
Tony stopped scribbling in the margins of the next scene and looked over at the girls. There was an atmosphere in the room, although he couldn’t have described it.
‘I think we perform different functions, don’t we?’
‘In the script?’ said Sophie.
‘In life,’ said Nancy.
‘I expect so,’ said Sophie.
She wasn’t interested, and her lack of interest only made Nancy more determined to attract her full attention.
‘You do the homely stuff, and you’re marvellous at it. And I do the exotic stuff. You’d have to ask Clive whether I’m marvellous at that.’
‘I’d stop there,’ said Bill pleasantly.
‘Stop where?’ said Sophie.
‘He doesn’t want me to talk about my sexual relationship with Clive,’ said Nancy. ‘He thinks it will pollute the working environment.’
‘I know it will,’ said Bill.
Sophie finally understood.
‘You’re saying you’ve been sleeping with my fiancé?’
‘ “My fiancé”,’ said Nancy. ‘Gosh. It’s 1959 and I’m in rep at Chichester.’
‘I won’t be working this afternoon,’ said Sophie.
‘Understood,’ said Dennis.
They all watched her leave.
‘And Nancy, I don’t think Barbara and Jim will be requiring marriage guidance any more.’
‘As from …?’
‘Well. Now, really.’
‘I’m contracted for another two episodes,’ said Nancy.
In the end, Dennis had to escort her from the premises.
‘Perhaps we should tell Dennis what we were talking about last night,’ said Tony when Dennis came back.
‘That?’
‘Yes. That.’
‘I didn’t think you wanted to talk about that,’ said Bill.
‘I don’t think we’ve got any choice,’ said Tony. ‘We’re supposed to be writing a comedy series, not The Perils of Pauline. There’s no rescuing them.’
And so, with appropriate solemnity and regret, Tony and Bill started to talk about divorce.
Sophie found Clive sitting on a bench up the road, smoking. She sat down next to him, took one of his cigarettes, listened to his apologies. He was distraught, of course: he was just the kind of idiot who could only understand what things meant by doing them first. He apologized, and vowed everything there was to vow, and called himself every name under the sun, and very soon Sophie found that her rage had evaporated. She gave him his ring back, but she didn’t hurl it at him.
‘I have to admit, I thought you’d be crosser than this,’ said Clive. ‘I thought there’d be violence.’
‘I don’t think I ever really believed you were serious,’ she said. ‘So somewhere in the back of my mind I thought there might be a day something like this one.’
‘Were you serious?’
‘I’d have gone through with it.’
‘Why?’
She almost laughed, and stopped herself. Why? It was a fair question. She had, in theory, agreed to spend the rest of her life with someone, and yet she couldn’t immediately remember what had made her think it was a good idea. She was hopeless at taking care of herself. She forgot to eat, for example, and suddenly found herself picking at stale bread or peeling a blackened banana. She wondered whether Clive fulfilled a similar function. He wasn’t stale or beginning to go mouldy. But there must have been something inside her, some dimly recognized need, making her reach for him. She was beginning to wonder whether she was lonely.
‘Can we carry on working together?’ said Clive.
‘I’m not going to let the chaps down,’ she said. ‘I can put up with you until the end of the series. So long as everybody agrees that we don’t need marriage guidance.’
‘That seems fair.’
‘Can I ask you something? What is the “exotic stuff”, and why is it so important?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Nancy said that you needed her for the exotic stuff.’
‘Oh, hell.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Nothing.’