Clive lit another cigarette, puffed on it furiously, played with the engagement ring.
‘All right, I know what it means. But why is it so important to you?’
‘It’s not. Now.’
‘Why was it?’
‘Because …’
She gave him as long as her patience allowed.
‘I thought we were all right,’ she said. ‘I mean, you know.’
‘Yes,’ said Clive quickly. ‘We were.’
‘More than all right. Good.’
‘Yes, good. Lovely.’
‘So I don’t understand.’
‘Do you remember what it used to be like?’
‘We haven’t been at it that long.’
‘No, I mean … here. In this country.’
‘Are we still talking about the same thing?’ said Sophie.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, no, I don’t remember. I didn’t do anything until I came down to London.’
‘I don’t mean you personally.’ Another cigarette, more furious puffing. ‘I mean … Well, here.’
‘In this country.’
‘Exactly!’ he said, relieved to be finally understood.
‘You just said that and I didn’t understand it then.’
‘Oh.’
‘Try again.’
‘Everything hidden away. Everybody scared. Nothing ever mentioned. A woman like Nancy …’
‘They existed, I believe,’ said Sophie darkly.
‘Exactly! But now … you just meet them! It’s amazing! And you can read about it, and you can go to the cinema and see it, and you can probably listen to recordings of it, I don’t know. And I didn’t want to miss out. When my children ask me what I was doing when everyone else was helping themselves to free love, I don’t want to say, you know …’
‘ “I was sleeping with a famous actress,” ’ Sophie offered helpfully.
‘I’ve always slept with actresses,’ he said helplessly.
‘And Nancy is another one.’
‘Yes, but she seemed … modern. The sort of thing all those French tourists come to Carnaby Street for.’
‘They come here to see tarty actresses who are pushing forty and make off-colour jokes? I thought they came because we’re all young and groovy and we’ve got the Beatles.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand,’ said Clive sulkily.
Her fear was that she was still Miss Blackpool – that, despite all the things that had happened to her since then, she was stuck back there, somehow, a big fish in a small pond, a beautiful girl surrounded by pudgy dignitaries and dark mackintoshes and elderly people with no teeth. She didn’t want to be like that in bed. She didn’t want to regard herself as a prize, to be given up only grudgingly to hardly anybody. But Clive wasn’t talking about that. He was talking about the times they all suddenly lived in, and how hard it was not to be a small boy in a sweet shop with no cash register. None of that was anything to do with her.
The last show went out on 16 November 1967. The word divorce was never mentioned, but Jim was shown leaving the family home, despite Clive’s protestations.
‘I told you this would happen if we had a child,’ he said after the first read-through. ‘Old ladies will beat me about the head with umbrellas in the street for the rest of my life. Why can’t she leave, if she’s so bloody unhappy?’
‘Women don’t leave their children,’ said Dennis, and then, remembering too late that Sophie’s mother had left her, ‘not as a rule.’
Clive still managed to negotiate an off-screen divorce settlement, though, as compensation for his forthcoming shame: he got Tony and Bill to write an unambiguous speech for Barbara in which she stressed that none of it was Jim’s fault, and he got himself a guaranteed part, at a preferential fee, in the next script that Tony and Bill saw through to production.
The last rehearsal nearly ended with Clive saying, ‘Is that it, then? Do you mind if I slope off?’, but Sophie felt as though she had to recognize the occasion.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘All of you.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Clive, and he walked towards the door.
‘Sit down, you unfeeling bastard,’ said Bill. ‘Sophie’s going to make a speech.’
Clive sat down, reluctantly.
‘No, I’m not,’ said Sophie. ‘I just … I didn’t want it all to end without someone noticing.’
‘We all noticed,’ said Clive. ‘But we were trying to end it with dignity.’
He stood up.
‘These have been the best years of my life,’ said Sophie suddenly, and Clive sighed and sat down again. ‘I think they’ve been the best years of your lives too.’
‘Steady on,’ said Bill.
‘What were your best years, then?’ said Tony. ‘The army? Writing jokes for Albert Bridges?’