‘Do you want a drink?’ said Bill.
‘June’s going out,’ said Tony. ‘I’ve got to look after the baby. And when I wake up tomorrow I’ve got to work out a way of supporting both of them.’
Bill fished around in his pocket for some change and seemed to be trying to remember something.
‘ “… the writers are to be commended for addressing the problem head-on, and suggesting solutions that many couples will, regrettably, need to consider at some point in the future”,’ he said eventually.
‘That rings a bell,’ said Tony. ‘Oh, it’s the Times review. We’re the writers.’
‘Yes. Ironic, isn’t it?’
‘Why?’
‘There we are, commendably suggesting ways that couples can separate without fighting. And here we are fighting.’
‘Oh, Christ on a bike,’ said Tony.
Tony’s peculiar romantic history meant that he had never broken up with a girl or a boy. He had never given anyone the push, and he’d never received it either. But he imagined it felt exactly like this: the sudden lurch in the stomach, the acute awareness of time and place and temperature, the terrible realization that this was it, there were to be no second chances or mind-changing or persuasion.
‘You coming?’ said Bill.
‘I’m just going to buy a paper,’ said Tony.
‘I’ll wait for you.’
‘Nah, don’t worry.’
He didn’t want to have to make small talk with his oldest friend on the train while his world collapsed around him.
Tony went back to see Dennis the next afternoon.
‘I’m sorry about yesterday,’ he said. ‘You know what he’s like.’
‘I hope you’ve come to tell me he’s changed his mind.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ said Tony.
‘Oh dear,’ said Dennis.
The feeble, insecure part of Tony – the writing part, as he often thought of it – didn’t like the sound of that.
‘I’ve come to ask if you’d give me a crack at it on my own,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ said Dennis. ‘Oh. I see.’
‘We’re going to do different things for a while. Bill’s got his book coming out, and he wants to write another one, and …’
Tony began to feel hot. Dennis’s hesitation was killing him. It hadn’t occurred to him that there would be anything less than immediate and grateful enthusiasm, even though Dennis had no idea who did what in the partnership. Tony wasn’t sure that he knew either. Bill was the clever one, but was cleverness important, or did it get in the way? And maybe it wasn’t true anyway that Bill was his intellectual superior; maybe those were the roles they’d somehow fallen into over the years. Bill read more than Tony did, that was true. But then, Tony didn’t read as much because he was always watching TV with June. Surely that had to count for something, his obsession with the medium, his conviction that you could say anything you liked in situation comedy, as long as you remembered to include gags and characters, and wrote in ways that grannies in Melton Mowbray could understand?
‘Gosh,’ said Dennis. ‘That’s headline news.’
But he still wasn’t offering him a job.
‘I could find somebody else to write with, if that’s any help,’ said Tony. This had just popped out, without him even thinking about it. ‘If you think I’m better, you know, with someone.’
‘Ah,’ said Dennis. ‘That might be interesting.’
Tony felt a little stab of self-pity, and another little stab of betrayal. His pride was wounded too, presumably by a third stab.
‘I’m pretty sure I could have a go at it on my own, though,’ said Tony. ‘I’d like to, in fact.’
‘What happened to finding someone else to write with?’ said Dennis. ‘Because that was an idea you had quite recently.’
‘That was before I realized you thought I wasn’t up to it.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Dennis. ‘It’s not that at all.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘Sophie and I think that a woman should be involved.’
‘Oh,’ said Tony gloomily. ‘A woman. Well, there’s not much I can do about that.’
‘There’s not much you can do about being one,’ said Dennis. ‘But you could work with one, couldn’t you?’
‘Do you know anybody? There aren’t many of them. Or any that I’ve ever come across.’
‘Sophie has someone in mind. A girl called Diane.’
‘What’s she done?’
‘Nothing that’s actually been on the telly or the radio. She works for a magazine at the moment and she’s desperate to get out. But she’s been writing scripts and showing them to me. They’re different from yours, but I think she could be good.’
What Tony thought was that he was too long in the tooth, too set in his ways, too recently bereaved by the death of his first partner, too weighed down by anxiety to coach someone who didn’t have a clue about scriptwriting. But – but! – he kept these thoughts to himself.