Funny Girl(111)

‘What if I wanted to marry you?’

‘Separate bedrooms.’

He was beginning to wonder whether he had strayed from the existentialist path.

‘So there’s nothing I could do that might convince you?’

Was it only yesterday that Sophie had asked him whether he was happy with nudity and his heart had nearly burst with joy? And yet that question had referred only to a night in the theatre. He wouldn’t even have been able to imagine the circumstances in which she might have posed the most recent question, and he certainly wouldn’t have been able to explain his answer.

‘I don’t think so.’

Oh, this was ridiculous. Whatever else existentialists might be, they never struck him as particularly cheerful coves, and he was beginning to see why.

‘I suppose there might be something,’ he said.

Sophie hadn’t pulled the curtains in the bedroom, and their faces were occasionally lit by the headlights of the passing traffic. He could see that there was an expression of mild alarm on her face.

‘It’s nothing … out of the ordinary,’ he said. ‘I want to know that if it happens, it will happen again. And not just once, but a few times. I don’t want to be judged on a … an isolated incident.’

Sophie laughed, and Dennis looked hurt.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘It just sounded funny.’

‘Why?’

‘Because … Well, how many goes were you thinking of?’

‘I don’t know. Three? Fifty? It’s difficult, isn’t it?’

‘Do you think you’d need fifty goes?’

‘Are you saying you wouldn’t want to guarantee fifty goes?’

‘I’d rather not … put a limit on it,’ said Sophie.

That was all the reassurance Dennis needed. And – somewhat to her surprise, given the tentative start to their sexual relationship – Sophie discovered that he was in no need of a second attempt at anything, let alone a fiftieth.

‘I’d never noticed before,’ Sophie said later, ‘but you’re much more like Jim than Clive ever was.’

‘Is that a good thing?’

‘Perhaps we can learn from their mistakes.’

‘Their biggest mistake was that they made themselves characters in a TV series,’ said Dennis. ‘Nobody ever told them that they were going to get fifty goes. They always had to make a big song and dance about everything, in case people stopped watching them.’

‘You don’t have to be a fictional character to do that,’ said Sophie.

She was thinking about Clive. He always wanted to make a big song and dance about everything. He was terrified of not being watched, and she always had to worry about whether there was a prettier, younger thing in the room.

‘I suppose not,’ said Dennis.

He was thinking about Edith. She was constantly on the verge of cancelling their marriage. She would only commission a few shows at a time, reluctantly, and if he had listened properly, she’d always been telling him that it would all end one day.

‘I’ll make as many series as you want,’ Sophie said, and when she saw how happy she could make him, she felt a little thrill of pleasure.

She suddenly remembered something.

‘Was it … Did I …’ She didn’t even know how to phrase the question. ‘Was anything missing?’

‘What sort of anything?’ said Dennis, alarmed. ‘Should I have noticed?’

Sophie laughed.

‘No, no, not an actual physical piece. I just meant … I don’t know.’

She shouldn’t have started down this road, but she’d never forgotten her conversation with Clive about Nancy’s appeal.

‘Was there … anything else you wanted?’

‘Good grief. Like what? Is there anything else I should have wanted?’

‘No, no, it’s just …’

And they went back and forth for some time, increasingly agonized, before each could convince the other that everything had been present and correct, and served in ample proportions.

They dozed off for a little while, and then Sophie made them scrambled eggs. They were both perfectly happy, and perfectly calm, and they wanted to stay that way for as long as they possibly could.





23


Sophie Simmonds (known as Simmonds to everyone involved with the programme, in order to avoid confusion with Real Sophie) worked at Peach, a girls’ magazine; the staff of Crush, the girls’ magazine where Diane had worked until she became convinced that she could write comedy, would probably note certain similarities between their office and the one portrayed in the series. Simmonds interviewed pop stars, tried the new shades of lipstick before everyone else, spent all her money on the latest gear and got into all kinds of messes with boyfriends. Or rather, she got into a certain kind of mess with boyfriends, the kind of mess that might amuse a BBC audience of all ages and classes. She didn’t worry about getting pregnant, she didn’t sleep with anyone’s husband, there was no sexual dysfunction or perversion, she wasn’t ever unfaithful. In the first episode she had inadvertently arranged two dates for the same evening, and in the time-honoured way of situation comedy, she tried to oblige both parties, even though they were waiting a bus-ride away from each other. In the second, she had agreed, over the telephone, to go on a date with a speccy, spotty brainbox called Nigel because she was under the erroneous impression that Nigel was the dishy lead singer for the smash-hit pop group the Young Idea.