Funny Girl(121)

‘May I begin by telling you how beautiful you’re looking?’ he said. ‘I won’t say that you don’t look a day older, but you have aged in a most charming way.’

‘It wouldn’t kill you to say I don’t look a day older,’ said Sophie. ‘You last saw me at Dennis’s funeral three years ago. And I was a wreck.’

‘I was thinking about the other night. The BAFTA thing.’

‘I’ve only aged four days since then.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I’ve now lost track of the compliment,’ said Sophie.

‘You look well.’

‘Oh. Is that what it boils down to?’ She pouted to indicate disappointment, and Clive laughed.

‘Did you enjoy seeing the shows again?’

‘It was complicated. You?’

‘You know, I don’t really want to spend the whole lunch talking about the past,’ said Clive.

‘What an annoying thing to say.’

‘Why?’

‘Because nobody was asking you to. Because you just asked me about the other night, so out of politeness I asked you the same question. Because we wouldn’t even be sitting here if it wasn’t for the past, and for people wanting to talk about the past.’

‘If it’s any consolation to you, I regret everything,’ said Clive. ‘And I always have.’

‘When you say you regret everything …’

‘Related to Barbara (and Jim), and my part in its downfall.’

‘I’m going to shove a breadstick up your nose in a minute,’ said Sophie.

‘What have I done now?’

‘Why on earth would your regret be a consolation to me?’ said Sophie.

‘I just thought you’d like to know.’

‘No.’

‘It doesn’t give you any satisfaction?’

‘No.’

‘You weren’t annoyed with me?’

‘No.’

‘Now I know you’re not telling the truth. You were extremely annoyed with me at the time.’

‘I thought we were talking about the show. That’s what I was talking about anyway. I wasn’t annoyed with you about that. I was cross about you sleeping with that deranged woman when you were supposed to be engaged to me.’

She could see why she had found him attractive, even now. He had aged well too. If men of his age still wore moustaches, he could have looked like John Mills, or David Niven, or one of the other twinkly old actors she used to see on the chat shows when the children were young, and she and Dennis watched television every night. (Later, she looked David Niven up on Wikipedia and found that he’d been younger than Clive when he died, and nearly ten years younger than both of them when he used to sit on Michael Parkinson’s sofa at the beginning of the 1970s, telling all those stories about Sam Goldwyn. The discovery made her feel shaky and breathless.) ‘But that was why it all went wrong.’

She was about to correct him on tiny, detailed points of chronology – to remind him about Bill and Tony and their decision to separate, and about the plotting in the series – and then she realized that she didn’t want that kind of argument at all.

‘Nothing went wrong,’ she said.

She could tell that he didn’t believe her.

‘Nothing went wrong,’ she said again. ‘I married Dennis. He was the best husband I could possibly have hoped for. We had two wonderful children.’

‘You’re right,’ said Clive. ‘That’s the most important thing.’

‘No, it isn’t, and I haven’t finished,’ said Sophie. ‘Nothing went wrong professionally either. I’ve enjoyed every second of my career, and I’ve worked whenever I wanted to.’

Clive put up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

‘All right. Everything’s been marvellous.’

‘I never thought any of those things would happen to me.’

‘Yes, you did,’ said Clive gently. ‘You knew it would happen to you. You were the most confident young woman I’d ever met. You knew you were going to be a television star.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Sophie. ‘Was I one of those?’

‘I’m afraid you were, rather.’

‘Yes, well. You live and you learn.’

‘But everything’s been marvellous.’