Funny Girl(29)

‘I can’t come home, Marie.’

There was silence, broken only by the pips telling her to put in more money.

‘Hello?’

‘I’m still here,’ said Marie. ‘You can’t come home?’

‘No.’

The panic had gone.

‘Why not?’

‘I can come on Monday. I’ll tell you then.’

‘He might be dead by Monday.’

This wasn’t, in Sophie’s view, the clinching argument Marie seemed to think it should have been. She didn’t want her father to die. She would mourn him. She owed him … not everything, exactly, because there were lots of things she’d had to obtain for herself, but enough. If, however, the choice was between a brief goodbye and a new life, then it was no choice at all.

‘I’d be letting a lot of people down.’

‘Derry and Toms isn’t even open on Saturday afternoons, is it? You don’t have to be at work until Monday.’

‘It’s not that. I’m not working there any more.’

The pips were going again.

‘Auntie Marie, I haven’t got any more change. I’ll see you in the hospital on Monday.’

Marie managed to put the phone down on her just before she was cut off. The panic had been replaced by something else, something between nausea and an intense sadness. She’d always suspected that she was the sort of girl who wouldn’t go home to see a sick father if she had a shot at a television series, but she’d rather hoped that the news would be revealed slowly, and not for a while yet.

Every day, it seemed, more and more people had become involved in the programme. And there was something exciting about the idea being made real by props ladies and set designers, script editors and electricians, but there was something sad about it too, because it didn’t belong to the five of them any more. When Sophie arrived at Television Centre, she had to dodge people she didn’t know, people who hadn’t been there at the beginning and probably didn’t care about the programme very much, and certainly not as much as she did. It was just another job to them, and every time she saw a wardrobe mistress roll her eyes or heard a carpenter swear, she wanted to go back to the church hall where they’d rehearsed and where she knew everybody. She didn’t want this to be just a job, not to anybody. Sophie ached to be on television, but now she wished they could rehearse for another two or three years.

Tony, Bill and Dennis were in the corridor outside the dressing rooms, talking about the title.

‘I’m afraid Tom’s wedded to Wedded Bliss,’ said Dennis.

‘Not Wedded Bliss?’ said Tony.

‘Yes,’ said Dennis. ‘That’s what I just said.’

‘No,’ said Bill. ‘You said Wedded Bliss. You didn’t say Wedded Bliss Question Mark Ho Ho Ho.’

‘You knew the question mark had gone,’ said Dennis. ‘You are a bugger.’

‘I think it’s useful for you to be reminded on a regular basis of your past crimes,’ said Bill.

‘How can it be Wedded Bliss,’ said Tony, ‘when they’re not married for a single second in the episode? We know that if we get a series, they’ll be married in the first episode. But in this one, he clocks her for the first time in a pub and then spends thirty minutes chatting her up. In the old one, they were already married.’

‘He’s right,’ said Bill. ‘We can only call it Wedded Bliss if old Sloan guarantees the series before the Comedy Playhouse goes out. If it stays a one-off, then the title just seems potty.’

‘Here she is,’ said Tony. ‘Have you got a good title for us?’

‘Barbara,’ said Sophie.

To Sophie’s embarrassment, Dennis thought about it, or pretended to think about it, for a moment.

‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t quite convey as much of the, the relationship side of things as we want it to.’

‘I think she was joking, Dennis,’ said Bill.

Dennis laughed at the joke, appreciatively, twenty seconds too late.

‘Very good,’ he said.

Tony caught Bill’s eye. Everyone loved Sophie, but Dennis loved her the most.

‘Perhaps the names of both the characters?’ said Dennis. ‘Barbara and Jim?’

‘Have you put a bloody question mark back in there?’ said Bill.

‘I was asking a question,’ said Dennis.