Funny Girl(41)

‘Oh, just stupid things, you know. My dad, and my Auntie Marie, and …’

‘But they know it’s made up.’

‘Sort of. I’m never quite sure whether they’ve got the hang of it yet. You know, Barbara’s from Blackpool and I’m from Blackpool. She’s called Barbara and I’m called Barbara. It’s confusing.’

Suddenly she was aware of everybody looking at her.

‘You’re called Barbara?’ said Clive.

‘Oh,’ said Barbara. ‘Well, yes. I used to be.’

‘When?’

‘Until the week before you met me.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything when we decided to call her Barbara?’

‘I didn’t know what was allowed then. Please don’t call me Barbara all the time now.’

‘You’re seriously used to being called Sophie already?’

She thought about it and realized she was. A part of her felt she’d only really begun her life when she moved to London, which meant that she’d been called Sophie for most of her life.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Barbara is a fictional character in the series we’re making.’ And she left it at that.

‘Can we talk about me now?’ said Clive. ‘You’re saying in this that I’m a … a virgin?’

‘Oh, you’re like my Auntie Marie,’ said Sophie. ‘It’s Jim who’s the virgin. And he’s not real.’

‘Yes, but … Will people believe it?’

‘Why wouldn’t they believe it, Clive?’ Sophie could see that they were all trying to suppress mirth, but Bill’s poker face was so expert that he had been charged with the job of mickey-taking.

‘I know Jim’s fictional, but I’m …’

‘Yes?’

Clive stopped and tried a different tack.

‘Isn’t it the other way around? Conventionally? The man has had sexual experience and the woman hasn’t?’

Bill groaned and then stared at him pityingly.

‘What?’

‘It is, yes,’ said Tony. ‘That’s sort of the point of the script. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re trying not to do the conventional thing.’

‘In which case,’ said Clive, ‘I will just have to not give a damn about appearing immodest and voice my other objection, which is this: nobody will believe it.’

‘Which part?’ said Tony.

‘I don’t mean Barbara’s experience … They’ll be fine with that. No offence meant.’

‘A lot taken,’ said Sophie.

‘It’s Jim. Jim, to my mind, is not a virgin.’

‘I didn’t think he would be, to your mind.’

‘I can act, you know, insecurity and donnishness and shyness and the rest of it. But I can’t do anything about what I look like.’

‘I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to go through with it,’ said Bill. ‘But you have.’

‘I make no apologies for frankness.’

‘I’m not sure I quite understand what he’s being frank about,’ said Sophie.

‘Clive thinks he’s too good-looking to be a virgin,’ said Tony.

Sophie laughed. Clive looked pained.

‘It’s a serious point,’ said Clive. ‘I knew I’d be mocked for it, but that doesn’t make it less valid.’

‘You don’t have to wear specs and have acne to be a virgin,’ said Bill.

‘I understand, but … Don’t you think it shows on my face?’

Bill wrinkled his nose up in disgust.

‘What?’

‘Experience.’

Sophie looked at him, because he was inviting scrutiny, and decided that even though he had probably slept with loads of girls, there was an innocence that could be mistaken for sexual inexperience. He hadn’t lived much, as far as she could see. He’d spent too much time waiting around for something to happen to him.

‘And anyway,’ said Clive, ‘why can’t I … Why am I a virgin until the end of the script?’

‘What we’re implying,’ said Tony, ‘is that you’re, you know … hopeless.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Well. There are various forms of hopelessness, obviously. The one we were thinking of was impotence.’