Funny Girl(47)

Clive and Sophie went to the party together.

‘There are a lot of rumours about Edith and Vernon Whitfield,’ he said to her on the way there. ‘Just so you know.’

‘That sounds spicy. What happens in Vernon Whitfield?’

Clive snorted.

‘It’s not a place. It’s a man. He’s a critic, and a broadcaster, and a novelist, and so on and on.’

‘How do you know that?’ she asked him.

‘I don’t. Not for sure. It’s a rumour. But it makes perfect sense.’

‘No, I mean … How do you know that Vernon Whitfield is a critic and a broadcaster and a so-on?’

‘Ah. That’s not a rumour. That’s more what you might call a fact.’

‘But why do you know this fact and I don’t?’

‘You’re not very interested in critics and broadcasters, are you?’

‘Is he on the Third?’

‘The Third and the Home.’

‘I listen to the Home sometimes, but only the comedy.’

‘He’s very much not a comedian. He’s the opposite of a comedian. He’s the least funny person who ever lived.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘To find out who Vernon Whitfield is? Well, I suppose you start listening to the Third and the unfunny bits of the Home. And reading the weeklies. I really wouldn’t bother.’

‘But when I’m talking to clever people like you, I might start talking about picnics in Vernon Whitfield.’

‘Oh, he’s no picnic, I can tell you.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘Have you seen the TV series Barbara (and Jim)?’ He drew the brackets in the air. He always did that. ‘You’d enjoy it. The girl in that is very intellectually insecure.’

‘Why didn’t you go to university?’

‘I went to drama school instead. Why didn’t you?’

‘You know I couldn’t have gone. I was working behind a cosmetics counter when I was fifteen.’

‘And look at you now.’

‘Anyway,’ said Sophie, ‘poor Dennis.’

‘I don’t know. He may get shot of her.’

‘I’d never be able to have an affair with Vernon Whitfield,’ said Sophie wistfully.

This made Clive laugh a lot.

‘What have I said now?’

‘I think you’ll find that if you were to offer Vernon Whitfield a roll in the hay, he’d be a very, very happy essayist and broadcaster.’

‘I don’t want that sort of affair.’

‘I’m not sure how many varieties of affair there are.’

‘I’ll bet the kind Vernon Whitfield is having with Edith isn’t the kind he’d have with me.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘I might try,’ she said artfully. ‘Just to see.’

‘Be my guest,’ he said, and laughed.

She didn’t understand the laughter until they got to Dennis’s flat: Vernon Whitfield was not a traditionally handsome man. He was short, bespectacled and nervous-looking. Sophie had never met anyone who broadcast on the Third Programme before, but she could see why he’d been given the job. The strange thing was that Edith was actually quite attractive. She wasn’t sexy in the least (too thin, too cold), but she was tall, much taller than Vernon, and she was elegant, and she had a very long neck that Sophie rather envied.

She glided over to Sophie and asked her whether she wanted a top-up. Everyone else Sophie knew had temporarily deserted her for an Awkward Squad reunion.

‘Red wine,’ said Sophie, holding out the glass.

‘Was it the Beaujolais?’ said Edith.

That was all it took for Sophie to begin to feel that she shouldn’t have come to the party, shouldn’t know Dennis, shouldn’t be working for the BBC. It was so stupid. Maybe Beaujolais was a red wine and maybe it wasn’t: who cared? She could have just nodded and smiled and said thank you and drunk whatever Edith brought her. Instead, she just froze.

‘Beaujolais is a red wine, dear,’ said Edith. ‘We’re not trying to poison you.’

And she could have just walked over to the Awkward people and the others would have introduced her to the actors she didn’t know and they would have said things like, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ and ‘Congratulations!’ and ‘We love your programme!’ and ‘We love you!’ But Edith had gone to get her a drink, so she wasn’t allowed to move.