Funny Girl(71)

‘I don’t mind having a baby with you,’ said Sophie afterwards. ‘In the show, I mean. I’m sorry I said what I said before.’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Clive. ‘I feel the same way. And I’m sorry too.’

‘I think we’ll make very nice screen parents,’ said Sophie.

‘Maybe this will be good practice for me,’ said Clive. ‘I can poke my toe in the water, sort of thing.’

‘I suppose so.’

She liked his sense of responsibility, and she didn’t want to discourage it, but she felt obliged to keep the conversation grounded.

‘You know it will be a plastic doll, most of the time?’

‘Yes, of course, but it’s symbolic.’

‘D’you think?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll have to become a different person. Someone I’ve never been before. Some people would say, “Yes, but you’re an actor, that’s your job.” It’s not just that, though. Jim’s got to change, and I’ve got to change with him.’

‘I’d say … Jim’s got to change less than you have. No offence.’

‘None taken. Why d’you think that?’

‘Well, he’s a devoted husband, really, isn’t he? He’s besotted with her. And he has a proper job, and –’

‘What’s a proper job?’

‘I don’t know. One where you have to put a suit on and do important things.’

‘Yes, but I’ve been playing him rather well, if I do say so myself. So it can’t be that much of a stretch.’

‘I’m just saying. Jim’s ready to be a father, but you’re not.’

‘Should I be insulted?’

She was trying to insult him, she supposed.

‘No, of course not. I just mean … Can you imagine being a real father?’

‘God, no.’

‘Really? Never?’

‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll be one, one day. But I can’t imagine it. Just … don’t have the imagination. That’s another reason I’m pleased about Barbara’s baby.’

‘And yours.’

‘Yes, you’re right. That’s how I should think of it. Anyway. If Tony and Bill write it for me, I’ll be able to see it all more clearly.’

She kissed him on the shoulder. He was very sweet, and funny, and hopeless.





THE THIRD SERIES





14


Tony and Bill had forgotten what it was like to have the luxury of time – time to plan, time to talk, time to write and rewrite. Time was money, a beautiful crisp, new ten-pound note, and they weren’t going to break into it. They were going to save it up and spend it on sixteen new episodes, each one funnier and richer and more truthful than anything they’d written before. They were going to find clever and elegant ways of dealing with the Baby Problem so that they could eventually forget about the little sod entirely.

They needed a break, of course. They were exhausted, and they both felt sure that the writing would come more easily if they had a couple of weeks away in the sun, eating and drinking and sleeping and thinking and not staring at each other in the sickly fluorescent glare of an office. Bill went to Tangier with an actor friend, and Tony and June booked a hotel by the sea in Nice, for their first and last holiday as a childless couple. None of them had been abroad before, not even during National Service; none of their parents had so much as held a passport. So they were all staggered to learn that abroad was an astonishingly beautiful place. They’d been told, several times, by colleagues, actors and writers and agents, that the sea was warmer over there, and the skies bluer, and the food was like nothing you could buy in London no matter how much you spent. But none of these colleagues had done what Tony wanted to do when he got back: grab people by the lapels and shout at them, wild-eyed, until they agreed to book tickets. Most people in England, he thought, had no idea that within a few hours they could be somewhere that would make them begrudge every single second they’d ever spent in Hastings or Skegness or the Lake District. Perhaps it was better that way.

The trips left them with a little bit less time than they’d accounted for, because it proved impossible to coordinate holidays – Bill’s actor friend had a repertory season starting in August, at precisely the moment June had booked her annual leave. Still. No matter. What was the difference between four months and three?