Funny Girl(75)

‘Ah!’ said Dennis. ‘Very good.’

He stood up.

‘You don’t have to do it, Dennis,’ said Tony.

‘Oh.’

‘You started it. You can’t do it twice.’

‘I didn’t say, “I am Spartacus”, though. I just said I was going to ask Sophie to marry me.’

‘That was you saying, “I am Spartacus.” ’

‘Right-o,’ said Dennis. ‘I see.’

Tony could see that he was sweating now – an indication that the strange bubble of insanity had floated right across the brain and out into the room. They could get on.

‘Congratulations,’ said Dennis.

‘Thank you,’ said Sophie.

She was still looking at Dennis when everyone else had gone back to the script.

Diane wanted to interview the happy couple for Crush, quickly, but Clive was nowhere to be found, so the two girls ended up going out for dinner, Diane’s treat, to celebrate.

‘How did he propose?’

‘He took me to the Tratt, bought champagne, got the pianist to play “And I Love Her”, produced a ring and got down on one knee.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘Oh, my God, good, or oh, my God, bad?’

‘Oh, bad. Terrible. Embarrassing. Cheesy.’

‘I’m glad you think so.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I told him not to be so bloody stupid. I told him that if the question were actually popped I’d leave the restaurant.’

‘And then he popped it and you said yes.’

Sophie laughed and sighed at the same time.

‘Yes. Sort of. A lot later on. He kept on about it, and I said yes to shut him up, really.’

‘Beautiful. A fairy tale come true. I’ll have to be a bit more upbeat for Crush readers, or they’ll end up sticking their heads in their gas ovens. Anyway. A bit of the Diane gloss on it and you’ll make people very happy.’

‘Them again,’ said Sophie.

‘Who?’

‘ “People”. Will it make me very happy, that’s the question? I’m a person.’

‘So why on earth did you say yes?’

‘Because … Well, because it would make people very happy. It’s hard to resist, when everyone goes on about it all the time.’

It wasn’t true, really. When they went out together, people smiled, asked for autographs, made jokes. Nobody ever said, ‘Please get married.’ A wedding would make newspapers and magazines happy, she knew that, but the overwhelming pressure to give the people what they wanted came from within. One very small step sideways and she could make everything fit together, Jim and Barbara and Sophie and Clive, and perhaps there would be a baby to match the baby that she was about to give birth to on television. There was a part of her that wished she was married already, pregnant already, because then everything would double back on itself and give her more pleasure than any ordinary woman or any fictional character would ever know. But she knew that the pleasure wouldn’t last long, because there was nothing real at the centre of it, and then she found herself longing for something else.

‘Do you love him?’

‘Oh, come off it, Diane. Perhaps it is time you left Crush,’ she said.

She knew immediately she’d been too sharp with her. It wasn’t the silliest question to ask a girl who had just become engaged.

‘Can I say, “I couldn’t bear to let another girl steal my Jim”? ’ said Diane.

‘Yes,’ said Sophie. ‘That will do.’

The Daily Express found out about the engagement before Crush came out, and a couple of other newspapers printed the story too. Another newspaper claimed to have found out that Barbara was having a boy. The return of the series felt, to them at least, as though they were the only thing happening in the whole wide world.

It was an exciting week. On Thursday, Dennis got a message saying that Tom Sloan had called and wanted him to phone back straight away.

Dennis stood up.

‘Sit down,’ said Bill. ‘He can at least wait until the end of the scene.’

Dennis sat down. He knew that Bill and Tony regarded him as a Corporation lickspittle, and every now and then he liked to make a small gesture that might help to convince them that he was his own man, even if, as in this case, someone had told him to do it.

‘Where were we?’