Funny Girl(83)

‘I’ve not got a bad lot,’ said Harold. ‘But there’s always room for a clever young man.’

‘I’ll tell Jim if I see him,’ said Clive.

Marcia laughed.

‘Thank you,’ said Harold uncertainly.

A photographer came in and took a few snaps of Clive and Sophie chatting to the Prime Minister, and then he said his goodbyes and disappeared.

They shared a taxi on the way back, because they were excited and indignant and giggly, and they couldn’t bear to miss a word of anything anybody had to say. To begin with, all that was said was an endless reformulation of the same outraged complaint: ‘He didn’t know us from Adam!’ ‘He’s never watched a second!’ ‘It was all a public relations stunt!’

And then Dennis managed to change the tone, from one kind of disbelief to another. ‘We’ve just been to Number Ten!’ he said, and so then everyone had a go at rewriting that line: ‘We’ve just met Harold!’ ‘We’ve had a cup of coffee with the Prime Minister!’ ‘Bloody hell!’ ‘Harold and Marcia!’ The third wave of chatter was about Marcia. Nobody was very interested in Sophie’s certainty that nothing was going on, and she understood. They already knew that they would be telling people about the morning for a long time to come, maybe for the rest of their lives, and the taxi ride was the first attempt at a first draft of a story that would have to satisfy parents, siblings, children and grandchildren. If they could somehow convey the impression that they’d been given a privileged glimpse of the Prime Minister’s unconventional personal life, then they were duty-bound to do so. Eventually, somewhere in Paddington, the interjections and exclamations and exhalations gave way to a contemplative silence.

‘How many Beatles records do you think he’d heard before he gave them MBEs?’ said Bill.

‘Oh, he thinks we’re the Beatles now,’ said Tony.

‘Do you think we’re getting an MBE?’ said Sophie. ‘Because I wouldn’t mind.’

‘Bill’s right,’ said Dennis. ‘If there’s something going on, then Harold wants a bit of it, because it’s going on under a Labour government. It’s reflected glory. Even if he doesn’t know the first thing about it.’

‘I’m sorry to go on about this,’ said Sophie, ‘but nobody answered my question. Do you think we’ll be getting MBEs?’

‘We might if we do what he wants us to do,’ said Tony.

‘And you won’t be getting anything anyway,’ said Clive gleefully. ‘It’ll only be me and Sophie. Nobody cares about the writers.’

‘Or the producer,’ said Dennis.

‘Can we do it, then?’ said Sophie.

‘No,’ said Tony, Bill and Dennis at the same time.

‘I told her we would,’ said Sophie.

‘Yes,’ said Dennis. ‘We noticed.’

She didn’t care. She didn’t care that they weren’t going to film at Number Ten, she didn’t care that she wasn’t going to get an MBE, not this year anyway. She didn’t even care that Harold Wilson had never seen the programme. If he had, then wanting to meet them all would have been merely a personal quirk, something just for him and Mary. But Marcia’s invitation was official acknowledgement that they mattered. Dennis was right. Harold had wanted a bit of reflected glory. Well, that meant that they were the glory.

They didn’t film in Number Ten; they weren’t even allowed to put out a show in the week of the general election. The Director-General apparently thought that Barbara (and Jim) was too nakedly political, and would damage the BBC’s commitment to neutrality and impartiality.

‘What a lot of cock,’ said Bill. ‘We’re not taking that lying down, I hope.’

‘No,’ said Dennis. ‘I’m going to march into the DG’s office and tell him that we’re taking over the Crystal Palace transmitter.’

‘Seriously, though,’ said Bill, ‘what are we going to do about it?’

‘I think what Dennis is saying,’ said Tony, ‘is that we’re not doing anything about it.’

‘And that’s all right with you, is it?’

‘I don’t mind a week off. We’ve got plenty to do.’

They had begun work on a new series called Reds Under the Bed, about a cell of hapless Soviet spies becalmed in Cricklewood, and Anthony Newley had asked them to write a screenplay. Hazel turned down other offers most days of most weeks.