‘Now I know you’re not telling the truth. You were extremely annoyed with me at the time.’
‘I thought we were talking about the show. That’s what I was talking about anyway. I wasn’t annoyed with you about that. I was cross about you sleeping with that deranged woman when you were supposed to be engaged to me.’
She could see why she had found him attractive, even now. He had aged well too. If men of his age still wore moustaches, he could have looked like John Mills, or David Niven, or one of the other twinkly old actors she used to see on the chat shows when the children were young, and she and Dennis watched television every night. (Later, she looked David Niven up on Wikipedia and found that he’d been younger than Clive when he died, and nearly ten years younger than both of them when he used to sit on Michael Parkinson’s sofa at the beginning of the 1970s, telling all those stories about Sam Goldwyn. The discovery made her feel shaky and breathless.) ‘But that was why it all went wrong.’
She was about to correct him on tiny, detailed points of chronology – to remind him about Bill and Tony and their decision to separate, and about the plotting in the series – and then she realized that she didn’t want that kind of argument at all.
‘Nothing went wrong,’ she said.
She could tell that he didn’t believe her.
‘Nothing went wrong,’ she said again. ‘I married Dennis. He was the best husband I could possibly have hoped for. We had two wonderful children.’
‘You’re right,’ said Clive. ‘That’s the most important thing.’
‘No, it isn’t, and I haven’t finished,’ said Sophie. ‘Nothing went wrong professionally either. I’ve enjoyed every second of my career, and I’ve worked whenever I wanted to.’
Clive put up his hands in a gesture of surrender.
‘All right. Everything’s been marvellous.’
‘I never thought any of those things would happen to me.’
‘Yes, you did,’ said Clive gently. ‘You knew it would happen to you. You were the most confident young woman I’d ever met. You knew you were going to be a television star.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Sophie. ‘Was I one of those?’
‘I’m afraid you were, rather.’
‘Yes, well. You live and you learn.’
‘But everything’s been marvellous.’
‘What do you want me to say, Clive? What’s the actual point of this conversation? You seem to want me to tell you that ever since Barbara (and Jim) it’s all been a terrible disappointment. And I’m not going to do that. Has it all been a terrible disappointment for you? Is that it?’
A bottle of champagne appeared, just in time.
‘I can’t drink at lunchtime,’ said Sophie. ‘It makes me feel wretched.’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Clive. ‘Don’t be so feeble.’
She shook her head at the waiter and put her hand over the glass. The waiter, infuriatingly, looked at Clive for further instructions.
‘Give her the tiniest taste,’ said Clive. ‘Just so that we can toast each other.’
The tiniest taste wouldn’t make her feel wretched, but if she took one now, it would make her feel irritated and resentful. She let the waiter pour a splash and then she drowned it in mineral water.
‘Oh, that’s a terrible thing to do,’ said Clive.
‘Cheers,’ said Sophie, and chinked his glass.
‘You never break that rule? For anyone?’
‘It’s about knowing your limitations. Which is what we were talking about.’
‘Were we?’
‘I’d just asked you if it had all been a terrible disappointment for you.’
‘Which bit? Work? Marriage? Life?’
‘Whichever you choose.’
‘I don’t know if they were a disappointment. I just messed them all up. That’s different, isn’t it?’
After Sophie had told Clive that she didn’t want to marry him, he had, inexplicably, gone back to Hampshire and proposed to his first fiancée, Cathy, and had made things even worse by marrying her. He’d stuck it out for about a year, just long enough for Cathy to get pregnant. He didn’t get married again for a while after that, but when he did, in the early 1980s, the outcome was similar: one year, one child, this time in California. He’d been with Carrie, his third wife, for the last decade, although Sophie wasn’t sure where she was, or why she hadn’t travelled with him.
‘I can see that the marriages might not have been ideal. Present wife excepted, of course.’
‘Oh, you don’t need to make any exceptions for her,’ said Clive. ‘Ghastly woman.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Sophie.
‘Oh, it’s not news,’ said Clive. ‘She’s always been ghastly.’
Sophie had some obvious questions about this assertion, but decided not to ask them. And then she changed her mind.
‘Why do you keep marrying ghastly women?’
‘I’ve only married two ghastlies,’ said Clive. ‘Cathy was all right. Boring and pointless, yes, but she wasn’t a horror.’
‘Why did you marry two ghastly women?’