‘Why is it over?’
‘There’s nothing left of her. Or there’s too much left of her, depending on which way you look at it. She’s not Barbara any more, is she?’
‘Are you being deliberately provocative?’
‘She was gorgeous.’
‘And that was all there was to her?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll write the fucking play with you. They can get back together, I don’t care. But really. Between you and me.’
‘Bloody hell, Bill. You of all people.’
‘What?’
‘You sit in that flat surrounded by empty bottles of Johnnie Walker or whatever, on your own, day after day, miserable as sin, and you can’t see the value of companionship?’
Bill sighed and, as he did so, deflated.
‘Of course I can,’ he said. ‘That’s why I don’t want to think about it. I want what you’ve always had.’
Jim stayed unmarried.
The big breakthrough came on the next day.
‘Hang on,’ said Bill. ‘How old is the baby now?’
‘Barbara’s baby? Timmy? He’s not really a baby any more. He’s nearly fifty. He was born at the beginning of the third series – 1966, was that? Or ’67?’
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Bill. ‘People who were born in ’66 are nearly fifty? I know the show’s fifty, but it seems like yesterday. Human years are different. I’d have guessed that Tim was twenty-five or thirty.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Tony. ‘Roger’s more or less the same age.’
‘Tim,’ said Bill. ‘Roger. What were we all thinking of, with those names?’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
‘They’re all right now. But did you and June really look at yours and go, you know, “Coochy-coo, baby Roger”?’
‘I suppose we must have done.’
Bill shook his head in wonder.
‘Anyway. What’s baby Timmy doing getting married for the first time at fifty? Who is he, Cary Grant or someone? He’s got to have been married before,’ said Bill.
‘What about if he’s been living with whatever-her-name-is all this time?’
‘They’re not going to have that sort of wedding, are they? Marquees and bridesmaids and a vicar? It’s got to be a second marriage, hasn’t it?’ said Bill. ‘Have you been invited to many second marriages?’
‘I don’t know that I have. People tend to slope off, don’t they? What about you?’
‘I’ve been to three first marriages in the last six weeks,’ said Bill.
‘Nieces and nephews and all that?’
‘No,’ said Bill. ‘Don’t you read the papers?’
‘Who do you know who’s famous?’
‘Gay people,’ said Bill. ‘Gay people are famous. Or they were, when they legalized gay marriage. When was it – March? April?’
‘Oh, bloody hell,’ said Tony. ‘That’s fantastic.’
‘I suppose,’ said Bill. ‘It’s only a bit of paper and a knees-up.’
‘The play,’ said Tony. ‘It’s a gay wedding.’
And they both experienced a familiar prickle of excitement, a feeling from so long ago that it took them a little while to identify it.
The rehearsals were in a Soho club called the Soho Club in Berwick Street, just above the market. They had an hour to talk about the script before meeting the director; the other three cast members – Max couldn’t run to more than five – would come in later in the week.
None of them had ever heard of the Soho Club, of course, and they didn’t see anyone else over the age of forty all day. A terrifyingly beautiful Slavic girl wearing black lipstick and a tiny skirt signed them in and showed them all up the stairs to a room tucked away at the end of a corridor. Table, chairs, scripts, fruit, mineral water. Bill didn’t like it.
‘We don’t belong here,’ he said. ‘And those stairs are no good for me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Max. ‘I’m a founder member and I get the room for free.’
‘Who were all those people downstairs?’ said Clive. ‘And why haven’t they got anywhere to go at ten o’clock in the morning?’
‘They all work in the media,’ said Max. ‘Producers, writers, directors …’
‘Actual producers and writers and directors?’
‘It’s tough out there,’ said Max. ‘So if you mean, you know, Are they being paid? … They’re trying. You have to take a punt, don’t you?’
It was a different world they lived in now, Sophie caught herself thinking, and then she told herself off. Of course it was a different world. Don’t be so banal. Obviously, 1980 was different from 1930, 1965 was different from 1915, and so on. Oh, but dear God … To a twenty-two-year-old now, 1965 was like 1915 had been to her when she was starting out. It wasn’t like that, though, was it? She saw pictures of the Beatles and Twiggy everywhere. Nobody had wanted to think about 1915 in the 1960s, had they? And then she remembered the Lord Kitchener posters that used to be everywhere. It was all so confusing.
‘When were you born, Max?’
He may have been talking about something else to Bill and Clive, but she was lost now.
‘In 1975.’