. ‘Do you think your relationship with Aidan is better or worse since you married?’ I’m hoping something she says might trigger a moment of inspiration.
She thinks about it for a while. ‘I guess it’s different. Life was less complicated before we married.’
‘How?’
‘Well, we didn’t have the commitment of the house so work didn’t have the same pressure attached to it. If we lost our job we could hand in our notice on our rental and move in with family, or take off somewhere new. We weren’t so… tied.’
‘Do you ever wish for how things were before?’
Astrid stares into the middle distance before answering, ‘Maybe I wish for Aidan to be more attentive and affectionate the way he used to be. Recently he’s been so low, so self-absorbed and uncommunicative. That’s not a version I knew of him before we married.’
I give her a little squeeze and a kiss on the hair. ‘I’m certain when he’s feeling better he’ll be his old romantic self again.’
‘Probably.’ Astrid hugs her knees. ‘I suppose the point is that however he is I just have to love him.’
‘You guys are good at that.’
‘Mmm,’ says Astrid, then changes the subject. ‘Ben seems nice. In an American, hipster kind of way, I mean.’
I can’t help feeling a little bashful at the mention of him.
‘Nice face!’ she teases.
‘Ha ha,’ I say, blushing lightly. I question why I’m thinking about Ben and how he feels about Jen. Surely I can’t be feeling jealous about the girlfriend of someone I’m working with, someone who I hardly know anything about and who also happens to be a hipster! I try to push the thought out of my mind. ‘I may have misjudged him, that’s all.’
‘How so?’
‘He’s kind of funny, I guess. Plus he bought me cake.’
‘Steady! You know where cake can lead!’
I ignore her comment. ‘He also happens to be very smart and knows his way round a script.’
‘Maybe he knows his way around something else too,’ she says, looking towards my groin.
‘Gross!’ I yell, pushing her and causing her to topple off her stool.
‘It’s about time, Nina,’ she says, picking herself up and dusting herself down. ‘You need to be with someone else to fully get over Will.’
‘I am over him, and I really don’t need to be with someone else.’
‘Sure thing, Neenaw! Just don’t leave it too long. You don’t want your vagina turning to dust.’
‘Charming!’ I say, blushing a little at the thought of Ben getting up close and personal.
21
Lying at the end of the subtly lit swimming pool with only the sound of water cascading down the marble wall and whale music in the background, I feel a million miles away from the script and the bookshop. Dad is treating us to a girls’ spa day at the Connaught for Mum’s birthday. So far I’ve been pummelled, oiled and steamed, much like an expensive piece of fish. It’s heaven.
My tranquillity is shattered by the sound of Mum’s voice. She and Narissa are parading poolside towards me, Mum in her fluffy robe, Narissa in her little black bikini. I cover my crotch with a towel so as not to incur abuse about the state of my bikini line.
‘This is such an amazing experience,’ says Narissa, placing a towel on the lounger next to mine. ‘Do you know that the water here is ionised?’
‘I don’t even know what that means.’
‘It slows down ageing,’ she says, as if I’m the only person on the planet who doesn’t know this. ‘It also detoxifies and energises.’
‘How?’
‘You’re missing the point.’ She positions one leg out straight and the other bent to show her figure off to maximum effect. ‘It’s hugely beneficial to your well-being.’
‘If it stops ageing, I’m taking a dip,’ says Mum. She drops her robe onto the chair next to Narissa’s and lowers herself into the water.
‘It doesn’t stop ageing, Mum,’ I begin then give up, casting Narissa a weary expression; we both know it’s wasted energy.
‘The kids would love it here,’ says Narissa, as we laugh at the sight of Mum, swimming lengths like a poodle with its head above the water.
‘I’m pretty certain kids aren’t allowed.’ I imagine Henry bombing the pool and obliterating every element of zen. ‘You should bring Toby.’
‘Toby hasn’t the time.’
‘He has time for golf.’
‘Golf is business, not pleasure. Pleasure isn’t high on Toby’s list of priorities.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, all he does is work. The children and I have entirely separate lives.’ She says this as if it’s completely normal. I wonder when their marriage came to this.
‘Do you ever wonder if your relationship would be better if you hadn’t married?’ I ask, shamelessly scouring my sister’s personal life for script inspiration. The last few weeks haven’t exactly been productive and Ben keeps pestering me about when the edit will be ready.
‘If we hadn’t married, we wouldn’t have had kids so there wouldn’t be any conflict about time,’ she says. ‘Toby’s a workaholic, which was fine when we were just a couple. I found it sexy that he was going somewhere, and comforting that he might provide the life I wanted, plus he loved the idea of family. But you can’t be a workaholic when you have kids. Something will always have to give. He hasn’t figured that out yet; I’m not sure he ever will.’
Part of me wants to ask if they’re heading for the divorce courts but I hold back, knowing if they are that she’ll tell me when she’s ready.
‘Having kids is the real problem?’
‘I suppose it is. But show me a couple who doesn’t have problems when they have children. They rid you of every sexual desire,’ she says, again, quite matter of fact. ‘They’re exhausting. But they’re also life-affirming. Maybe I feel that more than Toby.’
I think about Sally telling Harry about her friend Alice, who would complain that she and her husband never did it any more and how it got Sally to thinking about her life, and how being single seemed so great – the thought of ‘sex on the kitchen floor’ and flying off to ‘Rome on a moment’s notice’ – but actually none of that ever happened, and the thing she really wanted was family and that’s what led her to break it off with Joe. I used to watch that scene with Will and ask if he wanted family.
‘Of course,’ he’d say and I’d imagine us with our own children, a boy on Will’s shoulders, a girl holding my hand, only we’d be strolling through Regent’s Park, not Central Park, and living somewhere like Maida Vale, where your chances of being mugged were significantly less likely than on our old street in Brixton.
I’m lost in the thought of how quickly your ideals can change – I’d rather sell this script than have a husband and child at the moment – when it occurs to me to ask Narissa, ‘Do you think Toby is jealous of your relationship with the kids?’
‘Maybe of the time I give them compared to him.’ She rubs some sort of gunk into her legs.
And that’s when it comes to me: perhaps Harry’s affair was symptomatic of something greater, that Sally loved Truman more than she loved Harry. Harry was jealous. For Harry, a child ruined the perfect relationship, not marriage per se.
‘What are you girls talking about?’ asks Mum, resting her chin on her arms at the side of the pool.
‘If relationships are better before marriage.’
Mum thinks about this for a while. ‘I’m not sure I can remember life before marriage. I know your father was never a romantic.’
‘What was it about Dad that made you marry him?’
‘He was dependable. I trusted him to help me through life. Perhaps we haven’t had the most exciting of lives, but we’ve been comfortable.’ There’s something in what she says that makes me think briefly of Will and the comfortable life I’d planned with him and how it now feels like a relief not to be living that life.
‘Was comfort
able what you were aiming for?’
‘Oh no, I had dreams of nursing aboard, moving around from job to job, country to country. I don’t think I really wanted children, not that I would have given you back, but once you came we became consumed by you, or I was, your father just plodded on and the years passed. It all went so quickly.’
‘Do you think you’d have lived out your dreams if you hadn’t married?’ Narissa asks.
‘Probably.’ Mum climbs up the pool steps. ‘But I’m not sure that travelling really was the dream. I would have been lonely, insecure. Dreams change, you know. And that’s okay, so long as you’re happy.’
‘Are you happy with Dad?’
‘Of course!’ She tries to jiggle water out of her ear with her towel. ‘I know you would have liked me to have burnt my bra and had a career, but it wasn’t for me. I liked being a mother and housewife, I liked looking after you girls. I never wanted to “have it all”’. She puts her robe back on and sits down on her lounger. ‘And your father and I may be on different paths at the moment but we’ve been through harder periods than this. I can’t say if marriage is better than what came before but it definitely makes you stronger. One day you’ll know all of this for yourself.’
‘I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ I say, reaching for my glass of champagne and closing my eyes, taken aback when an image of Ben pops into my head.
After another hour or so I drag myself away from the pool and head upstairs to the Coburg Bar where I sink into a plush, grey armchair; sounds of the pianist playing in the foyer float through unobtrusively. In my notebook I scribble thoughts on how to inject more of the premise into the script, and I attribute an experience of marriage to each character.
With that done, and a delicious bowl of bar nibbles to hand, I add Jim to the scene in the bar with Harry and George discussing marriage. Halfway through writing it, it occurs to me it would be much more effective to have a split-screen scene, where the audience sees all the characters discussing marriage simultaneously. I cut and paste the scene I’ve already written between Sally and Marie chatting at the hotel bar, I put in George texting Truman, and reposition the scene with Anna and Jules talking during their final dress fittings. It isn’t long before the scene begins to take shape.
SALLY
Harry just told me he’s getting divorced.
MARIE
Of course he is, getting divorced is what Harry does.
A pause.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to be glib – are you okay?
SALLY
It brings back memories, of how things used to be.
MARIE
You and Harry were great.
SALLY
(fondly)
We were, but not as great as you and Jess.
MARIE
We had our moments.
SALLY
Everyone has moments, it’s just some get past them; others don’t.
MARIE
Your moments were harder than ours.
SALLY
Jess would never have cheated.
MARIE
It wasn’t in him.
SALLY
No, it wasn’t.
Cut to Harry and George in a dingy bar. Jim arrives, sits on a bar stool and indicates to the bartender to bring him a beer.
HARRY
I just told Sally and Truman I’m divorcing Isabelle.
JIM
How did that go down?
HARRY
SALLY looked as if she always expected it. Truman took off for some time to himself.
JIM
Smart kid. It’s the last he’ll know of that after tomorrow.
HARRY
Anna’s a good girl.
JIM
Even the good ones turn bad in the end. You should know.
GEORGE
I should check on him.
George takes out his phone and texts Truman.
U ok? Where r u?
Cut to Truman in Shakespeare & Co, nursing a coffee.
TRUMAN
Do you believe it’s possible to commit to one person for the rest of your life?
Cut back to George in the bar.
GEORGE
Yes, and so do you.
Cut back to Truman, who is eyeing up the barista behind the counter.
Cut back to George in the bar
JIM
Take my advice, George, and never marry. Marriage is always the beginning of the end.
HARRY
It’s not all bad.
JIM
Don’t listen to him. He’ll have married a dozen women by the time he dies and still not figured out it doesn’t work. Trust me, man was not designed for monogamy.
Cut to Anna and Jules having a final dress-fitting session, reminiscent of that of Marie’s wedding fitting.
JULES
Harry just told Sally and Truman he’s getting divorced, again.
ANNA
You’re kidding?
JULES
Do you really believe it’s possible to spend your entire life with one person?
ANNA
Everyone in my family has.
JULES
Your family is the exception to the rule.
ANNA
So Truman and I will be, too. You replicate what you know.
JULES
Truman knows divorce. His father is on his third.
ANNA
Right.
Anna pauses
Do you think he’s okay?
Cut back to George in the bar
GEORGE
What if that woman is spectacular in bed?
JIM
It doesn’t matter because as soon as that ring is on the finger she’ll lose interest.
HARRY
That’s not true.
JIM
Sure it is. How many times did you and Sally bang each week before you married?
HARRY
Most days.
JIM
And how many times after you married?
HARRY
Before or after Truman was born?
JIM
After.
HARRY
We didn’t.
Jim raises a hand to gesture, ‘I’ve made my point’
GEORGE
(choking on his beer)
No, seriously…
HARRY
I am serious. After six months of sleepless nights you forget what it is to have regular sex and then the months pass and suddenly it’s years and you find yourself thinking about sleeping with someone else because, hey, why not, it’s not important in your marriage, you’re both wearing socks in bed, so why would it matter if you fucked someone else?
GEORGE
Because it’s the bedrock of a marriage.
HARRY
You just think it is because you’re twenty-five and your dick is still young. Soon you’ll be married with kids and sharing your bed with a drooling two-year-old and you’ll realise you can’t remember the last time you nailed your wife.
George still doesn’t believe Harry.
JIM
He’s right. And to add insult to injury she’ll spend all your money you’ve bust a gut for and then whine about how it’s not enough, before divorcing you, taking your kids and demanding 70 per cent of everything you earn. Trust me, kid, it ain’t worth it.
HARRY
And yet still you love them.
A silence as Harry thinks about this.
Cut back to Sally and Marie in the hotel bar.
MARIE
I think you still love Harry
SALLY
I’m in love with Philip, you know that.
MARIE
Sure, you’re in love but that’s different from really loving someone.
SALLY considers this.
MARIE
(cont)
Harry gave you Truman; you can’t not love him.
SALLY
He also cheated on me.
M
ARIE
After you fell in love with Truman and shut Harry out. The guy didn’t stand a chance.
SALLY
I was an obsessive mother.
MARIE
Plus you took your marriage for granted.
SALLY
I did?
MARIE
Everyone does, including me.
SALLY
Jess was one of the best.
MARIE
Anyway, the point is, Harry’s still here and available again. You should grab him while you can. I’d give everything for one last chance with Jess.
SALLY
I don’t know.
MARIE
Trust me.
Hold on Sally as she thinks about this.
I’m reflecting on what I’ve written when a laugh draws my attention to the bar. Glancing over, I see a scantily dressed woman sitting with an older man whom she kisses on the cheek while running a hand down his thigh, and with a jolt I realise that it’s Carmen. Not wanting her to see me, I discreetly pack my bag and sneak out of the bar, wondering if she and Will have split and if not, what he’d have to say about what she’s up to.
22
‘Do you like our choice of restaurant?’ Mike asks. He looks immaculate in smart-casual – crisp white shirt showcasing the tan, expensive jeans, and matching leather belt and shoes – and his fingernails are manicured. I’ve never known a man who gets his nails done.
‘I love it,’ I say, trying to rein in my excitement of being in New York’s Cafe Luxembourg, where Harry and Sally went on a double date with Jess and Marie. The French wicker and cane chairs, the white linen tablecloths, the red leather banquettes, everything is exactly as it was in the movie.
After almost two months of waiting, Caroline called me last week to tell me Mike wanted to meet in New York. I’ve been a wreck ever since, despite Ben’s reassurance that Mike wanting to meet in person could only be a good thing, and Astrid using every aromatherapy candle, hot stone and scented oil in her armoury to relax me.
‘It was Ben’s choice.’ Mike casts an eye towards Ben, who is pushing in Jen’s chair. Jen’s hair is amazing this evening – long, soft curls with a sharp, straight fringe that only someone in their early twenties with perfect skin and emerald eyes can pull off. I wish I’d put on something prettier than my black V-neck cashmere and my best black jeans. It surprises me that he’s put so much effort into choosing the restaurant.
‘Great call.’
If Harry Met Sally Again Page 13
