by Simon Brett
‘How about today?’
For a moment he thought he’d misheard, but he hadn’t. The even beam of her grey eyes was still focused on his face.
‘Erm . . . well . . . nice idea,’ he said lamely.
‘Why not, Charles? We fancy each other, don’t we?’
‘Well, I fancy you, but I wasn’t sure that –’
Take it as read.’
‘Good. Um . . . Thank you.’
‘My pleasure.’ She reached out and took his hand. ‘At least I hope it will be.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ said Charles. Then a sudden panic hit him. Suppose his best wasn’t good enough? He’d managed all right with Cookie, but then Cookie was in love with him. Lisa Wilson was a younger woman, in her sexual prime, a woman of a different generation too, who probably had strong views on her sexual rights. He kept reading things in newspapers – even in The Times, for heaven’s sake – about how assertive modern women had become in the bedroom. God, he needed a drink! That was why he needed a few drinks before sex, to take away performance anxieties.
One of Lisa’s fingers was stroking the back of his hand. The action itself wasn’t erotic, but the potential it implied was. He felt the reassurance of a stirring in his scrotum. Maybe she was right. Maybe it would be rather interesting to experience sex that hadn’t been well marinated in alcohol.
‘One thing . . .’ said Lisa.
Oh dear, thought Charles. He had grown up in a generation for whom women saying ‘One thing . . .’ before sex usually presaged some mini-lecture on men not taking advantage, and women not being cheap, and commitment being terribly important, and other antaphrodisiac caveats.
‘Yes?’ he responded with foreboding.
‘I don’t want any commitment involved here. We’re talking about physical pleasure, two people who fancy each other giving and receiving pleasure. No emotional entanglement – OK?’
What man had ever heard more heart-warming words? It was the ultimate masculine fantasy come true. ‘OK,’ Charles Paris agreed enthusiastically.
They went back to her flat. It was wonderful. Perhaps – heretical though the concept might be – it really was better without the booze.
When he left for the station early on the Monday morning, Charles Paris was more than a little in love with Lisa Wilson.
Chapter Eleven
AS LOUISE goes through to the bedroom to change, the lights go down on Louise and Ted’s flat, and up on Gilly and Bob’s flat. Ted is sitting on the sofa with Nicky. He is embarrassed; she is all over him.
NICKY: And I just think you’re such a good man, Ted.
TED: Oh, really, it’s nothing.
NICKY: No, but to agree to pretend to your friend’s wife that your friend’s mistress is your mistress . . . I don’t know what you call a man who does that kind of thing.
TED: An idiot?
NICKY (vindictively): Mind you, it doesn’t reflect very well on the friend, does it? So Bob’s ashamed of me, is he?
TED: No, no, I think he just doesn’t want Gilly to find out about you.
NICKY: But he told me he did want Gilly to find out about me. He said he wanted to have me out in the open . . .
TED: Really? Be a bit cold this time of the year.
NICKY (not hearing what Ted said): . . . but instead he actually wants to have me under wraps.
TED: Probably be warmer, wouldn’t it?
NICKY (furious): Huh. Bob’s a two-faced rotter. Still, two can play at that game. (reaching for Ted’s tie and drawing him towards her) If he wants to tell people I’m your mistress, then I’d better become your mistress, hadn’t I?
TED (appalled): What!
NICKY (giving him a kiss on the lips and rising from the sofa): Yes, you just give me a couple of minutes, Ted, and then come through to the bedroom – and I’ll really have my revenge on Bob. She sets off towards the bedroom.
TED (weakly): But, Nicky, wouldn’t that just be using me as a sex-object?
NICKY (as she goes through into the bedroom): Yes! Any objections? As she goes off, Ted rises to his feet and stands irresolute.
TED: Ooh-er.
He decides his best defence is going to be escape, and hurries off towards the door to the hall. Just as he gets there, however, Gilly comes in from the hall, furiously angry. Ted backs away as she advances on him.
GILLY: Do you know what I’ve found out about that slug of a husband of mine?
TED (falling backwards on to the sofa): No, no, I don’t.
GILLY: That chit of a girl who he said was your mistress . . .
TED: Oh, no.
GILLY: . . . is actually his mistress.
TED (weakly): Really? Are you sure?
GILLY: What do you mean – am I sure? Surely you’d have noticed whether or not you had a mistress?
TED: Oh, I don’t know. It’s the kind of thing one could easily forget.
GILLY: If you think that, then you’ve clearly never had the right sort of mistress.
TED: I’ve never had any sort of mistress.
GILLY (intrigued): No? Goodness, Ted, your life must’ve been very dull.
TED (miserably): Yes – and I liked it that way!
GILLY (furiously): Ooh, Bob’s made me so furious. (She sits beside him on the sofa) Do you know, I’ve half a mind . . .
TED: That’s about all I seem to have at the moment.
GILLY (thoughtfully): I’ve half a mind to get my own back on Bob – in the appropriate way.
TED (with foreboding): ‘In the appropriate way’?
GILLY: Huh. Bob’s a two-faced rotter. Still, two can play at that game. (reaching for Ted’s tie and drawing him towards her) If he’s saying you’ve got a mistress, then you’d better have a mistress, hadn’t you?
TED (appalled): What!
GILLY (giving him a kiss on the lips and rising from the sofa): I’ll just get us some champagne, Ted, and then we’ll go through to the bedroom – and I’ll really have my revenge on Bob.
As she goes off into the kitchen, undoing her blouse, Ted rises to his feet and stands irresolute.
TED: Ooh-er. Back home, I think.
He turns to go out through the French windows. But as he opens them, Louise appears on the balcony in front of him, dressed in a sexy negligee. She comes into the room, closing the doors behind her.
LOUISE: I knew you’d be here, Ted darling.
TED (backing away and falling back on to the sofa): What?
LOUISE: Ted, I’ve been reading this magazine article about putting the excitement back into your sex-life . . .
TED: Really? I’m not sure that my sex-life can cope with any more excitement.
LOUISE (coming to sit lasciviously beside him on the sofa): . . . and it says that couples who’ve been together a long time should liven things up by making love at unexpected times in exciting new places . . .
TED: I’m quite happy with the boring old places, Louise darling.
LOUISE (taking hold of his tie and pulling him towards her): I’d have thought a neighbour’s flat was definitely an exciting new place.
She suddenly reaches for the buckle of his belt, and starts to undo it. Ted struggles to get free.
TED: Louise! Darling! I don’t want to make a big thing of this.
LOUISE: I do – and, what’s more, I seem to be succeeding.
Ted manages to break free from her and stands in the middle of the room, clutching at his trouser-belt. Louise stands up, and throws off her negligee to reveal that she is dressed in sexy bra and pants.
LOUISE: Ted, you don’t always have to have a boring sex-life, you know.
TED: Ooh-er.
At that moment Nicky appears from the bedroom door, dressed in sexy bra and pants. At the same time Gilly appears from the kitchen door, holding a bottle of champagne and also dressed in sexy bra and pants.
LOUISE, GILLY AND NICKY (all at the same time): Come on, Ted. I’m ready for you now.
TED: Ooh-er.
He throws up his han
ds to his face. Unsupported, his trousers fall down around his ankles. The three women watch in amazement as he falls over backwards in a dead faint, as . . .
THE CURTAIN FALLS FOR THE END OF ACT ONE.
‘I’m still not happy about that “big thing” line,’ Bernard Walton complained at the ‘rewrites call’ on the second day of the Leeds run.
‘It’s getting the laugh,’ Bill Blunden countered.
‘Well, it isn’t, actually. The laugh comes on Louise’s line: “I do – and, what’s more, I seem to be succeeding.”’
‘I’m sorry, Bernard. You can’t have all the funny lines.’ This insinuation really offended the star’s professionalism. ‘I am not asking to have all the funny lines, Bill! I’m a team player, always have been. Ask anyone in the business, and they’ll all tell you Bernard Walton works as part of an ensemble!’
The rest of the not on your wife! company, who worked on stage every night getting no eye contact or feedback from Bernard, might have questioned the accuracy of this, but none of them would have dared voice what Bill Blunden said next. ‘I haven’t seen much evidence of it. Your performance as Ted seems to me entirely self-centred. You’re in a hermetically sealed little world of your own.’
‘What the hell do you mean? How dare you, a mere writer, have the nerve to tell me –?’
Tony Delaunay moved quickly to stem Bernard Walton’s fury. The company manager was ever-present, ever-watchful, always ready to ease over any little difficulties the current Parrott Fashion production might encounter in its circuit of the country. ‘Sorry, sorry, can we just cool it, please? Bernard, if you just say what your problem with the line is . . .’
‘My problem with the line,’ the star replied in a voice of icy restraint, ‘is that it’s been shoe-horned into the script with no real logic and motivation, and that all it basically is is just a knob-joke. “I don’t want to make a big thing of this.” “I do – and, what’s more, I seem to be succeeding.” What is that about if it’s not about an erection?’
‘Of course it’s about an erection,’ said Bill Blunden. ‘That’s why it’s getting the bloody laugh!’
‘All right. Well, I suppose I’d rather be in a play that got its laughs from genuine wit and character, rather than from jokes about erections.’
This belittling of his playwriting skills was too much for Bill Blunden. ‘Are you trying to tell me I don’t know how to write comedy? Shall I tell you how many productions of my plays there were, world-wide, last year? Go on, you guess how many. You just try and have a bloody guess!’
‘Look, let’s not turn this into a shouting match,’ Tony Delaunay eased in again, as ever smoothing the way, mollifying offended egos. ‘Is your problem with the line itself, Bernard, or the fact that it’s you who says it?’
‘Well, all right. I suppose it is the fact that I’m involved in the exchange,’ the star conceded. ‘My audience doesn’t expect to hear Bernard Walton doing primary school smut.’
‘Sod your audience!’ snapped Bill Blunden. ‘Let’s think about the play’s audience, shall we, for a change?’
‘No, no,’ Tony Delaunay’s conciliatory voice once again intervened. ‘Bernard has got a point. He’s the star of this show, his name’s above the title, and people who come to see it have certain expectations because of his name. He shouldn’t be having to deliver lines which are at odds with his public image.’
‘Thank you, Tony.’ Bernard Walton sat back, vindicated, but the playwright still looked unhappy, so the company manager continued his fence-mending.
‘Look, Bill, Bernard has to be doing material he’s comfortable with. He’s a public figure who has been bold enough to take a stand against declining standards of decency in entertainment and –’
‘Are you saying that not on your wife!’s indecent?’
‘No, Bill, no. I am not saying that. I am saying that Bernard’s position is particularly sensitive at the moment, given the current national debate about moral responsibility in the arts – not to mention the fact that Bernard is currently having a biography written about him, so we don’t want any adverse publicity. You know how the tabloids love the kind of “Anti Porn Campaigner Spotted in Sex Club” type of story, and we –’
‘Are you comparing my play to a sex club?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Oh, I see. You’re just afraid this could prevent him from becoming Sir Bernard Walton, is that it?’
There was total silence in the theatre. Though everyone knew about the star’s campaign for a knighthood, it was not a subject to be mentioned out loud. Bernard himself seemed about to make some response, but thought better of it. Needless to say, it was Tony Delaunay who defused the tension. ‘All I’m saying, Bill, is that we have to be extra-cautious at the moment. Adverse publicity of any kind could affect our takings at the box office.’
This appeal to his wallet finally silenced the disgruntled playwright. The company manager continued, ‘And don’t forget, everyone, that our director’s coming to see the show again this week. David’ll be in Wednesday evening, so make sure that’s a good one. Which reminds me . . . on the subject of Bernard’s biography, the guy who’s writing it . . .’ He hesitated, trying to remember the name.
‘Curt Greenfield,’ Bernard Walton replied.
‘That’s right . . . Curt Greenfield. Some of you may have met him when he was in Bath. Anyway, he’ll be up here in Leeds on Wednesday, tomorrow. He’s going to be around the theatre to get some atmosphere stuff, background, you know. So can I remind you all of what I said when we started rehearsing – no unauthorised talking to the press about anything. If someone wants to interview you about the show, check it out with me first – OK? And the same goes for anyone talking to Curt Greenfield about Bernard.’
‘Yes, so keep quiet about Bernard’s secret past as a belly dancer – and his sex-change!’ Ransome George shouted out.
As always, he got his laugh. Not wishing to appear as someone who couldn’t take a joke, Bernard Walton allowed the sally a thin smile. But he didn’t look very amused by it. Instead, he said in a tired, we-are-here-to-work-after-all type of voice, ‘So, Bill, if you could think of a replacement for those couple of lines for Ted and Louise . . . I’d be most grateful.’
The playwright was struck by instant inspiration. ‘How about Ted says: “Louise! Darling! I can’t stick it out any longer”, and Louise says, “Oh, I’m sure you can, Ted”?’
‘It’s still a knob-joke,’ Bernard Walton objected.
When the meeting ended, the company drifted away. It was only twelve o’clock, and they weren’t due back at the theatre till six fifty-five, the ‘half’ for that evening’s performance. As they moved off, Charles heard Bernard Walton saying to Pippa Trewin, ‘Fun at the weekend, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, really enjoyed it.’
‘Heard any more about the film?’
‘I’ve had a recall,’ she replied excitedly. ‘It’s down to three girls now, my agent says. Going to see the producers again Thursday morning.’
‘You’ll walk it,’ said Bernard Walton. ‘Oh, and do give Dickie my best when you see him.’
Charles caught Cookie Stone’s eye, and realised that she had heard the exchange as well. She grimaced. For her it was just another manifestation of the unfairness of a business in which it wasn’t what you could do, it was who you knew.
For Charles, though, it had other potential meanings. Tony Delaunay’s words about Bernard’s image brought home to him again how damaging news of an affair with a girl barely out of her teens could be. But was the secret sufficiently important for the star to murder someone who threatened to expose it?
Charles noticed that Cookie Stone was still looking at him, and gave her a weak grin. The situation between them was far from resolved. After his magical night with Lisa, Charles Paris had arrived in Leeds full of the determination to make an immediate and final break with Cookie. He’d tell her she was a wonderful person and a great lover, and somewh
ere out there was the right person for her, and he was only sorry it wasn’t him. He’d really enjoyed their time together, but now they’d have to think of it as no more than an enchanting interlude. It was over.
But seeing her in the flesh had made such directness impossible. He’d fudged around, using all the traditional vague masculine excuses for inadequate emotional commitment, phrases like ‘taking a bit of time to adjust to things’, ‘needing a bit of space’ and ‘not wanting to rush things, letting the relationship find its own pace’.
And each time Cookie had asked him a direct question, like ‘Do you mean this is the end for us?’, he’d retreated from the hurt in her eyes and come up with some time-buying formula, such as ‘No, no, of course not. Let’s just see how things pan out.’
But he knew it was only a holding operation. At some point he’d have to grasp the nettle, and confront the inevitable unpleasantness. Still, he had so far managed to defer any actual sexual encounter between them in Leeds. Fortunately, Cookie was staying in a B & B with a rather old-fashioned landlady and Charles, as he confessed wryly, was staying with ‘an old friend, someone who knows my wife . . . so you know, might be a bit awkward’. And then, feeble fool that he was, he’d lost any ground he might have gained there by saying, ‘Still, always next week in Birmingham, isn’t there?’
In fact, when he said he was staying with an ‘old friend’, he had been telling only half of the truth. Ruth was an old friend, but she’d never met Frances. And Ruth brought her own problems.
He’d been shocked, when he saw her, by how old she looked. It had been a good few years since they’d met, but surely not enough to justify the lines on her face, the thinness of her grey hair. Ruth’s body had always been thin, but now the word was ‘gaunt’. Her clothes hung uneasily about the jutting edges of her thighs and knees, shoulders and elbows.
He made no comment on her appearance, but she gave him one of her familiar sharp, cynical looks and said, ‘A bit greyer, but I see it’s the same old Charles Paris.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means you look the same – just ever so slightly on the turn.’
