A Funny Thing About Love

by Rebecca Farnworth

  Jess batted her hand up and mumbled something unintelligible, so Carmen went upstairs intending to grab a duvet to put over Jess.

  She switched on Jess’s bedroom light and froze in her tracks as she saw two empty bottles of wine on the dressing table. Surely Jess wouldn’t have knocked those back on top of the bottle and a half they’d shared? Downstairs Jess was still out for the count. Carmen gently laid the duvet over her friend and sat on the rug by the fire watching the last dying embers. She felt as if she had been in the grip of a mini whirlwind and was only now emerging from the other side. But she was going to be strong, she was going to focus on her writing, she was not going to obsess about Will or about the baby thing. She turned and looked at her friend again, and not wanting to leave her on her own when she was so out of it, tracked down a sleeping bag and went and slept on Harry’s bunk bed.

  Harry’s current obsessions were Dr Who and dinosaurs, and the walls around the bunk were plastered with pictures of a variety of prehistoric beasts and daleks. As a child Carmen had been petrified of the daleks. The only thing that had stopped her having even worse nightmares about them than the ones she already did was the constant reassurance from her dad that daleks were (a) not real and (b) could not climb stairs. Thank goodness she wasn’t a child now and confronted with the über upgraded flying daleks. She would never have slept again! She was just dropping off to sleep when she quite clearly heard the voice of a cyberman saying, ‘You will be deleted.’ WTF! She sat up and cracked her head on the bunk. Swearing profusely, she tracked down the source of the sound to Harry’s toy box, the culprit, a Cyberman mask. She picked it up. ‘You will be upgraded,’ intoned the mask.

  ‘Oh shut it!’ she shot back, switching it off. ‘You were never as good as the daleks.’ Back in her bunk she slept badly and dreamed she was being pursued by a herd of creatures who were scarily half velociraptor and half dalek, but was rescued in the nick of time by David Tennant. Damn, she thought, emerging from sleep, I’d much rather it had been Christopher Eccleston. No disrespect to David, who was a very good actor, but she’d always had a soft spot for Eccleston. It seemed to be the story of her life right now that even her dreams let her down. She gave herself five minutes to indulge in her favourite fantasy – the one where Will had forgiven her, they’d moved beyond the flirtation stage and were lovers. It was all lovely scenes of them lying in bed together, blissed out in each other’s arms, though she did have some saucier versions, then hanging out by the sea in Brighton or strolling along the South Bank with Van Morrison’s ‘Have I Told You Lately that I Love You’ providing the soundtrack to their affair. Okay, so maybe the Van Morrison was a bit predictable, but it was her fantasy. A clattering in the kitchen downstairs disturbed her and reluctantly she got up.

  Jess was already dressed, in yet another tunic and jeans combo, and tidying the kitchen in something of a frenzy.

  ‘Hey!’ she exclaimed when Carmen shuffled in, ‘Coffee and toast? Sorry to fall asleep like that – I was just knackered.’

  ‘Nothing to do with the amount of wine we drank?’ Carmen said carefully.

  Jess laughed. ‘Yeah, we did cane it a bit, didn’t we? I definitely can’t drink as much as I did in my twenties.’ Jess didn’t look great. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her pale skin had a slightly sweaty sheen. When she poured out a coffee from the cafetiere, her hand shook. Carmen wanted to reply that no we didn’t, but maybe she was being unfair, maybe Jess was just kicking back after a full-on week. Maybe.

  ‘I’ve just texted Daniel, the gorgeous man I mentioned last night, and he’s up for coming to dinner on Friday, so keep that date free,’ Jess told her.

  Carmen groaned. ‘You didn’t make it out to be some kind of blind date, did you? That’s so cringey.’

  ‘No, no, I just said I was having a few friends round, including my very sexy, single friend who has just moved down from London. I had to get in quick, Carmen, he’s in demand. I just hope no one gets their claws into him before my dinner.’

  Carmen treated her to a major eye roll.

  ‘You’ll thank me for it,’ Jess told her.

  Carmen shook her head and tucked into a bowl of muesli.

  After breakfast Jess said she had to get on with her marking, so Carmen had no excuse not to go home and continue work on her sitcom.

  8

  ‘Leo has just blown me out, he’s got to be in New York for some high-profile corporate something-or-other. Please say you’ll come to the Comedy Awards with me. Please!’ Marcus sounded in a complete panic. For all his confidence on stage and on TV, he absolutely hated going to big events without Leo. ‘It’s on Friday, and I know it’s short notice, but I will be eternally grateful.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be going to dinner at Jess’s. She’s lined up some sexy single man for me.’

  ‘Please, Carmen, I really need you to come.’

  Carmen groaned inwardly. Along with letting down Jess, who wouldn’t be impressed, if she agreed to go with Marcus it would mean a whole day out of her writing schedule, maybe even two, as she’d have to do that whole pre-event preparation malarkey of having her hair blow-dried, getting key bits of her body waxed, plus finding the right dress to wear. More importantly, Will was bound to be there and she really didn’t know if she was up to seeing him. She’d still not heard from him and she hadn’t felt up to contacting him again. But if she didn’t go Marcus would be gutted, and she was dependent on his charity right now, because without Marcus she would be homeless, since her Hornsey flat was on the market and already had a buyer.

  ‘Please, Carmen,’ Marcus repeated. ‘I’ll sort out the frock.’

  ‘Designer?’

  ‘I thought you were channelling Gok, patron saint of the high street,’ Marcus said sarkily. ‘I was going to recommend a little number from the house of Top Shop, or isn’t New Look coming into its own these days?’

  ‘Bollocks to that! If you’re paying I want designer all the way!’

  ‘I can’t believe you’re so shallow,’ Marcus shot back. ‘Have you suddenly morphed into Sadie? I thought you would become less shallow now you lived in Brighton and were away from all the temptations of London town.’

  ‘In my heart I’m still a Londoner.’ Then she laughed. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to buy me a dress. I’ll come anyway.’

  ‘Buy? I’m going to call in some favours from that designer boutique I go to all the time, and as this is TV they should be glad of the publicity.’

  How could Carmen possibly say no after that? She cancelled Jess, who as predicted was narked and told her she’d be lucky to get another chance with Daniel, booked her blow-dry, got waxed and tried not to obsess about seeing Will again. The reality was of course that she spent much time wondering what she would say if she saw him again, and how she would look. Cool, calm and sexy would be her motto for the night, she decided.

  On top of the lure of a free outfit, the other good thing about going to the Awards with Marcus was that Carmen got to indulge in one of her all-time favourite fantasies – the I-live-in-Mayfair one. Marcus and Leo owned a flat on the highly prestigious Mount Street. Addresses didn’t come much posher: off Park Lane, with the swish Scott’s Restaurant at one end – (such a hit with A-listers) and the impressively grand Connaught Hotel at the other. When she’d lived in London Carmen got to indulge in this fantasy on a weekly basis as she’d go round for dinner with Marcus, usually when Leo was visiting his daughter. It had been one of their traditions that they’d eat Thai food, which Marcus loved and Leo didn’t, and then slob in front of the TV watching comedy series – everything from Ab Fab to Green Wing – and eating sweets from M&S. Carmen had her Wobbly Worms, the green ones saved for Will, and Marcus tucked into Percy Pigs and Pals.

  Leo was far too sophisticated to eat sweets. The only sweet ever to pass his lips was no doubt some wildly expensive piece of bitter dark chocolate. Carmen liked Leo on the rare occasion she did see him – he was always working – but he was ve
ry different from anyone she knew. He was so much more grown up – literally, being in his late forties, but also in his mindset. He had actually been married for seven years and had a daughter, before coming out and falling for Marcus. He had a very high-powered career in finance working for a Japanese bank, but though he had explained more than once to Carmen what he actually did, she never understood it – a little like Daisy explaining the difference between goths and emos. Leo had told her she reminded him of Dory, the fish in the film Finding Nemo who keeps forgetting everything she is told. Carmen would like to think that he said it affectionately, but she wasn’t entirely sure.

  As soon as Carmen turned off Oxford Street, which was heaving with shoppers, and walked down New Bond Street, past the designer shops, it was like entering a different world. It was so posh that even the blades of grass in Berkeley Square and the trees seemed to be standing to attention, striving to be the best. Even the air smelt fresher: less McDonald’s mixed with exhaust fumes, more the smell of money, which seemed to consist of wafts of expensive perfume and leather, with no hint of the sweat of the workers who had helped create that wealth – well, that was what her dad, a staunch socialist, would have said. Carmen reached Mount Street. Rich old ladies swanned about in Chanel suits; sleek black cars cruised by like designer sharks. She passed antique shops with unfeasibly grand items displayed in the window that wouldn’t looked out of place at Versailles. She paused briefly outside Christian Louboutin. Even the memory of cruel Tiana couldn’t dispel the magic of the red-soled wonders.

  * * *

  ‘How do I look?’ Marcus asked anxiously as soon as he opened the door to her, struggling to do up his cufflinks.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Carmen was able to say truthfully, taking over and quickly fastening the silver and onyx cufflinks which had Marcus’s and Leo’s initials intertwined. Marcus was in a black tuxedo, and while he looked good in everything, he was especially stunning in his suit, as if he had stepped out of a lavish 1920s costume drama, with his timeless beauty and high cheekbones. But Carmen knew that beauty had its price: often in the past, people (for that read TV executives) had not taken him seriously, dismissing him as male-model-lite.

  ‘But intelligent as well,’ she added hastily.

  ‘Leo hasn’t phoned or texted. I thought he would have by now.’

  ‘He’s probably tied up in one of those meetings that go on through the night and they order Chinese food in and eat it from cartons and wave their chopsticks around aggressively, and everyone is so macho they pretend they don’t need sleep and say things like we work best under pressure and we’re giving a hundred and fifty per cent.’ Carmen had a horror of people who said they worked best under pressure. She herself wilted under pressure.

  Marcus didn’t look entirely reassured but changed the subject: ‘Come through, Cinders, and I’ll show you your dresses.’

  Carmen actually clapped her hands in delight – well, who wouldn’t at the prospect of free designer clobber? But she resisted giving a jig with glee – she knew where to draw the line. She followed Marcus into his bedroom, which looked as if it was straight out of the pages of a style magazine with its silver wallpaper with exotic metallic lilies, an exquisite chandelier and a four-poster bed with a white silk canopy. Laid out on the bed were two sumptuous dresses, glowing like precious jewels, one crimson, one emerald.

  ‘Oh Marcus, did I say what a lovely fairy godmother you made?’ Carmen exclaimed, drinking in the rich colours and the exquisite cut of the garments.

  ‘I’ll pour you a glass of fizz while you decide which one to wear,’ Marcus said, discreetly leaving the room.

  Carmen quickly pulled off her clothes and slid into the crimson dress, the cool silk swishing against her skin. She considered herself in the mirror. It was very sexy, maybe a little too sexy, with a plunging neckline that would have Carmen paranoid about possible wardrobe malfunctions. ‘It could be you,’ she mused, ‘or it could be you,’ she pointed at the emerald. In the event it was the emerald, which was strapless with a fitted bodice that said timeless chic to Carmen, whereas the crimson was a little too attention-grabbing, and she was most definitely not Liz Hurley to Marcus’s Hugh Grant.

  ‘Why, Cinders, you shall go to the ball!’ Marcus declared when Carmen strutted her stuff into the living room. He handed her a glass of champagne and looked at his watch. ‘In four hours’ time it will all be over, thank God.’

  ‘I don’t get you,’ Carmen declared, sinking into Marcus’s luxurious charcoal-grey leather sofa, soft as butter to the touch. ‘You might even win tonight.’

  ‘It’s all that gruesome back-slapping and networking that goes on. You know me, I like to do my show and then slink off into the night. But thanks for coming, it makes it bearable. And you might even see Will.’ He said this as if it was a good thing.

  Carmen winced. ‘I really hope I don’t. I still feel awful about what I said. But equally he was unfair about Matthew.’

  ‘Carmen, I know you’re completely blinkered where Matthew is concerned, like an old faithful shire horse, but Matthew, in spite of his many virtues, was a crap administrator, and you just can’t afford to be like that any more. Will is right on that score. If Fox hadn’t taken him over when they did, Nicholson would have gone down and everyone would have lost their jobs.’

  Carmen stuck her tongue out.

  ‘Now, now, don’t get petulant with me. If you’re very good you might be able to keep that frock.’

  Carmen zipped the attitude.

  She had been to some five Comedy Awards over the years, so it was no big deal seeing all the giants of comedy and all the TV stars in the flesh, here a Lee Evans, there an Eddie Izzard, here a Stephen Fry, there a Paul Merton, but walking up the red carpet with Marcus was a new experience. She had imagined following after him like the faithful shire horse he’d called her, but instead Marcus wanted her arm-in-arm with him to face the barrage of cameras. The press had a double-edged relationship with Marcus. They couldn’t deny that he was incredibly funny and talented, but he was ferocious in guarding his personal life which they bitterly resented. Nor was he a cosy, camp gay man whom they could pigeonhole, being more of a maverick. And as Marcus was always telling her, ‘The press love you so long as you don’t remind them that you like having sex with men.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Carmen exclaimed, intimidated by the press pack, ‘I’m not Liz Hurley, you know.’

  ‘Oh, shut up and think of the dress,’ Marcus whispered to her as they paused to pose for a shot that Carmen just prayed would not turn up on Heat’s ‘What Were You Thinking?’ page. Except in this instance, because she wasn’t a celeb it would be what was Marcus thinking having a shire horse dressed in green on his arm?

  Thankfully, once they were in the studio they had to take their seats immediately at one of the many tables, which was fine by Carmen, even though they were sharing with, among others, Dexter, Marcus’s terrifying agent, who was American and had the teeth to prove it, and his equally scary script editor wife Fi, so über thin that she made Twiglets look as if they were packing too much weight. The less time spent milling about and ‘oh darling’ing everybody, doing the double air kiss routine, the less chance she’d have of running into Will. Her cool, calm and sexy motto had deserted her on the red carpet; she was nervous, and felt as awkward as a teenager. She quickly scanned the tables around her. They seemed to be Will-free, and she was both disappointed and relieved in equal measure.

  Russell Brand, fresh from making yet another movie in LA, was compering. Carmen found herself staring at his Sass & Bide skinny jeans and open-to-the-waist shirt showing off his yoga-toned hairy chest. A couple of years ago she’d spent a torrid summer fantasising about him in the manner of a teenage crush, but no longer. It was a pity not to have the crush still as the night was very dull, big on people gushing onstage, and not enough clips of funny bits. It always looked so glam on TV, and so hilarious, but really the hardest part was trying not to yawn or laugh at inappropriat
e moments, just in case the camera was on you. Marcus was next to her, fidgeting incessantly with his cufflinks. He was up for the Best Comedy Entertainment Personality.

  He gently nudged her in the Dolce & Gabbana-clad ribs during a round of applause, for the Best Newcomer in Comedy Award. ‘I’ve just seen Will over there.’ He nodded in the direction of one of the tables to their far left.

  ‘Really?’ Carmen tried to channel cool, calm, sexy, but could only come up with hot, jittery, jelly. ‘Has he seen me?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Carmen tried to resist looking over. Russell was doing the preamble to the next award, which Marcus was up for; she should be giving it her full attention in case the cameras were on the table. But she found herself looking away from Russell’s yoga-toned bod and scanning the room for Will. She caught a glimpse of him in profile, but then the winner of the award was announced and it was Marcus!

  Carmen threw her arms round Marcus, applauded wildly and then wolf-whistled as he made his way to the stage. And it was just as she had removed her fingers from their wolf-whistling position that she saw Will staring directly at her. Great, so he had seen her with her cheeks inflated like one of those fish that puff up when they’re under attack! Of course he’d also seen her passed out and possibly drooling in his bed, but hey, that didn’t count as she couldn’t remember it. She instantly sucked her cheeks back in to remind him that actually she did have cheekbones and nodded as he smiled back. Then she directed all her attention to the stage, where Marcus was receiving the award from Jimmy Carr. Did that man ever sleep? He seemed to be on TV all the time.

  Marcus was very self-deprecating as he accepted the award, but Carmen knew he was thrilled and she was thrilled for him. She had seen him go from doing stand-up at some real dives to being one of the hottest talents on TV. ‘Not bad for a bender from Balham,’ he was always saying, though thankfully he did not say that now.