Prime Time

by Jane Wenham-Jones

  ‘Yes, it’s good,’ said Roger. ‘After I told Charlotte everything, we said we’d put it behind us. Well, I told her nearly everything,’ he added, slightly shamefaced. ‘I didn’t go into detail …’

  ‘You told her enough,’ I reassured him.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah. Thank you.’

  ‘And Hannah’s not being a problem any more?’ I held out my glass to be topped up.

  Roger poured. ‘I’ve been waiting for a chance to tell you. She’s left the company. Got a job in Ashford. It was a huge relief when she went.’

  ‘And you’ve told Charlotte?’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘It was Charlotte’s idea.’

  A fresh wave of nausea came over me as the programme re-started. I’d tried to hide in the bathroom but Charlotte, an iron grip on my arm, had marched me back to the sofa, where I now sat clutching a cushion to my face with clammy hands.

  ‘Oh hey – you look fab, love.’ Charlotte gave a sudden squeal. I peered around the edge of the cushion to see myself running down the steps of the studio and shaking hands with Bruno. ‘Lovely top!’

  ‘So, Laura,’ Austin was saying, ‘what are you going to make for us today?’

  I stared at myself on screen. I appeared remarkably composed as I smiled back at the presenter and explained about the pulverised Snickers bars in my special desert. My voice sounded odd – not like me at all – but I looked much slimmer than I expected to, with the green top flowing around me.

  I’d forgotten what my hair was like before it was cut. I preferred it shorter and funkier, but it looked pretty sophisticated the way they’d done it, and my make-up was brilliant. My skin looked flawless, my eyes really large and shining.

  Beside me, Andrew gave me a tiny nudge and murmured something I couldn’t hear. I didn’t dare look at him.

  ‘You look fantastic,’ shrieked Charlotte.

  ‘Lovely,’ said Roger.

  Even Stanley smiled. ‘Not bad, Mum,’ he said, before groaning, ‘Oh no,’ as I mentioned that the pudding was his favourite.

  ‘Now you’re famous too,’ Andrew told him.

  I breathed out in stunned disbelief as we watched me stirring a saucepanful of chopped chocolate, me chatting with Austin as I spooned ice cream into a large bowl, laughing with Bruno as we compared desserts at the end. I seemed very confident and assured in a way I couldn’t remember feeling at the time.

  It was OK! It had been as beautifully filmed as the other had been awful. Somehow they’d edited it so that you couldn’t even see the way our noses had crunched together when Bruno and I kissed goodbye.

  As I gazed at myself it felt like a dream. It all seemed so very long ago now and this witty, smiling Laura, who looked glowing and even youngish, was a person I’d never seen before.

  ‘Congratulations, love,’ said Charlotte as the credits went up. ‘To Laura!’

  They all raised their glasses.

  ‘Now can we go back upstairs?’ said Stanley.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ said Charlotte as, back in the kitchen, my mobile began to ring.

  Still in a daze, I glanced at the display and shook my head. ‘It’s Alicia. She keeps phoning. She’s trying to get me to go on Round up with Randolph with her. You know, this programme where they show all the highlights of the last series. I’ve already told her no.’ I pushed the phone away from me across the table. Charlotte pounced on it.

  ‘Hello Alicia, how are you, love? Yes, we saw it. She was excellent, wasn’t she? Yeah, we’re all celebrating.’ Charlotte winked at me. ‘Really? That sounds good – tell me more. Uh huh. Yep, brilliant, yes I’m sure she’d love to. Sure. Well she’s a bit busy now, but don’t you worry, I’ll persuade her and get her to give you a call. Yes, absolutely. Oh, OK. Hang on!’

  She cupped her hand over the phone and looked at me. I shook my head. ‘You are not going to persuade me,’ I said firmly. ‘There is no way I am going back to see that creep Randolph Kendall or watch myself screaming like a banshee. She can go on her own.’

  Charlotte looked smug. ‘It’s not Rudolph – this is something else.’

  ‘I’m not doing it,’ I said.

  Charlotte continued. ‘Alicia’s agent has put her up for some sort of magazine show on – oh I don’t know, some little-known channel. They haven’t got many viewers yet anyway, so it’s nothing to worry about. They’re having an advice slot where there’s a phone-in and the viewer with the problem gets tips from three generations. She’s doing the 20s and she’s putting her gran up for the oldie and she wants you for the woman in the middle. They need someone in her 40s.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ I said. ‘No way.’

  ‘She says it will be loads of fun, you’ll get paid, and why don’t you at least go for the audition?’

  ‘No,’ I repeated. ‘Never again. I’m not getting involved in anything to do with being middle-aged. Or anything on TV at all.’

  Charlotte put the phone back to her ear. ‘She’ll give it a whirl, love. Email her all the gen.’

  ‘Just go and do the audition,’ she said calmly when I’d spluttered my protests. ‘It will do you good. What did our riding instructress used to say when we fell off? Get straight back on again.’

  ‘You only went once,’ I said. ‘And you never did fall off because you were too scared to go any faster than a walk.’

  ‘When you fell off, then,’ said Charlotte unmoved. ‘Now, I’d better get that beef in the oven or we won’t be eating till midnight.’ She looked from Andrew to me. ‘You two wouldn’t give Benson a quick walk for me, would you, while I do the spuds?’ she said. ‘He’s been cooped up all day – just take him for a run on the beach before it gets dark?’

  ‘Of course.’ Andrew smiled at her as my heart sank. Would she never leave it alone? This was going to be so embarrassing.

  ‘Maybe the kids would like to go …’ I said.

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Charlotte. ‘They’re spot-welded to that PlayStation again.’

  She pulled open a cupboard and loaded Andrew up with a ball thrower and poop scoop, handing me Benson’s lead, as the Labrador threw himself against me, tail thrashing excitably. Then she gave a large, unsubtle wink. ‘No rush. Take your time …’

  ‘She’s incorrigible,’ I said with an awkward laugh, as we went off down the path, Benson tugging madly at my arm.

  ‘She’s a good friend to you,’ said Andrew.

  ‘I know.’ We fell back into silence as our feet tramped along the road toward the cliffs. It was cold. I zipped my jacket up a little higher, wishing I’d borrowed Charlotte’s gloves. I felt ill at ease, wishing I was anywhere else and wondering what Andrew was thinking.

  Was he remembering the last time we’d been together, leaving my house, looking hurt and uncomfortable, while I stood powerless – wanting to call him back, wanting to put it right again, but paralysed, feeling too wretched to speak. I knew I should try to explain.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I began. ‘Last time I …’

  But he cut across me. ‘You looked great on the TV today.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I mumbled.

  ‘I’m glad Charlotte tracked me down and I was able to see it.’

  ‘How did she get hold of you?’ I asked.

  ‘Phoned the school. We had a very long chat,’ he said meaningfully.

  I squirmed, wondering what exactly she’d said. I hoped it wasn’t that I’d admitted I found him quite attractive and wished I hadn’t pushed him away – I’d told her that in confidence, and only because I’d had too much sherry on Boxing Day. I didn’t mean it.

  ‘Were you pleased with the cookery show?’ he continued, as we got to the grassy seafront and Benson began to leap toward the path down through the chalk to the beach. ‘Has it made you feel better?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ I said, bending down to undo Benson’s lead, trying to hide my discomfort. The dog bounded away from us in joy. We followed him down onto the sand.

  ‘Good,’ said Andrew
, swinging back the ball-thrower and sending the ball whizzing off into the distance. He looked back at me as Benson galloped after it. ‘I hope it’s taken the bad taste away from what that little prick did.’

  I smiled at him. ‘That’s not very teacher-like!’

  ‘Well, don’t tell Stanley.’ He smiled back. ‘But really, I thought you were terrific on that programme – a real natural.’

  ‘Now you’re sounding like the little prick.’

  ‘Ah but when I say it, it’s true. And it would have been true when he said it if he hadn’t presented you so badly.’ He looked at me, his green eyes serious. ‘Today was the real you,’ he said. ‘That’s the one to remember.’

  ‘How’s things with your life?’ I asked, turning my face away, embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze, wanting to change the subject. ‘Are you and Elaine still apart?’

  ‘Yes, of course. She’s in the middle of buying a new house and our old one’s on the market. It’s too big for me; I’m going to look for somewhere smaller nearer town …’

  I stole a sideways look at him as he went on talking. The wind was blowing his dark curls about in the same way as it was whipping my own hair across my face. He looked tall and strong and ruggedly sexy and I suddenly wished he would hold my hand. But that wasn’t very likely after last time. I’d blown it.

  We stood a metre apart, watching as Benson bounded back and forth. The tide was coming in and the grey sea crashed against the rocks. The sky was darkening, the horizon smudged purple. Gulls screamed above me and I could feel the spray on my face and stinging my eyes. It was really bitter now – I put a hand up to my cold nose.

  ‘Perhaps we’d better get back,’ I said. ‘It’ll be dark soon.’

  He nodded. ‘Last one,’ he said to Benson, who was panting at his feet. He flung the ball away from him again, smiling as Benson hurled himself after it.

  ‘You know, perhaps Charlotte’s right,’ said Andrew casually. He turned and faced me. ‘About getting back on the horse.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Charlotte doesn’t know one end of a horse from another.’

  He laughed. ‘I mean perhaps you should give this advice thing a go? Now you’ve had a positive TV experience, why not let something good come out of the whole thing – it might be fun, as she says.’ His green eyes were fixed on mine. ‘Because you know Laura, if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that sometimes you have to know when to try again.’

  Andrew looked down the beach where Benson was trotting along at the water’s edge as if looking for something. His words were almost drowned in the sound of the wind and waves and I could only just make them out.

  ‘Even if you’ve been knocked back before.’

  He whistled. Benson looked up briefly and went back to examining the rock pools. Andrew turned back to me. ‘You look freezing. Here, come out of the wind.’ He pulled me back into a recess in the cliff.

  ‘Because it seems to me,’ he was saying, ‘that you did that whole TV thing to feel better about yourself. Wasn’t that the idea? To show you were still strong and young and beautiful?’

  ‘Not really,’ I muttered.

  ‘Well, it’s how you looked today, anyhow,’ he went on. ‘And that’s how you’d look if you did this advice programme. I tell you what ’ He was still looking at me intently. ‘Let’s try you out.’

  He leant back against the chalk, eyes upwards as if thinking.

  ‘What would you say to an ageing 48-year-old with a spare tyre since he tried to give up smoking, who thinks he might be in love with a mad, hormone-ravaged female who throws wobblers in the supermarket?’

  My stomach gave a small somersault. ‘I’d tell him to get a grip.’

  Andrew’s arms tightened around me. ‘Just what I was thinking …’

  His hand felt surprisingly warm around my cold fingers as we made our way back up the path, Benson trotting ahead of us.

  ‘You really are lovely, you know,’ he said. ‘On TV, off TV – you’re beautiful and you’ve got a great body.’ He nudged me as we walked. ‘So feel good about yourself, now, eh?’

  ‘I’ll try. It’s just that on that bloody documentary …’

  He stopped beneath the street light outside Charlotte’s house and put a hand beneath my chin and a finger across my lips. ‘Forget it! Hold on to how you looked today. How you look to me now …’ His eyes shone in the light as he wrapped his arms around me. ‘Now we’ve dealt with that and I’ve explained about my impending divorce and you know that I wasn’t just being nice, and that in fact I fancy you rotten, can I kiss you again?’

  ‘What about Stanley?’ I asked. ‘He collected enough WIT points last year to last him a decade of therapy. My New Year’s resolution was to give him as normal an upbringing as I can manage. Will he be traumatised if he thinks I’m snuggled up to his teacher?’

  Andrew looked up at one of Charlotte’s brightly-lit windows. ‘He might already have a bit of an idea …’

  We both watched the two small faces rapidly disappear behind the curtain.

  ‘I won’t always be teaching him,’ said Andrew. ‘And in the meantime, he’ll cope.’ He bent his head toward me. ‘Of course, they always think it’s fairly gross when old people do things like this …’

  ‘Old people?’ I echoed, outraged. ‘Speak for yourself! I’ll have you know,’ I declared, adopting a Scottish accent supposed to be reminiscent of Miss Jean Brodie, but sounding rather more Irish and as if I’d had too much champagne, ‘that I ’ I ducked away, laughing, struggling to finish the sentence before his mouth closed over mine. ‘I am in my prime …’

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