by Jane Fallon
And the baby thing was inspired. I mean, come on. Now I can just report back that I ‘accidentally’ let slip my piece of gossip to Robbie. That the look on his face gave away a million secrets. That, suddenly, she’s red-eyed and tearful and the two of them don’t seem to be speaking to one another any more.
And then Paula will feel as if she can kick him to the kerb when he’s down and has nowhere to run to.
Except, of course, that I need to make sure he feels he can run to me.
I just hope she never decides to give Samantha a piece of her mind because that would leave everybody very confused indeed. Samantha most of all.
Robbie has started filming a new storyline involving Hargreaves going into business with wide-boy thug Smyth, the village ne’er-do-well. Every TV idyll has one. I know he’s not happy about it. It’s part and parcel of the bigger revelation that Hargreaves has been a conman all along, preying on his elderly friends, selling them bits of old tat in exchange for their life savings or paying them a pittance for what he knows is a priceless antique.
Personally, I think it’s inspired, in that classic soap way. (I can hear Robbie’s voice in my head now: ‘Farmer Giles is not a soap, Saskia. It’s a long-running series. It only runs for half the year, that’s the big difference.’ Most of us know it’s a soap in all but name, though.) Take the person you would least expect to do something and have them do it. It’ll have them hooked even if it’ll also have them throwing their pension books at him in the street.
I did ask Josh if the storyline was anything to do with him. He’s never been Robbie’s biggest fan and he doesn’t even know the half of it. If I had his job I would be wanting to wreak havoc on any of the actors who had pissed me off, I can tell you that. He went a bit po-faced, though, and said he would never let his personal feelings get in the way of work.
The more immediate issue is that Jez, the actor playing Smyth, is a psycho. He only joined the show last year – an ex-cage fighter turning his hand to acting for the first time – and he’s managed to terrorize pretty much everyone ever since. Luckily for most of us, our characters have no reason to cross paths, except for the occasional scene in the pub where there’s safety in numbers.
Robbie is terrified of him. Actually terrified. He would never admit it but I’ve seen him do that overly enthusiastic matey thing whenever he’s with Jez which means, ‘I’m just like you. Please don’t hit me.’ He was outraged when they cast him, saying it was a stunt and it was bringing the credibility of the show down (really, though, I don’t know how he kept a straight face). Someone clearly told Jez because he made it clear he couldn’t stand Robbie from the start. And he’s a big bloke. Not to mention unhinged.
Anyway, now they are having to spend whole days shooting two-handed scenes in a set that looks like a back alley where someone might be murdered and not discovered for days (where this is meant to be in our sleepy fictional village is unclear. Everyone stopped caring about the geography years ago), some of which involve Jez pinning Robbie up against the wall and shouting in his face. One of the make-up girls – never Robbie’s greatest fan, since he shouted at her for chatting during rehearsals once – tells me it’s a joy to watch. Robbie’s fear is palpable. Between takes, Jez apparently paces the set, barking at anyone who comes near him, trying to stay ‘in the moment’, while Robbie cowers behind the director.
On a day when I’m in early, waiting to shoot a scene at the hairdresser’s – one of those annoying, slightly comedic filler scenes that you know will almost certainly be cut from the finished product – I decide to wander over to the studio to see how it’s going. Maybe Robbie will see me as a friendly face, the safest port in a storm.
They’re rehearsing a new scene when I get there. Arguing about the price of something or who owes who what. At one point Jez shoves him with all his force and Robbie stumbles back. He looks to the director for help.
‘Can we …’ he says nervously. ‘Could we just save it for the take?’
The rule, as everyone worth their salt knows, is that with anything uncomfortable you pull back on the rehearsals, blocking out what you intend to do but not actually doing it. Same with kissing. Although Robbie used to conveniently forget that when we first got together and, suddenly, Hargreaves and Melody were snogging like randy teenagers whenever the script called for them to have a quick kiss.
‘Just block it through, Jez,’ the director calls. I think she’s terrified of him too. Most of the directors are. ‘Half pace.’
‘Sure,’ Jez says, and then adds, ‘Sorry, mate,’ to Robbie, although said in a way that means anything but.
‘From the top,’ the first assistant shouts. ‘Quiet, everyone. Rehearsing.’
They run through the scene again. Same point, same shove. It’s almost comical. No, not almost, it actually is.
Robbie stops again. ‘For goodness’ sake …’
He catches sight of me then and the look he gives me is one I’ll treasure. He can’t hide the fact he’s pleased to see me. He rolls his eyes inclusively.
‘Let’s just go straight for a take,’ the director calls. She can clearly see the situation is getting out of hand.
‘First positions,’ the first assistant shouts. ‘Quiet!’
Everyone stands like statues, as they always do when a scene is being filmed. Jez’s acting is laughably bad. He stumbles on a line and ends up saying something that makes no sense at all.
‘OK,’ the director says as the scene judders to a halt, clearly giving up. ‘I think we’ve got that. Let’s move on.’
The first assistant barks out the details for the next scene, also involving Robbie and Jez. There’s a short hiatus while they discuss some technical stuff and I’m gratified, out of the corner of my eye, to see Robbie sidling over to me.
‘Did you see that?’ he says before I can even say good morning. ‘He’s out of fucking control.’
‘It’s a joke,’ I say. ‘It’s not as if he can even act.’
‘I’m thinking about taking it up with Josh. Apart from anything else, it’s turning the show into a farce.’
‘It’s not that you’re scared of him,’ I say, taking the risk that he’ll see the funny side.
He rewards me with a smile and my stomach flips. ‘Terrified. But Josh doesn’t need to know that. I’ll convince him it’s about integrity.’
‘I can speak to him too if you like.’ Even though I’m enjoying Robbie’s discomfort, I know I could win myself serious brownie points by helping him out here.
‘Would you?’ he says, in a voice full of gratitude.
‘Of course.’
He’s called over to start rehearsing the scene then. Just before he moves off he puts his hand on my arm and says, ‘How are you? Are you OK?’
‘Surviving,’ I say. ‘Just about.’
It’s a breakthrough.
27
Paula
Twelve stone twelve and still thirty-six per cent fat. My descent has slowed right down now that my body expects exercise as part of its everyday routine. I don’t even care. I feel – and look – better than I have in years.
I’m filling Myra in on the baby news. I can’t get it out of my head. It’s hands down one of the worst things I think a woman could do to a man. Let alone to the new life they’d be bringing into the world.
‘Christ.’ She bangs a mug of coffee down in front of me. I’m sitting at one of the tables after my latest session with Chas because I can’t face going home yet. Robert has the day off and I’m at a loss as to what the two of us would do to pass the time. Even though I’m, strictly speaking, a customer at the moment, I still jump up to help every now and then if someone is waiting to be served.
‘Make sure you sort your divorce out before it happens, just in case he suddenly decides to start taking his parental responsibility seriously.’
‘Shh!’ I say, looking around to see if any of the customers are listening in. ‘He already does take his parental responsibility seriou
sly.’
‘So there you go. You don’t want him trying to say you have to sell the flat and live in a hovel because he has a new mouth to feed.’
‘I don’t think … that’s not the point anyway. If he wants to have a whole other family, then that’s his problem. The point is, she’s doing it behind his back.’
‘Well, not all of it,’ Myra smirks.
‘You know what I mean. What kind of girl does that?’
‘A nasty, manipulative one. I couldn’t wish her on a nicer person.’
I pick up a napkin and wipe the table where my cup has left a mark. ‘They do deserve each other, I suppose.’
‘So Saskia’s going to drop her in it?’
I nod. ‘I didn’t ask her to, she volunteered.’
‘I’m starting to like Saskia.’ She flops down in the seat opposite me and then jumps up again when someone comes through the door. ‘It’s a clever move.’
‘It might just work,’ I call after her retreating back.
For the next few days I watch Robert for a sign that anything has changed. I’m extra nice to him, so that at the moment the scales fall from his eyes as far as Samantha is concerned he’ll see me and think, ‘That’s who I should be spending the rest of my life with.’ Or something like that anyway.
On the Sunday night, when we’re chatting about Georgia’s impending A-level results I hit him with the genius ‘Can you believe it’s been eighteen years?’ line.
‘Next week,’ he says, helping himself to a home-made truffle (his, half a pound of butter and enough sugar to satisfy a room full of slow lorises; mine, coconut oil and sweetener. Appearance – identical. I clock his tummy sagging a little over the top of his Ralph Lauren PJs and wonder how his heart is standing up to the assault).
‘I’ll miss it, won’t you? I don’t just mean I’ll miss her. I can’t even think about that. I’ll miss the whole motherhood thing.’
‘You’ll still be her mum,’ he says, patting my leg as if I were a horse. We’re slouched on the sofa, side by side. Close but not too close.
‘I know. And I wouldn’t want to do it all again from the beginning, truthfully. Not now. Not the baby and toddler years.’
‘Christ, no! Can you imagine? I don’t think we slept for three years, did we?’
I reward him with a laugh. ‘Something like that. And imagine trying to deal with an adolescent thirteen years from now.’
He shudders. ‘Are you trying to give me nightmares?’
I decide that I’ve pushed the point enough. Clearly, Robert isn’t on board with the idea of new fatherhood. I just have to wait for Saskia to work her magic.
‘Tell the truth, are you sad she’s decided not to have a party?’
In the end, George got too frustrated with the lack of a decent venue and decided that, rather than spend the next week or so stressing that her party would be rubbish, she wouldn’t have one at all. She’s chosen, instead, to go for a posh dinner, followed by a club with her eight closest mates. Bankrolled by us, obviously, but we’re only too happy to do it. Mostly because it means we don’t have to go, and we can just take her out for a meal ourselves another night.
‘ “Sad” doesn’t even come close,’ he says. ‘ “Relieved”, “thankful” and “grateful” would be more like it.’
‘Me too. Is that terrible?’
He takes a swig of his licorice tea. We’re both having a night off the wine in an effort to fool our livers into thinking we might be going teetotal so they should buck up their ideas. I’m on the lemon and ginger.
‘Dreadful,’ he says. ‘We’re awful parents.’
And he leans over then and puts an arm around me, pulling me a bit closer and kissing my head, just below the hairline. It’s hardly foreplay but it’s an unprompted gesture of affection, and that’s progress in my book.
I’m on eggshells waiting for Saskia to tell me what’s going on. Eventually, on Tuesday afternoon, she calls me.
‘Oh my God,’ she says before I can say anything. I’m just home from work and about to get in the shower. ‘You should have been there.’
‘You told him! Tell me everything!’
She leaves a dramatic pause. I try to be patient.
‘OK. I’ll have to give you the quick version because I’m going to get called any minute now. So, we were chatting between scenes. They were doing a re-light so we had to hang around for a while. I had to wait till it was just me and him, obviously, because I didn’t want anyone else running to Samantha and saying anything. Anyway, eventually, we were on our own so I just came straight out with it. Like I was concerned for his welfare …’
‘What, out of nowhere?’ I have to admit I’m in awe of Saskia’s front.
‘Sort of, but I kind of led up to it by saying something else about Samantha, something nice, about the fact that she’d done well in a scene or some such nonsense, I can’t remember, and then I said, “Oh, but there’s something I have to tell you. I might have got the wrong end of the stick or something, in fact I’m sure I have … but if it were me I’d want to be told …” ’
‘And …’
‘Of course, he couldn’t resist the bait. So I told him what I’d “heard”. His face, Paula! Obviously, he was trying not to give away too much, because there were people around, even though they weren’t in earshot, but it was all there to read if you knew what you were looking for.’
‘Brilliant. And what did he say?’
‘He asked me a few things, like was that really exactly what she said, and did I think she was actually trying to make it happen or was it just a flippant thing? He was making little quips like it was all a big joke but I could tell he just wanted details. And then we got called back, so that was that. I could tell he was rattled, though. His concentration was way off after that.’
‘Genius,’ I say. ‘I owe you one. I can’t wait for him to come home today now, see if I can spot anything.’
‘I saw them in a huddle at lunch and she didn’t look very happy. I hope he doesn’t drop me in it with the make-up girl, but hey, what can you do. I’m on a mission, haha!’
‘Thanks, Saskia, that was above and beyond, really.’
‘Well, let’s hope it works.’
‘Even if it doesn’t make him see sense right away, it’s a nail in their coffin, surely.’
‘If it isn’t, then I don’t know what we have to do.’
I promise to update her on Robert’s state of mind later. Then I pace around, wondering what to do with myself, until I remember that I need to look as appealing as I possibly can when he gets home fresh from – hopefully – a fight. So I have a shower, wash my hair and blow it out. I moisturize everything in sight, put on a new pair of jeans that have been waiting for just such an occasion (size fourteen, I’m not even joking. I could have wept when I tried them on and they fitted) and the floaty-top thing I bought on my first shopping expedition. Then I touch up the polish on my toenails (this involves having to take the jeans off again because I can’t bend down in them. There’s fitting and then there’s fitting, if you know what I mean) and put on just the right amount of make-up so I look good but not like I’ve got made up for him.
All of this takes me over an hour, and then I start pacing again. I never know what time to expect Robert home on filming days. Sometimes he’s only in the first scene, so he can be finished for the day by nine thirty. Earlier, even. They shoot fast on Farmer Giles. Today, I seem to remember, he’s in most of the scenes, so I probably won’t see him till half past seven, or even later, if he decides to stay behind and argue with Samantha. It’s still only five so I could have several hours of sitting around in my finery, waiting.
I pass the time by baking more treats. Puffy cupcakes, one batch with sugary cream frosting on top, one with frosting made with sweetener. It’s a bit grainy but it still tastes delicious. I decorate mine with a P in protein-enriched sugar-free sprinkles (yes! There is such a thing! Who knew? And who would have thought I would care till now?
) and Robert’s with an R in the all-calories and no-redeeming-qualities-whatsoever version. Then I mix them up on a plate and set them to one side under a cloche.
By the time I’ve cleaned up there’s still no sign of him so I decide to give Georgia a ring to pass the time. She’s due home from another festival jaunt in a few days, and she’ll be here for a couple of weeks, which will encompass both her birthday and the arrival of her A-level results, so that could be an emotional rollercoaster. If that rollercoaster only had one giant up and then another, even more giant up, that is.
She’s in a field, she tells me, when she answers. She’s always in a field these days so that doesn’t really give much away. She’s in the middle of a thirteen-hour shift, showing people where to park their cars so that any of them have a hope in hell of ever finding them again.
‘Honestly, Mum, I’ve never argued so much in my life. No one wants to park where I tell them to.’
‘What do you care?’ I say. ‘You won’t be there when they leave. Let them all block each other in.’
She laughs. ‘Is that one of your life lessons? Don’t care about doing a good job if you won’t be around to see the consequences?’
‘Just this once. They’ll all be off their heads anyway, probably. They won’t even see cars, just giant frogs or something.’
I can practically feel her rolling her eyes. ‘This isn’t Woodstock.’
