by Jane Fallon
‘Have you ever met Marilyn Carson?’ I say, and he tells me he hasn’t so I take him over and introduce him. My mind is already whirring with ideas about how to keep him in work.
Mary and Craig both stop by and, at one point, she tells me quietly that she almost wishes Lorna had handed her over to me too, because she knows she has me to thank for Marlborough Murder Mysteries. I tell her to wait and see, that now Lorna is back on form she’ll be unstoppable, but the compliment still fills me with pride. Craig is puffed up with importance about his first ever commission. It starts filming two weeks after the Christmas break – they don’t hang around in soap land – and they have already indicated that they’d like him to write another. I let him have his moment of showing off. I figure we’re all allowed those.
Someone arrives – a woman – who I don’t even recognize.
‘God, is that Joy Wright Philips?’ Lorna says, going over to greet her. Joy has never been to a Christmas party. Ever. Well, not since I’ve been here anyway. I’ve only actually met her once and that was years ago and I remember she was quite dour. Lorna brings her over to introduce her and Joy gives me a big smile and shakes my hand and says that she’s writing, she actually genuinely is. She writes in bed every morning – only allowing herself to move to get a cup of tea – two hours, without fail and with no other distractions. She’s making progress, she says. She has an idea she thinks will work. She’s thinking the Bush or the New End, somewhere small. She’d love to come in and talk to me about it in January. I tell her that I’m absolutely delighted she’s over her block. I have no idea, really, whether she can actually write, it’s been so long, but I’m thrilled she’s inspired and actually putting pen to paper again – or finger to keyboard, I suppose – and that I had something to do with that.
‘I’ll show you what I’ve done so far,’ she says, ‘and don’t be afraid to tell me if you think it’s crap.’
We have chosen Nadeem as our new assistant to help Kay out. He’s as in love with our world as we are and so keen to learn and do well that we know he’s going to fit in perfectly. And it’ll be good to have a boy about the place to balance out all those hormones. He turns up at the party with a big smile on his face, eager to meet everyone and to learn, and Kay takes him under her wing straight away. He’s the same age as her oldest son.
Heather, of course, does not come. She’s far too important to drink warm, weak champagne in an attic near Piccadilly. But she does send over a massive bunch of flowers for Lorna, which makes me think she’s forgiven her for their shaky start, and a smaller bunch for me, which was sweet of her. I look forward to telling the kids that Heather Barclay sent me flowers. I remind myself to remember to take the card home for Zoe.
It’s all over in a flash. There are no drunks to throw out. We lock up and leave the mess, knowing that the cleaner will be in tomorrow. Outside, we all hug each other and wish each other nice things. Kay and Lorna both shout, ‘See you Sunday,’ as they go. It’s a veritable love in.
I stop off on the way home and buy treats for Dan, steaks and lemon tart and chocolate truffles. I know that I have a tendency to take him for granted. There is no way I would have slept in this morning, however drunk I had been the night before, if I hadn’t known deep in my subconscious that he would get up early, however bad he felt himself, to look after the kids. Dan has always been the stable one at the centre of our group. He’s like a combination of the best bits of all of us, rock steady and reliable like Isabel, funny like Alex, loyal like me, but with none of our bad bits. It’s easy to overlook him, to wonder whether, maybe, there’s something or someone more exciting over the horizon, but once you’ve noticed he’s there it’s impossible to imagine you might ever want anything different.
OK, so we might no longer be in the throes of infatuation, we might have our routines and our cosy rituals, but, I’ve decided, that’s no bad thing. A four-year-old brief moment of madness aside, he has never let me down. I know that doesn’t sound like a very exciting quality but, actually, it’s the most important one I can think of. He puts up with my insecurities and he never lets me down. He’s the solid ground at the centre of my world and I need that. Everything else might be shifting, but as long as I have Dan there, gorgeous, reliable, kind, thoughtful, funny Dan, then that’s fine, I can cope with that. Even come to enjoy the changing landscape.
When he comes out of the kitchen to say hello I nearly suffocate him with a hug.
‘What was that for?’ he says.
‘I just felt like it,’ I say. ‘I love you.’
‘I should hope so. I’m your husband,’ he says, laughing. And then I kiss him. Properly, not like we’re mum and dad saying our polite goodnights, but deeply and passionately, like we used to. He’s a bit slow on the uptake, but then he cottons on and he kisses me back and it almost feels like it did when we first met. Better, in fact. Until that is I am dimly aware of the sound of the door opening and I hear a disgusted thirteen-year-old voice saying, ‘I am so going to need therapy now.’
32
It’s Christmas Eve, the traditional gathering round at Isabel and Alex’s except that, this year, of course, there is no Alex. Isabel has told him he can see the girls in the morning so long as he comes with his parents, who always visit their granddaughters on Christmas Day, and leaves when they do. Alex, apparently defeated, agreed without a fight. She knows that he won’t cause a fuss with his mum and dad around. Even Alex has boundaries, it seems.
Tonight, I know, was always going to be hard for Izz, however much of a brave face she’s been trying to put on, so I volunteer to spend the afternoon helping her get everything ready and we manage to laugh, get angry and even cry at different points in the afternoon as we talk about everything that has gone on these past few months. It’s like a Stanislavsky master class.
At one point Isabel says to me, ‘I don’t know how I would have got through it all without you,’ and we have a big mushy moment, my best friend and me, which is thankfully broken by the twins running in and telling us that William is refusing to be dressed up as a Christmas fairy and what are we going to do about it? Wonders will never cease.
Now we’re all sitting round the table. Isabel and Dan, Kay and Lorna and the four kids. I look around. It’s like the Walton family only a bit less nuclear. Lorna and Kay have turned into some kind of a double act with Kay telling her to ‘for the love of God shut up’ whenever she rambles on without letting any one else join in, and to ‘eat something for Christ’s sake’ when she spends too long pushing her food round her plate. Lorna just laughs and says, ‘Oh sorry,’ and either stops talking or takes a big mouthful, and I realize maybe that’s how I should have handled her all along. In turn she has taken to saying, ‘Really, Kay, I didn’t realize you had children,’ whenever Kay launches into another long and rather pointless story about one of her sons.
Is Lorna ever going to become my new best friend? No, of course not. No one could replace Isabel or even come close. I’m sure Lorna will still get on my nerves sometimes and me on hers. But I know how to deal with her now and, most surprisingly of all, I actually like her. I do.
I can’t wait to go back to work in January and launch my glittering career. I can’t wait to spend tomorrow, just my lovely husband, my imperfect but adorable kids and me, celebrating Christmas, just our little family. I even can’t wait for New Year’s Eve, the most overrated night of the year, when the five of us adults have agreed to meet up again to enjoy hating the whole thing together. We might invite Rose and Simon along, we might not. I’m easy.
Rebecca and Daniel and Isabel. Sometimes Kay and Lorna. Sometimes Rose and Simon. It might just work.
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