We drove on in silence.
six
The next day we didn’t mention the argument or the baby comment. The only clue a skilled sleuth might have picked up was my vehement forwarding of the track ‘When a Child Is Born’ on Mum’s dreadful Christmas carol CD.
And we had a lovely day. It included some of my all-time favourite Christmas pastimes:
1 Eating a Crunchie and a Curly-Wurly before getting out of bed
2 Drinking champagne in my dressing gown before midday
3 Crispy roast potatoes and turkey skin
4 Two sleeps on the best sofa
‘Val, that was delicious!’ Simon said to my mum after Christmas dinner. The four of us were sitting around the dining room table. We were full of festive fodder. All the belts at the table had been loosened and in my case the zip of my trousers was undone as well. Not that we’d stopped eating. The cheese was still on the table, as was the Bailey’s ice cream. Actually, that was in my hand. I was scraping the carton. Dad was polishing off the brandy butter while reading Paul McKenna’s book I Can Make You Thin. Each year I buy my father a diet book. He enjoys the season of indulgence more when he’s reading about the diet and fitness regime he intends to start in the New Year.
‘You’re a pleasure to feed, Simon,’ my mum smiled back. I think my mum and dad might have loved Simon more than I did. And he loved them back. He really did.
I did very well when God dispensed parents. Mine are lovely. They have been married for nearly forty years. I think their success lies in the fact that they are each slightly mad in a way that thoroughly complements the other. For instance, you might think that my father’s unbridled crushes on Selina Scott and Katherine Jenkins were odd until you heard my mother’s pornographic squeals whenever Piers Morgan comes on the telly. And for some, my father’s obsession with his daily golf might grate. But my mum just calls him Golden Balls and dozes on the sofa with the paper when he’s gone. They still have fun together and hold hands. They do smoochy dancing to The Drifters after every Sunday roast. I thought Simon and I were going to be like that. I thought we’d make each other laugh as we took on the world together. I imagined us soaring through life having fun and adventures and then growing old in a little bungalow somewhere with a vegetable garden.
‘God, it’s nice not having a brown face and the ring of two thousand screaming children in my ears,’ I sighed, after I’d given the Bailey’s ice-cream container a little lick.
‘Oh, Simon was wonderful with those children who sat behind us last night, Sarah,’ said my mother in a tone that hinted of ‘HE’LL BE A BRILLIANT DAD, DARLING. GET KNOCKED UP QUICKLY TO KEEP THIS ONE.’
‘Was he?’ I said, because she was talking to me and you’re supposed to answer when that happens.
‘They were good kids,’ said Simon. ‘They just weren’t being disciplined, that’s all.’
My mother clucked like she might lay an egg.
‘Needed a good whack if you ask me,’ snorted my father. ‘Kept kicking me in the back.’
‘You’ll make a lovely daddy,’ my mother said to Simon with another clucking sound. Simon beamed. I froze. Dad coughed but I think it might have been the brandy butter.
‘How’s the book, Dad?’ I said, brilliantly changing the subject.
‘Do you want to have children, Simon?’ my mother asked, ignoring my efforts.
‘Er, yes, Val. I can’t wait.’
I didn’t say anything. I just poured another glass of wine because I was suddenly feeling far too sober, and jumped up to change the CD because, by some divine joke, ‘When a Child Is Born’ had started to play.
‘Put on Katherine Jenkins,’ said my dad, perking up at the thought of Katherine Jenkins. I obliged. I stood by the CD player leafing through the flawless pictures of the Welsh singer in the CD booklet. I bet no one expected bloody Katherine Jenkins to pop children out, I thought. The most annoying thing about this baby issue was the assumption that I would have one. I felt sure that if I’d gone to Hollywood and done the Eamonn Nigels film everyone would have supported my career rather than expected me to start breeding.
I’d always loved being a woman. We’re much prettier and cleverer than men and our clothes shops wee all over theirs. But suddenly, being a woman felt problematic. I didn’t say any of this aloud though. I should have just said, ‘Woah! Hang about, keen beans! Can’t we wait a bit? I may be playing a tree but I haven’t given up on more substantial roles in the future! So less of these conversations, please, for a year or five!’
I wonder what would have happened if I’d said something like that. Something at all. But instead I just avoided the subject. And I think that was because I loved Mum and Simon so much. No one wants to disappoint the people they love.
Anyway, it didn’t matter because my father was about to do something glorious. He sprang up from the table. Actually, that’s a falsehood. He groaned, moaned and belched a slow move from seated to standing.
‘Time to watch Top Gear,’ he said, and he left the dining room to traverse to the living room to settle down in front of the telly. But as he moved through the hall he called, ‘Sarah, I think that’s your phone.’
Now, normally I would have left the call. Sudden movement after Christmas consumption can only lead to injury. But as the conversation was liable to plunge perilously into babies, I darted out of the room and snatched my phone. I am so superlatively glad I did.
‘Sarah! Eamonn! Merry Christmas!’
‘Eamonn, you sound wankered!’ I said, proving that I was also wankered otherwise I wouldn’t have dared suggest that a world-famous film director was wankered.
‘Pissed as a newt!’ he replied, which I thought was rather brilliant.
‘Isn’t it pissed as a parrot?’
‘I had a fax from my friend at Universal last night. Anyway. The film’s going ahead! I shouldn’t really be calling you but I thought it might be a nice Christmas present for you. That and I’m pissed as a toad as we discussed. Send my kind regards to Simon. I’d better be off.’
He hung up.
‘I’m going to Hollywood, baby!’ I screeched, and as I said the word ‘baby’ I felt pleasantly relieved. That was one issue that could safely be put on hold for the time being.
seven
The issue of babies wasn’t discussed between me and Simon or Mum again. But I did think about it. It became like a small virus on my hard drive. Every so often as I stood in my cardboard tree my brain would find itself prodding the issue of procreation. My brain tended to prod the issue until it was septic. I kept imagining that I would tell Simon that I wasn’t ready for babies and he would dump me. But also I felt guilty for not being honest with him. If he really wanted sprogs now, maybe I should let him be free so he could grow some with someone else. But the thought of someone else having Simon’s baby was too awful. The day I stood in my tree thinking of Simon leaving me and having a baby with someone else I got in a right state. It made me feel like invisible hands were strangling me. Having morbid thoughts about your boyfriend impregnating someone else isn’t conducive to panto. My face would set in its ‘thinking unpleasant thoughts’ expression. Unfortunately my ‘thinking unpleasant thoughts’ expression makes me look like I am trying to pass a difficult stool.
I didn’t discuss my fears with anyone. I just let them breed inside me, until the last day of panto, when my friend Julia came to see the show. She was going to drive me and all my bags home in her unreliable BMW, Big Daddy.
Julia arrived early, before the evening show. We had planned to go out together and have supper in the break between shows. Julia is my best friend in the entire world, but I felt I’d hardly seen her while I’d been doing panto, and when I had, Simon and her boyfriend Carlos had always been there. I was looking forward to a proper girl chat, unedited for the boy market. I ran down the theatre steps whooping when I saw her waiting for me.
‘Ah!’ I screamed when I reached her, because I am a woman and that’s what we do
. She looked lovely. Julia has always been very attractive, with big pouty lips and cleavage that things could get lost in. But since she started going out with Carlos she’d developed a Ready Brek-type glow about her. That day, wrapped in her new Christmas coat, with high-heeled boots and rosy cheeks, she looked gorgeous. ‘You look wow!’ I told her admiringly.
‘Oh my God, Sare, look at you,’ she cried as soon as she saw me. But not in a good ‘Oh my God, Sare, look at you’ way. I hadn’t seen her for ages. She must have noticed how much Christmas pudding I’d put on.
‘Oh, I know, Fatty Bum Woman, aren’t I?’ I said, worried. ‘Do I look much fatter to you?’ I was off to Hollywood in two days. I had tried to slim down after Christmas but there’s only so much you can do in two weeks with so much Christmas chocolate around.
‘No, you look the same,’ she said.
I bounded in for a hug. She pulled away.
‘What’s up?’
‘Sare, you’re brown!’ she said, referring to the fact that I still had my face painted like a tree.
‘Oh, that. I couldn’t be arsed to get rid of it. It takes forever and I’d have to put it back on again for tonight’s show anyway. Do you mind?’
‘You’ve got a brown painted face. It’s not very politically correct,’ she whispered.
‘They’re used to it round here. I’m a local fixture. We’ll probably get the odd “your performance was wooden” jibe.’
‘Mental,’ she muttered and she took my arm.
We ended up in a bustling, cosy bistro, where they did a too-good-not-to offer on dinner with wine. It was one of those times with friends when there was so much to catch up on that conversation was explosive.
‘Oh my God! Did I tell you about Carlos and that producer?’
‘No.’
‘Well, we were at that Pacha night.’
‘Oh yeah, how did it go? What did you wear?’
‘That red dress. But I washed it after and shrunk it.’
‘Wank. That happened to my black off-the-shoulder jumper.’
‘No way, I loved that.’
‘Is there garlic in this?’
‘Loads.’
‘At least I don’t have much to say in the show.’
‘What’s Dennis Waterman like?’
‘OK.’
‘What was I saying?’
‘Um, something about Carlos. Has he ever mentioned babies?’
This was the first time we stopped for breath in our dialogue. She looked at me seriously and leant forward.
‘What, like baby babies?’ she said, pointing towards a high chair next to us.
I was pleased that she mouthed the word babies as though it was toxic.
‘Yeah.’
‘No. Thank God. Why?’
‘Simon’s broody.’
‘Urgh.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But you’re my superstar actress friend. You can’t have a baby at the moment.’
‘Jules,’ I said, and I meant it, ‘Thank you.’
‘That’s cool. Although he is, like, really, really good with kids.’
‘I know.’
That was another problem my sadistic brain had been flirting with. Simon was terrific with kids. He was like the Pied Piper of Camden. They always appeared from nowhere when he was around and started following him.
‘God, remember that time he made that kid laugh so much it was sick?’
‘But kids hate me!’ I wailed.
‘No!’ she said immediately. But then she thought for a moment. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say “hate” . . .’
I looked at the high chair next to us. A tiny person whose gender I wasn’t sure of was throwing chips onto the floor. I hesitated. Then I smiled at the child.
‘Hello, there,’ I said in a voice like Yogi Bear.
The baby stared at me and smiled back. And I found myself thinking how cute it looked, even though it could do with a good wipe with a baby wipe or seven. I was so relieved that a child seemed to like me. Obviously, it didn’t like me as much as it would have liked Simon. But I could make a child smile and that was a nice thing. However, as I was experiencing this warm glow of infant affection I realized that the child wasn’t actually smiling at all. It was grimacing. Because it was starting to cry. Actually to bawl. I looked at Julia. She had started laughing. Very supportive.
‘Fuck, Jules. That baby hates me,’ I hissed at her.
‘Don’t swear in front of the baby,’ she sang primly.
‘Fuck off,’ I whispered back.
‘It’s your face.’
‘I can’t do anything about my face!’
Julia snorted into her pasta.
‘It’s my face!’
‘Oh, I know what I was going to tell you. This American producer wants to work with Carlos on a dance track.’
‘Oh my God. That’s so cool!’
‘I know.’
‘Wowzers.’
‘Oh, and Sare?’
‘What?’
‘That baby’s crying because you’ve got a brown face, you knobhead.’
eight
Talking to Julia helped. Relieved not to be the only baby-phobe, I became king-size excited about finally going to Hollywood to make a film.
‘I’m flying to LA to do a movie,’ I sang repeatedly. And I think if I had been a man that sentence would have given me a small semi.
I finished all my packing the night before my early flight. I had packed for all weather conditions, plus unforeseen eventualities such as headaches, period pain, tummy upset and thrush. It was a feat of organizational dexterity for Sarah Sargeant. I didn’t want anything to spoil my enjoyment of the trip.
‘What’s that?’ Simon said, looking at the small Apprentice-sized carry-along case that I had found in the hallway cupboard and was using for my hand luggage.
‘It’s a carry-along case.’
‘Genius. No. Whose is it?’
‘Is it not yours?’
‘Nah.’
‘Oh.’
He stood looking at the carry-along case. It was quite a smart one.
‘Oh, maybe it is,’ he shrugged. ‘Must have forgotten I had it.’
Simon had done a lot of travelling, so I didn’t think anything of the fact that he bought luggage and then forgot all about it.
‘Can I use it?’ I asked politely.
‘What’s mine is yours, baby.’
‘Thanks, sexy.’
And he was sexy, phenomenally sexy that day. He was also naked. We’d given up on the environment by this point and the radiators were back to boiling. It was much more fun than the thermostat embargo because Simon had taken to walking round the flat full-on, lumber out, starkers. Although it was quite distracting and I frequently forgot what I was doing.
‘Have you got the camera?’
‘Yep.’
Simon had given me his old digital camera to go away with.
‘Is the suitcase all packed?’
‘Yep,’ I said, proudly pointing at my big old battered suitcase full of at least two choices of what to wear per day. I was going to be away for six weeks. I hoped it wouldn’t explode.
‘Pants.’
‘What’s up?’
‘No, pants. Have you packed pants?’
‘Oh fuck, bollocks, no!’ I exclaimed.
‘That’s my girl,’ he said, shaking his head and smiling.
‘It was intentional. I wasn’t going to wear any there,’ I joked.
‘Oh, Sare, don’t say that.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t like the thought of you with all those blokes out there. And that actor you do that sex scene with.’
‘Baby,’ I cooed, ‘it’s a rape scene and he kills me. It’s hardly hot monkey sex.’
‘I don’t like thinking about it.’
‘Baby,’ I said, and I walked towards him. I wasn’t starkers. I was fully clothed. I didn’t like wandering around naked on account of me being the shape of a not pa
rticularly pretty pear. I preferred my nakedness to be done under a duvet with the lights off with a man with dodgy eyesight who’d had at least two drinks. But I loved seeing Simon bare because he had the lovely firm body of a man who finds the gym fun(!).
I put my arms around his waist and stood close to him. I rubbed my nose along his stubbled cheek and then I kissed him on the lips.
‘Oooh, do we have take-off?’ I said, feeling something against my thigh.
‘Yes, we do. We have a semi!’
But before I got involved with Simon’s aviation equipment, I looked into his eyes and said these words: ‘I only want you, forever, Simon Gussett. You know you can trust me.’
And he kept our gaze and didn’t flinch.
‘It’s you for me forever, Sarah Sargeant. And it goes without saying you can trust me too.’
What a load of old bollocks that turned out to be. But we didn’t know that at the time, so we lunged at each other and had amazing sex on the suitcase and then I christened my new camera by taking naughty photos of the two of us.
nine
How soon excitement turned to panic. I speedily discovered a problem with the sentence ‘I’m flying to LA to do a movie.’ It was the bit about doing a movie: a proper movie that was going to be shown in cinemas all over the world.
I was at Heathrow, the start of my journey to Hollywood, and my nerves felt as though they’d been doused in petrol and thrown a lighter.
‘Ahhhh,’ I whimpered, as a familiar feeling of terror gate-crashed my stomach. It was the sort of feeling that made me worry about the contents of my tummy landing on my shoes.
Simon smiled sympathetically at me.
‘Baby girl. Don’t be scared. It’ll be fine. Your accent’s great.’
‘Urgh! The accent!’ I cried, clenching my bottom furiously. That was another problem with flying to LA to do a movie. The fact it was in LA and I was supposed to be Californian in the film. But I wasn’t Californian; I was born in a small district to the south of Croydon. And although I was born in Croydon, I don’t look like Kate Moss. More like Lorraine Kelly. And the camera puts ten pounds on you.
The (Im)Perfect Girlfriend Page 3
