Episode 15: Back In The USSR ...

Episode 15: Back In The USSR…

    Sheila doesn’t know I’m back, I’m letting the answering-machine take my calls. She’s only left a dozen messages asking me if I’m back yet and reminding me that we have to sign contracts with Brian. Brian’s also left a dozen messages, each one edgier than the last, not exactly offering me megabucks for the fourth series but getting nearer and nearer to it. Rupy’s nerve has cracked and he’s popped down to stay with Doris Winslow and Buster for a bit. Miss Hammersley’s away, thank God: staying with the older brother that’s the retired admiral. Long may it last: I definitely could not look her in the eye.

    Kind of in revenge I’m going into the university every day and burying myself in my work. Mark’s in—of course they don’t have their long holidays at Christmas like we do back home, but he did have a bit of a break. After Norma had worked out exactly how much it would cost to take two growing teenagers with them, they dumped them on her parents while they went off to ski somewhere up-market. Not that place Prince Charles is always being snapped at, some other dump. Nobody knows exactly what happened but they had a row. Possibly not actually about him coming home early, though he did. So he’s working all hours of the day and night, harrying his publishers and generally driving everybody he comes in contact with to commit bloody murder. That or hara-kiri. The book’s almost ready to come out and be launched in a blaze of glory and, just fancy, The Observer is about to publish choice boiled-down chapters of it.

    So I’m sitting at my desk with my head in my computer like normal when the phone rings, and when I answer it, absent-mindedly saying “Hullo?” and not “Rosie Marshall here,” because I’m so absorbed that I’ve forgotten what day it is, let alone where I am, it’s this rather up-market female voice asking me if I am Dr Marshall. Which I admit I am. Anyway she blahs on but to cut a long story short The Observer was very interested in my chapter—yeah, right, anything to do, however remotely, with the media is always fascinating to the media—and they want me to come in and talk about it. Gee, I’m not as green as I am cabbage-looking, not any more, so I point out cautiously that the way they cut the book about is between them and Mark and his publisher. The voice assures me that blah, blah, of course Mark has the final cut, not quite using the phrase, bah, blah… Eventually she suckers me into letting her make a firm appointment. And do forgive her, but we haven’t met, have we? My voice does sound familiar! This might be a Dire Warning about the road to Thebes, but too bad: I’m making up my mind to ring back and say I don’t wanna do their bloody interview anyway. But I’d better mention it to Mark.

    Anybody else in the mood he’s in would yell “Piss OFF!” when someone taps at their door, but being an American academic, he just calls “Come in.” Because it might be a student who would then (a) feel very, very wounded, possibly bawling all over his office to boot, (b) bring an harassment case, and (c) sue him for megabucks. So I go in and point out that it’s only me. Gee, he isn’t all that pleased to see me. I admit The Observer rung me and he points out acidly that the past tense of the verb “to ring” is “rang” and don’t we learn grammar in Australian schools? No, being the answer. He knows they were planning to contact me and they know that he has final cut—he does use the phrase—over anything from the book. But he thinks they want an interview about what it was really like on the set of a TV series. I refrain from pointing out that the chapter tells them what it was really like on the set of a TV series, but this huge restraint is not rewarded because he says nastily: “And may I remind you that anything you write for them relating to your research may infringe our intellectual property agreement?”

    “Gee, thanks, boss.”

    He sighs. “Well, what in God’s name do you want, Rosie?”

    “Not to be in breach of our intellectual property agreement, mainly. Not to say, not to be rude enough to go off for an interview that relates to your book without okaying it first with you!” –Getting rather loud.

    “Oh. Sorry.” He grimaces. “I guess.”

    “Yeah. What did Norma and you have that row about?”

    “Married life,” he says unpleasantly. “But if you really want to know, I ordered a thing with shrimp in it against her advice and developed a rash and threw up all night, as predicted by her. Ruining our evening, not to say our night, also as predicted by her.”

    “Shrimp on top of a mountain in the middle of Europe?” I croak feebly.

    “So?”

    “Nothing. Um, me and John had a sort of row,” I admit, standing on one leg, “or it woulda been if he wasn’t John, back in D.C., about this wanking puce female that invited us to her house for a skating party without letting on that that was what it was gonna be. More or less.”

    “You’ve joined the great majority, then,” he says sourly.

    “Yeah. Um, whaddaya think, though?”

    He sighs. “It’s up to you. Do the interview if you want to, and if you don’t, don’t.”

    “Um, well, I was gonna tell them where to put it, only she got out of me about my nationalism study and that other idea I had—you know—and she seemed really interested… All right, I’m a sucker.”

    “Yeah. Well, there may be bits of the nationalism thing they might want to publish, if they need to fill their space. All that crap on gays, that’d probably go over big with their reading public.”

    “It is not—”

    “Likewise the crap on spinster ladies left over from World War II.”

    “It is not crap! All right, then, I’ll bloody do it!”

    He just shrugs and says “Up to you,” so I march out very red-faced, determined not to cancel the interview after all.

    As Rupy isn’t home to issue a Dire Warning, nobody does. I do tell Greg Singh about it, in the intervals of a lovely hot curry with these fried crispy things, not poppadums, other things, not as crisp, and in the intervals of him waiting on all the other people that’ve given away the idea of making dinner on a freezing cold, sleeting late January night and come to The Tabla for a lovely hot curry instead. However, far from issuing a Dire Warning he urges me to do it, ’cos it’d be one in the eye for Mark if they did a proper interview, and what wonderful publicity for my nationalism study, and maybe they’ll want to publish some of that! Which is what I was thinking.

    And when everybody’s finished he comes and sits down at my table and we have a lovely long talk about my other idea, because he’s decided he wants to go on with sociology, and he wants to help me with the research. I point out that he won’t be able to work it up into anything publishable because under the agreement we’ll have I’ll own the intellectual property in the research, unless I’m doing it under the university’s auspices, in which case my agreement with them will determine it; but he’s so keen even this doesn’t put him off. He reminds me not to tell The Observer lady about it, it could prejudice the research, and I thank him humbly, having overlooked that small point in my growing hubris. He then asks, à propos, does John need a jobbing gardener? Not actually, no, because he’s only got a few fruit trees out the back and the rest is lawn, very scraggy in the front where it gets too much salt from the bay, but on the other hand, if Greg was to put in a decent garden he would! And all the wanking weekenders that infest the village want help in the garden, there’s always notices in the Stouts’ shop asking for it but there’s no-one local that can afford to do it for what the mean-fisted, filthy-rich wankers are willing to pay. Well, Terry Stout did take on one job but the lady bawled him out good and proper and wouldn’t pay him what she’d promised him because he weeded out her petunia seedlings and didn’t trim the edges of the lawn. Greg thinks that sounds promising, then, and we beam at each other and plunge into plans, and eventually Mr Singh has to order me home and Greg off to bed.

    This morning I’ve got to see Sheila. The phone rang just as I was about to dash in to uni yesterday and I picked it up without thinking. Sheila in person, wanting to make a definite time for a meet with Brian, she’s the sort of person that does use “meet” as a substantive. Weakly I let her fix a definite time, reflecting that I might as well kill two birds with one stone. Not that. Um, get it over in one fell swoop? Something like that, yeah. Having made that decision, I’m buggered if I’m going to waste any more time on the Lily Rose crap: I’ll go straight on to the uni after the “meet”, so I get into my normal winter working clobber, to wit, sturdy daks, today it’s a nice pair of jeans from J.C. Penney’s in LA, a tee-shirt, the pink one that I’ve had for so long I can’t remember whether it was originally mine or one of Joanie’s, and over that, because it’ll be brass monkeys getting there and also because the heating might be off in our building, a warm jumper, today it’s the angora blue-grey one once condemned by Brian, because the big black daggy one’s in the wash and the old grey fuzzy one has now, you may remember, become an up-market black cocktail or après-ski jumper and I’d look a right tit swanning round the uni in that. I’ll wear my anorak, not the new white one, my old one, but under that my fawn corduroy jacket: longish, narrow cut, big patch pockets. Joslynne found it in a second-hand shop just before I left Oz and was very pleased with it until her mum exclaimed over it, she had one just like it in the Seventies! So she passed it on to me, even though I did point out that no-one except her bloody mum’d ever know and it does have the Today look. Much more so on her, she’s miles thinner than me, I usually leave it unbuttoned. My fantasy is I look casually groovy, like Julia Roberts in that last scene in Pretty Woman where she was going to San Francisco to realise her potential until he arrived on his white charger: nice jeans and a casual jacket. Actually I look like short, plumpish Rosie in gear that’s totally unsuited to her age and figure, as certain persons in my extended family have pointed out. Not to mention a certain person snoring in Miss Winslow’s spare room.

    I do tap on her door as I go but she and Buster, beaming and panting, tell me Rupy’s still asleep. He was very late last night. –She’s only beaming, Buster’s both, all right? All right!

    Sheila’s secretary, Wendy, as smoothly svelte as ever, glances up without interest as I enter in my anorak and says: “Good morning. Can I help— Lily Rose!”

    “Hi, Wendy, how are you?” I reply, removing the anorak.

    “What are you wearing?” she gasps.

    “Real clothes.”

    She’s too up-market to tell me Sheila will kill me but then, she doesn’t need to, it’s written all over her face. “You do know she’s got Mr Hendricks with her?” she gasps.

    “Yeah, he’ll help her to kill me. Tough tit. How was Christmas?”

    She’s so shaken up that she just says it was very nice and forgets to ask me how was mine, even though the card I sent from LA is right there on her desk. Dear Wendy, Having a really great time, Disneyland was super. California v. warm and the parts we’ve seen, v. clean. Did the tour of the movie stars’ homes today, absolute palaces, think we got a glimpse of Joan Collins!! Love, Lily Rose. Numbly she buzzes Sheila and, forgetting to ask me if it really was Joan Collins, shows me in.

    –I don’t know, all right? It was a very smart lady in a wonderful hat getting out of a posh car and the tour driver said it was her, but we weren’t close enough to tell.

    Even though Wendy retained sufficient presence of mind to grab the anorak off me before she let me in, Brian’s and Sheila’s faces both express unalloyed horror as I enter. She gasps: “What are you wearing?” and he croaks: “Have you only just got off the plane?”

    “Real clothes, No, and Good morning and How was your Christmas to both of you, too.”

    Sheila gulps and starts making polite noises but Brian’s made of sterner stuff, he says grimly: “You do realise you’re probably in breach of contract?”

    “No, I’m not, because it’s expired.”

    He takes a deep breath. “Look, if this is some silly scheme to screw more dough out of me, Sheila and I have been through all that and reached a very—”

    “No. I don’t want money, Brian. I’m not here to discuss the contract, I’m here to say”—well, better get it over with right away, eh?—“that I’m very sorry but I’ve decided to give it up. I never was an actress, if you cast your mind back.”

    “Look, what is all this? Of course you were! You hadn’t had much experience—”

    “No,” I say flatly, looking at Sheila’s face. “None. Because I was never an actress at all.”

    Brian also looks at Sheila’s face.

    “That’s water under the bridge,” she says feebly, realising she's given herself away. “I can’t imagine why you’re bringing it up at this stage, Lily Rose. As Brian says, we’ve come to a—”

    “No. I’m very sorry, but I’m going back to my real work.”

    There’s a numbed silence. I can see Brian biting back something really scoffing, the tit still thinks I'm really Lily Rose, after all these months. No, worse, he thinks I’m a New Millennium version of the Captain’s frigging Daughter!

    I’ve brought along the journal with my article in it to back my story up so I get it out of my bag and plonk it on Sheila’s desk, the right way up for them, so as they can’t avoid reading the credit. “Assimilate this.” Bummer, didn’t mean to say that, it just came out. For once in my life I take Disraeli’s advice and don’t apologise.

    “What is this?” says Brian crossly. “Is this some relative, or—” He gets another gander at Sheila’s face, poor cow, and shouts: “What the bloody Hell’s going on here, Sheila?”

    “Um, that is her name,” she says very, very faintly.

    “Don’t blame Sheila, I asked her to be my agent, that’s all,” I say quickly. “See, she was actually my cousin Joanie’s agent—Joan Marshall. It was her that was meant to go to that first audition, only I went instead of—”

    “Look, all right, I remember, but so what?” he says angrily. “I took a calculated risk with you, Lily Rose, and it’s paid off. Just don’t start doing the prima donna act at this stage. You’ve got a very favourable contract—”

    “Brian,” I say loudly, leaning over the desk and tapping the article, “this is the real me. Geddit? This and this!” I say, thumping the grey-blue chest under the fawn jacket.

    “Something about nationalism?” says Sheila faintly.

    “Yeah.” Helpfully I show her the front cover. “I did mention I was a sociologist.”

    “Ye-es. Well, yes, you did, come to think of it. But Lily Rose, Brian’s right: you’ve done so well, there’s no point in—”

    I take a deep breath. “Next week The Observer’s gonna start publishing a series of extracts from a book one of my colleagues has written, with contributions from a few of us in the Department. The fourth extract’ll be from my chapter: Cut, Thrust and Parry: Dynamics of a Television Series in Production.”

    Sheila must be brighter than Brian because she gulps loudly while he’s still sitting there with a puzzled frown.

    “I only took the part because I wanted to research a TV series, see? For my work. Originally I thought I could just trot along with Joanie and hold her knitting, but after she pushed off to Spain I had to find some other way of getting in on the ground floor.”

    It’s begun to sink in, and the poor man’s gone very red. “I’ll stop publication!” he chokes.

    “The show’s name isn’t mentioned, Brian, sociology isn’t like that.” Actually, it’s now dawned that Posh-Voice Lady from The Observer is very likely gonna try to make me admit what the series was, that’d be news-worthy, all right. But I don’t make it worse by saying so. “I’m a Fellow at London University”—he chokes again—“and I need to concentrate on my own stuff this year, my professor wants to see something published. I’m working up this nationalism article”—tapping the journal—“into a book.”

    “They’ve timetabled Series Four!” he chokes. “This’ll ruin me! I’ll sue you!”

    “You’ve got time to replace me if you start looking now.”

    “Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t replace you, you stupid bint, you ARE the show!”

    “That’s true, Lily Rose,” croaks poor Sheila, seeing her fat commission go flying out of the window.

    “Look, I can’t fit both in, and I’m sick of being Lily Rose. As Brian so correctly pointed out, she’s a stupid bint.”

    “You gave every evidence of enjoying every moment of it!” he shouts. “That cretin Maynarde told me you liked opening those damned fêtes!”

    “I did enjoy most of it, yes. But it’s not my real life.”

    Brian changes tack and tries to persuade me that lots of people’s jobs depend on me, as if I hadn’t worked that one out, and Sheila backs him up all the way, and it goes on for ages and ages and ages, along the way he’s offering more and more largesse.

    Finally I say: “Brian, please stop offering money, I’m not interested in it. Do you know what I did with most of the money I got from the show? I spent it on wages for a researcher and an assistant to help me with my book.”

    He stutters but manages to say I could pay more people to help me. That is true, but one Indian would-be jobbing gardener suddenly appearing in a small, rapidly being de-culturized English village is probably more than enough strangers, we can’t risk arousing any suspicions or the whole thing’d be ruined. And the nationalism thing’s at the point where I have to write up the results, me, in person, as I point out to him. Meanwhile Sheila’s looking sadly through the article, it’s really started to sink in that I’m not and never was anything even close to Lily Rose. Brian’s still blahing on but he does have to pause to breathe and at that point she says in a remarkably small voice for an ebullient, successful and very managing businesswoman: “I see what she means, Brian. None of it was really real, to her.”

    “Up to and including people’s livelihoods, apparently!” he snaps.

    “They were, that’s the only reason I did the third series,” I say firmly.

    He changes tack again and tries to persuade me that I could fit both in, they could film round me. –This after that letter detailing all the bloody stately ’omes he’s got slated for the Captain’s Daughter to visit this series.

    “I’m sorry, I really can’t fit it in. And I can’t go on living a lie, the Lily Rose crap is eating up my life,” I say, getting grim.

    But they’ll drop the publicity stuff entirely, if that’s what I want! The words “NOT PARKINSON, THOUGH” are only emblazoned on his forehead in glaring neon as he says it. It goes on for ages and ages and ages and Sheila’s almost in tears and he's promised me anything I want, the limo’ll pick me up every day, they’d do all my shots in the studio, they’ll build sets for all the stately interiors I’m supposed to be filmed against—

    “Please, Lily Rose!” says Sheila tearfully, as he at last runs down and just looks at me pathetically, showing his age, poor Brian.

    Oh, God. “I didn’t come here to strike a bargain,” I say feebly.

    They know that, but if it’s possible— Suddenly it dawns that while he gets me to do the fourth series Brian’ll start looking for a replacement for me! Of course he will, he’s not thick. They’ll get Varley to write in a younger sister, or maybe a cousin if they want to achieve a modicum of verisimilitude, and she’ll be introduced maybe two thirds of the way into the run— Yeah, of course!

    “All right,” I sigh. “I might be able to squeeze it in, if it’s only the acting, and only in the studio, and absolutely no public appearances. One day a week, max. That includes rehearsal time,” I say quickly.

    Brian’s so shook up that he agrees. –Paul’ll have fifteen fits, too bad.

    So Sheila in person types up the amended contract there and then, and they stand over me while I sign it.

    “There is one more thing,” I say as the top gets screwed back onto Brian’s Parker.

    “Yes?” he replies fearfully.

    “Try and call me Rosie,” I say heavily.

    He blinks. “Er—yes! Of course, Rosie, if that’s what you prefer. Of course!”

    And Wendy’s at last allowed to bring in a tray of coffee. When she’s tottered out on her immensely smart high heels Sheila gets out the whisky bottle and dumps about a triple into both their cups.

    “I’ll have a shot of that, thanks.”

    Numbly she awards me some whisky. The journal’s right under her nose, as they’ve both folded up and stowed away their copies of the contract. “This is awfully… clever,” she concedes dully.

    Brian’s very bright and perky, now he’s got his own way. “Of course!” he says cheerfully. “Of course! My God, when I think of all the crap you’ve had to take, L— Rosie!”

    “Yeah, like from everyone from Paul on down to good old Coralee Adams,” I agree. “Not to mention various media persons. It did a get a bit much at times, but it was interesting to see how they treated Lily Rose, y’know?”

    He winces and nods feebly.

    “So, um, what are you doing today, L— Rosie?” asks Sheila feebly.

    “Writing up the results of the correlations I ran between my subjects’ age, sex and class, on the one hand, and their opinions of Maggie Thatcher and Tony Blair. Not jointly: severally.” They nod foggily. “That’s six sets of results,” I explain clearly. They nod foggily. “That’s interesting in itself, you see, but as well, it gives me something to compare with my researcher’s results from the popular Press. Though we don’t think we’re going to isolate a cause and effect relationship, even if there is a statistically significant correlation. Nothing to show,” I elaborate, “whether the Press shapes popular opinion or follows it.”

    “Ye-es… I see,” says Brian, frowning over it. “Is this just the printed media?”

    “Um, yeah.”

    “I might be able to get you access to some TV archives,” he says blandly.

    “In return for what, Brian?”

    He grins and gets up. “I'll think of something! Well—public appearance at the BAFTA awards in pink sequins?” He winks, goes over to the door, but pauses and says: “The publicity might not be bad if it’s handled the right way, but just at this moment, I can promise you that if this little lot leaks out prematurely, I’ll sue the pants off you.”

    “I don’t want it to leak out any more than you do! Less, actually. Well, the people directly involved in the book know, of course, but the rest of my colleagues don’t.”

    “I rather thought so,” he says on a pleased note, going.

    Poor Sheila just sags in her chair and looks at me limply so I say: “Have another whisky.”

    She does, neat. “How could you?”

    “It was bloody exhausting,” I admit.

    “Not that! For God’s sake, if he’d found out earlier Brian would have sued you! And me.”

    “Yeah.”

    She tosses back the whisky. “Two strings to your bow. Lucky you,” she says drily.

    “It hasn’t actually felt like it, Sheila. Not with appearances on Parkinson where I was put down by half the theatrical establishment.”

    “Yes, well, did you have to give the whole of the Great Viewing Public the notion that you actually were as dumb as your character?”

    She’s hit the nail on the head, there!. “Um—dunno. It just sort of happened. Um, I never thought the first series would be a success, you see,” I say lamely.

    “No. I suppose I see.”

    I get up cautiously. “I am sorry, Sheila. Maybe I should’ve told you the lot. But when I thought about it, I thought maybe it’d be better if Brian could see for himself that it was just as great a surprise to you as it was to him.”

    “I’ll be grateful for that small mercy, then. –He will replace you, you know,” she says drily.

    “Yes; I suddenly realised that when he was blahing on. Only reason I agreed to carry on with it.”

    I’m at the door when she says: “So were those damned cards from the States just more camouflage?”

    “What? No!” Inexplicably I’ve gone very red. “I wrote what I thought people’d want to hear, but who doesn't?”

    “Yes. Well, Wendy was certainly thrilled to hear you’d seen Joan Collins.”

    “The tour guide was positive it was her, but we were so far away I couldn’t tell.”

    “I think I really do believe that,” she says dully. “You’d better go before I lose my temper, L— Rosie, or whatever you call yourself.”

    I’ve gone.

    No, well, it could’ve been worse, and there’s no way I’ll do more than one day a week for them.

    Rupy’s over the moon all over Doris’s sitting-room: brilliant, darling, must rush out and celebrate, blah, blah. I just wait. Eventually the noise stops and he says: “Well, aren’t you pleased? No-one’s going to lose their jobs, and you can bet your boots Brian’ll use the extra time to find a suitable replacement for you. And having it both ways: hasn’t that always been your speciality, dear?”

    It has not! “NO! I know you’ve overlooked the point, but John was expecting me to give it up!”

    “To have given, isn’t it?” he says sweetly.

    I just glare sulkily.

    “Just put it to him that you couldn't let people down,” he says soothingly.

    “That’s true, very largely. On the other hand, I was just too chicken to go ahead and thrust the blade home once Brian was offering me an out.”

    After a moment he says limply: “Yes, I see. But aren’t most people’s motives very mixed at the best of times, Rosie, darling?”

    Miss Winslow tactfully went out to the kitchen when I started shouting at him. Now she comes back with a tray of tea and pipes hopefully: “That’s true, dear! And John’s a very understanding man, isn’t he?”

    “I s’pose,” I admit dully, “that he’s far too intelligent not to be understanding, Doris. Though I know a lot of very bright people never manage it,” I concede, thinking of Mark Rutherford and wincing. “But the thing is, although objectively he knows that other people aren’t as brave or as straightforward as he is, affectively the concept ‘chicken’ is one he’s incapable of relating to.”

    “Buster might have got that, dear, but I certainly didn’t!” says Rupy promptly.

    Of course he did, the bloody poseur.

    “Yes, you did, dear, now don’t pretend,” says Doris severely.

    See?

    And we sit down and have a cup of tea and some nice biscuits, even though it’s not strictly speaking teatime, in fact getting on towards dinnertime. And I start to feel slightly better and admit under stern interrogation that I did forget to have lunch—again—because by the time I got to the uni I was running so late that I just sat down and plunged myself into— Even Buster’s looking at me reproachfully.

    Then Doris says firmly that it’d be best to get it over with, and hands me the phone, one of those semi-portable ones, it’s got a sort of rest that’s plugged into the wall and you can carry the receiver bit round the flat with you but it’s not a real mobile: they were very popular in Blighty just before mobiles got going and from the way Doris tells it, British Telecom managed to flood the market— Never mind. It is quite handy, if you’re a retired person like Doris that’s at home a lot. She and Rupy and Buster go out into the kitchen to do the washing up. After a moment Buster comes back, since no-one’s opening the fridge, and paws at my leg. So I help him onto my knee. Mmm, he’s nice and warm and solid. I ring John.

    “Haworth here.” Every time he answers I go totally weak: my knees start to wobble and my throat closes up—y’know? Just as well I’m sitting down.

    “Hi, John. It’s me,” I croak.

    “Hullo, Rosie, darling. Just let me take this in the other room, would you, sweetheart?” I can hear him excusing himself and other voices in the background. Then he comes back on the line. “That’s better! How are you, Rosie?”

    “All right. Um, I could ring back later if it’s not convenient.”

    “Of course it’s convenient! Well, very opportune, actually: it’s giving them time to express their feelings.”

    “Right, and after they’ve let it all hang out you’ll go back and take charge of the meeting and settle everything the way you were going to in the first place.”

    “Something like that!” he says with a laugh.

    “I have done an awful lot of small group dynamics in the past few months,” I remind him.

    “I know that, and thank God the FBI undoubtedly sweeps this place with ’orrid regularity! I’d hate to find I was one of your subjects!”

    My God, where is he? I don’t ask, I’m too gutless to. Talking of which— “Um, I rung up to tell you something.”

    There’s a pause that I didn’t mean to be there. “Yes?” he says nicely.

    “Um, well, I mighta let you get the impression that I’d already told Brian to shove the show.”

    Another pause that wasn’t meant to happen and he takes the chance to say into it: “You may have thought you did, yes.”

    Yeah, right. “I thought you weren’t convinced. Anyway, I had a meeting with him and Sheila this morning and, um, they were very upset. And eventually I let them talk me into doing the part for the fourth series, but no publicity stuff at all. And no travelling, they’ll shoot all my stuff in the studio, and I’ve tied them down to one day a week. In writing.”

    “That doesn’t sound too bad. Not that one day a week in writing will mean much to Mitchell, will it?”

    He’s waiting for an answer, so I admit: “Not actually, no. I’ll have to stick to my guns—I suppose it’ll do me good. But really, it was all the public appearance crap that was eating into my time. I’m pretty sure I can manage it.”

    “Mm-hm. How’s the research?”

    “Really good. The Prof. himself had a look at the demographic groupings the other day and said they were very appropriate.”

    “Good.”

    This time he’s deliberately letting the pause happen.

    “I know it wasn’t what I said I’d do, but, um… If I’m not doing any publicity crap, can we still be together when you come home?” I end in a very small voice. Not what I meant to say at all, so I dunno why it just came out.

    After an appreciable pause, this time, he says very carefully: “Rosie, my darling, in no way did I intend for your giving up the acting to be any sort of test. Do you understand? Not of your affection for me, and God knows, not of your character.”

    “Yeah. It only felt like it, but.” –He loathes that strange piece of the Australian vernacular, and I admit it’s terrifically lower-class even back home where no-one admits publicly that we have classes except the two composed of the rich and the rest. Only sometimes it’s the only way to express what I mean. I’ve never been able to find out where it comes from and even the so-called experts in the so-called Department of Linguistics back home had no idea.

    “Darling, I can see that, but possibly there were some feelings of guilt that contributed to that impression?”

    “Only more recently, I think. It felt like it in the first place because I know that I’m quite a devious character that’s spent so long hiding parts of herself from everybody she knows—different parts, depending on the person—that I find it really hard, no, virtually impossible, to be totally honest with anybody. While you’re honest to the bone,” I end glumly.

    “Er… I try to be. As much as is humanly possible,” he admits cautiously.

    “There you are, you see, John! Only a person who was would ever say that!”

    “I don’t think so,” he says in a puzzled voice.

    “Yes, QED. Like, you’ve just proved it. Anyway, I’ve told you,” I end flatly.

    “Yes; thank you, Rosie. And I’m trying to tell you that I wasn’t testing you. And of course we can be together when I get back. In fact, would you like to come and live in the cottage?”

    “Um, like, live with you?” I croak.

    “Yes,” he says with a smile in his voice. “I think that’s the technical expression.”

    “Yes,” I say flatly.

    “Is that a Yes, you will?” –Still smiling.

    “Of course it is! Um, but it might be a bit hard to work out, um, logistically.”

    “If I reply to that, darling, the FBI and all the buggers whose bugs they didn’t find in their last sweep will quite possibly assume I’m giving away Top Secrets,” he says primly.

    Now, folks, in the first place he said “buggers” intentionally, in the good old Old English sense of the word, not the sense the cretinous Yanks have lately tried to assign to it; and in the second place he’s taking the Mick, not only out of the FBI, by no means: he thinks it’s a terrific joke that the little woman used the word “logistically,” you see; and in the third place the FBI and them other buggers have undoubtedly got the sort of bugs that pick up both ends of a telephone conversation in the room they’ve bugged. Added to which, has he unscrewed his mobile lately and checked it for small removable parts? So I reply genially: “You can drop that, you bugger, they’ll all have the sort of bugs that pick up telephone waves anyway, and in the second place I knew the word ‘logistics’ long before I ever met you, John Haworth!”

    “Yes? Well, I’m very glad you’ve agreed, and I’m sure we can work out the practicalities of it. Perhaps keep on the London flat as a pied à terre?”

    “A what? Oh, I know. I never heard anybody say that before, I’ve only read it in books,” I admit numbly.

    “Pommy books?” he says sweetly.

    “What else! Um, the picture of the flat is a bit complicated, actually, John. Um, well, there’s Rupy, too, only I didn’t mean that.”

    He takes a deep breath. “Is there anything in your life that isn’t a bit complicated, Rosie?”

    No, but there’s at least one thing that could be really, really simple and it isn’t my fault that it’s not! I don’t say it because (a) I’m too chicken and (b) I don’t want to make the situation worse and (c) I’m terrified he’ll say he’s not interested in marrying me—geddit? Yeah, thought you had.

    “Probably not, but it always seems quite simple to start with. Um, the flat’s not Joanie’s, you see, not even her lease, it’s a sub-let from her actor mate that went to California yonks back. And I think maybe sub-leasing’s not allowed, in that building.”

    “But you’ve never asked because you don’t want to know,” he concludes drily. “So what is your arrangement with Rupy?”

    “Officially we each pay half, only I’m earning so much more than him that it didn’t seem fair. Um, so we split the expenses down the middle, like the electricity and the gas, and the phone bills except for long-distance, and at the moment I’m paying two thirds of the rent.”

    “And this is on a weekly basis, is it?”

    “No, they come in— If you mean have we got anything in writing, of course we haven’t!”

    “Mm. And how much longer— Let me rephrase that. Do you have any idea how long the actual lessee’s lease has to run?”

    “No.” There’s silence from the other end so after a while I ask fearfully: “Are you wild?”

    “Mm? No, of course not!” he says in astonishment. “Just thinking. Rosie, are you all right? You sound odd—breathless.”

    The nong: I’m always breathless when I’m talking to— Oh! “I’ve got Buster on my knee, I think you can hear him panting.” (Feebly).

    “I see. So you’ve got him today, have you?” he says, you can hear him smiling like anything.

    “No, I’m down at Miss Winslow’s— Oh, Jesus! I’m ringing you on her phone!”

    “Give me the number, quick, and I’ll ring you back.”

    Numbly I give him the number and we ring off. My God, how much will that little lot’ve cost? And she’ll never let me pay her back, she's far too nice to let me… What an inconsiderate toad!

    I hug Buster fiercely, scowling, waiting for the phone to ring… Blast! I bounce up, still hugging him, and hurtle over to the little pie-crust telephone table and really hang up. It rings immediately. “’Lo?” I gasp.

    “It’s me,” he says mildly.

    “Yeah, sorry, John, it’s one of those funny phones that ya can walk around with and I never hung up properly!” I gasp.

    “Yes. Sit down, darling, get your breath. Or is it only Buster, still?”

    “No, ’s’me!” I totter back to the sofa. “Go on,” I say weakly.

    He’s worked out exactly what to do about the flat and it all sounds terrifically sensible, only of course if he takes over the lease with those megabucks he reckons he’s got stowed away, (a) that’ll leave Joanie without a base to fall back on if she breaks up with Seve and (b) it’ll leave her actor friend without a base to fall back on if the bottom falls out of his California career. Which it may well do, how much call is there in Hollywood for eccentric middle-aged butlers with English accents, outside of The Nanny, and outside of real life where all the Hollywood trendies want one? To make it worse he isn’t really middle-aged, he's only the same age as Joanie, so make that English butlers playing a good ten years over their actual age— “Eh?”

    “Don’t you think?” he repeats.

    “Ye-eah… Well, if it’s what Joanie and her friend both want to do, John. The thing is, she’ll be very tempted if you offer her a lump sum, because she didn’t have any capital to put into the bar, and Seve had to get a gigantic mortgage. Only then she won’t have anything.”

    He points out that she’ll have her equity in the bar and I don’t point out that that’ll only happen if the admittedly gorgeous and admittedly currently besotted Seve lets a mere female own anything in her own name. Because let’s not forget that Spain’s one of the most hidebound, repressive, unliberated countries of the Western world. He tells me he can hear me thinking all this and says calmly as anything that he’ll have a word with Seve. I gulp, transatlantic. “Will you really? Thanks, John!”

    “I liked both of them very much,” he says mildly, “but that apart, if it’s important to you, you cuckoo, it’s important to m— Now, darling, don’t bawl!”

    I’m bawling transatlantic, the tears are dropping onto poor Buster, he’s trying to lick my chin. Being called “you cuckoo” just casually, like that, by John Haworth is a huge step forward in our relationship, even more so than being asked to come and live with him in his cottage.

    “We’ll sort it all out,” he promises as I sniff and gulp.

    “You will, you mean.”

    “Ye-es… Is that bad?” he says cautiously.

    “No. ’S’wonderful,” I gulp, forgetting all about Women’s Lib and Equality and all that other modernist crap I thought I believed in.

    “Good! –Must go, darling, letting them stew any longer would be ill-advised.”

    “Right: ya don’t want a palace coup. Um, maybe Rupy might like to board with Doris, he’s been staying with her for a few days.”

    “That’s promising! Take care, darling. Bye for now.”

    “Yeah, bye-bye, John.”

    “Replace it on its stand!” he says with a laugh in his voice.

    “Oh—right.”

    “Love you, Rosie! Bye!” He’s hung up before I can say anything, not that I can say anything, I don’t seem to be able to breathe at all. Telling me he loves me when the FBI are recording every word? Crikey.

    I manage to stagger over to the telephone table and hang up properly, still hugging Buster, and then I stagger back to the sofa and fall back against the cushions and he tries to lick off the tears and so I try not to bawl…

    After quite some time Rupy comes in and says cautiously: “All right?”

    “Yeah, he wasn’t cross, and he wants me to live with him in the cottage.”

    “There you are then, darling!” he cries joyously.

    “Yeah,” I admit feebly, grinning feebly. “Only I blahed on for ages transatlantic before I remembered it was Doris’s phone and got him to ring me back.”

    “She won’t mind. So, fancy going out for a meal? We thought, something French-ish? That place we took Kate and Jim to, remember? Doris’d like to try it.”

    So we do that. Rupy’s looking incredibly svelte in a brand-new slim-cut cocoa-brown suit that he bought with his Commander money, over a shot-silk cocoa-brown and maroon shirt, the effect’s surprisingly good, with a plain silk tie in a just deeper cocoa-brown, the effect’s surprisingly good, and Miss Winslow’s in her best navy-blue winter coat, severe in cut but very much brightened by a big bunch of blue silk chrysanths on the shoulder. It’s a very chilly night so she also wears her good winter hat. It’s not unlike the good summer one in style, but made of royal blue felt, with loops of felt and dark blue ribbon, not flowers. I break down and wear the black Marilyn suit over a new pale pink jumper from J.C. Penney’s in LA, a very fine knit, not wool, wholly washable, with just the odd sequin attached to it here and there, and a scooped neck. Bridget and Salli thought maybe a size larger but the scooped neck on that was indecently low on me. But I already I knew I’m not a standard size in anything. We ring Bridget and give her the good news and arrange to meet her there and when we do, find she’s in her charcoal grey slim-cut suit with a plain grey top under it instead of her red American Christmas blouse—but then, you can’t have everything and remain human and still breathing, can you?

    The food is actually better, it’s not just the effect of being without Aunty Kate, they’ve got a new chef. And a lovely time is had by all.

    “Hey, Rupy?” I say, writing on the phone pad when we’re finally back in the flat. “How do you pronounce that?”—He’s decided to come home right away, Buster’s been trying to sleep on his bed and Doris was getting quite jealous.—I hand him the pad.

    He looks at it suspiciously but says: “P’yaid ah tair.”

    “I mighta known he’d have it right,” I admit limply.

    “Is he looking for one?” –No flies on him.

    “Well, he thinks we’d need one, because of my university work. I couldn’t commute from the cottage on a daily basis.”

    “What about the patter of tiny feet?”

    “Look, he’s only asked me to share the cottage!”

    “No need to shout. You know as well as I do that it’s the thin end of the wedge. So long as you don’t blot your copybook, a ring for the third finger of the left hand and the patter of tiny feet will follow as night the day. –Well?”

    “Um—well, I hope so. Only we aren’t at that stage, yet.”

    “My bet is by next Christmas,” he says thoughtfully.

    “Stop it, you’re getting me all worked up in anticipation, and it may never happen!”

    He looks at me tolerantly but says: “Very well then, pied à terre. What’s wrong with this flat? –I have got my own flat,” he reminds me. “And I’d never be able to swing this place on my own.”

    “Right,” I agree, sagging.

    “So, tell him to go ahead and get it all signed, sealed and delivered.”

    “Um—ye-ah… What about Joanie’s friend, though?”

    “Darling, Josh doesn’t want the dump, he’s only been hanging onto the lease because of Joanie! He’s got that lovely place in Santa Monica!”

    “Was that him?” I croak feebly.

    “Yes! Who did you think it was?”

    “Um, dunno. He didn’t look like a butler.”

    Tolerantly he tells me that Joshua McGuinness hasn’t done the butler thing for ages, he’s into the smoothly evil businessman or smoothly evil world dominator or smoothly evil serial killer thing, now. I must have seen him in that last— I nod groggily. ’Course I did, only I never realised it was him. “See?” he says kindly. “So tell John, no impediments. Mind you, Josh’ll hold out for megabucks, he’s like that. Think it’s a ninety-nine year lease or something. Anyway, megabucks.”

    I nod feebly.

    “Go to bed and sleep on it, dear,” he advises kindly. “And don’t bother to think up some convincing lie for the family, this time round: just tell them the truth.”

    I never— No, well, they do sort of know about John; well, they know I was in America over Christmas with… Boy, does he know me well, or does he know me well? “All right, Sigmund,” I agree feebly.

    “Big hug,” he says kindly.

    So we have a big hug and turn in. Oddly enough I sleep like a log.

    What with John wanting me to live with him and calling me “you cuckoo” and working approx. fourteen hours a day, I haven’t had time to think, really, so as it’s the day of the interview with Posh-Voice Lady from The Observer I’ll have to go. I’m in my working gear so I check that I did remember to scrape my hair back with buckets of gel this morning, put Rupy’s plain glass horn-rims on my nose, and go. The girl at the reception desk looks right through me, so my disguise is working, all right. The fact that the pale green anorak is now distinctly grey round the edges helps. It’s washable, so my mean streak inherited from Mum’s pioneering ancestors, or more specifically from Grandma, has prevented me just handing it over to Raewyn and Sally to dry-clean. Eventually she says that Mr Something will see me now and I stumble to my feet, croaking that I thought I was gonna see a lady? No, the appointment is with Mr Something. Through there. I stumble through there… There’s a big office that looks a bit like the one in All The President’s Men, but no-one seems to be frantic. Of course, they wouldn’t: it’s a weekly. That’s not where I have to go: I have to go down here…

    It’s an office with a big desk and three people in it, two men and a lady, and the man behind the desk gets up and holds out a meaty hand: “Dr Marshall? Thanks so much for coming”—blah, blah. The other man’s a photographer and the lady is of course Posh-Voice Lady. So they sit me down and group themselves conveniently in the Opposition seats, and start to tell me how fascinating my chapter was. They’ve got a proof copy of the book plus and a folder of notes and eventually Mr Something—I still haven’t got it, think it was a Polish name, I’m terrible at those—tells me what quals I’ve got. I do know all that, so I don’t say anything. Posh-Voice Lady says so I’m an Australian? I know that, too, but she seems to expect an answer, so after a bit I say: “Yes.” The photographer tells me kindly that their sports photographer who went out for the Olympics thought Sydney was such a lovely city.

    “It's got a lovely setting, yeah,” I agree. “Um, sorry: I do read The Observer, but I didn't get what you do,” I say to Mr Something.

    He’s the Features Editor, and they’d like to do a Feature on me, to go with the excerpt, and Julia (Posh-Voice Lady) is the person who’ll actually write it. With my permission, of course, smile, smile.

    “It depends what you want to put in it,” I say flatly.

    They exchange glances and after an incredible amount of verbal camouflage incorporating the information (Posh-Voice Julia) that they didn’t expect me to be so young and their readers will be so interested, and it’s wonderful to see a young woman who’s successful in her career—this is what John would call the best butter, I think—the Features Editor admits that of course the article would have so much more punch if I could tell them what the series actually was. They’d be able to make it a whole half-page!

    “With pic,” adds the photographer quickly.

    “Of course.”

    “Oh,” I lie sadly. “I can't tell you that, it’s against professional ethics. You know, like doctors or the confessional. I thought you were interested in the actual research, I’ve brought along some more notes for you…” Looking very sad, I quickly open my briefcase and produce a great bundle of notes before they can tell me not to bother. Mark has okayed this, not that there’s much that this lot will find of interest.

    Perhaps Julia and I would like to talk it over? No, but I lie, and let Julia lead me off to a smaller office, with the photographer in tow. Once we get there he asks me to take my glasses off. I do, but squint and blink horribly so he says I’d better put them back on. Quickly I tell Julia about my nationalism study, not pausing and avoiding eye contact as much as is possible without being rudely obvious. And produce another big sheaf of notes, this time covered with an “Executive Summary.” Her face brightens, anything pre-digested she can cope with, and she reads it through and tells me it sounds fascinating. Then she outs with a pad and pen and asks if I mind if she takes notes. I haven’t said she can do the interview, yet, but I let her. She asks me a lot of fatuous questions, most of which can be answered at least five ways, so half the time I just say what I figure she wants to hear. Meantime the photographer is squatting and hopping and leaning and bouncing and telling me to look that way or this way but I hardly notice that, I’m so used to it as Lily Rose.

    Eventually it’s over, not without fifteen further attempts to get the name of the series out of me, and she takes me out to the lift in person. Their lifts are slow, and if I don’t mind: she has got another appointment— Gee, I don’t mind at all. And she heads back towards her office. And I heave a sigh of relief because needless to say once I’d got here I was on tenterhooks that they were gonna recognise me as Lily Rose Rayne even though I was being very Australian and rather coarser than a nice Posh-Voice Julia Observer lady thought was nayce. And I take the horn-rims off, they’re pressing on my nose, and because funnily enough my head feels rather hot, what with all that and their centrally heated offices, run my hand through the dried, gelled-back curls. And just as I’m realising I shouldn’t of done that, they always spring up madly if given the slightest encouragement, the other lift door opens, coming up, and a girl who looks like a secretary steps out and gasps: “Lily Rose Rayne!”

    And their receptionist knocks a pile of folders off her desk, and Julia, who hasn’t yet reached the door that leads to her office, turns round with a gasp and cries: “My God! It is! No wonder you seemed familiar!”

    At which point you can fairly say that the S. has hit the F.