Chapter Nine

If Alice had been in on my return, I know I’d have broken and told her everything. Instead she’s out, so I retreat to bed with our ‘Sex and the City’ box set and comfort myself with the fact that all four girls ultimately found happiness. The comfort’s fairly fleeting as the harsh truth that they’re fictional characters hits home. Uptown in the real world I’m trying to work out if I’m duty bound to tell Zelda, or if I can find a solution myself and save her the stress.

I spend the night tossing and turning, going round the different mental rat-runs my current situation affords me. Come five thirty a.m. I look like a banshee, complete with dark-ringed eyes and fright-wig hair. Luckily the lack of sleep gives me a full forty-five minutes to plaster myself in make-up and construct a vaguely attractive outfit. There are no night-time texts from Charles, but one from Suzanne asking me to find her first thing in the production office. Welcome to Tuesday…

I catch her off guard, having a fag out of the window and sucking up the first of the hundreds of cups of black coffee she needs to get her through each day. The last thirty years have passed in a life-obliterating blur of production: I wouldn’t be surprised if her poor, beleaguered liver thinks we’re still living under Jim Callaghan.

‘There you are!’ she rasps, covertly stubbing her cigarette out on the window sill. ‘Talk me through the disaster that was yesterday, Lulu. I’m all ears.’

She fixes me with a steely gaze, leaving me feeling like I’m trapped with a chain-smoking headmistress. Suzanne’s particularly malicious style of man management is to stay silent, ensuring you create enough verbal rope to hang yourself with. I’m swinging from the scaffold in no time, making a hopelessly babbling attempt to blame the puny budget without sounding like a responsibility-shirking whinger.

‘Can I be frank?’ she asks eventually.

What would happen if I just said no?

‘Yes, of course.’

‘You’re a hard worker, Lulu, always have been, but I’m not sure you’re one of life’s leaders. I wasn’t convinced you had the experience for this, but Zelda promised me she’d be there to catch you. Now I’m feeling like you’ve both let me down.’

This is exactly what I was dreading. It looks like I’m going under and I’m taking Zelda with me. But as I think it, I’m filled with a tidal wave of resolve. I’ve put too much into the job to let this happen. If that self-serving little twat Tarquin can survive, then so can I.

‘The choice of fabric was entirely my mistake. Zelda’s been working so hard on the outfits for Lady Agatha that she has given me way more free rein than normal.’ I’ve bust a gut on those dresses, poring over books in the British Library and trawling the V&A for inspiration.

‘I can’t fault her on those costumes, they’ve got that classic Zelda magic. That’s why I hired her for this job, because she delivers that kind of look whatever the money’s like.’

It’s so unfair. I’ve poured my heart and soul into this and I can’t even take a scrap of the credit. I grit my teeth and continue to shower praise on Zelda, promising Suzanne that I will defer to her wise counsel throughout the rest of the job.

‘You’ve got an unexpected fan,’ says Suzanne, cutting straight across me. ‘Charles called me last night, begging me to be lenient.’

‘Oh?’ I squeak. ‘What did he say?’

‘That you’d been incredibly professional throughout, and that he wasn’t going to hold a grudge.’

‘Bless Charles!’ I say before I can help myself.

‘Don’t get too cocky, Lulu. The man clearly loathes Tarquin, which just makes you the lesser of the two evils. I’ve got a whole production to run here. It’s not up to him who I hire and fire.’

‘I promise you that from here on in I’ll be so much more careful –’

She waves her hand dismissively. ‘Stop apologizing, Lulu, it’s getting boring.’

There’s an interminable pause, during which she stares out of the window, taking the odd moody puff on her fag. Is she really going to give me the boot?

‘I’m not impressed, not impressed at all. If it wasn’t for the fact I’ve been promised normal service will resume in two weeks, you’d be out on your arse.’

‘Normal service?’

‘Yes, when Zelda’s back! Do you two not even communicate with each other?’

‘Of course we –’

‘We’ll organize a second unit pick-up for the shot and hide the cost in the contingency. Hopefully we can just about get away with it. Now go out there and get on with it.’

She shoos me out of her office, slamming the door behind me. A fortnight? The woman’s deluded, still running on the timetable that Zelda made up when she forced me into the hot seat. There’s no way I can keep all this under wraps.

‘Zelda, I need you,’ I say, getting her answering machine yet again. ‘I need to know how you are. Nothing’s the same without you…’

‘All right, all right,’ she says, snatching up the receiver. ‘No wonder you work in drama!’

An hour later I’m on the doorstep, bunch of flowers in one hand, notebook in the other. I’m a hornet’s nest of ambivalence, longing to see her and dreading the worst. Oh well, at least it gives me an excuse to avoid having to go to set, a place more fraught with danger than the Gaza Strip.

The door creaks open to reveal a sight I never expected to witness: Zelda in jeans. Elaborate frocks with billowing scarves are her stock-in-trade. Her deep rose lipstick is also absent and even her red fingernails seem to have gone by the wayside.

‘Don’t look at me like that, Lulu. It’s dress-down Tuesday, or whatever it is they call it.’

‘You look nice… natural. You just don’t look like, well, look like you,’ I say.

She steps aside to let me in. ‘Well, I don’t need the armour, do I?’

Does she have a point? Is how we look only about who witnesses us, or is it part of who we are, regardless? If a mascara wand falls in the forest and there’s no one to hear it, does it make a sound?

Once we’re in the kitchen, I give her the huge bouquet I bought en route. ‘Thank you,’ she says, before muttering waspishly that she’s not an invalid. Then we’re plunged into an awkward pause, something I can barely remember happening in the decade we’ve worked together. Unable to bear it any longer, I tear off into an account of my crimes like a yappy little terrier chasing a stick.

‘… It’s just the money, Zelda, it’s unworkable,’ I say, monologue complete. Zelda’s remained silent throughout, inscrutably absorbing the information with none of her trademark bossy remonstration. I almost long for an explosion, for her to chastise me horribly and then offer me absolution. If we can go down that well-worn path then, then… then life is still the same.

‘You are coming back soon, aren’t you?’ I add, sounding like a whiny toddler. ‘You promised me you were coming back.’

She unexpectedly steps towards me, putting an arm around my shoulders.

‘Not immediately, darling, no.’

‘When then?’ I ask her, voice rising, wishing I could be more of a grown-up than this.

‘Soon I hope. When all this is over and done with.’

‘All what? Just be straight with me, Zelda, please.’

And finally we get to the bottom of what’s wrong. It’s early stage kidney cancer: an elusive shadow on a CT scan heralding a barrage of radiotherapy and drugs. I weep silently, squeezing her hand as she breezes on.

‘Honestly, darling, you’d think it’d be the lungs that’d be giving way, all the Gauloises I’ve chugged through over the years. I’ve never given a moment’s thought to my kidneys. They sound like some pointless little organ one might use in a gruesome recipe.’

She takes in my snotty red face and gives me a warm smile.

‘Lulu, don’t take on so. All is not lost. There’s a treatment plan in place: I can assure you I’ve got no intention of shuffling off my mortal coil any time soon.’

‘What can I do, Zelda?’ I wail. ‘Just tell me what I can do.’

‘You can do exactly what you’re doing now, which is running that show the best way you can. Well, not exactly what you’re doing now – you could afford to be just a little bit less hopeless.’

‘I know I need to get my act together. But what if you were wrong? What if I’m just not ready? If you want to replace me, I won’t complain.’

‘Oh no, missy, you’re not getting out of it that easily. I stand by everything I said. It’s your time now. You need to grip up and plough on.’ She continues, more softly, ‘I’m sorry if I’ve gone to ground. It’s all proved rather a lot to absorb.’ She looks away then grabs my notebook. ‘There’s work to do here!’

We go through the upcoming costumes one by one, and before long Zelda’s natural enthusiasm is flooding back. She grabs her coloured pens, sketching vigorously as she puffs on a fag.

‘Should you…’ I start tentatively.

‘Should I, would I, could I? Please allow me some small pleasure, Lulu. Why are your generation so bloody abstemious?’

I know better than to take her on, concentrating instead on absorbing as much of her brilliance as I can. Despite being allergic to a low budget, she manages to come up with various ingenious solutions, as well as suggesting some fantastic innovations for the costumes I’ve already designed. Before I know it, it’s 7 o’clock and Zelda’s packing me off before Michael gets home.

‘All hell will break loose if he finds I’ve been working.’

‘Is he around at the moment? Is he looking after you?’

‘He’s being a total trooper,’ confirms Zelda. ‘Makes you think… I hope you’re getting out there, Lulu. Time’s ticking on.’

If anyone else referred so blatantly to my biological clock, I’d be furious, but I know Zelda means it kindly.

‘Have you met anyone?’ she continues, casting a beady glance.

‘Um, maybe,’ I say, lost for words. ‘It’s complicated.’

‘Sexy complicated or fucking disastrous?’

Luckily I’m saved by the sound of Michael’s key in the lock. I kiss hello and goodbye, before beating a hasty retreat to the car. It could be worse, I think to myself, much worse. Zelda’s still working, albeit less noisily, and the doctors seem confident she’ll make a full recovery. I set off for home reasonably cheered, keen to see Alice before she charges out on her date with Richard. If I can drip feed the reality of him perhaps she won’t get swept away on a tidal wave of romantic delusion. When Alice falls, she falls as hard as Humpty Dumpty, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to put her back together again.

My phone beeps at the lights and I take a sneaky look at it, my brush with the law having failed to cure my bad driving habits. Oh God, I so shouldn’t have gone there. It’s Charles:

What to do? Of course every fibre of my being longs to see him, but I can’t for the life of me see what it would achieve. He’s someone else’s husband; if he wants an affair, he’s by definition a bad egg, but if he’s letting me down gently then my logic-defying heart will plunge into despair. Both ends of the lollipop are fuzzy and yet I can’t resist reaching out for it.

He suggests a pub somewhere off the Portobello Road, which at first glance looks kind of seedy. However, as it’s Notting Hill the wine list is knee deep in Châteauneuf du Pape. I nurse a small, affordable glass of house white while I wait for him, conflicting feelings turning me inside out. Where can this possibly be going – am I mad to be giving it this much emotional energy? For all I know this might be a tired old routine he trots out on every job: a ‘what goes on tour, stays on tour’ perk to break up the inevitable monotony of family life.

He arrives fifteen minutes late, tousled and stressed.

‘Christ, sorry. How utterly ungentlemanly of me. Have you been plagued by horny old lechers?’

‘No, no, I haven’t,’ I say, unable to indulge the banter. I need to know what it is he wants to say.

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ he says.

‘Thanks.’ I’m not going to give too much away. I don’t want to be the latest in a long line of foolish females, falling for the oldest line in the book.

He gives one of those melting smiles. ‘Drink? Lord knows I need one.’

‘Just a small one, I’m driving.’ He gives me a persuasive look and my emotional barricade starts to collapse. ‘I mean it, a tiny one,’ I say, grinning dopily like a faithful Labrador whose owner’s just returned from a round-the-world trip. He goes to the bar and I look at his retreating back, wondering what the truth of him is. I feel stupidly close to him and yet I hardly know him. I couldn’t even tell you what drink he’s going to come back with – if it’s a flaming sambuca it might put an entirely different complexion on events. No – he returns with a glass of wine and a perfectly sensible double whisky, chinking glasses and then less sensibly downing his drink in one.

‘I’m going to get another one,’ he says. ‘Apologies, I promise I don’t behave like George Best every Tuesday evening.’

When he comes back I notice that his hand is shaking. Could he be every bit as nervous as me? My stupid little heart starts tentatively hoping that he’s effected a miracle. He’d been on the verge of divorce anyway and my arrival is just a bizarre coincidence. He’s left already and none of it’s my fault. He’s here to tell me that his wife’s completely OK, the children are untraumatized and he’s late because he stopped to collect the keys for our rose-bowered cottage.

‘Lulu?’

‘Sorry, did you say something?’

‘I was asking how you are? If you’re feeling better today?’

‘A little bit, yes. I’m still so mortified…’

He moves his hand to cover mine. ‘Enough of that, really. It’s forgotten.’

There’s a pause, during which I concentrate on the feeling of skin on skin. He must think I’m some kind of mute freak, but I simply don’t know what to say. Every conversational avenue feels so hazardous that all I can do is wait for him to make the leap. He squeezes my hand then intertwines his fingers with mine.

‘I know I’ve only just arrived, but I’m afraid it will have to be a flying visit. I told Bea I was going to my fencing lesson.’

‘Oh, OK.’ She’s got a name now. She’s real and, thanks to me, her husband is bare-facedly lying to her. How can this be good?

‘Lulu, I don’t know what to say to you. All I want to do right now is leave this pub, take you home and spend the night with you. And the next day with you and the one after that. And the fact that I can’t is driving me crazy. It’s ridiculous – I hardly know you and I’m thinking about you for pretty much every waking moment.’

‘Me too,’ I say, as I try to take on board what he’s saying. Is he sincere? Can he feel this much on so little? It’s like he reads my mind.

‘I know you won’t believe me, but I’ve never done this before. You’ve just come along and moved all the pieces around in my head.’

‘Charles…’

He’s agitated now, his handsome face contorted with emotion.

‘I married the wrong person and I’ve known that for a long time. But to extricate myself is going to damage too many people. I wish this could be the start of something, because if it was, my hunch is it would be pretty special. But how can it be?’

I will myself not to cry, but it’s beyond me. I’ve always cried easily, a weakness that Alice used to ruthlessly exploit in her meaner moments. The day she gave my Ballerina Sindy a short back and sides was like Niagara.

‘I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want to hurt your family,’ I say, tears starting to fall. ‘How I feel about you is totally illogical and I wish more than anything that I didn’t.’

‘You’re utterly captivating… you know that, don’t you?’

If I’m honest, I don’t. I’ve never felt like I’ve particularly captivated any of the men I’ve been with, but nor am I sure they’ve captivated me. Why is it now, with the one man I can’t have, I finally feel the surge of emotion that’s always eluded me?

‘Oh Christ, this is awful,’ says Charles, looking stricken.

‘I know,’ I say, squeezing his hand.

‘It’s like being infected by some dreadful virus with no known antidote.’

‘What, like Ebola?’ I say, smiling despite myself.

‘No, more like typhoid,’ he says, smiling back. ‘Or some dreadful Victorian thing that gives one weeping sores and mania.’

‘Lucky old us!’ I say, determined to get a grip. The situation is hopeless: I’ve got to face it down. ‘Charles, I should go.’

‘I know, I know we’ve got to go,’ he says, enfolding me in a hug. I settle back into his chest, convinced there’s a space that’s been specifically designed for my raw, wet face. ‘Why did I have to meet you now?’ he mutters into my hair.

Why indeed? Why does life have to be so unfair? Does fate give with one hand and take with the other? Was Mum’s premature death meant to be somehow compensated for by the fact that I’d been gifted a twin? I pull away, scared that if he pulls away first I’ll feel like my heart’s been yanked out by its bloody roots.

‘This is me, leaving,’ I say.

‘I’ll walk you to your car.’

‘No, don’t. I can’t…’

I can’t bear it if you don’t kiss me and I can’t bear it if you do. I stumble out, not able to say goodbye or even look back. I drive a little way, then pull up until my sobs have subsided. At least it’s over now. We both know where we stand. I’ll try my best to avoid him at work and concentrate on letting the jagged pain recede. I’ve done grief, I know how it works, and – although it’s a cliché – time really is the greatest healer.

As I drive through West London I try to force myself to look on the bright side. I couldn’t live with the guilt of being a mistress, or potentially becoming the agent of a family’s destruction. At least this way it’s over before it began. When I pull up, I’m surprised to see that the living-room light is on. Alice is sat on the sofa, dolled up to the nines and mechanically eating Pringles.

‘What’s the deal with your date?’ I ask her.

‘Are you OK?’ she asks immediately.

I bat it away. ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. What happened to the date?’

‘It’s just a late date. It’s like I’m Carrie Bradshaw, minxing it around Manhattan.’ Alice looks slightly unconvinced by her own spin on the situation. ‘He’s got to shut up the off-licence before we can go out, so I’m meeting him at ten thirty.’

‘Is he not picking you up?’

‘Don’t start, Lulu. He’s right on the high street so it’ll be much quicker.’

‘OK, OK. You look lovely by the way.’

‘Do I?’ she asks uncertainly.

‘Yes!’ I tell her. ‘How could you not when you’re my double?’

‘Indeed!’ she says, looking reassured. ‘Now tell me everything.’

Everything’s a bridge too far. Instead I rattle through my monumental screw-up and Charles’s defence of my honour, judiciously leaving out all references to the postscript.

‘No wonder you look stressed,’ says Alice, and I think how she doesn’t know the half of it. ‘He sounds like a real sweetheart, he must really like you.’

‘Yes, yes. I think he does,’ I say stoically, determined to keep a lid on it.

‘Your job’s a living, breathing nightmare,’ she continues. ‘I hope Ali’s gonna provide some light relief.’

Ali. Oh God: the idea of going on a date with someone else is truly horrific. But I can’t see any way of cancelling it without rousing Alice and Gareth’s suspicions. Besides, the act of going will send a big fat message to my psyche that I’m no longer pining for the impossible.

‘Mm, let’s hope so,’ I say non-committally, rootling in my bag to find Alice some lipstick. Soon she’s out of the door, leaving me to give myself a stern, Zelda-like pep talk. It’s O-V-E-R over, like a country and western song sung by a short blonde woman with too much make-up. Time to put the madness of it all behind me and sign up for a Charles-free future. A few weeks ago I didn’t even know him: how hard can it be?