‘Have they always known? From when they were tiny? Didn’t they ever believe in Father Christmas?’
‘Of course they did. Until Alex told Chloe it was all a story, when she was seven.’
‘So up to the age of seven Chloe thought her mum and dad never gave her anything for Christmas? She never had that lovely feeling that her mum and dad had been thinking about what she’d like most in the world because you loved her so much? She thought it was all the kindness of a bearded stranger who gives presents to absolutely everyone?’
‘For God’s sake, Laura. It’s not a big deal.’
‘You’re wrong. You’re terribly wrong. Father Christmas gives little presents. His elves make them, in their workshops. Elves don’t make iPod speakers.’
‘Well, it looks like they’re getting nothing from anyone this Christmas. Father Christmas has been porking his lady elves, and Mother Christmas has lost the plot.’
She looks down at her hands. She’s been tugging at the rings on her right hand with the fingers of her left hand.
‘Oh, God,’ she says. Suddenly she sounds heartbroken.
‘I’m really sorry,’ says Laura. She wants to help, but she doesn’t know how. ‘I think you’re just going to have to tough this one out.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘He says he wants to stay, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you want him to stay?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘So maybe it’ll kind of settle down after a while.’
‘That’s what he thinks. But it’ll never be the same again. It wasn’t broken before. It’s broken now.’
From somewhere deep in the Food Hall the store music starts to play Christmas carols. All round them is seasonal cheer. The glitter of tinsel, the gleam of decorator’s snow.
‘It’s a rotten time to do this to me,’ says Belinda. ‘When all the world’s playing happy families.’
‘But at least he doesn’t want to leave you.’
‘Yes. I know. I should be grateful, but I’m not. What I really want is for him to stay and for me to go.’
‘Then do it,’ says Laura. ‘Go.’
Belinda looks up in surprise.
‘You’re not meant to say that.’
‘If you really want to leave Tom, then do it. Alex and Chloe are old enough to cope.’
‘Oh. Do you think I should?’
‘I don’t know, Belinda. You’d have to work out where you’d live. How much money you’d have.’
Belinda looks frightened. ‘I’m no good on my own.’
‘So run off with Kenny.’
‘Laura! You’re so bad! Why are you saying this?’
‘Well,’ says Laura slowly. ‘Life’s never going to be perfect. All you can do is choose between the options you’ve got. None of them gives you everything. So you take a good long look and you make your choice and you go with it.’
Belinda fixes Laura with her limpid blue eyes.
‘Can I tell you what I’m really thinking?’ she says.
‘I know what you’re thinking.’
‘What am I thinking?’
‘You’re thinking, Maybe Kenny’s the one. Maybe when we meet we’ll both know it. Maybe true passion will come back into my life. Maybe my life’s about to change for ever.’
‘Yes,’ she says, lips trembling, hardly breathing. ‘How did you know?’
‘Because it’s what we all think,’ says Laura.
‘Even you?’
‘Even me. I had my chance. A few years back.’
She can see him now, the boyfriend who came back into her life. The sudden intoxicating view of how everything could be different.
‘Did you go for it?’ says Belinda, eyes bright. ‘Did you, Laura? Did you?’
‘No.’
‘Do you wish you had?’
‘We did have one kiss,’ says Laura, smiling at the memory. ‘But it turned out that was enough.’
29
Alan has determined that today is the day he gets back to work on his screenplay. First he clears his emails. Then he reads through his notes. Then he reads, or rather skips, through the most recent draft. Then he goes and has a pee. Then he makes himself a mug of coffee. Then, back in front of his computer screen he sets up a new Final Draft document and fills in the title page: SHEPHERD by Alan Strachan, Third Revision, December 16, 2008.
Then the phone rings.
It’s Jane Langridge.
‘Alan. I’m in LA. It’s the middle of the night here, but I couldn’t wait to call you. I’ve been with Nancy at the studio all day. They’re all buzzing about Shepherd over here. Your ears must be burning.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘The thing is this, Alan. Do you follow the numbers?’
‘The numbers?’
‘I’ll give you the headlines. Dramas are tanking. Frost/Nixon, The Reader, Doubt, all dead on arrival. The recession is changing the mood music. People want to be cheered up. And guess what looks like being the big winner over Christmas? Marley and Me.’
‘Marley and Me?’
‘It’s a movie about a dog. A dog, Alan. Fox are tracking a final BO of over two hundred million.’
And it’s a movie about a dog.
‘So have you started on the next pass yet, Alan?’
‘Just about to.’
‘Fabulous. Hold the front page. Breaking news. Got a pencil?’
‘Yes, Jane. I have a pencil.’
‘Our movie is going to take your brilliant idea and run with it. It was you who made us love the dog, Alan. Now we want you to go all the way. Follow your heart. Put the dog at the heart of the picture.’
‘At the heart of the picture.’
‘That’s what Nancy wants. A story about a dog who goes into the world of investment banking and beats the pros at their own game.’
‘The dog becomes a banker?’
‘You got it. The dog makes a fortune. No one can believe it’s the dog, of course. They all think the shepherd’s doing it.’
‘So does the dog talk?’
‘Good question. The jury’s still out on that. What I want you to do is punch out a treatment for the new approach. Work out the best way to go. Maybe the dog talks. Maybe it works the keyboard with its nose. Your call.’
‘A treatment.’
‘Sure. We don’t want you wasting your valuable time on another full draft. And change the title. It’s not about the shepherd any more, it’s about the dog. What’s the dog called?’
‘Maggie.’
‘No, that’s no good. Has to be a boy dog. Get it a new name. And Alan – make the story funny. Loveable and funny. That’s where the market is now. Call the dog Harvey. No, that was the rabbit, wasn’t it? You’ll think of something.’
Then she’s gone.
Alan sits in his little study staring at the screen, breathing slow controlled breaths. A treatment: that means no money, or very little. He should ring his agent. She’ll tell him not to touch it. But what happens then? They get another writer. Better to hang on in.
A talking dog who becomes an investment banker. That’s insane, isn’t it?
As ever after contact with the movie world he feels that he’s slipped into a parallel universe. His own judgement is no longer to be trusted. His perception of reality is faulty.
I can’t do this. I can’t I can’t I can’t—
He becomes aware of dull thuds from the top floor. The plumber building the new bathroom. The plumber who plays the violin. All day he does sound constructive work, and in the evening he makes music. That’s perfect, isn’t it? No one says to him, I’ve changed my mind, rebuild this bathroom as a battleship. His world has a simple solidity to it, a respect for craftsmanship, a beginning and an end. What am I doing in this windless ocean of dreams, this Sargasso Sea where all my talent lies becalmed?
He hears light footsteps past his door on the stairs. Liz is out at work. Of course! Alice is home.
&
nbsp; He jumps up at once and follows her to her room.
‘Sorry,’ she says as he looks round the door. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
‘You didn’t. I’ve just had my producer on the phone from LA. I need someone to tell me I’m not going mad. It’s you or the plumber.’
She’s sitting at her little desk in front of her laptop. One glance tells him she’s writing a story. Just the shape of the text on the screen. But now she shuts the lid and gives him a sweet grin.
‘Let’s hear it, then.’
He tells her, making it so funny in the telling that she rocks with laughter.
‘Are they all mad?’ he says, feeling much better. ‘Or am I?’
‘Of course they’re mad.’
‘But what if they’re right? Suppose they get someone to write their dog banker story and it makes a fortune?’
‘Listen,’ she says. ‘It’s all very simple. Can you write this story they want?’
‘No. How? What do I know about talking dogs? I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
‘There you are, then. You have to pull out. They’ve changed the terms of the contract, not you. They have to pay you for what you’ve done so far.’
Alan looks at her in awe.
‘You are so together, Alice.’
‘If only.’
Cas appears at the door. By some sixth sense he has intuited that Alan has left his keyboard.
‘Can I go on your computer, Dad?’
‘Only for a moment, Cas. I’ll be back at work in five minutes.’
‘Okay.’
He scampers off down the stairs.
‘Though Christ knows what work,’ he says.
‘Write a play,’ says Alice.
‘What about?’
‘About how people get together. I’d come and see that.’
‘Like, a love story?’
‘Yes. A story about someone who loves someone, and – surprise ending – he loves her back.’
‘Oh, Alice.’
‘I’m not being bitter or anything. I’d just really like to know how it’s done.’
‘Who would the main characters be?’
She meets his smiling gaze with another wry grin. We understand each other, he thinks, Alice and me. Always have.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘She’s a quiet girl, clever, reads too much, not pretty but not a fright or anything. He’s a sweet boy, nothing special, but he’s funny and he knows what she’s talking about, which in her experience is seriously rare. They get on really well together so long as they’re just friends, but she wants more, she wants to have a proper boyfriend, and she wouldn’t mind if it was him. Only there’s a twist. He fancies someone else. A girl who’s sexy and gorgeous and everything she isn’t.’
‘But the idea is that they end up together.’
‘That’s the general idea. But how?’
‘Well,’ says Alan, playing along with the game. ‘Maybe he goes after the sexy girl and she rejects him in some humiliating way and he realizes he really loves the plain girl best.’
‘Would you believe that?’
‘No, not really.’
‘So how does the plain girl ever get a boyfriend?’
‘Alice. Darling. You’re not plain.’
She shakes her head, a glisten of tears in her eyes.
‘No,’ she says, ‘no. Stick with the story. This is a story about a plain girl.’
‘When you love someone they stop being plain.’
‘Yes. Fine.’ She’s almost angry now. ‘So how does that happen?’
Alan doesn’t answer.
‘See? No happy ending. It’s a tragedy.’
But Alan is thinking. He wants to be as honest as he knows how.
‘I’ll tell you a different version of the story,’ he says. He speaks slowly, frowning, piecing together the ideas as they form. ‘This is from the boy’s point of view, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be much the same for girls. To start with the boy wants a girlfriend so that he can be like everyone else. So of course he wants the kind of girlfriend the other boys want. He wants her to be beautiful. But then as he gets older he starts to find out how tough life is. There turn out to be far more compromises than he thought. The right job doesn’t come along, so he goes for a half-right job. The right girl doesn’t come along, so he starts seeing a half-right girl. He doesn’t care so much any more about what other boys think. He wants someone he can get along with. Someone he can be himself with. Someone who’ll be good to him and not expect him to be perfect. He spends time with her, and she makes him happy. The more she makes him happy, the more he loves her. The more he loves her, the more beautiful she gets. Then one day he wakes up and realizes that every little detail about her has become beautiful to him. Because she’s the one he loves. Because she makes him happy. So he ends up with a beautiful girl after all.’
Alice’s eyes shine as she listens.
‘Is that it?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Oh, boy. Some story.’
‘Would you believe it?’
‘How long does all this take?’
‘A few years.’
‘Is there any way of speeding things up? Like, show him a video reconstruction of the next ten years of his life and say, Let’s skip all that and get on with loving each other now?’
‘If only.’ A sudden thought pops into his head. ‘That’s how to rewrite A Christmas Carol for today, isn’t it? Have Scrooge be shown the ghosts of girlfriends past – all his failed relationships – so that he gets so scared of his lonely future he gets on with it and asks his current girlfriend to marry him.’
‘There you go. Write it.’
‘Better than a sheepdog banker.’
Steps on the stairs. The plumber at the door in stockinged feet.
‘I’ll be off now, if that’s okay.’
‘Yes, of course,’ says Alan.
‘I’m going over to your sister. Fix her shower.’
‘Oh, thank you. I hope it’s not too much bother.’
‘Just a pump needs replacing.’
He pads off down the stairs.
‘Oh, God,’ says Alan. ‘Cas has been on the computer all this time. I hate those bloody computer games.’
‘They won’t hurt him.’
‘He should be out in the woods playing with his little friends.’
‘How about me? Should I be out in the woods playing with my little friends?’
‘You were writing a story when I came in. I saw.’
‘Just tinkering.’
‘Can I see it?’
‘Not yet.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘It’s about a boy like Cas. It’s about finding out for the first time that there’s unhappiness in the world.’
‘Oh, Alice.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m okay. As much as anyone’s ever okay.’
Alan finds it hard. She’s so brave, so beautiful.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘I want you to be happy far more than I want to be happy myself. I don’t mind about life being hard for me. But I don’t want it to be hard for you.’
‘It’s not so hard. Though sometimes I do wish it could be that tiny little bit easier.’
‘Give me a hug, then.’
They hug.
‘I’ll go and boot Cas off the computer.’
Cas turns out not to be playing video games at all. He’s on Google.
‘I’m doing a secret,’ he says.
‘What sort of secret?’ says Alan.
‘Not telling.’
He’s closed the screen windows he had open.
‘Well,’ says Alan, ‘I need to get back to work.’
‘That’s okay. I’ve finished.’
He scoops some sheets of paper from the printer tray. For a moment Alan is amazed that a child of six can search Google and print out the results. But then he thinks, it’s not exactly difficult.
‘Cas, I really ought to know what you’ve
been looking at. There’s bad stuff on the Internet.’
‘Trains,’ says Cas.
‘Trains? What for?’
‘I like trains.’
With that he runs off to his room, clutching his printouts. Alan wonders if he’s found out yet about unhappiness in the world. It seems unlikely. He still believes firmly in Father Christmas.
30
All the time that Matt Early is working on the shower pump he’s aware of Meg’s movements in the other parts of the flat. The conversion of the Victorian rooms has been shoddily done, the divider walls are poorly insulated, the door frames poorly fitted. The sounds of the television come through clearly from the lounge. Then after the television is switched off he hears the gush of the kettle being filled in the little kitchen, then the hiss as it boils, then the tinkle of music from a radio.
In a little while the job will be done. He will gather up his tools, exchange a few brief words with Meg, and leave. In those short minutes he must somehow establish a means of seeing her again. How? This is a problem more insuperable than any he has ever encountered. It seems to Matt to be a literal impossibility. Even given the slight connection formed between them on his last visit, when she had wept in his presence, he can see no way forward.
In a well-run universe, where true feelings are truly expressed, he would say to her, ‘I like you, and I’d like to know you better.’ He would suggest they share a pot of tea, or go for a walk on the Downs, or some such safe and innocent pastime. It would be nothing grand, and might lead to nothing, but it might just as easily be a beginning to everything. And yet it could not be done. He might want it with all his heart, and she might welcome it, but it was not going to happen.
In his practical way he puzzles over why this should be so, as he tightens the bolts on the refitted pump. If he wants a pint of milk he goes into a shop and asks for it. A perfect stranger takes his money and gives him the carton. How is it different if he were to ask Meg to join him on a walk?
The answer is brutally plain. You ask for a pint of milk and that’s it, no other hopes are concealed beneath the request. Ask a young woman to walk out with you and you might as well be saying, Do you love me? Will you marry me? Shall we set up house together and have children?
Well, maybe not quite that far; but the first move contains all that is to come, or all that will not come, which is even more daunting. Lifelong joy or lifelong loneliness lie tightly twined in those few brief words. The burden is too great, the risk too terrible. Matt knows he dare not make the move.