Chapter Fourteen

Chris was gleeful.

'Constance fell in love! I predicted she'd fall in love! It's the costumes.' 

I shook my head as I scalded my lips on the too-hot tea Chris had just made - she might as well pour the water from the kettle right onto my mouth -  and ran my hand over the page of diary where Constance danced and flirted with John Wood. In candlelight.

'It's not love. It's rebound. She saw her agent in breeches and a top coat and projected all of her longing for Mr Darcy, Rochester and Nicholas Nickleby onto him. Besides, her ex-husband has shown up. This is a wide-open game.'

I don't like to suggest this of someone as worldly-wise as Chris, but I think she's a slavering romantic. 

I'm a stone-hearted cynic myself.  The fact that I urged Chris to keep reading and hoped in my deepest self that someone got kissed soon means nothing. It doesn't.  Seriously.



Malcolm, abandonning his post at the corner shop, just showed up at Fiona's country house where a fake costume drama is being filmed. Constance just said 'Fuck.' 

29 June 2010

Well this is insane. Malcolm is spending the night in one of Fiona’s out buildings with a colleague of his. NOT the pale girl from the You Go Mart, someone he works with in prison.

He volunteers once a month, speaking with Roy, another ex-offender, telling inmates how they can get their lives back on track. I forget Malcolm does this because – well. Maybe because I want to forget he ever was in prison.

He’s not ashamed.  Malcolm says prison was the best thing that ever happened to him. He found himself. And I’m not ashamed either.  Not of him. But it reminds me that if maybe I had spent more time with him, more time sharing our lives and less time on set in California, having my cheeks rouged and my chai tea sprinkled with precisely 3,157 grains of cinnamon – he wouldn’t have had to gamble for fun.

He says it was never fun.

I suppose I really have to admit that I don’t like to think about it.

But he thinks about it, regularly.

Certainly when he’s in prison. He goes with Roy, their programme is called ‘Doing Life’, all about skills you need on the outside and changing behaviour and therapy games and – what have you. Roy has done 18 years inside, on and off and is a poster boy for reform. He’s good fun, Roy. Barrel-chested, dapper. The best listener. I’m glad to see him even though this is the last place I expected to see him.

I found out after I could have done anything about it that Fiona had taken an SOS from Malcolm saying he and Roy were stranded. They were en route to a local prison, there was a ‘lock down’ – meaning some kind of security alert which could have been caused by a felt pen going missing - and they’ve been given the boot into the Wiltshire countryside. Malcolm said to Roy ‘I know someone who knows where to stay,' rang Fiona and she said ‘Stay here!’

I looked at her, not knowing whether to kick her or laugh hysterically, seeing that I had the distinct impression yesterday afternoon that I was developing feelings for John Wood. My god who knew he could write like that? And having an ex-husband around is not conducive to fanning the flames of romance although I don’t even know if John Wood is single. Bollocks. Is John Wood single? How could I have failed to find that out?

All this was galloping across my mind as Fiona explained the presence of Malcolm and Roy (both of whom had been collared by Jennifer to appear as extras in the film, it was too impossible for words), batting her eyes, trying to look innocent. We were whispering in the vestibule at the back of kitchen where they used to store game, apparently, and where a herd of bicycles was slowly disintegrating into rust. She raised her hands.

‘A place to stay! I couldn’t say no. Malcolm is my friend, too, and his colleague is charming.’

‘We won’t get back together, you know.’

‘Who won’t what?’

‘We won’t. Malcolm and I. Re-u-nite.’ I emphasised each syllable to make sure she knew I knew what she was thinking.

‘Heavens, of course not.  What a thought. He’s lost weight, though, hasn’t he? I suspect that’s because she doesn’t feed him.’

‘Malcolm is 52. He feeds himself.’

‘Children age you. It won’t last.’

I put on my fierce voice.

‘Fiona. I respect and appreciate your loyalty to me, it’s heart-warming, but there is absolutely no chance whatsoever in this time-space reality that Malcolm and I will get back together. I would like your solemn promise that you will do nothing to facilitate such a fool-hardy prospect. He is happy, I am happy. Yes?’

She frowned at me. She chewed her lip. She gazed out over the mealy grass of the untended back lawn.

'What??' I shouted.

'You know, you would be more convincing if you didn't sound as though you were reciting dialogue.'

She ran her finger over the blades of secateurs forged for loping the heads off rhinos or felling gnarled oaks in a single clip. I watched, torn between fearing for her hands and feeling huge offense.

It's not that I haven't heard this accusation before. I just hadn't expected it from her. I adopted my cold tone.

'I don't have the pleasure of understanding you.'

'See? Even that. You sound like Noel Coward. Or  Jane Austen. Can't you just come down to earth?'

She hardly dared raise her eyes to mine, but even in my state of fury and indignation I respected her saying what she thought. A thousand self-justifications sprung to mind - most potent of which is Yes I've Heard This Before And It Must Be True But I Don't Know What To Do About It when the door to the bike room swung open. Malcolm stood, leaning on the handle.

‘Con, I need you.’

He was wearing snug-fitting breeches, a muslin shirt open at the neck. I could see further evidence he’d been working out. I cleared my throat.

‘Kkkrrrgghh,’ I said.

‘What?’ asked Fiona.

‘Coming,’ I said. And shoved her into the bikes.