‘No thanks,’ Dan told Lenny, when he was offered theatre, ‘I can’t afford it. Are you crazy? I’m still recovering from last year’s extended holiday in LA.’ But that was before he was sent Nightfall. Nightfall was different. It was a new play, by a young Geordie writer, and when Dan read it, adrenalin coursed through his body, and the only reason he could see to turn it down was fear.
‘What do you think?’ He stood before Jemma, outlining for her the hours and the paltry fee, but before she could make any comment, he reminded her it was a short run, only eight weeks, and more importantly, it was the most exciting play he’d read in years.
‘Really?’ She looked worried. ‘It will be hard, you being out every night, but at least it’s in London, and you’ll be home during the day. You could take Honey to school sometimes, now she’s finally settled back in, and maybe on Fridays you could take the twins to that new music class up by the hospital. It’s hysterical, there’s this big silk parachute and they all throw their teddies into the middle and we fling them up . . .’
‘I don’t know how I’ll do it, though,’ Dan was too anxious to listen. ‘I’m in every scene, and we’ve only got four weeks’ rehearsal, it doesn’t start for two weeks, but even so, my character’s from Newcastle, and the accent, fuck, Geordie is well known for being virtually impossible. You should read it, it’s brilliant. Very dark, the guy I play is a total maniac, and he’s never off stage, literally, not for a minute.’
‘But that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, what you hated so much about being at the Bush was waiting backstage, bored sick, with not enough to do.’
‘True.’ Dan could feel his heart thumping. If he said yes, he’d have to start work on the accent, now, today.
‘And presumably you get previews. You wouldn’t have to open straight into a press night?’
The words ‘press night’ left a sheen of sweat over Dan’s entire body. ‘I haven’t felt like this about anything for ages.’
Jemma took hold of both his hands. ‘Then you’ll have to do it,’ she told him. ‘We’ll manage. You’ll see.’
The rehearsals were agonising. The lines refused to stick. There were just too many of them, and the accent was even more impossible than he’d feared. But the hardest thing to grapple with was the play itself. What had seemed electrifying on first reading, once investigated, broken down and dissected, appeared to be a dark and unremitting rant. The playwright sat silent at the back of the rehearsal room, refusing to allow them to alter a word, not even capitulating when Dan, in a fit of frustration, kicked over a chair. In desperation Dan went back to his old drama college notes, flicking through the scrawl of Silvio’s equations, imagining the old, disappointed man, squatting frog-like in his lair. Nothing comes from Nothing, he could hear him now, his mouth turned down, his body drooping. Close. Flexible. Adrift. What character type was this man Gary? And he experimented with slashes and punches, dabs and flicks until he made even himself laugh. In an attempt to regain calm he sat up half the night and wrote out his back story, inspired in part by the writer’s haunted presence, and something he’d let slip in one unguarded moment – the fact that all his stories had something personal at their core. The rest Dan invented. Gary’s childhood, the cruelty inflicted on him by his mother, his father’s absence, the discovery of his half-brother, also named Gary, who’d spent his life in care.
The director, on the other hand, was a jovial man. He regaled them with anecdotes of past theatrical successes, interspersed with stories of his own suffering at a minor public school, and often left it to Dan and his fellow actors – a nervous man called Brian, and a sweet young girl from Newcastle, who winced occasionally when his accent went awry – to call a halt to the informal chatting and get on with rehearsals. The first thing they did was break the play into sections, mark out the light and shade, form an arc to hold the rhythm of the drama, but the harder they worked, the clearer it seemed to Dan that the whole piece was nothing more than a bleak series of sermons – on fear, death, family dysfunction, abuse, cruelty and revenge. A two-hour ordeal that no one, surely, would want to pay good money to sit through. Sometimes he’d drift into a bleak fantasy, imagining the reviews, the critics mourning the loss of two precious hours of their lives, or, if by some miracle they liked the play, railing against the fact that a southerner like Dan Linden had been let loose on such an important northern role. ‘Why did they cast me?’ he asked the dialect coach, as they grappled with glottal stops and vowels, and he cursed himself for being vain enough to be swayed by his agent’s insistence on his versatility. In future, he promised himself, when his heart started pounding he would recognise it for what it was – terror, not excitement. A signal to say no.
The night of the first preview Jemma sent him flowers. From the size of the bouquet, Dan worried she’d used up half his weekly wage. You’ll be brilliant, the card said, as you always are. Big Love, from your biggest fan. But that morning she’d joked that if he thought he was nervous, he should think of her. She’d be the one hyperventilating in the middle row, and as he kissed her goodbye he felt her heart flutter against his, and he’d pulled away, anxious that she’d make him even more afraid.
‘Now,’ the director gathered them around him just before the half, ‘this is a preview, no one expects it to be perfect. So use tonight to test the play, to find your levels, and don’t forget to listen to each other, listen to the audience, find your pace.’ He paused and they all watched his face, like prisoners awaiting sentence. ‘You’re all doing fabulously. Now go out there and amaze them.’
The actors hugged. Dan and Brian, clasping each other in a manly, stiff-upper-lipped embrace. ‘My turn,’ Michelle pressed herself against Dan, her skin goosebumps in her flimsy clothes. ‘Tell me I’ll be all right?’
Dan looked at her, surprised. She had everything for nothing. Youth, beauty, a genuine Geordie accent, and anyway, she only appeared in three scenes. ‘You’ll be great,’ he told her. ‘You are great. Really.’ And she smiled at him with such gratitude that for a moment he forgot his own fear.
Dan was the first one on. He could hear the audience chatting, and he imaged Jemma sitting in the seat he’d booked for her, four rows back, a little left of centre. He’d made sure she wasn’t sitting next to Brian’s wife, he didn’t want the two of them swapping tales of night sweats and despair. Thankfully there was no one else in that he knew, at least he hoped there wasn’t, except for the dialect coach who’d promised to come and give her verdict on his accent. Dan ran over the first lines, telling himself he just had to get through to the interval, five scenes, the first one, the one he knew the best, and then four more, then three . . . He felt his courage slipping. Did he have time for one last trip to the toilet? No. The music had stopped. He hadn’t known there was music until then, and the lights must have dimmed, because the noise of chatter subsided and then stopped altogether. Right. It was all up to him to make the first move, although he imagined if he didn’t, a stage manager might appear from somewhere and push him on to the stage.
Dan laughed now, three weeks later, to think of himself, unrecognisable, as he sauntered towards the best part of his day. A week after that first preview, Nighfall had officially opened, and the next morning the first reviews came out. ‘It’s a rave,’ Lenny boomed from voicemail when he finally switched on his phone, and not long after Jemma ran upstairs with a pile of newspapers and they went through them together while Grace and Lola bounced maddeningly on the bed between them, trampling the noisy sheets of paper, flinging the loose pages into the air.
‘One brilliant one,’ Jemma smoothed them out. ‘One pretty bloody good, and one that loves you but doesn’t like the play. So still good as far as we’re concerned.’ She laughed, victorious, and kissed him, and Dan lay back, relief washing over him as she read the best passages aloud. Later, he took a bath, ate a large late breakfast and went into the theatre for notes. The atmosphere was jubilant. Bookings were already up. He had friends in almost every night, people from college, actors he’d worked with, his mother, Jemma’s parents, his great-aunt Anne.
That weekend there were more good reviews, which meant they were assured of an audience for the first month at least – London’s theatre lovers who made it their mission to see all the successful shows – and others from across the country, some even from America and Japan. The most enthusiastic among them would wait afterwards by the stage door to congratulate all three members of the cast and have them sign their programmes. Dan’s own personal followers, loyal since Rainstorm, hung back patiently, waiting for him to be free. They were an odd assortment, these fans – lone men, the occasional bobble-hatted woman, with digital cameras and photographs downloaded from the Internet, and never once did any of them mention coming to see the play.
‘You’d think they’d want to see it,’ Jemma said, ‘gaze at you for two whole hours,’ but Dan explained it wasn’t the theatre they were interested in, not even really the shows he’d done on TV, it was collecting that stimulated them, one more autograph, another photograph, it had nothing really to do with him. He took Jemma’s arm and whisked her into the bar, and he knew whatever she said, however irritable she might be that he’d not once managed to get up in time for breakfast, let alone that music class with parachutes, nothing could bring him down from the soaring, scissoring heights that he inhabited every night after the show. He knew that from then on he would be flying, his fears behind him, the knowledge he had lived through so much tragedy and survived, making him omnipotent. In the space of two hours he had laughed and fought, retched and wept. He’d attacked his cousin, the one member of his family he loved, and as a result of his subsequent remorse he’d inadvertently let slip his most guarded secret, releasing himself as he did so, making amends, and unexpectedly gaining as reward the beautiful Carina, who’d leapt, in her satin crop top, into his arms. ‘Good show tonight,’ he winked across at Michelle, and she raised her glass, luminous, the trembling of a few hours before absorbed into her blood.
They were a month into the run now, and he never wanted it to end. He felt lean and vital, had no need of the gym after the two-hour workout of the show and the adrenalin that took away his appetite, so that he existed on a late breakfast and a sandwich at five, and felt no need for anything more than that but drink. Most days he got up late, went into town for voiceovers, interviews or meetings, and when he was free he dropped in on Lenny, who always made time for a coffee, using his visit as an excuse to stand out on the fire escape and smoke. From there he would go straight to the theatre, find a café nearby to eat, mindful that from mid-afternoon onwards nothing would jeopardise the escalating intensity of his character’s mood. Sometimes he played cards with Michelle, who came in early too, and he’d listen to her lovely grating voice as she told him about her boyfriend back in Newcastle, the fights he got into, the prison sentence he was serving, suspended for six months. There was no mobile reception in the dungeon of the dressing rooms, and only one high window on to the street, and once he’d climbed the stairs to make his obligatory call to Jemma, who was always busy right then with the kids, he’d settle in for the night. There was a green room, with several battered sofas, tea and coffee provided by the theatre, a microwave, a kettle. Occasionally stage management would file in and make a cup of soup. ‘Who’s winning?’ they’d ask and it was always Michelle. ‘I’m the champion,’ she’d flex her pale arm, and she laughed so widely that her pink gums were revealed.
There were at least ten seats reserved every night for people from the business. Directors, producers, actors with influence, or so they hoped, who might phone through at the last minute and book tickets to see the play. There was hardly a night now when these seats weren’t full. Dan made it a rule never to ask who was in, but afterwards in the green room Michelle would read aloud the names, listed in a ring folder, with accompanying notes as to their reaction, gleaned in the last act when she lay unconscious on the floor. Visibly moved. Non-committal. Tears.
‘Don’t you ever worry . . .’ It was Sunday and Dan had got up late.
‘What?’ He looked at Jemma, fiercely peeling carrots for the children’s lunch.
‘That one day I might leave you?’
Dan laughed, his mouth full of toast. ‘What?’ He took a gulp of tea, and then he saw that she was struggling to hold back tears.
‘Hey,’ he reached over to her. ‘What’s up?’
‘What’s up?’ She clenched her jaw and looked out at the garden where Honey was tipping muddy cups of water over Ben’s head. ‘You’re never here. You work two hours a day, and it seems to take up twenty-four. I mean, when did you last see the children?’
‘What do you mean?’ He felt confusion rise up and numb his brain. ‘When did I last . . . I do see them. I see them all the time.’
Jemma curled her lip in disgust. ‘Like when? By the time you get up, Honey’s at school and Ben’s at nursery, and by the time I get back from dropping the twins at Sacha’s you’re usually off somewhere . . .’
‘Or at the matinée.’ He felt aggrieved.
‘Yes.’ She glared at him. ‘But only on Saturdays.’ It seemed she’d been reminded of another hurt. ‘I mean, when Honey finishes school, where are you? Don’t you think it would be nice if just once a week you could take Honey . . . well, maybe that’s asking too much . . . or at least collect her from school? Don’t you care you never see them? Don’t you miss them?’
‘But . . .’ Dan felt trapped. ‘It doesn’t feel like that. It doesn’t feel like that to me.’
‘Well, it feels like that to me.’
‘I see them on Sunday.’
‘Sure. Sunday. But be honest, Dan, even on Sunday, you’re hardly here.’
‘What do you mean? I am here. Last week . . .’ What had they done last week? All he could think of was that Saturday’s performance – not always such a good show, a weekend audience was usually made up of tourists and people who felt overly entitled to be entertained, but that night something had happened between him and Michelle. They’d screamed at each other, as they always did, but this time at the height of the row, Dan had collapsed, weeping, and Michelle had come to him, held him in her arms, cooed the lines to him that only the night before had been harsh, and at the end of the performance, when the lights had finally dimmed there was a hush so deep in the theatre that even the stage management was awed. Maybe it was true. Maybe he was getting everything he needed from his job. He looked into Jemma’s distraught face, but he couldn’t think of a single helpful thing to say.
‘The awful thing is I understand.’ It was as if she’d heard him. ‘But what do you expect me to do? Stay quiet? I’ve stayed quiet for the last six weeks and I can’t stand it for one more day.’ She looked round as if for something to slam down. ‘Never once have you made time for us. It’s as if we’re not here. I’ve even started to wonder if you’re having an affair.’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’
‘It takes the joy out of it.’ Now she’d started she couldn’t seem to stop. ‘Doing it all on my . . .’
‘Fine.’ Dan stood up. ‘Why don’t I take the kids out now? I’ll take them all out, I’ll give them lunch at the café in the park.’ He slammed his own plate down in the sink. Why couldn’t she have waited? Two more weeks, and the play would be over.
‘Well, you’d better be quick.’ Jemma abandoned the food she was making. ‘It’s nearly lunchtime now and the twins need their nap.’
Dan walked into the garden. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘We’re going out. Get your clothes on.’ He looked at Ben, his face and tummy smeared with mud, and Lola, digging in the sandpit, her nappy sodden. Where was Grace? He found her emptying out a case of CDs, sliding them one by one on to the floor. ‘Hon, where does Mummy keep those nappies?’ and Honey, imperious, busy making a mud pat on the lawn, told him they were upstairs, in the drawer with tights and socks.
‘But surely, she’s got a secret supply . . .’ He couldn’t face another glimpse of Jemma’s bitter face, and so catching hold of Lola, he wiped her down with a dishcloth, and slipped her, nappiless, into her clothes.
It was another half an hour before he managed to get them out. Where were Honey’s shoes? And the double buggy seemed to be jammed shut, so that as he wrestled it open, something snapped in the hood, leaving it hanging over to one side. Eventually they stood out on the doorstep. Dan took a deep breath and momentarily closed his eyes, and when he opened them, Ben, who’d insisted on bringing his scooter, had rushed off so fast on his small legs that Dan had to run, painfully, his head throbbing, to catch him up. ‘I’m tired,’ Ben decided when he recovered him, ‘I don’t want to scooter any more,’ and so Dan folded the unwieldy metal contraption and attempted to slide it under the buggy, banging his shin on the sharp-edged hinge as he set off again, his curse drowned out by the roar of Lola’s protestations as the scooter wheel pressed through the canvas seat into her unpadded behind. ‘Can I be carried?’ Ben asked, and Honey began protesting that if he was carried, she should be carried too. ‘No, you cannot. Either of you,’ Dan snapped, and grimly they trudged on.
Later, guilty, he let the children order their own drinks, regretting it when they chose lurid cups of colouring and crushed ice, which left their eyes popping, their mouths bright blue, and their stomachs too full to fit in more than a few messy strands of spaghetti when it finally came. And it was all for nothing. When he got home Jemma was sitting at the kitchen table, leafing furiously through the jobs vacant section of the paper, the newsprint blistered and disintegrating with her tears. ‘Why didn’t you ask me to come?’ she said. ‘The children don’t care, it’s me that misses you,’ and he held her in his arms and kissed her salty eyelids, and the sad wet bridge of her nose. ‘Hey,’ he soothed. ‘We’ll be all right. We’ll get through this. Look, why don’t you get a babysitter and come and meet me from the play?’
‘Tomorrow night?’
‘Any night. Every night.’
Jemma pressed her face into his shoulder.
‘Let’s not worry about the money. Who knows, a huge job might be just around the corner.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Who knows?’
The last two weeks of the play were sold out. People kept texting him, begging for tickets, and he arrived at the theatre earlier and earlier, pleading with box office, leaning over the counter, suggesting how they could juggle things around to free up extra seats.
We’re going to be so broke when this run ends, he worried to himself when Jemma took his advice and booked a babysitter to come in four nights a week, and he tried to push away all fears of that year’s encroaching tax bill, so out of step with what he was earning now. But after the show his worries floated away, and he was happy to see Jemma, free and single somehow, waiting in the bar. They stayed until the lights came on, pressed together on a banquette, talking over old times with friends – Hettie and Samantha, Pierre, Stuart, Kevin, even Charlie, surprisingly informative on the subject of Nell Gilby’s meteoric success. Jonathan was there, looking well, with stories of how Silvio had finally retired, and Patrick was attempting to raise money to stage a professional production of Hamlet, a regional tour and then a short run somewhere in London. ‘I’m surprised he hasn’t been in touch,’ Jonathan looked at Dan. ‘Last time I saw him it was all he talked about. Wanting to put Hamlet on again. This time with you.’
Dan swerved his eyes in Jemma’s direction.
‘Obviously,’ Jonathan continued, ‘I was hoping he’d cast me again . . . but it’s all about the investors these days, isn’t it, and my name means nothing to anyone.’ He laughed. ‘If I’m lucky I’ll get to play the Ghost.’
‘If I’m lucky I’ll get to play lords, attendants, guards and followers of Laertes.’ Stuart sighed. ‘Obviously, if he doesn’t cast Samantha.’ And even Samantha laughed.
‘I think a toast’s in order.’ Pierre was quick to change the subject. ‘To Dan and his excellent performance, here, tonight.’ And he got up to buy them all champagne.
‘Has Patrick been in touch?’ Jemma asked once they were out on the street, waiting at a bus stop.
Dan shrugged. ‘He wrote to me.’ He might as well tell her. ‘And asked if he could put my name forward, as part of the package, to raise money.’ He felt Jemma’s body cool beside his. ‘Hey, what’s the harm? He’ll never do it.’
‘You shouldn’t even have replied. He’s dangerous, really, the more I think of it . . .’
‘Shhh . . .’ Dan saw the yellow light of a cab approaching. He hailed it and bundled Jemma inside. ‘Not dangerous. Just a bitter, disappointed man.’
‘You want to do it!’ Jemma glared at him. ‘You do, admit it.’
Dan sighed. What actor hadn’t fantasised about having their name added to the immortal list of Hamlets? He might live for ever alongside Gielgud, Olivier, Sarah Bernhardt, Michael Redgrave, Jonathan Pryce, Kenneth Branagh. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t promise anything, I just said, sure, mention my name, good luck, and I never heard another thing.’
‘Strange he didn’t come and see the play, though.’ Her eyes flared. ‘Or did he?’
‘No! At least I never saw him.’
‘The terrible thing about you,’ Jemma slumped, ‘being such a bloody good actor, I never know if you’re lying.’
‘I’m not. Really. Look, if he did come,’ her compliment was warming him, ‘he probably scuttled straight off. Chances are he hated it.’
‘True. He was always hating everything. But Dan, promise you won’t do it. I couldn’t bear it, and apart from anything else, it seems wrong, like doing publicity for Pol Pot.’
‘For God’s sake,’ Dan laughed. ‘I’m not saying he wasn’t a tyrant, but don’t elevate him above his station. He was only a teeny weeny tyrant. He lied to me, he threw you out of college. He didn’t massacre our entire village.’
Jemma was silent.
Dan reached for her hand. ‘You could still try. You know that, don’t you? If you miss it, acting, I mean.’
‘No.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t miss it. Not as much as I’d miss the kids if I was ever actually employed. And anyway, how would we manage if I went on tour? But one day . . . soon, I’m going to start translating again . . . I’ve found something that might even make a good play.’
He put his arm round her. ‘Listen, I know it’s mad, but you can understand, can’t you, about Hamlet, that it was sort of gratifying to be asked?’
The taxi drew up outside their house. The windows were dark, the street was dark. For a moment Dan thought there might have been a power cut and then he remembered it was one o’clock in the morning. ‘You can jump in our cab,’ Dan told the babysitter, opening his wallet, taking out the last £20 note. ‘It’ll drop you home,’ and as Jemma disappeared upstairs to check on the children, he watched as she piled her A-level course work back into her bag. ‘What are you studying anyway?’
‘Maths, French and Economics,’ she told him. And she smiled shyly. ‘Good night.’
The front door closed with a click and the soft rumble of the taxi gathered power as it pulled out of their road. Dan listened. The house was quiet. The dense, warm quiet of small people sleeping. ‘To be or not to be,’ he murmured to himself, and, remembering he’d promised to finally get up and take Honey to school the next morning, he walked wearily upstairs.
The last matinée felt unreal. Every word rolled away from them, almost never to be said again. Occasionally they caught each other’s eyes, just a fraction out of character, and afterwards they gathered in the green room and had a picnic tea. The stage management joined them too, and they pooled the provisions they’d all brought, bread and cheese, small pots of salad, cakes, meringues and chocolate. There were tins of lemonade, and sparkling elderflower. They clinked glasses as if it was champagne.
The director looked in before the evening’s show. ‘What to say?’ He held up his hands and for once it seemed he really didn’t have anything to add. Later, in the wings, the actors hugged each other, as they had done on the first night, but now their bodies were so known they didn’t need to speak. The music faded out, the lights came on, and Dan stepped on to the stage. He felt it instantly, the audience were different. They were breathing with him, sighing, laughing, mourning the passing of every word. He caught sight of the writer, glum as ever in the house seats by the aisle, and just to rattle him, he tried something different, a little teasing dance that almost caught Brian off-guard. But Brian picked it up, mirroring him, so that when Michelle came on she was laughing, her face open, letting them know she was ready to play.
Dan avoided his dressing room during the interval, standing in the corridor, swigging water, mopping his head with a towel. He’d already torn the cards down, packed his books and blanket into bags so that it wasn’t his any longer, and he didn’t want to be reminded of this now. The audience were more sombre in the second half, as if they were heading with him to the end, or maybe just waiting to express themselves at the curtain call, which they did, standing, their raised hands clapping with all their strength. Dan’s shirt stuck to him, his heart thumped and he clasped Michelle’s fingers so hard she squealed. The audience laughed. The actors bent down for another bow, and when he raised his head, he felt as powerful as a lord.
Now he was glad he’d packed his bags. He couldn’t get out soon enough. Toothbrush, comb, iPod speakers. He grabbed the orchid Lenny had sent him, scattering earth over the stairs.
The others were waiting for him at the stage door, their bags resting up against their legs. ‘So . . .’ they looked at each other. ‘Anyone for a drink?’
But Dan knew already that Brian had to be on the set of a film in the Isle of Man first thing, and Michelle’s parents had driven down from Newcastle to take her home. ‘Stay in touch,’ they promised, and just then a man in overalls pushed past with a polystyrene rock. The shriek of drills and hammering echoed after him as the swing door swung. ‘You’d think they could have waited,’ Dan frowned, ‘before they dismantled the set.’
Another man passed by, carrying a chair. Dan’s chair. The chair he’d sunk down into only half an hour ago and cried. Brian patted him on the shoulder. ‘It’s been great.’ His forehead was creased, his face looked sorrowful, and suddenly, with no script left, all three were lost for words.
Michelle put her arms round Dan and kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘Thanks for everything,’ she said, ‘it’s been so special,’ and turning to Brian she did the same. ‘I’ll miss you.’ There were tears brimming in her eyes, and picking up her overflowing bags, she ran out through the door.
Another polystyrene rock passed by them, and Brian’s words to him were drowned out by an electric saw. In a couple of hours their set would be gone. By Monday morning the new set would be in place and the actors for the next play – a comedy – would arrive for their dress rehearsal and wander silently and strangely round it.
‘Take care,’ they shouted to each other, and unable to face a bar full of strangers, Dan headed for home.
Sunday wasn’t too bad. It was his night off anyway. But when Dan woke on Monday it was as if someone had died. Jemma nudged him. ‘Coming down for breakfast?’ she said cheerfully, but he couldn’t move. He went into town, had a coffee, dropped in on Lenny to find him uncharacteristically busy. ‘Sorry,’ he mouthed, his hand over the phone, and he went back to what sounded like some complicated high-powered negotiation.
Mid-afternoon his voiceover agent called him. ‘How would you feel . . .’ she hesitated, ‘about saying the words Erectile Dysfunction?’
‘Ummm. I’m . . .’ Dan wasn’t sure.
‘It’s going to be a big campaign.’ There was only the faintest hint of hilarity in her voice.
Dan tried out the words, just under his breath, spoken in a kindly, non-judgemental way. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘I think I’ll pass.’
‘Arthritis?’
‘Sorry?’
‘I know it’s a long shot, but they need someone young to head up an awareness campaign, but it’s got to be someone who’s actually suffering.’
‘I could pretend . . .’
‘Shame,’ his agent sighed. ‘That one really is going to be massive.’
And she promised to be in touch again soon.
That evening he sat at the table and watched the children eat. He helped Ben cut up his sausage, and wiped the ketchup whiskers from Honey’s face. He stood out in the garden with the twins while they searched for snails among the mashed, bedraggled beds, and sat on the edge of the bath as, in batches of two, they bickered and splashed. He was exhausted and it was only seven. ‘Shall we get them to bed?’ All he wanted to do was lie on the sofa and stare at the TV.
Jemma scowled. ‘If they go to bed now they’ll be up at dawn. I try and keep them going till eight.’
‘Right.’ He stood in the doorway of their bedroom and watched while Jemma hoiked their damp pink bodies into pyjamas. They laughed and slipped away from her and she chased them, padding happily after them on hands and knees, growling, miaowing and roaring until they collapsed in a slither of squeals.
Dan smiled weakly. It was as if he was watching from far away. He stood up and stretched. ‘Night then,’ he didn’t try and kiss them, fearful that they’d resist. ‘I’ll start our supper, shall I?’
‘Sure,’ Jemma looked away.
He walked into the garden and checked his phone. Nothing. Everyone in the world was giving him a day off. He scrolled down until he came to Brian. He let his finger hover over the name. No, he mustn’t. Brian would be on set, still filming, or maybe sleeping off the long drive. Just then the phone buzzed in his hand. It was Michelle.
‘Hello!’
‘What time is it?’ she asked him, laughing as she spoke.
‘Why?’ Dan glanced back inside to the kitchen clock. It was 7.42.
‘It’s the exact moment,’ she told him, ‘when we meet on stage.’
‘It is.’ He kept looking at the clock. Usually, right now, he’d be grabbing hold of her, snarling into her upturned face.
‘I miss it all so much,’ she whispered. ‘I could die.’
‘Me too,’ he sat down on the plastic step of the slide and leant into the phone. ‘So what are you up to?’
‘Nothing,’ she sighed. ‘Maybe nothing ever again for the rest of my life.’
It felt as if it was the first time that day he’d actually been alive. ‘I miss you,’ he said, and there was a small pause on the other end.
‘I miss you too.’ Her voice was thick. ‘If I came down to London . . . I mean, next week or something, do you think . . . could we meet?’
Dan looked up at the window and caught sight of Jemma, drawing the curtains. She waved at him, and then, a moment later, the four faces of his children, flushed and blinking, appeared above the sill. ‘Daddy!’ they pointed as if he were some exotic beast. ‘Dad! It’s him.’
‘Sure,’ he said, casually. ‘Why don’t we speak again in a few days?’
‘OK,’ her voice was small, confused. ‘I’ll think of you tomorrow at this time.’
‘Me too,’ he nodded, ‘7.42.’ And hurriedly he clicked off the phone.