‘Really?’ Jemma’s eyes lit up. ‘New York?’
‘The play starts rehearsing in April,’ Dan squinted as if he could see April, just there, in the future, ‘then runs to the end of July.’
‘Broadway . . .’ Jemma seized a small pink sweatshirt from the ironing pile and pressed down on it so hard that it scorched.
‘It might be Off Broadway,’ Dan wasn’t sure.
‘Oh but Dan, can you imagine? Four months in New York! I knew good things would happen this millennium. I’m so in the mood for an adventure.’
‘They’re seeing other people too.’
‘Who else?’
‘Five or six others, I’m not sure.’ His agent, Lenny, had told him, but he decided not to say. It seemed just possible that by refusing to name the competition he could ignore them, for a while at least. ‘Scarlett Johansson is coming over to read with everyone next week.’
‘Scarlett Johansson! Is that really true?’
‘Yes.’ Dan had been as excited as Jemma a moment before, but now, faced with her elation, the reality hit him – he probably wouldn’t get the job. ‘I wonder,’ his faith was wavering. ‘Is Scarlett Johansson actually right? I mean, when did she ever do any theatre?’
‘Of course she hasn’t done any theatre.’ Jemma folded a miniature pair of pants. ‘If she’d been touring round the country for the last two years she’d never have been cast. These days they need a film star in the leading role to fill a Broadway theatre.’
Dan opened the fridge. There was a white net tiara sitting on the middle shelf. He reached past it and pulled out the jam. ‘They’re sending a copy of the play over this afternoon.’
‘Who’s it by? Is it a new play?’
‘It’s adapted from a film. Set during the Napoleonic era. Did you know there are more books about Napoleon than any other man that ever lived?’
‘Wasn’t he a midget?’
‘No! Honestly, Jemma. Anyway, the lead part is a sort of Iago figure, a sexy, devious character, of any height, who Josephine takes for a lover only weeks after she and Napoleon are married.’
Jemma swung herself up on to the worktop. ‘Sexy and devious, eh?’ She slid the fingers of one hand around his neck, distracting him as he rifled through the bread bin. ‘That doesn’t sound like you.’
Dan laughed. ‘It’s been on once before. With John Malkovich and Julianne Moore, but now it’s being directed by a Brit, and there’s some deal with Equity which means they have to cast the male lead from here.’
He pulled out a loaf of bread and sniffed it. ‘Is this old?’ He turned it over and found a ring of green mould furring on its base.
‘Sorry.’ Jemma eased it from his hand and slung it into the bin. ‘But just think, Dan. If you got it we could rent an apartment. Take Honey to Central Park. Eat out in diners. Even breakfast. Maybe we could get somewhere downtown. Near Ruthie. I’ll ask her. I’ll ring her now. No, wait, it’s five in the morning. Just think . . . New York City in the spring!’
‘Shhh. Calm down. I might not get it.’
‘But you might,’ Jemma bent forward and pressed her face against his. ‘They’d be lucky to have you. Who could be better?’ She nuzzled him. ‘Who?’
‘You know what?’ Dan wished he hadn’t said the words ‘John Malkovich’ because now how would he ever get that menacing, pigeon-toed performance out of his head. ‘If we do go, we should stay in Brooklyn. Steve lives there now, you remember Steve? He says it’s a real community. And it’s cheaper. Look, if this job happens there’s not going to be a lot of money in it.’
‘Brooklyn?’ Jemma frowned. Dan could see her, attempting to adjust to the sudden relocation when, a moment ago, she’d been skipping through the air vents and glamour of Manhattan. ‘I’ve never been to Brooklyn.’
‘Nor me.’ Dan looked out of the side window, at their neighbour’s extension, the pipes that ran along the wall, the green stains from the overflow, where, the year before, and the year before that, fallen leaves had blocked the guttering. In Brooklyn they’d have a Brownstone, overhung by a pale-leafed maple, and every afternoon when he set off for the theatre he’d wave to the neighbours out on their stoop, all making good new beginnings in the bright, new city of New York.
‘Right,’ Jemma shook herself free. ‘I’d better get Honey from nursery. Do you think you’ll have to do a French accent?’
‘No!’ Dan was appalled. ‘I’m sure I won’t. Well, no one’s mentioned it. I can’t see Scarlett Johansson doing . . .’
‘I’m meeting Mel in the park.’ She’d stopped listening to him. ‘We’ll give the kids lunch in the café if it’s not too cold. Fancy it?’
Dan sat down at the table. ‘I’ll probably work, or go to the gym,’ but once Jemma’s coat, her gloves and scarf had been pulled on, the empty pushchair wrested from the hall, the door slammed shut, Dan opened the newspaper and bent his mind to the crossword as if solving its fabricated puzzles was the most pressing task in the world.
The play didn’t arrive till late that afternoon. It was delivered by a courier who stared, unspeaking, at Dan through the window of his motorcycle helmet. A courier had once smiled and said how much he’d enjoyed his performance in Rainstorm, a series he’d done when he’d first left college. ‘Fucking tops,’ he’d grinned, before handing him a pen, but today this man said nothing, simply watched him, balefully, while Dan printed his name and signed. Several years ago, in a horrible moment of awkwardness, he’d thought he recognised Gabriel Grant peering out at him through the visor, but when Dan moved towards him, arm outstretched, the man stepped back, alarmed. ‘Sorry . . .’ Dan murmured, ‘I thought . . .’ But he didn’t go on.
Dan used to play football with Gabriel Grant. Gabe had organised a group of actors, boys from RADA and Central, a couple from Mountview, most who’d been out of college a year or two, some who’d started working, others who never had. They met up on Saturday afternoons on Hampstead Heath, just above the running track, and Gabriel had even brought along a sack of coloured bibs. Friends and girlfriends came out in support, standing along the sidelines, chatting, but the first time he played, Jemma arrived with Honey, a baby in a sling, just as Gil Bisham was being carried off the field on a stretcher. ‘What happened?’ she gasped, still blowsy and easily moved to tears, and Dan told her it was just bad luck, an accident, Gil would be all right.
‘Poor kid,’ Gabriel joined them, ‘what a disaster. He starts rehearsing at the National next week, and it looks like his leg is broken.’
Jemma’s eyes spilt over with tears.
‘Hey, it’s all right,’ Dan reached for her hand, but she bent her head as a wave of sobbing convulsed her.
‘Hey, he’ll get there, there’ll be other jobs,’ and Dan had to arc his body around the pouch of their baby in order to console her.
The next time Dan played, two actors got into a fight, mocking and lashing out at each other, and then just before the finish Gabriel had tackled him so ferociously he fell and sprained his thumb. ‘What are you lot trying to prove,’ Jemma had shouted furiously from the sidelines. ‘Scared someone might think you’re a bunch of poofs?’ and she’d stomped back to the car.
It was a year at least since Dan’s last game. He missed it, the camaraderie, the drink afterwards in the pub, but if occasionally he got a call, he was either working, or he wasn’t working, and either way, he couldn’t take the risk.
Dan carried the thick brown envelope upstairs to the bedroom, away from the noise of Honey, beating her spoon on the table, from Jemma, singing raucously to a tape ‘. . . Heads, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes . . .’ as she prepared Honey’s tea.
He could feel his heart beating as he slid out the sheaf of photocopied paper and flipped open the first page. Battle to the Heart. He ran his eyes down the list of characters. Josephine de Beauharnais. Albine de Montholon. Pierre Augereau. A flush of fear washed over him as he attempted to pronounce their names. ‘Jem!’ he shouted. He’d been brought up in Epping, for God’s sake. He’d left school with three O levels and not one of them was French. He’d only ever seen France from a train, except once when he’d spent a weekend there – Jemma didn’t know this – she must never know – but he’d gone to Paris with Charlie in the first term of their third year. It had been her idea. She’d whispered the plan to him one wintry afternoon while they were rehearsing a play by Pinter. ‘Research,’ she’d mouthed – they were illicit lovers in Betrayal – and so as not to lose momentum they’d taken the Tube straight to Victoria, the train to Dover, and boarded a ferry. They’d arrived late and waited in the station while a woman from the tourist board rang round for a hotel. ‘Non,’ she kept shaking her head, but eventually she found them a room, far out towards the end of the Metro, somewhere cheap, and drab, but still French, and they’d drunk brandy and fucked, and when they’d finished fucking, some time around the afternoon of the next day, unable to think of anything else to do, or say, they’d almost smoked themselves to death. ‘Jem!’ he called again, but it was clear she couldn’t hear.
Dan remembered Charlie’s long, strong, caramel-coloured body, the ridge of her breastbone, the beautiful jut of her hip. He could almost feel her silky lips, fluted as a sea shell, and the tickle of her kinked hair.
Josephine de Beauharnais. Dan sighed, speaking the French name with more confidence. Pauline Bellisle Foures. He imagined these women, their sloping shoulders and white necks, the soft folds of their pleated dresses, thinking of nothing except sex. His character, Hippolyte Charles, was described as charming, dangerous, capable of damage. ‘That’s me,’ Dan determined, his blood stirring, ‘that’s my man.’ And he closed his eyes and conjured up the figure of Josephine, who’d given herself so willingly to him.
‘DAN!’ Jemma was calling him now.
He risked another minute before answering. ‘What is it?’
The tape must have started again. ‘Heads, shoulders . . .’ He could hear Honey screaming. ‘Don’t worry.’ Her voice trailed up the stairs. ‘Forget it.’
‘Really?’ He listened hard, and when she didn’t answer he flipped over the page.
The casting director had marked three scenes. He read them through, taking all the parts, his spirits lifting and plummeting again every time he stumbled on the lines. Damn. He needed Jemma to read with him, but that wouldn’t be possible now until Honey was in bed. He traipsed down to the landing and put his head round the bathroom door. ‘How you doing?’ Honey’s hair had been lathered up into a beehive and she was standing, admiring herself in the mirror. Sponge letters were scattered on the floor, pools of water lay in quivering puddles. Jemma looked up from where she was crouching, her arms on the edge of the bath. ‘Come in, love, and shut the door, you’re letting in a draught.’ Dan stepped forward and felt cold water seep into the toe of his sock. ‘Do you know,’ he said, retreating, ‘I think I’ll just nip out for a drink, I’ll be back in a bit. Do you want me to get anything?’
Jemma looked at him, affronted, as if this was the first time. Dan ignored her, easing the door shut as the tip of Honey’s hairstyle drooped over and spiked her in the eye. ‘I won’t be long,’ he called, over a prolonged wail of agony, and guiltily, he ran down the stairs.
It’s not as if I can do anything to help, he shrugged as he slunk away. Honey had taken against him recently, and unless Jemma was actually out of the house, she wouldn’t even allow him to read her a story. ‘Mummy read it!’ her lip would quiver if he even suggested such a thing, and she’d rush to Jemma, and curl like a cat around her legs.
‘Hey. Sweetheart. I’m really good at telling stories, that’s my job.’ He’d crouch down, but his daughter only narrowed her grey eyes at him. ‘Mummy does Made Up stories, and she sings.’ She looked triumphant, half hidden by her matted curls.
‘Does she now?’ Dan tried to smile.
‘It’s because you were away so much last year,’ Jemma attempted to console him, embarrassed, but also, he was sure of it, gratified by so much adoration. ‘Kids are like animals, they want what’s familiar.’ But even Jemma became exasperated when Honey wouldn’t let Dan fetch her a glass of water, and then when he tried to ease the pushchair from Jemma’s hands as they struggled up Kite Hill, Honey whipped round as if she’d been stung. ‘NO!’ she yelled, ‘Mummy push. Mummy’s the boss, not you!’
Dan felt himself flush. ‘I am the boss.’
‘No.’ Honey’s eyes were blazing. ‘Mummy’s the King. And you. You’re not even the Queen.’
‘I am the Queen.’ He spat back at her. ‘I am the Queen!’ and then noticing several passers-by slowing to stare, he muttered something, unintelligible even to himself, and abandoned the pushchair to Jemma.
‘Maybe I should go away for a few days,’ Jemma said, tearful, and Dan, although he knew it was childish, walked on ahead.
‘Or maybe I should.’
Dan sat in the Duke’s Head and read through the scenes. He wiped the froth of lager from his mouth and turned away from the other, mostly solitary men so that they wouldn’t see his lips moving as he whispered the words.
‘How you doing then, mate?’ It was Sid, a regular Dan knew from his own regular visits. ‘Fancy a refill?’
Dan looked at his empty glass. ‘I shouldn’t really, but . . . Go on then. A pint of Fosters. Cheers.’ He put down the sheaf of papers and waited for Sid to return.
It was after ten by the time he got home. ‘Sorry!’ He opened the door too vigorously and let it slam into the wall. ‘Sorry.’ He imagined a leather whip slicing across his back. Jemma was sitting at the computer, frowning at the screen. She raised her head as if to speak, and then looked down again.
Dan leant over her. ‘Hello, my darling.’ He recognised the title of that term’s essay and the Cyrillic script of the text. ‘I bumped into Sid. We talked about the play . . . you know he was Napoleon once in a platform performance at Stratford?’
Jemma kept on typing. ‘If only you could get a job in St Petersburg or Moscow, then I could do my year abroad, and finish this degree. Imagine, with a Russian degree I might be employed by an oligarch, or put in charge of a multinational business.’
‘Sure,’ Dan watched her fingers, mesmerised as the mysterious letters bloomed, ‘but what happens if I get some glamorous job filming on a beach in the Maldives, or even jetting off to Broadway? You wouldn’t be able to come with me – you’d have to report to your boss at the Grozni Deli and beg for a long weekend.’
‘True,’ Jemma sighed, and she shut down the screen.
They had to sit close together in order to read. Dan put the gas fire on and pulled the lamp a little closer so it cast its golden glow over the sofa. They read the first marked scene. Josephine was confiding in him – her lover – that she found the physical presence of Napoleon repulsive. ‘He is so attentive I can hardly breathe, and now I must lie with him each day and night so that when he returns from Italy I am certain to be carrying his child.’
‘But Madame, surely it is worth a little discomfort. When you think of the benefits, for yourself, and your deserving courtiers.’ Dan felt his tongue loosened, his voice smooth as sauce. ‘A soldier will fight long and hard for a length of coloured ribbon. Is that not so?’
‘That I wouldn’t know. And you. What would keep you fighting?’
‘I might need more than a promise of ribbon.’
‘A promise of what, then?’
‘Ahh . . . But first answer me this. Did you give your word to be faithful during the long months of the campaign?’
‘The best way to keep one’s word,’ Josephine was quick to respond, ‘is never to give it.’
‘It’s good.’ Jemma nodded solemnly.
‘And you,’ Dan told her. ‘You’re good.’ She’d always been a skilful sight reader, and tonight she read with ease and grace. ‘Is Honey asleep?’ He stood up and adjusted the curtains.
‘Of course. What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’ Dan stretched out on the floor before the fire. ‘I’m cold, that’s all.’
‘But surely the danger is too great, for me to take my pleasure elsewhere,’ Jemma continued. ‘And then, without pleasure, soon I shall shrivel up and fade away.’
‘You know,’ Dan looked up at her, ‘there was an eighteenth-century theory that blondes were inherently more modest and respectable than any other species of girl, which is why Josephine, a brunette, was so very popular. But,’ he began to crawl towards her, ‘I know otherwise.’
‘Hey,’ she said, ‘I thought you were in a hurry to read through the rest of the scenes?’
‘The audition’s not till next week.’
‘True.’
‘So plenty of time for getting it right.’
‘I see.’ She bent her head to the play. ‘But think, how much fun would it be to go to New York? To have an adventure?’
Dan took hold of her free hand and ran his thumb across the palm. ‘Aren’t we having an adventure here?’ Jemma placed the page before his eyes. He looked at it for a moment, and then easing the sheaf of papers from her hand, he flung it to the far side of the room. ‘Dan!’ she gasped. ‘What are you doing?’ But she didn’t resist when he pulled her down with him on to the floor.
Jemma’s skin was softer than any woman he’d met. She’d put on weight since Honey, a fact she railed against, although, as far as he could see, without making any visible effort to lose it. Dan said nothing, in part because her conviction she looked monstrous seemed unshakeable, but mostly because he liked the way she was now. Curving roundly at the hips, her shirt straining, her clothes hiding secrets waiting to unfold. Jemma’s shirt was half unbuttoned and he slid it down over her shoulders. Her arms were pale as a painting, her breasts high. ‘So Madame,’ he grinned. ‘What do they say about your modesty now?’
‘It’s not my modesty that’s in question,’ she was laughing, ‘it’s my choice in men,’ and giving in, she bent her neck and kissed him.
That Sunday they went to Jemma’s friend, Mel’s, for lunch. It was Mel’s birthday and the kitchen was full of family and friends. They’d met Mel and her husband Tim at a series of classes for expectant parents when Jemma was pregnant with Honey, and Dan had felt bound to them, and also vaguely repelled, when Jemma told him how Tim had taken it upon himself to partner her and Mel alternately at the ‘positions for labour’ class that, due to filming, he’d been forced to miss.
‘Oh come on,’ Jemma coaxed him when he voiced reluctance. ‘It’s only round the corner. We don’t have to stay long, and there’ll be other kids for Honey.’
Jemma and Dan helped themselves to food and stood in the window talking to Mel’s sister, who worked as a midwife. Mel’s sister was telling them about a new phenomenon – patients who were so obese that an extra pair of hands was needed – usually hers – to hold up the flab during a Caesarean section while the surgeon rooted around to find the womb. ‘I’m on call again at six tomorrow morning. Flab holder. What kind of a job is that?’
‘We’ll think of you,’ Jemma was attempting to press a spoon of couscous into Honey’s averted mouth, but Dan found himself staring at the cheerful, worn face of the midwife. ‘But doesn’t it make you feel good? I mean, to know that you’re doing something worthwhile?’
The woman put her head on one side.
‘At least you’re not dressing up in tights and a codpiece,’ Dan continued, ‘or having a cast of your head taken, not for medical science, but in order to perfect your likeness to an alien.’
The midwife laughed. ‘But you’re making people happy.’
‘But not intensely, life-changingly, like you.’
‘I don’t know.’ She paused. ‘Think of those people who go to Les Misérables once a week. Or whose lives revolve around EastEnders? But there are times . . .’ she conceded, ‘when it is a miracle. Actually, I cried the other day for the first time in years. This birth was just so beautiful. But I promise you, it’s often easy to forget.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Jemma took Dan’s arm. ‘You’re thinking of re-training as a midwife?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Dan!’ Tim was upon them with a bottle of beer. ‘What are you up to at the moment, anything exciting?’
‘Well,’ he began, and unable to resist Tim’s expectant face he told him about New York.
On the morning of the audition Jemma and Dan read through the scenes. They stood in the kitchen among the mess of breakfast, while Dan tried to imagine himself drinking champagne in Josephine’s private salon. He read quietly, casually, throwing away the lines in what he hoped was an offhand, gallant manner. ‘Do you want to run through them again?’ Jemma asked, anxious, betraying the fact the words had come out flat and lifeless, but he shook his head. ‘No time.’
‘All right, then.’ She followed him into the hall and watched as he pulled on his coat. ‘Take care.’
Dan laughed. It wasn’t as if he was setting out into the snow to trap a wild beast to kill and skin for supper. ‘OK,’ he shook off a last embrace. ‘I’ll see you later.’ But as he walked towards the Tube he felt unpleasantly nervous. Lenny had told him he was the second actor on the list and as the train sped south he allowed himself to say the other men’s names, accepting finally he had no power over whose fortune rose and fell. Not even, of course, his own. Greg Hawes was in first. Dan could imagine him pulling it off, although he wasn’t as right for the part as, say, Declan McCloud, who was going in after him. If it came to it, Declan was his real competition, he’d lost two jobs to him in the past year. He tried to focus on exactly what it was Declan had that he didn’t possess, apart from ridiculously white teeth, and then, without warning, nerves overwhelmed him. His throat tightened and his stomach grew loose, and shakily he stood up and fought his way off the train. No job for a grown-up; he breathed shallowly, but his eyes felt gritty, and his face was numb. He ran up the escalator and breathed in the cold, welcome city air, and checking his watch, he set off through side streets, dodging the people, avoiding the busy roads, running past the marooned stone lions of Trafalgar Square.
Everywhere he looked he saw signs of hopelessness. A man asleep in a cardboard tunnel, another, shivering beside his dog. There but for the grace of God go I, he muttered, as he bought a copy of The Big Issue from a man with no official permit, and pulling his jacket round him he pushed on, telling himself he had no time for this, not now. Instead he searched his mind for something to hold on to. Honey. His angel child, with her curls and deep grey eyes. Honey. But he couldn’t shake off the image of her growling at him from the royal seat of her pushchair.
He could see the faces of the people on Kite Hill, watching him, suspicious as he defended himself, and a bubble of laughter burst up in him as he remembered. ‘I am the Queen!’ His shoulders shook, a mist of hysteria obscured his vision and he had to stop outside the theatre and wipe his eyes. ‘I am the Queen!’ and once inside he gave his name and still smiling, sank gratefully down on to a seat.
‘How did it go?’ Jemma called to him as soon as he came in.
‘I don’t know. All right, I think.’ He stamped into the kitchen.
‘When will you know?’
‘They didn’t say.’
‘But you must have some kind of idea how it went.’
Dan couldn’t help it, he grinned. He’d felt calm and strong when he was finally called in. The words, worried and stumbled over for a week, flew from his mouth as if they were his own. Scarlett Johansson was radiant. Her eyes glittery, her skin translucent, her smile mischievous as he expected it to be. She carried herself lightly, but with a conscious grandeur. Had she been born like that? Or was it being a film star so early that had formed her? Dan watched her, never allowing himself to forget that, he, or his character at least, was her preferred lover.
‘Let’s read that scene again.’ It was a challenge, and this time as they jousted, they kept their eyes fixed on each other until Dan felt a sheen of sweat across his back.
‘Thank you,’ she’d watched him, her head a little on one side, and he’d shaken hands with the director, before turning to catch her slim fingers in his own. On his way out he’d nodded bountifully to Declan McCloud, pale, still waiting for his turn, and flashing one last unnecessary smile at the casting assistant he’d pushed the door open on to the street.
‘Sweetheart,’ he looked at Jemma, ‘there’s nothing I can tell you. We’ll know when we know. It doesn’t start till April, they’re under no pressure to decide.’
All the same, with every hour that passed, he expected a call. At ten to six he couldn’t bear it any longer. He phoned Lenny.
‘No news as yet,’ Lenny told him. ‘But if you say it went well, that’s great.’
‘Just thought I’d check in.’
‘Sure, sure, no problem. I’ll call you as soon as I hear. Talk soon, all right?’
‘Yes, all right. Talk soon.’
Jemma knew him too well not to be hopeful. He heard her on the phone to her sister the next day. ‘Dan thinks Brooklyn, but Ruthie says we should find a place near her, down in the village . . . maybe you could come out and visit us, maybe June, before it gets too hot.’ He heard giggling and high spirits, and later, Jemma singing as she ran out to get Honey from her nursery.
Dan waited two more weeks before calling Lenny. ‘Any news?’ he asked, ‘on Battle to the Heart?’
‘Right,’ there was an ominous pause. ‘Very frustrating. I was going to call you. They decided to go in a different direction. Although you did get down to the last two.’
‘So, who,’ Dan swallowed, ‘did they go with?’
‘A surprise choice, actually. Do you know Laurence Ryan? I’d never heard of him, but that’s who they went for in the end. Not long in the business, came from university . . . did a marvellous Benedict, apparently, at the West Yorkshire . . .’ but Dan was so relieved it wasn’t Declan McCloud he’d stopped listening. ‘Now,’ Lenny caught his attention again. ‘You may not be interested, but I’ve got you an interview for a part in a Miss Marple. What do you think? Shall I send it over? It’s another killer, I’m afraid, but it’s all filmed here, in London.’
Dan paused. He could hear the blood in his head roaring. ‘No,’ he decided. ‘I’ll hold out.’
Lenny was waiting. ‘Right you are,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ll be in touch.’
A week later, after Jemma had throw up two mornings in a row, Dan called him back.
‘You know that Miss Marple, I’ve been thinking . . .’ he held the sharp edge of a red electricity bill pressed against his palm.
‘Ahhh,’ he heard Lenny’s intake of breath. ‘That’s gone, I’m afraid. Declan McCloud. Odd choice for him, but then they do well in the States. But . . . now, hold on a minute, there’s a play on at the Bush, no money obviously, but it’s a new play, sexual abuse in competitive gymnastics. You’ve nothing against playing a suspected kiddie fiddler, have you?’
‘I’ll look at it.’ Nauseous himself, Dan slid the bill into his pocket. ‘Bike it over. I’ll be in all day.’
‘Sure. How’re your cartwheels?’
‘Not bad,’ Dan grimaced, ‘as long as I don’t have to do the splits.’ And he sat quite still, wondering how he would introduce this new subject to Jemma.