Chapter Thirty-One
Joe
I had finished the last episode of House Shared , sent it to Carl, and I knew it was something special. I had felt it the whole time I was writing it. It had that magic something, an alchemy that was intangible and couldn’t be created but happened from time to time when I was writing. Maybe it was because the subject matter was so close to my heart, or because it was happening while I was writing it, I didn’t know, but the words flowed from me and it was funny, emotional, dramatic and it really felt like a hit. The only other time I had felt like that was when I had handed over the script to The Mornings . The only problem now, of course, was telling Freya about it because I had used her life, her problems, and I had essentially written a sitcom about us. I knew that without her blessing there was no way the project could go ahead, no matter how much Carl wanted it or whatever money was involved. It terrified me because I needed this to work, but it relied on Freya giving me the green light. Then there was the daughter in the show and what I had decided to do with her. It had been a hard struggle, but I had finally found the edge Carl had demanded.
I had arranged to meet Stuart and Barney at a cafe in Hove called Fika. It was something of a local for Stuart, who explained they had wonderful coffee, and excellent breakfast sandwiches. I hadn’t seen Stuart or Barney for a while because I had been working so hard on House Shared , but now it was done and I was waiting for Carl’s response, I could focus on a life beyond my writing room. Writing was an erratic profession, and I would often find myself losing months of the year holed up in my office, but once it was over, I would have weeks where I did nothing at all. I was feeling nervous because, despite it being a Saturday, I was waiting to hear from Carl. He’d had a meeting at the BBC yesterday, and I wanted to find out how it had gone. Hence the breakfast with Stuart and Barney to take my mind off it.
I walked into Fika, where Stuart and Barney were already sitting at a table, sipping on coffee. Fika was one of those fantastic cafe/coffee shops that Brighton and Hove did incredibly well and always seemed to be in demand, no matter how many suddenly popped up. Stuart was in a pair of beige chinos and an old polo shirt with his language school logo on, and a pair of slightly battered brown boat shoes. Barney was dressed in a pair of smart navy trousers, dark leather shoes, a crisp white shirt, and over that he had on a light linen jacket. Barney always dressed up just in case he met his future wife coming out of a local Tesco Express. ‘You never know!’ he always said. I had to admire his optimism and perhaps he had a point, and when I looked down at my own ensemble of old jeans that were probably due a wash, white T-shirt with a small hole in the left shoulder, faded blue Oxford shirt I’d had for years and scuffed Adidas trainers, it was clear I definitely didn’t look my best. I also hadn’t shaved in weeks and so had quite a healthy beard that was veering very dangerously close to being more salt than pepper. If I met someone new right now, they would probably imagine I had fallen upon hard times. There was definitely a fine line between ‘bohemian writer’ aesthetic and just ‘scruffy old bastard’.
‘Morning, boys,’ I said, walking across and sitting down.
‘Ah, Joseph!’ said Barney. ‘Morning, sir.’
‘Morning, mate, coffee?’ said Stuart.
‘It’s all right, I’ll get it. I’m starving. What’s good?’ I asked.
Stuart ran me through the menu quickly and suggested a few things, and I ended up getting a flat white and a fried chicken breakfast sandwich. We all took a few minutes to order before we settled down into conversation. I really wanted to tell them about House Shared because it was the first time I’d written something and not spent hours talking to Freya about it, and I was desperate to share it with someone other than Carl. When something lived solely in your head for months and months, it needed to get out from time to time.
‘I just finished my latest sitcom and sent it off to my agent,’ I said.
‘Well done, mate,’ said Stuart. ‘Is this the one about the couple sharing a house after they separate?’
‘The one based on you and Freya?’ chipped in Barney.
‘Well, yes, and that’s the sticking point. I still haven’t told Freya about it.’
‘Ouch,’ said Barney.
‘Definitely a bit of a sticky wicket,’ said Stuart.
‘We prefer “tricky sitch” actually,’ I said, and Stuart and Barney both looked confused so I continued. ‘Anyway, I just don’t know how to bring it up and I’m worried Freya will put the kibosh on the whole thing, and I need this. It’s literally all I have.’
‘What do you think she’ll say when you tell her?’ said Stuart as our food and my coffee arrived, and it smelled incredible. I hadn’t eaten much the night before, and it was already later than I would usually eat breakfast, and my stomach was growling. I took a bite of the chicken breakfast burger before having a sip of my flat white.
‘Honestly,’ I said to Stuart, ‘I literally have no idea. She might be fine with it, or she might hate my guts, force me to stop writing it, and never speak to me again.’
‘A bit overdramatic, don’t you think?’ said Barney, who had just taken a bite of his sandwich and had some runny egg sliding down his chin. ‘It’s just a TV show.’
‘But it’s a TV show about us, which I didn’t ask for her permission to write. The thing is, well, Freya and I slept together—’
‘What? As in sexual intercourse?’ replied an incredulous Barney.
‘Yes, Barney, as in sexual intercourse. I take it you already know?’ I said to Stuart.
‘Actually not, mate,’ said Stuart. ‘The girls kept that one quiet.’
‘So what happened with the SI?’ said Barney, and Stuart and I both looked at him, wondering what the hell he was talking about, forcing him to explain. ‘Sexual intercourse.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘It happened the night of our wedding anniversary. We’d had a few drinks, one thing led to another, and you know the rest. Anyway, afterwards, I genuinely thought that maybe we had a chance of getting back together, but she wasn’t interested.’
‘Sorry, mate,’ said Stuart.
‘Anyway, rightly or wrongly, I ended up putting that in the show, too, or a scene like it, and I’m beginning to wonder if perhaps I went too far.’
‘You mean, is it a sitcom or more reality TV?’ said Barney.
‘Something like that. My agent Carl had a meeting at the BBC yesterday, and I’m waiting for news, but I’m worried that if it’s good, and I have to confess everything to Freya, it will all blow up in my face. Plus, there’s Dolly, too. There’s a daughter in the show, and there are obviously crossovers with her and Dolly. I don’t know, it’s all such a fucking mess.’
‘If you want my advice,’ said Barney.
‘Depends. Does it involve the use of the term SI?’ I said, and Stuart laughed.
‘No,’ said Barney. ‘Although feel free to use that in the show if you like. My advice to you, Joseph, is to come clean about the whole thing. From my experience, the pain of keeping a secret is often worse than the secret itself.’
‘Surprisingly sage advice,’ said Stuart.
‘Yes, Barney, very wise,’ I added.
‘I saw it on an Instagram post, but, you know, I think it works,’ said Barney, before we got back to our breakfast sandwiches and coffee.
It was clear that wherever he’d got the quote from, it was solid advice. I had been holding on to this secret for such a long time that it had become bigger than the secret itself. The fear of what might happen when Freya found out had become so monumental in my head, so intrinsically linked to any sort of future happiness, it had paralysed me. Doing nothing had become easier than doing something, but the trouble with doing nothing was that nothing changed.
‘How’s your dating life, Barney?’ I said after a minute.
‘I’ve actually been seeing a woman from Bristol,’ said Barney tentatively.
‘From Bristol or does she actually live in Bristol?’ asked Stuart.
‘Lives in Bristol,’ said Barney.
‘That’s a bit of a commute for a date,’ I said, not imagining such a long-distance relationship would be easy.
‘We’ve been on five dates already, and it’s looking really, you know, promising.’
‘Where do you go on these dates? Does she come here? Do you go there?’ I asked.
‘Actually,’ said Barney. ‘Our last date was at Chieveley service station. It’s a bit nearer to her, but sort of in the middle. They have a lovely outdoor seating area, and we got a Costa coffee, shared a Cornish pasty and a packet of Percy Pigs.’
‘That sounds sort of romantic,’ I said.
‘Do you think it has legs despite the sizeable distance between you?’ asked Stuart.
‘I do,’ said Barney with a grin. We asked him about her, and his whole face lit up. ‘Her name’s Phoebe. She’s forty, a novelist, so perfect for me, has never been married, has a dog called Wilf, used to live in London but now calls Bristol home, and she’s just really lovely.’
‘Oh, mate, you sound like you’re in love,’ I said.
‘Stop it,’ said Barney, blushing wildly.
‘I think he might be right,’ said Stuart with a broad smile.
‘I’m just seeing how it goes. We FaceTime every day, and I’m seeing her tomorrow.’
‘Have you, you know?’ I asked, nodding my head so he knew exactly what I was talking about. Stuart and I both looked at Barney expectedly, and he was still blushing crimson.
‘Perhaps,’ said Barney after a moment. ‘Although that definitely didn’t happen at Chieveley services!’ We all laughed, and for a moment the looming cloud of having to confess everything to Freya was forgotten.
We chatted while we finished our food, all got another coffee, and we slowly worked our way through a few different conversations. Stuart spoke excitedly about starting up his own language school within the next year, probably somewhere near Warwickshire, and that they would probably be moving. It would be a real blow if Stuart moved because I didn’t have that many friends in Brighton, but I understood his need to branch out and start his own business. I would miss him, although at that moment I had no idea where I would be a year from now either. I thanked Stuart for giving Dolly a summer job, and he said she was doing great. A real natural, Stuart said, and he would hire her every summer if he could. I had seen a real upsurge in her happiness levels since she had started working. Gone was the gloomy teenager, who had just had her heart broken, and now she was up at seven o’clock in the morning, and not home until ten or eleven in the evening if she came home at all, and she was happy, talkative and like a different person.
After about thirty minutes, we had all finished our coffees and were getting ready to leave, my phone rang and when I looked down at the caller, I saw Carl’s name staring back at me. He must have news about his meeting with the BBC.
‘Fuck, it’s Carl!’ I said. ‘This is it.’
‘Good luck, mate,’ said Stuart.
‘Best of British!’ said Barney.
I stared down at the phone. This could be the moment. The phone call that might change the rest of my life because, if it was good news, it could save me from being penniless and potentially homeless, but if it was bad, then I was back to square one, and I couldn’t face the prospect of it – it was snakes and ladders all over again. I stood up and walked outside before I answered.
‘Carl,’ I said hopefully.
‘Joe!’ said Carl, as exuberant as always. It was always hard to tell if he had good or bad news. ‘How are you, mate?’
‘Yes, not bad. Just having breakfast with a couple of old friends. How are you?’
‘Yes, yes, good, good, and right, you know why I’m calling.’
‘I do,’ I said, my heart beating rapidly in my chest. I couldn’t stand it. It was the part of the job I had always hated the most. Waiting for success and fearing failure because they were always one moment away from each other. Sliding doors.
‘So as you know, I had a meeting at the mothership yesterday, and I gave them the scripts, and we talked about the show for over an hour, Joe, and they loved it, but they had to go away and talk about it. You know how these things go. Anyway, I literally just got off the phone with Peter Darcy-Hopkins, head of comedy and drama, and he wants to get you in for a meeting ASAP.’
‘You’re being serious? They want a meeting?’ I said, a flood of emotions engulfing me.
‘More than a meeting. Obviously there’s lots to iron out, hurdles to get over, these things are never straightforward, you know that, but they love the show and they want you back at the BBC where you belong. Congratulations, Joe, it looks like House Shared is going to get made!’
I had to take a moment to compose myself and get everything straight in my mind. The BBC wanted to make my show, and I knew, like Carl said, that it was never straightforward and so many things could go wrong, and even when they went right there was no guarantee of success, but they wanted the show. I was going to make some money and hopefully, if it did go well, I might see my series on the television. It was overwhelming and I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, other than cry, which seemed to have become my default setting over the past month.
‘Carl,’ I eventually said. ‘I can’t thank you enough for sticking with me through the lean years, and we’ve had plenty of those, and just, I can’t believe it’s actually happening.’
‘Save your speech for the BAFTAs. For the moment, I’m trying to get us into a meeting as soon as possible. I’ll reach out once I have a date and a time. You have told Freya about it, yes, and she’s okay with it?’
Ah. Freya.
‘Well, actually, now that you mention it—’
‘You haven’t told her, have you?’
‘No, not yet. I was sort of waiting to see if we even had a chance, but I suppose—’
‘You need to tell her now, today, because we can’t have any issues, Joe. Promise me you’ll tell her today?’
‘I will.’
‘Good, right, well, that’s it. Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll be in touch next week.’
‘Okay, and thanks, Carl, again, really, it means the world to me.’
‘To me, too, old boy, me, too.’
We hung up and I stood there for a moment in complete disbelief, and two very distinct feelings suddenly took over my body. The first was complete, unabridged and overwhelming joy that I was going to get a television show commissioned on the BBC again, and the second was complete, unabridged and overwhelming fear that I had to tell Freya about it.