is bland, there’s no getting away from it, so I thought it might make a nice change.’
‘It’s perfect, Penny. I like your curry. It’s one thing we French are not good at.’
‘Charming as ever, Antoine.’ William beams as he says this, trying to show that he’s not being sarcastic. But it doesn’t quite work. Everything he says sounds at least faintly sarcastic. It’s the schoolmaster in him.
‘Antoine’s charm is his weakness,’ says Clive. ‘You should see him in Paris. He makes Maurice Chevalier look like a yob. People have to meet him at least five times before they realise he’s sincere. It’s held him back enormously in the art world.’
‘How is business?’ asks William.
‘Not good. We struggle on. Couldn’t do it without Clive’s regular earning.’
Clive teaches English, and teaches it well. He has inherited his father’s talent.
‘He’s a strange one, isn’t he?’ says Clive. ‘The more way out his art gets – I mean, he’s letting the cat walk over the paint now – the more he dresses like a bank manager.’
Clive is in jeans and an open-necked shirt. Antoine is wearing a suit and tie.
‘Too many artists live their art instead of painting it,’ says Antoine.
‘What do you mean about the cat, Uncle Clive?’ asks Emily, who loves cats.
‘I slosh wet paint on a canvas and let her walk over it,’ explains Antoine. ‘The marks she makes become incorporated into the structure of the painting. She does it brilliantly. Sasha’s very artistic. She’s a natural. It’s the element of chance in life that I need, you see. You can have too much composition. There is no composition in life. Sacha is therefore an essential element in my work, and doesn’t she know it? She doesn’t even mind too much when I have to use turps to wipe her feet.’
Emily laughs. She is so happy about the cat.
‘I thought you were bringing your girlfriend, Julian,’ says Clive.
‘Just noticed, have you?’
‘Well, no, I noticed when we arrived but I thought maybe she was in the bathroom or something. It was only when we were all sat down and there was no empty chair that I was sure. It’s not easy, Julian, to broach the question of your love life with you. One usually finds one has touched on a sensitive spot.’
‘Well, this time it’s not sensitive at all, because it’s good riddance.’
‘Oh!’
‘She was coming. We had a row in the station.’
‘Terminal?’
‘Yes. King’s Cross.’
It’s not often that Julian makes a joke, so everyone laughs a little too much at it, and then realises that it’s rather heartless to laugh at his predicament, so they all stop laughing rather suddenly.
‘But you’re getting on all right with your partners at work, are you, Julian?’ asks William.
Naomi has never seen her father taking such an active role in the conversation. Something is definitely up.
‘Oh, yes,’ replies Julian. ‘Well, they’re all men. I don’t have problems with men.’
William goes round the table, pouring more wine. This is without precedent, not because he’s mean, he isn’t, but because he never even thinks about drink. But today he is drinking as well. Naomi’s anxiety grows.
Penny offers seconds, again with, to Naomi’s mind, an unnecessary verbal accompaniment. ‘I didn’t give you too much first time around, in case you all felt you’d been eating too much over the holiday period, or in case it was too hot for you. But I thought, you can always come back for more.’
Everyone comes back for more.
‘It is very good, Penny. No more self-criticism, please,’ says Antoine sternly.
Her father raises his glass. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I think we ought to drink to Naomi, and wish her good luck with her sitcom.’
He’s ticking off the conversational boxes one by one, thinks Naomi, smiling with a modesty that, sadly, is not false, as they toast the success of her upcoming sitcom, which goes into production in a couple of weeks and will be on the screens in April.
‘Yes,’ says her father. ‘We’re very proud of our little girl.’
‘Dad, I’m thirty.’
‘That’s young. Only thirty, and a starring role in a sitcom.’
‘What is this sitcom?’ asks Clive.
‘It’s about a couple who keep having children. It’s about how the mother has to do all the work. It’s about the stresses of motherhood and of marriage, only it’s funny.’
‘Well, that sounds a good part,’ says Julian encouragingly. Only on matters to do with Naomi does he brighten in the family these days. Naomi almost wishes that he wasn’t so loyal to her. It makes it hard for her to criticise him for the rest of his unsatisfactory life.
‘I don’t play the mother,’ says Naomi. ‘I play the neighbour.’
‘But you’re regular,’ says her father. ‘You’re in it every week. Aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a start. You’ll be back at the Coningsfield Grand. “Starring Naomi Walls from…”. What’s your series called?’
She doesn’t want to tell them. She still hopes the title may change.
‘It’s not quite decided.’
‘It’s a pity you boys couldn’t come over from Paris to see her in the touring production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Grand,’ says her father. She has never known him anything like so talkative.
‘She was wonderful,’ admits her mother. ‘She really was the Queen of Egypt. I couldn’t believe it was my little girl.’
‘Mum!’
‘Well. I’m sorry, but it’s the truth.’
‘The drama group from the school went. And most of the teachers,’ says her father.
‘She’s had her ups and downs,’ says her mother. ‘Her bits of bad luck. A broken foot when she was down to play a lady footballer. A play cancelled when the leading man dropped dead in the dress rehearsal. Casting directors, if I’ve got the title right, who couldn’t recognise talent if they fell over it. But she’s come through. She’s going to be a star.’
‘Mum!’
Naomi is deeply embarrassed, not least because Emily is believing it.
‘Are you really, Mum?
