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Jeanne. My husband’s not here. He’s probably still in the studio, in
the projection-room or at a rehearsal.’
    ‘Oh,
no, he isn’t in the studio,’ said Jeanne. ‘Oh, no, he is not.’
    ‘Well
perhaps he’s in conference, in which case he’ll be home late. Can I give him a
message?’
    ‘No,’
said Jeanne. ‘But I can tell you where Tom is, Mrs. Richards. He’s in Rose
Woodstock’s London flat. Her husband’s in the country.’
    ‘In
that case why do you ring him up here? I daresay they’re discussing the film —
but why don’t you call him there?’ said Claire. ‘That’s to say if you have the
number. I’m afraid I don’t have it. But if there’s anything urgent I’ll leave
Tom a message. He’ll get it first thing.’
    ‘First
thing in the morning, Mrs. Richards?’
    ‘That
could be,’ said Claire. ‘But you know, Tom might be back any time, any minute.
He’s still under therapy and has to go carefully…
    ‘He’s
in love with Rose Woodstock. Don’t you realise?’ Jeanne said. She sounded
tired, exasperated.
    ‘Oh,
no, that’s not at all the case,’ said Claire. ‘He thinks of nobody but you,
Jeanne. Don’t you see how it is? He talks day and night about his hamburger
girl. The original he saw on a campsite in France. I was there at the time. He’s
obsessed by you, Jeanne.’
    ‘He
treats me so badly,’ said Jeanne. She had started to cry. She seemed to have
quite forgotten that she was talking to a wife. Claire continued to extend
sympathy. She was expansive. She finally got Jeanne off the phone somehow. Then
she scribbled a note to Tom: ‘Jeanne is looking for you’ and left this
on the hall table. Then she put on her television glasses and went back to her
programme.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER
NINE

     
     
     
    ‘My father suggested I
should interview you,’ said Marigold. ‘As I said, I’m writing a book on
redundancy. Could you tell me some of your experiences as a redundant T.V.
programme director. What were your first feelings when you were told to go?’
    ‘You
can’t imagine,’ said Kevin Woodstock.
    ‘Oh yes
I can,’ said Marigold. ‘I am a redundant wife.
    I was
told. Just like that.’
    ‘I was
stunned.’ Rain splashed at the small windows of Marigold’s cottage in Surrey.
    ‘Me,
too. After a while I realised that I expected it.
    But at
the first moment I was stunned,’ Marigold told him.
    ‘Yes, I
should have expected it, too. I had programmes planned ahead. They had to be
scrapped. Crow Television paid out, all round. I got offered a lump sum but my
lawyer’s fighting it.’
    ‘Were
you the only one made redundant?’
    ‘No,
seven of us had to go.’ He gulped his beer. Marigold sipped her calorie-free
Coke.
    ‘Have
you thought of emigrating?’ Marigold said.
    ‘Yes,’
he said. ‘But where to? My wife is in demand for motion pictures all the time
in the U.K. and the U.S. There’s nothing for me abroad. Rose would never
emigrate even if so.’
    ‘Have you
thought of T.V. ads? Commercials?’
    ‘Rose
wouldn’t like that. It would be a come-down. It would affect her career as an
actor (she won’t be called actress, by the way) if I went on the T.V. pushing
track-shoes, mountain bikes, holiday homes, whatever.’
    ‘Has
your redundancy affected your matrimonial life?’
    ‘There’s
a danger of that,’ said Kevin Woodstock, ‘but don’t quote me personally on the
question.’ For some inscrutable reason he added, ‘We’ve been married eleven
years. Rose uses her married name professionally.’
    Marigold
assured him he was, for her purpose, an anonymous case history.
    She had
thought him charming but she had made up her mind not to be personally
influenced by any such fact. However, when he said, ‘I hope that you, as a
redundant wife, will be free for dinner,’ she accepted.
    Although
they left Surrey in Marigold’s car, because of the problems of parking Marigold
drove it to her private garage in her small mews flat off Brompton