Inconceivable

director, who did not look like a man who would embarrass easily. “You know all about Carl! That he took me out and that I kissed him. You know everything about me, don’t you? Because you’ve stolen my bloody thoughts! Well, here’s another little piece of me and you can have it for nothing. You won’t have to sneak about picking locks on people’s diaries for this! I hate you! I hate you more than I ever believed I could hate anyone, and I never want to see or speak to you again…”

That’s what I told him, in that or so many other words, and I meant it. I still do.

Then I ran out of the building with both Carl and Sam running after me. If it wasn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to me it would be funny.

We stood there, the three of us, on a pavement in the Docklands, Sam desperately protesting that he’d never meant it to be like this, Carl hanging back wondering whether to intervene or not.

“I meant it, Sam, what I said,” I told him. I was calmer by this time, calm enough to look him in the eye. “I told you once that if you did this thing I’d leave you and that’s what I’m going to do.”

He tried to say that I wasn’t myself, that I was over-reacting because we’d failed IVF. Over- reacting. That’s a phrase I won’t forget in a hurry.

“You’ve read my book, Sam,” I told him. “You know that having a child with you was the thing I wanted most in the world. Well, it isn’t any more, it’s the thing I want least. I’m glad Dick and Debbie are dead! Do you hear! I’m glad they never fucking lived!”

He looked at me for a moment. He was numb, I could see that. Then he started to cry. He knew he’d lost me.

Tonight is the first time I’ve opened this “book” document on my computer since that night when I finished my script and Lucy and I held each other for the last time and I was happy for the last time.

That was three months ago and not one minute has gone by since then, waking or sleeping, when I haven’t missed Lucy with all my soul.

I don’t know why I’ve decided to write something in this book now, I just thought I would. I suppose the truth is that I’ve bored my friends enough with how unhappy I am and the only person left whom I can safely bore without risk of further increasing my solitude and isolation is myself.

I made the biggest mistake of my life when I did what I did to Lucy. Every day I’ve asked myself how I could have been so stupid and I still don’t have an answer. I suppose that I just never thought Lucy really meant it when she said that she’d leave me. I keep going over it all in my mind and I still think that if she hadn’t found out about it in such a terrible, brutal way she might not have reacted quite as she did. I don’t know, maybe she would. Either way it’s academic now, and one thing’s for sure: it’s all my fault.

We haven’t started divorce proceedings yet, but I imagine that it won’t be long. We’ve scarcely even spoken, although there have been numerous exchanges of notes, just practical stuff, not nasty but very cold. I imagine that the final separation when it does come will happen in that tired inevitable modern way. No court case, no drama, no dreadful scenes or confrontations, just the required passage of the allotted amount of time. Lucy won’t have to stand up in court and cite my pathetic career and ambition as a co-respondent. The fact that I betrayed and deserted her is of no concern to the law. It’s enough that Lucy no longer wishes to be my wife. These days marriages just fade away.

The film is finished, or at least what’s known as principal photography is finished, and the editing process has begun. I take no interest in it, of course. In fact I’ve had nothing at all to do with the project since the day I ran out of the studio chasing vainly after Lucy in an effort to persuade her to forgive the unforgivable. George and Trevor keep me informed. They say that everybody remains very excited. Funny, this is the fulfilment of a lifetime’s ambition and I don’t care. In fact I actually tried to stop the whole thing. How many writers have done that? After the full extent of my appalling behaviour was so ruthlessly exposed I felt that the only honourable action I could take was to put an end to the film immediately. It turned out that I couldn’t. It was no longer mine to stop. The BBC own it in partnership with Above The Line and having already spent over two million pounds on it they were reluctant to cancel. Saving my marriage was not number one on their list of priorities.

I told Lucy what I’d tried to do and she wrote me a pretty caustic note about it saying that she didn’t care whether the film progressed or not, that what I had stolen from her she didn’t want back anyway. Perversely, I think that the fact that our story no longer belongs to either of us but is instead the sole property of a large corporation has made it a little easier for her. Further evidence of the fact that we as a couple had ceased to exist.

I’ve given her all the money I got from the film. It’s not a vast amount, although I’m told that if it’s successful I’ll get more from what’s known as “the back end” (George said “Ha!” to that). Half of it’s Lucy’s anyway and the rest is to go towards me buying her out of her half of the house. She doesn’t want to live in it any more. She couldn’t even bear to enter it. She got her sister and her mother to organize her things. That nearly broke my heart. In fact it did break my heart.

She’s bought her own place now but it appears that she doesn’t live there very much. The final level of my torment is that she and Carl Phipps have become an item. Lucy hasn’t told me this herself, of course, because as I say we don’t speak, but she knows I know because she tells Melinda and Melinda tells George. It’s not a very satisfactory line of communication but it’s all I have. I torture myself trying to find out more, begging George for every gruelling snippet. It makes us both feel pretty uncomfortable, but what can I do? I’m desperate. I think about Lucy all the time. Apparently the relationship between her and Phipps is all very perky and positive and keen at the moment, which of course I’m very happy about and which of course I loathe and despise.

I do hope Lucy’s happy, though. I really do and I hope Carl Phipps realizes how lucky he is. Not that I’ve any right to say that. I didn’t.

I’ve started writing another script. I’m doing what Lucy told me to do, drawing it from within. It’s about a stupid, lonely, pathetic, weak, useless bastard who deserves everything he gets. It’s a comedy.

Another six weeks gone by.

Six miserable weeks.

I’ve discovered something interesting during the long grey days since I destroyed my life. I’ve discovered that despite what they say, time is not a great healer. Every morning I wake up hoping that the simple fact that a few more restless empty hours have elapsed will in itself provide me with some relief from the pain of my self-inflicted wounds, and every morning I’m disappointed. Time has healed nothing. I still have the sickness in my stomach and the hopelessness in my head. I still loathe myself and I still love Lucy, who is at this very moment in bed with Carl Phipps (it’s two in the morning). Trevor says that four and a half months is not long enough and that if you want time to have any real chance of healing then you have to be thinking in terms of years, possibly decades. This, not surprisingly, is little comfort.

I’m afraid to say that I’m in danger of turning into a very sad act indeed.

I get pissed every night and I haven’t washed my sheets in a month.

I’m writing this entry in my book, by the way, because I got a letter from Lucy today and I don’t know what else to do with myself. Actually it’s not a letter, it’s an email. This amazed me, incidentally. When we lived together Lucy couldn’t even work the timer on the cooker. I suppose the bastard has taught her. I shouldn’t think someone as cool as him would want a girlfriend who did anything as terminally unhip as post a letter.

I’d written to her asking if she wanted a divorce and also if she knew where the key to the garden shed was, because the lawn is now about a foot high.

I’ll download Lucy’s reply into this file. I want to keep it and this book seems as good a place as any.

Dear Sam

The key to the garden shed is under the second fuchsia pot on the right of the door. If this is the first time your thoughts have turned to the garden then I imagine that all the plants will be dead. If they are not, please give them TLC immediately. There is plant food in the shed. If greenfly or similar is in evidence fill the hand spray with soapy water and administer a gentle soaking. Do NOT use chemicals as the garden is entirely organic. Actually I should imagine that it’s entirely cat shit by now because you have to go round and trowel it up once a week or it mounts up.

I suppose that I want a divorce in that we’re clearly not married any more and perhaps it’s time to formalize