It was barely a day or two after receiving the news that her thesis had been accepted and that she could now officially call herself Doctor Alice Butler that she got a call from the US. She was jogging back to her flat in the rather smart Clifton area of Bristol, when the call came through and she stopped in the shade of an ancient oak tree to answer it. The June temperature was remarkably high for England and she was regretting taking her regular run, up past the observatory overlooking the gorge, in the full heat of the late afternoon sun instead of the early morning. Wiping her sweaty hands on her shorts, she pulled out her phone and saw that the call was from Millie, just about the only one of the Pals Across the Pond cast with whom she had stayed in touch over the past five years. In spite of the passing of the years and the thousands of miles between them, they had remained very close friends and Alice had followed the vicissitudes of Millie’s subsequent career with interest – and no small amount of sympathy. Things hadn’t always worked out too well for her.
‘Top of the morning to you, Millie.’ She had learnt to do a pretty good impression of Millie’s Irish accent over the years they had known each other. In return, she had been on the receiving end of countless attempts by her friend to poke fun at her own ‘posh’ English accent.
‘Good day, your highness. I trust one is in tip-top condition?’ Millie giggled. ‘You all right to talk, Al? I’m not calling you in the middle of a lecture or anything, am I?’
‘No more lectures for me. That’s all finished. I’m just out for a run.’
‘Great. So, does that mean you’ve had your results? Are you a doc now?’
Alice assured her that she now had her PhD and, with a certain amount of foreboding, asked for news of her friend’s career and love life. But Millie had more pressing matters on her mind.
‘Have you seen the email, Al? You must have got it.’
‘Email? Who from? I haven’t checked my emails since first thing this morning.’
‘Then take a look and call me back. I’ll be waiting.’
As the line went dead, Alice logged into her mail account, discovering that there were three unread messages in her inbox. She sat down on a wooden bench and took a closer look. One was from Benny, the lead writer responsible for the scintillating scripts of Pals. Another was from Layla of all people – just about the first communication from the Australian glamour queen in five years – and the final one, amazingly, was from none other than God himself.
Alice had met Conrad Chesterfield – the owner, CEO and caller of all shots at AAATV Productions – numerous times over her working life but hadn’t heard a word from him since the end of Pals. He and his company had been the creators of the show and had reputedly made hundreds of millions of dollars out of it but, after the acrimonious end to the series, she had never expected to hear from him again. Intrigued – and, if she were honest, a bit apprehensive as well – she opened the message and found it couched in his usual staccato style. It was almost like hearing his voice.
Alice, how are you? Good, I hope.
We have a proposition for you. Take a good, hard look at it. Give it some serious consideration. Please.
Any queries, just shout.
Conrad Chesterfield
Attached to the email was a document that made fascinating reading. Although no doubt drafted by his legal team and filled to capacity with disclaimers, provisos and let-outs, it emerged that the studio wanted to revive Pals Across the Pond, changing the name of the new series to Pals Forever. She and the other cast members were being offered the opportunity of getting back on board. There was no mention of money, but she knew that would all be hammered out by the agents and the money men before anybody signed on the dotted line. The offer ended with a tantalising: We are confident this new venture will prove to be mutually beneficial and rewarding for all parties, both professionally and financially.
She took a few deep breaths and sat back. The email had brought a host of memories flooding into her head, some of the later ones bitter and unpleasant, but many of the earlier ones genuinely good. She thought back to the fun they had all had on set, at least in the first two or three years. She remembered moments like the time Millie had got locked in the toilet or when the pair of them had walked in on Layla and Harry in flagrante in the props closet. And, of course, the unforgettable moment when Zoë, the all-powerful director, had fallen off her chair and ripped her dress right down the back as she scrambled back to her feet, revealing some most unexpected leopard-skin pattern underwear.
She remembered evenings in the bar with the writers, led by Benny, with everybody around the table crying with laughter as they were bombarded with one-liners. She remembered the time a pigeon got onto the set and crapped all over Layla’s ballgown, and she still shivered as she recalled her chronic embarrassment the day she had had to reveal her bare back to the camera for the first time. In so doing, Alice had exposed the rest of her naked body to no fewer than sixteen – she had counted them – mostly male spectators, including the camera crew, lighting and sound engineers, scenery shifters and, worst of all, Richie. Above all, she remembered the hours of anticipation she had endured leading up to her very first on-screen kiss with Richie. The fact that the reality of the kiss, and the man himself, had not lived up to expectations was even now a source of regret. She had
