Page 65 of Not Moving Out
‘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 likeHouse Sharedis 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.
