Pulse

sentences, covered up each other’s gaffes, were satirically punitive with male interviewers who tried to patronise them, and urged signing queues to buy the other one’s books. The British Council had sent them abroad a few times until Jane, less than entirely sober, had made some unambassadorial remarks in Munich.
    ‘What’s the worst thing anyone’s done to you?’
    ‘Are we still talking bed?’
    ‘Mmm.’
    ‘Jane, what a question.’
    ‘Well, we’re bound to be asked it sooner or later. The way everything’s going.’
    ‘I’ve never been raped, if that’s what you’re asking. At least,’ Alice went on reflectively, ‘not what the courts would call rape.’
    ‘So?’
    When Alice didn’t answer, Jane said, ‘I’ll look at the landscape while you’re thinking.’ She gazed, with vague benignity, at trees, fields, hedgerows, livestock. She had always been a town person, and her interest in the countryside was largely pragmatic, a flock of sheep only signifying roast lamb.
    ‘It’s not something … obvious. But I’d say it was Simon.’
    ‘Simon as in the novelist or as in the publisher or as in Simon but you don’t know him?’
    ‘Simon the novelist. It was not long after I was divorced. He phoned up and suggested coming round. Said he’d bringa bottle of wine. Which he did. When it became pretty clear that he wasn’t going to get what he’d come for, he corked up the rest of it and took the bottle home.’
    ‘What was it?’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Well, was it champagne?’
    Alice thought for a moment. ‘It can’t have been champagne because you can’t get the cork back into the bottle. Do you mean was it French or Italian or white or red?’
    Jane could tell from the tone that Alice was riled. ‘I don’t know what I meant actually. That’s bad.’
    ‘What’s bad? Not remembering what you meant?’
    ‘No, putting the cork back in the bottle. Really bad.’ She left an ex-actress’s pause. ‘I suppose it might have been symbolic.’
    Alice giggled, and Jane could tell the moment had only been a hiccup. Encouraged, she put on her sitcom voice. ‘Got to laugh after a bit, haven’t you?’
    ‘I suppose so,’ replied Alice. ‘It’s either that or get religion.’
    Jane might have let the moment pass. But Alice’s reference to Buddhism had given her courage, and besides, what are friends for? Even so, she looked out of the window to confess. ‘Actually, I’ve got it, if you want to know. A little, anyway.’
    ‘Really? Since when? Or rather, why?’
    ‘A year or two. It sort of makes sense of things. Makes it all feel less … hopeless.’ Jane stroked her handbag, as if it too needed consolation.
    Alice was surprised. In her world view, everything was hopeless, but you just had to get on with it. And there wasn’t much point changing what you believed at this late stage of the game. She considered whether to answer seriously or lightly, and decided on the latter.
    ‘As long as your god allows drinking and smoking and fornication.’
    ‘Oh, he’s very keen on all of those.’
    ‘How about blasphemy? I always think that’s the key test when it comes to a god.’
    ‘He’s indifferent. He sort of rises above it.’
    ‘Then I approve.’
    ‘That’s what he does. Approves.’
    ‘Makes a change. For a god, I mean. Mostly they disapprove.’
    ‘I don’t think I’d want a god who disapproved. Get enough of that in life anyway. Mercy and forgiveness and understanding, that’s what we need. Plus the notion of some overall plan.’
    ‘Did he find you or you find him, if that makes sense as a question?’
    ‘Perfect sense,’ replied Jane. ‘I suppose you could say it was mutual.’
    ‘That sounds … comfy.’
    ‘Yes, most people don’t think a god ought to be comfy.’
    ‘What’s that line? Something like: “God will forgive me, it’s his job”?’
    ‘Quite right too. I think we’ve overcomplicated God down the ages.’
    The sandwich trolley came past, and Jane ordered tea. From her handbag she took a slice of lemon in a plastic box, and a miniature of cognac from the hotel minibar. She liked to play a little unacknowledged game with her publishers: the better her room, the less she pillaged. Last night she had slept well, so contented herself with only the cognac and whisky. But once, in Cheltenham, after a poor audience and a lumpy mattress, she was in such a rage that she’d taken everything: the alcohol, the peanuts, the chocolate, the