The Men in her Life

have thought of having a twin I didn’t know about.’
    ‘She’s not my twin, just nearly the same age,’ Holly corrected.
    ‘Well, of course, in a film, she would have to be. Then you could have the titles rolling over little clips of their birthdays — sepia at the beginning when they’re still babies, becoming black and white as the Sixties roll on and then flower power... The working-class one gets a fairy cake with a couple of candles and the upper-class one has a whole party with paid entertainment and little girls in dresses from Harrods, but guess which is the happier?’
    ‘Ginger, it’s Holly’s life you’re talking about,’ Pic said sternly.
    ‘Well, then, Holly should write it...’ Ginger said.
    ‘No,’ said Holly, ‘you write it. I’m too close. I’m so bloody close, it hadn’t even occurred to me. I can’t believe it. I spend my whole bloody life reading other people’s plots... you will let me know how the story turns out?’ she asked Ginger, laughing.
    ‘If I get beyond the first page... I expect Charlie told you that I’m trying to write a script. Trouble is, it’s a romantic comedy about how I met him, you see, and I think I’m just too close,’ she put deliberate, serious emphasis on the words, ‘hmm, that sounds so much better than I’m too undisciplined, or just not very good at writing. I’m too close. What do you think, Pic?’
    ‘You don’t concentrate,’ Pic said.
    Sisters could say that sort of thing and get away with it, Holly thought. That was what made them different from friends.
    ‘She’s right,’ Ginger admitted, ‘I’ve got the concentration span of a moth. I’m good at first pages, and titles, especially now that I read so many nursery rhymes. They all sound like titles because they all have that thing, like Charlie always says...’
    ‘What do I always say?’
    Charlie appeared at the door, kissed all three of them on the cheek and grabbed a piece of focaccia from the board in the middle of the table.
    ‘You say that titles have to sound like you’ve heard them before... and of course they do if they’re nursery rhymes because you have heard them before, and some of them are really sinister...’ Ginger said, lowering her voice. ‘Fee, fi, fo, fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman... The Blood of an Englishman... I mean, it’s a great title, isn’t it?’
    ‘I’ll just pop up and see the sprogs,’ Charlie interrupted.
    Ginger made a face.
    ‘I hate that word,’ she confided to the women.
    Holly was thinking about nursery-rhyme titles.
    ‘We could play a game,’ she said, ‘one of us has to say a title and the rest have to pitch the film...’
    ‘Brilliant. I’m so glad Charlie invited you. It’s turning into a real dinner party with games and everything,’ Ginger said, ‘Charlie can award us points. You start.’
    ‘Three Blind Mice, starring Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones and Danny Aiello. Three detectives on the trail of a serial killer they call The Cat...’ Holly improvised.
    ‘Shouldn’t the serial killer be called The Farmer’s Wife?’ Pic interjected.
    Ginger and Holly just looked at her and dissolved into laughter.
    ‘Lavender’s Blue, Dilly, Dilly,’ Ginger said, ‘... marriage of convenience turns sad as husband gets AIDS.’
    ‘There’s a film about a marriage of convenience being released next year,’ Holly told her, ‘a romantic comedy.’
    ‘Well, this is the weepy version. This is Philadelphia meets Love Story, but for God’s sake, not Tom Hanks.’
    On that basis Holly was prepared to allow it into competition.
    When Charlie came down he wanted to join in rather than judge, and so it was left up to Pic to choose. After many suggestions and much serious thought, she awarded first prize to Little Miss Muffet — thirty-something arachnophobe finds romance with a man from Rentokil, which was, in everyone else’s view, one of the weakest entries.
    ‘Did you bring that script?’ Charlie asked Holly, as Pic took two trays of bread-and-butter pudding out of the oven.
    ‘It’s in an envelope on your hall table,’ Holly told him.
    ‘I’ll get back to you on Monday.’
    ‘Fine,’ Holly said. She had been enjoying herself so much she hadn’t really thought about why she was supposed to be there. She sat up straight trying to remember how many glasses of wine she’d consumed.
    ‘Did you always want to be an agent?’ Charlie asked her.
    ‘I didn’t even know what an agent did until I