Melissa Nathan: Pride, Prejudice and Jasmine Field

They stared at each other and the woman, who seemed to recognise Jazz, pushed rudely past her. Who the hell was it? Her eyes were a watery pale, mud blue and she'd put heavy mascara on her four eyelashes. It looked like a spider had donated its legs for her vanity. Suddenly Jazz realised who she was. Purple Glasses! Without the glasses! She followed after her, trying to remember her name.

“Fi!” she called out. Purple Glasses looked round and stared a very hostile stare at Jazz. She waited. At first the words just wouldn't come out, but after what felt like an eternity, Jazz managed to blurt out: “I - I wanted to say sorry for how horrid I've been during this play.” A fraction of her black mood lifted. “I've been quite stressed over the past few months, but—”

“Well, haven't we all?” said Watery Eyes.

“Yes, well, I was just about to say that that was no excuse.” Jazz tried to keep her tone measured and calm. “And I'm apologising now, and saying that I think you're marvellous at your job. Which is a brilliant job, by the way. So - sorry. And thank you. But mostly sorry.”

Watery Eyes just stared at her. Then she said slowly and very clearly, “I've worked with some horrid people in my time, but you, Jasmin Field, were the absolute all-time worst.”

Oh, thought Jazz. Glad we've got that sorted out then.

“Does that mean I get a medal?” she eventually asked in a small voice.

Watery Eyes sighed and then said in a painfully patronising tone, “Jasmin Field, you're very lucky I'm in a good mood. That's all I can say,” and walked off.

What, no hug? thought Jazz with a bitter shake of her head. Standing in the middle of the crowded nightclub, she had a quick word with herself, explaining, not for the first time, that life would never be anything like Anne of Green Gables , and she had better get over it once and for all. Then she went to join Mo.

“I have a very important question,” Mo said, as soon as she got there. Was she going to ask her to vacate the flat? She didn't want to hear it. She seriously didn't think she'd be able to cope just now. At that moment she spotted Maddie at the bar.

“Hold on a mo, Mo,” said Jazz, and then sniggered. “I'll be back in a mo.” Hey - how come she'd never thought of that joke before?

She rushed over to Maddie.

“Hiya,” she said.

“Hi,” said Maddie shortly.

“Mark just made a confession to me,” continued Jazz.

“Mmm?”

“Mrnmm. It appears he's been hopelessly in love - that was how he put it - with a certain Features Editor whose spiritual home is IKEA.”

Maddie's face lit up. “You're kidding.”

“Nope. Did you have any idea you've been putting your junior through living hell? What kind of a boss are you anyway?”

Maddie was grinning from ear to ear. “A happy one,” she said.

“Well, go and give your employee a full de-briefing. It's way overdue.” Maddie gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and grappled her way to the dance-floor. Mo came over. “Finished?” she asked. “I'm just sorting out everyone's love-life,” Jazz told her. “Because I'm so good at sorting out my own, ha ha.”

Mo followed her eyes to where Harry was now dancing with Mrs. Bennet. The latter was pretending to do a striptease, starting with her scarf, which she had draped over Harry's smiling face. Sara was standing next to him, taking the scarf off and giving it back to its owner, pretending - badly - to find the lark as funny as he did. Harry didn't seem to mind. “He spent the whole week saving your life,” said Mo. Jazz sighed. “Yes, but only because his reputation rested on it,” she said in a hollow voice.

She was so angry with herself she could cry. She'd always scoffed at George for getting so involved in a part that she regularly fell for her co-stars, and yet she had done exactly the same thing. In the past few months, she had felt so empowered by Lizzy, so strengthened by her that she had managed, for a few foolish hours, to get carried away and convince herself that she too could have Lizzy's happy ending.

She looked miserably over to Harry as he laughed and joked with Mrs. Bennet, and she felt too melancholy to look away when his eyes met hers. Had he said he was in love with her merely to bring

out the best in her performance? He was probably that much of a perfectionist — and he was also a convincing actor. If that was the case, had she been that easily readable?

She was drowning in self-pity and humiliation. This is real life, she thought unhappily. This is not some stupid play.

“Listen, give the guy a break,” said Mo. “Remember how terrifying you are. He's probably scared stiff of you.”

“Oh, don't be ridiculous,” said Jazz.

“I am not. You can be truly terrifying. Remember that Scout and Guide camp we went on when we were fourteen? You fancied Jonny Smith.”

Jazz frowned at her. What did that have to do with anything?

“Jazz,” said Mo slowly, “you set fire to his rucksack. And then wondered why he didn't ask you out.”

Jazz smiled in amazement at the memory. She'd forgotten about that. Had she really done something so dangerous? At the time, she'd thought her heart was going to break.

“Well,” she said stubbornly, “that certainly taught him to ogle Melanie Margate instead of me during exercise.”

“Yes,” agreed Mo. “It also taught him how to extinguish a burning T-shirt while still wearing it, and how to sleep on his stomach for the next six months.”

Jazz grimaced and put her head in her hands. It felt heavy. “I didn't think it would take so well,” she said in a muffled voice.

“Face it, Jazz,” said Mo kindly but firmly. “You don't realise how scary you can be sometimes.”

Jazz faced it. “So what do I do? I've already apologised for being a bitch. If he doesn't want me, he doesn't want me. Fact. I'll just kill myself. It's the simplest thing for all.” Somehow just saying that out loud made her feel better.

Mo sighed and put her hands on Jazz's burning cheeks. “I have two things to ask you. One: will you be my Best Woman at my wedding? And Two: when you start going out with Harry Noble, will you still remember me?”

“You're getting married!” Jazz whispered, as though this was the first time she'd been told. “I haven't even asked about the proposal. Tell me everything.”

Mo's face went all dreamy. “It was wonderful,” she confided. “He took me to lunch at the Pont de la Tour. And then afterwards, when we were standing by the Thames at dusk, he proposed.”

They both sighed together. “And what was it like?” asked an enraptured Jazz.

“Well,” started Mo, “for hors d'oeuvres , we had the most amazing—”

“Not the food, Mo, the proposal.”

“Oh.” Mo went all dreamy again. “He got down on one knee — I had no idea he was going to—”

As Mo went on, Jazz maintained her smile, while marvelling that at the turn of the new millennium, intelligent, educated, responsible women still relied on men to decide when, where and how the most important decision of both of their lives was to be made.

“You'll have to help me diet for the big day,” said Mo, when she'd finished her story. She wasn't smiling any more - she had come crashing back to reality.

“Bog off,” retorted Jazz. “Why would I do that? I love you.”

“I mean it,” said Mo. “I've put on loads of weight since I started going out with Gil.”

“I mean it too,” said Jazz equally sincerely. “He doesn't know how lucky he is.” Then she added, as an afterthought, “I'm so happy that you're happy, Mo.” It was the nearest she would ever be able to get to saying “I'm happy you're marrying Gilbert.”

Mo looked at her and gave her a long, slow smile. “Thanks, Jazz,” she said quiedy. And then she returned to her diet stories. “It's not so much a case of how much I eat,” she pondered convinced, as all dieters are, that other people gave a flying fig-roll about their diet tales “but how short a time I do it in. If I only had more time to eat what I want to eat, I'd be fantastically slim.”