Ben Elton - Inconceivable

When I was riding in the taxi I think I believed he was having an affair. That’s what I expected to find at the address the woman had given me. Sam in the arms of another woman. I wish that that’s what I had found.

The address was a film location. A big warehouse in Docklands with the usual trucks and trailers and generators outside and inside, a vast darkened hangar where a number of sets had been constructed. There were people everywhere. I passed a group dressed as nurses and as I walked in I could see immediately that one of the sets was a hospital operating room for women, with stirrups and that sort of thing. I stood there for a while, hidden in the shadows, not knowing what to think, not really thinking at all. Everything was so confused, and I felt scared. Scared of what I was about to discover. Slowly it all began to swim into focus. I could see that all the lights and the attention were concentrated on what was a bedroom set, a bedroom very like my own, in fact. There were two actors on the set, one of them, to my astonishment, Carl Phipps. The other was a woman I recognized as Nimnh Tubbs from the RSC. Someone called for quiet and the two of them began to play out a scene. It was a rehearsal. I knew that because I could see that the camera was not being operated. Carl sat at a desk and pretended to type into a laptop.

“ What the hell do you find to write about?” he said. “What an emotionally retarded shit I am, I suppose. I know you secretly think I’m holding my sperm back. You think their refusal to leap like wild salmon up the river of your fertility and headbutt great holes in your eggs is down to a belligerently slack attitude which they’ve caught off me.”

I could feel myself going cold. Surely that was exactly the sort of thing that Sam always used to say to me? What was going on? Why was Nimnh Tubbs sitting on the bed holding a journal just like I do every night? Just like I’m doing now, in fact.

Then a young Scottish man who was clearly the director stepped into the scene.

“ Obviously we’ll pick up a reaction from you there, Nimnh,” he said. “Semi-distraught, emotionally dysfunctional, pathetic little woman stuff OK?”

Nimnh nodded wisely. She knew that type.

Perhaps I’m stupid. Maybe the last few months have made me stupid, but at this point I still didn’t know what was going on. I just stood there, convinced that I was in some horrible dream. They started rehearsing again, more words I knew.

“ I just happen to believe that when God made me he made me for a purpose beyond that of devoting my entire life to reproducing myself.”

And she replied, “When God made you he made a million other people on the same day. He probably doesn’t even remember your name.”

Then I knew. Those were my words! My actual verbatim words! Just then I saw Sam. I don’t know whether I’d realized what was going on before or after he appeared, but either way I was no longer confused. I knew what had been done to me.

The director had called Sam over. Nimnh was having trouble with the motivation behind the scene and the director wanted her to hear it from the writer.

The writer. I was the bloody writer.

“ You see, to me, Nimnh,” said the man who had been my husband, “this scene represents the beginnings of her descent into a sort of sad madness, a kind of vain obsession. To me the line about not crying outside Mothercare on the way to the off licence is crucial…”

Then I realized the full extent of his betrayal. I’d never told Sam about Mothercare and the off licence. I’d only told you, Penny. He’d read my book.

Sam wittered on, posing importantly, loving himself.

“ Don’t forget that this woman is beginning a journey that will see her lose all dignity and sense of previous self,” he said. “Before she knows it she’ll be making a fool of herself at hippy visualization classes, adopting a baby gorilla and claiming it’s got nothing to do with her infertility. She’ll have reduced her sex life to a series of joyless, soulless, cynically calculated servicings, treating her poor, hapless hubby as some kind of farmyard animal, brutally milked for its sperm…”

They laughed at this. They laughed at it all. Why wouldn’t they? It’s funny, I suppose.

It was then that I walked forward on to the set. I still can’t decide whether it was a good idea, but I was in a daze. Some young woman with blue hair and a walkie-talkie tried to stop me, but I was not to be stopped. They all heard the young woman’s protests and turned and saw me. I don’t know what Sam thought.

But I knew what I thought. One word.

“ Bastard,” I said. It was all I could say. “Bastard.”

Carl was nearly as surprised as Sam was, but I had no time for him. My whole being was taken up absorbing this new Sam, this Sam whom I’d never known.

“ You bastard, Sam, you utter, fucking bastard.”

I hated him and I still hate him. He tried to speak, but I wouldn’t let him.

“ I got my period if you’re interested,” I said. “We failed. Dick and Debbie didn’t make it.”

I didn’t care that the director and Carl and Nimnh and the woman with blue hair could hear me. I didn’t care about anything. They all began to turn away with embarrassment, but I told them to stay. I told them that they might as well listen now because they’d hear it all soon anyway, that Nimnh would be saying it all tomorrow.

George ran up. My God, George! They were all in on it. I remember wondering if Melinda knew as well.

Carl seized the moment to ask me what I was doing, what was going on.

“ Ask him!” I said, and all eyes turned from me to Sam. “He’s told you everything else about me… My God, Sam, you’ve been stealing my book. Stealing my thoughts and feelings, like a thief!”

I don’t know whether I actually said all that or whether I just stuttered at him. I do know that I was crying, which astonishes me, looking back on it. I’m certainly not a person who makes scenes in front of strangers lightly. I think that failing IVF had already pretty much destroyed what emotional defences I had. And then all this.

Then both Sam and Carl tried to take my arm to lead me away. Sam was stuttering apologies. Carl was trying to get me to calm down and explain. Then Sam rounded on Carl.

“ You keep out of this!” he said, and he looked like he was going to cry too. “I know all about you!”

Carl was astonished. It was the last thing he expected.

“ Now look here…” he started to say, but I didn’t let him get the chance, I just went for Sam.

“ Yes, that’s right, Sam!” I shouted. Everyone really was backing away now, even the Scottish director, who did not look like a man who would embarrass easily. “You know all about Carl! That he took me out and that I kissed him. You know everything about me, don’t you? Because you’ve stolen my bloody thoughts! Well, here’s another little piece of me and you can have it for nothing. You won’t have to sneak about picking locks on people’s diaries for this! I hate you! I hate you more than I ever believed I could hate anyone, and I never want to see or speak to you again…”

That’s what I told him, in that or so many other words, and I meant it. I still do.

Then I ran out of the building with both Carl and Sam running after me. If it wasn’t the worst thing that has ever happened to me it would be funny.

We stood there, the three of us, on a pavement in the Docklands, Sam desperately protesting that he’d never meant it to be like this, Carl hanging back wondering whether to intervene or not.