didn't think you would hit him, though ... and I expected even less that Miles would do it for you."

"That's what friends are for."

"You and Miles are two of the biggest chauvinist pigs I've ever met."

"Oink," I said. "But admit it, you love us for it."

She looked up at me; her eyes were clear again. "I don't know what to call it; you are an infuriating bastard and I should hate you till the day I die, but you do have an effect on me." She slid her arms around my waist. "What am I going to do, Oz?"

"About Nicky? Own up, tell him you don't love him any more and put him on a plane back to the States."

"I'd worked that out for myself. No, what am I going to do about me?"

"Go and see your folks for a while. Get your head together, then decide. Whatever you want to do, you can. Money's no object."

"I can't go back to Los Angeles. I hate the place; I felt safer when I worked in Africa, and there was a war on there."

"So go back there. Or be Mother Teresa again; go to Calcutta and work with the poor."

"I'm no saint; besides, I prefer the rich."

"Go to the south of France then; go back to Spain."

"Come with me?" She said it tentatively.

"Now that would be crazy' In spite of myself, I felt sparks begin to fly. "There's no such thing as third time lucky. We'd end up killing each other."

"I'd behave."

"I wouldn't."

"What if I withdraw from our divorce agreement?"

"Now I know you're joking. Even you must realise that whatever else we're good at, we're lousy at marriage."

She ran her hand up inside my shirt; I felt its warmth on my chest.

"There is one thing we're very good at." She pulled my head down and kissed me; I kissed her back ... out of sheer habit, of course.

"Yes, but.. ." I said when we came up for air.

"What?"

"Susie."

"She did it to me; I'd do it to her in a minute." When she grinned at me, and those extra sparks flew, I thought I'd had it. "Although, I'd really take much longer than that."

There was a sofa thing against the far wall of the dressing room; it was well long enough for us. I looked at it and saw us there; so did she, and pulled me towards it. Then all the lies and deceit, mine and hers, that had driven us apart, came back to me. And something else too.

"I can't," I said. "I'm sorry, but I can't. There's someone else involved now."

"Who?" she asked. "Let me guess; that big blond goddess who let us into the canteen truck and who went running when you shouted."

"Close, but no cigar. No, her name's Janet, and she's two weeks old.

She changes everything."

She took her arms from around me. "I see. So that's what I should have done to keep us together, is it? Had a baby with you?"

"No. What we should have done was build a relationship on the rocks of truth, not the sands of deceit." I tried to smile as I said it, but fell short.

"Jesus," Prim exclaimed, 'have you got a scriptwriter now?"

"No, that trite double metaphor was all my own."

"Thank God; I'd hate to think a professional came up with it. So what are you telling me; that you and Susie are building your thing on the basis of a kid? Because there are millions of examples to show that that doesn't work."

"I don't know what I'm telling you. I don't know, period. I think I do, and then something will happen to make me uncertain again."

"Like me turning up out of the blue?"

"Yes. No. Fuck."

She smiled at me again; but with real warmth this time. I couldn't remember the last time she'd looked at me that way. "My darling, those three words encompass your entire approach to life, and mine. Susie's wrong for you; she's much too complicated."

I sat on the couch and pulled her down beside me; all of a sudden I was dead tired. She put her head on my shoulder. "You may be right, Prim; you may well be. But you've got to let me work that out for myself, not try to persuade me.

"Last time you came back into my life it led to all sorts of disasters for us both. Having you do it again scares me a wee bit... no, scares me a lot. So please, you do what you have to do to get rid of lover-boy, go see your Mum and Dad, and let me get on with making my movie and with sorting myself out."

She nodded. "Okay," she whispered, then she drew me round and kissed me; again, I kissed her back, but not out of habit this time.

Finally, she stood. "I'd better leave now," she murmured.

"Yeah," I said. "But before you go .. ."

She looked at me with a mixture of surprise and expectation. "Yes?"

"You'd better take some of those tissues and wipe my make-up off your face, otherwise People Will Talk, even more than they're going to already."

Forty.

I was bugger all use for the rest of the day; I fluffed a couple of simple lines and tried even Miles's patience, but somehow or other I got through it without too much embarrassment.

Mandy was waiting outside my dressing room when I got back down to Cockburn Street at the end of it all. "It's not like you to let a locked door bother you," I said grimly. "Come to think of it, it's not like anyone around here."

"Shh!" she whispered, urgently. "Ricky's back. He's in the catering van and the door's open; he might hear you."

"I might tell him all the same," I grunted, but I didn't mean it. It had been a bad enough day as it was and if I dropped Mandy in it by telling her boss about her surprise visit, I'd just make myself look even dafter, not to mention getting her fired. As I opened the door, her look told me she didn't believe my threat anyway.

"Has my wife gone?" I asked her.