The Rewrite: A Second-Chance Romance

You really know how to make me cry

When you give me those ocean eyes

—Billie Eilish, “Ocean Eyes”

Paul—Now

“Don’t tell me you’re still not done with that draft.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

Levi, my producer, rolled his eyes at me and somehow still managed to glare. Actually, I wasn’t exactly sure how he managed to do that.

“Paul. Seriously. You’ve been at this for…what, six months? How hard is it to just write?”

I leaned back in my chair and tipped onto the back two legs, something that never failed to annoy him. Except I didn’t care right this second, because he was the one pissing me off.

“It’s not an instantaneous process. You know that.”

“Well, it’s a lot bloody easier for you than it is me,” said Levi. “I’m not the screenwriter here.”

“Yeah, but I’m not twenty-four anymore. I’m going a little soft.” I tapped the side of my head.

“You’re thirty-six, Paul. Not dead.” Levi slapped down my partially-finished screenplay and looked at me over his glasses, like I was a naughty kid who’d been called into the headmaster’s office. I sort of was, actually. That was the whole reason I was here, in his office. “We’ll talk again when you’re staring fifty in the face.”

I let my chair down with a bang, glancing at the screenplay. “So what do you think of it? Can I work with it or do I need to scrap it and start over?”

Levi’s eyes went wide. “No. Do not, whatever you do, toss all this work in the bin. I’ve been in this business long enough to know you’ll never get that momentum going again.”

“Okay.” I slapped it with the back of my hand. “Then what do I need to do? I’m stuck.”

He leaned back in his own chair and took off his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. He always looked tired and old, but right this moment, he looked even more tired and old.

“You need a break,” he said finally.

I blinked at him in surprise. “Wait, hang on. First you tell me ‘Write faster, Paul’ and now you’re saying ‘Take a break, Paul’? I’m getting mixed signals.”

“I’m saying do both, you numpty,” he said, his Scottish brogue getting stronger for a moment. “Take some time off. Go to the country. See your mum, sleep in your childhood room, greet the dog that died while you were away and your mum got one just like it but never told you.”

“First off, my mum can’t have dogs, she’s allergic.” There were hypoallergenic dogs, I bloody knew that. But I was glad he didn’t say anything about it. “Second, that’s unlike her. She’d never do that.”

“I said the same about my mum, and she did,” Levi said, testy now that we were arguing about something pointless. “Besides, we’re talking about you here. Not me. And I’m saying you need a break, because you’re burnt out. You were working when I met you, and you haven’t stopped since.”

“Yeah, well, they tell you to do that if you want to make it in this business.” I shrugged.

“I’ll only say this one more time, Paul.” He leaned forward, making eye contact. “Get your arse out of London. If I want to talk, I’ll ring you, not vice versa. You’re off the grid, effective immediately as far as I’m concerned.”

“I haven’t told my mum I’m getting unexpected time off,” I said.

“Mine’ll do it,” he said, his voice dripping sarcasm as he pushed my screenplay back towards me. “Now bugger off. I don’t want to tell you again.”

I scooped the screenplay up without another word, gave him my best stink-eye, and then did what he asked and buggered off.

===

Levi was right about one thing: I probably did need to see Mum. I hadn’t since December, when I’d invited her to London for the premiere of my most recent film – released just in time to pick up what the press called “award-season buzz”. It wasn’t a complete waste. It got a few nods – honestly not as many I used to – but didn’t perform well. As in, it didn’t win.

Now we were on the back end of May, going into June. We were going on six months too. Except it wasn’t as though I had a normal 9-to-5 job where I could see her at weekends, or bank holidays, or when my daughter Annika – Anni – was off school for the summer. I had to squeeze in visits when I could. Which, regrettably, wasn’t often.

I waffled about it for the next twenty-four hours, while I halfheartedly threw things into a holdall. It’d been even longer since I’d been home, a little village in the Cotswolds that looks like the front of a postcard – or the set of a cosy mystery – called Little Coatesworth. If you’ve never heard of it, you’re not alone. The only people who have live there.

I finally bit the bullet that evening and rung Mum. That was one thing, in lieu of actual visits, we’d managed to keep up. I rang her every time something important – and sometimes when nothing important – happened. Most times they were fifteen- or twenty-minute conversations. Mum-checks, she called them. But it was the only way I stayed sane.

“Hello?” Mum picked up after five rings.

“Hey, Mum. It’s me.”

“Paulie?” She sounded a bit confused, but mostly happy. Probably because it’d only been two days since we’d last talked. “Everything all right, love?”

“Everything’s fine,” I said, giving my holdall a side-eye. “So…what if I told you I’m coming home for a bit?”

“Coming home?” she echoed. “Home as in here? To Little Coatesworth?”

“Don’t have another,” I said. I couldn’t exactly wink or rib her, but I wished I could.

“Oh, give over, you.” I could picture her hand-wave. “That’s splendid, Paulie. Really. Getting lonely in this house with just little old me, you see.”

That was the other thing. I hadn’t been back since before Anni was born, and Rhi, my wife – now ex-wife – had been six months pregnant. I still thought of that visit sometimes, when we were only two twenty-something kids, unaware of the future that waited for us. I thought of Rhi sometimes too, wishing she wasn’t just my ex nowadays.

“You’re not old,” I said. “And you have your knitting club and your book club and your events planning committee. I’d hardly call you lonely.”

“Drat. I was hoping that would make my son take pity on me and come home faster.”

I grinned, just as I heard the beep-beep of another call coming in. I pulled my mobile away from my ear, and felt a little zing of surprise when I saw my ex-wife’s name flash across my screen. She never rung me out of the blue.

“Sorry, Mum,” I said, when I recovered. “I have another call…I think I’d better answer.”

“I’ll win your pity yet,” she said, and I could hear a grin of her own. “Yes, take it. Could be important.”

“Bye, Mum.” I rang off, then immediately picked up the next one. “Hello? Rhi?”

“Hi, Daddy,” said Anni. “Mummy’s lettin’ me use her phone for a couple’a minutes.”

“Oh, is she?” That wasn’t shocking. What did was that Rhi was letting her use it to call me. I hadn’t had a real, meaningful conversation with her since before the divorce, three years ago. “Mummy must be in a good mood.”

“She’s stressed, Daddy. Said so today.”

“Your mummy’s had a rough go,” I said. “Give her time.”

Rough go was an understatement. I thought of it as the Before and the After – when things were fine, until they suddenly weren’t.

Paul McBride is a tyrant. I would never work with him again even if he were the last director on earth.

It was two sentences. Twenty-one words. But they’d been heard around the world in seconds, and our own worlds imploded. I’d had no idea Rhi felt that way. And she’d had no idea how that sentiment would spell the death of her career – and our marriage.

“Do you need time, Daddy?” Anni asked. She’d been small when the split happened, just turned four years old. Now she was nearly eight – and she would be, in July – and had an uncanny understanding of what had happened between us.

“No, honey. I’m okay.” I’d thrown myself into my work, as always. At least I had that.

“Didja know Mummy wants’a go away after school gets done?” she said, and I imagined her perking up. “I’m gonna be jus’ like Nat an’ Libby, ‘cos they’re goin’ to someplace called Majerka.”

“Mallorca?” I said. I didn’t mean to correct her, but for a girl whose strong suit was Geography, I’d’ve thought she’d know that. “So they’re taking a vacation together?”

“No, their parents jus’ booked the same time by con’cidence, isn’t that weird? I asked ‘em if they were gonna take lots’a pictures, an’ they said only if I get lots’a pictures too. Mummy got me a camera, so I’m gonna get the bestest pictures of all of them.”

“Maybe you’ll even get first-place in a photo competition,” I said. That was the thing about Anni. You just had to let her talk. Motor-mouth, Mum would’ve said.

“Ooh, what kin’a photo competition? Mrs Johnson says they always run ’em when school starts, d’ya mean that competition?”

“It could be, honey.” I wondered what she was doing now. Probably hiding since she’d nicked Rhi’s phone – if the way she was literally word-vomiting at me was anything to go by. “Or you could go bigger. You know…city-wide. County. National.”

Anni giggled. “Daddy, I don’no how to use the camera yet.”

“Oh, of course. But you could be a regular Ansel Adams in no time. I know you.”

“Angel who?”

Then I heard Rhi’s distant voice: “Anni, honey, I need that back please.”

“I’m talkin’ to Daddy,” she said. “Do you wanna?”

“Maybe later,” Rhi said, closer now. It was surreal, hearing it like this: her and my daughter on the other end of a phone call. “Please, honey. I need to use it now.”

“Okay,” Anni said. Rhi must’ve been doing something right. It was never that easy to get anything of mine away from her. “Bye, Daddy!”

“Bye, monkey.”

After the line went dead, I tossed my mobile onto my pillow and ran both hands over my face, pressing my fingers especially hard into my eyes. If it was one thing that hadn’t changed, between the twice-monthly weekends when Anni stayed here at my flat – the one we’d all lived in as a family before the divorce – the alternating Tuesday and Thursday when I picked her up from school, and only seeing Rhi on Friday – dropping Anni off – and Sunday – picking her up – afternoons, it was our daughter. We both loved her fiercely, and sometimes, being with her, it seemed like the divorce hadn’t happened.

But it had. It was probably the greatest regret of my life.

===

I started for Little Coatesworth late the next morning, around eleven. Mum would scold me if she knew how long the drive actually took – two hours, tops, if traffic was good – because any excuse that involved me not having time would fall flat.

But the drive was just as scenic as I remembered. I took the M3 out of London, and once I hit Basingstoke I zigzagged my way north. I hardly heard the news, even though it was on the whole time – unable to keep my mind on the famines, the wars, the fires and floods, the children screaming and the bombs falling.

Instead, I let myself think of Rhi. I could get away with that where others couldn’t – to everyone else, and the world, she was Rhiannon Barkley, a child star turned into a world-famous, capital-A actress. Showbusiness royalty, and a third-generation nepo-baby – acting ran in her blood, considering both her parents were in the business too. Had been, for decades.

I hadn’t cared about that, the first time I saw her act. She was all raw talent, something you couldn’t learn at acting school. She had something special. I’d known, right away, that Rhiannon Barkley was going to be a star. The look I’d exchanged with Levi right in that moment told me he’d known too.

Eventually, though, I hit the familiar high street: the small shops with window-boxes already overflowing with flowers, people riding bicycles or walking, the little roundabout that marked the town center, its fountain shaped like a stylised lion and a unicorn, back-to-back. One jet shot out of the lion’s mouth, the other, out of the unicorn’s horn. All around a very English thing.

Past the high street, the road forked. To the left, the houses started, painted stucco and thatched roofs. To the right, the school my two friends and I had attended from nursery all the way up to sixth-form. Further along, it joined up to the A40 to Cheltenham.

I debated procrastinating, maybe a literal trip down memory lane. But Mum was expecting me, and I’d already taken an hour longer than predicted. So I took the left lane, inching the Bentley along the road until I reached a hedge on the right-hand side. I turned again, taking the winding, hedge-lined path until it opened onto my mum’s place: a farmhouse, with a slate roof rather than thatch, two brick chimneys on either end, two stories, a lawn in front, veggies in beds to the side, and a sliver of picturesque English garden behind.

I parked in the gravel drive, close to what I first thought was a garden shed and now saw it was a chicken coop. The chickens were out in their yard, and a couple of them tilted their heads to watch me as I got out of the car.

“Hi, chickies,” I said. The only response I got was another head-tilt and a couple more pecks on the ground.

I fetched my holdall from the boot, then wandered up to the front door and knocked. Mum had always said this village was more the setting of a romantic comedy than a horror-slasher film, but still. I wasn’t taking chances.

Then the door was opening, and I was pulled into a hug that smelled like powdered sugar.

“Paulie!” Mum exclaimed, giving me one tighter squeeze before letting go.

“Hi, Mum.” She appeared to have been baking, wearing an apron streaked with white and brandishing a wooden spoon like a weapon in one hand. “All right?”

“Oh, Paulie, I’m not one of your mates, come in.” She took my hand and pulled me inside. “Drop your bag there, we’ll get it later. Want a cuppa? I’ve just put the kettle on.”

“Sure. I’d like that.”

She waved me into the kitchen, down the hall past the stairs. It was just like I remembered: big, bright, colourful, and at the moment, having witnessed a baking accident.

“What on earth are you doing in here?” I glanced around the kitchen. The flour had even gotten onto the front of the fridge, and that was on the opposite wall from her.

“I thought I’d make a cake,” she said, giving the mess her own glance, then shrugging. “Isn’t going well, as you can see.”

“Where’s the Mum who once baked a hundred-and-fifty cookies for the Christmas pageant?” I nudged her.

She rolled her eyes back. “Age happened.”

Then she busied herself with making the tea, the water boiling in a newfangled electric kettle that lit up different colours depending on the water’s heat.

“That’s fancy,” I said, when I noticed it. “And here I was, thinking you’d still be doing everything the old-fashioned way.”

“Come now, Paulie. Your mum’s not that much of a dinosaur.” Her green eyes, like mine, glinted in a way that said Watch yourself.

She’d just set our mugs on the table in the breakfast nook when there was a second knock at the front door. I gave her a questioning look, but she didn’t seem to notice. If she had, she ignored it as she wiped her hands on her apron and bustled off to answer it.

“Daddeeeee!”

The sound of Anni’s voice made me spin around, and that was followed by her hurtling into my arms, so unexpectedly I knocked into the table behind me.

“Paul?”

I looked up from my daughter and met a pair of very familiar, very blue eyes. And zooming out, it was everything I could do to not gape. Because for the first time in three years, I was under the same roof as my ex-wife. And she hadn’t changed one bit.

===

“Mum?” I glanced between my flour-covered mother and my harried-looking ex-wife, still standing in the kitchen doorway with surprise written clearly all over her face. “What’s going on here?”

“Agreed,” said Rhi, then looked over at Mum. “Maureen, what’s this about?”

I thought I saw a flash of guilt cross Mum’s face, but I couldn’t be sure – I was interrupted by Anni tugging on my sleeve.

“Can I have a big hug, Daddy?”

“Sure, honey.” Big hug was her code for Pick me up like I’m still a baby. So I did, and she wrapped herself around me like a baby monkey, clinging on for dear life. I saw something shift in Rhi’s eyes when she noticed, but she didn’t say anything.

“I just thought…maybe…ahead of the reunion, the two of you should get reacquainted.” Mum turned away so quickly I couldn’t see her expression, but the way she said it told me she’d had this planned for a while.

Right. That. Levi had mentioned it to me about a week ago, something about a retrospective and how it corresponded with the tenth anniversary of my second film, Overseas. Firstly I couldn’t believe something of mine was ten years old, and secondly, it was even harder to believe that Rhi and I were no longer the married couple we’d been when we’d made that.

“Reunion?” Rhi folded her arms and scowled, an expression I was used to seeing her with. “Did you forget I’m persona non grata, Maureen?”

“It’s been three years, love, surely…?” Mum turned partway, eyes flicking between us. “No?”

“That’s not how it works, Mum,” I said. “Things like that have ripples.”

“Too many,” Rhi said, which surprised me. That was the second time she’d agreed with me, and we hadn’t even been in each other’s company for ten minutes yet. “People remember. They remember.”

“Oh, love…” Mum’s face turned incredibly sad. She remembered that firestorm as well as we did: the press hounding anyone remotely related to us, several hatchet jobs criticising me, Rhi, and the details of our private lives; the talent agency that represented Rhi cutting her off without officially pulling representation, and all of that going on amid the mudslinging contest going on between the two of us.

“It’s fine.” Rhi waved it off like it was nothing. As if nothing meant her entire livelihood. “Can I help with that mess at all over there?”