In The Captain’s Wife the irrepressible Rosie Marshall, whom we first met in The Captain’s Daughter, is now Rosie Haworth, married to John Haworth, R.N., her Real Captain. She’s known to the world’s telly-viewing public as Lily Rose Rayne, 21st-century Marilyn Monroe, darling of the tabloids, and star of the hugely popular television series The Captain’s Daughter—but of course in real life she’s a research fellow in sociology. Her idea is that she’ll give up the TV stuff—not least because she’s pregnant. She’s got more than enough on her plate, with a big research project to finish off and another one in the pipeline.

But it’s a case of the best-laid plans, as Rosie plunges herself into finding someone to take over her rôle, and copes with the ups and downs of married life – “a lot harder than in your up-yourself carefree bachelor-girl days you ever imagined it was gonna be. I mean, three days back from your honeymoon and barely over the jet-lag when his new orders arrive?” And then there’s the baby, due in September. September 2001…

Clouds From Both Sides Now



Episode 3: Clouds From Both Sides Now

    “I’m coming with you,” I announce firmly at breakfast. They couldn’t of guessed, given that I’m in a pale pink linen-look maternity suit that Brian sent over from Wardrobe the other day. Nice Ruth, the Wardrobe lady, rang me up to apologise for it and to explain that the white broderie Anglaise collar is detachable, she’s not sure why Brian made her add it, dear, and take it off if I don’t like it. Of course I haven’t taken it off, that’d ruin the point of the joke, wouldn’t it?
    Rupy tries to look airy and warns me that it’ll be boring. And that if I come Paul will probably want to run through some of the Christmas Special.
    Yes, being as how Euan is also in that, he probably will. (Don’t say it, I’m not that thick.) “Might as well get on with it, since I’m in town anyway.”
    He gasps, jumps up, and dashes from the room.
    “Is he all right?” asks Katie in alarm.
    “Yeah. Seized with a sartorial inspiration. That or he’s dying of something he's never mentioned to us, Katie.”
    Silly grin. “Hah, hah.”
    He rushes back in. “The hat!”
    I’m so used to it all that I don’t even blink. But Katie’s jaw has dropped. “Rosie! You can’t! It’s horrible!”
    “Good word for it.” I let him put the little dull pink semicircle on my head. Just sits on it snugly, the convex side to the fore. I dare say the mop of yellow curls is doing something to mitigate it, though. By God, they looked bloody on women with short, straight hair razored at the neck with a couple of small, rollered curls above the forehead, like what women with straight hair were wearing in the Fifties.
    He’s trying to pull the wisp of pink veil down, so I stop him. “Stop that!”
    “Ow!” He retreats, glaring. “Bossy cow.” Hopefully: “What do you think, Katie?”
    “Um, well, with her hair… Um, but it is an awful hat,” she says weakly.
    Carefully I close one eye at her. “Yep. No argument there. It was Miss Hammersley’s: genuine Fifties. She used to wear it with a tailored grey suit and a little pink neck-scarf.”
    Gulp, she’s got it. Miss Hammersley’s the Virginia McKenna type.
    “It’s very wee-wifey, don’t you think?” I note proudly.
    She gulps again, and then goes into a paroxysm of giggles. Well, just so long as she’s not wondering precisely why I’ve decided to come to Rupy’s rehearsal…
    It’s in one of the studios at Henny Penny, today: Paul’s almost ready to film, the lighting men are on set. He gives Katie a bitter look but doesn’t say anything as she sits down meekly in a quiet spot. One of the blokes comes up and mutters in her ear and she reddens, and removes herself to a different quiet spot and a chair that hasn't got DIRECTOR on its back. Gee, he never sits down anyway, what’s the diff’? He’s always on his feet, screaming at— You guessed, huh? Yeah.
    “Get that dog off my SET!” he screams.
    Resignedly me and Tim retreat to Reception. Usual eager offer and giggles from Linda and he goes meekly behind her counter, poor old Tim.
    I lean over— Bugger, no I don’t, this bulge is getting damned inconvenient. “I’ll come and take ya for a walk at morning tea time, Tim!” I gasp, tiptoeing vainly.
    “Wuff! Wuff!”
    “Ssh!” hisses Linda in alarm, just as, you guessed, Brian walks in. New, very pale tan suit, pale tan tie with a tiny motif of silvery something so minute it could be anything; chaste oatmeal silk shirt; ye golde cuffe-linkes that Penny gave him for one of their anniversaries, as opposed to ye golde and tyger-eye cuffe-linkes that she gave him for a different one; gleaming brogues. Oh, plus and gleaming brown leather briefcase, dead ringer for the one they made me carry when I did those interviews for them as Lily Rose Marshall The Real Her Revealed. Fortunately he’s killing himself at the sight of the pink maternity suit complete with white collar and the Hat, he doesn’t realise that was a dog’s actual wuff just dying away as he walked—
    Oops, yes he does. “Do you want me to get someone to take that creature for a walk this morning, Rosie?”
    “Wuff!”
    “Um, no, thanks, Brian, I’ll do it,” I say limply.
    “Sure?” I’m sure. He takes another look at me, and warns me with terrific geniality that Varley will be in today, and after they’ve have a word with Terry vander Post (the show’s Designer, you may not recall), they might just see about a few publicity— Yeah, yeah.
    “According to the show,” notes Linda dubiously after he’s gone, having first checked with her that Rupy has come in, today (she’s got a clipboard, she marks everybody off, they’re not haphazard at Henny Penny, this is business, not wanking Art), “you’re not even engaged, yet.”
    This is true, the third series has just finished airing, and he doesn’t even pop the question until the end of the fourth. “Yeah. No wonder the Great British Public is hopelessly confused. Two more came up to me and Rupy as we were getting into the car and congratulated us, only this morning.”
    “Yes, well, exactly,” she says limply. “Doesn’t Brian realise he’s making it worse?”
    “Doubt it. Anyway, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, Linda!” I remind her, heading back to the studio as she tries to smile, poor Linda: there very nearly was, with me turning out to be a sociologist that had been fooling the GBP for months on end. Fortunately Brian’s scripts managed to disguise the fooling part entirely, in fact the word would never even have floated to the surface of ya mind as ya watched all those faked-up interv— Did it? Oh, beg ya pardon. But the tabloids certainly never breathed a word of criticism, and he can’t have paid them all off, Brian’s not doing too badly at all, but he’s not that rich.
    Euan is late. Paul is ropeable. Absolutely ropeable. Who does Keel think he is, no prima donnas in his show, he’ll speak to Brian, blah, blah. Heard it all before a million times.
    “Paul,” I note helpfully: “if Brian’s signed contracts with him for the fifth series, he’ll have gone into his Leading Light Of Real British Theaytre, Too Good for Mere Telly Show mode.”
    “Shut UP, Lily Rose!” he hollers.
    “I'm right, though. Euan’s like that. The type that won’t admit he really wanted it, not even to himself, when he gets something he really did want but that he’s afraid people will think is beneath his dig’.” –Not looking at any Katie Herlihy, folks.
    “I said, Shut up. Though you’re not wrong,” he admits grimly.
    Rupy's just opening his mouth to agree, misguided, because she’ll probably smell a rat, when Paula O’Reilly cuts in: “I’d agree. Damned perceptive of you, Rosie.”
    “He’s very immature,” murmurs Amaryllis unexpectedly. Shit, so she noticed— I suppose she did. She may be vague about where she left her purse or where her hubby said he’d meet her for lunch—Rupy said she was in the canteen looking lost only the other day: turned out hubby had said the Tea Shoppe—but she is a very sensitive and intuitive person with it.
    “Yeah,” I say happily: “you’d never think he was thirty-five, wouldja?”
    “No, indeed, dear,” she murmurs, looking vague again.
    “Thirty-five?” squeaks Katie in horror.
    See? “Yeah. Not particularly young,” I say, trying to sound both neutral and genuine.
    “He’s certainly been on the scene for a while,” agrees Michael judiciously, poking his tongue experimentally into the side of his mouth and wincing.
    “I'll say!” squeaks Darryn Hinds, looking at Katie. “I remember seeing him as Rob Roy when I was still at primary school!” –That’d be right, he’s about twenty-one.
    “’A’ wa’ Mel Gi’shon,” says Michael indistinctly, wincing.
    “No! Clot! It wasn’t him, it was—” Blast, I’ve forgotten his name, I can see him as clearly as I can see Rupy making faces at me and pointing to his cheek, he’s not Scotch, he’s that soft-faced Irish actor, as opposed to Euan’s soft-faced Scotch thing…
    “Liam Neeson, for God’s sake! Is this pregnancy, or just plain galloping Alzheimer’s?” says Paul irritably, looking at his watch for the five hundredth time.
    “Yes, it was, actually, Michael. Though it was just as horridly Scotch as that Mel Gibson thing, I grant you that,” Darryn grants. “No, but it wasn’t that at all, it was a BBC Scotland thing, Euan had the lead. It wasn’t very good, I suppose,” he admits. “I saw it when I was up in Glasgow with my cousins.”
    “Thought you were at primary school?” –What is Rupy trying to indicate to me? He’s practically doing the Highland fling, talking of Scotch.
    “Um, no,” Darryn replies, giving me an uncertain look. “I mean, I was about ten. I was staying with my cousins.”
    “Uh-huh…” Oh! Goddit! I get up. “Michael, come with me, we’re going to ring my dentist and make an urgent appointment for you. Don’t worry: he’s an excellent dentist and if I offer his receptionist a signed shiny pic of you, she’ll fit you in.” Not saying it’ll be for Janice’s mum, she’s potty on Michael Manfred, poor deluded moo.
    Terribly pleased but making a token protest, he lets me lead him off. In spite of the tooth he gets horribly close to me during the phoning, but never mind, he doesn’t have very much in his life, poor old Michael. But he can’t possibly go now! He can, because Euan Up-Himself Keel’s not here, is he? Er… But there’s no sign of Euan so he lets me ring Mike’s extension and lets me bundle him into the limo. Mike assures me he’ll get him there and see him into the chair. They roar off, Mike grinning broadly and poor Michael trying to smile and holding the side of his face.
    Back in the studio Paul is grimly placing the rest of them and telling the lighting men how to do the job they’ve been doing for the last twenty years without his help.
    “I've sent Michael off to the dentist. Don’t go raving ballistic, ya can’t do his scenes without Euan, can ya?”
    “How very true,” he says grimly. “In that case, perhaps you’d condescend to go through some of your scenes from the Christmas Special?”
    “Euan’s in that, as well.”
    “Not in every scene! Sit down over there, shut up, and wait. We’ll get the rest of these cretins sorted out first.”
    He goes on bullying the lighting men but at around the time they start looking at their watches and muttering about elevenses, shouts: “All right! Get OFF!” The crew’s been called for the whole morning, their boss tries to object, but after a lot of shouting, they go. Probably to spend the rest of the morning in the canteen and claim a whole morning’s wages from Henny Penny, unless Paul remembers to fill in the sheet that he never remembers to fill in, but that’s not my worry. Though an assistant to an Executive Director may be seen scurrying after them…
    I gather up Katie and we take Tim for a nice walk which somehow, having passed with interest the branch of a big department store in the next block and like that, ends up in Kathleen’s Tea Shoppe. He has to sit outside, poor Tim, lassoed to a lamppost, so we only stay long enough to eat a vanilla slice each and drink a cappuccino each. And to buy another vanilla slice in case I need it later this morning.
    “Um, do you think Euan”—very pink—“might have had an accident, Rosie?” she croaks on the way back to Henny Penny.
    No, I don’t, I think he’s an Up-Himself Rising Star of British Theaytre. “Well, I grant you it's within the bounds of possibility—just. But as a bookie’s daughter, I’ll offer you odds of five hundred to one.”
    Pinker still. “Five hundred to one that he hasn’t, do you mean?”
    “Uh, yeah, Katie. Otherwise I woulda said five hundred to one on,” I concede limply. They can’t be a betting family, that’s for sure.
    Back in the studio Paul is grimly waiting for me. Oh, so we are gonna run through bits of the Christmas Special? Righto, then. A trifle unfortunately young Darryn breaks down in giggles. So then Paul tries to banish Tim but as it’s only a rehearsal for words I don’t let him. And Tim sits down very close to Katie, pressing against her leg. Not sure which of them needs consoling at this precise moment.
    Oops, it’s a rehearsal for words and moves. Boy, is this gonna get tedious.
    … It has. “Over there! Over there! OVER THERE, YOU CRETIN!”
    Now he wants to run through the Almost Breaking It Off Just Before the Wedding Scene but this is a trifle difficult, folks, because what provoked it was a scene between Euan’s character, Macfarlane, would-be suitor, and the Captain’s Daughter. We could skip Euan’s bits entirely but that’d leave us with about five lines to run through. Mostly sighs and little breathy exclamations, on my side.
    “Maudie, you’re not in this scene, read the part,” he orders.
    Poor old Maudie French is well over sixty, in any other profession she’d be at retirement age, and weighs in at about seventeen stone. And is supposed to be the Countess of Whatever, the gracious hostess that’s Commander’s Connection, in the Christmas Special as well as the episode they were working on earlier. “But I’m the Countess,” she says feebly.
    “I'll read it,” Darryn offers quickly.
    He plays Lieutenant Welwich, and he’s also in the Christmas Special, in fact all of the officers from H.M.S. Regardless are in it—who’s driving the ship, God knows. But he’s only an usher with one line, though he does have to say it several times: “Which side, sir? Bride’s or groom’s?” Grudgingly Paul allows he can do it and Maudie sits down beside Katie with a grateful sigh and gets out her knitting.

Rupy, as himself
Is this the door?

Paul
(for the fortieth time)
No! Are you deaf? Over there!

Enter Rupy, as Commander audience’s right, looking mild, does double-take at
sight of Captain’s Daughter and Macfarlane down front, holding hands on
sofa. Or, me and Darryn sitting on a couple of chairs sharing that vanilla slice.

PAUL
What was that?

Rupy, as himself
(glumly)
Supposed to be a double-take.

PAUL
(loudly)
It was more like a dying duck in a thunderstorm!

Giggles are heard from Darryn, as himself.

PAUL
Shut up, Hinds, or you can clear off! –Listen to
me, Maynarde, you will not camp up this scene!
You’re supposed to be a man in love with the girl,
and you find her playing handy-pandy with that
Scotch git the day before your wedding! Don’t tell
me it’s hard to relate to, just do the job we’re paying
you for!

Rupy, as himself
(glumly)
Yes. I’ll try.

Rupy retreats to the doorway as himself. He enters as Commander, audience’s right,
looking mild, does double-take at sight of Captain’s Daughter and Macfarlane
down front.

RUPY, AS COMMANDER
Janey?

ME, AS CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
(squeak and gasp)
Ludo!

Darryn, as Macfarlane
It’s all right, Janey, ma wee pet, I’ll handle this.

PAUL
Drop the Scotch, Hinds! You’re not bloody Keel,
though God knows you could hardly fuck it up
worse than he does!”

Darryn, as himself
Um, sorry, but it does say ‘ma wee pet’ in the script.

PAUL
(nastily)
Does it say ‘It’s a’ reet, Jenny, ma wee peh,’
though?

As himself, Darryn gulps.

PAUL
Get on with it! Maynarde! Walk up to that bloody
sofa! And don’t mince!

RUPY, AS COMMANDER
(coming up to sofa)
You’ve handled enough, Macfarlane. Get up, damn
you. –Don’t say anything, thanks, Janey: it’s pretty
damned clear what’s been going on here.
(pauses, not in script, waits for Paul’s
comment)
I said, get up, Macfarlane!

Darryn, as Macfarlane
Och, noo look, Ludo, the girl’s found oot she’s made
a mistake—

Rupy, as Commander
The only one who’s made a mistake around here is
you—uh—you damned slimy snake?

RUPY, AS HIMSELF
(consults script, not in script)
I say, you did cut the ‘Scotch’, here, did you?

PAULA O’REILLY
(from the sidelines)
Yes, they decided it would insult the viewing
sensibilities of not only the whole of Scotland,
possibly negligible, I grant you, but all the
Macdonalds and McLeods of the U.S. and Canada.
Approximately forty thousand times the population
of the aforesaid.

ME, AS ME
(from the sofa, mistakenly)
What about the sensibilities of the animal righters?
Or don’t snakes count unless you’re skinning
them?

PAUL
Shut up, Lily Rose!
(continues, quite mildly)
We did cut the ‘Scotch’, Rupy, and you’re supposed
to have learned these lines. Just take it from ‘The
only one who’s made a mistake’, would you?

RUPY, AS COMMANDER
(looking pleased, not in script)
The only one who’s made a mistake around here is
you, you damned slimy snake! Get up and put your
mitts up, I’m about to knock your teeth down your
throat!

EUAN enters, audience’s left.

EUAN, AS HIMSELF
(very languidly)
Don’t do that, Rupy: one is reliably informed those
lovely choppers cost him a year’s income.

DARRYN, AS HIMSELF
(leaps to his feet, tears in his eyes,
screams)
They did not! And who told you that?

PAULA O’REILLY
(from the sidelines; sotto voce)
Ouch. End of a beautiful crush?

    Katie’s gasped and gone rigid, and Maudie’s gasped and dropped a stitch. And I’ve actually stopped inspecting my vanilla slice bag hopefully for smears of custard.
    Euan strolls onto the set, looking languid. “Did I get it wrong, after all? This looks like the Christmas Special. –How are you, Rosie, darling? Looking blooming.”
    “Where have you BEEN?” shouts Paul, his neck’s gone purple, ugh, help!
    “Terribly sorry, Paul, I had it all wrong, thought we were rehearsing in the other place today.”
    “Rehearsing the lighting?” he screams.
    “Oh—er—was it? Terribly sorry, old man. Tell them to dock my pay, or something,” he drawls, pre-empting Paul’s next line.
    So he shouts instead: “Dock your pay? I had an entire lighting crew booked for an entire MORNING!”
    Euan spreads his hands in a deprecating gesture. “What can I say? My only excuse is that Aubrey kept us all up to all hours last night, and I just fell out of bed this morning and made a mad dash for it.” –Fell out of bed and into the pale grey silk designer slacks and the aubergine and avocado floral designer leisure shirt, also silk, and the carefully toning narrow avocado belt and the pale grey Gucci loafers—right. Not neglecting to shave and smother himself in Joop as he did so, he’s not into the five o’clock shadow look, being a hetero male who knows a bit about women.
    “Love the gear, Euan,” I say brightly. “Especially the shirt: to die for. Is that aubergine and avocado, would you say?”
    Simpering slightly, he replies: “I think you’re right, Rosie, darling: it is aubergine and avocado. Though I’d have called it eau de Nil, not avocado,” he adds pointedly.
    “Of course: eau de Nil! Very Fifties!” I agree, sniggering madly.
    He’s terrifically pleased: I’ve picked up his reference correctly, and the Fifties bit shows everybody that not only is he quids in with Rosie Marshall, intellectual sociologist cum direct descendant of Marilyn Monroe cum star of this show, he’s also absolutely into the In thing of the crowd that’s in rehearsal in this very studio. Ya got that, and it wasn’t hard? No argument there.
    Steam’s coming out of Paul’s ears but he eventually concedes that since Euan’s here and since I’m here—somebody take that bloody paper bag off her!—we can run through the big Would-Be Seduction scene from the top. Darryn says sulkily he’s going, but nobody’s taking any notice of him, and he trails off, looking sulky. Maudie assumes briskly, starting to put the knitting away, that he won’t need her, will he, Paul, dear? But Paul hates being called dear by large elderly actresses: he’s afraid they’re gonna try to mother him, though of course he doesn’t notice it from anybody else in the profession; and he snarls that he does want her, we’re going to run through her scene with Macfarlane and the cretinous Daughter next! Nobody points out that Michael is also in that scene and Maudie goes back to her knitting.
    Amaryllis, who’s just been sitting next to her hubby reading her book, quietly moves her chair up next to Katie’s, I’m not absolutely sure why. Nor am I absolutely sure that Euan has noticed Katie sitting there in the shadows: he is putting on a charming performance as lovely male Euan who’s slightly and endearingly fuzzy, in a little-boy kind of way, about keeping track of his appointments, but possibly most of this is for my benefit in spite of the bulge. Or possibly not in spite of it: come to think of it, he went almost broody over Georgy Harris last year when she was expecting her baby.
    In the Would-Be Seduction scene he comes over as about as Scotch as Paul wants and pretty damned irresistible. Any sane girl would never look twice at poor old Rupy with him in the offing, but then, the Captain’s Daughter’s not sane, she’s Fifties.
    Paul actually concludes grudgingly as we pause (not in the script) before the holding-hands bit that precedes Rupy’s entrance: “Yes, well, it was the right casting, but don’t imagine you’re irreplaceable. Or that Varley won’t be perfectly willing to write Macfarlane out of Series Five and introduce a new character as Stepdaughter’s Boyfriend.”
    “Oh, am I going to be Stepdaughter’s Boyfriend?” he says, smile, smile. “Lovely! But won’t that make me rather fickle, Paul? –Paula?” –Of course he addressed this to both of them deliberately, most of the time they’re arch enemies, he knows that perfectly well, Jesus!
    “Yes. It’s in the script,” says Paul indifferently.
    “You could put in that way. It’s the reason, or this is Varley’s outline at the moment,” notes Paula—she can’t stand Euan in spite of what her hormones tell her loud and clear about him, or possibly because of it—“why Stepdaughter spends the entire fifth series giving you the brush-off. If I remember rightly we decided that the punch line had to be ‘Look, you can’t kid me, bud, I know you were chasing Janey right up until her wedding! Don’t imagine you’re gonna marry into Pop’s money through me!’ –Direct, isn’t it?” she says sweetly.
    “Oh, so doesn’t Macfarlane get the girl, Paula?” I say disingenuously.
    Paula’s eye meets mine for a fleeting, knowing second. “Not in the fifth series, certainly, Lily Rose,” she confirms smoothly.
    “Keeps the punters hanging on the line,” says Paul with shrug, mixing his metaphors horribly. “Added to which, Keel, it leaves us with the option of not renewing your contract, doesn’t it?”
    “Oh, ah, yes, I suppose it does,” he says, looking fuzzy. Wanker. Like I think I mentioned, he isn’t weak about his career, he’ll know every last bloody comma and fullstop in his contract.
    “Get on with it. –Keel! Hold hands with her!”
    “Um, my hands are a bit sticky, Euan, I’ve been eating vanilla slice,” I confess guiltily.
    He thinks this is endearingly little-woman. God, you’d think he’d know me by now, especially as he knew from the off I was a sociologist. He gives a soft laugh, heard him do it on the box a million times, and takes the hands in this. “I could lick them clean,” he offers, crinkling the eyes, seen that five million times, so that the huge curled eyelashes go all tangled.
    “Um, no, it’s not in the rôle,” I say feebly.
    He does the soft laugh again, if he wasn’t so damned male you’d say it was a giggle, but his worst enemy couldn’t claim that, and kisses them.
    “That’s not in the script,” notes Paula, for some strange reason clearing her throat.
    “It was good, though!” I admit with a loud giggle.
    “Was it?” Smile, smile, crinkle, crinkle. “Shall I do it again?”
    “All right, we’ll try it,” orders Paul, ignoring the by-play. “Jerry, make a note: camera one dollies up, frame Captain’s Daughter and Macfarlane, knees to top of heads. Got that?”—Jerry nods mutely.—“Macfarlane’s holding her hands, looks into her eyes, make a note about that thing he did, will you, Jerry? And kisses her hands slowly. –Right. From ‘Darling wee Janey’. Come on!”
    So it goes like this:

MACFARLANE
Darling wee Janey, you must admit it was a
mistake! Everyone makes mistakes, now don’t
they?
(plaintive look, not in the script, but Paul
nods and makes a note)
Admit it, before it’s too late, ma wee pet! No-one will
hold it against you. And you don’t want to end up as
just another Navy wife, pining away while your
man’s at sea, now do you?
(Artful pause, just long enough to take a
breath, not in script. –This last bit is quite
possibly Varley getting in a hit at me, folks,
for marrying John and giving up the show
and spoiling his sacred concept.)
And wi’ me, you’ll be sure of tender loving care—
(tiny laugh, not in script. –He’s good, ya
gotta admit it. Continues, rather Scotch, as
directed)
—all the taime!

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
(breathes agitatedly)
Oh, Christopher! I don’t know what to think!
(breathes agitatedly; licks lips)

MACFARLANE
Dinna think at all, ma wee hin’.

PAULA O’REILLY
(interrupts)
Did we decide on that?

PAUL
(irritably)
Yes! Ssh!

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
(plaintively)
You’re getting me all mixed up… I thought Ludo
was the one!
(Breathes agitatedly; licks lips).

MACFARLANE
(softly, comes on terrifically sexy, not in
script)
He canna give you what I can, Janey.

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
(gulps)
No-o… Oh, dear, what shall I do? I do like you
awf’y, awf’y! Um… I suppose it’s not too late,
weally…

MACFARLANE
Not too late at all, ma wee pet.

He takes her hands. She jumps, breathes agitatedly, licks her lips.

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
O-oh…

Macfarlane squeezes her hands, looks into her eyes, raises her hands slowly to his
mouth, kisses them. She breathes agitatedly.

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
O-oh…

Enter Commander, audience’s right, looking mild, does double-take at sight of
Captain’s Daughter and Macfarlane down front, holding hands on
sofa.

COMMANDER
Janey?

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
(squeaks and gasps)
Ludo!

Macfarlane
It’s all right, Janey, ma wee pet, I’ll handle this.

COMMANDER
(coming up to sofa)
You’ve handled enough, Macfarlane. Get up, damn
you. –Don’t say anything, thanks, Janey: it’s pretty
damned clear what’s been going on here. I said, get
up, Macfarlane!

MACFARLANE
Och, noo look, Ludo, the girl’s found oot she’s made
a mistake—

COMMANDER
The only one who’s made a mistake around here is
you, you damned slimy snake! Get up and put your
mitts up, I’m about to knock your teeth down your
throat!

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
(loudly)
Don’t hurt him, Ludo!

MACFARLANE
(gets up; loudly)
All right, damn you, Ludo, you’ve had this coming!

He swings at him, and misses.

CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER
(loudly)
Don’t hurt him, Christopher!

Commander swings at Macfarlane, lands one in his midriff, follows up with one to
his jaw.

MACFARLANE
(not in script)
Ow! Bloody Hell, Rupy! What the fuck do you think
you’re doing?

He staggers back, clutching his jaw. Blood trickles from his cut lip.

RUPY, AS HIMSELF
(insouciantly, but panting slightly)
Terribly sorry, Euan, I had it all wrong, thought I was
going to miss.

    At this point Paula loses control and gives a shriek of laughter, and Amaryllis’s hubby, who we all assumed would be quietly reading his book, ignoring the whole bit as usual, goes off into a positive gale of hilarity and it dawns on Mr Incredibly-Up-Himself Keel that possibly—just possibly—Rupy landed that hit on purpose.
    Quickly I give him a hanky. He puts it on his lip, glaring incredulously at Rupy over it.
    “Er—yes,” says Paul in a weak voice. “Er—finish it after lunch, okay?” He hurries off, is it my imagination or are his shoulders shaking?
    Amaryllis’s hubby finishes his paroxysm, blows his nose loudly, gets up and says: “Coming, darling?” And leads her off, not quite reaching the door in time to stop us hearing her puzzled: “Surely Rupy didn’t hit him on purpose, Jimmy? Not Rupy.”
    On set there’s a numbed silence, except for Euan’s heavy breathing. In terms of small-group pecking order we’ve lost our Leader and as Paul isn’t the sort to allow Deputy Leaders, there’s no-one to take charge of our group.
    Maudie gets up, bundling up the knitting. “I suppose it is lunchtime,” she says in a high, wavering voice. And hurries off.
    “Accident, old man,” Rupy lies, not bothering to hide the fact that he’s lying. “Hope it won’t spoil the face for any close-ups.”
    “It’s only a scratch,” I say kindly. “And I think he’s only rehearsing this week, aren’t you, Euan?”
    He licks his lip cautiously. “Ow! Jesus! No, I’m damn well not only rehearsing, Aubrey’s got us scheduled for publicity shots for Cymbeline, and your PR people have scheduled some blithering interview with pics for some damned mag!” He pats it cautiously with my hanky. “Ow! Shit!”
    Guess what, folks, we’re all waiting for him to accuse Rupy of doing it on purpose, but he doesn’t.
    So after letting the pause lengthen—let’s hope it’s giving him time to wonder if we think he’s chicken and also to wonder why Katie, if he’s noticed her yet, hasn’t hurried over all concerned—I say: “Well, these things happen. I’m sure Aubrey will understand. Wasn’t it his production of Hamlet where the ghost fell off the ladder in front of the Queen?”
    “Princess Anne,” says Rupy in a strangled voice,’
    “That was years ago!” Euan retorts irritably. “Ow!”
    I get up. “I think we’d better go to First Aid, Euan, and get them to take a look at it. Oh, dear, it’s still bleeding, isn’t it?”
    He gets up. “Aye, it is, and what’s more, I’m going to have a bruise! I’ll never be able to do those shots for Aubrey!”
    I take his arm and, having now gone completely into hypocritical mode, lean my tit on it. “Poor lamb. Rupy’s a clumsy idiot. It’s probably those silly lifter shoes upsetting his balance, I told him not to wear them.” I begin to urge him gently towards the door while Rupy’s still gaping, that last was A Total Lie. At the last moment I pause and say: “Katie? Are you coming? You can bring Tim.”
    And Euan gives a gulp and stops dead. Hurray! He never realised she was here! The wanking, up-himself prick!
    Katie and Tim emerge into the lights and come over to us very, very slowly. “Hullo,” she says in a tiny voice.
    “E-er…” That’s the Scotch noise he makes when he’s totally disconcerted, I’ve only heard him do it once or twice in real life. “Hullo, Katie. E-er… so you’ve brought your big dog, today?”
    “Um, no, he’s Rosie’s.”
    “He’s John’s Tim. Don’t you remember, we had him with us at the Chipping Ditter Festival 2000? You saw him when we drove up to the hotel, you were just coming down the steps with gorgeous Kiki Brathwaite plastered all over you, I don’t think a red-blooded male could forget that!” I say with a little teasing laugh, nudging him.
    “E-er… Aye,” he says, weak smile, flattered and embarrassed all at once. “Aye, you did have a dog.”
    “Oh, yes, that was his Kiki Brathwaite, Stratford In-crowd phase,” notes Rupy idly. “Whatever happened to her, Euan?” –Not only does he know perfectly well she dumped him, it was him told me the gruesome details of why she dumped him.
    “Och, well, it was just one o’ those things,” he says with a shrug. “Not serious on either side. Think she’s having a thing with Aubrey, actually.”
    “Bridget says they all know that,” says Katie dazedly.
    “Oh, aye, I expect they do,” he says easily: she’s just a dim little curvy girl with a giant crush on him: he can manage them with both hands tied behind him.
    Katie takes a deep breath. “Bridget and me had dinner together last night. She rang me because your rehearsal broke up early, because Aubrey had an appointment with a film producer at the Dorchester.”
    Boy, is that circumstantial or is that circumstantial? I’d hang him on it, folks, wouldn’t you? So I go in for the kill.
    “Um, that can’t be right. Didn’t you say you were late this morning because Aubrey kept you all rehearsing until all hours?”
    Euan makes a big mistake here, because he says: “Oops, naughty me!” Maybe Rupy could get away with something like that, but he certainly can’t: Katie’s gone very red.
    “All those poor men turned up for work and now they won’t be paid, because you weren’t here,” she states grimly.
    “Och, well, dinna make a Cheltenham tragedy out o’ it, wee Katie!” Was that a mistake or was that a mistake? She’s just heard him doing the Scotch thing as Macfarlane, for cripes’ sake! “They’ve got unions, you know. I merely slept in: I’m as human as the next man!” Cosy smile, doesn’t half mind reminding her he’s a man.
    Katie’s lips firm. She looks him up and down. “Slept in and took the time to get all dressed up,” she states flatly.
    “Don’t be silly, Katie, his public except him to look decent,” I say mildly.
    “Public!” She gives a terrific snort. “I’m gonna take Tim for a walk before lunch.”—Wuff! Wuff!—“Come on, Tim. Are you coming, Rupy?”
    “Come on, Euan, we’d better get that lip looked at. I hope to goodness it won’t scar,” I say hypocritically.
    This throws a real fright into him and so we hurry off to First Aid. Where Carmel, the nurse, though she doesn’t do it on purpose, she’s a naturally brusque and no-nonsense person, completes his discomfiture by telling him it’s hardly visible, of course there won’t be a scar, of course it won’t need a stitch, and it’s already stopped bleeding but she’ll put something on it.—Ow! Hiss, gasp!—Have a medal, Carmel.


    Later. Brian’s scooped us up for a working lunch with Varley, expressing hypocritical concern over the lip with practised ease, he’s been in business so long he doesn’t even have to try, it just comes naturally. It’s only salad from the canteen but at least we get the full choice. I hate pasta salad so I have a triple helping of the potato salad. Varley’s got a good concept for a couple of episodes for the sixth series: Little Sister needs rescuing from some particularly insincere suitors, so Lily Rose seduces them away from her and shows them up for what they are. I’m trying not to look at anybody. Don’t think Euan gets it, he just says dazedly that he doesn’t think Daughter would seduce anybody, isn’t it meant to be Fifties? So he gets clobbered with one of Varley’s favourite lines: “Not in the clinical sense, you idiot!” Then he asks won’t it be terribly difficult to get it over on scene without actual in flagrante delicto? This enables Varley to get very lofty and indicate that it won’t, to a Grate Writer like him. Proceeding to chat chummily about Aubrey’s interpretations…
    Euan emerges from it terribly pleased, looking all important. Clearly the object of the exercise.
    Brian holds me back forcibly.
    “The best butter, Brian. Euan was terribly chuffed.”
    “Let’s hope so, after getting his lip split on our set!”
    Ulp. “Yeah. Um, I think Paul wants me back on set, Brian.”
    “He can wait. What was Keel actually like, today?”
    “Uh— Oh! Like, in his part! Well, when he started giving it his best shot, he was terrifically good, Brian, much though I hate to admit it. I could see why that dim girl started to think better of marrying Commander. He’d make a nun think better of marrying Jesus.”
    “Good. If Paul can get that on camera, not to say keep him in line, the fifth series might not bomb, after all. Now you can tell me what God’s name came over Rupy.”
    Pale smile. “Um, Euan was being totally unbearable and, um, the crews were in to rehearse the lighting of his scenes and of course he wasn’t there… I know Rupy’s seen it all before a million times. Um, well, I think what might’ve set him off, well, partly it was because Euan was really horrible to poor little Darryn and Rupy’s always had a bit of a crush on him. You might think Euan wouldn’t bother to notice anyone as insignificant as Darryn, but of course he is terribly good-looking and when he walked in, he was doing his part. Macfarlane.”
    “And?”
    “That was a contributing factor… I think Rupy was mad because Euan’s been coming on to Katie and she's developed a huge crush on him. Um, and we sort of had a talk about them and decided it could only end in tears.”
    There’s a long silence. Then he says: “Rupert Maynarde coming over all fatherly?”
    Gulp. “Um, dunno, Brian. I think it was something like that.”
    He sighs. “Just have a word with him, would you, please, Rosie, and make sure it won’t happen again.”
    “Yes, I will. I think he was as surprised as anybody, actually. Um, Brian, I wanted to talk to you about Rupy anyway. Um, what are you going to do with him after he marries me?”
    “What? Oh: is that it? He’s all steamed up because he’s afraid he’s going to be written out?”
    “Um, something like that. Well, it’s at the back of his mind.”
    “He’s not. How many competent character actors are there who can look decent on screen, put over their lines, and speak comedy without leering coyly and knowingly at the bloody camera?”
    “In England? One.”
    “Something very like that, yes. Varley’s going to keep using his social connections, it’s a damned useful gimmick. But of course it will partly depend,”—I brace myself—“on you being able to do a few guest spots, Rosie. It won’t look very convincing if the audience never gets to see the wee wifey.”
    “Um, yes, I’d like to. Um, I’ll have to talk to John.”
    “Is he likely to let you?” he demands baldly,.
    “Um, well, if I can get the nationalism study finished then he won’t be able to say I’ve got too much on my plate.”
    He advises me to speak to John after both the nationalism study and the baby have been got out of the way and walks me back to the studio, reporting that Penny, his wife, has finished the first, smallest-sized, pale yellow set and started on another. Coat, pants, booties, bonnet, the lot.
    Sigh, it’s lovely of her and I do appreciate it. But heck! Mum’s sent over two sets, one in white, one in yellow, Aunty Allyson’s sent over two sets, one very lacy in white, one less lacy in pale green, and Aunty Kate’s sent over three, pale yellow, pale green and white, plus two creeper suits in that stretch-towelling stuff for everyday wear. In England’s green and pleasant land Yvonne, my Personal Dresser when the show’s on, has knitted one full set in pale apricot, for a change. Aunty June, my cousin Joanie’s mother and Dad’s sister, who lives in an outer London suburb, doesn’t knit but she’s provided three bought sets, very smart: navy and white, lemon and white, and fawn and white. Jessica Strezlicki is more practical, she’s passed on three only slightly used creeper suits that her little Damian never got much use out of, he was a big baby. And Doris Winslow has crocheted three pale yellow outfits because if one piece gets lost or ruined in the wash you can always— Yeah. Arthur Morrissey’s mum’s crocheted a huge shawl, the most beautiful thing you ever saw, it’s like cobwebs. I haven’t dared to point out that as we only got married in the Registry Office and John’s divorced, there isn’t gonna be a giant C. of E. christening. And this all is before it’s born! When it is, they’ll all leap to it with pink or blue. Not that I'm not grateful, I mean, I can’t knit a stitch myself, but… And the PR Department reports every week on the sets Henny Penny receives. They parcel them up periodically and send them off to Oxfam and other charities that I insisted on approving before they actually sent them, they were puzzled but let me. They offered to sign all the letters of thanks for me but I’m not that much of a hypocrite.
    Later. Katie’s taken Tim home, surprise, surprise. Never mind; me, Brian, Varley, Euan and Rupy pose for some lovely publicity shots, arms round one another, smiling, smiling, smiling, eye-linered to the gills… Oh, well.
    Still later. Funnily enough Varley’s been awarded Mike and the limo so Rupy and me have piled into a taxi.
    “We could go for a drink,” he notes.
    “Right, think John’d say the technical term there is Dutch courage, Rupy.”
    “Hah, hah,” he says, inspecting his grazed knuckles glumly.
    “Serves ya right. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but what did you do it for, for God’s sake?”
    “No notion. Um, because he’d revealed himself to be just what you predicted?” he says glumly. “I just came over all all-overish.”
    Yeah, well, that’s as clear as it’s gonna get.
    “Yeah. Well, good on ya, and the drinks are on me. –Yeah, really! Only don't expect me to tell ya what the Hell to say to Katie, ’cos I can’t even think what I’m gonna say to her!”
    “No,” he agrees glumly.
    At home. Swaying slightly, he informs Katie, who’s cuddled up with Tim on the sofa watching telly: “Feet of clay, dear,” but I shove him bodily into his room.
    “He’s had three triples. Cognac,” I explain briefly, returning.
    “Mm,” she says, not meeting my eye.
    And since life isn’t a soapie, no-one says any more at all on the subject.


    Three days have passed but she hasn’t volunteered to come to any rehearsals with us, or asked Bridget if she can come to any of hers. Surprised? Thought ya wouldn’t of been, no. Don’t think I’m exactly flavour of the month. She asked Rupy at one point whether I always flirted with men but he merely replied mildly: “Of course. She’s like that, sociologist or not. Why do you think they cast her in the first place?” At which she apparently went and thought about it, reporting back to him some time later: “I suppose she can’t help it. Um, what about John, though?” According to himself he replied: “He likes it, dear. One of those very masculine types that do, you see.” So she squeaked: “Um, is he very macho, then?” And Rupy was able to wither that one utterly with: “No! It’s not the same thing at all. Just very male where she’s very female.”
    Then he told her about all the wanking puce and magenta mature females that John’s had strings of over the last fifteen years or so, not to say the specific ones that tried their best to get their hooks into him during the stint in Washington D.C., when he was semi-officially mine. Not to say the fact that John, though he didn’t encourage them, didn't seem to mind.
    There was evidently a lot of food for thought in that because he eventually got the report that she supposed she hadn’t had very much experience of different human relationships. Nor of different human types—think it was. Words to that effect. So he said airily that most theatre people fell into a limited number of quite definable types but most of the successful ones had in common terrific egos because you can’t be a success in the Business without them. Don’t think that was what she wanted to hear but she went away and thought about it. And didn’t report back, but he’s sure she’s got it. Given that he could hardly have made it clearer by drawing a picture of it, I’d say she has, yeah. She may be young but she isn’t thick.
    Neither of us supposes for a minute that she’s over gorgeous, fuzzy, up-himself, self-centred Euan Keel. Disgusted with him—yeah. Over him—no. Life’s like that. Just a bowl of cherries: right, you goddit.


    “Rosie, darling, what are you still doing in town?” –John. Somewhere at sea.
    Gee, folks, some of us were expecting that. He’s held out really well up till now, hoping I would tell him of my own accord. Funnily enough, he doesn’t actually want to play Daddy Captain to my feebleized Daughter. But enough is enough, and he’s quite capable of coming down like a ton of bricks when he needs to.
    “Um, planning some research with Greg.”
    “I thought you’d finished the research?” –Genuinely puzzled.
    “Yeah. Not for the nationalism study, John. Um, something else.”
    Silence. I can hear him breathing and the usual faint rumbling in the background that I’ve now worked out, because all he said was, very blankly, “What rumbling?” has gotta be the ship’s engines.
    He gives in and says: “What else, precisely?”
    “Um, for my next study. Only please don’t mention it to anybody that’s likely to know anybody in the village, and I do mean your Mother and Father as well as Terence, please, John.”
    “Of course not, if you don’t want me to, darling. But they won’t tell anybody.”
    Look, ya bloody Mother was sworn to secrecy over me being a sociologist as well as Lily Rose Rayne, telly actress, so first off she rings up ya bloody best mate Corky Corcoran’s wife, Susan, and tells her the lot, because like other Navy wives from the upper clawsses don’t count; and Terence, ya brother, he gets to know the lot like two seconds after that, because for whether bloody Corky told him or you told him because brothers don’t count, I can’t remember, but they all knew. And Susan told her bloody teenage daughter the lot and I was going round on tenterhooks for months in case it all leaked to the Press before I’d admitted it to Brian. Not to say in case the GBP turned against the series on account of it. Jesus! What planet are ya from, man? –Planet Royal Navy and Stiff Upper Lip, yep. Too right.
    Funnily enough I don’t actually say this, I just say very grimly indeed: “Just mind ya don’t. My career is riding on this.”
    “Er—mm. Career?”
    Jesus Flaming Christ! “My sociology career, whaddareya?” I shout.
    “Er—oh, I see, it’s an Australian expression,” he says limply.
    Gulp. Haven’t I ever— Um, no, s’pose not; I have tried to tone it down a bit for him. “Um, yeah. Sorry. The plan is to observe the village over five years. Longitudinal-type study, see? And it all has to be confidential, it’s not the sort of thing where you do interviews. Like, that’s pop sociology, really.”
    “Mm, it’s more the sort of thing where you hide tape recorders in laptop bags, is it?”
    I asked for that, it’s how I got ninety-nine point nine, nine percent of the evidence for the nationalism study, so I don’t yell at him. “Well, yeah. There won’t be any names, no question of attributing quotes or any crap like that. And there’ll be much less oral evidence than in the nationalism study, anyway. Different sort of thing. We’re looking at the influence of gradual urbanisation on village society, see? Working up from the really small details to—um, we’re hoping to be able to see some trends.”
    “I see. I’d have said the process was already well under way.”
    He’s not thick, I’ll say that for him. “Yeah, that’s right. We’ll be looking at the original plans and gathering oral evidence on what the village was like before. That’ll just be introductory stuff. Like, you know, how they pulled down the old pub in the Eighties and built that wanking Ye Olde monstrosity that the locals hate.”
    “Er—it had dry rot, Rosie.”
    “Right, but did they have to replace it with something actually designed to appeal to the perverted tastes of the upper-middle-class retirees and their wanking Volvos?”
    “I thought prejudice wasn’t supposed to creep into sociological studies?”
    “Hah, hah. It won’t, we’ll just describe the prevalence of fake horse brasses and, um, them other brass things that aren’t brass at all;”—“Rubbings”—“right, fake them, and them plates they’ve got on the walls and the fake-stone concrete pavers in the courtyard and the number of Volvos per square metre parked on them. See?”
    “Mm. If this has got something to do with that Volvo that backed into Jim Potter’s van—”
    Of course it has! “Not precisely,” I say with dignity. “But that certainly had something to do with the locals deciding to set up their Workingmen’s Club.”
    “It’s as ersatz as the pub,” he says weakly.
    “Exactly! That’s what’s so fascinating about it! They coulda had any sort of club, like a bloody croquet club or a bowls club, um, maybe they aren’t so popular here as they are in Oz, ya get so much rain, or even a football club, anything where they could apply for a beer licence, only they deliberately called it a workingmen’s club to spite the up-themselves retirees and that git that owns the pub, see?”
    “Er—yes, I do. I don’t quite see how you intend expressing that in, um, sociological terms, though.”
    “State the facts. Easy. And when you think about it, it’s a manifestation of a backlash from the rural community, isn’t it? We’ll probably centre a chapter on it.”
    “Mm. It does sound interesting, Rosie, but—er, rather a big job?” he says cautiously.
    “Sure! That’s what I’m saying: five years, min’!”
    “Ye-es. I don’t want to discourage you, but will the university want to subsidise five years buried in the English countryside observing as it’s overtaken by urban sprawl?
    Ouch. “Um, yeah. Um, they will. Um, they are,” I croak.
    Gee, all I can hear is him breathing evenly and the ship’s engines rumbling.
    “Um, well, I meant to tell you, only then you got sent back to sea, and, um… Well, there was so much going on…” No discernible reaction, shit. “Prof.’s offered me permanent tenure. Research Fellow.”
    A little silence and then he says levelly: “And I gather you’ve accepted?”
    “Um, yeah. Well, heck, John, ya didn’t want me to go on with the Lily Rose Rayne crap fulltime, any more than I wanted to make it a bloody career, and we couldn’t of worked it if I’da taken that job back in Sydney: of course I accepted!”
    More silence. Then he says very, very levelly: “Setting aside jobs in Sydney which haven’t been mentioned before, I was under the impression that we’d discuss any major decisions. Or isn’t that how you see marriage?”
    “Yes! And you knew it was on the cards!”
    “I think all you said was that it might eventuate if Mark Rutherford got the chair, which as I understood it, won’t be possible until the end of next year.”
    “Look,” I shout, “YOU went back to sea without giving it a second thought!”
    Little silence. “Mm. So I did. Perhaps I was assuming too much.”
    “You were assuming it wasn’t a major decision—right. Only to me it was.”
    “I thought you understood the Navy’s my life, Rosie.”
    Actually, so did I. Only, like I mighta mentioned, reality bites. “Yeah,” I growl. “Reality bites.”
    “What?”
    “Reality bites, what planet are you from?”
    “Planet Royal Navy and Different Generation, apparently,” he says tightly.
    “So ya want me to give up the sociology and stay at home in the cottage in a bloody frilly apron, is that it?”
    “No, that isn’t it at all, don’t be absurd. Look, we can’t discuss this now—”
    “No, we can’t discuss this now because your silly ship is more important than anything!”
    “No. Because I’ve got too many other things on my mind to be able to give it my full attention, just now.”
    “Yeah, stupid seventy-five degrees mark SIX, and ya can’t sweep me under the carpet like ya first marriage, so DON'T THINK YA CAN!” I scream.
    “I— Look, you’re being absurd. You’re fully aware of the facts of the case. I did no such thing.”
    “I am NOT being absurd, John Haworth!” I scream, bursting into, you got it, floods of tears.
    “Rosie, stop it. Stop it! This is the pregnancy clouding your mind! Now, stop it!”
    Even as I’m bawling down the phone and through the whatsit that talks to the radio waves and down the radio waves across the sea and into his receiver, I am aware he’s right and the pregnancy is clouding my mind, but all the same I’m also aware that if he’s right, I’m not wholly wrong, either. Though also aware that of course I should’ve told him, he’d’ve been pleased, and that one of the reasons I didn’t tell him was that I wanted to hug the fact of the Research Fellowship to myself for a bit. In silent glee, geddit? Well, if ya not as wacky as me of course ya don’t get it. But I’ve always been like that, I was the same when we got engaged, I hugged it to myself for two whole days while he rung up all his relations including, in fact especially, the ones that hate me, and all his Navy mates and Old School Tie friends. He just thought I was chicken about telling my parents. Which I was, only that wasn’t the whole story.
    “Yes,” I finally say, gulping and sniffing.
    “Ah… yes, your mind’s clouded by the hormones?” he says cautiously.
    “Yeah. Sorry. But I do think you swept Sonya and the whole marriage under the carpet.” –I can hear him sigh, oh, dear. The woman was a bitch: she slept with anything in naval trou’ when he was at sea, and Matt Haworth, though he is a lovely young man and John’s always adored him, isn’t John’s. But you see, after the divorce he just tidied the whole thing away and never even wondered might it be sensible to treat Matt like a responsible, thinking human being and tell him the truth. So when he started doing a bit of genetics at school when he was about seventeen and it dawned that two very blue-eyed parents can’t produce a brown-eyed kid, the S. hit the F., with a roar.
    “Ndo, well,” I say soggily, blowing my nose, “udder the carpet’s a bit of add exaggeratiodd.” I blow the nose again. “But tidied it away, all ship-shape and Bristol fashion. You do tend to do that, you told me yourself you had to get your life tided up before you started seeing me.” –Like, give the current puce and magenta cow or two the final heave-ho and get rid of the flat in London I’ve discovered he used to have, because the last in a long line of them had completely done it out in her taste, this woulda been during those little three-day trips to town that the well-off hubby (oh, yeah) imagined she spent shopping at Harrods, not to mention refusing to give him back the keys, and finally, get rid of the crap she’d put in the cottage (he didn’t tell me that bit, his brother Terence let it out to me) and have its locks changed, because she refused to— You goddit.
    “Mm,” he says, I can hear he’s chewing on his lip. “True enough. I don’t see what it’s got to do with anything, though.”
    He wouldn’t. “No,” I say heavily.
    “Look, I really can’t talk now, Rosie. I’ll ring you later this evening, your time, okay?”
    “Yeah,” I agree heavily. “See ya.”
    “Bye-bye, Rosie,” he says heavily, ringing off.
    This evening my time? Where is he, for God’s sake?
    Dinnertime. Funnily enough I’m not hungry. Rupy thinks it’s the morning sickness coming back. No! I’m just not hungry! Maybe he’d better pop down and get Doris? (She used to be a nursing sister.) No! I’m all right! Have I taken my vitamins, at least? Yes! Um, well, better have a glass of milk to keep up my calci— No! Leave me alone! Exit angrily to bedroom.
    I can hear him and Katie talking, my room’s to the right of the sitting-dining room as you come into the little passage. The flat’s L-shaped, there’s four to a floor, each of them having a corner. The sitting-dining room being the corner, if you see what I mean. My room is the biggest bedroom, it looks directly onto the exciting view of the apartment building next-door, also shiny brown brick but a different style from ours, with Mrs Friedman’s balcony filled with geraniums. And often Mrs Friedman as well: she’s in a wheelchair and she spends a lot of time on the balcony. Joanie’s old room, that Katie’s using, is on the far side of the sitting-dining room. John thinks it was actually intended to be a dining-room. It’s at the back of the building, looking over the trees in the communal stretch of garden that no-one ever uses. It’s smaller and I offered to swap with Joanie when I first came but she wanted to keep the view of the trees. Rupy’s room’s on the far side of that, next to Miss Hammersley’s spare room (her layout’s a mirror-image of ours). The kitchen’s fitted into the corner of the main room next to Joanie’s old room. John reckons he can see a place in the wall where it once had a door into her room, this proving the dining-room theory, geddit? Anyway, as I say, my room’s next to the main room.
    I can’t hear what they’re saying… Yes I can, Katie’s saying something about John and Rupy’s saying very loud that someone’s an idiot. Guess who?
    A bit later. “He’ll be even madder with you if he finds out you haven’t eaten any dinner, dear.”
    “Shove OFF, Rupy!”
    “Look, come on down to The Tabla with us, we’ll get Mr Singh to do tandoori chicken with naan, since there’s three of us.”
    “No!” After a moment I admit sulkily: “John’s gonna ring me this evening, I don’t wanna miss him, he’d think I was doing it on purpose.”
    “Very well, then, tandoori takeaway,” he says airily.
    I’m so horrified I sit bolt upright, bulge and all. The Tabla doesn’t do Indian takeaways, the Singhs started off that way with another restaurant and were very, very glad to be able to buy The Tabla and stop doing it, boy is that a life of total slavery. As the Wus from the Chinese just round the corner can confirm. “No!”
    “Mr Singh wouldn’t mind, since it’s you, you great Aussie nana.”
    “Thanks, old chum.” Gee, tandoori chicken with naan…
    “I’ll let you have those mild little onions in the mild sweetened vinegar that you really like.”
    Ooh, wow! Will ya really, Rupy? I lick my lips greedily.
    “They’ll give you Hellish wind, of course,” he notes dispassionately, “but you can spend the evening in here. Dare say Tim’ll come in with you: he won’t mind. By the way, can Katie give him that B,O,N,E that’s in Battersea Power Station?” –It’s never gonna be called anything else, folks, until the day we both die, it’s Katie Herlihy’s enduring legacy to this flat.
    “I was gonna give it to him tomorrow morning and let him bring it on his W,A,L,K and bury it in Mr Henderson-Proude’s rose-bed.”
    “Understandable,” he grants. –Mr H.-P. is a sort of male Hyacinth Bucket.
    “Oh, go on, let her.” I get off the bed. “I do feel a bit hungry. And John did say later this evening. Our time.” He doesn’t get it, he just nods happily and trots out.
    Later this evening. Very full of delicious tandoori chicken and wonderful naan with tiny seeds on them and those incredibly yummy little onions that it would be a complete misnomer to call them pickled onions, they’re small and pale pink and rather soft, but not squashy, and totally delish— Ooh, blast! Pardon me! Phew, ugh! “Sorry, Tim.” He just looks up at me and yawns. Maybe Rupy’d like to take him for last walkies tonight…
    “Rosie! Rosie! Rosie!”
    “Huh?
    “For God’s sake! It’s him!”
    “Musta dozed off.”
    “Dozed off and a half! She’s been watching those damned flamenco tapes Joanie sent!”
    Or, Spanish Thunder. Cripes. “Uh—cripes. Thanks.” Grasp receiver groggily. (The long phone cord, right? Ya didn’t imagine Captain Efficiency wouldn’t of thought of making it long enough to reach the actual bedroom, surely? In fact it’s so long that if desired one can lean in the window watching Mrs Friedman water her geraniums as I yack on.)
    “’Lo?”
    “Sorry, darling, were you asleep?”
    “Not really. Dozed off. Full of tandoori chicken and naan.”
    “And little pickled onions, according to Rupy,” he agrees drily.
    “Yeah. Ya lucky you’re out of it, I can tell ya.”
    “I’d rather be in it, oniony farts and all,” he says mildly.
    Where is he? He’d never say that in front of his radio operator or any of the junior officers or crew. And only possibly in front of Commander Corky Corcoran, best mate, second greatest enemy of the Haworth-Marshall marriage after Lady Mother Haworth herself, and, ya couldn’t of guessed, First Officer of Dauntless.
    “Where are you?”
    “At sea,” he says, chewing the lip. “I can’t be more precise just at the moment.”
    “John, that’s ludicrous, the CIA are not only watching the blinking little light that represents Dauntless travelling across their whacking great electronic map of the world as we speak, they’ve also precisely zeroed in on this phone call and are recording every word for posterity and/or the next Watergate!”
    “Very probably. Nevertheless.”
    “Anyway, I didn’t mean that. Where are you on the ship?”
    “Oh! In the Night Cabin, darling. Got them to patch the call through.”
    “So you’re off duty?”—He hesitates, folks, he hesitates. The Captain is never off duty.—“Off watch, I mean,” I amend glumly.
    “Mm. I’ve been thinking, Rosie.”
    Yeah, only thinking in your terms entails tidying everything away ship-shape and Bristol fashion and never letting the other person put her point of view over! “Yes?”
    “I think it was a mistake to rush off on honeymoon to Australia.”
    Yeah, well, what with Mum’s bawling, and having to endure Aunty Allyson and bloody Wendalyn and Sickening Little Smirking Taylor, and having to spend several days with Aunty Kate in Adelaide because she’d’ve been mortally offended, no, eternally mortally offended if we hadn’t, and having to endure her idea of a dinner party with half her bloody bowling club plus and the half of the street that she was talking to, plus and followed up with a giant barbecue for the other half of the bowling club and Uncle Jim’s rellies that normally get overlooked except when she wants to rub their noses in something her side’s got that theirs hasn’t… Not to mention Uncle Jim getting lost when he took us up the Barossa: No-one gets lost in the Barossa Valley, Jim! What can John be thinking of you?
    “A mistake and a half. ’Specially the bits with Aunty Kate in them.”
    “Well, yes!” he says with a laugh. “She means well, though, darling. And she loves you, you know.” –John, they all love me: they haven’t the faintest idea who I am, they’ve never stopped to consider it for an instant, they’ve never even stopped to wonder why they love me and should they bother, but they all love… Forget it.
    “I can hear every syllable of that, you know,” he says coolly.
    “Yeah. Um, well, if not that, why was it a mistake?”
    “It was much too rushed. We should have given ourselves the time to, well, just to talk, and get to know each other better, darling.”
    “Mm.”
    “And I realise now that you were very much on edge the whole time, what with wondering if the damned morning sickness was going to come back, and wondering what your family was going to make of me, and, er, vice versa, I presume, and all the damned travelling. I’m sorry, Rosie; instead of, uh, plunging myself into working out the most efficient route with the shortest possible legs for you, I should have taken the time to reflect that a person who’s a rotten traveller anyway shouldn’t be dragged off on a round-the-world trip for their so-called honeymoon. Especially when they’re expecting a baby and haven’t been very well.”
    “We had to go, we’d never of heard the last of it if we hadn’t.”
    “On the contrary, I should never have listened when you said that. I wish to God I’d had a word with Jerry”—that’s Dad—“before I ever let you set foot on a bloody plane.”
    “You didn’t know him as well, then. And I was fine. And I wasn’t really nervous about Aunty Kate and all them. Only about Mum and Dad,” I admit, swallowing.
    “Mm. And every time you got on a plane you were rigid with anxiety wondering if this would be the time you’d throw up.”
    Something like that, yeah. “Yeah. I s’pose it was dumb of us.”
    “Very dumb indeed.”
    “Only that doesn't excuse me for not telling you about the Research Fellowship… I dunno why I didn’t, really. Um, I s’pose I'd just confessed so many things to you…. Um, sorry,” I say lamely.
    “Confessed?”
    “Yes! For God’s sake, John, don’t pretend! Like not letting on to Brian I was giving up the show when I’d let you believe I’d told him months back, and then all that mess when The Observer spotted me, and then the preggy!”
    “Mm. I can’t understand,” he says slowly, “how you let yourself get into such situations, Rosie.” –It’s got something to do with being human, you hopeless Royal Naval person! Jesus!
    “No. I can’t explain it, John. I put things off. Moral cowardice. There’s a fair bit of it about, only not so much in the upper echelons of the Royal Navy,” I admit glumly.
    “Yes. But then, why turn me into the big bad wolf?” he says slowly.
    Ouch. “Dunno. Um, well, it’s probably got something to do with you being so much older than me. Authority figure or something. It’s a lot worse when you’re not here, I sort of… exaggerate it in my head, or something.”
    “I've tried very hard never to do anything—”
    Oh, God, I’ve hurt his feelings. “I know! It’s not you, it’s me!”
    “Well, largely, perhaps. But I must have done something to make you feel that way.”
    “You’re a lot older than me, you’re used to being in charge, and you’re a Royal Navy captain, John. It’s not that I don’t see you as a human being; I do.”
    After a moment he says: “I don’t think you see me as a particularly fallible human being, though, do you?”
    “Well, in your job you can’t afford to be.”
    This time there’s quite a long silence and then he says: “Rosie, I know you didn’t mean it, but I don’t think you’ve any idea how very hurtful that was.”
    I do now. “Um, sorry,” I say, trying not to bawl. “I was just being objective.”
    “Objective!” Another silence. Then he says: “Yes, I suppose you were. I’d rather you didn’t objectify me, really.”
    I was not! That isn’t the same thing at all! Manage not to say it. “Um, no, I’ll try not to, in future. Um, there was so much going on before we took off, like the wedding and everything, and then, um, dunno why I didn't tell you while we were in Oz… And I was so glad to be home, I wasn’t thinking about things, really… And then your orders came and I just um, didn't think.”
    He sighs. “I suppose that’s as clear as it’s ever going to get.”
    No, well, it could get a little bit clearer… I can hear him waiting.
    “Is it?” he says mildly.
    “No, um, to start off, you see, I was hugging it to myself!” I blurt.
    “Er… Oh,” he says limply.
    “I do that, when it’s something really, really good. People that don’t do it, they can’t understand. That’s why I didn’t leap up and ring all Rabbit’s friends and relations the minute we got engaged, like you did. I was hugging that to myself, too.”
    “I see… Well, I’m glad that that was something really, really good. –I thought you were just putting off telling your parents because you were afraid of their reaction.”
   “Only partly. But it wasn’t a matter of thinking I should tell them first, that’s not why I didn’t ring Rupy and everyone straight off.”
    “I thought— I suppose I did assume that was it. And that perhaps you wanted to tell Rupy and your London friends in person.”
    “Nope: hugging it to myself. Like, you know, when you go to your Grandma’s, like before she’s gone gaga, and she takes you into the kitchen and gives you one of her special toffees,” my voice is getting feebler and feebler, why did I start on this speech, “that Kenny can’t have because he’s too little.” Swallow. “Sorry.”
    “No, no, I see it perfectly!” he says with a laugh. “Little stout Rosie in her pink smocked dress that Grandma made on her fearsome sewing machine before she went gaga,”—this is straight out of Mum’s bloody family albums that she inflicted on him unendingly during the so-called honeymoon, of course—“hugging her toffee to herself!”
    “Yeah. I used to go out on the back porch to eat it, it was one of those old wooden Sydney houses with the grungy latticework on the porch. I don’t think Kenny realises to this day that I got given toffees and he never did.”
    “Mm,” he agrees, I can hear he’s smiling.
    “Yeah. Only then I started to feel guilty because I hadn’t told you about the permanent fellowship straight off and it got worse and worse and I went into my putting-it-off thing,” I admit glumly.
    “Well, that is clear!”
    Isn’t it, yeah.
    He’s thinking, he’s thinking…
    “Rosie, darling, I do understand, but I think this might be one of the things we might need to work on,” he says kindly.
    Mightn’t we, just. Yeah. “Yeah. I will, ya mean. Like, tell you straight away, next time?”
    “If you can. I realise this is a psychological thing, darling. So, er, mention the toffees, if I start getting too, er, what was the phrase?”—Oh, God. Choose one of many.—“Upper echelon of the Royal Navy authority figure?”
    Oh, God! “Um, something like that, yeah. Um, I dunno that trying is gonna actually make me improve, John,” I admit glumly.
    Gee, another silence.
    “Rosie, if you know you do it—” Yeah, yeah. People like him can’t understand, see? They can grasp it intellectually, only they can’t relate to it.
    “Yeah,” I say glumly when he’s run down. “I’ll try, but don’t expect too much.”
    He promises he won’t, very nicely, and assures me he does understand and reminds me again to mention the toffees, and then he asks me about the vitamins and the bulge, and blah, blah, in terrific detail. Crikey Dick, it’s merely biology, it’s not that flaming fascinating! And what if it turns out as stubborn, recalcitrant and just plain stroppy as me? Will he ever understand it? Well, if it's a girl, he won’t try, he’ll just spoil her. Boy, I can foresee good times ahead: it’ll be Mummy that’s gonna have to wield the big stick, because every time Daddy comes home from sea it’ll be treats, and turning on the Sickening Little Taylor act…
    “Darling, are you listening?”
    “No. John, if it’s a girl, promise me you won’t bring it, I mean her, treats every time you come home from sea.”
    Stunned silence.
    “Because I don’t want to have to cope with a Sickening Little Taylor and her temper tantrums every time you leave the house!” I say loudly.
    “Oh. Er—I had the impression that a very large portion of that was your cousin Wendalyn’s fault, Rosie.”
    Hers and bloody Aunty Allyson’s—yeah. “This is true. But it’s in my genes, too, ya know. You didn’t meet Carolyn, that’s one of Aunty Kate’s daughters: when she was little she was a real sickener, too. Had Uncle Jim totally on her side: every time Aunty Kate turned her back he’d be giving her bloody junk food or taking her to McDonald’s or buying her another bloody Barbie, the kid had a roomful of the sickening things.”
    “I see, you’re not of the school that believes that’s what fathers are for?” he says with a laugh in his voice.
    “NO!”
    “That’s clear,” he concedes ruefully.
    “Look, talking of working at things, maybe we better work this out, too, when ya come home.”
    “Yes.”
    “It’s not funny. Who’s gonna have to discipline the bloody kid, boy or girl? Not the one that’s at sea, that’s for sure.”
    “Oh. I see.”
    “Yeah. So apply the great strategic brain to working something out. If ya can navigate us all the way to Oz and back in the shortest hops possible within the laws of physics, maybe ya can figure out some way not to turn your wife into a monster to ya bloody kids.”
    “Rosie, for God’s sake!”
    “It’s the onions getting to me,” I admit, giving in and farting horribly. Ugh, phew! Ooh, that’s better. “Well, partly.”
    “Yes. Did, um, by any chance did your Aunt Kate bring this subject up during those cosy girls’ confabs in Adelaide when she'd ordered Jim to take me off to his bowling club?”
    “Yes, she did, because unlike the rest of my bloody rellies, she’s got some sense!” I say fiercely.
    “Mm. I wouldn’t dispute that,” he says on a rueful note. “I got quite good at lawn bowls.”
    “Very funny,” I say weakly. “You’ve got all those cups, you’re the type that’d be good at any game. Anyway, thought it was mostly sitting round the club house listening to their long, boring stories while they knock back the frosties?”
    “That, too! –Darling, I’d better let you go, it must be very late.“—Our time, he means. —“We’ll plan to make some time just to talk things over when I come home.”
    Right. When’ll that be? “Mm.”
    He sighs. “We’ll be back some time in August.” Right, unless there’s a flare-up in Bosnia or the Yanks tell them they have to get on round and hover threateningly in the Persian Gulf while they protect their oil interests, or like that.
    “Well, will they let ya stay home for September and the baby, John?”
    “I am applying for leave, and if nothing crops up, I should get it. But you know I can’t ask for any privileges that I wouldn’t allow my men, Rosie.”
    Why not? They don’t got the responsibility of the ruddy ship and the buck stops here, do they? (Don’t say it, haven’t got a death wish.) “No, all right, if the government goes potty and decides ya gotta go and attack, sorry, protect the Falklands again, ya gotta go.”
    “Mm. So when you will you be down at the cottage, darling?” Very mild, has he slipped that in on purpose, or— Forget it, I'm paranoid enough without trying to work that one out.
    “First week of July; Greg’s gonna drive us.”
    “That’s very good of him.”
    Uh—oh, shit! I can’t of explained that bit properly, it hasn’t sunk in! While I’m thinking this and panicking and wondering if I oughta explain it properly now, he’s sending thanks and best wishes to the Singhs and telling me to look after myself and saying: “Bye-bye, Rosie darling.”
    “Yeah. Bye-bye, John.”
    “Love you, Rosie.”
    “Yeah. Me, too. Ta-ta,” I say glumly.
    He hangs up first: according to Rupy it’s etiquette when you’ve rung someone to hang up first. Only if they ring you, you gotta let them hang up first. Don’t ask me where he got that from, only going on John’s observed behaviour, especially if Lady Mother rings him, it’s all too true.
    I’ll give Rupy two seconds— He’s here. “All well on the Western Front?”
    “Quiet, not well, you birk. Um, more or less. He should be home in August and unless they declare war on the ruddy Falklands again or the Yanks want them to sit in the Gulf with their guns trained on anybody that looks like disturbing the balance of power in the fossil fuel arena, he’ll get leave when the baby’s due.”
    “Well, that’s good, dear! Shall I open the window?”
    “Thanks,” I say dully, not taking it as a joke. It isn’t, either, he hurries over and opens it.
    “Mrs Friedman’s watching telly,” he reports, peering.
    “It’s late, for her, is there an intellectual play on?”
    “Well, yes, actually, dear, it’s a repeat of that thing of Euan’s we missed last year. Was it when your Aunty Kate was here?”
    “Uh… Coulda been. Um, Barbara and I missed one when we were down at the cottage— Oh—no: that was him on Parkinson. Uh, does she—?” Point madly in the direction of the sitting-room.
    He shakes his head. “Either that or she does know it's on and she’s deliberately not watching it,” he admits, making a face.
    “What is she watching?”
    “One of those videos Joanie said we could keep.”
    “Jazzercize? At this hour?”
    “No. That very early Laurence Olivier thing where he’s the barrister. Lithping very thlightly, dear,” he reminds me, striking a pose.
    I’ve shut my eyes in agony.
    “What’s up? Well, admittedly it’s got the worst Technicolor ever recorded on celluloid: think they only shot those initial pics of Piccadilly Circus in colour and then—”
    “Yes! For God’s sake!”
    “Well, what?”
    “He’s about the same age as a certain Scotch wanker and with the same square chin and a very similar figure and manages to be almost as fuzzily charming and irresponsible and, along with the lithping, about as macho and irresistible in it, that’s what!”
    “Ugh, you’re right, there is a certain resemblance. Apart from the Brylcream. And the lovely wig, of course.”
    “Oh, get out, Rupy.”
    “I was going to offer to walk Tim,” he says with dignity.
    “Wuff!” He’s awake, all eager and panting.
    “Um, would ya? Thanks,” I say lamely.
    They depart, Tim all eager and panting, and Rupy all smug and virtuous.
    … “Did you sort anything out with John?” he says, bringing Tim in.
    I’m almost asleep. “Huh?”
    “This evening.”
    “Sort of. Well, I explained why I didn’t tell him about the permanent fellowship right off. And why I kept putting it off.”
    “And?”
    “I’m forgiven. He has grasped it intellectually. And believes he’s expecting more of the same. Of course when I do it, he’ll be all hurt again.”
    “Then don’t do it.”
    “Yeah, I’ll manage that after I’ve grown ten inches in height, changed my sex and the colour of my eyes, and joined the Royal Navy.”
    “You could make an effort.”
    “I will make an effort. What I’m afraid of is it won’t succeed. Added to which it dawned just as he was hanging up, believing he’d tidied me up and made me all ship-shape and Bristol fashion, that he hasn’t grasped that Greg’s coming down to the cottage next month to stay.”
    “Don’t tell me you haven’t told him about the village study!”
    “Yes. Well, that was what started— Never mind. But I have. But looking back, I think I omitted to say in words of one syllable that Greg’s not just gonna drive me down, he’s coming to stay in the cottage and make a start on the study.”
    Rupy looks down his straight nose at me. “And on the garden?”
    “Right. Like, I omitted to mention that, too.”
    “You’re an idiot.”
    “You try interrupting him when he thinks he's got everything tidied away and is moving smoothly on as per pre-planned strategy outline to the next thing on the agenda!”
    “Thought you had the strength of mind to stand up to anything?”
    “It’s quite hard to, when he’s hung up on you.”
    “Tell him tomorrow, then.”
    “He’ll wonder why I didn’t tell him today.”
    “Tell him tomorrow!” he screams.
    I will. Well, I might. Well, probably. Well, I oughta…


    Katie’s standing on one leg. “I didn’t realise Rupy would be going away so soon.”
    “They always have the wanking Mountjoy Midsummer Festival around this time of year, Katie. And he has been rushing off to rehearse with that nit Felix Beaumont for a while, now.”
    “Is he a nit?”
    “It’s generally agreed he is, yeah. Oh: were you thinking of his performance in that never-ending Roman thing on the idiot-box?”—She nods mutely.—“Generally agreed in the wake of that that he’s an extremely up-himself nit, Katie.”
    “Mm,” she says, swallowing and trying to smile. “I see.”
    “What’s up? Did Rupy forget he’d promised to take you with him?”
    “No! Nothing like that!” she gasps.
    “Uh—oh. You thought we’d be going down to see him, that it?”
    She nods mutely.
    “Um, well at one point John made noises about getting over there, only now it looks as if the Navy won’t let him come home until August. Well, Brian reckons the scripts for your series are gonna be ready any day: why not come down to the cottage with me and Greg, and we can spend some time on the scripts, and nip over to the festival for a day! Um, is Portsmouth near Cornwall?”
    She shakes her head frantically.
    “But they are both on the south coast, right?”
    She nods mutely.
    “Well, that’s all right, England’s real small, ya could dump the whole of it into New South Wales and never notice it. Dare say we could hire a limo, if Greg doesn’t fancy it, or Graham Howell from the service station’d probably drive us. How’s that grab ya?”
    She dithers, obviously she wants to. Stony broke, probably. After I’ve told her it’s on me and she’s said she can’t possibly and blah, blah, she finally gives in. If I really don’t mind?
    Heck, I don’t mind, it’ll stop me brooding about not having told John about Greg. And the garden. And the guest spots for the fifth and sixth series.
    So that’s settled.
    … Ugh, hang on, wasn’t there a strong rumour that Euan was gonna do Dorimant in that Restoration thing that McIntyre’s doing the comic cameo in? I’m pretty sure that Bridget mentioned it, actually. Given that anything that McIntyre’s in will be booked out, I should say it’s not something that a Rising Star of British Theaytre like Euan’ll pass up. Ulp. Well, sufficient unto the day. And if no-one tells her, she’ll never realise he’s down there, will she?
    —What was that, Katie? Oh; yes, it does always have a Restoration theme. Founded by this old actor, Somebody Mountjoy, that left a packet to the Festival Foundation on condition it was always Restoration. –What else is gonna be on, this year? No idea. Yeah, why not ring Bridget and ask her? Only before ya do that, Katie, could ya possibly nip down to Mr Machin’s shop and get me some indigestion tablets, ’cos my tummy’s playing me up like anything, shouldn’t of had that cheese on top of all those salt and vinegar crisps.
    She dashes out, poor little soul. And I fall on the phone and breathlessly warn Bridget not to breathe a word.
    Oh, what a tangled web we weave…


No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)