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Persian saying: If fortune turns against you, even jelly breaks your tooth.

  Up in my room I cleaned the boots and tried them on. They were a very comfortable fit apart from the end of a protruding nail which dug into my right heel. It would be easy to fix, I imagined. I applied witch-hazel to the bruises, rebandaged the tank wound, put vitamin E cream, Savlon and moisturising cream on my face and fungicide on my feet. Fed Cloudesley.

  I arrived at the Arts Centre to find the Company in animated discussion about the previous night’s television production of the Scottish Play. I threw up my hands in horror and begged them to stop quoting, especially the witches’ spell. They seemed a little bemused so I explained that it was the worst of bad luck to quote from said play, then ordered them all to turn around three times, go outside and spit. Two refused on the grounds that spitting is vulgar.

  Rowena arrived wearing a fabulous full-length mink coat over her jeans and yachting top. I took her by both hands and told her she looked stunning. She smiled and kissed me lightly on the cheek before letting the coat slide gently from her shoulders. I heard tutting from the stage, but ignored it. They weren’t professionals.

  I approached the OAP hippy who was slouched in the front row of the stalls engrossed in an ancient paperback about Che Guevara. I asked him if he’d finished the plans for the set as promised.

  ‘It’s all in the back of the script, man,’ he replied disinterestedly.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I replied patiently, but it needs to be fitted onto this stage. We need a plan for this particular theatre. You know, measurements, arrangements of flats, that sort of thing?’ He shrugged. ‘And what about the props? The sofa, bookcase, telephone table, rugs. Each a small thing, but together they build the whole.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said with a wave of his hand, ‘It’s all coming from my pad.’

  More than a little frustrated by now I told him that the play was set in a genteel country Vicarage, not a squat in Southall.

  ‘Okay, man, that’s cool,’ he slurred and moved back a couple of rows to rejoin Che in Cuba.

  I clapped my hands and called for quiet.

  ‘Okay, people,’ I said, ‘let’s get to work. Act one to page thirty-nine, please. Clear the stage – er no, not you, Mr McGregor, you are at the top of the opening scene. Ready?’ I shouted into the wings to Mrs Herbert who was playing the Vicar’s daily. The crash of the tray and its contents told me that she had been ready, but wasn’t any more. ‘Take your time, dear,’ I said as I took my seat between Rowena and my assistant.

  McGregor, in clerical dress, began bumbling through a pile of imaginary papers on the top of an upturned tea chest which was a stand-in for a proper desk. Mrs Harris entered stage right.

  ‘Breakfast, Vicar. Your usual,’ she said in a competent West Country accent.

  ‘Hers nutting right saws etches undeggs, mezzez arras, tay seshewap ferraday,’ was his interpretation of his first line which was, in fact, written in English. I let it run for a few more lines.

  ‘STOP!’ I implored eventually. I stood, put my hands together against my lips and considered for a moment. Be positive; give encouragement, was what the still, small voice inside me was saying. RUN AWAY, was what everything else was bellowing, like the Bull.

  ‘Very good, Mrs Harris,’ I began smiling. ‘Your character and Mr McGregor’s are relating nicely. Well done both of you.’ A pause. ‘Er, Mr McGregor,’ pause. ‘I wonder,’ pause. ‘Could you perhaps speak a little more slowly and enunciate a tad more clearly?’

  ‘Arv nae idea whatchu mean, laddie,’ was his bemused reaction.

  ‘Well, remember you are from middle England and you were educated at Oxford…’

  ‘I arm not and ar’ve niver been near Oxfrrrd in ma life.’

  ‘No, sorry, your character of course. What I mean is, that first line of yours, “There’s nothing like sausages and eggs, Mrs Harris, to set you up for the day”. Well, it didn’t come across quite as intended.’ McGregor sat and looked at me. There was a short awkward silence. ‘Sorry. Otherwise, er, quite well done,’ I turned to Rowena, ‘wouldn’t you say, darling?’ She gave a quick nod of the head and accompanied it with a look which clearly said, stop digging, NOW. ‘Right,’ I said decisively, ‘from the top again, if you please.’ Eventually we reached page thirty-nine.

  ‘That was fine for a first time,’ I said as I climbed onto the stage. ‘Just a couple of things. Mrs Harris, when you tip the breakfast into the Vicar’s lap, could you make sure you’re standing close enough to him so that it does actually land there?’ She looked at me, her mind was empty. ‘Otherwise the gag with the sausage isn’t going to work, is it?’

  ‘Ooh,’ she oohed, suddenly seeing the joke, ’so it’s not really an accident, then! Isn’t that a bit risqué, as the French would say?’ she giggled. Miss Pickering snorted derisively.

  ‘Yes, it is, but an accident with a purpose. You’re not slinging sausages round the stage just for the hell of it. This is a farce, as the French would say.’

  ‘Now, Miss Neave, the scene on the sofa. Perhaps a little less enthusiasm? You are supposed to be a vamp, not an all-in-wrestler.’ McGregor, not the sort of man you would willingly pick a fight with, had been visibly shaken by the experience.

  ‘But I thought I had to throw him on the sofa and jump on him,’ Miss Neave protested.

  ‘No, if you read the stage directions, they say, and I quote, “Vicar, edging away, trips over mat and falls on sofa. Helga, that’s your character, leans voluptuously over him and pouts”.’ I pouted for her. ‘And could you wiggle your hips just a little? I know it’s difficult with,’ I nearly said an arse like a hippopotamus, ‘a tweed skirt and bowling shoes, but we are supposed to be actors, aren’t we? Oh, and talking of acting, can you do a German accent?’

  ‘I’m sure you know best,’ she said huffily.

  ‘I do, Miss Neave, trust me, I do.’ I gave everybody a five minute break before beginning Act Two.

  I called Mr McGregor aside. He was, in fact, a quite agreeable man, despite his minimal acting ability. ‘That… that thing,’ I said waving in the direction of the urban guerrilla.’

  ‘Aye, I know what you mean,’ he sighed Scottishly.

  ‘He’ll have to go,’ I declared. ‘I can draw up the plans, but somebody else will have to do the construction.’ McGregor shook his head and I became aware of heavy breathing behind me.

  ‘I must speak with you urgently.’ It was a forced whisper, the voice female, the German accent heavy. I turned.

  ‘Miss Blumberg! How nice,’ I feigned. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘It is the Stonemason,’ she said, beckoning me to follow her to the other side of the stage.

  ‘Mr Taylor? What about him?’ I enquired.

  She looked around. ‘He is trying to grope me.’

  ‘Grope you!’

  ‘Shhh,’ she hissed urgently. ‘Yes, he is trying to grope all woman.’ I wasn’t sure about her claim to be all woman, but let it go. ‘And he is very strong.’

  I glanced across at the Stonemason. He seemed a reasonable sort, but I could also recognise a certain amount of vanity in him as he chatted to the backstage ladies. ‘I suppose that’s what comes of being a Stonemason,’ I observed.

  ‘Groping?’

  ‘No, very good though,’ I replied with a little laugh, ‘grouting perhaps.’ Another little chuckle, but Miss Blumberg’s blank expression said it all. ‘No, being strong is what I meant.’ Miss Blumberg nodded gravely.

  ‘But is not very good. You don’t understand, is the end of Act Two.’

  ‘What is?’ I asked, thus confirming my lack of understanding.

  ‘When he will grout me.’

  ‘No,’ I said suppressing a wild desire to burst out laughing, ‘I think on this occasion you do actually mean, grope.’

  ‘Oh, so you know all about it?’

  ‘What?’ I asked, more confused t
han ever. ‘Groping, or the end of Act Two?’

  ‘Yes, that is when pretend to hide behind the screen together.’

  ‘No, Miss Blumberg, not pretend. We don’t pretend anything. We’re actors, and actors act,’ I said with a flourish. ‘But I still don’t understand what you’re going on about.’

  ‘Well,’ she said as if all were crystal clear, ‘he will grope me there.

  I looked at her scrawny body; all woman I had to suppose, but not a lot of it. ‘Where?’ I asked, hoping fervently for no answer.

  ‘Behind screen!’

  Thank God for that. ‘Behind the screen?’

  ‘Yes. Every night he will grope me,’ she said with desperation in her eyes. ‘I have seen look on his face.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said, suddenly understanding her longed for predicament. In a flash I hit upon the solution. ‘Miss Blumberg,’ I began, ‘you are playing the part of the English Policewoman, the big, burly English Policewoman, yes?’ She nodded. ‘Leave it to me,’ I confided and gave her a big wink, which was probably a mistake.

  Another quick conference with Mr McGregor solved the problem nicely. The robust Miss Neave would certainly be better in the Policewoman role, and although about as far from a sex symbol as you can get, the wispy, nay near diaphanous Miss Blumberg, with the right make-up, a pair of falsies and her German accent would make a passable Helga. But I could see that getting her to grope the Vicar was going to be a big problem.

  Acts One and Two were excruciating, except for Rowena, of course, who played the lovelorn fan, Debbie, with great pathos. The Stonemason, playing the pop star, had to sing an opening number at the beginning of Act Two. He was tone deaf. He also moved as if he was carrying one of the uprights from Stonehenge around on his back and strong he might have been, but he was no Obelix.

  At the end of the evening I gave a short speech of encouragement. I stressed the importance of learning the lines quickly. I told them that with three weeks to go we could still make it if everyone worked hard.

  ‘Professionals put on things like this in three days, often in rapid succession, rehearsing one during the day and performing another to packed houses at night.’ I myself hadn’t ever had to do this, but I knew people who had. Finally, I cited Rowena as an example to them all. I noticed some stony looks from some of the other young ladies in the Company.

  We retired to the revolting Green Room where Rowena and I had a table to ourselves as the others took themselves off into a corner. I was riveted by what she had to say about working in men’s toiletries and over the Moon about lunch on Sunday. Her flatmate was really looking forward to meeting me, apparently. Rowena arranged to collect me from Mafeking Avenue at eleven o’clock, sharp. As we left the pub I ventured to kiss her on the cheek and oh joy, oh bliss, she returned it!

  I arrived home to find Mr H in his heavy woollen dressing-gown, boiling milk in the hall for evening cocoa. Mrs H, in a pink quilted dressing-gown and wearing curlers, was standing nervously at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ H said.

  ‘Yes,’ I confirmed, ‘it is indeed, me. I live here. Remember?’

  ‘Just got back, have you?’ I knew this to be a leading question, but couldn’t quite identify the destination. I told him that I’d been back earlier and gone out again. To rehearsal. Oh, he mouthed silently with an exaggerated nod of his head.

  ‘Well, ‘I began, ‘I’m feeling a bit tired. Long day, you know. So I’ll just say…’

  ‘Hold on,’ H commanded as he stood up from where he was stirring the milk. He walked up to me until he was peering up my nostrils, which made me feel uncomfortable.

  ‘Please don’t, Albert,’ I heard Mrs H say in her tiny voice,

  ‘There was a letter ‘ere when we went out,’ he said pointing to the umbrella stand. ‘But it’s not there now. Don’t suppose you