Brush Up Your Shakespeare

18

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

    “Well, of course,” said Livia with an airy wave of her script, “one is not projecting, darlings!”

    “No,” agreed Mac, holding on to the shreds of his frayed temper.

    “What happens when one is, dear?” asked Joel with tremendous interest. He bonked a nearby fairy with his bladder and she shrieked and giggled explosively.

    Mac breathed in deeply through flared nostrils. The fairies blenched.

    It was Tuesday afternoon. Livia’s fittings on the previous day had gone quite well. Her first rehearsal hadn’t gone quite well, as it had rapidly become evident that she hadn’t yet learned her lines. She did know her first scene, though. As Mac had been intending to rehearse her scenes with Bottom, that hadn’t much helped. However, Mac had behaved with tremendous restraint and had merely suggested, really very nicely, that Livia should go over her lines that evening. Livia was due to dine at The Royal that evening with some very important people from TVNZ to discuss a very exciting project, so that was that.

    Tuesday morning’s rehearsal had been as foul as might have been expected, given that Livia had got home very late the night before to find a note in Amy’s handwriting which said: “A man rang. Gone to bed with one of my migraines.” Her interrogation of Amy in the morning had revealed that Amy didn’t know who the man was, oh dear, should she have asked him, sorry, Ollie, and that Amy still had the migraine. The eagerness of TVNZ to cast Livia in a lovely part in their most popular “drama series” (the local actress for whom it had been intended having not long since blotted her copybook very publicly in an interview on, guess what, TVNZ) had not weighed very heavily in the balance against Amy’s demonstrated stupidity. Besides, they were offering her peanuts. And though they’d readily agreed that she would get to keep the clothes, how many lovely outfits could she reasonably expect to have in the rôle of an ex-model turned vicar’s wife?

    Now, what with the afternoon heat in the hall, the post-prandial state of those who had lunched in Parnell, Joel’s recent bladder fight with a rustic and a female grotesque, the latter wielding bladders they weren’t entitled to, not to say Maurice’s having sent a message to say he was sorry but he couldn’t make it tonight, something had come up at the conference—not to say Maurice’s having conveyed this message to Livia through the medium of the visibly agog, shocked and thrilled secretary of his erstwhile department—and Adam’s tacit but evident refusal to put any effort into his lines since Livia didn’t know hers, things were rapidly deteriorating. The unending stream of university staff, both academic and administrative, who somehow or other just happened to have business next to, or through the hall—the which did not lead anywhere unless you used the emergency exit, which was locked—wasn’t helping.

    “Look, all you fairies can push off home, I won’t need you this afternoon,” said Mac with tremendous restraint.

    Several injured little voices immediately piped: “But you said—”

    “Get OUT!” he roared terribly.

    With enormous shuffling and scuffling, and haphazard gathering-up of backpacks, Victoria Holts, bladders and discarded garments, the fairies got their gear together and reluctantly departed.

    “WELL?” said Mac terribly to the remaining rustics who hadn’t taken the hint.

    “Um, don’t you want us to stay and—um—be country cousins?” ventured one bolder than his fellows.

    “NO! GET OUT!” he screamed.

    Looking longingly at Livia, the rustics shambled off. There was some little excuse for them: Livia had smiled at them a lot both today and yesterday, and also she was wearing very shiny black stretch pants with the pink sun-top that ended two inches above the waist. With high-heeled gold sandals. And a gold chain round one ankle, huge pink feather flowers in the ears, and her hair in a ponytail with a big pink gauzy scarf tied in a bow. Plus lots and lots of gold bangles and bracelets, including a charm bracelet that had so far caught in her hair six times, in Mac’s tee-shirt twice, in Joel’s hair twice—whether the second time deliberately it would have been difficult to say—in Adam’s silk shirt three times and in Nigel’s curls innumerable times. Innumerable. Well, according to Joel it was seventeen, but Nigel didn’t appear to mind.

    “Um, do you want us, still?” ventured Quince.

    “YES!” screamed Mac.

    The faces of the rude mechanicals fell.

    “Right,” said Mac resignedly to his players. “Take it from the top. And try to project a little, darling,” he added on a weary note to Livia.

    “Of course, Mac, dear. From ‘What, jealous Oberon?’”

    Mac took a deep breath through flared nostrils. “No. From Adam’s line.”

    “Oh, yes, of course. –Just a minute, Adam, darling,” she said as Adam, looking bored, opened his mouth. “Where exactly will he be coming from, again, Mac darling?”

    Mac took another deep breath. “From your left; his fairies have just done their procession across the lawn and down the steps. Like I showed you this morning. And you’re coming in with your fairies under the arch—centre stage, that’s right,” he added wearily as Livia moved centre stage, “and he sees you before you see him. Then when he speaks the line you notice him.”

    “Having been blind as a bat for the last ten minutes, dear,” explained Joel kindly.

    “Shut UP, Thring!” howled Mac.

    “When exactly do I notice her?” asked Adam meekly.

    “That’ll do,” replied his uncle through gritted teeth. “Just get on with it.”

    “Now?”

    “YES, NOW!” he howled.

    Adam went over to the far corner of the stage. It didn’t have an apron but it did stick out beyond the proscenium arch for about eighteen inches, and he stood on the very corner of this protrusion. “Step, step, step,” he said to himself.

    “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” howled Mac.

    “Coming down the steps, isn’t that what I’m supposed to—”

    Joel went into hysterics.

    “Shut up,” said Mac tiredly. Joel continued to whoop. “SHUT UP!” he screeched. “And you,” he said to his nephew: “get on with it without any farting around, or you’ll find yourself rehearsing till midnight.” He glanced nastily at the prompt corner, where Georgy’s denim knees could be seen. “And I presume you don’t want that, or am I wrong?”

    “You’re not wrong, Nunky. Only to those of us that know our moves already, not to say our lines,” he drawled, “this is very boring.”

    In the background Snug said sourly to the other rude mechanicals: “So much for the professionals, eh?” They all choked but Mac managed to ignore this. Just.

    “Darling, I have only just arrived! Poor little me’th barely over the jet-lag!” Livia protested.

    “Could we rehearse, please?” asked Mac with tremendous restraint.

    “From the top, Adam, darling,” explained Joel helpfully.

    Mac managed to ignore this, but only just.

    Adam sighed. “Ready?” he said to Livia.

    “Of course, darling.”

    “‘Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania,’” said Adam in a bored voice.

    “‘What, jealous Oberon?’” cooed Livia with tremendous eyelash-fluttering. She paused. “Mac, darling, should I pause there?” she said.

    “Yes,” agreed Mac limply. “Pause for a wee bit.”

    “Splendid!” Livia marked her script busily. “Isn’t this fun? It’s ages since little me was on a real stage: it’s wonderful to have the scent of real greasepaint in the nostrils again!” she trilled. She paused. “Oh, yes: ‘Fairies, thkip henthe, I have forsworn his bed and company!’” she trilled, not looking at where the fairies were supposed to be.

    Mac wrote something in his script.

    “‘Tarry, rash wanton, am I not thy lord?’” sneered Adam.

    “Can we have less of the Bitch of Broadway and rather more of the fairy king who might be a bit pissed off but would quite like to GET UP HIS FAIRY WIFE?” inquired Mac, starting extra-sweet and ending in a shout.

    “Ooh, his fairy wife!” squeaked Joel.

    “Listen, Thring: I had three quite adequate amateurs lined up for this part before you were ever suggested,” said Mac, with empurpled cheeks and neck: “and if I have any more crap out of you, I’m giving it to one of them! Get it? You’re not under contract, remember? And what’s more you haven’t got a license to fart around, either, so JUST COOL IT!”

    “Sorry, sorry,” said Joel with a pout. “One was only trying to inject a touch of humour, dear.”

    “Well, don’t,” retorted Mac grimly. “—Did you get that?” he added nastily to his nephew.

    “Yes. Less B. of B. More F.K.”

    In the background the rude mechanicals choked violently.

    Mac eyed his nephew suspiciously but Adam’s face was completely neutral, so he contented himself with saying: “Yes. Can we have that line again, please?”

    “‘Tarry, rash wanton!’” said Adam, full voice, exuding a powerful mix of charm, S.A. and just plain annoyance as he caught at her arm: “‘Am I not thy lord?’” Finishing on a note that was part mocking, part amorous, and part simply macho, and which was pretty well guaranteed to turn the average fairy queen’s knees to water. In the body of the hall, the rude mechanicals gulped, and were silent. In the prompt corner, Georgy’s ears went very red.

    “‘Then I mutht be thy lady!’” trilled Livia coyly.

    Mac sighed.

    “‘But I know,’” said Livia, not looking at Adam but instead smiling in the direction of her supposed audience: “‘When thou hast stolen away from Fairyland—’”

    Mac let her get through it, incomprehensible though she made it. It had at least been audible. Then he said : “Yes. That was nice, Livia. Perhaps you could bear in mind, though, that she’s angry with him, she’s accusing him of sleeping with another woman. Not because she really believes it, necessarily, but just to provoke him. They’re in the middle of a row over the little Indian boy, remember?”

    “Yes, of course, darling!” said Livia fervently. “And could you jutht explain, Mac, darling, because I know you know all about Shakespeare and of course little me is tho ignorant,”—Mac repressed a sigh, Livia had made this speech at least eight times in the course of the day—“who this Corin is?”

   Mac swallowed. Even Adam and Joel, used though they were to her, had to swallow. In the body of the hall, the mechanicals goggled at one another with sagging jaws.

    “He’s a shepherd,” explained Mac lamely. “Um, not a real shepherd; it’s—um—a commonplace.”

    “I see!” she said brightly.

    “Phyllida’s not real, either: that’s a commonplace, too,” said Adam in a bored voice.

    “Of course, darling.” Livia peered blankly at her script.

    There was a short silence.

    “I see! So she’s making it all up, he never really made love to this Phyllida or this Amazon lady!”

    “He—” Mac broke off.

    “Yes; you know,” said a shy but determined voice from the prompt corner: “like when you’re angry, you say things you don’t mean. She’s just throwing accusations around because she’s cross with him.”

    “Of course, darling!” cried Livia. “—Isn’t she a clever little thing?” she added to the company at large.

    “Clever, true. Not large, true,” agreed Adam. “But one disputes the ‘thing’—whilst at the same time not necessarily rejecting the hypothesis that it is its presence which lends the entire statement that curious air of, er... condescension?”

    “Shut up, Adam!” said a cross voice from the prompt corner.

    “Yeah. Shut up and get on with it,” agreed Mac.

    “Well, give me the line,” Adam said to Livia.

    “Um... Da, da, da... ‘joy and prosperity.’”

    Adam grabbed her arm and delivered his next speech with considerable annoyance. Most of those present found themselves wondering whether it was Oberon annoyed with Titania, or Adam annoyed with Livia. Because most of those present knew that Adam and Georgy had spent the preceding week together. In fact, all of them did. Except Livia, on whom it had not yet dawned.

    Possibly this had something to do with the fact that Georgy had scarcely uttered in Livia’s hearing during the past two days, except when required to prompt. Or with the fact that Mac, from motives that were not immediately apparent but that several people had made interested guesses at, had treated her in a very off-hand way indeed for the last two days. Or with the fact that yesterday Georgy, who looked terrible in blue, had worn a baggy washed-out blue tee-shirt and a pair of red shorts which swore at her hair—it had been a very hot day and besides, the gear she’d taken up to the bach was all on her mother’s washing-line—and today was wearing jeans, Roman sandals and her ugly green cotton singlet. Or, indeed, with the fact that today, like yesterday, she had her hair in a plait, was wearing no make-up and looked about sixteen years old. Nor had she accompanied Livia, Mac, Adam and Joel to lunch in Parnell either yesterday or today. Yesterday because Mac had invited a bunch of his senior colleagues (getting it over with), most of whom she couldn’t stand, and today ostensibly because there’d been a crisis in Pauline’s studio over the stuffing for the larger or Learish grotesques’ costumes but actually because she’d felt too shy.

    Nor had Adam’s manner to her in front of Livia and Mac been demonstrably amorous. In Joel Thring’s opinion this was a Bad Sign. He was unaware that to Georgy it was a tremendous relief.

    Livia played the rest of the scene with almost total incomprehensibility. The seasons might have altered but it was pretty obvious this Titania didn’t give a tinker’s damn about them. And as many nine men’s morrises could be filled up with mud as they liked, she’d go on fluttering her eyelashes regardless. As for risking chiding downright with her husband if she longer stayed—well, if languishing looks and wildly fluttering eyelashes were any indication, she could have stayed till the cows came home or until the morning lark did its stuff without risking even a slight tiff.

    “Yes,” said Mac weakly. “No—stop, Adam. Stay where you are, Thring. Um... Livia, darling, could we just go over those last few lines again?”

    Livia reappeared from the wings, adjusting her bangles. “Of course, darling.” She patted the bird’s nest over her ears and the bangles caught in it again. “Ooh! Silly me!” she squeaked. “Adam, darling, could you possibly...?” She gave him a melting look.

    Adam sighed. He disentangled the charms from the bird’s nest without saying anything.

    “Fank you, darling!” She giggled archly. “Remember this one?” she cooed, showing him one of the charms.

    Joel said quickly: “How can he, darling, they all look the same, fourteen carats an’ all.”

    “Fourteen? Sil-ly, not gold!” she trilled. “Look, Adam, our tiny Cupid, remember? Isn’t he the sweetest thing?”

    Before Adam could say anything to make it worse—no-one present could see how he could possibly say anything to make it better—Mac said loudly: “Can we take it from ‘Set your heart at rest’, please, Livia? And this time, try and deliver the lines more strongly, dear, would you?”

    “Thtrongly, Mac, darling?” she piped dubiously.

    “Christ,” muttered Snug to Bottom in the body of the hall. Nigel bit his lip.

    Mac sighed heavily. He came up on stage. “I’ll show you.”

    “Ooh, fank you, darling! –Isn’t he lovely?” she said to the company at large.

    “Delish, darling,” agreed Joel in a hollow voice.

    “Give me a cue,” said Mac irritably, taking up Livia’s erstwhile position. “GEORGY!” he shouted. “Give me the CUE!”

    “Sorry,” said Georgy’s voice from the wings. “Um... ‘Why should Titania cross her Oberon?’” she cooed in a sickeningly doting voice. Adam’s shoulders shook. Joel swallowed a giggle. “‘I do but beg a ’ickle changeling boy-ee To be my henchman,’” cooed Georgy.

    “‘Set your heart at rest,’” replied Mac strongly with an indignant indrawn breath: “‘The Fairy land buys not the child of me!’” He and Adam finished their dialogue and Mac swept out on “We shall chide downright if I longer stay” with audibly gritted teeth and a well-nigh audible swish of angry skirts. Even though he was a baritone and had made no attempt to disguise this there was a certain silence in the hall.

    “Mac, darling, that was wonderful!” gasped Livia.

    “Runs in the family,” said Adam with a grin.

    Mac reappeared from the wings. “A bit more like that, okay?” he said to Livia.

    “Darling, I’ll do my poor betht!” she gasped. “But little me has never acted in Shakespeare before, you know! You’ll just have to be patient with me, darling!”

    “You’ve been in Camelot,” objected Joel.

    Everybody goggled at him.

    “Well, it was costume,” he said. “Sort of ye old-ee.”

    “Drop it,” sighed Mac, going down the steps. “Come on Adam, give her the line.”

    Adam gave her her cue. Livia did visibly try and all present concluded that she meant well.

    “Yes, that was better, darling,” said Mac valiantly at the end of it. “Just once more from the top, okay?”

   They did it once more from the top but although Livia was visibly trying it wasn’t all that much better. Well, you could just tell that she might be slightly miffed with Oberon. Once you’d fought your way through the forest of eyelashes, that was.

    “Right,” said Mac when it was over. “We’ll take Act III, Scene 1. OY! YOU LOT!” he bellowed at the rude mechanicals.

    They ambled up towards the stage and Nigel pointed out: “You sent our country cousins home.”

    Mac gave him a hard look. “Just imagine they’re standing round gawping. Can ya manage that?”

    “I suppose if I can imagine a lilo’s Titania I can imagine anything,” agreed Nigel with a grin.

    “A what, darling?” gasped Livia.

    “A lilo. It was for me to sit on, really, only Mac said it could be your stand-in.”

    “An inflatable rubber appliance, Livia, dear!” squeaked Joel.

    Livia turned very red and glared at him.

    “You know, one of those blow-up mattresses you take to the beach,” explained Nigel on a weak note.

    “Of course, darling!” she cooed, giving him her nicest smile.

    Nigel beamed up at her. “You’ll be nicer, though,” he said.

    “Naughty boy!” gurgled Livia, terrifically pleased.

    Mac sighed loudly. “Can—we—get—on—with—it?”

    “Yeah. Come on,” said Nigel quickly, leading his henchmen up the steps.

    “JOEL!” shouted Mac.

    Joel emerged from the prompt corner looking mildly surprized.

    “Get over there and imagine you’re in the fucking staircase,” snarled Mac, pointing upstage, audience’s left.

    “Shall I stand on a chair, dear?” he fluted.

    “Stand on a chair by all means, if it’ll make you feel better,” agreed Mac. “GEORGY!” he shouted. “Get him a CHAIR!”

    “I’ll do it,” said Adam quickly, descending the steps. He retrieved an ancient Windsor chair and handed it up to Nigel, who kindly positioned it for Joel.

    “Well, stand on it,” said Mac on a dry note.

    Joel stood on it. He looked very silly. Few of those present doubted that this had been Mac’s intention.

    “Please sir, can I go, now?” said Adam meekly.

    Mac looked at his watch. “Where to?”

    “To try on my lovely golden suit,” he said meekly.

    “All right. But be back in forty minutes, I’ll need you for Act IV.”

    Adam grimaced at him with his back to the stage. Mac gave him a dry look.

    “See you in forty minutes, then,” he said, hurriedly making for the door.

    Onstage Livia said in a bewildered voice to Nigel: “Am I in this

scene, darling?”

    “Not exactly. Well, you’re asleep in your bower, over there,” he said, nodding downstage, audience’s left.

    “Oh,” she said, looking puzzled.

    “Um—well, not quite there,” amended Nigel dubiously.

    “No, the layout in the quad’s a bit different,” agreed Starveling helpfully.

    “I see, dear,” said Livia, quite kindly really, considering Starveling was a tall, very thin, gangling boy with a pale, plain face and no charm whatsoever.

    “Only the audience doesn’t see you at first,” said Nigel, warming to his theme, “because of course your flowery curtains are drawn and the spots are on us.”

    Livia looked dubious.

    Nigel was far from stupid; he added quickly: “But then you hear the noise and wake up and the spots come on you and the rest of the stage goes dark—and that’s when you see me with my ass’s head and fall in love with me.”

    “That’s when you wear that lovely pink dress, dear,” Joel contributed helpfully.

    “Oh, do I? Don’t I wear my lovely white one in my bower? Not my lovely white satin one, the lovely white gauze one?”

    “Yes,” said Mac firmly, coming forward to the edge of the stage: “You’ve got it wrong, Joel. It’s silver satin for the ‘Ill met by moonlight’ scene, Livia, darling, then white satin for the ‘spotted snakes with double tongue’ scene—that’s where Adam puts the juice on your eyelids,” he added as she looked confused, “and the white gauze for the scene when you wake up and see Nigel.”

    “One might be excused for becoming somewhat confused, Mac, dear,” murmured Joel.

    “See, I was right!” said Livia pleasedly. “And the pink gauze for the scene where Adam wakes me up, isn’t it, Mac darling?”

    “Yes.”

    Livia counted on her fingers. “Four!” she said triumphantly.

    “And five is that luscious black satin for Act V,” said Joel on a gloomy note.

    “You can’t wear black satin, Joel, and that’s final!” snapped Mac to the sub-text.

    “No, it would be all wrong for Puck,” agreed a kind voice from the prompt corner.

    Joel drooped on his chair.

    “You don’t have to be on while these idiots rehearse, Livia. Come and sit down,” decided Mac.

    Livia retreated thankfully to the armchair beside his Windsor chair, wishing she hadn’t worn the high-heeled gold sandals with her working kit. Only the flat ones had made her look so drab when she’d tried them on this morning. She’d forgotten how much standing there always was in stage shows, she told herself glumly. Oh, well, she wore dear little comfortable ballet slippers for Titania, which wouldn’t matter, as her calves wouldn’t show anyway under those long dresses; except in the scene with Nigel, where, she had privily decided, one leg—the one with the thin gold chain on the ankle, of course—was going to show palest pink from under all that white gauze...

    “Not bad, eh?” said Mac finally, after the rude mechanicals had run through their part of the scene twice, Nigel giving his usual excellent performance, Snout as usual having to be gingered up by being shouted at, and Quince, who was a good actor but had a rotten memory, as usual having to be prompted by Georgy at every second cue.

    Livia came out of a dream of white gauze—into which Wallace Briggs had somehow crept—with a start. “Very good, darling!” she cooed. “One would never think darling Nigel was an amateur, would one?”

    “No,” said Mac, getting up. “Cummere,” he said sourly to Quince.

    “What?” the young an replied nervously.

    “You’re still bloody slow on those cues. Did you do what I told you? Learn the cues as well as the lines?”

    “Yes,” he said unhappily.

    “Well, it doesn’t show.” Mac frowned. “Hang on. GEORGY!”

    “What?” said Georgy’s voice.

    “Come HERE!” shouted Mac impatiently.

    Georgy emerged onto the stage. “What?”

    “He’s gonna have to learn his cues till they’re automatic, it’s the only way. Like a parrot,” he said, giving him a nasty look. “He’d better go up to your place in the evenings this week and you can take him through his part.”

    “Um... Well, all right. Only I live up at Kowhai Bay, Stephen,” she said to him.

    Stephen/Quince replied eagerly: “That’s okay, I’ve got a car!”

    Joel was sitting on his chair but at this he got up and, coming over to Georgy’s side, pointed out: “What about Georgy’s personal life, Mac dear, or had we forgotten that small detail?”

    Mac glared. “Sod her flaming personal life, the play comes first!”

    “Would Adam agree, darling?” he gasped in horror.

    “He’d better, he’s carrying the whole bloody thing,” replied Mac, extra-grim.

    “Of course he’d agree, darling, he’s a professional!” cried Livia.

    “Yes,” said Georgy in a flattened voice. “Anyway—um, well, I live with my mother, you know.”

    “She won’t mind, will she?” asked Quince, pinkening.

    “What?” she said blankly. “Oh!” she said, going much pinker than he was. “No, that’s all right, Stephen, we can rehearse in my study, it won’t bother Mum.”

    “Good,” he said gratefully, “Thanks, Georgy.”

    By now it had dawned on Georgy that getting together with Adam was going to be very difficult, now that they were both back in Kowhai Bay living in their parents’ houses. That first Sunday night she’d felt quite glad—though at the same time feeling guilty about this—to be able just to creep into her own familiar little bed and sleep, without being emotionally battered by having to cope with another personality. However, after a night’s solid sleep this feeling had worn off, rather, and she was now at the stage of rather wishing they could get together but not being able to see how. As she and Adam hadn’t managed more than a few moments alone over the last two days she wasn’t sure how he felt.

    She was unaware that her behaviour over the lunching in Parnell business had made him feel that perhaps she’d only been interested in the sex and was beginning to feel a bit wary of flaunting herself round the place on a fillum star’s arm. At the same time he knew that this was a silly thing to think about Georgy; only he couldn’t stop himself thinking it.

    “We’ll do the bit where you wake up, now,” Mac said to Livia. “I think the rest of ’em can push off, eh?”

    Livia came up his side, very close. ‘‘Yes, it might be easier for little me with just you and dear Nigel; fank you, Mac, darling,” she sighed, squeezing his arm.

    “Right; off you get, you lot,” he said. “Nine o’clock on the dot, tomorrow, remember.”

    The rude mechanicals exited thankfully, Stephen pausing to get Georgy’s address and then scrambling after his mates. A burst of rude guffaws could be heard from the lobby immediately after their exit but no-one in the hall reacted to this.

    “Do you want me to stay?” asked Georgy dubiously.

    “Of course I flaming want you to stay!” Mac retorted angrily. “Get down here and take notes!”

    Georgy descended the steps obediently. She then found that her chair had vanished and went up onto the stage again to retrieve it

    “Let me,” said Joel quickly, coming over to her. “One did one’s best, darling,” he murmured, “but really, Big Mac is like a steamroller when he gets going, isn’t he?”

    “Yes. It’s all right. Thanks, Joel,” said Georgy in a stifled voice, going very red.

    Mac and Livia were conferring over their scripts. “Yes, all right: run through it down here,” decided Mac. “Nigel! NIGEL! Get down here, what are you doing?”

    “I’ve lost an earring, it’s gold!” gasped Nigel, crawling frantically round the stage.

    “Well, tough tit,” rejoined Mac unpleasantly.

    “It’s my sister’s, she’ll kill me!” panted Nigel.

    “Darling, we can’t have that,” said Joel, handing Georgy’s chair down the steps to her. He joined Nigel eagerly. “If your sister killed you, Mac might have to play Bottom, what a scary thought!” he shuddered.

    Nigel smiled. “He’d be great, actually.”

    Joel crawled assiduously. “Actually, one has no doubt of this... Lift the foot, dear boy, I have an inspiration.”

    Nigel lifted up first one rubber-jandalled foot and then the other. Joel pounced.

    “Thanks, Joel,” he said weakly.

    “Any time. But doubt not, oh fair one, these humble hands would have crept downtown and bought you a replacement earring—in the intervals of building me a willow cabin at yer gates, naturally,” he sighed.

    Nigel got up, grinning. “Cut it out,” he said amiably.

    Joel just sat there, sighing, staring wistfully up at the view of beautiful brown Nigel. A lot of him, what with the legs in the shorts, and the arms and the section of chest in the yellow singlet...

    “NIGEL!” shouted Mac.

    “I’m coming,” said Nigel quickly, stowing the earring away carefully in his wallet and replacing the wallet carelessly in his hip pocket. Joel sighed noisily.

    “Well, get a chair!” ordered Mac irritably as he came up to them looking expectant.

    Nigel went off meekly and got a chair.

    “Now,” said Mac. “Um... yeah. ‘Bless thee Bottom, bless thee, thou art translated!’” he gasped in the voice of Quince.

    Nigel picked up his cue obligingly. When he burst into song Livia jumped. When he stopped she just looked blankly at him.

    “Livia, that’s your cue,” said Mac heavily.

    “Ooh, is that me? Now, let’s see...”

   Joel had wandered up to them and was peering over her shoulder.

    “Wrong page, dear,” he pointed out neutrally.

    “What? Oh. –No, don’t I wake up, here?”

    Joel grabbed her script off her. “That’s where Adam wakes you up.” He turned back. “Here. And do get on with it, darlings; some of us are due to try on wee acorn-cup caps and then to dayne with someone rather nayce tonight.”

    “I thought you were only going round to Pauline’s?” said Georgy dubiously.

    “Yes, but the delicious Greg will be there!” sighed Joel, shivering ecstatically all over.

    “Look, shove off, Thring,” said Mac tiredly.

    “But don’t I have to say ‘My monster with a mistress is in love,’ quite soon?” squeaked Joel. Georgy and Nigel choked.

    “No. And by Christ if you reverse that line in the performance I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands,” promised Mac grimly.

    Joel pouted. “Well, what shall I do?” he whined.

    “Go over there,” said Georgy kindly, nodding at the benches over to their right, “and read your Wilbur Smith.  Like a professional.”

    Joel sniggered. He wandered off to the benches and lay down on one full length, closing his eyes.

    “Give her her cue again,” said Mac resignedly.

    “‘The wren with little quill,’” sang Nigel .

    Livia swallowed. “‘What angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed?’” she read carefully. Nigel burst into song again, on cue, and she jumped again.

    They had read it through four times, with Georgy making copious notes to Mac’s directions and Mac explaining the inflexions of each line laboriously to Livia, by the time Adam returned.

    “How’s it going?” he enquired genially.

    Mac returned grimly: “Have you been to the S.C.R.?”

    “No, the Club, Angie and I felt we needed a reviver after we’d got a load of my spangled privates in those bloody gold tights, they’re worse than the green ones. Am I breathing beer fumes all over you?” he asked with a grin.

    “Yes,” said Mac grumpily.

    Adam breathed beer fumes all over them.

    “Adam, dar-ling! Not nice!” cried Livia, managing to both bridle and giggle.

    “I don’t think I ever claimed to be nice, did I?” he asked, with a wink at Georgy. She blushed, smiled awkwardly, and looked away.

    Livia reflected absently that someone ought to tell Adam not to say that sort of thing to the poor little thing, she was obviously incredibly shy. She didn’t seriously consider telling him so herself, however: though she might experience the occasional altruistic impulse towards women who were clearly in no sense her rivals, she was not in the habit of carrying through on them.

    “Come on, run through it once onstage, eh?” decided Mac. “Where’s that lilo?” he added threateningly to Nigel.

    “Aw, I thought I could lie on Livia this time!” he said with a grin.

    Livia gave a little shriek and smacked his bare brown knee with her script.

    “For—Livia—to—sit—on,” said Mac with clenched jaw.

    “Oh. Um—up the back somewhere, I think,” he said, scratching his glossy black curls.

    “Then—get—it,” said Mac evilly.

    Nigel scrambled up obediently.

    ... “‘Tie up my love’s tongue, bring him silently.’ Ooh, we go off now, dear, don’t we?” said Livia to Nigel. “Thilly me!” She giggled, put her arm round his waist—Nigel immediately leant his head into her shoulder and put his arm round her—and they exited, entwined.

    “That was lovely,” noted Adam, sprawled in Livia’s armchair. “Especially with you shouting the fairies’ bits, Nunky dear.”

    Mac got up. ‘‘All right, you can shout them this time round. Livia!” Nothing happened. “LIVIA!” shouted Mac.

   In the wings Livia had tripped on something indistinguishable and managed to topple right into Nigel’s arms. There had been a breathless moment during which—though he knew she was awfully dumb, and Bill Michaels had long since enlightened  him and several of his peers about the silicone—Nigel’s heart had hammered frantically and Livia had pressed every inch of her front to his front and ascertained that those darling shorts had not misled her, he was, ooh, lovely! It was so exciting, acting with a lovely boy who wasn’t gay.

    “Ooh, blow,” he said in her ear at Mac’s bellow.

    Livia giggled against him—that was terribly exciting and she could feel Nigel thought so, too—and then moved reluctantly away.

    “Yes, Mac, darling?” she fluted from the stage.

    “Remember he’ll be wearing his ass’s head,” he said.

    “Um—yes, of course, dear,” she said blankly.

    “Nigel!” called Mac. “NIGEL!” he bellowed.

    After a moment Nigel emerged from the wings. “Yeah?”

    “You’ll have yer ass’s head on, you great donkey, how do you imagine you’re gonna be able to bite her neck through that?” inquired Mac genially.

    “I wasn’t—” He broke off, looking sheepish. “Um—well, I could sort of—um—lean on her.”

    “Maybe. –You’d better take those shoes off, Livia, you’ll be wearing flatties, you know,” said Mac.

    “Yes. Now, darling?”

    “Yes,” said Mac, the tendons in his neck stiffening. “Now.”

    Livia removed her gold sandals.

    Nigel came and stood very close at her side. “You’re quite short, really, aren’t you?” he discovered.

    “Yeth, I’m afraid tho, darling,” she lisped, looking up at him pathetically.

    At this point Georgy, unable to contain herself any longer, hissed at Adam: “Does she always go on like that?”

    “Yes. I did tell you,” he murmured.

    Joel had wandered over to them and was leaning on the back of Adam’s chair. “Unbelievable, though, ain’t it?” he drawled, not bothering to lower his voice.

    “Ssh!” hissed Georgy, turning very pink.

    “Incredible, certainly. Not to say lacking in verisimilitude,” drawled Adam, not bothering to bother to lower his voice.

    “Ssh!” hissed Georgy frantically.

    Mac was ordering his players to start again. “Adam!” he shouted. “ADAM!”

    “What?” said Adam, pitching his voice to the back of Wembley Stadium.

    Mac turned and glared. “Read the fairies’ parts. You can help, Thring, since you’re awake. You do the second and fourth, all right?”

    “Cobweb and Mustardseed,” said Georgy quickly.

    “Mm,” he said, leaning over Adam’s shoulder. “Ooh, you do smell beery, darling, how much did you ingest?” he squeaked.

    “Not enough,” he said with his glinting smile, and Joel and Georgy both choked.

    This time Nigel and Livia discovered at the end of their scene that Livia was, indeed, far too short without her sandals for Nigel to put his head comfortably on her shoulder.

    “I’ll just lean against him, shall I?” she sighed, looking up at him admiringly.

    Nigel grinned and visibly tightened his arm round her.

    “What’s she got that I haven’t got?” grumbled Joel.

    “I can think of one or two things,” responded Adam drily.

    “But darling, I’ve got three lovely things!” he squeaked. Adam and Georgy choked and went into spluttering hysterics.

    “Look, SHUT UP!” yelled Mac, not turning round.

    “Sorry,” said Adam unrepentantly. “Are we going to do my scene, at all? Because I did promise Ma I’d get her some nice cheese from my Cheese Shop. –If they’ll admit they’ve got it,” he added. Georgy smiled.

    “You should have done that at lunchtime. You’re here to act, not to run errands for your mother,” said Mac grumpily. “Um—well, try that exit again, would you?

    They tried it again. This time Mac let them get as far as the wings.

    Livia looked up at Nigel shyly. She didn’t take her arm away from his waist, though.

    Nigel didn’t take his arm away either. In fact he tightened it fractionally. Then he said very quietly: “That was good, before.”

    Livia swallowed. “Yes,” she whispered. “Lovely, darling.”

    He smiled at her rather uncertainly and Livia pressed more closely against his warm young side and whispered: “You’re tho lovely, darling!”

    “Me?”—Nigel gulped.—“You are, ya mean,” he said hoarsely.

    Livia fluttered her eyelashes a lot and glanced down at her feet—well, in that general direction, there was a lovely view a bit higher than her feet—and casually turned towards him a bit and very shyly grasped a tiny handful of his bright yellow singlet and whispered: “No.”

    “Yes,” whispered Nigel hoarsely.

    Then Livia looked up at him and Nigel’s heart hammered like fury as he looked into her eyes and Livia parted her lips just the merest, littlest bit. Then of course Nigel—unaware that he was in the hands of an expert—bent his head with a dazed expression and put his mouth on hers but—not entirely to Livia’s surprize—didn’t quite dare to go any further; so she just touched his lips with the very point of her tongue, and Nigel trembled all over and grabbed her tight and put his lovely squashy tongue into Livia’s mouth. Livia shuddered against him—well, against It, actually—and responded eagerly. –So what, beastly Maurie had broken their date and Wallace Briggs hadn’t even rung her or anything!

    “All right, we’ll do your scene now,” said Mac to his nephew. “And for God’s sake put a bit of effort into it.”

    Adam sighed. “Can we read it through first? Some of us may need to be reminded of what actually happens in the scene.”

    “Yes. Livia! LIVIA!” he shouted.

    Livia and Nigel reappeared, Nigel looking sheepish and Livia looking like the cat that had been at the cream. In fact Joel immediately murmured: “Purr, purr,” and Adam and Georgy choked.

    They read it through once and Mac then got his players onstage—possibly because he couldn’t stand the thought of giving Livia one more inflexion for her to mangle. At least she was capable of learning her moves, that was something.

    Once Livia was comfortable on the lilo they started.

    Eventually Mac leaned over, put his arm along the back of Georgy’s chair, and muttered: “I’ll say this for you: you managed to get the pair of ’em going in that scene, and she’s only managed Nigel—see?”

    Georgy looked, saw, turned very red and glared at him.

    “She can’t act for toffee, but if we can get her into that pink thing no-one’ll notice,” he added.

    Georgy glared at her clipboard.

    “Pity, though: Adam was miles better with you,” he murmured. Georgy didn’t say anything. Mac squeezed her shoulder briefly and withdrew his arm. “Can you lot— What?” he said crossly to the players.

    “I’ve just heard the morning lark, and we’re wondering if this line of Adam’s right: why ‘silence sad’?” asked Joel politely.

    “We thought we’d better get a Shakespearean scholar’s interpretation of the text,” added Adam, not particularly politely.

    “Make it ‘silence glad’,” said the Shakespearean scholar briefly.

    The players finished the scene.

    “Yeah,” said Mac heavily. He touched Georgy’s knee briefly. “Pity,” he conceded. “Oh, well.” He got up, grunting, and trod heavily over to the stage. “Leave it there for today, eh? Thanks, everybody.”

    They looked at him doubtfully.

    “Try and get up in those lines before next rehearsal, darling, would you?” he added glumly to Livia.

    “Yes—um— Well, when?”

    “Thursday morning. Nine o’clock,” said Mac tiredly.

    “Yes. I am quite a quick study, darling,” she assured him.

    “Mm. Get one of them to give you a bit of a hand with the interpretation, eh?” he said heavily. Livia looked doubtfully at him.

    He turned his back on the stage, and clumped over to Georgy. “I wanna see you in my office. In ten minutes, okay?”

    “Yes, all right,” she said uncertainly.

    Mac sighed. He went out amidst dead silence.

    After some time Joel concluded sadly: “Oh, dear. Talk of yer lead balloons.”

    “Go and find your lovely Greg,” advised Adam sourly. He clumped down the steps and threw himself into the armchair, scowling.

    “Er—it wasn’t that bad,” Joel protested.

    “You got that impression from Mac, did you?” said Adam nastily.

    Joel opened his mouth. He thought better of it. “Very well, I’m sure I shall be welcome in darling Pauline’s art room,” he said, pouting. Everybody ignored him. “I’m going,” he warned. Everybody ignored him. “I’m GOING!” he shouted.

    “You were all right, Joel,” said Georgy with an effort.

    “So I should think!” he said huffily, descending the steps. Everybody ignored him. “Oh, all right, I really am going,” he said. “But things can only improve, darlings. It needs a bit of work, that’s all.

    No-one reacted, so he really did go.

    After a moment Georgy said nervously: “He really was all right. I mean, he always is.”

    “Yes; he’s a professional,” said Adam tiredly.

    Georgy bit her lip.

    “Darlings, one is barely off the plane!” protested Livia with a nervous laugh.

    “Yes, of course,” said Georgy kindly.

    “Yes,” agreed Nigel. “It’s just—” He glanced uneasily at Adam, swallowed, and fell silent.

    “You’ll be all right, Livia,” said Adam with an effort. “Don’t take any notice of Mac, he’s just tired. It needs working on, that’s all.”

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy anxiously. “Mac doesn’t understand that you haven’t had time to learn your lines, yet. And visually it’ll be really lovely, with the flowers all over the bower and your pink dress with the garlands on it.”

    “And me with a garland dangling from an ear!” put in Nigel with an anxious laugh.

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy, smiling at him.

    “Not to mention my gold spangled tights,” agreed Adam drily.

    “Gold? With me in pink?” gasped Livia.

    “Morning is coming,” he replied in a bored voice. “Joel does hear the morning lark, remember. The eastern gate’s turning fiery red and—er—turning into yellow gold Neptune’s salt green streams, and all that.”

    “Ye-es... Terribly poetic, isn’t it, darling?” she said brightly.—Georgy swallowed. Even Nigel swallowed.—“But still... pink and gold?” said Livia dubiously.

    “Um—well, you’re wearing pink and gold, it looks lovely,” Nigel pointed out hoarsely.

    “Oh!” cried Livia with a laugh. “The darling boy!” she cried to the hall. “So I am—thank you, Nigel!” she said to him.

    Nigel grinned sheepishly.

    “Adam, it’s the Carranos’ garden party tomorrow, do you think Mac’s forgotten that?” Livia added.

    “Uh—quite possibly. Why?”

    “Adam, dear! How can I possibly get up in my part if I’m at the garden party?”

    “Don’t go,” he advised briefly.

    “Silly! Of course one must go, it’s in one’s honour. Well, and yours, too, of course, darling! –You are going, aren’t you?”

    Adam sighed. “I suppose so. You know we’ll have to fight our way to the gates through the blasted Press: bloody Jacky’s been—” Livia was nodding enthusiastically. “You told him to,” he realised in a doomed voice.

    “But of course, darling! I mean, that is his job. And Sir Jake’s really an international figure, isn’t he?”

    “In certain circles, mm,” agreed Adam drily. “Rudi Whatsisname will have heard of him, I’m quite sure.”

    Livia shrugged. “I don’t see what silly Rudi’s got to do with it, Sir Jake’s miles richer than him!”

    “Uh—yes,” he conceded faintly.

    “Well, how on earth am I going to manage my lines as well?” she demanded.

    “No idea.”

    “Darling, you’ll just have to help me tonight, after dinner,” she decided briskly. “We can have a quiet dinner in the suite, I’m quite free, and then—”

    “I mightn’t be quite free,” he noted.

     Georgy swallowed loudly.

    “Mightn’t I?” he said to her in surprize.

    Georgy was immediately covered in confusion. “Um—no—well—”

    “Angie and Bill suggested that Chinese restaurant again. Heap big Chinee nosh-up?”

    “I can’t!” she gasped. “Mum’s expecting me home for tea—and then Stephen’s coming round, I promised I’d help him with his lines this week!”

    “Stephen?” he asked, lips tightening.

    “Quince,” gulped Georgy.

    Quince was rather older than the other students: at least twenty-seven. He had been a school teacher for several years and had given it up in order to complete his Ph.D. He was now in the second year of this. Adam had noticed a while back that he was a bit older than the rest of them and had idly remarked an it, and Georgy had explained it all. The Ph.D. wasn’t in Anglo-Saxon, it was on some obscure very minor poetaster whom Pope had slain with a glancing reference in The Dunciad. Georgy had also explained that, though Adam hadn’t asked. There was nothing glaringly attractive about Quince, he was shortish, a solid build, with light fawn hair and a very amiable expression. However, there was nothing gay about him, either, and Adam was quite sure he wasn’t.

    “Yes, Mac arranged it,” agreed Livia briefly, not noticing that there was now a sticky silence in the hall.

    “Yes,” said Georgy, getting up. “I’d better go: he wants to see me.”

    “Off you go, then, dear,” said Livia kindly. “—Tell these people you can’t make it, Adam, I simply must have some help with the lines,” she ordered.

    “‘These people’ happen to be Angie Michaels, who’s been whipping the bloody Sewing Room into a lather over your damned dresses for the past umpteen months, and her husband, Bill, who’s the unfortunate whom you ordered yesterday morning to supply pink fairy lights for your pink fairy dress,” said Adam on an annoyed note.

    “But darling, my lines are more important than silly Chinese dinners!” she cried.

    “Um—I could help you, I don’t have to go to the garage tonight, I could phone in sick,” said Nigel hoarsely.

    Livia squeezed his arm. “Darling Nigel—so sweet!” she cried. “But I mustn’t keep you from your job.”—Nigel’s face fell a foot.—“And Adam knows my ways, you see!”

    From the door Georgy muttered sourly: “I’ll bet he does,” and went out.

    Adam looked after her in a startled way, got to his feet, and hesitated.

    “But I promise I’ll take you up on the offer very soon, darling!” hissed Livia in Nigel’s ear, squeezing his arm very hard and leaning against him. “Once Adam’s got me started, you know!”

    “Good,” he said hoarsely.

    Livia released him. “Run along, sweetest, we’ll see you on Thursday, mm?” she cooed, patting his cheek.

    “Yes,” said Nigel hoarsely. “See ya then, Livia.” He went down the steps and said awkwardly to Adam: “See you, Adam.”

    “I’ll swap: you take Livia and I’ll take your place at the petrol pumps,” offered Adam immediately.

    “Dar-ling!” screamed Livia. “Naugh-tee!”

    Nigel choked, and gasped: “No! I mean—” He looked helplessly at Livia. “Um—cripes, I’d like to,” he said hoarsely.

    “Dar-ling!” cried Livia from the stage, all lit up. “Isn’t he adorable?”

    Suddenly Nigel grinned at her and said: “Well, I’ll see you adorably on Thursday, then, Livia! Bye!” He strode out, grinning.

    “Adam, dear! What a macho boy he is!” gasped Livia faintly with a hand on her heart.

    “Why the Christ didn’t you accept his offer, then?” he replied morosely.

    She descended the steps with supreme grace: no awkward hesitation or looking at her feet, using the technique she had learned at the deportment classes her mother had managed to afford for her in her teens—and which had stood her in very good stead when she auditioned for a part as Second Model-Girl in an Ealing thing back in the early days of her career, not to say rather more recently, in her soapie.

    “Because you’re a much, much better dialogue coach, dear,” she said firmly. “Adam, darling, I’d forgotten how tall you are!” she added, looking up at him in amazement.

    “You’ve also forgotten your shoes,” he said drily.

    “What? Oh!” she gasped, going into a genuine peal of laughter. “Help! How awful, I could have walked right across the—the whatsitsname without noticing!”

    “Campus. –I’ll get them,” said Adam with a little smile. He went up onto the stage and retrieved them.

    When he returned Livia was sitting in the armchair with one foot poised delicately.

    “Cut that out,” he said.

    “Dar-ling: don’t be beast-ly! What’ve I done?” she cooed.

    “Uh—well, nothing, I have to admit it,” said Adam with his sidelong smile. “Here.” He held the sandals out.

    “Meanie,” said Livia, looking at him from under her eyelashes.

    “Oh—for Christ’s sake,” he said. He knelt on one knee and took her foot in one hand.

    “Lovely, darling,” she said faintly.

    “Shut up,” replied Adam neutrally, slipping the sandal on.

    Livia was conscious of a strong wish that she’d worn a dress, she could have sort of lifted her other leg casually and given him a glimpse— Because after all it was much too hot for horrid tights in this weather and even if it hadn’t been she would have worn stockings, tights were so vile—useful in one’s professional life but unutterably nasty in one’s personal life.

    “You know it always turns me on,” she said in a very low voice as he released that foot.

    “Yes,” said Adam shortly.

    Livia saw with pleasure, not unmixed with excitement, that he’d gone rather red. Well, she had very pretty feet, everyone said so, and Adam always had had a thing about feet—not to mention about little women. She shifted a little in the chair.

    Adam slipped the other sandal on and began to fasten it.

    “Darling,” said Livia in a very low voice. “Doesn’t it take you back?”

    “Don’t: you know there’s someone else now,” he said hoarsely, suddenly very red.

    “Well, so one had heard, but need that matter?” she murmured.

    “Yes,” said Adam, tightening his lips.

    Livia looked thoughtfully at his trousers. “Sweetness, it doesn’t look like it.”

    “If you want any help with your lines, shut up,” he said through his teeth.

    “Adam, there’s always been this terrific chemistry between us, why deny it?” she said lightly.

    “There’s apparently terrific chemistry between you and young Nigel, too,” said Adam drily. He released her foot and got up, turning away.

    Livia immediately stood up and slipped her hand through his arm. “Yes, of course, but he’s just a boy. Lovely, of course. But one can’t take that sort of thing seriously.”

    “Livia,” said Adam tightly: “there is nothing serious between us! Once and for all: nothing serious! Understand?” He glared at her.

    “Heavens, darling, I didn’t mean that!” she tinkled in astonishment, squeezing his arm and pressing the tit on that side against it. “You’re much, much too young for me in that way!”

    “I’m relieved to hear you admit it,” he said, unable to keep the astonishment out of his voice.

    “Mm; but we both know—well, what it’s all about. Let’s face it, darling, neither of us would win the virgin of the year contest! Why pretend?” said Livia softly, leaning against his arm and peeping up at him.

    Adam drew away from her. “I’m not pretending. But I’m not pretending either when I say it’s all over between us, Livia. Concentrate on Maurice or Nigel or this lawyer friend of Jake Carrano’s you were apparently struck by.”

    Livia had every intention of doing so, but she wasn’t a woman to entrust all her eggs to the same basket: experience had taught her you only lost out, that way. So she peeped up at him with a docile expression. His face was very firm. On the other hand—she glanced down—his fists had clenched and he was breathing hard and there was a super bulge in his pants, darling Adam had a really lovely one, and he’d never been able to resist her in that way!

    “Of course, darling,” she said smoothly. “Let’s just be pals, shall we? We’ve been through a fair bit together, I don’t want to quarrel with you. And you’re a marvellous dialogue coach—and you know I can’t learn my lines without help!”

    Adam sighed. “And better me than Amy, eh? Oh, all right. But I’ll have to let Angie know I can’t make it.”

    “Of course. Come along, then. –I know what, darling, do you think Angie and her lovely husband would like to have cocktails in my suite? You know, sort of an apology!” she cried.

    Adam swallowed. On the one hand— But on the other— “Uh, yes, I think they might,” he conceded weakly.

    “Good. We all need a little relax after rehearsals, don’t we? And then we’ll have a very simple dinner, and get on with the lines.”

    Adam sighed a little. But if Georgy was tied up with bloody Quince— And besides, where in God’s name could they have gone to be alone? Melinda wouldn’t mind if they simply vanished into his bedroom, he knew that, but he also knew that in the first place Christopher would never leave them alone, he’d bring in cups of tea or drop things in the passage just outside the door or something, and in the second place, Georgy would die of embarrassment at the mere suggestion. He’d been racking his brains on this point at every spare moment ever since the frightful moment on Sunday night when, as he was kissing Georgy at her front gate with his highly interested equipment pressed to her neat little belly and his hand inside her tee-shirt squeezing her wonderful breast, the Harrises’ front door had opened in a blaze of light and Mrs Harris had cried: “Is that you, dee-are?”

    Adam didn’t take Mrs Harris for a particularly naïve woman, he wasn’t that stupid. Or even for a particularly tactless one. He did take her for one that wasn’t prepared to let her daughter make a fool of herself over a fillum star from Overseas without putting up a damn good fight, though. So he’d merely sighed and called: “Yes. Good evening, Mrs Harris: lovely evening, isn’t it?” while Georgy gasped and squeaked and pushed his hand away.

    Where the Christ could they go? If only the Carranos’ bach was nearer to town... A motel? He shuddered to think of Christopher’s comments. Only… Well, maybe.

    “What?” he said to Livia with a start.

    “Darling, you’re not listening! How do you interpret Titania’s character, is what I said?”

    “She hasn’t got a character. The thing you have to do first in the Bard is understand what the lines mean. Let the character look after itself,” said Adam on a grim note, recalled to awful reality.

    “Oh. But Shakespeare’s so hard... He keeps wandering off the point!” said Livia aggrievedly.

    Adam swallowed. “Yes, he does, actually. Only that’s where the poetry comes in,” he said weakly.

    “I can’t say all that stuff about—about that nine men’s morris and all that nonsense and make it sound like sense!” said Livia crossly.

    Adam agreed with that statement entirely. To the depths of his being. “Yes, you can, Livia,” he said doggedly. “We’ll go over it.”

    “Ye-es... Do you think Mac could cut some of it?” she said eagerly as they descended the stairs of the Old Block.

    “Uh—no. Not really. Not Shakespeare. I mean, there’ll be people in the audience who know the play backwards.”

    “Ye-es... But when it’s not relevant, darling!”

    “No, it’d be like trying to cut chunks out of Beethoven,” he said glumly. “Lèse majesté.”

    “Oh,” said Livia sadly. “I see, darling.”

    Adam smiled a little. “I bet it’s the first time in your life that you’ve wanted to have your part cut!”

    She peeped up at him, and giggled. “Promise you’ll never tell, Adam?”

    He smiled suddenly. “Okay, I promise. And I will speak to Mac—not that I think it’ll do much good. Mind you, if he cuts anything it ought to be that blasted speech where Theseus goes on about his hunting dogs and their bloody ears.”

    “Ears?”

    “Mm.” He looked down at her drily. “Not particularly poetic, and totally irrelevant!”

    Livia giggled delightedly, and, since they had now emerged onto the upper section of the quad, took his arm and squeezed it again. She then paused graciously and consented to give two awestruck secretaries on their way to their carpark her autograph, thus forcing Adam to do likewise.

    Adam reflected glumly that realistically, in that pink thing they’d dreamed up for her she could have all her lines cut, no-one would notice a thing, they’d all have their eyes glued to the view... Oh, well. At least it was only the Anty-podes.

    “Yes?” said Mrs Harris in astonishment to the solid-looking young man on her doorstep at eight o’clock of a Tuesday evening.

    He smiled and said: “I’m Stephen Berry. Is Georgy in?”

    Mrs Harris felt her jaw go all saggy. She took another look at him and realized consciously he was in jeans and a cheap, short-sleeved cotton shirt: he must be a student. He looked clean, though.

    “Yes. Are you one of her students?” she said on a weak note.

    “Well, sort of,” he replied with a grin. “I am doing a degree in English, but not in Anglo-Saxon. I’m in the play, she’s promised to help me with my lines.”

    “Oh. I’m sorry: she didn’t— Come in, won’t you?” said Mrs Harris, getting rather flustered. She put him in the sitting-room and hurried off to Georgy’s bedroom. Georgy wasn’t there so she looked in the study, which was actually a spare bedroom. Georgy was asleep on the divan in there in her awful cotton housecoat.

     Mrs Harris sighed. “Georgy,” she said, shaking her shoulder gently.

    Georgy opened her eyes slowly.

    “There’s a boy to see you. About the play,” said Mrs Harris.

    “Ooh! Stephen!” gasped Georgy, sitting up hurriedly. “I’d forgotten all about him! Um—he’s not a boy, Mum, he’s as old as me, he’s doing a Ph.D.,” she added in a vague voice. “He was teaching for a bit but he’s given that away... He’s playing Quince—where are my slippers?” she said, scrabbling with her feet.

    “I don’t expect you were wearing them,” said her mother on a resigned note. “You’d better get dressed. Or shall I tell him you’re too tired?”

    “No. He had to drive all the way up here. Anyway, I’m not tired, I just dropped off after all that tea,” said Georgy with a smile.

    Mrs Harris sighed again. At least she’d made a hearty meal, that was true enough. “Yes. Well—uh—put on something nice, dear.”

    “Why?” said Georgy, goggling at her.

    Mrs Harris couldn’t say: “Your age, doing a doctorate, looks clean, highly suitable.” Scarcely. So she just said on a weak note: “He is a visitor.”

    “No, he’s only a stu-dent,” said Georgy in the vernacular with the correct pejorative intonation. She went off to her room, grinning.

    Mrs Harris sighed.

    “That was a nice, simple meal,” acknowledged Adam, pushing away the plate of crayfish shells and stretching.

    “Yes,” agreed Livia vaguely, fighting her last crayfish leg. “Ah!” It cracked and she withdrew the wand of meat carefully. “I still don’t understand why New Zealand lobsters don’t have claws, darling,” she said on a pathetic note.

    “Natural selection,” drawled Adam. He belched. “Hell’s teeth, I’m full.”

    “Undo your belt,” suggested Livia simply. “What do you mean, natural—uh—selection?”

    Adam looked down at his belt. He looked at his crayfishy hands. “I think I need a bath before I touch a thing,” he said.

    “Use the ensuite, darling. Anyway, what is this natural selection thing?”

    “Ask Mr Darwin. Uh—well, possibly there was no need for them to develop claws, so they didn’t.” He got up cautiously, not touching anything.

    “I see... The tartare sauce was nice, darling, you should have had some.”

    Adam winced and went off to the bathroom.

    Livia sighed and looked sadly at her lobster shells. This New Zealand lobster was terribly rich-tasting. Would it have more calories than our lobster? Did lobsters have lots of calories, or not? Oh, dear.

    When he came back she said: “Darling, I’m so fishy, I think I might have a shower, actually. You don’t mind, do you?”

    “No, I don’t mind.in the least. And if you leave me a clean towel I might, too, I feel as if I’d been wallowing in the damned creature,” he said with a grin.

    “Yes. Could you call Room Service for coffee, darling? And some fruit, I think some fruit would be nice.”

    Adam didn’t think he could eat another thing, and he was sure that the hotel’s coffee would be awful , but he agreed amiably to this.

    When Livia came back from her shower looking very fresh—very light make-up newly applied, waft of L’Air Du Temps, hair brushed out loosely au naturel and wearing a thin white silk dressing-gown—he gave her a sardonic glance but didn’t say anything except:  “There’s plenty of coffee in the pot. I will have a shower, if I may. Why don’t you read over your first scene with Bottom, and then we’ll go over it.”

    “Very well, darling. Oh,” she said artlessly: “use the terry-cloth robe behind the bathroom door, darling, it’s a big one, and quite fresh.”

    “Terry-cla-ath robe?” drawled Adam in a strong American accent, raising his eyebrows. He went out.

    Livia sighed. She looked through her part but also spent some time looking hard at the telephone and willing it to ring and be a call from Maurie, grovelling with apologies, or Wal Briggs, simply grovelling, but it didn’t oblige. She also spared a thought, quite a shivery thought, for darling Adam in the shower, he had such a lovely body. She tried not to—but not awfully hard.

    Georgy and the young man were sitting on the divan in the study, leaning on the row of cushions against the wall that Mrs Harris had provided, which matched the warm colours of the crocheted afghan she’d made for the divan. She didn’t kid herself that Georgy appreciated this effort, though. They both had their feet up, but at least they’d taken their footwear off. Georgy was wearing something nice to the extent that she’d put on an old pale peach blouse with a slightly lowered neckline and a rounded collar, that Mrs Harris had always liked on her. But to the extent that she was also wearing jeans—the very old raggy ones—she wasn’t wearing something nice. And she wasn’t sitting nicely, if Mrs Harris had told Georgy once she must have told her a hundred times that it wasn’t nice for girls to sit with their knees up and their legs apart like that. Mrs Harris repressed a sigh and didn’t spare much of a glance for the young man, who, though he had longer legs and therefore had his stockinged feet on the very edge of the divan, which was undoubtedly crushing the mattress edging, was sitting in precisely the same attitude. Since she wasn’t a woman who looked for such things she didn’t notice that this attitude revealed that Stephen Berry was far from immune to the niceness of sitting cosily beside Georgy on a bed in a small room where they had been quite alone.

    “I thought you might like some coffee, dear,” she said. “You do drink coffee, do you, Stephen?” she added with a nice smile.

    “Yes; thanks, Mrs Harris,” he said politely, lowering his script and smiling at her.

    Mrs Harris reconfirmed her impression that he was a nice boy. She drew up the little coffee table that she had given Georgy for the study and that Georgy, annoyingly, usually kept a large dictionary on, and put her tray on it.

    “Thanks, Mum,” said Georgy in a vague voice. “—I definitely don’t think he’s as dumb as Bottom,” she said to Stephen.

    “No. Well, that’d be hard, eh?” he replied with a grin.

    “Mm. But he’s not bright, either. He’s an organizer, but not bright. Actually he reminds me of Jim Forrest,” she said thoughtfully.

    “Georgy!” protested Mrs Harris from the door in shocked tones. Mr Forrest owned and operated Forrest Furnishings in Puriri—not to mention owning a large branch further south in Brown’s Bay—and was a member of the Lions’ Club, a devoted organizer of trips for the Over-Sixties and all sorts of similar community activities, and really a most respected citizen. Georgy would undoubtedly not have been aware of his existence at all, were it not for the fact that the Forrests lived next-door at number 108.

    “Well, he does. Those biscuits aren’t those awful caraway seed ones, are they?” she asked suspiciously.

    “No!” replied her mother indignantly. “And when Melinda Black came to afternoon tea she said those caraway seed biscuits were delightful!”

    Georgy took a biscuit and as an afterthought passed the plate to Stephen. “She wash lying in her teeth, then,” she said through the biscuit.

    “Rubbish. And don’t speak with your mouth full!” said Mrs Harris on an annoyed note, going out.

    Georgy grinned at Stephen, mouthful of biscuit and all. “Is your mother like that?”

    “Yep. Just the same,” he said comfortably. “I’m luckier than you, though, I don’t live at home.”

    Georgy sighed. “She bawled for two weeks solid when I said I wanted to go flatting in my third B.A. year. Oh, well.”

    “Mum bawled when I went flatting in my first year. Well, I’m the youngest: all the others had left home. Then she bawled when Karen and I got married. Then she bawled when we got divorced.”

    Georgy choked on the biscuit crumbs.

    “Here,” said Stephen, leaning forward with some eagerness: “I’ll bang you on the back.”

    “Ta!” she gasped as he banged her on the back.

    “Um—that wasn’t too hard, was it?” he asked as she then sat up, looking  rather stunned, and felt her back cautiously.

    “A question which expects the answer ‘no’,” said Georgy, twinkling at him. “Yes, it was, actually, you’ve got a fist like a navvy.”

    He went very red and gasped: “I’m sorry!”

    “It’s all right, it stopped the choking,” said Georgy amiably, picking up her mug.

    “Yeah,” he said lamely. He drank some of his own coffee and then said: “I was a navvy at one stage. Holiday job. You know: roadworker.”

    Georgy eyed him cautiously. “With a pneumatic drill?”

    Stephen grinned. “Nah, I was unskilled. Simple brawn with a shovel, that was me.”

    He put down his mug, made a fist and flexed his biceps, still, grinning.

    Georgy looked at Stephen’s solid male arm, which wasn’t very tanned, he’d spent most of the summer swotting and the rest of it 31 working as chucker-out in a grimy nightclub, and at its very evident musculature, and suddenly went red to the roots of the auburn hair.

    Stephen’s heart raced. He didn’t say anything or do anything, he knew she was mixed up with that creep Adam McIntyre, and he also knew that while he was completing his Ph.D. it would be sensible to forget about girls and sex for a bit and concentrate like mad on his work. Added to which, with a broken marriage behind him, he was a bit leery of unattached young women in general. Trying but failing to place Georgy mentally in this category—it was impossible to categorize her, she was just Georgy—he picked up his mug in a hand that trembled just the tiniest bit and said: “Can we go through that bloody first scene again?”

    “Yes, fine.” Georgy turned back to it. “Why on earth did you let Mac talk you into doing the part, Stephen?” she asked idly.

    Stephen scratched his unremarkable light brown hair. “Uh—same reason as you let him talk you into being assistant producer, I suppose.”

    Georgy giggled.

    Grinning, he said: “He’s a very persuasive bloke, not to say a ruddy blackmailer: he managed to make it quite clear, without actually spelling it out, that I’d get that tutoring work this year if I did the part, and not otherwise.”

    “Typical,” she said.

    “Yes. What specific form of blackmail did he use with you, or aren’t lecturers allowed to tell?” he said with a grin.

     Georgy looked up and smiled into his eyes and Stephen’s heart did a flip.

    “Oh—nothing specific,” she said. “He sort of acted as if it was all taken for granted, so that when I started saying but maybe I couldn’t, he could get terrifically hurt and surprized and act as if I was letting him down.”

    “Yikes,” he said, grinning all over his amiable face.

    “Mm. He’s an expert,” said Georgy on a sour note. She hesitated. “He’s not all bad, though.”

    “Well, he’s quite a good lecturer, when he’s bothering. A bit limited at Master’s level, though,” he said dubiously.

    She gave him a kind smile and Stephen recognized with a surge of irritation with himself that it was a “lecturer when faced with naïve student” smile.

    “Come on. Act I, Scene 2, Quince’s house,” she said.

    Stephen swallowed a sigh. “‘Is all our company here?’”

    Instead of replying in the voice of Bottom, Georgy giggled and gasped: “No! But Mum’ll be in on another excuse in a minute or so, you can bet your boots!”

    Stephen chuckled, though his blood was abruptly doing a crazy dance and he suddenly knew he wasn’t going to forget all about Georgy and concentrate exclusively on his Ph.D.: she was lovely, and very bright, and damn the lecturer thing, she was his own age and he wasn’t one of her students, and— Once bloody McIntyre’s pushed off she’ll be free, he thought grimly.

    “What?” said Georgy, suddenly sounding timid.

    Stephen looked down at her and was unexpectedly filled with a wave of protectiveness. “Nothing. Just a passing thought. Um—enter all us rude mechanicals, unscripted country cousins and all,”—Georgy gave a smothered giggle—“and I say: ‘Is all our company here?’”

    “‘You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the scrip,’” said Georgy in a busybody’s voice.

    Stephen didn’t respond.

    “Stephen, you can’t have forgotten your second line!” she cried.

    He wanted like crazy to kiss her... “Sorry. Um...”

    “‘according to the scrip,’” said Georgy patiently.

    “Yeah. ‘Here is the scroll of every man’s name—’” He recited his lines mechanically. He could feel Georgy looking at him dubiously, but he didn’t look at her, just stared fixedly at the opposite wall.

    Georgy decided he was concentrating on remembering his cues and didn’t remark on the wooden delivery. After some time she glanced at him very cautiously. He was quite nice, really...

    Adam hadn’t changed into the terrycloth robe but then Livia hadn’t actually expected he would. Hoped, yes. Expected, no. They were now sitting at opposite ends of the bigger and more comfortable couch in the suite, having automatically taken up the positions they’d always used to, to hear each other’s lines. He with his shoes off and his knees up and Livia sitting more politely but with her feet between his feet.

    Adam had been driven to the Cognac bottle by Livia’s efforts to interpret Shakespeare. Since Livia was aware what sufficient Cognac, especially on top of champagne like they’d had for dinner, not to say on top of cocktails like they’d had before that with Angie and Bill, would normally do to Adam, she was keeping an eye on his intake. Now she looked at Adam sitting with his knees drawn up but well apart and at the bulge in Adam’s silver-grey linen trousers and felt her body go all hot and excited just as it always used to. He’d better not have any more brandy. Well, one more probably wouldn’t hurt. But that was going to be all, we didn’t want him going to sleep, did we!

    Adam sipped his brandy and sighed. “‘Nay, I can gleek upon occasion’.”

    “‘Thou art—’ Darling, what does gleek mean?”

    “No idea. Get on with it.”

    “But Adam—”

    “Just learn the lines!” said Adam loudly. He swallowed a mouthful of brandy and glared at her.

    “Very well, darling. Give me the line again, would you?” she said meekly.

    “‘Nay, I can gleek upon occasion’.”

    “‘Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful.’ Darling, I think I should sigh there, and look up at him—adoringly, you know.”

    “Livia, first you have to get the lines by heart. And if` Mac wants you to sigh, or look adoringly, or stand on your head, he—will—tell—you.”

    Livia pouted a little. “Very well, darling. Could little me jutht have the tiniest ickle sip of your dwink?”

    “It’s strong,” said Adam drily, handing her the glass.

    She sipped. “Ugh, yes, it is. I think I like it better in coffee. Or with ginger ale, that’s rather nice.”

    Adam shut his eyes for a second.

    “I don’t care if it’s down-market, darling, when I’m by myself I drink all sorts of naughty down-market drinks!” she said with a giggle.

    Suddenly Adam smiled at her. “Noice port an’ lemon, ducks?” he croaked in a cracked soprano.

    “Oh! Yes, darling, wasn’t she perfect!” she cried. “—I thought you’d have forgotten all about that day,” she added.

    “No; it was fun. I’d never really been to the East End before.”

    Livia in her poverty-stricken chorus-line days had lived there. For quite a while, actually. “I know. I think you’ve led a very, um, sheltered life. Restricted, really.”

    “Only up until I met you,” he said drily. Livia giggled in a gratified manner.

    Adam knew there were only rare moments when she was not playing a rôle, and he was aware that at this moment she was probably playing the rôle of simple daughter of the people, but all the same he was conscious of a fleeting wish that she could be like this all the time.

    He sighed a little and said: “May I have my glass back? –Thank you. ‘Not so, neither, but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve my own turn.’”

    Livia replied with Titania’s next line. It was true that reading the lines with someone helped her to remember them, and she had improved audibly over the last couple of hours, insofar as remembering the lines went. This time she got as far as “Feed him with apricocks and dewberries” without breaking down or interrupting herself.

    “‘Feed him with—’ Darling, my script’s got a rude word there, I don’t think I can possibly say that. It must be a misprint.”

    “Apri—”

    “Cocks!” said Livia with a loud giggle. Quickly she reached forward with her bare toes and touched his ever so slightly.

    Adam jumped violently and turned bright red. “Don’t do that!”

    “Darling, it was irresistible. One can’t ignore the fact that it’s there,” she said, peeping at him slyly.

    “Look, just get on with your part. And if you don’t fancy saying—”

    “Cocks,” she murmured.

    Adam was redder than ever. Livia knew that he must remember that she knew he liked his ladies to say that word, especially when they touched him. She parted her lips just a little and allowed her tongue just to dampen them, and stared at him with her mouth just that little bit open.

    “Look, get on with it, or I’m going home,” he said.

    She could see his chest was heaving like anything. Perhaps his girlfriend of last week, whoever she was, hadn’t liked saying those words? This guess was not far out: Adam had been disappointed when Georgy had got very shy about this particular issue, but had silently consoled himself with the thought that these things took time.

    “Well, give me a tiny sip more, darling.”

    He handed her his glass without saying anything. She sipped a little and said; “Honestly, darling, don’t you think it’s a misprint?”

    “Nov Elizabethan English. Get on with it.”

    “We-ell... ‘Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,’” said Livia huskily. Adam swallowed. She felt quite cheerful, really, and finished the rest of the speech, with much husky emphasis on “To have my love to bed and to arise.”

    “Hail, blah blah, Cobweb and Bottom, da, da, da,” said Adam. “‘I promise you your kindred hath made my eyes water e’er now. I desire of you more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed.’”

    “Hot,” said Livia thoughtfully.

    “Mm. Get on with it.”

    “Hot and strong!” said Livia with a giggle. It had been one of their sayings: she watched with satisfaction as Adam’s ears turned red.

    “‘I desire of you more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed!’” he said loudly.

    “Darling, I desire of you much more acquaintance,” murmured Livia, stretching out her foot towards him.

    Adam grabbed it. “Just don’t,” he said through his teeth.

    “All right, darling, I won’t be naughty any more. But could you be an angel and rub my ankles? I think they’ve literally swollen up, all that standing.”

    “Yes, a bit different from popping up for five seconds from your canvas chair while the cameraman focusses carefully on the Max Factor, isn’t it?” he said with a little crooked grin.

    “Darling, you do understand! I was quite exhausted by the time we got to our scene this afternoon, I was wondering if I could hold out or if I’d have to ask Mac to stop! But one doesn’t like to—well—make a spectacle of oneself on one’s first full day of rehearsals, does one?” She pulled a funny face.

    “No,” said Adam with a genuine smile. “Especially not in front of a crowd of kids.” He rubbed her ankles strongly. “Better?”

    “Yes, keep doing that, darling,” sighed Livia. “Even the bones feel tired, it’s unbelievable.”

    “Mm.” Adam went on massaging her feet. “Um... Your next line is ‘Come, wait upon—’”

    “Oh, yes!” Livia recited this short speech mechanically, she couldn’t see where enforced chastity came into it.

    “Mm. Darling, like this,” said Adam in an absent voice, rubbing her feet. He read it for her.

    Livia was quite a good mimic. She repeated his inflexions obediently, but somehow managed to be completely unconvincing.

    “Er—yes,” he said dubiously.

    “Shall we do my next scene? I think that’s the one where I wear my lovely pink dress!” she beamed.

    “Er—probably. Act IV, mm. No, I think we’d better go over this just once more. See if you can pick up your cues faster, mm?”

    “Very well, Adam.”

    He rubbed her feet mechanically, giving her her cues with his eyes on the script. After a little he refilled his glass, drinking from it with one hand while he rubbed her ankles and feet with the other.

     Livia recited her lines very softly, taking care to pick up her cues quickly so as not to provoke him. From time to time she peeped at him cautiously, noting that his face was flushed and that he was breathing rather fast.

    At last he said in a very slightly slurred voice: “‘Ready—And I’, blah-blah, ‘Where shall we go?’”

    “No, say it like the darling little fairies, Adam, it helps me.”

    He looked up with a smile and chirped: “‘Ready! –And I! –And I! –And I! Where shall we go?’”

    Livia smiled. “‘Be kind and courteous to this gentleman;’”—her voice lowered; she shifted her legs a little and the obliging dressing-gown parted over her thighs; Adam’s hand tightened on her ankles.—“‘Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with—’” She swallowed, and said: “‘apricocks—’ Oh, darling!”

    Abruptly Adam released her feet. He put a fist up to his mouth and bit hard on it, closing his eyes. Livia immediately raised her leg, thus causing the white silk dressing gown to slide right open, and, parting her thighs, put her right foot delicately on his cock and squeezed it with her toes.

    “Darling cock,” she said in a very low voice.

    Adam opened his eyes and looked dazedly at her. He reached for his glass, downed the rest of his Cognac, and said in a dazed voice: “I’ve had far too much of this stuff.”

    “Yes. I think I’ve had too much champagne, darling,” she said softly, wiggling her toes on him. “All I can think of is how nice Mister Cock used to be when he came out to say hullo.”

    They stared at each other. Adam’s face was very red.

    “Hullo, Mister Cock,” said Livia softly. She showed him the point of her tongue.

    “Don’t do that,” he said faintly.

    Livia wiggled her toes on him. She wiggled the tip of her tongue at him.

    “God,” he said faintly, closing his eyes.

    “Naughty brandy made Mister Cock all interested,” whispered Livia.

    Adam just lay back against his end of the couch with his face contorted and his eyes screwed shut.

    Livia realized he wasn’t going to make a move. She thought he might let her, though, if she was very careful about it. There had been similar scenes in the past, round about the period when Adam had declared he was breaking up with her. Well, actually there had been a very similar one when they’d first met, when Adam had declared he was involved with another lady.

    She continued touching him very gently, while she slipped out of the dressing-gown. Not being particularly quiet about it: she wanted him to hear the silk slipping off her. Then she edged forward.

    “Don’t, Livia,” he said very faintly, not opening his eyes.

    Livia slid both hands down the inside of his thighs and Adam shuddered. Both hands ended up cupping his genitals. Then one hand slid his zip down.

    “God, I’ve had too much brandy,” he said very faintly.

    “Yes. Darling Mister Cock gets very big when he’s had too much brandy,” she breathed, edging him out. She waited.

    After a few moments he said very faintly: “What are you doing?”

    It had been a calculated risk, and Livia was swamped with relief that he’d said it with his eyes still shut.

    “Sweetest Adam, I’m looking at Mister Cock, he’s so big,” she whispered huskily.

    “Livia, this doesn’t mean anything!” said Adam fiercely with his eyes shut.

    “No, darling,” said Livia docilely, covering him with her mouth.

    “Do it,” he said on a groan.

    “Mm... Darling, let me just—” She tugged at his pants; he let her edge them right off. She then lay down with her face against him and whispered: “It’s so lovely, Adam, darling,” and rolled his balls between her fingers.

    “God, Livia, do me, you bitch,” he said between his teeth.

    At this Livia gave a tiny smile and wrapped her tongue round his tip the way she knew always drove him crazy for more.

    Adam gasped, and began to groan and pant and finally grabbed her shoulders tight and said in a strangled whisper: “Sit on me, Livia, I want to do tonguey, it’s killing me.”

    “Me, too, darling. Just come down on the couch a bit, that’s right.”

    Adam shut his eyes and slid down. “Sit on me, I’m nearly coming,” he groaned.

    Livia looked down at him with a naughty smile. “Open your eyes, darling.” He did so and she showed him the tip of her tongue between her teeth and said: “Sure you want it?”

    “Shut up. Show me your cunt,” said Adam between his teeth.

    Livia at this went very red, not out of embarrassment but out of a mixture of excitement and triumph: she knew he’d never stop now; and knelt over his chest, smiling down at him.

    “Bitch,” he muttered, pulling her down onto his mouth.

    She let out a shriek and cried: “Oh! YES, darling!”

    He worked his tongue in her energetically. After a little he muttered: “Say it, Livia.”

    Livia merely groaned slightly, she was pretty far gone, it was wonderful doing it with Adam again, they each knew exactly what the other—

    “Turn round,” he said hoarsely. “Together.”

    Good, thought Livia. She hopped up neatly and turned round.

    “I love Mrs Juicy Cunt,” he murmured. “Mmm—let me drink you.”

    Livia let him. Then when he paused for breath she swooped on him and sucked him strongly.

    Adam groaned deeply and said in a strangled voice: “Say it, Livia, for God’s sake; let’s have a come.”

    Livia didn’t know, really, why he found her saying it so exciting. She knew Adam didn’t, either: he’d once said it must be because it was a verbal expression. She found it exciting too, but she sort of thought that maybe that was because she knew what it did to him, and that made her— Well, all she really knew was that the mere thought of it made her go all shivery, and when she needed something to just tip her over the edge to a come, that would usually do it. Him as well, of course.

    “Say it,” he said, kissing her buttocks. “Ooh,” he said, giving her a little bite.

    At this Livia gave a squeal and cried loudly: “Yes! Tongue me, Adam darling!”

    Whereupon Adam did and then jerked his pelvis up towards her with that muffled shriek he always did first, kind of through his teeth and nose, and Livia sucked him once very hard and then threw back her head and shrieked, at the same time grabbing Mister Cock hard, and they both exploded, glorious fireworks, yelling their heads off, and she went on rubbing Mister Cock for a while, and Adam went on tonguing her for quite a further while, because they both knew she needed that, and Livia kept on shrieking and clenching for ages and ages…

    “Sweetest Adam, it’s always so incredible with you,” she said at last, having collapsed against his side.

    “Mm. Shouldn’t have,” he said faintly. “Too much brandy.”

    “Mm,” she replied muzzily.

    After quite some time he said: “Thank you, darling. I thought you might have forgotten all that.”

    Livia never forgot anything to do with sex. Naturally she didn’t point this out, just kissed his chin and murmured “No.”

    Approximately half an hour later Adam opened his eyes again and said “God.”

    “Wonderful, darling,” sighed Livia.

    “God, why did I let you?” he muttered.

    “Neither of us could help it, sweetest,” she murmured.

    “Jesus,” he muttered. “Drop the bloody clichés, Livia, can’t you?”

    Livia pouted a little and was silent.

    “I’m sorry,” said Adam faintly. “Not your fault. ...I’m so damned gutless.”

    “Darling, one doesn’t have to take it seriously,” she said cautiously. “It was just—well, a lovely physical thing.”

    “Yes.” He sat up, wincing. “It had better be,” he said threateningly.

    “Of course, darling. I did tell you I’m not interested in that way.”

    He sighed. “So you did.”

    “It was lovely,” she murmured. “Nice not to have to—well, you know, darling, tell the other person what’s nice, and so on.”

    “Mm.” He stood up. “I suppose I’d better get back to the Hibiscus Coast,” he said, looking at his watch.

    Livia just waited. She knew that he hated driving, he especially hated driving at night, and he most especially hated driving at night after sex.

    “Christ, is that the time?” he said.

    “Darling, spend the night, you don’t want to drive all that way,” she said lightly.

    “Uh—well, what about Amy?” said Adam in a very weak voice.

    “She won’t come to the suite unless I ring for her.”

    “Oh, got her trained, eh?” he said with the flicker of a smile. He looked at his watch again. “God, why not, it can hardly make it worse,” he said sourly to himself.

    Livia ignored that, she knew it wasn’t aimed at her.

    “Look, can I ring my parents?” he said.

    “Of course, darling.” She got up. “The phone’s over there. I’ll be in the bathroom, darling. Just help yourself.” She went off to the ensuite without saying he could sleep on the couch if he preferred it: after all, why should she suggest something she didn’t want?

    When she came back into the bedroom he was in bed, fast asleep, with all his clothes thrown on the floor.

    Livia smiled and got in beside him. She knew what to expect in the morning: it was odds-on he’d cry, but that wouldn’t stop him wanting to fuck, he always, but always, wanted to do it that way in the morning. Well, men wanted sex, of course, in the morning, but with Adam you could almost measure the—the correspondence, or something, with what had happened the night before. In fact that time when they’d been drinking tequila, and goodness knew what was in it but it certainly liberated you from your whatsits, especially if you smoked just the tiniest wee joint with it—well, that time when he’d insisted they both sit facing each other and do it to themselves, like that: you know, watching—her ears turned red at the memory—well, the next morning he’d fucked like crazy for half an hour. Half an hour by the clock on the wall. As true as she lay here.

    Livia lay there next to Adam with a smile on her face. Even Elizabeth Taylor’s diamond ring didn’t seem so attractive a thought at this precise moment as it usually did. She said it to herself, though. The phrase had become a sort of talisman, signifying not only Livia’s determined faith in her own powers—an image of which she was quite aware—but also a sort of desperate clinging to the hope of a better future, against all the odds. Of which, consciously, she was not aware.