As the visiting celebs fated to star in a New Zealand university drama club’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream struggle to find their feet in a strange new environment, some of the locals find themselves more involved than they ever wanted or intended to be with the production and its leading players. And ditto for the stars, for whom there are some life-changing shocks in store.

Opening Night


25

Opening Night


    “May I?” Ralph grabbed one of the splitting plastic bags Adam was unloading from the Laser.
    “Thanks.”
    “Where’s Georgy? Lose her in The Arcade?” he enquired genially.
    “No. She was sick this morning,” he said shortly.
    Ralph Overdale repressed an urge to roll his eyes madly. He also repressed an urge to tell the Pommy wet that science had actually figured out what caused that. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he murmured smoothly.
    Adam sighed and shoved the back door of the car shut with his bum. “It’s nerves.” He leaned heavily on the car.
    “N— About the show?” he said weakly.
    “Yes. Her mother tells me she was just as bad last year.”
    “I see. Did her mother also tell you what to give her for it?”
    “Uh—no. She just said she’d get over it.”
    This was pretty typical of mothers of Mrs Harris’s generation, in Ralph’s experience. “I’ll come up and see her, if I may; then I’ll write you a prescription for something that’ll settle the stomach and calm the nerves.”
    “Thanks very much,” said Adam weakly, goggling at him.
    There was a short pause.
    “I am an M.B.,” said Ralph, very, very mildly.
    “Yes, of course,” said Adam, going red and avoiding his eye. “Uh—come on, then.”
    Home team forty-five, Pommy wets nil, thought Ralph Overdale, following him silently.


    “Why not come, Wal?” said Polly without much hope.
    The receiver was silent for a moment. Then it said baldly: “Is she still letting Maurie Black get up her?”
    Polly hesitated. Then she took a deep breath. “Not tonight, at all events, Wal. His wife’s coming back from Nelson today and he has to meet her at the airport.”
    “So you thought I’d do nicely for a substitute.”
    “To put it in the most masochistic way possible—yes,” she replied calmly.
    This time the receiver was silent for quite a while and Polly held it away from her ear and made an awful face at it.
    “All right, I’m a masochist,” he said bitterly at last.
    “She—” Polly broke off.
    “Come on, let’s hear it,” he said sourly.
    “It’s only my opinion,” she warned cautiously.
    “I KNOW that, Polly!” he shouted.
    “Sorry. Certain idiots have been known to take my words for gospel, and then it’s me that ends up in the poo. I keep forgetting you’re not an idiot, you see.”
    There was a very brief pause and then he said: “Can’t imagine why. Go on, then.”
    Polly swallowed. “I think she’s terrifically insecure. She—she sort of grabs at anything that comes her way because she’s terrified of ending up with nothing.”
    “Yeah.”
    She bit her lip. “Um—she’s had a very hard life. Much harder than yours, before you say anything. Women can’t go and work on the wharves or take a couple of years off in the merchant marine, you know. And she hasn’t got your brains, either.”
    “Eh?” he said weakly.
    “Brains are an advantage.”
    “Are they?” he said on nasty note.
    Polly replied firmly: “The sort that can see the right profession to go for, go for it and make a success at it are, yes.”
    Wal sighed. “You’re telling me I should feel sorry for her, right?”
    “No, I’m not telling you should anything; I thought we’d agreed you’re not an idiot and you’ve got brains?”
    “Ooh, ta,” he said sourly.
    “Anyway, that’s my opinion. Will you come to dinner and the show with us?”
    “Uh—well, I’ve got Panda, ya know,” he said weakly.
    Polly replied madly in a very bad parody of a Jewish mother: “Bring, bring! She can eat, already, nu?”
    “Uh—yeah. Eats anything. Hasn’t got any of the sort of clobber you’d wear to a dinner to meet Derry Dawlish at La Maisong Carrano, though.”
    Polly sighed. “That doesn’t matter. And the play’s only a student thing, for Heaven’s sake.”
    “Ye-ah...”
    “Look, put her on.”
    “Uh—hang on.”
    There was a confab in the background. After a bit Polly discerned Wallace’s voice saying loudly: “Go ON!” Finally a sulky and somewhat scared teenage voice said: “Hullo?”
    “Hi, Panda. Do you want to help hogtie Wal and drag him out tonight to force him to enjoy himself?” said Polly.
    Panda gave a startled giggle. “Um—yeah, okay,” she conceded weakly. “Um—whadd’ll I wear, though?”
    “Well, we’ll be dressed up, though actually I can’t imagine why we’re doing it—according to Jill Davis, Derry Dawlish looks like a cross between Placido Domingo and a Greek widow, and Lucinda Stuart looks neat but definitely not gaudy,” said Polly with a smile in her voice.
    Panda laughed weakly.
    “Wear the sort of gear you’d wear to a disco,” suggested Polly.
    “I’ve never been to a disco,” she said gruffly.
    “Oh. Um—well, I’ll tell you what Vicki and Ginny wore last time they went to one, maybe that’ll give you some ideas.”
    “Who?” said Panda weakly.
    “My young cousins, they’re in the play, they’re both students. Let’s see: Ginny wore a pair of stretch jeans with ankle-length purple suede boots, and a sort of gold-coloured nylon knit singlet thing with purple straps, it’s Vicki’s really, but Ginny often wears it. Um—and Vicki’s big gold hoop earrings, that’s right, and a gold belt. And Vicki wore a black satin miniskirt, she made it herself, it only took half a metre of material, with black lace tights and green high-heeled sandals—I think they’re Ginny’s, actually. And a green singlet underneath, with a black off-the-shoulder cotton-knit top over it: you know, a sort of sloppy-Joe. Quite short, though, she cut a bit off so it comes to just above her waist. And a big silver belt, and she borrowed my long gum-leaf silver earrings. And her hair up in a big butterfly clip. They’ve both got long hair—red.”
    After a minute Panda faltered: “They both sound ace.”
    “Yes, ace just about describes them. Well, what I mean is, they were very In, but not exactly your soignée Paris model look!” said Polly with a choke of laughter. “Do you think you could manage something like that?”
    “Ye-es... Go away, Dad! Um, yeah, I could wear my good jeans,” said Panda dubiously. “Um—I haven’t got much jewellery or, um, fancy belts or anything.”
    “Well, if you come early you could always borrow some of mine, I’ve got loads of jewellery. And belts.”
    “Um—yes. Um, ta, Polly,” she said weakly.
    “And the audience’ll be mostly students and their families.”
    “Yeah,” she said on a relieved note. “Have you got enough tickets, though?”
    “Yes, we invited a couple of friends who can’t make it, so there’s two spare tickets.”
    “Oh, good. Um—well, thanks.”
    “Doe that mean ‘yes’?” said Wal’s voice loudly in the background.
    “Yeah, it’ll do you good,” said his daughter firmly.
    Wal came back on the line and said in a numbed voice: “How’d yer Ladyshipness manage that?”
    “Weren’t you listening?” replied Polly drily. “Come early, Wal, we’ll get a couple of stiff gins down us before the company arrives, and Panda can have a look at my earrings.”
    “Yeah, them Marie Antoinette things he dropped a packet for’ll look good with that hedgehog she’s wearing on her head,” Panda’s father noted morosely.—In the background there was a shout of: “My hair’s all RIGHT!”—“I’ll try to get her to wash it,” Wal promised Polly.—In the background there was a shout of: “You’re a PIG, Dad!” and the sound of a slammed door.—“It’s all right, she’s pushed off,” he said. “How did you manage it? I’ve been trying to get her out of the flat for the last five days. Not to mention trying to get her to take a bath and wash the hedgehog.”
    Polly replied in a vague voice: “I don’t know, exactly, I just sort of spoke to her as if she was normal, like Vicki and Ginny.”
    “Gawd,” he muttered.
    “She’ll be all right once she’s settled in at St Ursie’s.”
    Wal sighed. “I hope this Miss Fothergill dame’s all you’ve cracked her up to be, that’s all. She’s got to get Bursary this year, you know.”
    Polly sorted out this confusion of personal pronouns with ease and replied: “Yes, but the way she was going at that awful school her mother sent her to she wouldn’t have, would she?”
    “No,” he sighed.
    “She’ll be okay. Phoebe Fothergill’ll see to it she really works. And the English teacher’s marvellous.”
    “She’ll need to be. Kid can’t even spell ‘cat’,” he muttered.
    “I think that problem might resolve itself rather speedily when it dawns that for one thing all the other girls doing maths and science at St Ursie’s can spell ‘cat’, and for another thing when Ellen Chong gives her the good news that Phoebe won’t let girls who can’t spell ‘cat’ sit maths Bursary.”
    Wal gulped.
    “Well, she is very young for the Seventh Form, it won’t hurt her if she has to have another year in it.”
    “It’d just about kill me,” he moaned.
    Polly pointed out coldly: “You’ve had her for about ten days. Her mother had her for sixteen and a half years.”
    “I might’ve known you wouldn’t be on my side!” he said loudly.
    “I’m not on anyone’s side, really,” she murmured.
    Wal sighed heavily. “No. All right, I’ll bring her, jeans and hedgehog and all. And I take back what I said about her eating anything, she won’t touch oysters.”
    “Nor will I, in this muggy weather,” she said in a hollow voice. “Come about half-past five, Wal, she can help Nanny give the kids their baths if she feels like it.”
    “You’re not gonna domesticate her that way, ya know!” he choked.
    “No,” she said with a smile in her voice. “I was just like that at her age, you know.”
    “Yeah: that woulda been about six months before you went flatting with a couple of boys of the opposite gender, wouldn’t it?”
    “Not six: this is only March. Um... Ten or eleven.”
    “Yeah,” he sighed. “All right, half-past five.”
    “Mm. And I know this’ll be difficult, Wal,”—Wal braced himself—“but try not to say anything if she does wash her hair,” said Polly, smiling into the phone.
    “Oh,” he said limply, sagging. “Righto, yer Ladyship. See ya!” He hung up.
    Polly hung up slowly and went in search of her husband, finally tracking him down in his study. She came up and looked over his shoulder. Sir Jacob immediately went into a diatribe about those tits in the Sydney office.
    “Yes, we should have gone over there, like you said,” she agreed smoothly.—He glared.—“I just popped in to give you the news. Um, well, I don’t whether it’s good or bad. Wal says he will come this evening.”
    Sir Jacob’s jaw sagged. “Eh?” he croaked.
    “Don’t ask me how I managed it, because on the whole I don’t think I did. I think he was dying to.” She drifted back to the door. “And he’s bringing Panda, and for God’s sake don’t mention the topics of school, exams, clothes, or hair.”
    “Uh—no,” he said weakly.
    Polly went out but popped her head back in to say: “Or spelling. That’s a real no-no at the moment.”
    “Spelling,” he agreed numbly.


    “Where have you BEEN?” screamed Phyllis, Lady Harding.
    The meek Sir John goggled at her. It was only lunchtime: surely she couldn’t want him to start getting dressed for this thing tonight yet. Even if it was going to take an hour to drive up to Jake and Polly’s. “Just took Seagull out for a bit of an early—”
    “NEVER MIND THAT!” screamed Phyllis.
    “What’s the matter?” he said weakly.
    “MATTER!” screamed Phyllis. “The upstairs toilet’s blocked again, that’s what’s the MATTER! I told you we should have got the plumber in the last time—”
    “Let’s take a look at it—”
    “NO!” screamed Phyllis. “Get the PLUMBER!”
    “Um—well, I’d better just look at it first, dear,” he said nervously.
    Phyllis accompanied him, breathing heavily.
    … “Yes,” he said weakly.
    “Get the PLUMBER!” shouted Phyllis.
    “Ye-es... It is Saturday, dear, you know they—”
    “Get the PLUMBER, John!” shouted Phyllis.
    Sir John retreated to the master bedroom, sat down on the edge of the bright pink satin spread, got out the yellow pages and morosely began dialling plumbers.


    “Where have you been?” demanded Patrick’s wife in a steely voice.
   Patrick swallowed nervously. “Just in to varsity, checking the—”
    “Never mind that: go and wash your hands, you’re late for lunch. Again.”
    Patrick went off obediently. When he came back they were all at table. He joined them meekly.
    Silently his wife put a plate containing a dried-up slice of silverbeet quiche in front of him.
    Patrick swallowed. “Pass the salad, please,” he mumbled.
    Silently his wife passed him the salad.
    They were at the stage where Mickey was whingeing for ice cream before Patrick said anything else. He waited till Mickey had shut up and then said: “I was oiling the davits and just sort of—um, you know. Checking up on things.”
    His wife’s lips tightened ominously. Then she told the kids they could get down, and NO, there was NO ICE CREAM!
    After the expectable cries of protest and the rushing out of the room, Patrick swallowed and offered: “It’s not my fault if—”
    “Just shut up,” she said tiredly.
    He swallowed again. “I dare say they’ll ask us another ti—”
    “Patrick O’Reilly! You’ve been earbashing me non-stop about Polly Carrano and how marvellous she is for the last ten years, and when the woman finally asks us to dinner YOU SAY WE CAN’T GO!” she shouted.
    Patrick looked sulky. After a moment he said: “You know I’m responsible for the effects, I have to get there well before it starts, I can’t possibly—”
    “Just shut up,” she said tiredly.
    “But—”
    “SHUT UP!”
    Patrick shut up.


    “What in God’s name’s the matter with you?” said Nigel’s boss dazedly as for the fourth time since eight o’clock that morning Nigel gave a customer the wrong change and was loudly and angrily corrected by the customer.
    “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
    Nigel’s boss gave a loud sigh.
    “Um—First Night nerves, I suppose,” said Nigel sheepishly.
    Garth, who was the mechanic, came up rubbing his hands on his greasy overalls. “All of a doo-dah, are we?” he said in evil voice.
    Nigel grinned sheepishly.
    The boss sighed loudly. “Look, get off home, you’re costing me more than you’re worth,” he said tiredly. “Not to mention more than we’re making from anything you might have actually managed to sell today.”
    Nigel’s round face fell a foot. “I’m sorry, Rog, I’ll watch it, I promise: I really do need the job—”
    “I’m not sacking you, ya ning-nong!” roared Rog. “Take the flamin’ afternoon off, you’re as much use here as a bishop in a bordello!”
    “That was a good one,” noted Garth detachedly.
    “Yeah,” Nigel agreed, grinning.
    “Go ON!” shouted Rog.
    “Uh—yeah. Righto; ta, Rog.” He grinned sheepishly and scrambled off.
    “Students!” said Rog wildly to Garth.
    “He’s okay. And at least he’s honest, not like that thieving sod ya got on that bloody Work Experience thing.”
    “Not Work Experience,” said Rog automatically.
    “Well, whatever. Unemployed re-skilling crap. What’s skilled about working a flaming petrol pump, for God’s sake? I mean, even Nigel can do it!”
    Rog merely replied: “So can you, so get out on out and do it. –And that’s a Vee-Dub that lady brought in for a lube this morning; its engine’s not in the front, ya know!”
    “Very funny,” he replied, mooching out to serve one of the five customers now jamming the forecourt.
    Rog sighed and muttered “Students,” again. Then he mooched out to take his money off the customer that was serving himself at the serve-yourself pump. Oughta put in a few more of those. Only then ya missed out on all the lady customers that didn’t know how to work ’em! Only were the lady customers covering Nigel’s wages...? Uh, no. Probably not.


    Mrs Hardy came into the bathroom and stopped short with a gasp. “What are you doing, Pru?” she cried.
    Pru rubbed the dark substance hard into her naturally fawnish thick hair and peered at herself in the mirror. “Tinting it.”
    “It’s blue!” wailed Mrs Hardy.
    “Yeah. It’ll be lighter than this, though, the dye always looks darker at first.” She rubbed energetically. “These plastic gloves are dumb,” she remarked.
    “At least they’ll stop your hands from turning— WHY are you dyeing it blue?”
    “For the play.”
    Mrs Hardy shut her eyes for a second. “Why did I ask?” she muttered.
    Mr Hardy appeared behind her. He peered over her shoulder. “What’s she up to?”
    “She’s dyeing her hair blue,” she said in a fatalistic voice. “For the play.”
    “That’ll be to match that bloody silly ballet dress she has to wear,” he noted.
    “Yeah. Then I’m gonna put a bit of silver spray on it.” Pru picked up the packet. “It has to stay like this for about quarter of an hour,” she ascertained. “Give it twenny minutes,” she decided.
    Mrs Hardy took the packet off her gingerly. “This is permanent!” she gasped.
    Her husband peered at it over her shoulder. “No, washes out after about twelve washes,” he pointed out.
    “Twelve!” she wailed.
    “Or six weeks,” he noted.
    “Six weeks!” she wailed.
    “Yeah, it’ll last out the play nicely,” agreed Pru, swathing her head in a plastic bag. She fastened the bag tightly with a large butterfly clip.
    “What’s the bag for?” her father asked with interest.
    “Stop it dripping down my neck, whaddelse?” She picked up a towel, dampened it under the hot tap, and scrubbed vigorously at the dark blue dribbles on her neck and temples.
    “Pru, you’re ruining that good towel!” cried her mother.
    “Nah, it’s that one Phil found down the beach.”
    “‘Found’,” murmured Mr Hardy to himself.
    “It’s still a good towel!” cried Mrs Hardy.
    “No, it isn’t, it’s yucky pink,” said Pru.
    “Yucky pink and yucky blue,” murmured Mr Hardy to himself.
    Mrs Hardy said on a weak note: “Pru, surely you don’t intend going in to varsity every day for six weeks with blue hair!”
    Pru gave her a tolerant look. “No-one’ll care. Anyway, loads of kids at varsity have got blue hair. Or pink. Or green.”
    “Or silver,” noted Mr Hardy to the bathroom ceiling.
    Pru replied immediately to the subtext: “Greg’s okay.”
    “Earring and all,” noted Mr Hardy to the bathroom ceiling.
    “Anyway, he won’t be the only one at varsity with silver hair on Monday, by any means,” said Pru.
    “Eh?” he said.
    Pru explained drily: “All the silver fairies have to bleach their hair and give it a platinum rinse like his.”
    “What?” said Mrs Hardy faintly.
    “Not the kids, Mum!” replied Pru scornfully to the subtext.
    “Oh,” she said weakly.
    “I’m starving, are there any bananas left?”
    “You’ve just had an enormous lunch, not two hours ago!”
    “I’m still starving, though.”
    “Go and look,” said her mother feebly.
    Pru marched off to the kitchen. Her parents retired to the sitting-room. Mrs Hardy sat down on the couch, looking dazed. Mr Hardy sat down in his armchair, looking dry.
    Finally she said: “What’ll Mum say?”
    “Who cares?” he replied brutally.
    Mrs Hardy winced. After a moment she said: “Um—well, where’s Phil?”
    “Prolly in the laundry dyeing her hair shocking pink. –Uh, no: gone off to Piha in the Blighted Bug.”
    “Piha?” she gasped.
    “She reckoned they said on the radio that surf was up, so she loaded up her board and rung that Anderson boy and off they went.”
    “Todd Anderson?” she said cautiously.
    “Uh—one of Greg and Pam’s kids,” he replied weakly.
    “Todd’s the—um—burly one, with the light brown hair. The youngest.”
    “Uh—nah. This was the dark one.”
    “Bevan?” she gasped.
    Mr Hardy eyed her sardonically. “Something wrong with that?”
    “He’s too old for her,” she said weakly.
    “He’s too old for her and he’s an electrician’s mate, ya mean,” he returned drily.
    Mrs Hardy went very red and glared at him.
    “At least he’ll be employed for the foreseeable future,” he pointed out.
    Mrs Hardy scowled.
    “Anyway, that’s where she’s gone. Just be thankful she isn’t dyeing her hair shocking pink,” he recommended.
    Mrs Hardy frowned. After a moment she said: “I don’t think she can really be serious about Bevan Anderson.”
    Mr Hardy didn’t reply.
    “She’s far too young to be serious about anybody, yet!”
    Mr Hardy didn’t reply.
    Mrs Hardy got up abruptly and went out.
    “They took that bloody Elspeth Macdonald kid with them,” he remarked to the ambient air. “I wouldn’ta said that indicated they were serious, no.” He paused. “Mind you, that’s prolly what Georgy Harris’s mother was saying a couple of weeks back,” he noted with terrific dryness.
    Pru came in with a banana. “Are you talking to yourself again?”
    “Yes,” he replied simply.
    Pru sat down on the couch. “Ya wanna watch that.”
    “You wanna watch that bag on yer head: we don’t want blood all over the couch,” he replied.
    Pru merely grinned.
    Twenty-odd minutes later her mother was wailing: “It looks ter-rible!” and Pru was saying sturdily: “Bullshit. It’s not that bad. Anyway, Mac wants it like this.”
    Since all the blue fairies had been ordered to tint their hair blue and all the silver fairies had, of course, been ordered to bleach theirs on pain of being out of the show, O,U,T, scenes very like this were taking place all over the greater metropolitan area. Had Mrs Hardy stopped to think about it she would of course have realized this. That wouldn’t have made her feel any better about her own particular blue-haired offspring, however.


    It was a very warm afternoon and Sir Ralph was very bored. He should have gone up to the boat, only it was an hour’s drive to the marina at Kingfisher Bay, and what with being slated to dine so early with the Carranos, he’d have barely got there before— Oh, well. He wandered restlessly round his immaculate and tasteful fiat for a while, picked up a book, looked at it with loathing and discarded it, had a leak, inspected his teeth, wandered into the bedroom, looked at the phone, decided against ringing that tart Sylvia, and finally wandered outside.
    “How’s she feeling?” he said to McIntyre.
    Adam sighed. “Better, I think.”
    Ralph gave him a sharp look. “How are you feeling?”
     Adam made a face.
    “Take some yourself. Alternately, come and have a drink.”
    “Um...” Adam looked at his watch.
    “Hours yet before the show!” Ralph said breezily.
    “Ye-es... Look, come in, Ralph, I’ll just check up on Georgy.”
    Sir Ralph came in and, possibly on account of his medical status, though possibly not, accompanied Adam into the bedroom. Georgy was sitting up on the bed, not in it, in a tiny, weeny cotton garment. Ooh!
    She went very pink when she saw their neighbour and made a grab at the peeled-back sheet.
    “He is a doctor,” said Adam drily.
    “Yes,” she whispered, blushing more.
    Smiling blandly, Ralph and came over to the bed. He sat down beside her and took her hand in his, feeling her forehead with the other. Then he felt her pulse. “Tummy settled down?”
    “Yes, thanks, I’m miles better.”
    “Good. That KM mixture never fails.”
    “Drugs,” she said faintly.
    “Undoubtedly. Had anything to eat?”
    “She won’t,” said Adam with a sigh.
    “I’m really not hungry,” she murmured.
    “I prescribe something nice and light,” he said with a twinkle. “Um... avocado sandwiches with white bread?”
    Georgy gave a little giggle.
    “That’s better! –Yes,” he said to Adam, getting up: “got any avocados?”
    “Er—yes. In sandwiches?”
    “Certainly. Nourishing, bland and cholesterol-free. Take a dose of that KM and have some yourself.”
    “I really couldn’t, thanks.”
    “Rats.” Sir Ralph went over to the door. “I’ll make ’em; where are the avocados?” Smoothly he steamrollered Adam’s weak objections, and they went out to the kitchen together.
    A good two hours later Adam glared out of the sitting-room window at his retreating head and said: “That fellow’s getting worse!”
    “Is he?” murmured Georgy.
    “And you’re bloody well encouraging him!” he added irritably.
    “Me?” she gasped.
    Adam looked somewhat abashed. “Well, you don’t think I wanted him hanging round our necks all afternoon, do you? The man’s like a—well, it’s like trying to hold back the ruddy tide, trying to resist him!”
    “You ate the sandwiches, though.”
    Adam glared.
    “That medicine is good, isn’t it? I wish I’d known about it before.”
    He sighed and sat down heavily on one of the pinkish-mauveish velvet chairs of the suite. “Yes. Me, too.”
    Georgy looked at him nervously as he put his elbows on his knees and leaned his head in his hands. “Are you awfully nervous, Adam?”
    “Yes,” he groaned.
    “Because of Derry being there?”
    “Not really,” he sighed. “I’m always like this.”
    After a moment Georgy said uncertainly: “Is there anything I can do? What would you do if—if you were at home?”
    “Mm? Oh—nothing, really. Pace a bit. Have a massage, possibly, and then lie down with a cloth soaked in eau de cologne on my—” He caught sight of her face. What?”
    “A massage?” she said faintly.
    “Mm. Not a topless one.”—Georgy looked dubious.—“From a masseur, darling,” he said tiredly.
    “A— Oh. A man?”
    “Yes.” He stretched a little and sighed. “He’s damned good: always gets the kinks out.”
    “Could I try?”
    He groaned. “Why not? All you can do is ruin me for life. –No,” he said with a grin to her appalled expression: “those little hands of yours wouldn’t get anywhere near ruining me, sweetheart.” He got up, stretching. “Come on, then.”
    Georgy followed him into the bedroom. “I’ve never done it before,” she warned .
    “Fancy. Well, you can start by taking those damned jeans off and getting back into that weeny shorty nightie.”
    Georgy went rather red. “Sir Ralph—” She broke off.
    “I noticed that,” said Adam in a hard voice.
    She gulped.
    “Doctor or not. Well, he can look till his eyes fall off their bloody stalks, he’s not getting any!”
    “No,” she said, biting her lip. She removed her jeans.
    “Go on,” said Adam, going off to get a towel and the baby oil. When he came back she was in the nightie but plus knickers.
    “Take ’em off,” he said.
    “I thought this was supposed to be a proper massage?” Georgy returned suspiciously.
    Adam replied airily: “It could develop into something more. Depends how well you can take my mind off my stage fright.”
    “Do I want to?” retorted Georgy vigorously.
    Adam grinned. He shed his garments, spread the towel on the bed and lay down on it on his front.
    “What do I do?”
    He began to instruct her. Georgy obeyed cautiously.
    After quite some time she said in a cross voice:
    “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you!”
    He looked round, grinning. “Yes. That’s the point.”
    “Well, I’m bored!”
    Choking slightly, he said: “You were supposed to be all turned on by the—um—the beauteous bod.”
    “I might have been, only my hands are tired,” she said with a sigh.
    “Oh, damn! Sorry.“ He sat up and squeezed them. They did feel rather hot.
    “Why don’t I do it with my feet, like one of those Japanese masseuses?” she said on a sour note.
    “What, trample my spine?” he croaked, cringing.
    “Yes. Have you ever had that?”
    “God, no!”
    “Well, it could be a new experience for you,” said Georgy politely.
    “Yes, or I could give you a massage and that could be a new experience for you.”
    “Well, if it takes your mind off tonight,” she said on a resigned note.
    “Or we could just lie here like two logs, rigid with terror.” He picked up the baby oil and got on with it.
    Two doors away Ralph wandered out to his kitchen, sighing, to make a pot of coffee. He’d already had far too much coffee today, but— Bloody McIntyre had looked very much better after eating his prescribed lunch, why the Hell hadn’t he just walked out and left the bloody man to suffer? Because now—he looked at his watch, and scowled—his bet was they were doing it. In fact, if he opened this here kitchen window and leaned out, and if they’d left their bedroom window open, as had happened in the recent past, and if bloody Hugh next-door wasn’t playing what he imagined was music on his bloody stereo—which he wasn’t—then he’d be able to be sure they were doing it, wouldn’t he?
    Scowling, he made the coffee and took it into the front room, where he put some Mahler on, rather loud, in the hopes that the blameless Hugh next-door would hear it and suffer. Coffee at this hour would probably keep him awake all night, but as he had to go to the bloody play anyway, it might as well.


    Amy tiptoed up to the bed cautiously. “Are you all right, dear?”
    “Get out,” said Livia through her teeth.
    Amy crept out.


    In a bar not a million miles away from his comfortable but not air-conditioned and therefore very hot motel, Jacky knocked back a stiff whisky and said morosely: “She’s a cow, ya know.”
    “That right?” his sympathetic companion replied.
    “Yeah.” Jacky looked glumly at the ice cubes in the bottom of his glass.
    “Have another,” suggested his sympathetic companion.
    “Why not?” Jacky accepted a third double whisky. He gave his sympathetic companion some choice details of Livia’s checkered career, personal and theatrical. After that they had a beer, on the sympathetic companion. Then they had a second beer on Jacky. Then Jacky tottered off to the Gents’.
    The barman, who had been listening at intervals to Jacky’s saga with some interest—he was reasonably busy, there probably wasn’t a bar in New Zealand that wasn’t at least reasonably busy on a Saturday afternoon, but not as busy as some because you didn’t get the afternoon crowds in town on a Saturday so much—watched with great interest as Jacky’s drinking companion, with complete insouciance, withdrew a small cassette recorder from behind the small diary in the breast pocket of his shirt and changed the tape in it. “You Press or a private dick?” he asked.
    “Truth,” replied the sympathetic one succinctly.
    Even in New Zealand barmen get pretty hardened within a few weeks of taking up the trade, but this one had to swallow.


    “How long is this trip to this Poo-Something Bay supposed to take?” groaned Derry.
    “Forty minutes or so. So stir your stumps,” replied Lucinda calmly.
    Derry groaned. “Who are these people, anyway?”
    “Local potentate, or something. Don’t ask me, ask Charles, it’s his job to know that sort of thing!”
    Charles looked up from his book and made a face at her.
    “What are you going to wear, Lucinda?” sighed Derry.
    “My summer dress suit,” she said firmly.
    “Darling, you can’t! What about the local potentate’s sensibilities? He’ll think you’re a Les!” he gasped.
    “So? I’m wearing it: it’s smart, it’s in a nice light silk, and I’m wearing it. Besides, it’s got that lovely false front, I won’t have to wear a blouse under it. You can bet your boots that, potentate or not, his place’ll be stinking humid.”
    “Air-conditioning?” he whispered timidly.
    Lucinda gave a coarse laugh.
    “God,” he muttered.
    “You would come out here, Derry.”
    “Yes, but nobody warned me it’d be this humid!”
    “Adam warned you a million times. Clem warned you, too,” noted Charles into his book.
    Derry scowled. “Look, you can go instead of me.
    Charles gave a coarse laugh.
    Derry scowled.
    “Forty minutes. You’d better think about having a shower,” said Lucinda detachedly, going out.
    “Why did we BRING that woman?” he shouted.
    “We didn’t. She came off her own bat,” said Charles into his book.
    Derry threw a cushion at him. Charles caught it without effort.
    “It’s worse than that fucking dump in South America!” he said loudly.
    “No, it isn’t,” said Charles calmly.
    Derry lapsed into sulking silence.
    After a while Charles got up.
    “Where are you off to?” he said sulkily.
    Charles smiled nastily. “I’m going to have a cool bath. While I’m sitting in it I’m going to drink an ice-cold G&T. Then I’m going to get dressed in something lightish—silk shirt and slacks, I think—and then I’m going to wander downstairs to an air-conditioned bar and have a second G&T. Then I might just think about wandering into one of the hotel’s air-conditioned restaurants—”
    “GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!” roared Derry.
    Grinning nastily, Charles wandered out.
    Derry rushed over to the door, wrenched it open and bellowed: “WANKER!”
    A middle-aged American woman just emerging from her room gave him a startled look and her blue-rinsed escort said: “Now, see here, sir—”
    “Did I call you a wanker?” said Derry evilly to him. The man made a gobbling noise. “No. So KEEP OUT OF IT!” shouted Derry. He retreated into his suite, giving the door a terrific slam.
    “Well, really!” gasped the woman.
    “Movie people,” said her escort sourly.
    “Sarah Jane and Ira said this was such a nice hotel,” she said sadly.
    “Huh! Well, I guess it mighta been, before those movie people moved in.”
    She squeezed his arm. “See if we can change our room, Chuck.”
    “I guess I could try. Only Ira said they’re usually booked solid.”
    “Oh, dear. Well, at least we’re going on to this Roto— Roto-place day after tomorrow.”
    “Sure, the thermal area, that sounds real interesting, kind of a Yellowstone, huh? Yeah, maybe it won’t be so humid, either: isn’t it further south?”
    “Yes: that’ll be a relief, I just get so wrung out in this sort of weather!” She took his arm and they tottered on their deluded way to the elevator.


    The female dressing-room was a seething mass of billowing tulle and heaving flesh. That didn’t mean that Mac wasn’t capable of distinguishing bits of flesh that had no right to be there, though.
    “What’s That Woman doing here?” he demanded terribly.
    Angie glanced indifferently in the direction of his terrible glare. “Oh—Maisie. She volunteered, Mac. She’ll be a great help, she’s standing by to bail out the idiots that tear their frocks or ladder their tights.”
    Mac’s mouth tightened. He strode out, still terrible.
    “Will she be a help?” asked Josie dubiously.
    “Probably not,” replied Angie grimly. “Any sign of Livia yet?”
    “No,” said Josie nervously.
    “What about the contingent from up the Coast?”
    “Um—Georgy?”
    Angie began counting on her fingers. “Georgy, Joel, flaming Oberon, Oberon’s Robin, Oberon’s Robin’s sister, approximately seventeen silver fairies from the North Shore Branch of the Melissa Martin School of Dance—”
    Josie squeaked nervously: “Um, there was something on the radio about a hold-up on the Bridge!”
    Angie looked thoughtfully at the ceiling of the dressing-room. “Could this have something to do with the fact that Mac’s Opening Night just happens to coincide with the bloody floodlit cricket at Eden Bloody Park?”
    “Ugh, does it?” gulped Josie. “Help!”


    “Livia Languish here yet?” asked Bill Michaels genially.
    Mac sat down beside him, high on the electricians’ stand. “No.”
    “Want the spots on the greensward yet?”
    It was still full daylight. “No.”
    “Want a joint?”
    Mac jumped. “Uh—no. Where the Christ did that come from?”
    “Confiscated off a Second-Year that was smoking it in the flaming corridor the other day. When forced to turn ’em out he proved to have a pocketful of it.” Bill lit up. “Not that I’ve got anything against”—he drew smoke in slowly—“pot as such. –Aah.” He let it trickle out of his nostrils very slowly. “Nodda bad vintage. Uh—no. Nothing against it, meself. Only cloth-heads that smoke it openly in the flaming corridors are asking to have it confiscated, eh? Or worse: specially with the place swarming with the flaming Intelligence Service.”
    “What, again?” said Mac weakly.
    “So they tell me.” He drew in again. Mac watched as he again slowly expelled smoke. “Go on!” he said, passing it to him.
    “Uh—well, ta,” said Mac weakly. He drew on it.
    “Relaxing to the nerves,” said Bill mildly.
    “Mm.” Mac expelled smoke very slowly and passed it back.
    “Could be watching the cricket,” noted Bill mildly, drawing on it.
    “And?”
    Bill passed the joint back. He bent towards the huge bank of electronic gear before him. He turned a knob. The small screen in front of him lit up. Mac turned puce and choked on his lungful of smoke.
    “Hasn’t started yet,” said Bill detachedly, switching it off again.
    “Look, you’re supposed to be concentrating on the play!” he choked.
    Bill took the joint off him and banged him on the back. “Yeah, well, don’t choke to death over it. I can do both, no sweat. Anyway, all the lighting routines are in the computer.”
    After a moment Mac said: “But—um—”
    Bill sighed. “Oy—EUAN!”
    The blond boy sitting further down the bank of electronic gear jumped and turned round. “Yeah?”
    “Show ’im yer pretty pickshas,” said Bill in a bored voice.
    “Aw—righto.” He pressed a switch and the screen before him lit up. Bill bent forward and turned his knob and his screen also lit up. He pressed another switch hurriedly and the cricket commentator’s face disappeared, to be replaced by a line of mysterious coded type. Mac looked at it blankly.
     Bill bent forward and translated swiftly.
    “Oh. Oh, I see, ‘OV’ means overture,” he said weakly.
    “Yeah. Can’t show ya the next screen, he won’t get that till he’s gone through this sequence, see? If we were having recorded music instead of live musicians we could synchronize it properly. Well, as properly as your acting cretins’d let us. Euan doesn’t do the whole thing, of course: he’s only Act I. They’re on short shifts: they lose concentration.”
    “Yeah,” said Euan, grinning.
    Mac winced. “No doubt. Well, I gotta go. –Just don’t let him smoke any of that,” he added, and departed.
    “If he falls off,” noted Bill, “I don’t wanna know.”
    A second student peered over the side of the stand and said sadly: “Neh, he’s okay.”
    “Put the cricket on,” urged Euan.
    “Hasn’t started yet. Only those gits flapping their gums.”
    “Never mind: go on!”
    “Yeah, go on, Bill!” urged the other student.
    Bill put the cricket on.


    Polly peered out at the traffic. “Oh, dear, we’re going to be late.”
    “Good,” said Derry simply.
    Giggling, his hostess warned: “You’ll miss the blare of crumhorns when they let the banner down for Theseus’s court!”
    “Good,” said Derry simply.
    Sir Jacob twisted round from his seat beside the driver and said hopefully: “Could turn round and go home?”
    “Yeah, let’s!” said Derry eagerly, squeezing his hostess’s green-gold lamé knee. “We could play Sardines!”
    Polly giggled but said: “No, Ginny’s expecting to see us in the front row.”
    “Haven’t these kids got mums and dads? Why do we have to suffer?” demanded Lucinda from Derry’s other side.
    “I was wondering that,” reported Sir Jacob morosely.
    “Be quiet, Jake, you know perfectly well you’re dying to see them in their fairy frocks. Well, tights and spangled bathing-suit, in Vicki’s case,” Polly amended fairly.
    Lucinda choked.
    The traffic crawled on a few yards and then stopped again. Sir Jacob enquired of the driver: “So how’s she handle, then, Jill?’
    “Uh—oh, the Rolls,” said Jill weakly. “Wonderful. Thanks for letting me drive, Jake.”
    “I should not haff had all that grog,” said Gretchen crossly.
    “Never mind, Gretchen, you can drive ’er another time,” said Sir Jacob kindly, as the lines of traffic began to crawl forward again.
    “Where are they all going?” demanded Polly aggrievedly.
    “Pictures,” said Sir Jake.
    “Cricket,” added Jill.
    “The Trots,” added Gretchen.
    “That makes it fairly clear,” noted Lucinda.
    “Yes!” choked Derry.
    … “I thought this was a motorway?” said Lucinda in confusion.
    “Ja, look: ‘Motorvay ends,’“ said Gretchen kindly, pointing out the sign.
    “Ye-es...”
    “And just on the far side off these lights,” said Gretchen kindly: “you vill see another sign, vhich says: ‘Motorvay begins.’”
    Lucinda swallowed.
    “‘End of speed limit’, isn’t it?” said Polly in a confused voice.
    “Also ‘Motorvay begins.’”
    They were right. Both of them. Lucinda sat there for some time in a state of numbed confusion. If it was a motorway then why—? On the other hand, if it was interrupted by traffic lights, it couldn’t be a—
    The local inhabitants were all aware of this state of confusion. They’d all been through it, too. There was no logical solution, because the problem wasn’t a logical one. In fact a few miles further down the more southerly stretch of “motorway” Lady Carrano leaned across Derry and said kindly to the still-silent Lucinda: “Are you still on that mental Möbius-bend about the motor-or-not-way, Lucinda?”
    After a moment’s startled silence, Lucinda choked. No-one heard her, however, because in the front seat Sir Jacob was having a loud wheezing fit.
    “She’s like that, ya know!” he announced proudly.
    “Isn’t she!” agreed Lucinda with feeling.
    As she did so she avoided Derry’s eye. The motor-or-not-way might remain a mental Möbius bend forever, but one other conundrum, discussed by her and Derry in the car coming up to Pohutukawa Bay, was certainly solved. Whatever the situation might be between him and little Georgy Harris, there could be nothing between Adam and their gracious hostess. Not with a mind that could run rings round his. No way.


    Panda Briggs had been terrifically relieved to find there was one other person at the Carranos’ dinner table under the age of twenty-five, so even though in her eyes Roberta Nicholls was quite old—in fact verging on a-ancient, she was doing fifth-year medicine—she had urged her to come in their car. The more so since Roberta was wearing a very ordinary pair of black jeans, a heavy studded black belt, and a plain red short-sleeved tee-shirt. Over the last she had a really beautiful black silk shawl, draped over one shoulder, crossed somewhere under the arm, and with its ends then led round the waist and knotted tightly just above the studded belt in a way that made Wallace Briggs, for one, wince every time he glanced at her. Ariadne Nicholls had noted that that was the black shawl that had belonged to Roberta’s great-grandmother. Wal was sure it was. Ariadne had also noted that tying it up like that was ruining it. Wal was sure it was.
    “We’ll be late!” worried Panda, pressing her nose to the window as the traffic slowed to a crawl and then stopped altogether on the last stretch of motorway before the Bridge.
    “So will the rest of them,” remarked Wal.
    “We should have left earlier,” she said in a sulky voice. “I knew all those stupid ole men getting drunk on all that whisky and stuff were gonna make us late!”
    “Never mind. Ginny reckons it’s foul, anyway,” said Roberta comfortably.
    There was an infinitesimal pause—though not so infinitesimal that Wal Briggs didn’t have time during it to grin inwardly. Then Panda said in a bewildered voice: “I thought you said she was in it, though?”
    “Yeah. That’s how she knows it’s foul,” explained Roberta, unmoved.
    There was another pause—not so infinitesimal—and then Panda gave a loud giggle.
    Whew! thought Wal, sagging in his seat. Maybe there was something to be said for macho female med students in black jeans and studded belts, after all. “Eh?” he said, jumping.
    “DAD! They’re MOVING!” shouted his daughter.
    Wal let the clutch in, grinning.


    During the sufficiently long wait after their party arrived, only about twenty minutes late after all, the Registrar and his party fawned all over them. Over Derry and Lucinda, most certainly—that was only to be expected and Derry and Lucinda had, and were both quite resigned to it. But also, and very noticeably, over Sir Jake and Lady Carrano. Lucinda remarked it most particularly and judging by the speculative look in his eye so did Derry. Doubtless first thing tomorrow the luckless Charles would be put onto the job of finding out just how rich Sir Jake was and, if the answer was satisfactory, just how he could best be talked into investing in the Cinematographic Art.
    It was true that Lucinda knew that Derry was like that and it was also true that her husband had warned her that something like this would be bound to happen if Derry met anybody Downunder with the smell of real money about him, but nevertheless Lucinda had a mental cringe or three before the music struck up and the lights went off and the thing started.


    During the sufficiently long not-interval between Act I, Scene 1, and Act I, Scene 2, Gretchen, Jill, Roberta, Panda and Sir Jake had a loud discussion as to the precise composition of Egeus’s beard. Roberta maintained it was frayed old rope, Jill maintained it was hemp that had never been spun into rope in the first place, and Gretchen maintained it was combed-out old wool unravelled from one of Mac’s old jumpers; in fact she claimed to have seen him wearing the very jumper last winter. Panda thought it was just very bad artificial hair, the beard being made out of a very cheap wig—um, nylon, probably, she thought weakly. Sir Jake at first appeared to support Roberta’s stance only then revealed that ask him, the whole thing was money for old rope.
    During the sufficiently long not-interval between Act I, Scene 2, and Act II, Scene 1, they all agreed that the Bottom was very good. Perhaps it was fortunate that Jill was seated too far away from Derry to be able to mention the word “brown”. Phyllis Harding, for one, would certainly have been deeply embarrassed by it. The more so since, although she did think he was very good, she certainly also thought it was a pity that he was a Maori.


    Act II, Scene 1 of course featured not only Joel’s scene with his fairy but the entire Twilight Procession. By this time, what with the country having very recently gone off Summer Time and the late start, it was dark. However.
    As the procession began to remove itself on Adam’s “‘Well, go thy way; thou shalt not from this grove Til I torment thee for this injury,’” Polly sighed and said: “Wasn’t that lovely?”
    Derry, on her right, dug her in the ribs and hissed, grinning broadly: “Shut up, Adam and Joel have got a scene now!”
    “Not for a while they haven’t,” said Polly drily, as Adam, wrapping his flowing but diaphanous green and silver spangled cloak around him, retired upstage, audience’s left, arms crossed in a brooding silence, and Joel disappeared.
    “Is this an interval?” said Sir Jake hopefully—and loudly.
    “Not really,” replied Polly tranquilly. “Wasn’t it pretty, Phyllis?” she said across him.
    Phyllis was on her host’s left. Several people had concluded this must be because he had the strongest stomach. She agreed enthusiastically.
    Polly then glanced at Adam in his huff and said thoughtfully and not particularly quietly: “I’m glad it’s not me that has to stand there like a birk while this lot get themselves off. Isn’t he good? You’d swear he doesn’t even know there’s a soul here.”
    Derry choked and Sir Jake explained kindly across his spouse: “She’s like that. Cretins think it’s simple-mindedness, of course.”
    “Yes,” the great producer-director agreed humbly.


    “This has gotta be an interval!” said Sir Jake loudly as the spattering of applause after Act II, Scene 2 died uncertainly away and half of the audience, those of independent mind, peered at their programmes in bafflement, lips moving silently, while the other half turned to their companions and said in bewilderment: “I don’t get it: who’s in love with who, now?”
    “Yes,” said Polly in relief, laying her programme down. “—I’m not sure, Gwillim,” she added as the Hardings’ handsome young driver, who had stationed himself at her knee uninvited but apparently welcome, looked up at her for a response to his query, “but the point is the wrong ones are in love with the wrong ones. Only it’ll all get sorted out at the end.”
    “Some of us,” noted Derry drily, “would quite like not to spend the intervening fourteen hours in a state of total mental confusion, however.”
    “I’m sorry: I’m afraid I can’t help you there, Derry,” said Polly politely.
    Gwillim choked and Derry looked at him hard as the floodlights came on over the grandstand and said: “You ever done any acting?”
    “Please! He’s Mister Rawhide Rendezvous himself!” protested Jill, coming up to them shamelessly rubbing her bum. She was down at the far end of the front row, where the armchairs pirated from the S.C.R. petered out and you only got a vinyl-seated tubular-frame chair from a tutorial room.
    “Dumb TV commercial,” explained the gorgeous Gwillim, grinning.
    “‘Raw—hide—Rendez—vous: leather gear... for Him-mmm,’” said Jill sepulchrally.
    “That’s about it: yeah,” he agreed mildly.
    “Crikey, I hope they paid you enough to make up for it,” said Roberta, coming up from her seat somewhere high on the bleachers, shamelessly rubbing her bum.
    “Yeah. Got me through a whole year of varsity,” he replied simply.
    “You’re forgiven, then,” noted Keith, coming up beside his daughter and slinging his arm casually round her shoulders. Roberta ignored him.
    On the other hand, she didn’t shake him off, so it wasn’t all bad, noted Wal as he came up and said: “If this is an interval, didn’t someone mention fizz in the Senior Common Room for us nobs?”
    Maurice got up immediately. “Come on!”
    … “Adam and Joel are excellent,” conceded Polly once she’d got a glass of fizz in her fist and shamelessly shaken off the Registrar onto Oberon’s parents and the luckless Lucinda.
    “Livia’s bloody awful,” noted Maurice detachedly.
    “Looks all right,” said Sir Jake fairly.
    “Mm,” agreed Maurice neutrally.
    Sir Jacob sniggered. Maurice winked.
    “MCPs,” said Polly detachedly.
     Maurice winked again. Sir Jacob sniggered again.
    ... “Love the suit, dear,” said a voice in Lucinda’s ear.
    Jumping a foot, she gasped: “What are you doing here?”
    Joel pouted. “One has no changes in this show, don’t tell me you never noticed that during the dress rehearsal?”
    Lucinda closed her eyes briefly.
    “Alone of the principals, I may add,” he allowed himself to add.
    Lucinda opened her eyes and said: “Crap, Joel, only Adam and Livia have got changes, I stayed awake long enough to notice that.”
    “That is what I mean, why does no-one appreciate me?” he pouted.
    “You were great, Joel,” she said, relenting.
    “Ta, dear. Uh—did Derry—?”
    “Well, don’t quote me, but yes, as far I can make out he seems very impressed by your performance.”
    “Oh, good!” There was a short pause. “And by Adam’s?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then why is he in a confidential huddle with that very beautiful completely unknown Person, dare one ask?”
    Lucinda glanced at Derry and young Gwillim in a huddle. “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past him to cast a very beautiful completely unknown person as Lysander; after all, isn’t he known for that sort of impulse casting? –Do you want a drink?”
    “Not during the performance, darling!” he gasped in horror. “No, only came over to take soundings, must get back.”
    Lucinda grabbed his oak-leaf-frosted, green blouse arm. “Hang on: how’s Adam?”
    “Sitting in the male dressing-room surrounded by rustic hoons and very rude mechanicals, reading Pride and Prejudice!” replied Joel on a rising and somewhat annoyed inflection.
    Lucinda smiled. “Good. Break a proverbial.”
    “Ah toot Al, dear,” he replied impressively, scooting off.
    “What?” muttered Lucinda frantically, shaking her head and bashing one ear.
    “He got it off a Froggy blackfeller Belgian,” explained Jill, coming up to her, grinning. “Shouldn’t there be five thousand fans—uh—fanning round you?”
    “Fawning,” corrected Lucinda thoughtfully. “No, not that eminent, thank God.”
    Jill had spluttered into her fizz. She recovered and said: “What’s the verdict?”
    Lucinda replied immediately: “On a scale of nought to five, Joel five, Adam four point-five, Bottom four, given that he’s an amateur, Livia minus thirty-five. More?”
    Jill grinned. “No. I’ll holler uncle now.”
    Lucinda looked at her curiously. “What’s your verdict?”
    “Same as yours. Except that I’d add minus ninety for each of the lovers, at least Livia’s capable of looking the part!”
    “Quite. Er—my spies inform me that that white satin thing was done a-purpose-like?”—Jill was nodding.—“Cor,” said Lucinda simply.
    “Yes. And note, the pink dress is yet to come!”
    “Couldn’t we just creep off home now?” asked Lucinda sadly.
    Jill eyed her drily. “Adam’s gold outfit is also yet to come.”
    “I’ll stay!” decided Lucinda instantly.
    The two English ladies collapsed in sniggers over their fizz.


    During the sufficiently long not-interval between Act III, Scene 1, and Act III, Scene 2 in another part of the wood, Sir John Harding was observed by his spouse to have fallen asleep. She dug him fiercely in the ribs, glaring furiously.
    Sir John came to with a snort and a gasp. “Eh?” he choked.
    His host leaned past Phyllis and said sympathetically: “Ya missed the flying pedal-car, ole man.” Ignoring Phyllis’s tightened lips.
    “Uh—did I?”
    “Yeah. Never mind; let’s go up and take a squiz at it, eh?” Jake got up.
    Ignoring his spouse’s tightened lips, Sir John allowed himself to be led off across the stage.
    Adam’s bits in another part of the wood during Act III, Scene 2 were generally agreed to have been good. Less generally but with perhaps even more fervour Adam’s spangled green parts were also agreed to have been good. The lovers were so abysmal during their long sequences in this scene that afterwards no-one even mentioned them. Puck was good, though, and his teasing of Demetrius got a lot of laughs, he hardly even had to do rude things with his silver bladder.
    As they were now between acts the front row retired firmly to the S.C.R. again without even consulting its programmes. And Maurice retired to the airport without much regret. Polly’s eyes went interestedly from his slim departing figure to Wallace Briggs’s ugly, crumpled, watchful face but she didn’t say anything.
    After a bit Lucinda came up to her and said very quietly: “Would that rather pleasant basset-hound man with the nice teenage daughter be the one our Livia’s rumoured to be breaking her heart over?”
    “Mm.”
    “I see.”
    “Mm.”


    Livia having fluted without visible emotion: “‘Tell me how it came thith night That I sleeping here was found With these mortalth on the ground,’” she and Adam exeunted, followed by Joel—whose back, one or two of his audience noticed, was visibly expressing relief that that was that over and done with.
    At this point the suffering Ralph Overdale, quite some way away on Polly’s far right and much closer to the Registrar’s party than any sane human being would have desired, was driven to light up one of the cigarillos he’d almost given up.
    It didn’t really need those in the audience who’d been in the quad at the crucial time to point out sadly: “That wasn’t nearly as good as the time Adam did that scene with Georgy.” But they pointed it out anyway. Possibly Bill Michaels was also thinking this, because suddenly a pink spot lit up the artificial bush concealing her. Though that might have been a pure coincidence.
    Then there was a long, long wait.
    Finally Sir Jake said groggily: “Thought this wasn’t an interval?”
    “Theseus must have lost his hat,” suggested Derry, yawning.
    “Egeus has got his foot caught in his beard,” suggested Lucinda.
    “Never mind, Jake, you’ll like the rude mechanicals’ play,” said Polly, patting his knee.
    “Eh? Haven’ they done that?” he said groggily.
    “No, that was only the rehearsal. They do the whole thing, it’s really funny. You’ll see.”
    “Does Nigel wear his donkey’s head?” he asked hopefully.
    “No,” she said calmly.
    “Aw-wuh,” he replied, face falling.
    Of those in his immediate vicinity, possibly young Gwillim, on the grass at Polly’s feet, was naïve enough to take this at face value. As for the rest of them—even Phyllis Harding wasn’t. Demonstrably so: she gave a shriek and smacked his knee, crying: “Isn’t he aw-ful!”
    Down at the far end of the front row Keith Nicholls was sending up a silent prayer of thanks that (a) Ariadne had got a comfortable armchair and that (b) Ariadne had dropped off in it. It wouldn’t be him that would wake her up, that was for sure. She could miss the bloody mechanicals’ play, for him.
    Just as Catherine was leaning across Ariadne and hissing: “What’s happening? This isn’t supposed to be an interval, is it?” there was a winding of horns—more or less—and Theseus and his lot shuffled on, what time the whole scene was lit with a pinkish early-morning glow.
    So possibly Bill’s pink spot on Georgy’s bush had been a genuine coincidence. Or possibly not, of course.
    “They’re doing a lot of—um—scene shifting,” noted Polly in a doubtful voice as several of the rustics staggered on under large, unidentifiable objects lavishly slathered in gold paint.
    “It’s the palace of Theseus again,” explained Derry kindly.
    After a few moment’s blinking at the scene before her Gretchen wondered: “Do you think Mac realized when he vas planning this shindig back last year that ve’d be off Summer Time by now?”
    “Almost—certainly—not!” gasped Jill, going into an agonizing paroxysm.
    Roberta had again descended from her perch high on the bleachers rubbing her bum. “No, he didn’t,” she said with a grin. “Ginny reckons he was ropeable when he found out we’d be off Summer Time; evidently he wrote to the Met. Office complaining about it!”
    Abruptly Wal and Panda Briggs joined Jill in her agony.
    Meantime, the suffering Ralph Overdale was driven to light up another cigarillo.


    Jake laughed helplessly throughout the mechanicals’ play. So did Sir John Harding—though possibly with less understanding of why he was doing so. Further along the front row, so did the Registrar. True, Ralph Overdale had closed his eyes. But even Derry chuckled occasionally and murmured in Lucinda’s ear: “Not bad, eh?”
    In the wings—that was, just inside the stairwell—Joel said: “See? Always goes over well.” And Adam made a face and shrugged.
   … “Blimey O’Reilly: she’s got another dress!” croaked Sir Jake.
    “Ssh,” replied his wife, very mildly.
    He leaned forward. “Ooh!”
    Just inside the stairwell Mac glared at Angie and she replied: “Don’t look at me. I never told the woman to wear her flaming corset with the black dress.”
    Near the end of the front row, Bruce Smith nudged Keith Nicholls. Then they both collapsed in sniggers.
    Lucinda Stuart eyed Livia consideringly. Then she glanced at her host. That was to be expected. Then she eyed the top of young Gwillim’s head. How did kids of that generation react to that sort of display? Well, his eyes were glued to Livia’s propped-up bazoom, so presumably— She looked at her hostess, wondering what she was thinking; but Polly’s mouth was slightly open and her eyes were glued to Adam, diadem sparkling amidst the black chest hair, silver danglers sparkling on the black privates, an’ all. Oh, well, might have expected that, she is that type, thought Lucinda.
    Then her hostess, apparently feeling her guest’s considering eye on her, turned her head unhurriedly. Her face was expressionless, but she winked slowly. Then she turned back to contemplate Adam in all his glory.
    Lucinda sagged in her armchair. Cor. Never thought to meet anything like That out here, she admitted numbly to herself. She didn’t dare glance at Derry: she could feel his glittering eye fixed sardonically on her. Next thing you knew, of course, he’d be taking the whole credit for having discovered Polly Carrano.


    Joel bowed deeply and everyone clapped madly. True, Sir Jake said threateningly in his wife’s ear as he clapped: “This had better bloody well be It;” but his voice was mercifully drowned by the clapping.
    Then the stage went completely dark and everyone gasped a little—and then there was a tremendous shuffling in the dark, the stage lights came on, very limelightish, and the whole cast bowed and bowed, principals at the front holding hands, but very higgledy-piggledy. Well, Adam was between Hippolyta and Demetrius and Livia was between Hermia and Snug. Joel was next to Nigel, but that could possibly have been a coincidence.
    When the applause finally died down the lights went off again. More shuffling in the dark. Then lights again and nobody was on stage at all. There was a moment’s disconcerted silence. Then Theseus, Egeus, Hippolyta and Philostrate came on and bowed and everyone clapped kindly, especially their mums and dads. They exited holding hands in a ragged line.
    A pause.
    “Could yell for the boobs?” said Keith in Bruce’s ear. Bruce collapsed in helpless sniggers.
    Then Puck’s fairy, Ranjit Singh, the boy soprano fairy, the blue tulle alto fairy and Tom Overdale came on and everyone clapped with considerable enthusiasm. The two boys both looked dazed and very tired, one or two older persons in the audience noticed.
    Suddenly the stage went dark again. This time there was a surprized rustling, everyone had expected to have to clap the lovers next. More shuffling. Indeed, extensive shuffling.
    Then the lights came on and all the grotesques were revealed, with Alice and her caterpillar and the Dong with her luminous nose well to the fore, and most of the front row rose to its feet, laughing, and clapped madly, the foreigners and Sir Jake Carrano also cheering uninhibitedly. The bleachers merely clapped madly: for one thing, it wouldn’t have been safe to stand up, and for another thing, New Zealand audiences never stood and cheered. Well, possibly they might have done so—once—for Olivier forty years earlier. Or possibly that was only a rumour. One or two balletomanes might have been found who would maintain they’d once stood and cheered Fonteyn thirty years earlier but that could well have been a rumour, too.
    It took a while for the grotesques to get themselves off again, but Tom, presumably having run upstairs and through the cloisters, conducted his musicians in a vigorous selection as they did so, and one or two of them actually the nous to wave at the audience and bob about a bit rather than just shuffling off.
    More darkness. Ralph Overdale took a very deep breath, but managed to refrain from reaching for his cigarillo case. Or screaming.
    Then it was the lovers and everyone clapped in relief that they could at last get that over with, except of course for their mums and dads, who clapped terrifically hard. The lovers exited looking both relieved and sheepish. More expressive, really, than they had been all night.
    Yet another pause.
    Then the ass’s head peeped coyly round the archway and there was a huge roar of laughter and the audience clapped like crazy and Nigel ambled on, grinning, holding the head out before him, and followed by all his rude mechanicals. More mad  clapping, and Sir Jake stood up and shouted “Bravo!”
    The rude mechanicals all grinned and bowed and there was more applause and several of the more moronic members of the audience—particularly those down near one end of the front row—shouted: “Put the head on!” So Nigel did, and capered a bit to more applause, during which certain persons wondered if this was going to go on all night. But fortunately Nigel had the wit to caper right off and remain off.
    In the wings Mac said evilly: “Don’t fucking well do that again.”
    Nigel replied calmly “I had to: listen to them, I reckon I could take three more bows if I wanted to.”
    “Yes, he could!” squeaked Joel, popping up at his elbow. “Go on, Nigel, darling!”
     Nigel immediately put the head on and dragged Joel onstage. He then backed off and left Joel to it.
    In the wings Adam said before the empurpled Mac could utter: “That was very professional, Nigel.”
    Nigel, emerging ruffled from the head, merely winked at him.
     Mac glared and was silent.
    In the quad the noise had scarcely abated and Adam began to clap, too. So did Nigel. Angie came down the stairs and clapped, too.
    Finally, what with the shouts of “Speech! and “Core!” Joel bowed, held up his hand for silence, and gave his final speech again.
    Delirious applause. Particularly from the fairies, who had all been chased upstairs by Mac, and had made their way through the cloisters and out onto the grass behind Tom’s musicians; and from Nigel, who had gone up the staircase and was hanging out of the middle window to get a better view.
    Mac sighed.
    “Well, isn’t it what you wanted?” demanded Angie indignantly.
    “Yeah,” he admitted, grinning sheepishly.
     There was a short pause.
    “His bit of it, anyway,” he conceded sheepishly.
    There was another short pause.
    “Is she changed YET?” demanded Mac terribly.
    Angie shrugged. “Not when I got out of it, no.”
Mac’s lips tightened. He took a deep breath and pounded up the staircase.
    “Does this palaver always go on at the end of your shows?” asked Angie affably, leaning against the staircase wall as the applause continued.
    “What, the audience clapping Joel?” replied Adam. “Only when Joel’s been in the show, usually.”
    “No!” she choked. “Livia changing her flaming dress!”
    “When she’s given the opportunity to do so by a director who doesn’t know enough to keep his eye on her every second of the time she’s offstage—yes. Or so rumour has it. I must admit I’m lucky enough never to have been in a show with her, myself.” He paused. “Until now.”
     At this the obscure Angela Michaels of Campbell Street, Narrowneck, New Zealand, was driven to demand of the famous Adam McIntyre, Big Overseas Fillum Star: “How in God’s name did you meet her, then?”
    Adam replied simply: “She picked me up at a charity arts ball. It was just after the first episode of her soap had hit the airwaves. The first episode that she was in, I mean.”
    “With the blue negligee,” acknowledged Angie.
    “The see-through blue negligee and the tits: quite. I was very bored, slightly drunk, and rather randy at the time.”
    Angie gulped.
    Perhaps fortunately, Joel came off at that moment, grinning. “Phew!” he said.
    “You were terrific, Joel!” said Angie, beaming at him.
    Joel smiled. “Ta, Angie: glad you liked it,” and Angie suddenly gave him a hug and a kiss.
    “Thanks!” he said with a laugh, kissing her in return.
    “Yes: bloody good, Joel,” agreed Adam, smiling down at him.
    The little man grinned up at him and Adam said: “Oh, what the Hell!”—and enveloped him in a hug, too, and gently kissed his cheek. “Thanks for coming out here with me to semi-tropical semi-paradise, too,” he said with a whimsical smile, releasing him.
    “Don’t mensh, dear!” replied Joel with an attempt at his usual airy style.
    Angie saw with a shock that his shrewd little eyes had filled with tears. She swallowed hard and thought: Oh, dear: poor little man! Unaware that, the nature of acting—not to mention of first nights—being as it was, and the nature of Joel being as it was, Joel was perfectly aware of his own mixture of emotions, the rather complex reasons for them, Angie’s reaction to his reaction, and, indeed, the rather complex reasons for Adam’s actions. Not to mention of the picture they both presented.
    … Polly stopped clapping with a groan.
     Derry had stopped clapping some time since. He looked at her sardonically.
    “Where are they?” she demanded.
    Lucinda leant forward. “Livia’ll be changing her dress.”
    “What?” said Polly blankly.
    “You wait.”
    “It looks as if I’ll have to!”
    Lucinda merely looked bland.
    “One theory is, she forces Adam to take his bow next, then she comes on last,” said Derry thoughtfully.
    “To tumultuous applause,” agreed Lucinda drily.
    “Or in the silence of complete anti-climax,” offered Polly.
    Jake leaned across her. “Could try booing?” he suggested.
    “Or suicide: one of those, yes,” sighed Lucina.
    Derry merely looked bland.
    Off to their right, Ralph had given in entirely and was smoking again. One could only die once, and the sooner the better.
    … “Oof, my hands!” gasped Panda, ceasing to clap, and blowing on them.
    Wal had stopped clapping sometime since. Apparently the audience could work itself into hysterics, they weren’t getting a further glimpse of Oberon and Titania tonight. –Didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry, really, he reflected sourly.
    “Didja like it, sweetheart?” he asked.
    “Ooh, yeah!” beamed Panda with the innocence of not-yet-seventeen.
    Wal smiled and slung his arm across her shoulders. “Good,” he said, forbearing to kiss the top of the washed hedgehog. –The Nicholls girl had lovely clean, shiny hair in a big fat plait. Thanks, Deity.
    “Do you think something’s gone wrong out the back, Dad?” she asked as the audience continued to beat its palms into a lather, occasionally calling for Oberon or Titania, and nothing happened.
    Wal forbore to say No, he thought Livia was changing her dress. It was an effort, though.
    “No; probably just—uh—waiting for the psychological moment,” he said weakly.
Panda accepted this innocently.


    “Pink!” said Jill loudly under cover of the thunderous accolade. “You owe me ten dollars!”
    Gretchen had bet on the white satin job. After all, Livia hadn’t worn that one for long. And it did have the advantage of that strip of lace on the bodice: the half-veiled effect. Well, quarter. Possibly that would only be truly effective in close-up, though. Wishing that that thought had occurred earlier, she directed a scowl at Jill and shouted above the applause: “Okay, I pay you tomorrow, ja?”
    “You betcha!” screamed Jill cheerfully above the racket, clapping like mad.
    Gretchen sighed, and clapped like mad. Well, almost.
    … “Seventeen,” sighed Bruce Smith, as yet another enormous bouquet was lain tenderly at Livia’s feet. Or near them, the flagstones round Livia’s feet were pretty well occupied by now.
    “I bet she ordered most of ’em herself,” said Keith.
    Instead of rubbishing this theory Ariadne agreed: “That would have been a sensible precaution. Can we go now?”
    Further along the front row Sir Jake said hopefully—and not very quietly: “Could push off now?”
    And was immediately rubbished by Polly’s, Derry’s and Lucinda’s informing him there were the speeches, yet.
    “Eh? No!” he objected. “There weren’t any speeches at that thing we saw Adam in in London,” he reminded his wife. “You know: the cheering-on-’is-troops one.”
    “With the funny hat—quite,” she sighed. “That wasn’t a first night, you twit.”
    Jake groaned. After a minute he said foggily: “Well, who makes ’em?”
    “Mac,” said Derry.
    “Gavin Wiley—the Vice-Chancellor,” added Polly.
    “Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all,” contributed Lucinda.
    “Goddit, goddit,” he sighed.
    … “Well, Tom deserves it,” said Polly firmly, clapping hard as Bill shone a pink spot on the musicians and Mac bowed to them from the flags and they all stood up, blinking like musical owls, and bowed.
    “Yes. Pity he didn’t sing a bit more,” grunted Derry, clapping.
    ... “Who the fuck’s he?” muttered Jake.
    “Ssh! The Registrar, you’ve met him!” hissed Polly.
    “Oh.”
    … “Well, who’s this chappie?” hissed Lucinda foggily.
    Polly leaned forward and hissed: “Gavin! The Vice-Chancellor! You’ve met him! And look out, he’ll probably—”
    He did. Bill shone a pink spot on them and Derry and Lucinda, otherwise known as “our distinguished guests”, perforce got up, turned round, and bowed sheepishly.
    When all that was over, for mysterious reasons the audience burst into torrents of applause again and after this had gone on for some time Bill turned all the lights off. There was a collective groan and the audience clapped even harder. Then a single spot came on in the middle of the flags and Adam and Livia, holding hands, ran into it, laughing and bowing—or curtseying.
    After about an aeon the spot went off. Then the house lights came on definitively.
    Sir Jacob immediately got up and went over to Georgy’s bush.
    “No, she’s not,” he reported, coming back. “Wonder when she did pop out, then?”
    Derry had held out wonderfully well until then, as all who knew him would have had to agree. But at this he sat down again, plump, in his armchair and laughed till he cried.
    Jake merely eyed him tolerantly.


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