Rehearsals For Words

10

Rehearsals For Words

    “Can this ever work?” drawled Joel, sprawled on the grass of the upper portion of the quad, lazily watching Mac sweat and scream on the flags below.

     Adam shrugged and pulled his panama further over his eyes.

    “Isn’t thy reputation involved somewhere in here, Iago?” murmured Joel.

    “Possibly. On the other hand, possibly not.”

    Ouch. Joel waited but he didn’t add anything. Ouch again. We were in a foul mood today, weren’t we? Couldn’t have anything to do with the humidity, that was about the same as it had been for the last couple of days: almost bearable. Not quite, but almost. Might have something to do with the fact that it was nearly two p.m. and they hadn’t yet had lunch, of course. Might have something to do with the fact that, Jill having disclosed her Master Plan, he and she had stuck closer than a brother to the luckless Adam and Georgy last night at the Carranos’—including going to, during, and most notably coming home. Might also have had something to do with the fact that Georgy hadn’t seemed to object to this, in fact the minute they’d got home (Joel driving Christopher’s car) she had thanked him politely for the lift—Joel had been staggered but reconfirmed his impression that she was terribly sweet and Too Good For Him—bade them goodnight in a tiny voice, and scampered indoors. Scared off? Had Love’s Young Dream come on too strong? Joel honestly couldn’t figure out when, if so. Hadn’t had a chance at rehearsals all week—Joel having stuck closer than a B. to him, and Jill having turned up all unexpected-like at odd moments to do the same to Georgy—and they hadn’t seen anything of her outside rehearsals apart from giving her the occasional lift home.

    Food for thought, decided Joel. Scared off, or just plain scared? Realized it wouldn’t be sensible? Could you, though, when Love’s Young Dream was—he glanced at the sulky face next to his and sighed—that beautiful? What would it be like, to be that lovely? Joel couldn’t imagine it, though he’d tried a million, million times.

    “What?” said Adam abruptly.

    Joel leapt where he sat. “Uh—nothing.”

    “You were moaning, to use the vernacular, like a cow stuck in a ditch,” retorted Adam acidly. “Something must be up—or was it a hunger pang?”

    “If you must have it,” said Joel crossly—he was very hungry and they’d been sitting up here under Mac’s orders for an interminable period while he screamed at the rude mechanicals—“I was admiring your male bee-yoo-ty and finding it impossible to imagine what it must be like to see that in the mirror every morning.”

    To his astonishment Adam turned scarlet and said: “Balls,” in a shaken voice.

    “Oh, them an’ all, I have no doubt,” sighed Joel.

    There was a short silence.

    “It’s a bloody nuisance, if you must know.”

    “Oh, I’m sure it is, dear boy.”

    “People don’t— Never mind.”

    “But isn’t it lovely, to walk into a room and have ’em all think—uh—well, that you’re lovely?”

    “No.”

    Joel didn’t reply.

    “Well. maybe it was, fifteen or twenty years ago when I was around the age you seem to have regressed to!” said Adam crossly.

    “Mm. Well. judging by the way you treated those two poor girls in rep in Manchester, you were a vain little sod at that age, all right.”

    “What two poor girls?” asked Adam in astonishment.

    “See? You don’t even remember.”

    “I barely remember Manchester, I’m thankful to say: I’ve been trying to get the taste of it out of my mouth ever since. What two girls? And what in God’s name did I do to them?”

    “Treated ’em with ignore, of course. Uh—one was an A.S.M. Fattish, with teef.” Joel curled his upper lip up and displayed his teeth. Adam recoiled. “And I think the other was... uh—some sort of an ingénue, but a very junior ingénue. Long straight blonde hair, face like a ferret.”

    “I’m sorry to fulfil your expectations, Joel, but I have no recollection of these personalities,” said Adam politely.

    “There you are. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Well, you are.”

    “Rubbish!” said a cheery voice from behind them with a laugh in it.—Joel and Adam leapt where they sat.—“‘Beauty is truth, Truth beauty, That is all ye—’”

    “Where the Christ did you come from?” said Adam irritably, glaring.

    “‘—know on earth and all ye need to know,’” finished Jill inexorably. “Over there—see that gap between those two vile teaching blocks where a thin, starving body might just be inserted?” She waved vaguely in its direction. “Leads to the S.C.R. Well, eventually. Where, even though it be full fathom five-—sorry, somehow I’m getting all poetical today—even though it be almost five weeks to the beginning of term, food may be obtained. At a price. We call it lunch, out here in the Anty-podes,” she explained. kindly.

    Joel groaned.

    “Don’t tell-me you’ve been sitting here ever since I last passed this way?” said Jill with a twinkle.

    “Very well, we won’t,” said Adam. “And go—away.”

    “Preferably without mentioning F,O,O,D or anything like it, that isn’t the Choral Symphony you can hear, it’s me tummy rumbling,” said Joel sadly, clutching his flat middle.

    Grinning, Jill strolled off.

    … “I’ve had it,” said Adam sourly, as for the Nth time Mac let out a bellow, rushed, up to a sweating mechanical, and hurled him bodily into position. “Let’s go and get lunch.”

    “Will the Club still be-serving?” asked, Joel  hopefully, looking at his watch.

    “Yes, just, but we can’t go there without someone to sign us in—remember?”

    Joel’s face fell.

    “It’ll have to be the S.C.R.,” said Adam. “At least we’re honorary members of that.”

    “Not that chewy French bread that bends when you try to break it—please, please,” he whispered.

    “Don’t take any. Fill up on salad or something.”

    “I hate grated raw beetroot,” whined Joel.

    “So do I.” Adam stood up and looked down at him sardonically.

    Joel looked up at six-foot-two of male beauty in white linen slacks with positively fab little double straps and weeny gold buckles instead of yer actual belt, plus an azure blue shirt that, if he’d take the sunglasses off for a split second which so far he hadn’t, would reflect the blue of the peepers, plus the white panama, dears, not the cream one, don’t be silly, with the pale blue ribbon. Christ, it was unfair.

    He scrambled to his feet, pouting. “I’m not telling Mac!” he squeaked.

    “I realize that.” Pitching his voice to the back of Wembley Stadium—or at least the far side of the pink-sided Chemistry labs—Adam said: “Mac! Lunch!”

    Mac swung round and bellowed “HEY!” but too late, Adam in his trendy gear, grass-stains and all, and Joel in his very old, but sufficiently baggy, and very soft and comfortable dark green cotton trou and his luverly bright apricot short-sleeved blouse that nobody on set had appreciated, were already halfway to the sliver of daylight between the lecture blocks.

    “I think I’ll wear me earrings tomorrow,” he said glumly.

    “Why? Has your roving fancy alighted on one of the rude mechanicals?” asked Adam rudely.

    Joel winced.

    “Or on one of the rustics?” added Adam, lips twitching.

     Joel shut his eyes for a second.

    “Then why? Pour épater les bourgeois?”

    “I’m not sure what that means, but I think the answer’s yes. No-one’s even noticed me blouse!” he squeaked crossly.

    “Wrong milieu. All those kids in the production wear weird gear all the time without thinking twice about it. And earrings, so I wouldn’t bother: recollect they were all born around the time we were in Manchester,” he added meanly.

     Joel gulped. He did sums on his fingers. “Ugh,” he said.

    “Mm, ugh,” agreed Adam mildly.

     Joel sighed.

    “Are you very bored, darling?” asked Adam with a laugh in his voice.

     —Must be the prospect of food cheering ‘im up, noted Joel sourly. “Uh, no,” he said. “Well, yes. But then did one expect anything else, dear boy?”

    “No. Well, I must say I certainly didn’t expect it to be this humid—or this windy. I went down to the beach first thing, and— Well, it was foully windy.”

    And Georgy wasn’t there, thought Joel. Mm-hm. Aloud he said: “Through here, dear boy. No, HERE!” he said catching his arm and pulling him in the right direction. “Could you even feed yourself if it wasn’t for us little people?” he said crossly.

    “Manifestly not,” replied Adam. He took off his sunglasses—it was very dark and shady where they stood in the lee of several gnarled trees and five hideous lecture blocks—and twinkled at him.

    Joel clapped a hand to his heart and fell back, gasping.

    “Never do that when I’m on with you, or I’ll do something much worse than anything Piggy-Whiskers has ever done,” promised Adam.

    “Darling, it doesn’t matter what I do when I’m on with you, nobody looks at me!” protested Joel, giggling.

    “Shut up.”

    “No, ’s true! By the way, did you bring yer own codpiece, dear boy? Because I don’t think they’ve ever heard of ’em out here.”

    “I’d ask what in God’s name was the connection between those last two remarks,” replied Adam, goggling at him in horror, “only I’m quite sure I don’t want to know! Come on, through here, isn’t it?”

    Since “through here” was an open door under a large notice that said “Senior Common Room” Joel could only nod limply.

    “‘What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here—’” began Joel.

    “Hang on!” screamed Mac.

    Joel sighed heavily.

    “Quince! QUINCE! Over HERE!” shouted Mac, pointing.

    “Um—are you sure?” asked the luckless Quince.

    “No, I’m only directing the thing,” said Mac sweetly, rising from the Windsor chair he’d set on the grassy area just before the flags.

    Gulping, Quince shot into position.

    Mac sat down again. “Start again!” he yelled at Joel.

    “He’ll be in the staircase, of course,” murmured Georgy, cross-legged on the grass at Mac’s side.

    “Shut up,” he said, not looking at her. “NOW!” he screamed at Joel.

    “‘What hempen homespuns have we swagg’ring here—’”

    The humid afternoon wore on. The sun moved mercifully away behind the Victorian Gothic clock tower and eventually the Old Block shaded the upper lawn where those who weren’t actually on drooped, whispered, shuffled, played cards, read their Victoria Holts, or, in the case of both female lovers, rolled up their jeans, rolled up their tee-shirts to almost indecent levels, and sunbathed. Until the sun went off them, when they pulled them down again and took up their Victoria Holts. No, saw Adam, peering, one of them was reading a German textbook. Christ. Must actually be a student.

    At around four o’clock Adam’s Robin turned up and said, grinning: “Hi. You need a lift?”

    “I can’t, thanks all the same, Phil. God knows when Mac’s going to let me get away.”

    “He’ll have to stop soon, Bottom’s got his job,” said Hermia into her Victoria Holt.

    “Mm,” agreed Helena into her German text. “Ugh. What does Schrecklichkeit mean?”

    None of the others knew so Adam drawled: “This show.” They all looked blank so he drawled: “Ghastliness.” They all looked blank so he was forced to add: “It could also describe what Mac’s indulging in but a more accurate word would be Schreckensherrschaft. –Reign of Terror,” he explained drily.

    Phil gave an explosive giggle. The others snickered.

    “SHUT UP!” roared Mac.

    “See?” murmured Adam.

     They all dissolved into giggles.

    “I said SHUT UP!” roared Mac.

    “I’d better go,” decided Phil nervously.

    “See you on Monday, Robin,” said Adam with a grin.

    “Chirp-chirp, hop-hop,” replied Phil, grinning. She cast a nervous look at Mac and scarpered.

    “Isn’t she delightful?” said Adam, forgetting his company. They looked at him blankly.

    “Forget I spoke,” he sighed, lying down flat and placing his panama over his face. He could feel they were all looking at him blankly, though.

    … “‘Come hither, I am hee-ere!’” carolled Joel with a naughty laugh in his voice.

    “Um—um—Nay—um—” responded Demetrius/Tim.

    “‘Nay, then, thou mock’st me,’” prompted Georgy very clearly. Up on the grass, Adam sighed.

    “Sorry,” said Tim in a small voice to Joel. “Um—‘Nay, then, thou mock’st me—’”

    Mac grabbed Georgy’s script and ascertained that she had marked it “Looks round in puzzled way” and shoved it back at her. “We’ll fix that later,” he said in an undervoice.

    “Mm,” she said. “‘Faintness constraineth me!’” she said loudly to Demetrius.

    “Um—oh, yeah. Um—sorry. Faintness um, what was that again, Georgy? –Sorry,” he said to Joel.

    Under his panama Adam took a deep breath.

    … In the shade of the fake Victorian Gothic tower (or staircase) Adam said to his Puck: “‘Welcome, good Robin. Seest thou this sweet sight?’” Joel giggled; Adam choked. Then he recovered himself, sighed and admitted: “‘Her dotage now I do begin to pity—’”

    “Hang on,” said Mac. Adam stopped obligingly but Joel stared at Mac unbelievingly with his mouth open.

    “Did you get that?” Mac said to Bottom, who was reclining on the “grassy bank” at Adam’s right.

    Bottom sat up on his lilo. “Yeah, I geddit!” he said, grinning all over his round, brown face.

    “Ooh, good, he gets it!” said Mac in a very high voice.

    Bottom grinned sheepishly at Adam. “Well, I never know when to break up the lines. I mean, he doesn’t put the directions in, does he?”

    “No, I think Burbage might have worked those out,” agreed Adam.

    Bottom chuckled sheepishly.

    Adam relented and said: “You have to really think about the lines, and—um—sort of put yourself in the position of the person saying them.”

    “It’s known as ac-ting,” murmured Joel to himself.

    Bottom ran his hand through his tousled black curls, grinning. “Yeah. Listen, you know when I have to say all that about hay?”

    “Yes,” agreed Adam. –He’d only just said it, if you’d actually been awake it would have been hard not to know, really.

    “Um—well, do ya reckon I could, um, kind of make a noise like a donkey, there?

    “I would: definitely,” Adam agreed, twinkling at him.

    “Yeah, all right, I will!” he said enthusiastically.

    “I’ve been telling you that for the LAST TWO MONTHS!” bellowed Mac at this point.

    “Yes, but not just there, Mac, you didn’t,” he said.

    Georgy looked at the script. “No, he’s right. –He should have played Malvolio,” he said to Mac.

    “No, he was too young,” said Mac sourly, glaring at him.

    “He’s too young for Bottom, if you want to nit-pick, but he’s going to be a damn good one,” said Adam.

     Bottom couldn’t go red, he was brown over: he was, of course, a Maori—though the legal definition of that in New Zealand was something very extraordinary, and he was in fact something like thirteen eighteenths Maori—which was well within it. He looked as if he was going red under the brown, though, and smiled very shyly at Adam.

    “We’ll run over it together some time, Nigel,” promised Adam. “Um—well, Sunday?”

     Bottom/Nigel gulped convulsively and nodded hard.

    “Where do you live?” asked Adam.

    “Um—Sandringham—only I could come up to your place!” he gasped.

    “Well, I was thinking of a picnic on Sunday: would you like to come? We could have lunch and then run through the lines.”

    “Ace!” he gasped.

    “Am I invited?” asked Joel meekly.

    “You’re not only invited, you’re slated to be Titania,” Adam promised him.

    “Ooh!” he squeaked.

    Nigel looked down at his lilo. “It is a bit hard, pretending you’re in love with a lilo,” he admitted.

    “Especially when Mac tells you to sit on it as well!” said Georgy with a laugh.

    “Yeah!” he choked.

    “Darling Nigel, you may sit on me any time!” vowed Joel.

    Nigel only grinned cheerfully. Apart from his undoubted acting ability he was a very ordinary Third-Year maths student. Mac had no idea when and how Nigel had discovered he could act, but he thanked God standing for it almost daily.

    “Good; we’ll fix up the details later,” Adam decided.

    “Yes, and in the meantime perhaps we could get on with this rehearsal?” suggested Mac acidly.

    “Give me the line, Nunky dear,” replied Adam.

    “Well, prompt!” Mac ordered Georgy angrily.

    Jumping, she gasped: “Um—yes. Um—where do you want to start from, Adam?” Not quite meeting his eye.

    “Um—I think we’d better start again, Mac, it’s bloody hard going all soft and sentimental over a bloody lilo, Nigel’s right: where the fuck is that damned understudy?”

    “If I knew—” began Mac terribly.

    “All right,” said Adam hurriedly. “But couldn’t Georgy do it?”

    Georgy was looking particularly delightful today in her newest and, in Adam’s fervent if unexpressed opinion, totally delicious pale apricot tee-shirt decorated with a scattering of little silver stars. Plus a new pair of jeans, acquired, to Mrs Harris’s astonished indignation, on Monday at lunchtime from a very expensive shop in town: all that money on a pair of jeans?” The top had been almost as dear as the jeans but Mrs Harris, who was definitely not up with the sartorial play, had merely registered that it was yet another tee-shirt. Joel was as fervent an admirer of it as Adam and in fact had dashed off and bought himself a similar one. Pale pink rather than pale apricot, however.

    Georgy was wearing the new tee-shirt tucked very tightly into the new jeans, and it was more than apparent that her breasts were of sufficient size and a lovely shape. Joel hadn’t bothered to remark on this: it was self-evident. And he was quite, quite sure that Adam had noticed it for himself. She was also wearing her lovely hair—Joel had expressed deep envy of that—loose in a great auburn cloud; and tiny silver corkscrews in her ears. If Joel hadn’t long since decided she was incapable of it, he’d have thought she was playing hard-to-get and the gear was designed to drive Adam crazy. Which it rather demonstrably was doing. Well, he very much doubted that the bulge at crotch-level had been for him or Mac, or even the delightful Nigel, at the point some time earlier where Adam had got very close to Georgy in order to check something in the script.

    Georgy meekly came to read the part. Nigel, grinning, got up off his lilo, urged her to sit on it, and then lay down with his head in her lap, declaring: “Ooh, this is nice! You’re much nicer than that old lilo, Georgy!” Adam got on with the scene, apparently unmoved, but to Joel, who’d acted with thousands of actors in all of the moods known to humankind, it was apparent that underneath he was simmering.

    When they got to the part where Oberon had to kneel and touch Titania’s eyes in order to remove the spell Adam stopped and said irritably to his uncle: “Look, she’s got to sit up in a minute. How’s she going to manage with his horrible hairy head in her lap?”

    “We’ll work that out in a minute. Get on with it.”

    Adam’s mouth tightened.

    “‘But first I will—’” began Mac.

    “All right! ‘But first I will release the Fairy Queen,’” he said sulkily.

    “What the fuck was that supposed to be?” shouted Mac.

    “A teacup from Bond Street,” murmured Georgy with her eyes shut.

   Nigel snickered into her crotch. Georgy quite plainly jumped, and swallowed. Joel, watching sardonically, saw Adam’s mouth really tighten. Ouch.

    “All right, I’ll do it again,” he said to his uncle.

    “You’d better,” replied Mac grimly.

    “But first—I will release the Fairy Queen!’” said Adam gaily, with a smile at Puck. He knelt, touched her eyes gently, and said in a low, moved voice that yet would have been audible at the back of Wembley Stadium—and Joel was quite, quite positive that you wouldn’t have heard a pin drop in the entire stadium as he said it:

“‘Be as thou was wont to be;

See as thou was wont to see.

Dian’s bud o’er Cupid’s flower

Hath such force and blessed power.

    “‘Now, my Titania!’” he said more loudly and cheerfully, smiling at her. Then he added the rest of the line in an artfully lowered voice: “‘Wake you, my sweet queen.’” Artful , yes; but Joel would have taken his dying oath that the tremble in his voice on “sweet queen” was involuntary.

    Georgy opened her eyes, sat up groggily, meantime pushing Nigel away gently as if unaware of what she was doing, and said in a little sleepy, wondering voice: “‘My Oberon!’”—clutching at his shirt.

    There was a moment’s tingling silence. Joel would have sworn that bloody Mac was holding his breath and he was damn sure that Nigel, who was frankly gaping at the pair of them, was holding his. The scattering of spectators who’d gathered behind Mac were frozen into immobility.

    Adam’s colour rose. He swallowed, and smiled shakily at her, putting his right arm round her shoulders very gently. The arm was upstage, so it wasn’t blocking the audience’s view of Georgy; but Joel was damned If he could tell whether that had been instinct, or deliberate craft.

    Georgy blinked into his face, smiled and said groggily: “‘What visions have I seen!’” She gave a tiny, dazed laugh, shook herself ever so slightly and said in a wondering voice: “‘Methought I was enamoured of an ass!’” Another tiny incredulous laugh, and she looked pleadingly up into his eyes.

    It was perfectly obvious that they’d been married for only a short while, and that in spite of their series of rows—and in spite of the fact that she was a woman with a mind of her own—Titania was shatteringly in love with him. And half his age. Joel had to swallow. Why—the—CHRIST had bloody Dornford McIntyre ever so much as glanced at that cow Livia Wentworth when he’d had this on his doorstep? True, it might not have been everyone’s picture of the relationship between Titania and Oberon, but given the players’ relative ages, not to say experience, wasn’t it the only possible one? And wholly delightful? Joel experienced, though he didn’t of course realize it at that moment, the surge of incredulous rage that the entire anti-Mac faction on campus had felt at one time or another when Mac did something typically pig-headed and crass.

    Adam put his left, or downstage, hand very gently under Georgy’s chin and smiled at her. Then, without hurry, he removed her hand gently from his shirt, dropped a kiss on it, and said in a teasing voice that was yet very tender: “‘There lies your love!’” –Nodding at Nigel, who hastily closed his eyes.

   Titania—Joel found it was impossible to think of her as Georgy—looked, gasped, squeaked: “‘How came these things to pass?’”—and hid her head in Adam’s shirt. Then she cast a look over her shoulder at Bottom, shuddered again and gasped earnestly, looking up into his face: “‘O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!’” Then she shuddered again and threw herself against his shoulder.

    “‘Silence awhile,’” murmured Adam, stroking her hair gently.

    There was silence, all right. Joel found his eyes were full of tears.

    Adam broke it before it had gone too far—the lad had timing, dears, he had timing, thought Joel on a sour note—and, dropping a kiss on the auburn curls, said with a little laugh in his voice over his right shoulder: “‘Robin—take off his head!’”

    Joel jumped—he’d keep that in, he decided with a part of his mind—and bowed deeply.

    “‘Titania,’” murmured Adam, forcing his left hand under her chin. She looked up at him dazed and smiling, and he said, at first shaken and then rallying, with his sidelong smile: “‘Music call; and strike more dead Than common sleep of all these five the senses.’”

    Titania sat up in his embrace and called with a gurgle in her voice and a suggestion that she was pandering to his whims, but enjoying doing it: “‘Music, ho, music, such as charmeth sleep!’”

    Whew! thought Joel, bustling round to pretend to remove Nigel’s head. And that, dear friends, is how—it should—be done. And much good may it do ya when your lisping Sloane Ranger takes the stage, he thought sourly, glancing at the stunned Mac.

    “Yes,” said Mac, getting up when the scene was over and there was complete silence in the quad—in spite of the little crowd gathered to his rear. “Can you do it like that in the show?” he said to Adam.

    “No,” he replied definitely.

    “It requires two, Mac, dear,” explained Joel slyly. “Two wot can strike sparks off each other.”

    “Yeah!” breathed Nigel, his eyes shining.

    “Shut up,” said Mac briefly, not looking at him.

    “Livia cannot act, has no-one explained this elementary fact to you?” asked Joel, raising his eyebrows very high.

    “I’d as soon try to strike sparks off her as off a lump of tired cheddar,” explained Adam, very acid.

    Georgy was very flushed. She didn’t look at him.

    “You’re supposed to be a professional!” Mac said crossly to his nephew.

    “I’m not a ruddy miracle-worker, though!”

    “No; didn’t you see that foul soapie of hers?” Joel inquired of Mac with deep interest.

    “Chuck ’er out. Put Georgy in instead,” advised Bill Michaels from just behind Mac’s left ear with apparent total seriousness.

    Mac leapt a foot. “What the fuck do you want?”

    “I was crossing the quad on me legit business, when I was attracted by a certain tingling something in the atmosphere, and glancing over here I realized it was yer actual acting. –Didn’t reckernize it straight off, never seen it before round these parts,” he explained.

    “Mm. And so say all of us,” agreed Jill’s voice, very dry indeed. She was, after all, the woman who’d enjoyed the Twelfth Night to the extent of claiming ever since to have slept through it.

    “Yes,” agreed all the spectators.

    Mac swung round angrily. “Look, clear off! This isn’t a free show!” he shouted.

   The small crowd dispersed slowly. Those who were with friends burst into excited discussion the minute they were five yards from Mac.

    “This means you,” Mac said evilly to Michaels and Jill.

    “Nah,” Bill replied: “I’m here to invite Georgy to tea. –Georgy: you wanna come to that Chinese place again Ange tonight?” he called cheerfully.

    “Um—well—yes; thanks, Bill!” she agreed, pinkening.

    “Is it a family party, or may I come, too?” asked Adam immediately.

    “Yeah, if ya like. More the merrier,” said the engineer. “You, too, if ya fancy heap big Chinee fry-up followed by ice cream dumpling in hot batter,” he said to Joel.

    “It sounds delish, darling, but unfortunately I have a previous engagement!” he gasped, eyes on stalks. “Ice cream in batter?”

    “Yes, it’s lovely,” said Georgy, beaming at him.

    Bill strolled onto the flagstones, ignoring the fact that at this precise moment they constituted Mac’s sacred stage. “Yeah: all the kids love ’em. My Barbara ate two, last time; never knew the human stomach could. Well—some other time, eh, Joel? –I’’ll collect two later: half an hour, say,” he added to Georgy and Adam.

    “All right,” she replied in a small voice, not looking at Adam,

    “Lovely!” he agreed with a laugh in his voice. “Is the hot ice cream dumpling mandatory, Bill?”

    “Nah! And at our ages,”—he eyed him sardonically—“thoroughly counter-indicated. Chinee tea, me an’ Ange always have to finish up.”

    “Good,” he said, twinkling at him.

Bill suppressed an urge to tell him he was too pretty by half, said: “See ya!” and ambled under the arch, to disappear up the staircase.

    “Well, come on, if we’ve got half an hour—” began Mac grumpily.

    But Nigel looked at his watch, got up and said: “I can’t, Mac, I’m due at work in an hour and I haven’t had anything to eat all day.”

    “If we belonged to Equity we could probably sue you,” agreed Georgy.

    “Bullshit. –All right, push off! And be here nine on the dot, tomorrow,” he said, to Nigel.

    “I can’t; I told you, I work all day Saturday at the service station,” he said, unmoved.

    “WHAT?” screamed Mac.

    Georgy agreed calmly: “Yes, he did tell us, Mac, I’ve got a note of it.”

    “Never mind, I’ll run him through his part when I see him on Sunday,” murmured Adam. “Hold on a minute, Nigel—” They exchanged phone numbers, and Nigel hurried off.

    “I’ll wait,” said Jill pointedly to her cousin, sitting down on the grass.

    “Where are you going tonight, Joel?” asked Georgy politely.

    “Never MIND where he’s going!” screamed Mac. “—Bugger it,” he muttered, “what’ll we… Look, I know, we’ll do Puck’s scene with the fairy.”

    “Georgy can be the fairy,” said Joel on a resigned note, winking at Georgy.

    “No. I need her,” said Mac grumpily. “That scene goes like ten-day-old porridge, we’ve got to do something about the moves, or something!” He looked round him desperately. His eye fell on—

    “No!” said Jill in alarm.

    “Yes. Get up and get over there and stand where I tell ya,” said Mac, disregarding entirely the facts that Dr Davis did not belong to his department, that as far as anyone knew she couldn’t act, and that in fact she was a reasonably senior person in the university’s pecking order.

    “It is a far, far better thing,” groaned Jill, dragging herself over to the flags. “Haven’t I said that before?” she asked them. Georgy went into a giggling fit. Adam and Joel grinned.

    “GEORGY!” shouted Mac in exasperation.

    Georgy went and sat down meekly by his chair, and picked up her clipboard.

    “We’ll try some moves. Uh—hang on—give her a script, someone. NOT YOURS!” he shouted as Adam gave Jill his.

    Adam retired, looking crushed. He came over to the two of them and said to Georgy: “Where in God’s name is the nearest men’s lavatory?”

    Joel abruptly turned his back on where the footlights would have been if there had been any and hissed in his cousin’s ear: “Can he get it down far enough to piss, though?” They collapsed in sniggers, clutching each other.

    “JOEL!” shouted Mac. “JOEL! Cut that crap out and give her your script!”

    Joel gave Jill his script.

    “Get ON with it!” screamed Mac.

    “Well?” said Adam to the blushing Georgy.

    “Um—I don’t—”

    “Use the women’s. Foot of the staircase in the Old Block,” said Mac briefly, as Joel moved off to take up his position.

    “Isn’t that illegal in New Zealand?” said Adam in alarm.

    “All right, burst, ya flaming twerp,” said his uncle sourly.

    “It’s all right,” said Georgy, looking up at the clock tower. “Everyone will have gone home by now.”

    “You can bail me out of jail if they haven’t!” said Adam with a laugh. “I’m going, I’m going,” he said as Mac glared.

    He hurried off. Georgy stared fixedly at her clipboard, wondering fiercely why every time she saw him, practically, the subject of toilets had to come up. Mac began trying alternative positions for Puck and the fairy. Joel read his lines competently. Jill read hers with no evidence of emotion whatsoever, but she was at least clear and audible.

    “We should have got that Maria to do the fairy,” said Mac glumly at last.

    “Yes.” Georgy got up. “Look, when the fairy comes on—hang on, Jill, over here... Um... It’s a pity she can’t dance,” she said to Mac.

    “No, it isn’t,” said Jill immediately.

    Georgy looked up at the little tower that held the staircase. “Maybe your idea about flying her in would work, Mac.”

    “No way!” said Jill in horror.

    “No, not with Patrick’s bloody contraption up on the balcony, there wouldn’t be room,” said Mac, coming over to Georgy’s side and putting a hand casually on her shoulder. They both stared up at the tower.

    “She could come down the stairs!” said Georgy. “With lights!”

    “Yeah!” he said. They beamed at each other.

    “See,” said Mac, putting his arm round her waist and drawing her into his side: “She appears at the top window, in the spot, and Puck—”

    “Bellows ‘How now, Spirit’, otherwise my voice will be lost,” noted Joel acidly.

    “Michaels’ll pin a mike to yer tits!” gasped Mac.

    “Yes!” gasped Georgy ecstatically.

    “Yeah,” said Mac, still with his arm round her. “Look, get on up there, Jill.”

    Groaning, Jill disappeared. “This one?” she said hopefully from the first window.

    “NO!” shouted Mac.

    Jill disappeared.

    “Not this one?” she said hopefully from the second window.

    “NO! The top one!”

    Georgy giggled.

    “Shut up,” said Mac.

    Jill disappeared.

    “Come on, Jill!” he yelled.

    “Get ON, Davis!” called Georgy crossly when nothing happened.

    Jill’s face looked out cautiously from the top window. “No flying,” she warned.

    “Shut up, and do what I tell ya,” replied Mac genially. He backed away a little, still with his arm around Georgy. “Hey, I think this’ll work!” he said to her.

    “Yes!” she agreed excitedly, beaming up at him. “It’ll look really good with the spot!”

    “Yeah!” He squeezed her into his side. “It’ll ginger up the whole scene! Whew! What a relief!” he said with a laugh.

    “Mm!” beamed Georgy.

    At this point Joel looked round and saw that Adam had come back, and was standing by Mac’s chair, his face white with shock and rage.

    Joel thought limply of saying something about working relationships, and they’d only seen the bad side of it so far but obviously there must be a good side, or Mac wouldn’t have wanted her as his assistant, or— Well, that Georgy was after all the man’s colleague: they must know each other fairly— Or that Mac was old enough to be her grandpa, there was nothing— Though that would have been a lie, Mac’s baggy jeans were old and crumpled but Joel wasn’t blind or naïve : he could see there was something; and what natural man after all wouldn’t— But the moment passed before he could gather his wits sufficiently to utter any of these thoughts, and he picked up his script and turned back to get on with his scene.

    They rehearsed the entire scene with Mac and Georgy standing together on the edge of the flags, his arm round her waist, the pair of them laughing and crying “Yes!” and “Like that! Good!” and so on, right up to the point where Oberon and Titania would come on.

    “Then you come on,” said Mac, turning round and grinning at his nephew.

    “Quite. Complete with Twilight Procession,” said Adam sourly.

    “Yeah. –That was good,” he said to Georgy, grinning. “I think that’ll work, eh? Whaddaya reckon? Even with that pudding of a fairy?”

    “Yes. Oh—no! Mac!” she gasped, looking up and clutching his grimy tee-shirt with the very same little gesture she’d used as Titania—Joel winced.—“What about her wings in the staircase?”

    “Bugger,” he said, staring at her, dumbfounded.

    Joel saw Adam’s knuckles show white on the back of the old Windsor chair.

    Then Jill said cheerfully: “Turn the lights off, and have someone pin them on her just before she comes out from the arch.”

    “That might work,” said Mac, sagging in relief and releasing Georgy.

    “Yes,” agreed Georgy, also sagging in relief.

    “Come on,” he said, putting his arm round her shoulders again and turning her back to the tower.

    Joel didn’t glance at Adam because frankly his courage had failed him. Adam was going to do something dreadful, he felt it in his bones: he didn’t know whether it would be in the direction of bowling Georgy off her feet or bowling some other female off her feet in front of Georgy to show her, and by God he didn’t want to be around when he did it!

    Mac and Georgy inspected the foot of the staircase and conferred in lowered voices. Then he made her pretend to be the fairy and he pretended to be the pinner-on of wings and asked Joel and Jill what they thought.

    “You’re fully visible,” said Jill.

    “Yes,” agreed Joel in a voice that came out hollow/.

    “No! The times!” said Mac with scorn.

    “Oh,” said Jill.

    “Uh—the wing-pinner’ll have to be quick. Um—no, hang on,” said Joel. “If they’ll play my jig, I could always jig a bit until she’s ready.”

    “Ye-ah... that might work,” said Mac. He drew Georgy out under the arch and said to her: “We’ll try it like that, eh? that’s a load off my mind!” he admitted, releasing her and grinning. He withdrew a flag-like handkerchief from his jeans pocket and mopped his forehead. “Wasn’t looking forward to that scene going over like a lead balloon—but I think we’ve cracked it, eh?”

    “Yes. And the wings’ll brighten up the dialogue with Puck,” agreed Georgy, smiling up at him.

    “Yep! Well, might as well pop off, eh?” he said genially. He gave her bum a friendly pat, said generally: “See ya!” to the assembled company, and strolled off in the direction of his carpark.

    “That was miles better!” said Georgy, beaming at Joel.

    “Yes. Um—look, darlings, Jill and I must fly,” he said nervously.

    Jill must have noticed Adam’s face because she said in the voice of one who was trying to pretend her nerve hadn’t failed her: “Yes. We’ll need to have a wash and brush-up when we collect Gretchen—and it’s quite a drive down to Hans and Babs’s place. Um—well, ’bye all!”

    They hurried off.

    Adam and Georgy were alone in the quad.

    He walked very slowly towards her.

    “That’ll work, don’t you think, Adam?” she said eagerly.

    “Yes,” he said in an odd voice, walking right up to her.

    Georgy looked up at him uncertainly. “What’s the matter?”

    Adam’s nostrils flared with distaste. He opened his mouth but at that moment a cheery voice bellowed from the balcony: “OY! Youse fairies! Come on!”

    “It’s Bill,” he said, stepping back with a tiny sigh.

    “Yes. Um—I must go to the Ladies’!” gasped Georgy.

    “Don’t they have lavatories at this Chinese place?”

    “Um—I don’t know.”

    Adam sighed. He looked up at Bill.

    “COME ON!” he roared at them.

    “Georgy has to have a piss!” called Adam.

     Georgy turned brilliant scarlet.

    “That’s okay, come up and use the ones up here, all the sewing dames have pushed off,” said Bill, hanging over the balcony.

    Georgy hurried off to the staircase.

    Adam followed very slowly.

    The engineer was waiting at the top of the stairs for him. The westering sun shone through the cloisters at strange angles from beyond the adjacent buildings and his tousled greying curls were lit up oddly by it.

    “She’s shy as Hell, ya know,” he said mildly.

    “What? Oh, for God’s sake! I refuse to descend to the level of the local euphemisms, Michaels: if the girl has to have a piss, she has to have a piss.”

    Bill shrugged.

    “Goddammit, she can’t be a total innocent, she was reading Ulysses at the beach the other day!” he said angrily.

    Bill merely replied: “Grow up, McIntyre.”

    Adam looked at him angrily.

    “I know at least six jokers that’d be in there like a shot if she gave ’em the slightest sign of encouragement,” said Bill detachedly.

    “Shut—up,” said Adam through his teeth. He went over to the far side of the balcony and leaned on it heavily, looking away from the engineer.

    “Only I’d say,” said Bill on a dubious note, pulling his ear, “that none of them, thick though they undoubtedly are, would be dumb enough to think the way to her heart was by bawling her out for something she never even knew she was doing.”

    Adam looked round, startled.

    “Yeah,” he said drily. “That’s how much of an innocent she is.”

After a moment Adam said in a stifled voice: “Thanks, Bill.”

    “Jay vooz on prie,” he replied in a French that was almost as bad as Joel’s. “You we’re bloody good together in that wee scene. Dunno if it was sex or talent—or a bit of both,” he added with a smile, “but it was damn good.”

    “Livia’s going to be foul,” replied Adam glumly, drooping against the balcony.

    Bill eyed him sardonically. “We’re all lookin’ forward to that tree-menjously,” he assured him. “Come on, shall we join the ladies?”

    Adam accompanied him obediently.

    Bill thought a few muddled Thorts as they went. He was aware that Polly and Jill had both rung Angie up and harangued her on the subject of Georgy and her blessed film star: it had resulted in very loud voices and a very flushed and cross Angie, both times—but nobody had put the hard word on him, personally, to discourage the joker, so he didn’t. Being by no means a stupid or insensitive man, he could see that Georgy might get hurt, but he rather thought that a love affair might do her all the good in the world. Bring her out of her shell, give her a bit of confidence in her effect as a woman—and quite likely ultimately lead to her encouraging any one of the hopefuls who came and sat beside her timidly in the S.C.R. and pointed out interesting bits in Nature or The Guardian—stupid tits. Being a rounded personality himself, what with engineering and Racine (in spite of his awful accent), and his family and his boat—that he’d hardly managed to set foot on these holidays—Bill was rather of the opinion that other personalities could do with a bit of rounding, too.

    And in that category he definitely included Adam McIntyre. Because he could see that the joker, never mind your film stars from the great Offshore, was bloody unsure of himself, not too happy, and frankly more than a bit wet. But so far under Bill’s very eyes whatever it was he felt for Georgy had led him to stand up to his bloody uncle, to bawl out his bloody uncle before a hall full of gawpers, and to settle the hash of a very dangerous-looking dog. Well, okay, some people had a knack with dogs, like that little Vicki kid had pointed out, but— Well, could be a bit more to ’im than met the eye, eh? He’d give a bit of encouragement.

     They reached the Sewing Room and he put a kindly paw on Adam’s shoulder and said: “Look, would you two rather nip off on your own tonight?”

    “I don’t think she would,” said Adam sadly, caught off-guard.

    Bill ignored the fact the joker then went very red. “Okay. But if She”—evidently Angie—“tries to suggest lifts home, I’ll veto it, eh?”

    “Yes—thanks,” said Adam dazedly.

    Bill merely winked and bellowed: “OY! ANGE! You gonna stay in that bog all night?”

    Adam’s lips twitched. “Is ‘bog’ an acceptable euphemism?” he murmured.

    “Nah!” returned the engineer in astonishment. “Ya gotta train ’em: catch ’em when they’re young, and introduce ’em to yer rude mas-kew-line ways slowly! Geddit?” He winked.

    “Yes!” gasped Adam delightedly.

    “When I first knew ’er she never let the word ‘bog’ pass ’er lips—let alone yer actual ‘leak.’ Let alone anything rew-der. Now she comes out with ’em with the best of ’em—never notices she’s doing it!”

    “How—long—does it—take?” gasped Adam.

    Bill rubbed his chin, on which the relative absence of bristle indicated that he at least had planned this evening’s nosh-up. Whatever Angie might believe. “Uh—well, lessee, our Helen’s... Uh—good twenny-five years, I’d say.”

    Adam smiled an odd little smile. “Then I’d better get a move on, hadn’t I?” he murmured.

    Rather fortunately Angie emerged from the bog, toilet, lavatory or Ladies’ at this moment, so Bill didn’t have to reply. For to tell the truth, he couldn’t have, he was pretty well dumbfounded. What did the joker—? Well, he appeared genuine. Only these actor-types, they could more or less come out with anything and make ya— Yeah, well. Wait and see, eh?