‘Oh, she’s there?’ said Elizaveta. ‘I didn’t realize you two cohabited.’
‘No, we don’t. We—’
‘Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.’
Jude suppressed a giggle. It wasn’t the moment to put Elizaveta right, to say no, in fact she and Carole were not a lesbian couple. She wondered whether the misapprehension would lead to interesting misunderstandings on the Saturday night. That is, assuming Carole was free.
Jude looked across at her neighbour and said that they were being invited for ‘drinkies’ at Elizaveta Dalrymple’s. And was able to relay the glad news to their hostess that Carole Seddon would be able to come too.
‘Interesting,’ said Carole when Jude had put the phone down.
‘I agree.’
‘Neville Prideaux told me that these “drinkies” sessions of Elizaveta’s have been going on for years. Something she started when the much-adored Freddie was around. He described them as part of her “power base”.’
‘So why have we been invited?’
‘Well, Jude, I’m sure it’s not just for the charm of our personalities. According to Neville, Elizaveta Dalrymple always has an ulterior motive.’
‘So we just have to find out what it is.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Carole. ‘We do.’
They were both at rehearsal on the Thursday evening and, as agreed, they kept a watching brief on Davina Vere Smith. It was undeniable that since the death of Ritchie Good she had relaxed considerably in her directorial role. And she enjoyed having Olly Pinto as a punchbag.
He still wasn’t on top of Dick Dudgeon’s lines, so Carole was once again kept busy as prompter. And the further he got into rehearsal for his leading role, the more clearly his inadequacies as an actor were exposed. He just didn’t convince on stage. While he should have been projecting the sardonic insouciance of Shaw’s anti-hero, he looked insecure, uncertain not only about his lines but also in his whole demeanour.
Increasingly Carole wondered if what Neville Prideaux had suggested might be right. That, in spite of her boycott, Elizaveta Dalrymple had encouraged Olly to take part because she knew he would ruin the production.
There was one confrontation during that evening’s rehearsal which caused Carole and Jude to exchange covert looks. Davina Vere Smith was working on a scene in Act Two, the first time Dick Dudgeon and Judith Anderson are left alone together. Storm Lavelle, who by then had her words indelibly fixed on the interior of her cranium, was being very patient as Olly Pinto stumbled and paraphrased, as ever. And even when he got the lines right, he managed to get the intonations wrong.
Each time they had to go back on the scene, the tension in Davina increased. Eventfully, she could stand it no more and burst out, ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Olly! Don’t you have any idea of the basics of acting?’
‘Yes, of course I do. I’m just used to working with more sympathetic directors.’
‘Oh, are you? Well, let me tell you, I can be a very sympathetic director when the talent of the people involved justifies my sympathy. Come back, Ritchie Good – all is forgiven!’
‘You weren’t sympathetic to Ritchie,’ objected Olly. ‘You were just afraid of him.’
‘I was certainly not afraid of him.’
‘Yes, you were. You never argued with him. Whatever he suggested, whatever he wanted to do, you just went along with it.’
‘That was because I trusted him. Because I’d worked with him many times before on other productions and I respected his instincts. I knew he was a good actor, and it was worth putting up with a few disadvantages – like his ego, for instance – because a really good performance would emerge at the end of the process. Why else do you think I put such effort into persuading him to be in the production?’
It was at this moment that Carole and Jude exchanged looks. Somehow they’d both thought that Ritchie Good had been foisted on to Davina Vere Smith by the power brokers of SADOS. But if it was she who had brought him into the Devil’s Disciple company, that rather changed their views on the situation.
The last thing Davina would have wanted would be to lose her original Dick Dudgeon.
Jude had a call the following morning from a friend she hadn’t heard anything of for a long time. They had first met when Isabel, known universally as ‘Belle’, worked as a nurse in one of the big London hospitals. It had been on a course about healing. Belle, increasingly disillusioned by the shortcomings and iniquities of the NHS, had a growing interest in alternative therapies, but she found there was still a scepticism about them amongst the more traditional medical practitioners. Her ambition was to see the alternative integrated with the professional.
The two women had seen a lot of each other when, both between marriages, they had lived in London, but since Jude had moved to Fethering their contact had reduced to the occasional phone call. So when Belle rang on that Friday morning in April they had a lot of catching up to do.
They checked up first on each other’s love lives. Both were currently unattached, Belle’s second marriage having come to ‘as sticky an end as the first one – God, men are bastards’. She asked whether her friend had had any recent ‘skirmishes’ but, normally very open to her intimates about such matters, Jude didn’t mention her recent involvement with a real tennis enthusiast called Piers Targett. Even though months had passed since she had last seen him, it still hurt.
‘Anyway, what about work?’ she asked.
‘Big changes,’ said Belle. ‘I’ve left the NHS.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, it was just getting so dispiriting. They kept bringing in new schedules. I wasn’t being allowed to spend the kind of time with patients that I wanted to. I was leaving every shift feeling totally frustrated by the fact that I hadn’t achieved as much as I wanted to.
‘Anyway, the one good thing that came out of my second divorce was that I got a bit of money from the bastard. Not much, but enough for me to take some time out from being employed, so I gave in my notice at the hospital.’
‘Not early retirement?’
‘God, no.’ Belle was about the same age as Jude. ‘I like to think I’ve got a few more useful years in me. But I took the opportunity to do a couple of courses. Like the healing one when we first met, though I’ve decided I haven’t really got what it takes to be a healer.’
‘I thought you were very good.’
‘I was OK, but I hadn’t got the magic. Not like you have.’
Jude did not demur at the compliment. She knew, when it came to healing, she was blessed with a gift, and she was no believer in false modesty.
‘So,’ Belle went on, ‘I thought I should concentrate on a more practical kind of therapy. I did a course in reflexology, which I found very interesting, but I still didn’t think it was quite for me. And then I did a course in kinesiology.’
Whereas when Storm Lavelle talked about going on courses, Jude suspected a level of faddishness in her, she never doubted the complete seriousness of Belle.
‘Funny you should mention that. I’m getting very interested in kinesiology,’ she said. ‘Been reading up about it. I think it really works.’
‘Me too.’ The enthusiasm grew in Belle’s voice. ‘No, the further I got into the subject, the more I realized it fitted me like a glove.’
‘So have you put a shingle on your door and set up on your own as a kinesiologist?’
‘No, I’m not quite ready for that yet. And when my money from the bastard ran out, I needed a regular income, so I got another nursing job.’
‘Not back in the NHS?’
‘By no means. Private sector. In a convalescent home. I’ve been there for five months. And I’ve been intending to ring you all that time, but I’ve got waylaid by, you know, starting the job, and getting my new house – well, old house but new to me – vaguely habitable. But the reason I wanted to ring you is that we’re practically neighbours.’