‘Certainly.’
‘I’ll keep it behind the bar till someone claims it.’ And the landlord drifted away, ready to offer the necklace to other groups.
‘Let me know if anyone does claim it,’ Elizaveta called after him. Then she turned back to her coterie. ‘A rather amusing story about jewellery came out of the production of When We Are Married that Freddie and I did. You see, there was someone in the cast who—’
But she was cut off in mid-anecdote by the appearance in their little group of a tall, balding man dressed in black jeans, black shirt and a black leather blouson. In his wake came a pretty but nervous-looking red-haired woman in her forties wearing grey leggings under a heavy off-white jumper.
‘Elizaveta,’ said the man. ‘Lovely reading, as ever. You too, Storm, great stuff.’
‘I am duly honoured.’ Freddie Dalrymple’s widow made a little mock-curtsey. ‘To have a compliment from the great George Bernard Shaw expert.’
Jude had recognized the man from Storm’s description before introductions were made, and he did indeed prove to be Neville Prideaux.
The woman identified herself as ‘Hester Winstone’. She had a glass of orange juice, Neville was drinking red wine.
‘And what part are you playing in The Devil’s Disciple?’ asked Jude.
‘Oh, nothing,’ the woman replied dismissively. ‘I’m not important. I’m just the prompter.’
‘I’ve seen amateur productions where the prompter has been extremely important. In fact, sometimes I’ve heard more of the prompter than I have of the actors.’
‘Well, that’s not the kind of production you’ll ever see from SADOS,’ said Elizaveta cuttingly.
Jude felt suitably reprimanded. She grinned at Hester Winstone and was rewarded by a little flicker of a smile. But the prompter seemed ill at ease, not quite included in the circle of thespians, but still for some reason needing to be there.
At the arrival of the newcomers, Jude noted that Ritchie Good had detached himself from the circle around Elizaveta Dalrymple and drifted off to chat to another group. She wondered if she was witnessing some masculine territorial ritual. Had Neville Prideaux’s appearance threatened Ritchie Good’s position as alpha male?
‘Well,’ Neville said, ‘I hope this afternoon’s reading has convinced everyone I was right to champion The Devil’s Disciple … against considerable opposition.’
The way he looked at Elizaveta Dalrymple as he said this suggested that at least some of that opposition had come from her.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I think SADOS will probably get away with it.’
‘We’ll do more than get away with it. It’s a very fine play.’
Elizaveta twisted her mouth into a little moue of disagreement. ‘I can’t help remembering that Freddie always described Shaw as “a left-wing windbag”.’ Her coterie awarded this a little titter.
‘But,’ Neville objected, ‘we agreed at the Play Selection Committee Meeting that SADOS ought to be doing more challenging work.’
‘I’m not arguing with that, Neville love. When Freddie founded the Society, he was determined that we should present material that was “at the forefront of contemporary theatre”.’
‘And yet it ended up, like every other amdram in the country, doing the usual round of light West End comedies and Agatha Christies.’
‘No, I don’t think that’s fair, Neville.’ Clearly nothing that contained the mildest criticism of the hallowed Freddie Dalrymple was fair. Jude also got the impression that Neville and Elizaveta were reanimating an argument which they had visited many times before. ‘We have done some very contemporary material,’ Elizaveta went on. ‘When we did Shirley Valentine, that was quite ground-breaking for Smalting – I mean, doing a play based in Liverpool.’
And also one with a socking great part for you in it, thought Jude. The idea of Elizaveta Dalrymple using her ‘very good ear’ for accents to tackle Scouse was engagingly incongruous.
‘I also still think,’ the grande dame continued, ‘that this time round we should have done Driving Miss Daisy.’
And who might have played Miss Daisy? Jude asked herself.
‘I mean, that’s a play that really tackles serious issues.’
‘So does The Devil’s Disciple,’ insisted Neville Prideaux.
‘But Driving Miss Daisy’s about racial prejudice – anti-Semitism, colour prejudice.’
‘Whereas The Devil’s Disciple is about nothing less than the conflict between Good and Evil. It’s also about honour and honesty and bravery and religion and the entire business of being a human being. Anyway, Elizaveta, the other big argument against doing Driving Miss Daisy is: where on earth are you going to find a black man in Smalting to play the chauffeur?’
Jude had been aware for a while that Hester Winstone had been trying to attract Neville’s attention, and at this moment she interrupted the argument. Looking at her watch, she said, ‘Sorry, Neville, I’ve got to be going.’
‘Fine,’ he said, without even looking at her. ‘See you at the next rehearsal.’
The prompter detached herself from the group. She still looked nervous and unhappy. The next time Jude looked, Hester Winstone was no longer in the pub.
‘Well, anyway,’ said Elizaveta Dalrymple, as if putting an end to the topic, ‘The Devil’s Disciple is the play we’re doing and I’m sure the production will be well up to SADOS’s high standards.’ She vouchsafed a smile to Davina Vere Smith, as if bestowing her blessing on the enterprise. ‘I just wonder, though, how many people in Smalting will want to buy tickets …?’
‘… and, you see,’ Gordon Blaine was still going on to Carole, ‘I’ve worked out a rather cunning way of doing the gallows at the end of the play.’
She looked in desperation around the bar, but saw no prospects of imminent rescue. Jude was still in the middle of the group around the melodramatic old woman with dyed black hair. Ritchie Good, the tall man who had chatted up Jude, was by the pub door in whispered conversation with a red-haired woman who looked as if she was about to leave.
There was no escape as Gordon continued, ‘It’s important that it looks authentic, but it’s also important that the structure would pass a Health and Safety inspection. And Dick Dudgeon has to have the noose actually around his neck so it looks like he’s really about to be hanged, so what I’m going to do is to have a break in the noose where the two ends are only joined by Velcro and then the—’
‘Oh God,’ said a languid approaching voice, ‘is Gordon boring you with his technical wizardry?’
The words so exactly mirrored Carole Seddon’s thoughts that she couldn’t help smiling at their speaker. Even though it was Ritchie Good.
‘Carole was actually very interested in what I was saying,’ said Gordon Blaine defensively.
‘Yes, yes, it was fascinating,’ she lied.
‘Anyway, I’ve got things to get on with.’ And with that huffy farewell, Gordon moved away from them.
‘Looked like you needed rescuing,’ said Ritchie.
‘Thank you very much.’
‘And sorry, in all those introductions I didn’t get your name …?’
‘Carole.’
‘Ah. Right.’ It never occurred to him that she hadn’t taken in his name. ‘So …’ He took Carole’s hand in both of his and said, ‘Where have you been hiding all my life?’
FOUR
Having not wanted to go to the Cricketers in the first place, Carole found that an hour and a quarter had passed before she finally managed to extricate Jude and leave the place. Their departure was now quite urgent. In little more than half an hour Carole’s saga of convents and placentas would be starting.