THEATRE IS SO IMPORTANT

The large brown envelope was awaiting him when he arrived home just after six, and made him feel even more sorry for himself. It contained the programme of study papers for the Intermediate Examinations and another eighteen months of solid grind.

Looking at the hundreds of hours of work involved, he wondered what it was all for? No one he knew was attempting to qualify. Everyone was swanning around with cars, plenty of money in their pockets, and some very pretty women. Was he stupid to listen to Marcus Rose? After all he hadn’t qualified and had done very well for himself. For the first time since his mother had died two years ago he began to doubt.

His thoughts were interrupted by the telephone ringing.

‘Ian?’ It was Mulholland. ‘What are you up to?’

‘Just the usual, as I have done for the last two and a half years, studying. The Intermediate papers just arrived.’

‘I need a favour, but I’m not sure this will be an improvement.’

‘Anything must be better than,’ he looked down at the first entry on the programme of studies, ‘Advanced Domestic Drainage and Sanitation, paper one.’

Mulholland laughed. ‘There you might just be right. In Camera.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘In Camera, a play by Jean Paul Sartre, opening at the Theatre Royal tonight in front of an invited audience, of which I am meant to be one. Looking at the blurb, it seems to be about a lesbian, a homosexual and a nymphomaniac, who have died and ended up locked in a room in hell for eternity. Good cast though, Constance Cummings, David Knight and Jill Bennett. Anyway, I am stuck out at Rowas Grange Estate with Lady Lundy and her solicitor. It starts with a cocktail party at seven and curtain up is an hour later – I’ll never make it – can you stand in for me?

An extract from chapter fifty one of – ‘ Go Swift and Far – a Tale of Bath’ The first book of The Westcott Chronicles