‘You can cook?’ I teased. ‘This I must sample!’
Josh grinned. ‘Bit of an exaggeration,’ he admitted. ‘But I’m very good at ordering tasty takeaways.’
‘That’s more like it . . .’ I began, but he silenced me with another kiss, and I thought that it really was not Josh’s culinary talents I was interested in!
Now, as I tried to concentrate on making some sense out of the tangled bits of information I’d gleaned so far, it occurred to me how things had changed. Not much more than a week ago I’d been trapped in a moribund relationship that was in even worse shape than I’d realized at the time, and bored out of my mind by enforced inactivity. Now I was fully occupied, but actually having to force myself to concentrate on Dawn Burridge’s romantic involvements because my mind was wandering to my own very promising budding relationship!
That evening I set out in Dad’s car for Stoke Compton, and once again I was lucky enough to find a parking space close to the town hall. I wondered if I’d spot Lewis Crighton and Sarah again, but tonight the upper windows of Compton Properties were all in darkness.
I made my way via the lift to the upper room in the town hall where the players met, and some of them greeted me like an old friend while others ignored me. John, the director, was quite cool – he’d realized I was no budding Emma Thompson, I supposed. Once again ‘gorgeous George’ failed to put in an appearance, and Bella Crighton was missing too. The meeting took much the same form as before, though tonight we were reading Blithe Spirit. And when proceedings drew to a close, Delyth once again invited me to join some of the members for a drink at the Feathers, and this time I accepted, having warned Mum I might be a bit late home.
The Feathers had none of the cosy comfort of the inns I’d been visiting with Josh. It was a typical town-centre pub, rather shabby, with ring-marked tables, tatty cardboard beer mats and a large screen television mounted on the wall that was, mercifully, not turned on tonight. The walls were hung with faded, ancient prints and discoloured by years of cigarette smoke in the days before the ban, the chairs were slightly wonky and the floor covered in a threadbare carpet. The members of the group didn’t seem unduly bothered, though – as their local, they probably no longer noticed how run down the place was, and they took all the liberties of regulars, pushing tables together so that we could sit in one big circle.
Everyone seemed to be buying and paying for their own drinks – a long-established ritual to avoid big rounds, I imagined – but I insisted on buying one for Delyth. She really had been very nice to me. I sat between her and the girl whose perpetual uniform seemed to be a fun fur and leggings and who, I discovered, was Amanda Fricker, the girl whom Dawn had usurped as principal girl in the annual pantomime.
At first the conversation was dominated by discussion about the relative values of the plays we’d been reading, and how they might be cast. George’s name came up. ‘He’s not here, though, is he?’ someone said.
‘He’ll come out of the woodwork if there’s a good part on offer,’ someone else remarked.
‘I’ve heard a lot about George,’ I ventured. ‘He’s very good, isn’t he?’
Delyth nodded. ‘He won best actor in the one-act festival a couple of years ago.’
‘And brought Dawn back as well as the cup.’ Amanda’s tone was unpleasant. ‘It didn’t last long, though, did it? Dawn was never going to be satisfied with someone who couldn’t afford to keep her in the manner she thought she deserved.’
There was a small embarrassed silence. Then: ‘Don’t let’s go into all that again,’ Delyth said. ‘Especially not now poor Dawn’s not here to defend herself.’
Amanda snorted. ‘What’s to defend? No man was safe with her around. She even worked her wiles on John, getting him to cast her in all the best parts. And the trouble she caused between Bella and Lewis . . .’
‘I don’t think Lewis was entirely blameless,’ Delyth said. Her cheeks had turned a little pink. ‘And John cast her because she was good.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘She was good! And honestly, Amanda, this is the sort of talk that’s driving George away. You know how much he thought of Dawn, even after . . .’ She broke off. ‘Anyway, I don’t like to hear you speak ill of the dead.’
‘Let’s change the subject,’ one of the others said. ‘Or George isn’t the only one we’ll be driving away.’ She winked at me, and I smiled back, but my mind was busy.