Burley Cross Postbox Theft Read Online Free PDF Page B

sure you can imagine, I was absolutely desperate to pursue this line of enquiry still further (I could’ve followed it to the ends of the earth, quite frankly!) but I was suddenly overwhelmed by a strong – almost violent – urge to find out something
even more pressing
, i.e.: DID TAMMY THORNDYKE KNOW YET???
    I just yelled it at them. I just screamed it. I lost all sense of self-control.
    ‘DOES SHE KNOW?! DOES TAMMY KNOW
?!’
    (Then I got rather short of breath and started to cough, and had to rummage around in my bag for my asthma inhaler.)
    ‘Nobody knows,’ Meredith snapped. ‘I really didn’t want to tell anyone until we’d sorted out the finer details of his contract.’
    (Good heavens, Jess!
Get her
! What a terrible, old sourpuss!)
    At this point Sebastian butted in again and startedcongratulating Meredith on how she conducted the night’s warm-up. He said, ‘I always find the trust exercises you use so extraordinarily
liberating
, Meredith. And it’s not just the exercises themselves, it’s how you
approach
them, how you
time
them. So much skill! Such finesse! In fact I rarely finish one of your sessions without feeling this wild
surge
of emotion. I often get quite tearful! It’s rather embarrassing! They’re just so… so potent, so “connecting,” so… so empowering.’ (Well, it’s no great mystery how
he
managed to wrangle himself The Disciple Jesus Loved Best, then!)
    Of course
I
wasn’t going to be outdone (even if I
don’t
currently have a speaking role!). I heartily agreed with him. I said, ‘When Tom Augustine touched my forehead and whispered, “You are alive, Emily! You are utterly free! Take your freedom, now, and celebrate the world with it!” I honestly thought I was going to
wet
myself! His hand was so cold! It was like being prodded by a frozen chicken leg!’ (In fact I seriously thought I
had
wet myself, Jess. That’s why I seemed so distracted when you were asking me whether the wigs were still kept on the top of the prop box.)
    I then went on to say how I thought the improvisational exercises tonight had been
absolutely priceless
(weren’t they, though?!)! I said, ‘My favourite moment was when Arthur Wolf was “being an egg”, Sally Trident broke him into a frying-pan and then Jess [you!] yelled, “Oh
no!
Look! You’ve gone and broken his yolk!”’ (I mean that
was
hilarious!
And
utterly spontaneous, to boot!)
    I’d barely finished speaking when Seb turned and delivered me THE MOST
FILTHY
LOOK!!!
    ‘Yes,’ he says, snidely, ‘Jess is
quite
the little comedian!’
    (?!?!?)
    With the benefit of hindsight, Jess, I think you were
right
to be suspicious of him. I think he
does
have it in for you. And it’s not only because you aren’t officially ‘one of us’, i.e. not currently resident in the village, but because he’s jealous ofyour talent – pure and simple! He’s still stewing over the fact that your audition for Angel of the Lord went down so well. People were talking about it for weeks! Pammy Stevens got palpitations! The way you worked with the light towards the end – turned to face it, dumbly,
questingly
, then extended out your arms and slowly, dramatically, dropped your chin on to your chest…
    Beautiful!
    There was such an incredible atmosphere – you could’ve heard a
pin
drop in that hall.
    WHY MEREDITH DIDN’T GIVE YOU THE ROLE
I WILL NEVER, NEVER UNDERSTAND!!
    I mean all that hogwash she came up with afterwards about the cast ‘not being about individual egos, only about The Collective Will’, and ‘really needing to find the right kind of balance’ (it’s an amateur production of
The Passion
, Jess, not a Soviet-era-style, group gymnastics display)! And that interminable speech about things being ‘real’, and then ‘moving into fast-forward’, and then ‘suddenly becoming hyper-real’ – but ‘not acting,
never
acting’, just ‘being’, just ‘believing in the moment’, just ‘cherishing the moment’, just