Chasing Men Read Online Free PDF Page B

then.’ Hetty felt inordinately relieved. Tea was duly made, Earl Grey,and served quite respectably in a teapot, with almond biscuits on a doily on a plate. ‘Tell me about yourself,’ Hetty invited. ‘What do you do?’
    ‘I’m an actor. With the Old Vic company. We go into rehearsals next week for the Pinter revival.’ His chest swelled with pride. ‘That’s why I’m home at the moment, but once we get cracking it’s a fourteen-hour day. Exhausting.’ He rolled his exquisite eyes and puffed out his cheeks.
    ‘And do you live here alone?’ Hetty could not recall what else Mrs A had said, but this was a tactful way to find out more.
    ‘No, with my partner. We’ve been together five years.’
    ‘Ah.’ Hetty was cross with herself for feeling disappointed. She was not about to fall in love, and certainly not with someone who could not recall Abba first time round, but it did no harm to admire beauty and to take vicarious pleasure in it. Friends were to be garnered where they could be found. She and Stephen had enjoyed going to the theatre, but despite her early BBC experience, no current actors or theatricals were among their acquaintance. This was something new, and to be savoured.
    ‘Is your partner an actress too?’
    ‘Actor, not actress. They hate being called actresses. That’s what women were called in the days when stage-door johnnies were also part of the scene.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Hetty simpered. ‘Aren’t they still? Don’t men still hang about the stage door waiting for their favourites?’
    Christian chuckled in a knowing way. ‘They do, Mrs Clarkson, but they’re just as likely to be waiting for the male lead.’
    ‘Oh!’
    He put his head to one side. ‘Is that a problem, Mrs Clarkson?’
    ‘Call me Hetty.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Well, I have to admit, I don’t know any … homosexuals. I did, years ago – must have, I suppose. And there were a couple of teachers living together in a cottage in the village. But one didn’t mix with them.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘I’d have thought that would be obvious. One worries about people like that being teachers, for a start. Apart from anything else, I have a teenage son. And my husband had views on the matter. We wouldn’t have wanted anybody’s feelings to be hurt. It was a small village.’
    ‘You don’t think maybe their feelings were hurt at being left out?’
    ‘No, why should they have been? They had their own circle. I imagine.’ Hetty halted, uncertain. ‘Where’s this conversation going, Christian? Are you a campaigner, or something? I know there are lots of gays in your profession – is that it?’
    ‘Thank you for the tea,’ the boy said, and stood up, though with no indication of hurry.
    Hetty rose hastily. ‘Have I upset you? I’m sorry. I thought –’
    ‘No, Hetty, you didn’t think. I’m an actor, and my partner is not. He’s a senior producer, quite well known.’
    ‘He? But you said she –’
    ‘I said nothing of the sort. We’re gay, Mrs Clarkson. Both of us. And your son would have been perfectly safe in our company. Now I must go.’
     
    It was an incident she did not feel she could share with her mother, or with Sally. But living in such close proximity – she could not avoid seeing Christian on the stairs, and realised that the older, greyer man who had nodded at her vaguely on the front path was probably his partner – she would have to find a way to make amends. The discussion, her stupidity and unthinking rudeness, made her go hot every time the words came back into her mind. She felt tortured by them for the rest of the day.
    Eventually she wrote a note, the first on her new notepaper. ‘Christian, I am sorry if I was rude. I didn’t know, but that’s no excuse. Hope you’ll forgive me. I’d like to meet your partner, if that’s okay with you both – sorry, I don’t know his name. What would you like – a glass of wine, maybe? Hetty.’ Then she scribbled underneath, ‘Don’t