Merely Players Read Online Free PDF

flinging arms wide as they reached him. He swung each of them around him in turn, clasping them to his chest, feeling the smallness of the torsos beneath the clothes, envying them the spontaneity which would drop away from them for ever as they left their childhood.
    Jane Webster thrust aside the thought that he could have arrived earlier, rather than turning up belatedly for the rituals rather than the substance of love. She waved to him, then clutched a small hand in each of hers. She could have got nanny to take the children to school, but she enjoyed this morning walk, when her small charges confessed their fears and hopes for the day.
    Adam was finishing his breakfast when she returned home. She had planned a discussion about the children and their progress with him, but he said whilst she was still taking her coat off in the hall, ‘I’ve got to go and see Dad this morning. Luke thinks he’s taken a turn for the worse. He’s probably exaggerating, as usual, but I said I’d go.’
    You poor bloody martyr, thought Jane. Aloud, she said as she came into the kitchen, ‘Of course you must go.’
    The actress who had been the slight shape beneath the bedclothes in the scene shot on the previous day was Michelle Davies.
    In earlier scenes, she had caught the flavour of the series excellently, showing a capacity for comedy as well as romantic melodrama. The unwritten subtext beneath the unlikely plots in the Alec Dawson series was that it didn’t take itself too seriously, and Michelle had immediately struck the right notes. She had the looks and the talent to do well on stage and television. So far she had not enjoyed the third and most important thing you needed in an overcrowded profession: luck. Over the eight years since she had left RADA, she had managed to hone her craft by securing regular parts in the theatre. She had been almost continually employed, but it was precarious and not very well paid work.
    Playing opposite Adam Cassidy was her first big break. Anyone who did that was certain to be noticed. With the worldwide appeal of the Alec Dawson series, it was almost like becoming a James Bond girl in an earlier generation. One episode didn’t mean a lot, of course, but the plan now was that she would become Dawson’s regular girlfriend in the next series. Once she had a regular role like that, her fame and her fees would rocket in harness and the offers of stage and film work would pour in. Her agent said so. And whilst Michelle Davies knew that agents always promised jam tomorrow and never gave guarantees, in this case his optimism made good sense.
    The director professed himself pleased with her work; he had assured Michelle that she was part of the producer’s plans for the next series. This morning she had a meeting with that producer and she hoped that he was going to tie things up. Directors lived in the present and dealt with problems day by day, but the producers who provided the human and other resources to set up series had to plan well ahead.
    She hadn’t spoken to James Walton in the four months since he had taken her on to play the part of the damsel in distress in the episode they were currently filming. He was an erect, distinguished man of sixty, which in the ephemeral world of television was very old. He was also one of the few men in the Manchester television centre who wore a suit and tie. Michelle Davies felt a little like a sixth former summoned to an interview with the headmistress as she took a deep breath and knocked at his door.
    Walton had silver hair, keen grey eyes, and a confidence which emanated from age and experience. He stood and asked her to sit down when she came into his office. He would have offered the same courtesy to any woman, whether she was a theatrical dame or the newest recruit being accorded her first small part. He saw Michelle into her chair, then went back to the other side of the desk, sat down, and asked her whether