Playing James Read Online Free PDF Page B

situation. He opens one eye and mumbles, 'Holly, go away.'
    I wander back out to the hall and, in a pathetic bid for attention, pick up the phone. My finger hovers over the first digit of Lizzie's number. Remembering her reaction last time I called so early, I redirect my finger to a different number.
    'Hi, it's me,' I say as my mother answers.
    'Who?'
    'Me, Holly.'
    'Holly, Ho-l-ly.' She plays with the name thoughtfully in an it's-familiar-but-I-just-can't-place-it kind of way. This is my mother's idea of humour and her not very subtle fashion of telling me that I haven't called for a couple of weeks. I impatiently prompt her, 'Your daughter, Holly.'
    'Ohhhh,
that
Holly! How nice of you to call, darling!' Despite being on the other end of the telephone a couple of hundred miles away, I smile at the long, drawling, emphatic tones of someone more accustomed to the West End than the West Country. It's rather like talking to a demented Eliza Doolittle.
    'What's the weather like with you?' I ask while eyeing the rivulets of water streaming down my windows.
    'Ghastly, darling. Absolutely ghastly. All this terribly healthy sea air. I nearly gag every time I take a deep breath. I'm having to smoke twenty a day now just to make up for it. Can you imagine? TWENTY a day. It's going to drive me to an early grave.' Despite her protestations and passionate soliloquies on London smog, I have a fancy that my mother actually enjoys the countryside, but of course she couldn't possibly admit to it.
    'How's the play?' My mother has managed to persuade the entire cast of the latest play she is starring in to start rehearsals down in Cornwall. The director, a long-time friend, agreed only because it stops her causing chaos elsewhere. One of the problems of starting a new play is that she partly assumes the identity of whichever character she's playing. This time it's Lady Bracknell in
The Importance of Being Earnest
. The whole family breathed a collective sigh of relief when the last run of Daphne du Maurier's
My Cousin Rachel
ended.
    'Your father came to the last rehearsal and one of the new actors asked him if he had any advice. He told him to say his lines and not fall over the furniture.'
    'Well, that's quite good advice.'
    'It is, isn't it? How's the delectable Ben?'
    A silly smile comes over my face at the mere mention of him and I wind the telephone flex around my fingers.
    'Oh, he's fine. Really good, in fact. He's still asleep at the moment. How are Dad and Morgan?' Morgan is my mother's Pekinese. He is absolutely ancient and only has two teeth left at the back of his mouth. This is very amusing when he tries to bite other dogs as he has to sort of suck them for a while first.
    'He's a little flatulent.' I sincerely hope she is talking about Morgan and not my father. 'How's work?' she asks.
    'You're talking to the new crime correspondent on the
Bristol Gazette
! It's a kind of promotion, I think!'
    My mother gives a very suitable gasp of admiration and says, That's wonderful!' I grin down the phone. One of the advantages of having an actress for a mother is that you always get a good reaction. 'But what happened to the, er, Possum bloke? Didn't he have the police thing before you?'
    'Pete. Although Possum would have been a better name for him. He got a job with the
Daily Mail
.'
    'Serves him right.' Sometimes my mother's idea of a person's comeuppance doesn't quite tally with my own.
    'Crime correspondent is not a great post.'
    'Darling, you can turn it around. I am sure you will do brilliantly. Shit MacGregor! Stop it, Morgan! OFF! Darling, I have to go. Morgan is on the table eating the Stilton.'
    The only way he would have got on to the table is when she put him there while she answered the phone. I say goodbye.
    'Love to Lizzie!' she says and rings off.

Chapter 3
    O n Monday I try to delay the inevitable by spending the best part of an hour tidying my in-tray, sending e-mails to friends and gassing with the people in accounts. I