The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“Yeah,” I replied, kissing him on the cheek and taking a deep breath of his aftershave. It was Bodmin; I recognized the earthy scent.

“How was your first day?” he asked.

“Kidnappings, vampires, shot dead a suspect, lost a witness to a gunman, Goliath tried to have me killed, puncture on the car. Usual shit.”

“A puncture? Really?”

“Not really. I made that bit up. Listen, I’m sorry about yesterday. I think I’m taking my work a bit too seriously.”

“If you weren’t,” agreed Landen with an understanding smile, “I’d really start worrying. Come on, it’s nearly curtain-up.”

He took my arm in a familiar gesture that I liked and led me inside. The theatergoers were chattering noisily, the brightly colored costumes of the unchosen actors in the audience giving a gala flavor to the occasion. I felt the electricity in the air and realized how much I had missed it. We found our seats.

“When was the last time you were here?” I asked when we were comfortable.

“With

you,” replied Landen, standing up and applauding wildly as the curtain opened to a wheezing alarm. I did the same.

A compé¨re in a black cloak with red lining swept onto the stage.

“Welcome, all you Will-loving R3 fans, to the Ritz at Swindon, where tonight (drum roll), for your DELECTATION, for your GRATIFICATION, for your EDIFICATION, for your JOLLIFICATION, for your SHAKESPEARIFICATION, we will perform Will’s Richard III, for the audience, to the audience, BY THE AUDIENCE!”

The crowd cheered and he held up his hands to quieten them.

“But before we start!—Let’s give a big hand to Ralph and Thea Swanavon who are attending for their two hundredth time!!”

The crowd applauded wildly as Ralph and Thea walked on. They were dressed as Richard and Lady Anne and bowed and curtsied to the audience, who threw flowers onto the stage.

“Ralph has played Dick the shit twenty-seven times and Creepy Clarence twelve times; Thea has been Lady Anne thirty-one times and Margaret eight times!”

The audience stamped their feet and whistled.

“So to commemorate their bicentennial, they will be playing opposite each other for the first time!”

They respectively bowed and curtsied once more as the audience applauded and the curtains closed, jammed, opened slightly and closed again.

There was a moment’s pause and then the curtains reopened, revealing Richard at the side of the stage. He limped up and down the boards, eyeing the audience malevolently past a particularly ugly prosthetic nose.

“Ham!” yelled someone at the back.

Richard opened his mouth to speak and the whole audience erupted in unison:

“When is the winter of our discontent?”

“Now,” replied Richard with a cruel smile, “is the winter of our discontent . . .”

A cheer went up to the chandeliers high in the ceiling. The play had begun. Landen and I cheered with them. Richard III was one of those plays that could repeal the law of diminishing returns; it could be enjoyed over and over again.

“. . . made glorious summer by this son of York,” continued Richard, limping to the side of the stage. On the word “ summer” six hundred people placed sunglasses on and looked up at an imaginary sun.

“. . . and all the clouds that lower’d upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean, buried . . .”

“When were our brows bound?” yelled the audience.

“Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,” continued Richard, ignoring them completely. We must have been to this show thirty times and even now I could feel myself mouthing the words with the actor on the stage.

“... to the lascivious pleasing of a lute...” continued Richard, saying “lute” loudly as several other members of the audience gave alternative suggestions.