We started whispering, even though we were alone in my flat.
‘Peregrine Sands,’ she said.
‘The critic?’
‘Yeah, him.’
This was interesting news. Peregrine Sands, the man for whom the phrase ‘coruscating wit’ seemed to have been invented. The man all those called by the dramatic muse feared and courted in equal measure. The man who could shut your play in a day or power you to your thousandth performance.
Oh yes. Interesting news indeed.
‘And does he … pay?’ I asked, delicately.
‘I don’t think he’s ever met any of the girls outside the club. But he likes what goes on inside it. He likes it very much.’
‘I guess he’d give it a rave review.’
‘Hell, yes, honey, five stars.’
I had just placed my entry for the competition. Initially, I’d been considering something modish and stark, but now my choice seemed clear. I’d go retro. Spanktastically so.
Still, there was no guarantee that my cunning plan would pay off. Certain of Peregrine Sands’ switches might be tripped by a good old spanking scene, but I didn’t know that his critical faculties would follow suit, and we had some stiff competition out there.
I watched the stiff competition parade across the stage in sequence, including Denny and Roger and our guys singing ‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’. I had chosen not to perform tonight.
Finally, the last spangle-clad butt waggled offstage and we all waited, breath bated, for the master of ceremonies to make his grand entrance.
I could never quite decide whether or not I fancied him. He was attractive in a pale, wasted sort of way. There was a languor about him that I think he affected in order to disguise his venomous core.
He took to the stage, commanding it without doing anything at all – an enviable talent – and stood at the lectern, waiting for pin-drop hush before launching into a lecture.
His words of appreciation on the subject of am-dram were pithy and scintillating and I felt quite touched that he didn’t save his best lines for the professionals and give us some of his second-rate stuff.
A couple of times, he glanced towards me, eyes flashing like silver blades, piercing my abdomen and spreading a pool of warmth inside.
By the time he made the announcement, I had decided. I did fancy him. Quite a lot. I especially fancied his voice, which was clipped and authoritative, in the manner of a 1950s Movietone News broadcast. It pleased me that people still talked like that. It pleased me even more to imagine him calling me a very bad girl in those tones.
He didn’t call me a very bad girl, though. He called me a winner.
We had won.
The applause caught me by surprise and for a moment I couldn’t stand up, my knees seeming to have deserted my legs.
I went up to the stage and stood in his orbit, accepting the statuette and the envelope containing a cheque for ten thousand pounds to put towards our drama club funds. I shook his hand and thanked him profusely and made a silly speech full of names and the word ‘lovely’, but I didn’t once look him full in the face.
Then I was back at my table and he wasn’t there any more.
It had worked. My plan had worked. And I supposed that was that.
Until I looked inside the envelope.
There was more than a cheque in there.
There was a postcard, the twin of the one that had been delivered to my dressing room after the performance.
And in the same handwriting was written a message:
‘Come-uppance time, Ms Reddish. If you want my honest critique of your performance, meet me in the prop room in one hour.’