The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

He stopped, took out his automatic and pulled the slide back, ejecting a single shiny bullet.

“Silver,” he explained as he gave it to me. “I never use anything else.” He looked up at the clouds. They were colored orange by the street lamps and moved rapidly across the sky. “There’s weird shit about; take it for luck.”

“I’m beginning to think there’s no such thing.”

“My point precisely. God keep you, Thursday, and thanks once again.”

I took the shiny bullet and started to say something but he was gone already, rummaging in the boot of his squad car for a vacuum cleaner and a bin-liner. For him, the night was far from over.

18.

Landen Again

When I first heard that Thursday was back in Swindon I was delighted. I never fully believed that she had gone for good. I had heard of her problems in London and I also knew how she reacted to stress. All of us who returned from the peninsula were to become experts on the subject whether we liked it or not . . .

LANDEN PARKE-LAINE

—Memoirs of a Crimean Veteran

ITOLD Mr. Parke-Laine that you had hemorrhagic fever but he didn’t believe me,” said Liz on reception at the Finis.

“The flu would have been more believable.”

Liz was unrepentant.

“He sent you this.”

She passed across an envelope. I was tempted just to throw it in the bin, but I felt slightly guilty about giving him a hard time when we had met the previous night. The envelope contained a numbered ticket for Richard III which played every Friday evening at the Ritz Theater. We used to attend almost every week when we were going out together. It was a good show; the audience made it even better.

“When did you last go out with him?” asked Liz, sensing my indecision.

I looked up.

“Ten years ago.”

“Ten years? Go, darling. Most of my boyfriends would have trouble even remembering that long.”

I looked at the ticket again. The show began in an hour.

“Is that why you left Swindon?” asked Liz, keen to be of some help.

I nodded.

“And did you keep a photo of him all those years?”

I nodded again.

“I see,” replied Liz thoughtfully. “I’ll call a cab while you go and change.”

It was good advice, and I trotted off to my room, had a quick shower and tried on almost everything in my wardrobe. I put my hair up, then down again, then up once more, muttered “Too boyish” at a pair of trousers and slipped into a dress. I selected some earrings that Landen had given me and locked my automatic in the room safe. I just had time to put on a small amount of eyeliner before I was whisked through the streets of Swindon by a taxi driver, an ex-Marine involved in the retaking of Balaclava in ’61. We chatted about the Crimea. He didn’t know where Colonel Phelps was going to talk either, but when he found out, he said, he would heckle for all his worth.

The Ritz looked a good deal shabbier. I doubted whether it had been repainted at all since we were last here. The gold-painted plaster moldings around the stage were dusty and unwashed, the curtain stained with the rainwater that had leaked in. No other play but Richard III had been performed here for over fifteen years, and the theater itself had no company to speak of, just a backstage crew and a prompter. All the actors were pulled from an audience who had been to the play so many times they knew it back to front. Casting was usually done only half an hour before curtain-up.

Occasionally seasoned actors and actresses would make guest appearances, although never by advance booking. If they were at a loose end late Friday night, perhaps after their performance at one of Swindon’s three other theaters, they might come along and be selected by the manager as an impromptu treat for audience and cast. Just the week before, a local Richard III had found himself playing opposite Lola Vavoom, currently starring in the musical stage version of Fancy-free in Ludlow at the Swindon Crucible. It had been something of a treat for him; he didn’t need to buy dinner for a month.

Landen was waiting for me outside the theater. It was five minutes to curtain-up and the actors had already been chosen by the manager, plus one in reserve in case anybody had a bad attack of the nerves and started chucking up in the bathroom.

“Thanks for coming,” said Landen.