Twelve Red Herrings

I checked the price of the ticket: twenty pounds. I extracted two ten-pound notes from my wallet, put them in the envelope, licked the flap and stuck it down.

The girl at the entrance to the stalls checked my ticket. “F-11. Six rows from the front, on the right-hand side.”

I walked slowly down the aisle until I spotted her. She was sitting next to an empty place in the middle of the row. As I made my way over the feet of those who were already seated, she turned and smiled, obviously pleased to see that someone had purchased her spare ticket.

I returned the smile, handed over the envelope containing my twenty pounds, and sat down beside her. “The man in the box office asked me to give you this.”

“Thank you.” She slipped the envelope into her evening bag. I was about to try the first line of my second scene on her when the house lights faded and the curtain rose for act one of the real performance. I suddenly realized that I had no idea what play I was about to see. I glanced across at the program on her lap and read the words “An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestley.”

I remembered that the critics had been full of praise for the production when it had originally opened at the National Theatre, and had particularly singled out the performance of Kenneth Cranham. I tried to concentrate on what was taking place on stage.

The eponymous inspector was staring into a house in which an Edwardian family were preparing for a dinner to celebrate their daughter’s engagement. “I was thinking of getting a new car,” the father was saying to his prospective son-in-law as he puffed away on his cigar.

At the mention of the word “car,” I suddenly remembered that I had abandoned mine outside the theater. Was it on a double yellow line? Or worse? To hell with it. They could have it in part-exchange for the model sitting next to me. The audience laughed, so I joined in, if only to give the impression that I was following the plot. But what about my original plans for the evening? By now everyone would be wondering why I hadn’t turned up. I realized that I wouldn’t be able to leave the theater during the intermission, either to check on my car or to make a phone call to explain my a

bsence, as that would be my one chance of developing my own plot.

The play had the rest of the audience enthralled, but I had already begun rehearsing the lines from my own script, which would have to be performed during the intermission between acts one and two. I was painfully aware that I would be restricted to fifteen minutes, and that there would be no second night.

By the time the curtain came down at the end of the first act, I was confident of my draft text. I waited for the applause to die down before I turned toward her.

“What an original production,” I began. “Quite modernistic.” I vaguely remembered that one of the critics had followed that line. “I was lucky to get a seat at the last moment.”

“I was just as lucky,” she replied. I felt encouraged. “I mean, to find someone who was looking for a single ticket at such short notice.”

I nodded. “My name’s Michael Whitaker.”

“Anna Townsend,” she said, giving me a warm smile.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked.

“Thank you,” she replied, “that would be nice.” I stood up and led her through the packed crowd that was heading toward the stalls bar, occasionally glancing back to make sure she was still following me. I was somehow expecting her no longer to be there, but each time I turned to look she greeted me with the same radiant smile.

“What would you like?” I asked, once I could make out the bar through the crowd.

“A dry martini, please.”

“Stay here, and I’ll be back in a moment,” I promised, wondering just how many precious minutes would be wasted while I had to wait at the bar. I took out a five-pound note and held it up conspicuously in the hope that the prospect of a large tip might influence the barman’s sense of direction. He spotted the money, but I still had to wait for another four customers to be served before I managed to secure the dry martini and a Scotch on the rocks for myself. The barman didn’t deserve the tip I left him, but I hadn’t any more time to waste waiting for the change.

I carried the drinks back to the far corner of the foyer, where Anna stood studying her program. She was silhouetted against a window, and in that stylish red silk dress, the light emphasized her slim, elegant figure.

I handed her the dry martini, aware that my limited time had almost run out.

“Thank you,” she said, giving me another disarming smile.

“How did you come to have a spare ticket?” I asked as she took a sip from her drink.

“My partner was held up on an emergency case at the last minute,” she explained. “Just one of the problems of being a doctor.”

“Pity. They missed a quite remarkable production,” I prompted, hoping to tease out of her whether her partner was male or female.

“Yes,” said Anna. “I tried to book seats when it was still at the National Theatre, but they were sold out for any performances I was able to make, so when a friend offered me two tickets at the last minute, I jumped at them. After all, it’s closing in a few weeks.” She took another sip from her martini. “What about you?” she asked as the three-minute bell sounded.

There was no such line in my script.

“Me?”

“Yes, Michael,” she said, a hint of teasing in her voice. “How did you come to be looking for a spare seat at the last moment?”