So what about my long-cherished hopes of a return to the boards?
Sandra and her colleagues had carefully logged all the flowers and cards sent to me as I lay in my fictitious bed of sickness. Some were very touching, many very generous. Caddie’s flowers to what she had thought of as a dying client were decidedly low-key. Perhaps she’d intended to be more effusive with a funeral wreath. Had she known about Johann Rusch’s suggestion and the fate of his card, I think she might have descended upon me like an avenging Fury. Of course, I could easily have got his contact details from Allyn, or indeed from most of the starry cast who had watched my last performance. Even being considered by him would have raised my profile beyond my wildest imaginings; actually to be cast – especially as Cleopatra – would have given me professional and financial security for years. Or at least till the public found another star to gawp at, and then I’d have come home from Hollywood, my tail between my legs, back in weekly rep, in miserable digs, and again badgering Caddie to find me character parts.
I’d told Johann that I used to be an actress. Perhaps that was the simple truth. Used to be.
I looked at myself in Martin’s bathroom mirror. ‘If I’m no longer Vena Burford, the distinguished actress, and I don’t even care I’m not, who am I? Connie George?’
‘You’re Constance,’ Martin declared, making me jump. ‘Con I won’t have. Too many criminal associations. Connie is something Greg calls you to irritate you. Constance, however old-fashioned it might be, suits you.’
I turned to face him. ‘Constance Burford… Hmm. A bit dot-dash, dot-dash.’
His face fell. ‘So it is. So you wouldn’t like another name I was going to suggest.’
There was something about the timbre of his voice that made me look more closely at his eyes.
I managed a light shrug. ‘I’m always open to suggestions.’
‘No. Humpage is a horrible name. I’ve always hated it.’
‘Martin Humpage sounds very good,’ I objected, my heart beginning to sing.
‘Hmm. But what about Constance Humpage?’
Reader, I married him, very quietly and indeed by special licence at St Jude’s, Ginnie officiating. Allyn and a round-eyed Karen were witnesses. We returned to Martin’s house to find a removal van outside and a huge pile of cardboard boxes by the front door. Three or four burly men were emptying his house. I was sick with horror. But a glance at his face showed me that I need not worry.
Within an hour he had carried me across the threshold of Sloe Cottage.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the Suzy Lamplugh Trust for its help and inspiration, and to Keith Bassett for his usual brilliant input.
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About the Author
Prize-winning short-story writer JUDITH CUTLER is the author of nearly thirty novels. She taught Creative Writing at Birmingham University, and has run writing courses elsewhere, including a maximum-security prison and an idyllic Greek island. She now lives in the Cotswolds with her husband, fellow author Edward Marston.
www.judithcutler.com
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Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2009.
This ebook edition first published in 2013.
Copyright © 2009 by JUDITH CUTLER
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–1391–2
Staging Death Page 30
