Dunster by John Mortimer Read Free Book Online Page B

rugs, red plonk and an occasional bottle of whisky. Nan was among us, failing to dampen our spirits with congratulations like ‘Well, my children, you got through it, didn’t you? One day I might persuade you to act the real Hamlet. The grown-up version.’
    â€˜You mean the one where Osric falls for the ghost?’ Benson asked. We knew we had done our own play. Nan, sitting alone in the rain, had suffered a severe disappointment, but we no longer needed her.
    The actors were getting into punts, standing, rocking the boats on purpose, screaming in simulated terror, throwing in food and wine and scrambling to be together. I saw an empty boat and grabbed Beth’s arm with some of the determination I had left over from my assault on King Claudius. ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘that one’s empty.’ And I added, because we were still actors, ‘Darling.’ She got in and lay back on damp cushions. I looked round and saw that the rest of the cast were all accommodated in other boats. I sat beside her and covered her with a rug. She said, ‘Who’s going to drive this thing?’ My heart sank as Laertes appeared from the darkness, stepped lightly on to the end of the boat and poled us expertly out into mid-stream, avoiding the punts with their loads of actors who tried to ram us. I held Beth’s cold hand under the rug, she turned her face towards me and we kissed, disregarding the silently navigating Laertes. We lay still then and seemed to travel for a long time. I had no idea what was going to happen next.
    Then I saw that the others had landed; there was a party going on and Laertes steered us towards it. Well, that, I thought, is the end of that, but when we were near the bank he jumped off, as quickly and as quietly as he had joined us. Neither of us moved and we drifted on, brushed by overhanging willow branches, into a cave of leaves where the intermittent moonlight was blotted out. We were stuck in mud and sheltered from the rain. I took off my glasses to kiss her properly. ‘Beth,’ I told her, ‘I’ve been wanting to say this for so long.’
    â€˜Don’t say anything,’ she said. ‘It’ll be perfectly all right.’
    â€˜What do we do now? Ring the bell for the porter?’
    â€˜We climb in.’
    â€˜There’s an easy way, isn’t there?’ ‘Is that what you want?’
    â€˜I’ve always heard there’s an easy way. A sort of formality. So that they can keep up appearances.’
    â€˜All right. We start up by the bicycle sheds.’
    I followed him doubtfully. If there were an easy way of climbing into college, would it be in Dunster’s character to take it? I didn’t want to be with him on a mountaineering expedition without ropes in the darkness and persistent rain. I wanted to be alone, to remember what I now had to remember. I wanted a little peace and quiet to think of Beth making love, her competent hands, her body not altogether undressed under the blanket, her long hair wet against my face, her amused smile as we started, and the immense encouragement of her trembling later, and her small cry. Acting and making love, I knew then, were the two things I could do and forget my nature. And that night I had gone from one to the other without interruption, from death in the duel to another sort of obliteration in the boat under the willow tree.
    The everyday Progmire, the one I know only too well, was still absent when we pushed the punt out of the mud and joined the party. Beth and I were careful to talk to other people and, as we separated, I felt we were even closer because of our shared and aloof performance. I was listening to a long complaint from Queen Gertrude about Nan’s total failure to give her any direction whatsoever, devoting all her attention to Claudius, who, of course, needed it, the poor darling, and who looked, despite all our producer’s efforts, less like a king