This is the opening scene of my novella, which takes place in the dressing room about thirty minutes before the play is due to begin.
♦
“Did we ever work out what this play is about?” asked Topher.
“You’re asking me now?” Dale retorted with a mild sense of outrage that was mostly feigned. “It’s our last show!”
“Better late than never.”
“We’re going on in a minute.”
“In thirty minutes,” Topher quietly replied.
“Seriously.“
They were sitting in their corner of the men’s dressing room, each at his own table – at right angles and far too often at cross purposes. Dale leant in to shoot Topher a fiery look via the reflections in their mirrors. Not that Dale would let Topher rattle him, of course. The friendly repartee they shared was generally for real, and the less good-natured niggling was usually for display purposes only. Dale knew that Topher knew that for Dale the work came first, and if Topher went too far, Dale would simply shut him out.
Continue reading excerpt: A Night with the Knight of the Burning Pestle
Blurb: He was the shameful cause of his sister Elena’s death and he stole state papers from England, yet Adrian Hart is feted by the best of society in Rome, and boldly dubs himself ‘Iago’. Determined to avenge Elena, his unrequited love, Lieutenant Andrew Sullivan asks the advice of poet and Shakespearian John Keats, and his artist friend Severn. Soon Percy and Mary Shelley join them, then Lord Byron and his servant Fletcher. But how can the seven of them work against this man, when they can’t even agree what he is? The atheist Shelley insists that Hart is an ordinary man, while Byron becomes convinced he’s the Devil incarnate, and Keats flirts with the idea that he’s Dionysius…
The next morning saw Dave and Nicholas at the airport early to collect Robin. They joined the line-up leaning on the waist-high barriers, greeted with nods and friendly monosyllables from the drivers and tour operators and such, some of whom had known Dave since he was a kid. “Brought the missus with you, then?” one of them commented to Dave.
Ben Clyde was playing the feudal lord Godbolt with quiet gravitas and a nobility that felt astonishingly natural. Graeme was Cassius, Godbolt’s loyal yet restlessly intelligent younger brother. Chris Willoughby was the contrary villager, Jackin.
“Poor David has had to leave his beloved Land Cruiser behind in Australia – “
The plane was due in just after seven in the morning. Dave made sure he was there in plenty of time, even though the Englishman would need to go through passport control, collect his luggage, and then get through quarantine. All of which would take an hour, probably – but it would be just Dave’s luck if he turned up at eight to find that the earl’s son had been processed as a VIP or some such thing, and had been waiting on him ever since.
Angelo Trezini was slowing down, too cold and too dull to even think. Well, his only thought was a wistful wish for the energy necessary to feel sad or sorry or righteously pissed off. He was fading fast.