Free Death of a Salesperson by Robert Barnard Page A

seducer’s (she told herself determinedly, though in fact she had known very few cheap seducers), still it was tense, nervous—almost neurotic in its intensity, which made her think of herself as a need , rather than as a victim. His face, close to, was haggard, the eyes almost rimmed. His hands were not exactly shaking, yet they were not still either—that might be incipient alcoholism, ofcourse, but there was little alcohol on his breath. He behaved like a man who had just been through a shattering experience, or perhaps was just anticipating one. It was all, altogether, wonderfully . . . exciting.
    â€˜Perhaps just a small sherry,’ Janice said.
    Quite a while later, when Janice had not yet fallen, but was quite determined that she would fall (they were sprawled across the mock Louis Seize sofa, and she was speaking into more chest hair than she would have believed possible), she said:
    â€˜I have a confession to make.’
    â€˜Don’t bother. This isn’t the first time that’s been done to me, don’t you worry. However you fixed it, it was Lady Luck pulled the strings. You are but exactly my type. The fair hair, the snub nose—just what I always go for.’
    â€˜I did not fix it! That’s a disgraceful suggestion!’ Janice was as indignant about the crumby ‘Lady Luck’ line as about the suggestion. ‘If you thought that surprise as I came in was acting, then you must be beyond recognizing genuine emotions. But I did say to reception that I was Mrs Jeremy Fortescue. I find it gets me better service. Besides, it is my real name.’
    â€˜It’s not mine.’
    â€˜But of course it is. That’s why I—’
    â€˜Do you know how I got it?’
    He had pulled himself almost upright, and he sat over her, looking straight at her, and still speaking with that nervous intensity which she found so exciting and disturbing. It’s that nervousness that gives him his appeal, his irresistibility, she said to herself. It’s almost as if he had never . . .
    â€˜I was sixteen,’ he said, in dark, reminiscent mood. ‘Sixteen, going on seventeen. I’d just been expelled from my third school. Portlington. You had to be really appalling to be expelled from Portlington. I was the first since the First World War. Those were the days when girls still hadunwanted pregnancies, of course. Now it would have been easily arranged. Anyway, I was desperate to go on the stage, or into films, or failing that, join the army or the Foreign Legion, or whatever. And my father took me to this provincial dump, not far from here, actually . . . what was the name? Bridgehead, that’s it . . . he took me to Bridgehead, and he dragged me along to this school—the Drake School, Bridgehead, and a scummy little dump it was, and how they had the cheek to charge fees I don’t know. Anyway, we were shown around, and given prospectuses, and a copy of the school magazine, and when we got back to the hotel my father said this was my last chance, but I was damned well going to work my guts out to make a go of it, or he’d want to know the reason why. He had the idea I ought to go to university. He was a very dim man, my father. Anyway, after dinner my father went down to the bar for a drink, and I was leafing through this damned school magazine, and I saw “Jeremy Fortescue—junior essay prize and under-15s hurdling cup”—’
    Jeremy! Poor Jeremy! thought Janice, remembering the gold-stamped copy of Hereward the Wake , and the tiny silver-plated cup that was already showing the copper underneath the plate.
    â€˜â€”and I thought: that’s a hell of a good name for an actor. It had an upper-class ring about it, but it left open the possibility of devilment. And I packed my things, hitchhiked as far from Bridgehead as I could get, and eventually got taken on as ASM at a tiny rep theatre in