Free Staging Death by Judith Cutler Page B

his nose. ‘And, if everythinggoes according to plan, I hope to return the favour – and maybe you’ll drink something a bit stronger than that muck there.’ He peered at my Virgin Mary.
    ‘Working this afternoon,’ I said. ‘But what’s this about celebrating? Come on, Merry – tell!’
    He donned an imaginary pair of glasses, and, removing an invisible stethoscope from round his neck, listened to my chest. ‘Do you think I’d make a good doctor – actually, a good consultant?’
    ‘There’s no one I’d rather trust my ingrowing toenail to,’ I declared. ‘ Casualty? ’
    ‘Holby City,’ he corrected me. ‘It’ll pay my maintenance arrears, which means I shall get to see Freya more often, and – to hell with Stratford! Unless I come back as Antony!’
    ‘So long as you demand me for your Cleopatra, darling.’ I took a sip of my fancy tomato juice. ‘So you’ve forgiven Toby Frensham, have you?’ My approach lacked subtlety, I’m afraid.
    ‘Forgive him? Never!’ His voice rang round the bar. Then he whispered conspiratorially, ‘I have one or two plans, sweetheart. Nothing too serious. But he won’t mess with me again.’
    ‘Do you suppose he even knows he’s messed with you? I’m sure it’s nothing personal on his part.’
    ‘That’s tough. Because it’s extremely personal on mine.’

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Meredith and I didn’t linger long over our meal. He seemed to construe my disapproval of his plans to avenge himself on Toby as an attack on our friendship, despite the fact I was shouting him lunch. I tried to point out that being friends didn’t mean you had to agree with everything your friend did; indeed, being a friend meant you sometimes had to say things that no one else would risk. He pretended to be mollified, and reluctantly promised not to do anything violent, but I could see my chances of acting alongside him withering by the moment.
    Much as I usually enjoy walking through Stratford, which was spectacular with spring flowers, the place didn’t lift my spirits this time. Perhaps it was because of all Merry’s stupid talk of vengeance, or perhaps because of the memory of Mr Gunter’s vicious response to a perfectlynormal call: whatever the cause, I felt uneasy. I even had a feeling that I might be being watched – if ever I directed Hamlet I’d have Claudius looking over his shoulder with unease the very moment Hamlet started acting oddly. Just as I was looking out for something now.
    I must think of something else. My bonus. It would be nice to think about that.
    So I did. Only to stop short when I realised it might take months for it to come through. Until then, I would have to exercise my usual unpleasant level of restraint in my spending – unless, of course, I could persuade Greg or Toby to help me out.
    Greg would huff and puff about the need to save and be economical, reminding me – he always did, for some reason – of how he and I once had to earn our pocket money by folding newspapers into tight concertinas to make firelighters. If I really irritated him he’d remind me of the time the bathwater froze in our Blackheath bathroom. The fact that he now had money to burn, while mine had all disappeared in my sherry era, always escaped him. He couldn’t seem to grasp that I’d lost work and damaged my reputation for professional reliability when I’d turned up for rehearsals with black eyes and once a broken arm. And there was a period when I couldn’t work at all. Or perhaps he was simply beingwhat passed in his case for tactful. He’d never warmed to my then husband, and as soon as he’d realised how abusive the man was had urged me to leave him. But part of my ex’s abuse – I don’t even like to refer to him by name – had been to diminish my self-esteem to the point where I no longer believed I could have a life without him.
    Enough of the past. Making a living in the present and believing there might be a future were what I must concentrate on. I