Free The Shooting in the Shop by Simon Brett Page B

book?’
    ‘She sounded quite optimistic about it, almost as
though its publication might start a turnaround in her
life.’
    ‘Polly said that?’ He shook his head wryly. ‘She
always was something of a dreamer.’
    ‘Have you read the book?’ asked Jude.
    ‘No. She was very private about her writing.’
    Carole was quick to pounce on the inconsistency.‘Polly said you had read it. Said you thought it was
wonderful.’
    He looked confused for a moment, as if he had
been caught in a lie. Though a more innocent explanation
might be that he was thrown by these reminders
of his dead girlfriend. The confusion in his expressive
face gave way to sudden anger, but he managed to
curb it. He reached into his pocket for cigarettes, then
belatedly appealing to Jude for permission to smoke,
lit one up.
    ‘Yes, I did read a few chapters of Polly’s book,’ he
conceded.
    ‘And did you think it was wonderful?’
    The question made him look even more uncomfortable.
‘It’s very difficult to pass comment on the
work of someone with whom you’re emotionally involved.’
    Jude nodded heartfelt agreement. At various
times she had shared her life with an actor and a
stand-up comedian, so she knew at first hand the
level of paranoia in many creative people.
    ‘What kind of book was it?’ asked Carole. ‘Polly
told me it was part fact, part fiction.’
    ‘I’d say it was pure fiction,’ said Piers firmly.
    ‘And what was it about?’
    ‘Hard to say. A girl growing up, I suppose, and the
difficult time she had doing so.’
    ‘A “Misery Memoir”?’ Jude suggested.
    ‘Well, if it were true, you might have called it that.
But it was fiction. And Polly kept telling me what ahappy childhood she’d had, so I don’t think there
could have been any autobiographical element in it.’
    ‘From what you say,’ said Carole, ‘or rather, from
what you don’t say, I don’t get the impression you
thought much of Polly’s book.’
    ‘Well . . .’ He was silent, then a bit tearful as he
went on, ‘It can’t hurt her now for me to say what
I really thought.’ He took a deep breath before
announcing, ‘The writing was clumsy and, from what
I read of it, the plot just didn’t hang together.’
    ‘So you don’t think she’d have had any chance of
getting it published?’
    ‘God, no.’
    ‘But she said an agent friend had also liked it a lot.’
    ‘Wishful thinking. I know the agent friend in
question, Serena. I was up at Cambridge the same
time she was. And Serena didn’t want to hurt Polly’s
feelings, so she said what she wanted to hear. It’s
significant she didn’t offer to represent her as an
agent once the book was finished. I’m afraid the
situation was that . . . well, Polly always wanted to be
as good as other people, particularly as good as me.
When we first met, we were both in the National
Youth Theatre. And she was always a better actor
than me, I’d never argue about that. I mean, I can
do revue and stuff, funny faces, funny accents, but
I’m not really an actor , not like Polly. So when we
first met, she was kind of the dominant partner.
Then I went up to Cambridge and I got involved
with the Footlights, so I was writing and appearing
in revues and what-have-you . . . and Polly, on theweekends she came up, was consigned to the role of
a hanger-on. You know, she’d be down in London
during the week, trying to get acting work, and I’d be
in Cambridge having a whale of a time, surrounded
by lots of extremely bright and privileged people . . .’
    ‘People like Lola?’
    ‘Yes, exactly. People like Lola.’ He seemed for a
moment to lose the thread of his narrative. ‘Anyway,
with all that happening . . . the dynamics of me and
Polly changed.’
    Carole remembered the difficulty Polly had
hinted at of maintaining their affair through Piers’s
time at university.
    ‘And then after Cambridge and after I’d done
shows at the Edinburgh Fringe