The Liar [calibre]

Flowerbuck, he intoned to himself, has taken the boy Joe Cotton back to his house in Russell Square, convinced that he is his sister's son. Joe on arrival immediately tries to take off his clothes, unable to imagine that he would be expected to do anything else in a gentleman's house. Peter and Mrs Twimp, his housekeeper, calm him down and give him a bath. Mrs Twimp, played by Bridget Arden, injects into the scene her own brand of malapropistic comedy as they try to question Joe on the details of his early childhood. His memory is very uncertain. He recalls a garden, a large house and a fair-haired sister but very little else. At this stage, and indeed on this stage, Adrian Healey, playing Flowerbuck, finds his memory to be uncertain too and often starts to forget his lines.

After the bath Joe is taken to the dining room to eat. Or rather the dining room comes to them. It is that kind of production. Joe recognises in horror a portrait of Sir Christian Flowerbuck, Peter's uncle.

'That gentleman hurt me!' he cries.

It transpires that Sir Christian, Peter's benefactor and godfather, whose baronetcy and money Peter is in line to inherit, had been the first man to violate Joe.

The scene ends at night with Joe creeping from his room and slipping into Peter's bed. He knows no other form of companionship or love.

Peter awakes next morning, horrified to realise that he has lain with the boy who he is now more sure than ever is his nephew.

Adrian had had nothing to do with the casting of Hugo, at least as far as anyone knew. Jenny had bounced into his rooms one afternoon, full of excitement.

'I've just seen a perfect Joe Cotton! We don't need to get a real boy after all.'

'Who is this child?'

'He's not a child, he's a Trinity first year, but on stage he'll look fourteen or fifteen easily. And, Adrian, he's exactly as you . . . hum ... as Dickens describes Joe. Same hair, same blue eyes, everything. Even the same walk, though I don't know if from the same cause. He came to see me this morning, it was rather embarrassing, he thought I was expecting him. Bridget must have arranged it without telling me. His name's Hugo Cartwright.'

'Really?' said Adrian. 'Hugo Cartwright, eh?'

'Do you know him?'

'If it's the one I'm thinking of, we were in the same House at school.'

Gary opened his mouth to speak, but he met Adrian's eye and subsided.

'I dimly remember him,' said Adrian.

'Don't you think he's ideal casting for Joe?'

'Well in many ways I suppose he is, yes. Fairly ideal.'

If Hugo was unnerved by correspondences between a hundred-and-twenty-year-old Victorian manuscript and an incident from his own and Adrian's life he made no mention of the fact. But there was no doubt that his acting in the scene was awkward and formal.

'This is your home now, Joe. Mrs Twimp is to be your mother.'

'Yes, sir.'

'How should you like Mrs Twimp as a mother?'

'Does she want to join us, sir?'

'Join us, Joe? Join us in what?'

'In the bed, sir.'

'Bless me, Mr Flowerbuck, the lad is so manured to a life of shame, that's the fact of it, that he can't conceive no other!'

'There is no necessity for you to sleep with anyone but yourself and your Saviour, Joe. In peace and innocence.'

'No, Sir, no indeed! Mr Polterneck and Mrs Polterneck and Uncle Polterneck must have their boy-money. I am their gold sovereign, Sir.'

'Keep your clothes on, Joe, I beg of you!'

'Lord love the poor child, Mr Flowerbuck. Look at the condition of him! He should be washed and given fresh arraignments.'

'You're right, Mrs Twimp. Bring a bath and a robe.'

'I shall return percipiently.'

Jenny called across from the stalls.

'What do you think your feelings towards Joe are here?'

Adrian shaded his eyes across the lights.

'Well revulsion, I'd've thought. Horror, pity, indignation . . .you know. All that.'

'Good, yes. But what about desire?'

'Um... '

'You see, I think it's implicit that Peter is sexually attracted to Joe from the first.'

'Well I really don't. . .'

'I feel Dickens makes it very clear.'

'But he's his nephew! I don't think Dickens had any such thought in Dickenss head, do you?'

'I don't think we can be so sure.'

'Oh can't we?'

'Look at Joe now. He's standing in front of you, half naked. I think we should sense a sense of ... we should sense a sense of ... of... some kind of latent, repressed desire.'

'Right-ho. One sense of latent, repressed desire coming up. Do you want a side-order of self-disgust too, or hold on that?'

'Adrian, we go up in three hours, please don't start fucking about.'

'Okay. Fine.'

'Now, Hugo, what about you?'

'Well... '

'What's your attitude to Adrian, do you think?'

'Well he's just another man, isn't he?'

'I don't know how to love him,' sang Adrian. 'What to do, how to move him. He's a man, he's just a man and I've had so many men before, in very many ways. He's just one more.'

'I think Adrian's right there,' said Jenny. 'Despite being a quarter-tone flat. Imagine all the peculiar things you've had to do for your customers. Being bathed and clothed probably doesn't seem that new or different. You've been trained to please: your complaisance is the complaisance of a whore, your smile is the smile of a whore. I think you can afford a touch more assuredness. At the moment you're rather stiff.'

'He's only flesh and blood,' said Adrian. 'Look at who he's standing next to.'

'Adrian, please!'

'Sorry, Miss.'

Mrs Twimp entered with the breakfast tray.

—Sir, the lad can't be found . . . ooh!'

She started in surprise at the sight of Joe's head nestling on the sleeping Flowerbuck's bare chest.

—Sir! Sir!

—Oh . . . good morning, Mrs Twimp...

—Bless me! I never saw such licence! Mr Flowerbuck, Sir, I cannot credit the account of my eyes. That you should stand exposed as an amuser of children, nought but a correcter of youth, a pedestal! A vile producer, a libertarian! That I should gaze upon such naked immortality, such disillusion.

—Calm yourself, Mrs Twimp. The child crept in at night when I was asleep. I had not the first idea that he was with me until just now.

—Sir! I beg your pardon . . . but the sight of him. I could only jump to one confusion.

—Leave us, Mrs Twimp.

—Shall you try to arouse him, sir? I think he should be aroused directly.

Adrian could feel Hugo's body tense at the laugh from the audience that greeted this line.

—I will wake him and send him down to you, Mrs Twimp.

—I shall draw some water for his absolutions.

She exited to a warm round of applause.

Adrian sat up and stared in front of him.

—Oh Lord! What have I done? What in God's name have I done?

—Good morning, sir.

—Ah Joe, Joe! Why did you come to me last night?

—You are my saviour, sir. Mrs Twimp bade me remember it most carefully. And you told me I should sleep only with my saviour.

—Child, I meant . . .

—Did I do wrong, sir? Did I not please you?

—I dreamt... I know not what I dreamt. Say I was asleep, Joe. Say I slept all night.

—You were very gentle to me, sir.

—No! No! No!

In the blackout and in the thunder of applause that marked the end of the act, they lay there while the bed was trundled into the wings where Jenny stood jumping up and down with excitement.

'Wonderful!' she said. 'Listen to that! The Grauniad is out there and the Financial Times.,

'The Financial Times?' said Adrian. 'Is Tim Anderson thinking of starting a Flower buck limited company?

'Their drama critic'

'I didn't know they had one. Who the hell reads drama criticism in the Financial Times?'

'Everyone will if it's a good notice, because I'll have it blown up and put outside the theatre.'