“How’s the room?”

“Adequate. Couldn’t get one with a view of the beach, unfortunately. We overlook Dreamland.”

“How poetic.”

“We could ride the Scenic Railway tomorrow, if you like. Or go for a swim—I’ve brought my trunks.”

Gwen turned to look at him steadily.

“Did you actually think I would come all this way to this wretched place to waste my time swimming?” she asked.

This brought a laugh from the room, and the knots inside her began to loosen.

Iris’s Muriel entered halfway through the third scene, and things became complicated. Things always get complicated when Iris enters the scene, thought Gwen. The interplay between her Muriel and George’s Bill were laced with genuine vitriol, the snappish rhythms coming from somewhere deep inside. Rooted in the past, guessed Gwen.

Another ex? She wouldn’t put it past Sally to cast them according to their histories. All those young Cambridge pals grown up, clinging to those memories, with an overlay of war distorting them now.

There were some lags in the latter portion of the first act, but the second, which they continued after a brief break, raced along, eliciting some surprised gasps from the audience.

The final scene was between Muriel and Lydia, Bill having met an unfortunate end at the hands of Arthur, who proved to be not so oblivious after all, and powerful enough to avoid any legal consequences. The two women read their lines glancing at each other while still playing to the audience.

“It’s horrible to say, but I miss the war,” said Gwen. “I miss working in the factory.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Iris.

“I’m not. I had a sense of direction for perhaps the only time in my life. Then the men came home and took it away from me. They had seen battle; I hadn’t. I couldn’t begrudge them that, but it’s all so empty now.”

“What will you do?” asked Iris.

“My choices are limited,” said Gwen. “Maybe I never really had any. I could jump off a cliff, or I could go back to Arthur. Both are suicide. One takes longer.”

“We could run away,” offered Iris.

“No,” said Gwen. “Not with the way things are. He’ll find us. There are no more hiding places. They’ve lit up Dreamland with carbon arc searchlights and surrounded it with barbed wire, and no dreams can escape it anymore.”

“What will you do?”

“I don’t know, Muriel. I don’t know.”

“And curtain!” called Sally.

There was applause. Gwen tried to gauge whether it veered more towards politeness or genuine enthusiasm.

“Damned good, Titan,” said one of the pipe-smokers. “A shade Shavian, not at all Cowardly. The moment I heard ‘affair’ in the title, I was worried that we would be down for ‘Lengthy Encounter’ or some such, but this was much grittier.”

“I’ve noticed that you’ve toned down Muriel’s bisexuality considerably,” observed Iris.

“That would have made things awkward at work in the morning,” said Gwen.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Iris, batting her eyes at her. “It might have livened them up for a change. But did you do that for fear of censorship?”