“It’s a good start, Sally,” he said. “I’ll send you my notes when I’m sober.”

“You’re not sober now?” asked Sally.

“I am, but I am in need of getting drunk and don’t want to wait. Call Kenny, won’t you?”

“You know how I feel about that.”

“But it’s time for you to resume treading the boards.”

“I trod the boards, and the boards cried out in anguish. I can show you the clippings.”

“Call Kenny,” urged Alec, patting him on the cheek. “For me.”

“All right,” said Sally.

As the stragglers filed out, still chatting away, Sally began to fold up the chairs and lean them against the pile of tables.

“We’ll help,” said Iris. “Won’t we, Gwen?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks,” said Sally. “I should be going out to the York Minster and getting hammered. I might still.”

“Who is Kenny?” asked Iris.

“Kenny is a director,” said Sally. “He wants to cast me in a new production.”

“That’s wonderful!” exclaimed Gwen. Then she saw his expression. “It’s not wonderful?”

“Caliban,” said Sally. “He wants me to play Caliban. Another stupid, ugly giant. I could make a decent living playing nothing but Caliban, Frankenstein’s monster, or that mental deficient in that American play we saw.”

“Of Mice and Men,” said Iris.

“I don’t want to play monsters,” said Sally. “That’s why I’m hiding behind my scripts. Let the masses rise cheering at the end, ‘Author! Author!’ and I’ll leap out and yell, ‘Boo!’ and watch them run screaming from the theatre. Ideally, they’ll run screaming from the words, if I can ever get them right.”

“You got them right in this one,” said Gwen.

“Most of them,” said Iris.

“Well, I don’t feel like throwing the scripts into the fire, so that’s an improvement,” said Sally as he collapsed onto the center of the sofa. “Is there any wine left? Pour the dregs into a cup for me, if you would be so kind. Spare the hemlock. I choose to live another day.”

“On it,” said Iris, locating an unused cup and filling it from two bottles.

She brought it over to him, and he gulped it down.

“Thanks,” he said. “Pontificating leaves me parched. Come, ladies! Come cuddle with the playwright.”

He threw his arms out over the back of the sofa. Iris slid under one and curled into him. Gwen hesitated.

“You should try it, Gwen,” said Iris. “He’s very comfy.”

“And there are no appearances to be kept up,” added Sally. “It shall be our illicit secret.”

“First you have me committing adultery. Now cuddling. I shall never be able to look anyone in the eye again,” said Gwen as she sat down and leaned into him.

He enveloped her gently, and she felt herself drift into a memory of her grandfather reading poetry to her as she nestled into the crook of his arm, letting the gentle rumble of his voice carry her wherever Tennyson was taking them.

“He is comfy, isn’t he?” said Gwen.