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Back The Actresses Save as PDF
Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. THE ACTRESSES
  3. About The Actresses
  4. Contents
  5. Dedication
  6. Epigraph
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. 7
  14. 8
  15. 9
  16. 10
  17. 11
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. 14
  21. 15
  22. 16
  23. 17
  24. 18
  25. 19
  26. 20
  27. 21
  28. 22
  29. 23
  30. 24
  31. 25
  32. 26
  33. 27
  34. 28
  35. 29
  36. 30
  37. 31
  38. 32
  39. 33
  40. 34
  41. 35
  42. 36
  43. 37
  44. 38
  45. 39
  46. 40
  47. 41
  48. About Barbara Ewing
  49. Also by Barbara Ewing
  50. An Invitation from the Publisher
  51. Copyright

All the time, in and out of consciousness, he knew that Nicky had stabbed him, he remembered clearly what had happened, but in his darkness he made a strange connection. The stabbing was like the first time he had touched Nicky: the odd cry, the strength of her as she pushed against him when he touched her, it was in that way that she had plunged the knife into his back, he recognised it, the passion of it.

As his mind drifted away again he tried with an almost superhuman strength to hold on to the memory: he must not lose the connection. Somewhere in the darkness he understood that no doctor could know what he knew, about Nicola Abbott.

*

And then he began to dream.

He dreamt not of the stabbing and the grey-haired woman, but of his past.

The nurses sat beside him in the night.

Terence, they said gently. Terence. Come back Terence.

But what he heard was something else. The words he heard were: he doesn’t know the meaning of love. But in his dreams he said: Yes. I do know the meaning of love. I will prove it.

*

Very slowly, Terence Blue recovered. He sat up, received visitors. They saw that he was pale, and abstracted. They said to one another it was very understandable in the circumstances.

And in his mind, in the hospital bed, he held on to his dream. Yes. I do know the meaning of love.

Not: she tried to kill me – as if to Terence the stabbing was somehow in the order of things – but: Yes. I do know the meaning of love.

I should never never never have let them take her away from me. When I held her that night in her dressing room after A Doll’s House I took her life in my hands forever and I knew that. That is the meaning of love. Like Pauline and Molly in the sunny garden by the river it didn’t strike him as in the least odd that he was thinking so intensely about things that happened over thirty years ago. As if time was a circle, catching him up in its arms as it passed him again, not a straight line stretching away from him.

I shouldn’t have listened to those psychiatrists, they tried to shut me out from her life, they said I was bad for her, that she would recover only if I kept out of her life, so I did. Then they said she was better, that the past was over for her as long as she didn’t have to see me and be reminded of it.

But I could hardly bear to drive up to that house in Brighton, I had to be drunk to do it.