There were also two incidents that suggested that something at least, however vague, was widely known. The first occurred one day when I was out in the Festival Gardens with Flora, feeding the ducks: there I encountered Wyndham, who was walking up and down by the river in conference with Edmund Carpenter. Wyndham introduced us, and instead of walking on and leaving it at that they both went to great lengths to amuse me and my child. Edmund even bought Flora an ice cream from the kiosk outside the theatre, and we all sat on a park bench while she ate it. I was touched and happy to be sitting there with them and Flora together, worrying about no absences, in the warm sun. And as we talked I gathered a clear impression that Edmund had heard about me already, for he treated me with a mixture of deference and innuendo that seemed to suggest prior information. When Flora saw David at teatime that day, she talked a good deal about ice cream and windows: it took me some time to work out what the windows referred to, and I don’t think David ever got there.

The other incident took place while I was waiting for David by the stage door one evening: we were going out to dinner with a visiting friend who had come to see the show. I was reading the notices on the green baize noticeboard, and had just started on the understudy list for The Maple Tree when Julian appeared and greeted me.

“Hello,” I said. “How are you these days? I haven’t seen you for ages.”

“I’m all right,” said Julian, “I suppose. Have a fruit gum.”

I accepted a fruit gum, and then said, wanting to talk and yet not being able to think of anything interesting:

“How’s The Maple Tree coming along?”

“Oh, don’t ask me,” he said glumly. “I’ve no idea what the thing’s about, I really haven’t. I’ve only got two lines, anyway. Do you know what I say? I say, ‘The general wishes you to know that he will not support any action involving horses,’ and, ‘Excuse me, madam, I think you must have lost this in the garden.’ It’s quite funny, really, I suppose.”

“Have you got a nice understudy?” I asked, knowing that this was the next thing to say, and Julian brightened faintly.

“It’s not bad,” he said. “I’m understudying Don again. I’m understudying him in every play, and he’s never been off yet. He never will be off. He’s as strong as a horse, and you should hear him going on all the time, you’d think he was dying. He’s always getting his dresser to send messages along to me that he won’t be able to go on, that I’ve got to be ready to take over at the interval, but nothing ever happens.”