‘I’m off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz: tum, tum. I suppose I ought to feel uptight: strap myself into my trauma-jacket. Not me. Not that sort. I came up the hard way.

Take over the role? Me? Minerva must be barking mad. You mean to say he chopped up that dozy Kraut deliberately just so that he could get me for the part instead? Wild; way out, way, way out. Kerrazy, man. I mean, she’s getting on a bit, Minerva. Smashing, great. I dig her: but she’s strictly No, No, Nanette-time. Not of today. No way. A bit out of touch maybe? A touch of the sun? A pastis too many? Glug, glug, glug. She can put them down. ‘Just a theory’, she said. ‘I could be wrong, Marcus.’

Maybe you are, lady.

No, but seriously. I mean, that’s what I’m going for. To find out. I mean, it’s a very big deal that, very big. If true. Big, big deal. Star Time.

Looking back, I can see he was very interested at the picnic. Very. Indeedy. Flattering: now that I know the reason. If I do. If it is the reason.

And so what happens if he does suggest it, then? What? Temptation. Temptation. Big, big temptation. For the good things; the sweet life, this kind. I like it. But I’m not barmy enough to think that it just comes to you handed on a plate. It never comes like that …

Unless he asks me.

A Movie Star.

Something Jeremy never got. Or Decca. Longed for, yearned for, cheated, lied, and lay for: the pair of them. I know. Not that dumb. I had ears. Eyes. And they never got it. Nowhere near. No way.

Supposing he asks and I say ‘Yes’ and have a go. And fail. What then? I’d get the loot, I suppose. If I finished the job. And after? Become like them? Sour with failure, rancid with envy: she playing someone’s Mum on the telly, doing Voice-over for custard powders. ‘Dreamily, creamily’. He dragging the tenth tour of ‘My Fair Lady’ into Nairobi. Tacksville. Want that? Your idea of a ‘gig’, Marcus?

Lived all my life with failure. Until old Desmond. I know all about the Near Misses, the Not Quites, the Haven’t Gots. Backwards. Spent the most formative years of my life among them. Didn’t I? Ask any psychiatrist. It’s very harmful.

You have to fight hard not to go under.

Who was it said ‘You either have it, or you’ve had it’? Dead right. So say no more.

So that’s what you face, mate. You can face it but could you stomach it?

Oh, they tried. Yes, they did. She did anyway. Give her that. But they never actually set the stage alight. No one exactly beat down doors to see them, they never what is laughingly called ‘exploded’ on the screen. Or off it, come to that. Hardly ever even got up on to one.