Man Overboard by Monica Dickens

Author:Monica Dickens [Dickens, Monica]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Man Overboard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 1958-12-18T20:00:00+00:00

* Chapter 10 *

At the end of his second week at the cafeteria, Ben decided that Rose had suffered enough, and he went down to the television studio to see her.

It was the evening of her show, and he timed himself to arrive about half an hour before she went on the air, when she would be alone in her dressing-room, “growing into her part,” as she told people.

Ben knew that she would be more likely to be eating a sandwich. The camera fright, which Rose concealed but had never completely overcome, had the effect of making her hungry. Nobody but Ben knew about the little packet wrapped in greaseproof paper which travelled at the bottom of her cosmetic case. The sandwich was one of the most endearing things about her. The moment when she had admitted its presence to Ben, and had stood before him in a sequinned dress and full television make-up tearing at it like a hungry schoolgirl, had been more intimate than if she had taken off all her clothes.

Tonight when Ben told her that he had held a slave’s job for two weeks, and showed her the unopened pay packet with which he was going to take her to supper, she might not need the sandwich. She would be so glad to hear what he had done for her sake that she would go radiantly on to the set and give the best performance of her life. That would make her still happier, and there would be no problem about the rest of the evening.

“Nice to see you back, Commander,” said the man in the satin-backed waistcoat, to whom Ben had become almost as familiar as if he were one of the staff. “You been away?”

“I’ve been too busy to get down here,” Ben said. “Working on a big project.”

“Ah,” said the man, imagining heaven knew what. “I know how it is.”

Turning the corner into the familiar corridor which led to Rose’s dressing-room, Ben ran into Bob Whiting, who was travelling fast on his small, light feet, with a board full of papers under his arm and a discontented pout to his childish mouth.

“What’s the headache?” Ben asked. “I thought you were off Rose’s show.”

“I am, but the headaches are still there. I’m filling in this week for Alan Rickie as interviewer on Who’s Doing What. God, what a mess. The people are all cranks. They have some impossible job, or they do some crazy thing like making music with spoons and a kitchen chair, or teaching parrots to recite the Ten Commandments. They’re all half bats, and one of them hasn’t turned up at all. Just rung up from Chichester to say he missed the train. That’s what you get for relying on a man who makes model railways out of toothpicks. I’ve got to use that revolting girl from the typing pool who makes bird noises. She’s been trying to get on the show for weeks. Catch my act,” he said, patting Ben on the arm as he turned to go.

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