Time of Obsessions by John Roman Baker

Author:John Roman Baker [Baker, John Roman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781899713592
Publisher: Wilkinson House Ltd
Published: 2017-01-25T06:00:00+00:00

The first months in the box office were tiring. Everyone around him was worked off their feet. Greg manned the phone line and answered call after call for reservations. Often customers would become irritated with him because so many of the performances were sold out, but he kept as polite a voice as possible. He longed to be selling tickets front of house and to be able to talk to other people face to face however briefly. A male colleague told him to be patient, that he would move up.

“You could go even higher,” the man said with a wink.

Occasionally Greg would slip in to see part of the evening performance although the songs had absolutely no attraction for him. The set was enormous and designed to impress with its technical complexity. Greg wondered what the blitz had really been like, but guessed it would not have been as flashy and overwrought as this. He decided quite firmly that this was not his kind of theatre.

“What do you think of it?” The manager of the theatre approached him one day as he was leaving.

“Very professional,” Greg replied, trying to be as tactful as possible.

“It’ll go well into next year, of that I’m sure.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I expect it will. It’s very much a people show?”

The manager looked puzzled.

“I hope you are not going all Royal Court on us. If you know what I mean.”

“I haven’t been to the Royal Court yet, but I do hear there are good things going on there.”

“Oh, the tide will wash it away like it does with all new waves. All the waves in art soon dry up, but this,” and he pointed to the cheeky bird looking up at them from a nearby programme, “this will go on and on wherever there is a solid audience.”

“Yes, sir.”

He smiled at the manager who looked at him again in a questioning way before walking back into the auditorium leaving Greg standing alone in the Foyer.

I must be careful what I say, he thought to himself. He walked out onto the Strand towards Trafalgar Square, and then passing by St Martin-in-the-Fields, walked up Charing Cross Road. Autumn was on its way, and he felt very alone. He now lived on a comfortable amount of money, and had moved to a larger room in a house on Marchmont Street. He liked Bloomsbury, but it was dead, so he spent most of his free time walking around the centre of London, looking in restaurants he did not want to spend his money in and occasionally having a drink in the Salisbury. It was there that he had his first sexual encounter for a long time. The boy had reddish blond hair and was quietly sitting in a corner looking a bit over-awed by the glittering extravagance of the pub. Feeling confident, Greg walked up to him.

“Want a drink?”

He looked down at the rather frightened but smiling face that stared back at him.

“Thank you. Gin please.”

“Tonic?”

“Please.”

The voice simpered a bit and Greg moved to the bar wondering if this was really what he wanted to do.

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