Unfaithfully Yours Read Online Free

work was, I am afraid (or pleased) to report, without incident. I followed him all the way to his chambers and paid particular attention to his demeanour as he entered the building. I will obviously look into his office life further. As I think I said, work is an erogenous zone. But men of Gerald’s age and type, when conducting an affair, do not usually risk being seen by their ‘fancy bits’, wearing bicycle helmets, Lycra and a hairstyle so blown about by the wind it resembles a haystack in a hurricane. He did not look like a man with filth on his mind. I cycled home – a journey for which I have not charged you, Mrs Price – convinced that he is ‘playing away’ ‘close to home’.
    On Thursday night I went along to the church hall in the Upper Richmond Road where the Putney Thespians meet.
    It is not an inspiring location. There is a draughty, gloomy entrance hall and, beyond, an even more draughty and gloomy high-ceilinged room in which there are some chairs, a large table and a poster saying, ‘ARE YOU A CUSTARD CHRISTIAN? DO YOU GET UPSET OVER TRIFLES?’ There were only about five or six people in the room and they were sitting, all well apart from each other, with the air of those who have been waiting for a train that they are starting to suspect will never arrive.
    A woman in her late fifties was the only one to rise. She had what I think is called strawberry blonde hair, which looked – I am afraid – as if it were not her natural colour. She had, also, a strawberry blonde complexion and, as she was wearing a pink cardigan, pink slacks and what looked like a pair of pink slippers, my first impression was that she was, for some psychological reason perhaps, too heavily involved with the colour pink.
    She had, however, two of the largest breasts I have ever seen on an Englishwoman. In fact, on first sight of her upper half I was convinced there might well be more than two of them. Her lower half, too, spread outward from her waist in a manner that reminded me of the upholstery of an old but very comfortable sofa. As she came towards me, smiling brightly, she wobbled all over in a way that was not, although at first it threatened to be so, unpleasant.
    ‘Hello!’ she said, with some eagerness. ‘I’m Ophelia! Are you Rosencrantz or Guildenstern?’
    ‘I’m afraid,’ I said, ‘I’m even more unimportant than those two characters. I’m not even a member of the club. I just saw the sign outside and wondered whether you might need a hand backstage.’
    ‘Oh, gosh, how marvellous!’ said the pink woman. ‘How absolutely marvellous! We need all the help we can get backstage! Perhaps you could play Rosencrantz or Guildenstern as well! Or both of them! We could . . . sort of . . . merge their two characters, couldn’t we? They are pretty much the same, don’t you think? And we just haven’t got enough bods, have we, Rachel?’
    A small, grey woman with a squint looked at her with real dislike.
    ‘There are some who maintain,’ she said, ‘that we haven’t got a Hamlet!’
    The pink woman became even pinker. ‘That’s a horrible thing to say, Janet,’ she said. ‘I think Gerald is going to be one of the great Hamlets of all time!’
    The grey-looking woman took out a packet of cigarettes and, without making a move towards the door, got one out and lit it. I thought, these days, that that was a pretty brave thing to do, but she must have been sure of her ground, as none of the other members of the cast made any move to stop her.
    ‘If we can talk him out of the German accent,’ she went on, inhaling deeply, ‘he might be adequate. With a few more years of rehearsal!’
    As she was saying this, your husband came through the doors of the hall. He looked, I have to admit, very like Hamlet. He was dressed entirely in black – black jeans, a black polo-neck sweater and a black jacket. He also had the look – common, I have found, in people who play this part – of a man who was about to