Read Daniel Martin for Free Online Page B

three in civilian clothes. The two uniformed men carry waders slung over their shoulders. Another man carries a rolled-up stretcher. Another has a black box slung over his shoulder. Daniel waves, and one of the uniformed men gravely raises an arm in acknowledgment.
    Watching them walk through the sea of buttercups, he says, ‘Why did you throw that champagne in the river?’
    He glances at her beside him. She looks down into the grass at their feet.
    ‘It just felt right.’
    He puts an arm round her shoulders and kisses the side of her head. She remains staring at the grass.
    ‘Why did you do that?’
    He smiles. ‘For the same reason.’
     
     

 

     

    An Unbiased View
     
     
    This isn’t what I promised to write, just before you ran away. But it’s still pure fiction. Of course.
    About Mr Wolfe. Not you.
    It was at Claridge’s. A first-floor suite full of Louis-something furniture. Not too bad, perhaps the three of them cancelled one another out and for once there was at least a pretence they were looking for actress rather than lay potential. I knew Dan was slightly drunk and I wasn’t impressed. Or I was disappointed. After the script. He hardly said a word, not even when we were introduced. A kind of bored leer (he must have been drunk, he normally never puts on like that with total strangers). Bill and the man Gold did the chat. I sensed Dan was trying to dissociate himself. So why was he there? I think I thought he was rather pathetic, really. Like some character out of Hemingway. Or the man in Under the Volcano. You can see I’m tough and wise and sensitive and virile and literary and lost and totally above all this because I’m drunk.
    Terribly dated.
    At one point I mentioned I’d been in one of his plays. We’d done it for two weeks in Birmingham as a run-in for the main season, a little pretence of honesty before the crap started. I said how well I’d liked it. Actually I hadn’t much, it’s one of his weakest (I now know, having read and reread them all), but I wanted to say something. I knew Dan couldn’t be for much in the decision, that he must be there mainly out of courtesy. Perhaps I was already sorry for him.
    He said, Good.
    It was the only time I found him interesting. He said ‘good’ like: You stupid, pretentious bitch. As if I were some Chelsea nit-head.
    I said, trying to remind him I was a cut above mere drama school, And my tutor at Sussex was an admirer of yours. (Well, he had once mentioned Dan’s name.)
    He slid his eyes at the other two.
    He said, I think the girl really wants the part.
    They grinned, and I had to smile. That left him not smiling, and carefully avoiding my eyes, the mean bastard.
    He once said to me later, You know why I spend so much time paring dialogue? Because I loathe actors. Those were always two things about him. He wasn’t a playwright, a dramatist turned script. writer. All he did, I write dialogue. Once he put it: I’m a dialogue installer and repairman. Another time: At least most screen-actors never learn to act. That was my sin, that day.
    They’d run the two previous parts already picked me, it seems. It wasn’t much more than a formality. He claimed he was very drunk at Claridges’, not slightly drunk, and couldn’t remember anything. So he’d better not alter this.
    A bit more than medium height, greying a little at the fringes. The hair cut more American than British. Trend-conscious American executive. Bill’s wild locks and Mexican moustache made Dan look very passé. He always had that faint air, very much that male type physically, of the Duke of Windsor when he was still young. Rather a sullen-shy face, but the body not gone to fat. A good mouth, his best feature. His eyes too fixed and pale, I never really went for them, despite their occasional sexiness. A sort of challenge, they always stared a little. When he was bored, he used it consciously, as if he was somewhere else, and wished you were. It was a rudeness I rather