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Houghton is our sister, Maureen. Mother's death, following Father's disappearance fifteen years previously, has freed us to sell the house and share the proceeds, which we're eager to do as soon as we can rid ourselves of Mother's disagreeable lodger and suspected lover, Stanley Kedge, the part Jimmy Maidment was ideal for but Fred Durrance somehow isn't. The property boom should have given this aspect of the plot added piquancy, but that's been lost along with a lot else during the tour. "Actually,"
    I said, 'this is all far too spick-and-span to be mistaken for the set."

    "Thank you."

    "How long have you lived here?"

    "All my life."

    "Your parents?"

    "Both dead."

    "Any brothers or sisters?"

    "No. I was an only child."

    "So, no resemblance to the Elliotts."

    "No. None at all." He laughed a soft, whinnying sound. "I really like Orton's depiction of the family, though. And the way you play it.
    You think you can get shot of Kedge very easily, but then he starts to undermine you, one by one, to expose your guilty secrets. The state of your and Fiona's marriage. Tom's redundancy. Maureen's lesbianism. I was sorry, in a way, that Orton introduced so much farce into the plot rather than just letting Kedge pick you apart, a step at a time."

    "That would be more Chekhov than Orton." I didn't care for the way Derek had referred to me in the second person when talking about James Elliott. The identification was and is a little too close for comfort.
    Still, I couldn't deny his analysis of the play was acute. After needling away at the Elliotts to no great effect, Kedge plays his decidedly un-Chekhovian trump halfway through the first act. Father did not just disappear fifteen years ago. Mother murdered him. "Stuck him with the carving knife like an underdone Sunday joint, as Kedge puts it. He shows them the bloodstains on the floorboards under the carpet and recounts how he buried the body in the garden. They can't sell now, can they, for fear that the new owner will discover the corpse and the police conclude that they knew all about it? But maybe they can, if they're desperate enough to take the risk. Except that at the end of the first act a Water Board official, Morrison, turns up to report that a leak in the locality has been traced to the stretch of main beneath their garden. It's going to have to be dug up. "But don't worry," says Morrison. "We'llput everything back as we found it."

    "I saw you once in Chekhov," said Derek. "Uncle Vanya. At Chichester."

    "You think I should play James Elliott as more of a tortured soul than a greedy prig?"

    "Perhaps. I mean ... none of you seem to miss your mother ... or your father. There's no ... love."

    "Do you miss your mother and father, Derek?"

    "Oh yes." He looked away. "All the time."

    "Sorry. I didn't mean to '

    "It's all right." He gave a crumpled smile. "It's nice of you ... to ask."

    "You'll have to blame Orton for the lack of love in the play." And us for failing to draw any out, I reflected. At the beginning of the second act, James stumbles into the sitting room at dawn the following day and wakes Tom, who has spent the night there on a Z-bed. It suddenly occurred to me that I could delay waking him and look round the room at the pictures and ornaments, at all the reminders of our childhood, that I could, in a few telling moments, inject some real feeling some love into the part, before the farce resumes. Derek Oswin had somehow succeeded in making me want to improve my performance. Even though, by any logical analysis, it wasn't worth the effort.

    "I suppose so. Although you could argue .. . that it ends on a loving note."

    "You could, yes." Panic mounts among the Elliotts as the second act unfolds. It's Saturday and the Water Board are due in with their digger on Monday. There is an argument about whether to attempt to remove the body in the interim, assuming Kedge can be persuaded to reveal exactly where it's buried. But Kedge has an alternative to propose.