‘Yes. Different pieces, different artists, different style of playing. Exciting. Challenging. Living on my wits – even more than I do now.’
‘But you love all that, don’t you?’ He glanced at her sideways. ‘Or don’t you? You don’t have to do it, you know, if you don’t want to.’
‘I do want to! Of course I do! But it’s the old dilemma, isn’t it? I’m a married woman with a child. I can’t give my all to my career without failing the other side.’
‘And vice versa,’ he said quietly.
‘Oh, blast you, why must you always see both sides?’ she said, with an exasperated sort of laugh. ‘You men just don’t know what it’s like. You can have everything.’
‘Well,’ he began.
But she said, ‘There’s something else.’
‘Yes?’
‘If I do go for it, and I don’t get it – I don’t know how I’ll cope with that.’
‘Why shouldn’t you get it? You’re good enough, aren’t you?’
‘It isn’t always a matter of that. There’s style, too, and personality – getting on with people.’
‘You get on with everyone.’
‘And age.’
‘Ah,’ said Slider.
‘Music’s getting to be more and more a young person’s field. They don’t value experience and knowing the repertoire and all the rest of it. Not above youth and looks, anyway. Suppose I went for the audition, and I didn’t get it. You know how I hate to fail.’
‘You can’t let that stop you trying things.’
‘Yes, that’s the point isn’t it?’ she said, giving him another amused and rueful look. ‘Would I feel more of a failure for failing, or for not trying?’
He made a helpless gesture with his hands. ‘I can’t tell you that. How can I tell you that? You really want Atherton for these abstruse, philosophical discussions. I’m just an ordinary, common-or-garden copper.’
Another silence. She resumed: ‘I’ll tell you one thing, though.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It made you forget Melanie Hunter for a while, didn’t it?’
He looked indignant. ‘Was that what it was all about? This whole job thing was just a ruse?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ She grinned.
What was it she had said – toothache to take your mind off stomach ache? And yet . . .
While he was still thinking it out, she said, ‘Those snacks weren’t very substantial, I must say. Fancy some fish and chips? It’s not too late, is it?’
‘Never too late for fish and chips,’ he said.
Table of Contents
Recent Titles by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles from Severn House
Title Page
Copyright
One: Failure to Lunch
Two: Deep-Pan, Crisp and Even
Three: Babe in the Woods
Four: I Only Have Pies For You
Five: All Mad Cons
Six: Thirst Among Equals
Seven: Deliver Us From Elvis
Eight: Attitude Sickness
Nine: Lynch, Anyone?
Ten: The Son Also Rises
Eleven: That Bourne to Which No Traveller Returns
Twelve: Crowd Cuckoo Land
Thirteen: Discomfort Zone
Fourteen: Virgin Athletic
Fifteen: Tough On Crumbs, Tough On the Causes of Crumbs
Sixteen: Sleight of Hand
Seventeen: Dieu Que Le Son Du Cor Est Triste Au Fond Des Bois
Eighteen: The Devil Wears Primark
BS14 Kill My Darling Page 30