So Much Blood Read Free Page B

little local interest for an Edinburgh audience. It was not there. He was perplexed for a moment, until he remembered that only a fragment of the work survived and was in the Memorials of Thomas Hood . He started thumbing through that.
    So Much Comic, So Much Blood had begun life as a half-hour radio programme. Then Charles had added to the compilation and done the show for a British Council audience. Over the years he had inserted different poems, played up the comic element and dramatised some of the letters. The result was a good hour’s show and he was proud of it. He was also proud that its evolution predated the success of Roy Dotrice in John Aubrey’s Brief Lives , which had set every actor in the country ransacking literary history for one-man shows.
    â€˜I’m going to make some coffee. Would you like some?’ Charles looked up at the girl in the photograph, Anna Duncan.
    â€˜Please.’ She disappeared into the kitchen. He stared with less interest at the extant fragments of The Dundee Guide .
    â€˜Here’s the coffee. Do carry on.’
    â€˜Don’t worry. I like being disturbed. I’m Charles Paris.’
    â€˜I know. Recognise you from the box. It’s very good of you to step into the breach.’
    â€˜I gather you did more or less the same thing.’
    â€˜Yes. Poor Lesley.’ A brief pause. ‘What is your show about?’
    â€˜Thomas Hood.’
    She did not recognise the name. ‘Why’s it called what it is?’
    â€˜Because he once wrote “No gentleman alive has written so much Comic and spitten so much blood within six consecutive years”. In a letter to The Athenaeum actually.’
    â€˜Oh. I don’t think I’ve even heard of Thomas Hood.’
    â€˜I’m sure you know his poems.’
    â€˜Do I?’
    â€˜Yes. “I remember, I remember . . .’
    â€˜â€œ. . . the house where I was born”? That one? I didn’t know that was Hood.’
    â€˜It was. And November. Faithless Sally Brown . Lots of stuff.’
    â€˜Oh.’
    Her eyes were unusual. Very dark, almost navy blue. Her bare arm on the table was sunburned, its haze of tiny hairs bleached golden.
    â€˜What are you reading at Derby?’
    â€˜French and Drama in theory. Drama in practice.’
    â€˜Last year?’
    â€˜One more. If I bother.’ The navy eyes stared at him evenly. It was pleasantly disconcerting.
    â€˜I’ve just been down to the hall. Saw the lovely Stella Galpin-Lord. A mature student, I thought.’
    Anna laughed. ‘She lectures in Drama.’
    â€˜Ah. She seemed rather to have lost her temper this morning.’
    â€˜That’s unusual. She’s always uptight, but doesn’t often actually explode.’
    â€˜She was exploding this morning.’
    â€˜Everyone’s getting on each other’s nerves. Living like sardines in this place. I’m glad I’m in a flat up here.’ (On reflection, Charles was glad she was too.) ‘And people keep arguing about who’s rehearsing what when, and who’s in the hall. It’s purgatory.’
    â€˜You’re rehearsing the revue at the moment?’
    â€˜Yes, but I’ve got a break. They’re doing a new number—about Nixon’s resignation and Ford coming in. Trying to be topical.’
    â€˜Is the revue going to be good?’
    â€˜Bits.’
    â€˜Bits?’ Charles smiled. Anna smiled back.
    At that moment Pam Northcliffe bounced into the room, her arms clutching two carrier bags which she spilled out on the table. ‘Hello. Oh Lord, I must write my expenses. I’m spending so much on props.’
    â€˜What have you been buying?’ asked Charles.
    â€˜Oh Lord, lots of stuff for Mary .’
    â€˜Did you get the cardboard for my ruff?’
    â€˜No, Anna, will do, promise. No, I was getting black crepe for the execution. And all these knives that I’ve got to make