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Flat 23 Lovey Lodge
Crapton Alley
Smogtown SH1T ST
My Darling Phoebe,
I am writing to thank you so, so much for bringing along dear, dear Wilfie to witness my matinee performance this afternoon, it must have been torture for you both to sit amidst that uneducated, boisterous rabble. For me, of course, just knowing that you were in the audience was a source of great comfort in very trying circumstances.
As a fellow theatrical professionaI, dearest heart, you will understand that my happy visage was merely a mask, one that we in the acting profession are all too frequently obliged to wear in order to hide our woes, and on occasion our tears, from the common herd. Oh, yes, now if there's a smile on my face, it's only there trying to fool the public, but when it comes down to fooling you, now darling that's quite a different subject. But don't let my glad expression give you the wrong impression, really I'm sad, oh I'm sadder than sad. You're gone and I'm hurting so badly, like a clown I appear to be glad. Now there are sad things known to man, but nothing’s too much sadder than the tears of a clown…when there's no one around. Oh yes, baby.
Phoebe, the truth is that I miss you more than words can say and I have decided that I can no longer live without you by my side. The other women didn’t mean anything, dearest, really they didn’t, not one of those fifty-nine women meant anything to me - it was just sex, nothing more. The truth is, darling Phoebe, that I would rather have a smile from you than full-blown sex with a hundred, perhaps two hundred women, even if they all looked like Isadora Duncan, the young Nessa Redgrave and Nicole Kidman all rolled into one. And I did have sex with Nicole Kidman, or at least I tried to, until I was so cruelly rebuffed.
Where did we go wrong, Phoebe? Such dreams we had, when we were young! Life held such great promise for us both, especially me. The world was our oyster, fresh as we were from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and having undergone the finest theatrical training known to the acting profession; bright-eyed young hopefuls ready to conquer the world, together with our dear, dear friends Larry, Ralphie and Johnny. Where did it all go wrong, darling? I know you never complain, sweetness, and indeed even appear to be almost (whisper it!) happy, ensconced with Wilfie in his charming little pied a terre in Pimlico. Luckily for me, of course, Wilfie has never been one for the ladies otherwise I might even feel a touch, just a touch, mind you…jealous. Ha! What a ridiculous thought, that I, Daniel de Beauvoir, indisputably one of the very most talented performers ever to have graduated from RADA, could be jealous of poor little Wilfie! That said, poppet, I do sometimes wish that you wouldn’t show your obvious affection for each other quite so enthusiastically, in public anyway - people could get the wrong end of the stick, you see. You and Wilfie sat soooo closely together during my performance this afternoon that there were one or two moments when my comic timing came very close to being slightly ‘off’ (incredible though that may seem in a performer of my towering comic mastery), owing to my being distracted by the pair of you canoodling in the stalls. I mean, what would Wilfie’s boyfriend say? Thinking of which, I’ve not seen young Peregrine for some time now, but I digress.
Seriously, my sweet where did it all go wrong? Thirty years in the acting profession after the finest theatrical training known to man and now all I have to show for it are some dog-eared theatre programmes and a few thousand pounds in a rapidly dwindling savings account left over from an extremely well-paid dogfood commercial in 1989. And now, now I have surely reached the nadir of my career - life cannot get any worse for me than playing Lumpy the clown in Billy Bluster’s Big Top -can it? As you will have seen, Phoebe, I’m not even the star clown - I DO NOT EVEN HAVE A SPEAKING PART!!! I am purely there to have custard pies stuffed in my face for two hours in front of a baying mob of juvenile delinquents and their even more hideous offspring – IN A CIRCUS!!! Whereas once I dreamed of playing King Lear, Macbeth and Hamlet at Stratford, The Theatre Royal and the Old Vic, I am now playing Lumpy the Clown in Grimsby, Macclesfield and Droitwich. And you won’t believe this, dearest Phoebe, you won’t believe me when I tell you that Billy Bluster himself, despicable, red-nosed, fat old slug that he is, had the audacity, the bare-faced cheek to refer to me, within my hearing I might add, as the ‘old, fat one’!!!!!!! Oh, woe is me, what evil sins have I committed in past lives to deserve this ghastly fate???
I’m sorry to go on so, dear Phoebe, and you of all people know that I am not predisposed to self-pity, but I had to get all of this off my chest. I feel sure that you will understand, but pray do not worry about me. I am very well, considering, and a rather pleasant young juggler has invited me to her house this evening for tea and crumpets.
Sleep well, my darling, and give my love to dear Wilfie. Through it all, through the trials and tribulations of my life, I remain forever
Your little scamp
Quintin X
P.S. If my Mother calls, tell her that I’ll be incommunicado for the next 24 hours or so. You’re a dear.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Copyright owned by Steve Ellis
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