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ducked around the other side. He moved so quickly that he came up behind me and startled me mightily by clamping his hand on my shoulder. I actually jumped and let out what I blush to admit sounded more like a girlish squeal than a banshee call to arms. This doesn’t create a firm impression in the mind of an attacker that here is someone to be reckoned with. On the contrary it suggests that his next move should be to say ‘Boo!’ very loudly and the truck would be his.
    ‘Haven’t seen you in town before,’ he said. He spoke so remarkably slowly, stretching every vowel as if it were taffy, that I had time to turn around before he had reached the word ‘town’. I was relieved to find myself face to face with a policeman. He was about my height, just under six feet, and was dressed in crisp khaki. His digger’s hat was pushed up so that his face was fully visible. There were sweat stains under his armpits, and a faint waft of body odour wrestled with the Lifebuoy soap he had used to battle it. He was about my age, I guessed — thirty, perhaps slightly younger. His fair skin had seen a lot of sun, and it had been tanned against its natural inclination to pallor. He had brown hair, cut close to the scalp, and eyebrows that were thick but not unruly. They gave the impression that they ought to have been joined, although they were not. He needed a shave, even though it wasn’t yet two o’clock and doubtless he had shaved that morning. His eyes were blue and had a limpid quality that made me think that they might water easily. I took all this in rapidly. I see faces and try to assign them to roles. What would this walloper be suited to? Horatio, maybe. I wondered why he was not in the army.
    ‘The Power Players,’ he said, nodding at the name on the side of the truck and doubling the number of syllables. ‘Actors, are you?’
    ‘I’m William Power,’ I said, and held out my hand. He shook it. ‘I can see why you’re a policeman.’
    ‘Sergeant Topaz.’ He smiled at my jibe, but there was a hint of indulgence in it that I didn’t like. I don’t mind giving offence, but I do mind being indulged. He pointed his thumb at the truck. ‘Use a lot of fuel, does she?’
    ‘No more than we’re allocated.’ Was I sufficiently haughty, or did I sound defensive?
    ‘I didn’t mean anything by it, Will. Just interested. You here for a show?’
    ‘ Titus Andronicus ,’ I said, expecting him to look bewildered.
    ‘Awful bloody play,’ he replied. ‘Right up there with Cymbeline . I suppose you get to splash a bit of blood around. That must be fun.’
    ‘It has hidden depths,’ I said, bristling unreasonably, I was aware, at his criticism of the play I had chosen. I would not presume to find fault with the way he issued a summons or arrested a thug, after all. His gimcrack education may have been sufficient to teach him a thing or two about Shakespeare, but I did not believe for a second that he had any insights to offer. ‘Perhaps you will change your mind when you hear the poetry read properly.’ The sounds of the voices in the air-raid shelter came back to me. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever actually seen it performed?’
    ‘No, no I haven’t. I read them, that’s all. All the plays. Sonnets, too. Where’s it on?’ His enthusiasm mollified my annoyance somewhat.
    ‘I don’t know yet. We’ve only been in town for a few hours. I’ve seen a hall, in Ferry Street I think it is. A skating place.’
    ‘That’d be Wright’s place. Not exactly Drury Lane.’
    ‘This isn’t exactly London.’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’ Somehow he managed to cram that second ‘no’ with a sentence’s worth of dubiousness about our talent.
    ‘I’ll have a word to Wrighty, see if we can fix you up with the hall. I wouldn’t mind seeing what you can do. Most of the entertainers who come through use the Town Hall, though. Where are you staying?’
    Before I could answer his question, Tibald answered it for