The Liar

garden, a large house and a fair-haired sister but very little else. At this stage, and indeed on this stage, Adrian Healey, playing Flowerbuck, finds his memory to be uncertain too and often starts to forget his lines.

After the bath Joe is taken to the dining room to eat. Or rather the dining room comes to them. It is that kind of production. Joe recognises in horror a portrait of Sir Christian Flowerbuck, Peter's uncle.

'That gentleman hurt me!' he cries.

It transpires that Sir Christian, Peter's benefactor and godfather, whose baronetcy and money Peter is in line to inherit, had been the first man to violate Joe.

The scene ends at night with Joe creeping from his room and slipping into Peter's bed. He knows no other form of companionship or love.

Peter awakes next morning, horrified to realise that he has lain with the boy who he is now more sure than ever is his nephew.

Adrian had had nothing to do with the casting of Hugo, at least as far as anyone knew. Jenny had bounced into his rooms one afternoon, full of excitement.

'I've just seen a perfect Joe Cotton! We don't need to get a real boy after all.'

'Who is this child?'

'He's not a child, he's a Trinity first year, but on stage he'll look fourteen or fifteen easily. And, Adrian, he's exactly as you . . . hum ... as Dickens describes Joe. Same hair, same blue eyes, everything. Even the same walk, though I don't know if from the same cause. He came to see me this morning, it was rather embarrassing, he thought I was expecting him. Bridget must have arranged it without telling me. His name's Hugo Cartwright.'

'Really?' said Adrian. 'Hugo Cartwright, eh?'

'Do you know him?'

'If it's the one I'm thinking of, we were in the same House at school.'

Gary opened his mouth to speak, but he met Adrian's eye and subsided.

'I dimly remember him,' said Adrian.

'Don't you think he's ideal casting for Joe?'

'Well in many ways I suppose he is, yes. Fairly ideal.'

If Hugo was unnerved by correspondences between a hundred-and-twenty-year-old Victorian manuscript and an incident from his own and Adrian's life he made no mention of the fact. But there was no doubt that his acting in the scene was awkward and formal.

'This is your home now, Joe. Mrs Twimp is to be your mother.'

'Yes, sir.'

'How should you like Mrs Twimp as a mother?'

'Does she want to join us, sir?'

'Join us, Joe? Join us in what?'

'In the bed, sir.'

'Bless me, Mr Flowerbuck, the lad is so manured to a life of shame, that's the fact of it, that he can't conceive no other!'

'There is no necessity for you to sleep with anyone but yourself and your Saviour, Joe. In peace and innocence.'

'No, Sir, no indeed! Mr Polterneck and Mrs Polterneck and Uncle Polterneck must have their boy-money. I am their gold sovereign, Sir.'

'Keep your clothes on, Joe, I beg of you!'

'Lord love the poor child, Mr Flowerbuck. Look at the condition of him! He should be washed and given fresh arraignments.'

'You're right, Mrs Twimp. Bring a bath and a robe.'

'I shall return percipiently.'

Jenny called across from the stalls.

'What do you think your feelings towards Joe are here?'

Adrian shaded his eyes across the lights.

'Well revulsion, I'd've thought. Horror, pity, indignation . . .you know. All that.'

'Good, yes. But what about desire?'

'Um... '

'You see, I think it's implicit that Peter is sexually attracted to Joe from the first.'

'Well I really don't. . .'

'I feel Dickens makes it very clear.'

'But he's his nephew! I don't think Dickens had any such thought in Dickenss head, do you?'