Roundabout
Snap
The recording session went on in the small hours of last night in a North London church,' explained the dark man. 'Twenty-six oboes—it must be like the classic definition,' added the old critic; 'an ill wind that nobody blows good.' But when it came, from stereophonic equipment at the far end of the restaurant, it was sublime. The brass brayed like a thousand transfigured donkeys, seraphic, exultant. The drums deafened. The squealing oboes were redeemed Gadarene swine. The bassoons were the psalmist's deep call- ing to deep because of the noise of the water- Pipes. The side-drums rattled with the sound of shattered glass. Then the lights went out. The guests stood by the window. The fireworks were going up beyond the trees. Absurd ever to sup- pose that water could quench their celestial long- ings.
Out on the balcony, rain pattered on the wooden roof, and soft blobs of green fire plopped up and softly fell. The rockets were racing and flaming heavenwards, tearing the fabric of the air as they went, burrowing into the blackness or spending themselves in dazzling cascades. All around they cried them on with gasps and sighs and shouts of pleasure. The old critic was purring to himself. The last rocket died a noble, crimson death. Inside there was more Handel, more drink. Everyone talked loudly. Wit blossomed. An American was explaining how he had sold 36,000 copies of a Beethoven string trio. Anything seemed possible—even twenty-six serpents danc- ing in the nave of a bombed church in Holloway —but not that the bar could close. But eventually it did. The taxis arrived to take the guests back. Battersea Gardens at last stood empty again in the continuing rain.
Crackle
DARLING you can't be going you've only just come isn't it a divine little place yes it used to be called the something or other d'argent have one of these they're hot and I've always wanted to meet you too 'hasn't Harry Roy got fat the one over there I be- lieve she's a model the decor's very French isn't it they did it all themselves you know just the three of them well just half a glass whoops that's enough are there any more of the ones with the smoked salmon on them there's Yolande Donlan do you remember her in that play what was its name now they're not being mean with the champagne are they there's Sir Mortimer Wheeler he lives somewhere round here doesn't he darling you can't be going you've only just come.
Pop
AN ACTRESS trod broken biscuit into the apple- green carpet of the Green Room Club, never before marked by other than male feet. A white- coated boy spun a tray of drinks high above Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies's unknowing and beflowered head. Joanna Richardson, copies of whose bio- graphy of Sarah Bernhardt were tastefully propped open on an unused bar, said that she didn't find any difficulty in translating the fleeting impressions of the theatre into words. 'I've written other biographies, you know,' she said. A pleasant girl in a simple dress of patterned flame-orange, she looked the one woman present entirely unaware of her own appearance.
The publicity manager said that he thought it might be rather invidious to ask the leading actresses to autograph a book. Somebody sug- gested that some of the actresses weren't all that leading, anyway. 'I've just done a terrible thing,' said one of the girls from the publishers. 'I've introduced Renee Asherson as Jill Bennett. Thank God, neither of them knew who I was.'
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