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I
spotted something between her legs that made me think of you…
Bernard:
Well, it's all trivial isn't it? Why don't you come?
Hannah:
Where?
Bernard:
With me.
Hannah:
To London? What for?
Bernard:
What for.
Hannah:
Oh, your lecture.
Bernard:
No, no, bugger that. For sex.
Hannah:
Oh…No. Thanks…[then,
protesting]
Bernard!
Bernard:
You should try it. It's very underrated.
Hannah:
Nothing against it.
Bernard:
Yes you have. You should let yourself go a bit. You might have written
a better book. Or at any rate the right book
Hannah:
Sex and literature. Literature and sex. Your conversation, left to itself,
doesn't have many places to go. Like two marbles rolling around a pudding
basin. One of them is always sex.
Bernard:
Ah, well, yes. Men all over.
Hannah:
[my edit]
…Chaps sometimes wanted to marry me and I don't know a worse bargain. Available
sex against not being allowed to fart in bed. What do you mean the right
book?
Bernard:
It takes a romantic to make a hero out of Caroline Lamb. You were cut out
for Byron.
[Pause.]
Hannah:
So, cheerio.
Bernard:
Oh, I'm coming back for the dance, you know. Chloe asked me.
Hannah:
She meant well but I don't dance.
Bernard:
No, no ~ I'm going with her.
Hannah:
Oh, I see. I don't, actually.
Bernard:
I'm her date. Sub rosa. Don't tell Mother.
Hannah:
She doesn't want her mother to know?
Bernard:
No ~ I don't want her mother to know. This is my first experience
of the landed aristocracy. I tell you, I'm boggle-eyed.
Hannah:
Bernard! ~ you haven't seduced that girl?
Bernard:
Seduced her? Every time I turned around she was up a library ladder. In
the end I gave in. That reminds me ~ I spotted something between her legs
that made me think of you.
[He instantly receives a sharp
stinging slap on the face but manages to remain completely unperturbed
by it. He is already produced from his pocket a small book. His voice has
hardly hesitated]
The Peaks Traveller and
Gazetteer ~ James Godolphin 1832 ~ unillustrated, I'm afraid. [he
has opened the book to a marked place]
Sidley Park in Derbyshire, property of the Earl of Croom…
Hannah
[numbly]: The
world is going to hell in a handcart.
[my
edit ~ Bernard gives Hannah a vital piece of missing information]
Bernard:
God, I'm good. Well, wish me luck ~ [vaguely,
to Valentine] Sorry
about…you know… [and
to Hannah]
and about your…
Hannah:
Piss off, Bernard.
Bernard:
Right. [Bernard goes] |
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