Tuesday 15th September 2009
Do you know Separate Tables by Terry Ratty (that’s Terence Rattigan, to be boring)? The great climax is when the down-trodden daughter finally stands up to her awful tyrant mother, played by Dame Sybil Thorndike in the film version. She says: ‘No, Mummy, no! I’m going to stay here and talk to the Major.’ It is Anthony Mottram’s favourite moment in all of drama apart from most of Brief Encounter. It is strange that one who has enjoyed numerous sizzling romances with very young men as well as a 40-year equal partnership of some kind or other with me should be obsessed by these tales of stiffled, desperate women: ‘I told myself I wouldn’t go. How could I? But then Thursday came and, of course, like a fool, I went.’
But that’s another story.
Last night I had a dream. I was saying, ‘No, Mottram, no! I’m staying here with the kitchen (see glossary). I’m going to help him get a really good arms’ deal.’
What could it mean?
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I know what it means, it’s pretty clear to me: you took your own kitchen in revenge, Mottram didn’t like it and gave you an ultimatum which you resisted. The reference to an arms’ deal has something to do with Exocets, possibly? You obviously don’t want to be personally implicated in the arms trade.
You are right, Miss Camilla. I have often thought of acquiring my own dream kitchen but, sadly, lacking the Mottram millions, I could not afford one. And then, the young are so tragic, and know so little – I don’t think I could stand it.
I think it’s far more likely you misunderstood what happened in the dream. You thought you heard yourself saying, when in fact (inasmuch as dreams offer facts), it was aye. Dreams can be awfully confusing. Think back to the timbre of the voice. Was it mayne, or did it sound more like yours and Dame Sybil’s? Was it refayned?
No, Mottram, no. There’s no doubt about it. It was may own voice.