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6
    'Mummy, Mummy, Mummy'
    No one could remember afterwards with any certainty who first suggested having the Festival picnic by the sea. Or rather, when it was discussed in the light of what happened later, everyone seemed to have a different version of how the idea arose.
    The Megalith contingent - Jemima, Cherry, Guthrie Carlyle as well as Spike Thompson - received their invitations from Nat Fitzwilliam. This left Jemima with the distinct impression, confirmed by Guthrie, that the initiative had come from Nat in the first place. Unquestionably Nat regarded the occasion as yet another opportunity for exercising his directorial powers. He confided to Jemima that his ideas for The Seagull (that production scoffingly described by Christabel as 'underwater') derived their inspiration from boyhood experiences on the Larmouth seashore.
    'By enclosing the whole production in fishermen's nets, and grounding it in sand, using rocks covered in sea-weed for furniture where necessary instead of that predictably dreary nineteenth-century Russian stuff, I think I'm groping for the symbolism under the symbolism of The Seagull. But of course I'm not forgetting Chekhov's outward intentions as well, not for a minute. I utterly despise the kind of director who simply forgets about the author altogether. I just want to fuse the two - the inner Chekhov then, the outer Chekhov now. By creating this kind of Russian picnic of us all, the whole l.arminster Festival society. I think I shall strike some kind of blow towards that.'
    'It all begins to make sense,' said Jemima solemnly.
    'It needed doing,' echoed Guthrie with equal gravity. These two phrases had served them well in tight corners before now,
    Nat looked pleased. Then a look of slight uncertainty - a rare expression - crossed his face. 'Of course I meant the other way round. The outer Chekhov then, the inner Chekhov now. But you realized that.'
    'Of course,' said Jemima and Guthrie together.
    At breakfast at Lark Manor on the other hand, Julian Cartwright was busy blaming his daughter Regina for the whole thing.
    'For God's sake, Rina.' Fie spoke in a distinctly testy voice, 'Poor Mummy's already getting absolutely exhausted. You know how tired she gets when she's working. You don't remember? Well you know now. And then this bloody picnic' He pulled himself up with the air of one who had been sufficiently sorely tried to desert a principle. 'I apologize. This disastrous picnic. We could have had a peaceful Sunday lunch. Whatever induced you, Rina, to suggest it?'
    'We always used to have lovely picnics at the sea on Sundays in the summer.' Regina for once sounded as sulky as Blanche. 'Besides, I want to ride Lancelot down to the sea and let the wind flow through my hair.' She shook back her thick black tresses ostentatiously before adding: ' Anyway it was Blanche's idea, not mine.'
    'As a matter of fact, Daddy, the picnic was probably Ketty's idea in the first place.' Blanche, in contrast, was in unusually high spirits. 'She wants to meet all the actors in the Festival. She keeps droning on about the old days at the Gray Theatre. And since the Blagges do all the work I don't see it's such a terrible problem for Mummy.'
    'Sand in the sandwiches! Tepid coffee, empty lemonade bottles.' Julian Cartwright's handsome face flushed with irritation as he too cried 'Ugh' in his turn. He was so unreasonably bad-tempered that both girls burst out laughing.
    'Oh Daddy,' cried Blanche, 'as if Lark Manor picnics were ever like that! No, we shall have our usual sumptuous food, served in our usual sumptuous style, and the actors are going to cook theirs on a huge fire—'
    'Which means,' chimed in Regina, 'they will eat up all ours and be rather embarrassed and we will eat up all theirs and not be embarrassed at all. Then footing it featly, we'll all rush into the sea together, all taking hands, chanting "Come unto these yellow sands . .. curtsied when you have and kiss'd - the wild waves