Lemon Sorbet

The accomplished and talented Chris Cottom brings us a love letter of sorts, as Charles emails Helen after years of last seeing each other...

Hi Helen

Long time no see, so to speak, although if email ever becomes see-mail, you’ll notice how this disintegrating seventy-year-old hardly resembles the companion with whom you shared more nights at the theatre than I’m sure either of us can remember.

This brings me to the purpose of writing, which is actually: writing.

You see, I’ve been penning a play about an ageing man looking back on his life. In the first act he emails an old friend with whom he made many happy visits to the theatre before either of them were married. He reminds her about those Loseley ice-creams she loved, and how in the interval he, Charles (for convenience I’ve used my name for this character), would nip up smartly in case the usherette ran out of the lemon sorbet ones which were his companion’s favourite. It was his way of showing how much he cared for her. For convenience, I’ve called her Helen.

In his email (so it’s a monologue at this stage) Charles asks Helen whether she still likes going to the theatre and whether she remembers those post-show suppers they enjoyed at that brasserie on Old Compton Street, when she’d pour out her heart to him about the latest chancer who’d broken her heart and he, Charles, would sit there being sympathetic and supportive.

In my play’s second act, they meet up after all these years to see a revival of Amadeus at the National, which they’d once seen with Paul Scofield as Salieri. Afterwards it’s still warm and they amble across Hungerford Bridge, with Helen’s hand lightly on Charles’s arm, looking upriver towards St Paul’s, with the lights sparkling in all the buildings, old and new. They walk up to Soho to the brasserie on Old Compton Street, just like old times. There, Charles confesses to Helen how much in love with her he’d been for all those years and she says, with a catch in her voice, how much she wished he’d told her, because, actually, she’d always felt the same.

Anyway, you’ll remember how much I always valued your eye for a script. Is this complete rubbish or do you think there could be something there? Do let me know.

Much love

Charles