Arthur doesn't know he is sitting next to Alexis. Alexis knows it is him.
Jane Lomax-Smith introduces Professor Steve Donnellan, the speaker.
Steve stands up, ready to speak.
Alexis catches his eye, and points unobtrusively at Arthur.
Steve nods, and begins his talk on The Frozen Zoo.
Downstairs in the basement the museum has multiple fridges, in which we keep one hundred and thirty thousand tissue samples, says Steve. These are samples of tissue from plants, birds and animals, some of which are extinct. For example the Southern Gastric Brooding Frog, and the Long-Eared Mouse. Now imagine how valuable these tissue samples will be ............
Arthur is bored. He looks up at the crocodile. He looks at the walls. These are covered with masks and spears and ritual objects belonging to Pacific Island Cultures. He dreams of being elsewhere
What did Gaius ask him to come for? Oh yes, he has a DNA question.
The talk ends and there is time for questions.
Arthur stands up. He is given a microphone.
My name is Arthur, says Arthur.
With the cockroach DNA! says Steve. I remember. What is your question?
Arthur is utterly confounded. What? He has cockroach DNA?
He can't even remember the question.
..............
Meanwhile Gaius is sitting uncomfortably close to Margaret, in a stuffy dark theatre watching Choir Girl, for of course they have let him go in.
The young woman on stage performs a comic monologue about joining a choir, in which things go wrong.
Suddenly a choir of eight female voices comes in from behind.
Bay-buh! Bay-buh! They sing.
They come on to the stage wearing big maroon dresses, white stockings, flat shiny black shoes.
When the monologue's theme becomes somewhat erotic, the choir writhe and flap their skirts suggestively and sing in a lascivious fashion.
Margaret laughs, she thinks it is funny. She was once in a choir.
Gaius wonders if he would laugh too, if she wasn't there.
It's over, the audience claps, everyone files out.
That was lovely, says Margaret, fanning her face with the stub of her ticket. Did you enjoy it? Why don't we go for a drink.
Can't says Gaius. I'm meeting Arthur.
More the merrier, says Margaret. Woo hoo!
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1 comment:
I met Gaius today and he told me the choir was brilliant and had a great range and quality to their voices but it would have been even better if Margaret hadn't sung along.
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