Time Present and The Hotel in Amsterdam [antikvár]

ACT ONEconstance's fiat in Pimlico. For the present she is sharing it with pamela. There is somé evidence ihat it is lived in by two people with different temperaments and interests. On the whole, the im-pression is rather severe, more a working area than a place to lounge around. The influence of constance is in the Scandinavian furniture and abstracts. There is alsó the evidence of her profession of M.P. There is a wall of books, reports, white papers, volumes of Hansard, Year Books, fiiing cabinets and hundreds of back numbers of political weeklies, all very neatly arranged for reference. There is a prominent, large Swedish desk covered with still more books, newspapers, reports, galley proofs and a typewriter with paper in it. A glass table with a large selection of drinks, a record player, a television set. Records on the floor (pamela's untidiness). A couple of modish, uncomfortable steel and leather chairs. Two doors leading to bedrooms. A partitioned kitchen full of jars for exotic herbs, chopping boards, wine racks, business-like knives, strings of garlic and so on. In the less severe part of the room there are Japanese lampshades, a day-bed and a pile of expensive looking clothes wrapped in plastic covers, clearly just back from the cleaners. On one wall on this side is an old poster. It says simply "new theatre, hull. gideon ormemacbethwith full london cast etc". On the table is a rather faded production photograph of an ageing but powerful-looking actor in Shakespearian costume. It is late at night and when the curtain rises edith, pamela's mother, is sitting on one of the uncomfortable chairs with a cup of tea and reading a copy of Hansard. She is in her late fifties, and looks tired but alert. The doorbell rings. She goes to it and calls out firmly before open-ing.edith: Who is it?voice: Mummy ? It's Pauline.(She admits pauline, her youngest daughter, who is about eighteen and pretty.)