WELL DONE! Fiction - A WYNTER'S TAIL by Patricia Feinberg Stoner

A Wynter’s Tail by Patricia Feinberg Stoner

Crispin de Beaufort Wynter flounced through the outer office, muttering under his breath. Angelica looked up from her keyboard in surprise. This wasn't the Crispin they all knew and loved at the agency. The Crispin who always rolled up with a fresh green carnation in his immaculate sports coat, the Crispin who always had a kind word and a suggestive wink for the bedraggled troupe of actors waiting to see Cynthia March, the formidable head casting agent.

'What's the matter, Cris?' Angelica asked sympathetically.

'Nothing! Absolutely nothing! That's what La March told me. I know for a fact that they're casting the Dream for the Barbican this week, and everyone knows I am famous for my Bottom.'

Angelica bit her lip, but the waiting group were less tactful. Titters, some stifled, some not, ran round the room and someone was heard to remark, sotto voce, that Crispin's bottom was, indeed, well known to some.

'But oh, no,' the indignant actor went on, 'La March says she has nothing for me.'

Three days later, it was a transformed Crispin who bounced into the waiting room.

'I've had a call-back,' he crowed. 'From La March herself. A most intriguing phone call. She wanted to know if I'm any good with horses. It's got to be that new historical epic of Spielberg's. I'd heard they were casting for the battle scenes. Better brush up my equestrian skills.'

At that moment a discreet light lit up by Angelica's desk, and she said,

'You can go in now; Cynthia is ready to see you.'

Crispin emerged some ten minutes later, looking bewildered.

'Well, that was very mysterious,' he said. 'Apparently it's all very hush hush and Cynthia couldn't tell me very much. She said when she heard horses were involved, she thought of me immediately. I've got riding listed as one of my skills in Spotlight, you know – an actor has to have quite a few strings to his bow, especially nowadays when there are so many reality TV stars and soap actors competing for parts with real actors.' He cast a contemptuous glance round the waiting room.

'Oh, and she did say, Cynthia that is, that my comedic skills would come in handy. Don't say they're considering me for Falstaff? Anyway, they're doing the final casting in Brighton – Cynthia said I've to go down there on Wednesday and meet up with 'Steve' in the Pavilion.' He tapped the side of his nose and winked knowingly.

'Well, we all know who Steve is, don't we?' Well, if she wants to be all cloak and dagger about it, who am I to say neigghhhh?'

And with that he tapped himself vigorously on the celebrated bottom with an imaginary riding crop and cantered out of the office.

Crispin de Beaufort Wynter was not good with horses. In fact, they terrified him. It was, coincidentally, in Brighton that an eight-year-old Crispin had had his first encounter with the equine species. A thrilling entry in the Donkey Derby had come to an inglorious end when the donkey he was riding suddenly stopped dead. Crispin did not. His howls and wails drew anxious glances from nearby families, who suspected murder at the very least, and he had to be consoled with several ice cream cones.

Still, steady the Buffs, Crispin told himself sternly. He made an appointment at a local riding stables, where a kindly groom and the gentlest of trots on the smallest of ponies reassured him that he could handle anything Spielberg asked of him. It was, after all, mainly CGI these days, he reasoned.

Come Wednesday, Crispin reported to the Brighton Pavilion at the appointed time. He had chosen his attire carefully: a tweed jacket and fawn trousers with just a hint of fullness at the thigh, a whisper of tightness at the calf which, when worn over well-shined brown boots, suggested—but did not shout—jodhpurs.

His experienced eye took in the familiar scene of the casting call: the tables askew, strewn with dog-eared scripts and abandoned paper cups half full of cold coffee, the production assistant bustling about with her inevitable clipboard, the producer sitting apart, scribbling in a dog-eared notebook. No sign of Steven Spielberg, but that was only to be expected at this stage of the game.

'Crispin!' The shout rang out across the room, and a small, energetic person threw himself into the startled actor's arms.

'Crispin, it's so good to see you! When I heard we were getting you, I couldn't believe our luck! You'll be the star of the show, just see if you're not! I'm Steve, by the way, but of course you knew that.'

'Er…' Crispin began, but the small person steamrollered on.

'Naughty, naughty Cynthia, expecting you to come and audition! Of course the part is yours, it was practically written for you. Now trot along and see Marcie, she's got some wardrobe questions to go over with you.'

At the far end of the room a space was screened off. This, Crispin assumed, was the wardrobe department. Marcie, the wardrobe mistress, was tall and angular with a pronounced mustache and a no-nonsense manner.

'Hello, there, Crispin,' she said. 'Oh good, you're not too tall. You'll match well with Derek. We have to get this business sorted quick sharp, or there'll be no end of ructions. Let's see if this will suit.'

She was holding up one half of a pantomime horse's costume. It wasn't the head.

Patricia Feinberg Stoner is an award-winning British writer, a former journalist, copywriter and publicist. She is the author of three humorous books set in the Languedoc, in the south of France, At Home in the Pays d’Oc, Tales from the Pays d’Oc and Murder in the Pays d’Oc, and also three books of comic verse: Paw Prints in the Butter, Pelicans Can’t Read and The Little Book of Rude Limericks. A Londoner to her fingertips, she now lives in West Sussex, on the south coast of the UK. You will find her on Facebook (Paw Prints in the Butter and Arun Scribes) and on Twitter (X) @pawprints66.