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.""Thank you Harry," said Edward.We both sat down again as Newman and his wife left the dining room.Our coffee was now cold so we ordered a fresh pot.The room was almost empty and when I had poured two cups for us Edward leaned over to me conspiratorially and whispered:"Now there's a hell of a story for a publisher like you," he said."I mean the real truth about Harry Newman."My ears pricked up as I anticipated his version of the story of what had actually happened on the night of that pre-war backgammon championship over thirty years before."Really?" I said, innocently."Oh, yes," said Edward."It was not as simple as you might think.Just before the war Harry was let down very badly by his business partner who not only stole his money, but for good measure his wife as well.The very week that he83A Quiver Full of Arrowswas at his lowest he won the club backgammon championship, put all his troubles behind him and, against the odds, made a brilliant come-back.You know, he's worth a fortune today.Now, wouldn't you agree that that would make one hell of a story?"84One-Night Standl he two men had first met at the age of five when they were placed side by side at school, for no more compelling reason than that their names, Thompson and Townsend, came one after each other on the class register.They soon became best friends, a tie which at that age is more binding than any marriage.After passing their eleven-plus examination they proceeded to the local grammar school with no Timpsons, Tooleys or Tomlinsons to divide them and, having completed seven years in that academic institution, reached an age when one either has to go to work or to university.They opted for the latter on the grounds that work should be put off until the last possible moment.Happily, they both possessed enough brains and native wit to earn themselves places at Durham University to read English.Undergraduate life turned out to be as sociable as primary school.They both enjoyed English, tennis, cricket, good food and girls.Luckily, in the last of these predilections they differed only on points of detail.Michael, who was six-foottwo, willowy with dark curly hair, preferred tall, bosomy blondes with blue eyes and long legs.Adrian, a stocky man of five-foot-ten, with straight, sandy hair always fell for small, slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed girls.So whenever Adrian came across a girl that Michael took an interest in or vice versa, whether she was an undergraduate or barmaid, the one would happily exaggerate their friend's virtues.Thus they spent three idyllic years in unison at Durham, gaining considerably more than a Bachelor of Arts degree.As neither of them had impressed the examiners enough to waste a85A Q''iv~r Full of Arrowsfurther two years expounding their theories for a Ph.D.they could no longer avoid the real world.Twin Dick Whittingtons, they set off for London, where Michael joined the BBC as a trainee while Adrian was signed up by Benton&Bowles, the international advertising agency, as an accounts assistant.They acquired a small flat in the Earl's Court Road which they painted orange and brown, and proceeded to live the life of two young blades, for that is undoubtedly how they saw themselves.Both men spent a further five years in this blissful bachelor state until they each fell for a girl who fulfilled their particular requirements.They were married within weeks of each other; Michael to a tall, blue-eyed blonde whom he met while playing tennis at the Hurlingham Club: Adrian to a slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired executive in charge of the Kellogg's Cornflakes account.Both officiated as the other's best man and each proceeded to sire three children at yearly intervals, and in that again they differed, but as before only on points of detail, Michael having two sons and a daughter, Adrian two daughters and a son.Each became godfather to the other's first-born son.Marriage hardly separated them in anything as they continued to follow much of their old routine, playing cricket together at weekends in the summer and football in the winter, not to mention regular luncheons during the week.After the celebration of his tenth wedding anniversary, Michael, now a senior producer with Thames Television, admitted rather coyly to Adrian that he had had his first affair: he had been unable to resist a tall, well-built blonde from the typing pool who was offering more than shorthand at seventy words a minute.Only a few weeks later, Adrian, now a senior account manager with Pearl and Dean, also went under, selecting a journalist from Fleet Street who was seeking some inside information on one of the companies he represented.She became a tax-deductible item.After that, the two men quickly fell back into their old routine.Any help they could give each other was provided unstintingly, creat86Onc-Night Standing no connict of interests because of their different tastes.Their married lives were not suffering - or so they convinced each other- and at thirty-five, having come through the swinging sixties unscathed, they began to make the most of the seventies.Early in that decade, Thames Television decided to send Michael off to America to edit an ABC film about living in New York, for consumption by British viewers
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