“Voilà.” Mike de Sykes, a small, plump man in a white suit placed our drinks on the table. “Nadia won’t be a moment. Just popped downstairs to freshen up. Ah, here she is,” he said, looking up at the door. “The girl herself. You’re gonna love this girl, Rosie.”
Nadia was a very beautiful girl, with sculpted Arabic features, but there was something about the way she had done her hair, scraped back severely from her face, then ringleting down weirdly from two high bunches, which reminded me of a sheep. A few minutes later, we were deep in conversation. Well, I say deep . . .
“So Mikey’s saying,‘Nadia, you should go to Nambula.’And I’m thinking, Why? And I’m pissed at him. You know? Then I see the pictures. And Mikey’s saying, ‘Nadia. These are your people.’ And I’m looking at these pictures, of these children that are dying, and I’m thinking, This feels real, you know? This just feels so real. These are my people. And then I’m saying, ‘Mikey I think I’m going to Nambula.’”
“Nadia’s a very caring girl,” said Mike, grabbing a handful of Twiglets and shoving them into his mouth.
“And Mikey’s saying, ‘Nadia, it’s not enough to weep.’And I’m looking at these pictures, and I’m thinking, I really think I am, you know? I’m going to Nambula.”
“Which pictures were these?”
“The ones in the News, hon,” said Mike, grabbing another handful of Twiglets. “Nadia was just destroyed when she saw those pictures.”
“If it’s the same article I’m thinking of, there was only one picture and it wasn’t of Nambulans. I think it was taken in Mozambique, though no one was to know.”
“Nambula’s part of Mozambique, huh?” said Nadia.
“No. No. It’s a separate country to the north. About two thousand miles to the north, actually.”
“So they put a picture of someone else instead of my people?”
“Nadia, don’t get upset.”
“I am upset, Mikey. You’re saying, don’t get upset. I am upset. This is real for me, you know? They put a picture of this Mozambique, instead of my people. This is why I have to go to Nambula.”
“Were you born in Nambula?” I asked.
“This is what I said to Mikey. I wasn’t born in Nambula. Why am I going to Nambula?”
“But your parents are Nambulan?”
“‘Mikey,’ I said, ‘my mother is British, my father is British,’” and the accent was mid-Atlantic, “‘so why am I Nambulan all of a sudden?’”
“Your father is Nambulan, hon. His father was Nambulan.”
“So your grandfather was Nambulan?”
“Her grandfather was Nambulan. Nadia feels very close to the Nambulan people.”
“But you realize the people we’re trying to help are Keftian?”
“Huh? Mikey, I don’t get it.”
“Wait a minute,” said Mike, jutting out his chin aggressively. “You’re telling me these people who are starving are not Nambulan?”
Half an hour later, Nadia was beginning to come to terms with the Keftians’ infiltration of her people. “I’m really bored with my life, you know?” she was saying. “I really want to change my life. This feels real to me, you know? And I figure if I go out there and we take the pictures then something good will come.”
“What do you actually want to do in Nambula?” said a voice behind me. It was Oliver, standing with a smirk on his face. What was he doing here?
“Hey! Oliver Marchant. Sir. The main man. Let me get you a drink, sir,” said Mike, jumping to his feet. “Oliver Marchant, this is Nadia Simpson.”
“Pleased to meet you. Go on, go on, don’t let me interrupt,” said Oliver, drawing up an armchair and motioning to the waiter. “Large Scotch, please, Hannes. Anyone else? Go on, Nadia.”
“Nadia wants people to be aware of what’s happening.”
“And what is happening?”
“People are suffering,” said Mike.
“Why?” said Oliver. “Come on. It’s important. This is a political issue.”
“Huh?” said Nadia, suddenly nervous. “I don’t want to get political. I’m not a political person.”
“Nadia’s not a political girl.”
“I’m not a political person. But, you know, I figure it’s not enough just to, like, get upset.”
“It’s not enough just to weep,” encouraged Mike.
“I know, she wants to weep in front of the cameras,” said Oliver, laughing. “Well, that’s sweet, but I’m afraid it’s not that sort of program.”
Nadia looked rather hurt and very young.
“But it’s great that you want to help,” I said hurriedly.
“Wait a minute. I don’t get this,” said Mike. “I don’t get it. Nadia Simpson is saying she will give up her time, and go out to Nambula for you, waive her fee, expenses only, and you’re saying, don’t call us we’ll call you?”
“Precisely,” said Oliver, leaning back with his Scotch. “We have a lot of artists wanting to take part, and we’re choosing carefully. If performers are going to stand up on television, in a refugee camp, with messages for the public, then they ought to be informed, and have something responsible to say.”
“Come on, Nadia,” said Mike, getting to his feet.
“But Nadia does want to find out about it,” I said.
“Come on, hon. I’m not having you spoken to like this.”
“Hey, wait, Mikey, I wanna talk to this lady. I wanna talk to the lady. OK, Mikey? I wanna talk to the lady.”
She rearranged the sheep hairdo. “People like to be negative, you know? People like to be negative about doing good. I don’t know why they like to be negative, when people are doing good. They like to be negative.”
“They like to be circumspect,” said Oliver.
“Come on, Nadia. We’re wasting our time with these people. We’re out of here.”
Mike was helping her to her feet, leading her towards the door.
“But you said, go to Nambula.”
“You’re going to Nambula, hon. You’re on your way to Nambula.”
He was opening the door and bustling her out. “The whole fucking world’s gonna know you’re going to Nambula.”
“Did you have to be so rude?” I said, when they’d gone.
“I wasn’t rude. I just nipped it in the bud. Come on. You’re a busy girl. You haven’t got time to waste with these idiots.”
“You might at least have thanked her.”
“For what? Why should she expect undiluted gratitude? What has she got to offer us? I tell you what. It’s a two-way exchange, this business. If the charities toughened up and asked a few more questions before they went slobbering all over the stars they’d have a lot less trouble.”
“You were crushing a butterfly under a millstone, or whatever the expression is.”
“Oh, come on, sweetheart, lighten up. Have another drink. I’ve done a bit of a script for Africa. I want you to have a look at it.”
He’d drawn it up in two hours. It was brilliant. I lightened up.
It wasn’t simple, me and Oliver. I knew his bad side and I didn’t trust him. But the charm of the boss man, of a man more capable than you, who is helping you, is very seductive. Over the few days that followed in London, as I watched him using his brain and his power to drive the program along, as everything came together, the press launch, the sponsorship, the food, the program slot, the scripts, as I found him right behind me whenever I was in difficulties, I felt Safila growing safer by the moment, and myself on ever more uncertain ground.
CHAPTER
Twenty-three
We were kissing in Oliver’s flat, ravenous. His hand was inside my shirt. It was the night after the press launch. We had been bashing the phones all day, talking to sponsors, artists, engineers, cameramen, journalists. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to escape into sensual release with Oliver. He was sliding his hand round my back, unclipping my bra in one smooth move, pulling my shirt up with the other hand.
&
nbsp; “We mustn’t do this,” I said with my eyes closed, breathing unsteadily.
“I think we must,” he whispered into my neck.
I twisted away.
“Why not?” he said, holding my arm.
I moved away from him. “You know why not.”
I sat, rubbing my forehead while he went to get a drink, straightening my clothes, fastening myself up, trying to work out how I’d got into this. He’d asked me again to have dinner with him. We were getting on so well, he was being so good, and had done so much, it seemed churlish and oddly conceited to refuse.
He wanted to go to the movies before dinner, he said, so we could wind down and “forget about work,” for a while. The only film we could get into was some Vietnam war spectacular. I thought it would be fine, but when the first machine gun went off, and the first khaki-clad stomach turned red, it hit my mental bruise like a cudgel.
I got up, apologized my way along the row, walked out, down the stairs, into the tackiness and kids of Leicester Square. I leaned against a wall, trying to make the goblins lie quiet. I could see Oliver looking for me outside the cinema. I wasn’t going to tell him about the land mine. Horrific experience evolved too easily into anecdote. Events which, as Nadia Simpson would say, were real to you, and painful, got turned into entertainment for everyone else. It was a good way of making yourself seem more interesting, but pretty cheap.
In the end, though, I did tell him. He was very understanding. And because, he said, I was too upset to go to a restaurant, he took me home to his flat and said we’d get a pizza. And we both, I think, felt a pang at the memory of all the old Oliver and Rosie pizza jokes. Then, when we got into the flat and the door was closed behind us, he dropped his coat on the floor, and took me in his arms. And, shaken and shook around, lonely, aroused by so much proximity, by my practical need for him, by the chemical rush which had never left us, I didn’t resist.
He came back in with the drinks, and lit a cigarette. He was angry.
“You realize I can’t do this?” he said.
“I know. We mustn’t.”
“I don’t mean that. I mean Charitable Acts.”
I felt as though all my insides were shuddering. “What are you saying?” I said. “How can you not now?”
“It’s up and running. Vernon can direct it.”
“But you know that would be hopeless. It’s shaky enough as it is. It would fall apart. We’re relying on goodwill. They all think he’s awful.”
“He’ll take over whether I’m there or not. He’s coming out to Africa. As you yourself said, I can’t handle him.”
“Why are you saying you can’t do it?”
“If Vernon’s going to get involved—which he is—I’ll be better off out of it. I haven’t got the time, anyway.”
“But you’ll do the London end?” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“No.”
“Why? Why have you decided this now?”
“Like I said, I haven’t got time.”
I thought for a minute. “If I had said yes to you just now,” I said carefully, “would you have found the time?”
His face was thunderous. “You have no idea, have you? No idea. You come back full of self-righteousness, with your dying people and your cause. I thought you had come back for me. You’re playing games with me to get what you want. I love you. I can’t be expected to work with you on this basis. I can’t go out to Africa if we’re playing this stupid game of just being colleagues.”
He was lying, wasn’t he? He hadn’t been misled at all. When had I misled him? He didn’t love me. He just had to make sure he could still have me if he wanted.
“What about Vicky?”
“Blah. Vicky. That’s over.”
“And if I say I will sleep with you?”
Surely nobody, not even he, could play this dirty?
“Then it would be easier for me.”
He could.
He stormed into the kitchen. It was eleven o’clock. I knew we couldn’t do the program without him. I stared at the rain, driving against the window. The camp would be in darkness now, apart from the hospital and feeding center. We had twelve days left till the broadcast. They had ten days’ worth of food. The new refugees would be arriving any day. They would be starting to cross the desert to Safila, pouring out of the highlands heading for the border. There were five, maybe ten, thousand of them, and they didn’t have anything to eat. It occurred to me that my romantic life didn’t matter very much. Neither did Oliver’s or Vicky Spankie’s. Maybe I should just do it.
The phone rang twice, and the answerphone clicked on. Vicky Spankie’s voice echoed over the wooden floors.
“Olly. It’s Vicky. I know where you are. You’re not with Julian. You’re out with Rosie, aren’t you? Or Kirsty.” There was an indeterminate noise which may or may not have been a sob. “Phone me when you get in. Please.”
Oliver strode in from the kitchen, dived for the phone, clicked off the answerphone. “Hi, I’m here. What are you talking about?” He was walking with the phone into the bathroom, trailing the long cord, shutting the door behind him.
Unaccountably, Vicky’s voice rang out again. “Olly, please call me when you get in.”
I walked slowly over to the machine. He had put it on ANSWER PLAY instead of turning it off. I was going to stop it, then another message began.
“Hi. It’s Kirsty here. Just ringing to see . . . um . . . just ringing because you said you were going to call me after . . . and . . .” The beep went.
“Olly, where are you?” Vicky again. “You said we . . . I called Julian and he said he wasn’t seeing you tonight. Why do you keep doing this to me? I feel so stupid and wretched and reduced. What are we doing this weekend? I can’t bear this.”
I remembered that feeling so, so well.
“Oliver, it’s Mummy. Please just give me a little call, darling. I keep leaving you all these messages, and I haven’t even had the briefest little chat with you for two months.”
There was a beep, then someone obviously rang off, then another beep and a different woman’s voice. “Hi, pervert. Just called to say crisis averted. The Big Pig swallowed it. I’m working late at the office Monday, OK? Hope you can make it. Don’t call me at home tonight. I’ll ring you tomorrow. Mmm. Dirty kiss you know where.”
I left the tape still playing, put on my coat, and left.
He caught up with me in his car just as I reached the bus stop on the King’s Road.
“Get in,” he said.
“I’m waiting for the bus.”
“I’ll take you home.”
“No, thanks.”
“Look, I’m sorry. At least let me drive you home.”
It was pouring rain. I got in the car. We set off north in a particularly filthy silence. Halfway through Hyde Park, he swerved the car into the car park beside the Serpentine, and turned off the ignition. A Japanese couple were walking by the side of the lake, his arm around her shoulders. A pair of ducks were making a purposeful wake through the black water.
He looked sad, beaten. “I am very unhappy,” he said.
As he knew, many women have quite a strong urge, when confronted with a broken man, to try to mend him. Messing about with Oliver was not what I had come back to England for.
He rubbed his head with his forearm miserably.
On the other hand, I thought, we’re going to be in a real mess without him.
“I hate myself,” he said.
And, actually, it was ridiculous to think he had been doing all this work just so I would sleep with him.
“I feel so wretched.”
“Will you please put the heater on?”
We were all human. He’d probably just lost his temper, and allowed the control fetish to have its head. At least I should give him a get-out clause.
“You didn’t really mean you weren’t going to do the program, did you?”
“Yes,” he said, uncertainly.
The car
was starting to fill with warmth again.
“You’ve been wonderful these last two weeks,” I said. “You’ve sorted it all out, you’ve got everyone together, you’ve driven it along. The whole thing is only happening because of you. Every time I think about the camp I think about them all depending on you, and you being so good.”
He was brightening like a child. It was all true, that was the stupid thing.
“I know you care about those refugees. You’ve put your other work on one side to do this, and stuck your neck out with Vernon. You’re not going to abandon it now.”
I hope, I added silently.
I watched him weighing it up.
“You don’t really want to get into a mess with me again. We’re fine as we are.”
He was staring at his hands. “I do care.”
Maybe he was changing.
“I feel . . . I’ve really loved doing this, you know. It’s . . .” He looked down and rubbed his thumb against his fingers. “It’s really good to be doing something that’s doing good. Oh, Jesus, it sounds so corny. I mean, it makes me feel good.”
“So you’ll carry on?”
“Yes,” he said. “I want to carry on.”
And he leaned across and gave me a little kiss on the lips.
“I would have done it anyway,” he added smoothly. Bastard.
CHAPTER
Twenty-four
It was Sunday morning, six days before we were due to leave for Africa. The Charitable Acts cast and production team had decamped to Dave Rufford’s stately home for the first full rehearsal. They were mooching about his recording studio in the Great Hall, waiting for things to start moving. Vernon had found us a juicy one-hour spot, mid-evening, a week on Wednesday. Ten days to go. I looked around and wondered if we were going to get it together in time.
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