by Simon Brett
‘Not me! The movies are absolutely not my length of banana.’ Twinks had a patrician contempt for actresses. In her world, their only function was to seduce aristocrats away from their wives. They also had an unfortunate propensity for getting entangled with bishops.
Zelda Finch looked puzzled. ‘Then why are you here?’
It wasn’t the moment to say that she was looking for someone very rich to marry, like, say, a Texas oil millionaire.
Anyway, their conversation was at this point interrupted by the arrival of a tall, rough-hewn man wearing a suit loud enough to necessitate earplugs.
Zelda introduced them. ‘This is Wilbur T. Cottonpick,’ she said. ‘He’s a Texas oil millionaire.’
As her name was supplied, Twinks held out an exquisitely gloved hand. She was not expecting a kiss on it in the French manner, but then neither was she expecting it to be clenched in quite such a forceful grip. Clearly pulling the black stuff out of the earth – or whatever it was that oilmen did – took a huge amount of strength.
‘Hi,’ said Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
‘Mr Cottonpick’, said Zelda, ‘is a man of few words.’
‘Yup,’ he confirmed.
‘He doesn’t believe in using two words where one will do.’
‘Nope,’ he confirmed.
At this point the conversation became becalmed, like an incautious pirate ship entering the Saragossa Sea. As another mighty six from her brother flew over their heads, Twinks was beginning to think she might be reduced to actually watching the cricket when Zelda mounted another verbal initiative. ‘Mr Cottonpick is interested in the commercial possibilities of our national game.’
‘But it doesn’t have any spoffing commercial possibilities,’ objected Twinks. ‘That’s the whole point of cricket.’
‘I would point out’, said Zelda (who of course, having been brought up in England, knew her stuff when it came to the game), ‘that cricket has a long history of professional players making a lot of money from their expertise. W.G. Grace would probably be the most famous example.’
‘Yes, but those were oikish sponge-worms,’ said Twinks with contempt. ‘Common people. Not people like us.’ She looked rather uncertainly at Zelda, not convinced that an actress really could be described as ‘someone like us’, but decided for the moment to give her the benefit of the doubt. ‘Nobody of breeding would ever contemplate playing cricket simply for the old jingle-jangle.’
‘I think you’ll find – particularly here in America – that there are plenty of people who’d do anything for the old jingle-jangle,’ said Zelda.
Twinks snorted with continuing contempt, then turned to Wilbur T. Cottonpick, who had said nothing during their duologue. ‘So, you believe there are spondulicks to be garnered from the game of cricket?’
‘Yup,’ he replied.
‘And you don’t have any worries about meddling with something that’s a Grade A foundation stone of the British Empire?’
‘Nope,’ he replied.
‘Well, fair biddles to you.’ In the circumstances, Twinks couldn’t think of anything else to say. Though she’d been tempted to riposte with a sharp ‘Snubbins to you!’ But that would have been rude, and she had been brought up to know that rudeness was rarely appropriate with foreigners. They were already suffering so much from the blight of not having been born British that it wasn’t really the thing to rub it in.
‘Yup,’ Wilbur T. Cottonpick replied.
‘You see,’ said Zelda, feeling perhaps that further explanation might be required, ‘there are so many people here in America who have made huge fortunes out of the oil industry and many of them are really stumped when it comes to deciding how to spend all their money.’
Well, marrying me would be one way, thought Twinks. But another look at Wilbur T. Cottonpick’s suit stopped that idea in its tracks. She was only prepared to go so far in order to bring about the salvation of the Tawcester Towers plumbing.
‘A lot’, Zelda went on, ‘invest in the movie business. You’ve done a bit of that, haven’t you, Wilbur?’
‘Yup.’
‘Though sadly none of the movies you’ve invested in have made any money, have they?’
‘Nope.’
‘But you’re pleased about that, aren’t you?’
‘Yup.’
‘Because you don’t want to make any more money, do you?’
‘Nope.’
‘Just get rid of the stuff?’
‘Yup.’
‘But other Texas oil millionaires’, Zelda continued explaining to Twinks, ‘have bought sports teams . . . baseball . . . American football. You already own the Houston Hoodlums, don’t you, Wilbur?’
‘Yup.’
‘And the Dallas Donkeys?’
‘Yup.’
‘And they both lose money, don’t they?’
‘Yup.’
‘But not fast enough. You’re still making more money than you’re losing.’
‘Yup.’
‘Which isn’t good.’
‘Nope.’
‘So,’ Zelda turned to Twinks. ‘Wilbur was wondering whether buying a cricket team might be a good way of losing money quicker.’
‘Well, I’d say it was forty thou to a fishbone he’d be on a winner there,’ said Twinks.
‘She thinks it’s a good idea,’ Zelda translated.
‘It’s certainly worth having a pop at the partridge,’ Twinks elaborated.
‘Yup,’ said Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
With each word he spoke, the Texas oil millionaire disqualified himself even further from being, in the view of Twinks, potential husband material. Which was quite an achievement, given how little he said. Zelda had described him as a man of few words. ‘Three’ would have been more accurate.
When the cricket match broke for lunch, J. Winthrop Stukes’s team had, thanks to the century from Blotto, an unassailable lead. But, in the view of the two Englishmen, it wasn’t thought polite to mention this fact or rub in the inadequacies of their Trojan Horse opponents.
The few Americans in the White Knights eleven, however, had no such inhibitions. They gloried in their dominance, jeering as they spelled out the impossibility of the other side beating them. Blotto found it all rather distasteful.
Over pre-prandial drinks, Blotto was properly introduced to Hank Urchief. Being so close to Chaps Chapple, he could produce no words, only mouth like a goldfish. Not that the actor noticed. He was much more interested in Blotto’s sister.
At the lunch table Zelda Finch engineered a seat next to Blotto and reintroduced herself. ‘I’m afraid I was left rather high and dry when we last met,’ she purred. But there was no reproof in her voice. She behaved as if she regarded being placed on top of a wardrobe on the S.S. Regal as a necessary stage in some elaborate courtship ritual.
‘Great Wilberforce, yes. Thing the beaks at Eton taught us – when a lady asks you to do something, always tick the box with a big red tick. And never ask the reason why.’
‘So, if I asked you to do something else for me, Blotto . . . ?’ Zelda susurrated.
‘I’d be head of the queue with a silver-polished smile.’
‘I wonder’ – her hand hovered over his – ‘whether you and I could share a little privacy?’
‘Tickey-Tockey,’ said Blotto. ‘On our own?’
‘Exactly that.’
‘Very well,’ said Blotto, and he left the room.
Zelda turned in puzzlement to Twinks, who had overheard their exchange. ‘Now why the hell did he do that?’
‘He thought’, Blotto’s sister explained, ‘you were asking him to give you a little privacy.’
‘Oh, rats!’ said Zelda Finch, her carmined lips set in a firm line. She was a woman of considerable determination. She hadn’t made it through the feuds and betrayals of Hollywood by being passive. She never let herself be depressed by a set-back; it just made her all the more determined to achieve her goal.
And her goal in this case was ver
y definitely Blotto.
The afternoon’s proceedings on the cricket pitch were, from Twinks’s point of view, mercifully short. J. Winthrop Stukes, impressed as he had been by Blotto’s batting, could not imagine that anyone’s bowling could be up to the same standard, so it was nearly an hour into the game before he offered Blotto an over. And during that hour, though the rest of the Trojan Horse team proved to be uniformly incompetent, Hank Urchief had hogged the batting and was building up a substantial score.
Then Blotto was put on to bowl. He got a hat trick with his first three balls. The next three produced the same result, though Hank Urchief somehow managed to survive. Then another of J. Winthrop Stukes’s bowlers was put on. Urchief hit three sixes off him, and scored a single at the end of the over so that he would once again be facing the bowling. The last man at the other end was a rather nervous Argonaut.
Blotto started his run-up at the beginning of his second over. Adjusting again to the surface of grass-covered rock, he sent down a delivery that had the ferocity of a cannon ball.
Hank Urchief’s middle stump splintered into fragments as it spun out of the ground.
The game was over. Had the vulgar concept of ‘Man of the Match’ been invented in those days, Blotto would undoubtedly have won it.
Zelda Finch made her way through the ecstatic crowd of his fellow players and sibilated into his ear, ‘There’s going to be a wild party at Mimsy La Pim’s tonight. You must come.’
The invitation could not have been more welcome to Blotto’s ears. The perfect day’s cricket was to be crowned by a meeting with the woman of his black and white dreams.
8
Party People
Mimsy La Pim lived in a mansion. It seemed that everyone in Hollywood lived in a mansion, or at least a Hollywood set designer’s idea of what a mansion might look like. Hers had a kind of Spanish flavour – think Cordoba meets Zorro. It was as if a humble pueblo-style building of white walls and clay-tile roofs had been given an overdose of growth hormone. Every courtyard or patio led to another courtyard or patio. No room lacked for alcoves and niches; no alcove or niche was unadorned by terracotta ornaments. Any wall that could be covered with ceramic tiles was covered with ceramic tiles. Thick studded wooden doors stood in every doorway. You couldn’t move for ornamental ironwork. Guitars, sombreros and straw donkeys were propped in every corner.
But it was clearly a great place for a party. Though the Californian sun had set, the Californian heat saw no reason to go to bed early. The front of the house was illuminated by a thousand candles. And as the Lagonda approached up the drive, its passengers heard the shrieking and posing of Mimsy La Pim’s guests rise in volume. Somewhere in the bowels of the mansion cool jazz was playing.
Everyone who was anyone in Hollywood was there, along with a few people who weren’t really anyone anywhere but who always turned up to parties. People who were famous stood around looking famous, and people who weren’t quite famous postured around trying to look famous. Among the guests, the permutations of lovers, prospective lovers and ex-lovers were so complicated they couldn’t have been calculated on the most advanced slide rules or logarithmic tables of the day.
And into this maelstrom of celebrity Blotto and Twinks were delivered by Corky Froggett at the entrance to Mimsy La Pim’s mansion.
Of their hostess Blotto was disappointed to find no sign, but he was soon swept up by Zelda Finch who had been on the lookout for him. Though the party boasted the most famous faces and bodies in the world, there was no question that Twinks looked more beautiful than any of them. She was approached simultaneously by Toni Frangipani, Hank Urchief and Wilbur T. Cottonpick, who vied with each other, snapping fingers at waiters to get her a drink. The disregard for Prohibition was as evident here as it had been elsewhere in Hollywood. And perhaps part of the explanation lay in the numbers of senior police officers who were present, downing Mimsy La Pim’s alcohol.
Zelda’s hand was tightly shackling Blotto’s arm as she whisked him through the crowd. ‘Soon we will be alone,’ she murmured, ‘and then we can make sweet music.’
‘Ah, bit of a chock in the cogwheel there,’ said Blotto. ‘You see, the beaks at Eton found this out when they tried to get me to sing along to “Jolly Boating Weather”. Fact is, not to twiddle round the turnips, I’m tone deaf.’
Zelda might have pursued her innuendo further but for the fact that they suddenly found themselves confronted by a small man with a monocle, jodhpurs and a riding crop. Blotto, who was far too well brought up to mention such details, could not help observing that he had a body with the contours of a tennis ball and a face like a boiled prawn.
‘Ah,’ said Zelda. ‘You haven’t met. This is my husband.’
The short man thrust out a pugnacious, stubby hand and said teutonically, ‘I’m Gottfried von Klappentrappen.’
‘Sorry to put an earthworm in the salad,’ said Blotto, ‘but I’m afraid that’s wrong.’
The director, who was very unused to being told he was wrong about anything, could only echo the word. ‘Wrong?’
‘Bong on the nose, yes. Out here in America you don’t say “Gottfried”,’ Blotto explained helpfully. ‘You say “Gottenfried”.’
The director exploded with a cry of ‘Gott im Himmel!’
‘That’s right.’ Blotto smiled reassuringly. ‘You’ve gotten it.’
‘You must letta me show you arounda Hollywood,’ Toni Frangipani said to Twinks.
‘You must let me show you around Hollywood,’ said Hank Urchief.
‘Yup,’ said Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
‘Larksissimo!’ Twinks turned the full power of her azure eyes on Hank Urchief. ‘It’d be absolutely the lark’s larynx to be shown round Hollywood by you.’
‘Great,’ said Hank Urchief. ‘Tomorrow morning I’ll take you on the set of The Trojan Horse at Humungous Studios.’
‘Jollissimo!’ said Twinks. ‘I will look forward to it like an egg does to Easter.’
But Toni Frangipani was not pleased with the direction of the conversation – nor of Twinks’s azure eyes. ‘Hey, you don’t wanna see that Trojan Horsa garbage. Tomorrowa morning I takea you on to the setta of my latest movie at Elephantine Studios, The Sheik of the Sahara. Thatsa going to be really bigga at the boxa office. Mr Cottonpick here, he’s a bigga investor in it.’
‘Yup,’ said Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
‘I think’, said Twinks, channelling her mother’s froideur, ‘that I would prefer to talk in private with Mr Urchief than with you two gentlemen.’ There was silence. ‘Do you have a mousesqueak of an idea what I’m saying?’
‘Yup,’ said Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
The Italian actor looked at him in amazement. ‘Is thissa woman givinga me, Toni Frangipani, the bumsa rush?’
‘Yup,’ said Wilbur T. Cottonpick.
Toni’s dark complexion turned almost black with fury. As he and Wilbur T. Cottonpick, having taken Twinks’s not very subtle hint, moved away from her, Toni Frangipani looked across to a table where the two bulky Mediterranean types who had watched over him on S.S. Regal were sitting. One of the men pointed towards Twinks, made a throat-cutting gesture and looked interrogatively at his boss. Toni Frangipani shook his head and executed a very expressive hand gesture – he was good at gesturing from his silent work in front of the camera – which very clearly gave the message: ‘Soona, but notta quitea yetta.’
Twinks was pleased to be alone with Hank Urchief. She had taken quite a shine to him at the cricket match and relished the opportunity to talk to him further. Also, as one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, he was undoubtedly rich enough to qualify as potential husband material.
He plucked two glasses of champagne for them from a passing tray and led her into a sheltered courtyard redolent of orange trees. Here the jazz was inaudible, but in a shady corner a man with a sombrero plucked out yearning tunes on a guitar. Hank gestured for Twinks to sit on a rustic bench and joined her, close enough for her to feel the ripple of hi
s muscular thigh against hers.
‘So . . .’ he said, ‘we didn’t really get a chance to talk at the match.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘You played like a Leamington lizard.’ Hank shrugged at the compliment. ‘Have you played a lot of cricket?’
‘Coupla times with J. Winthrop Stukes’s set-up.’
‘Not before? Not when you were at school?’
‘Ain’t no school here in the States that teaches cricket. I didn’t go to school too often, anyway. Not much of a one for book-larning. I was brought up on a turkey farm in Minnesota.’
‘Well, when it comes to cricket, you’re as natural as a baby’s smile.’
He responded with a self-depreciating ‘Shucks.’ Then he turned the full focus of his dark eyes (black, of course, on the screen, but deep brown in reality). ‘So tell me, Twinks, what movie are you working on?’
It was the same question Zelda Finch had asked her. Mildly irritated, she replied that she wasn’t working on any movie.
‘Then why else is someone as purty as you out here in Hollywood?’
Once again, it didn’t do to say, I’m looking for a rich husband. Like you perhaps. So Twinks fudged, ‘Oh, I’m really here just as a companionette to my brother while he plays cricket.’
‘He’s sure got some talent. Is he an all-rounder?’
‘Well, you saw that, didn’t you? Blotto’s a Grade A whale in both the batting and the bowling departments.’
‘No, I meant, is he an all-rounder in the sense of being good at everything? Has he got the brains to match his sporting talent?’
Twinks thought it was time to move the conversation on. ‘This house is absolutely the lark’s larynx, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, sure.’ Hank shrugged. ‘Bit small by Hollywood standards.’
‘Have you got a bigger spread?’
‘Too right I have. Could fit two of this little shack into mine.’
‘I did once meet Mimsy La Pim on the French Riviera. She must be pulling in the jingle-jangle to own a place like this.’
‘Wouldn’t be too sure about that.’
‘Oh?’
‘Hollywood can be a cruel place. One day you’re the toast of every producer in town, next day you’re just toast.’