Sextet

by Sally Beauman

  In the cab, she flicked open her notebook, where, during the course of the interview, she had jotted down a few comments. She closed it again, leaned forward, and began to give the driver instructions as to the best route, instructions which he seemed unable to understand or unwilling to accept. Her mind curled away from the dressing-room and the interview to the journey ahead: a plane, then another taxi, the familiar streets of Georgetown, brick pavements, decorum, and her husband and son waiting for her in her dead father’s house.

  It curled back, back like a wave, to her father’s funeral a month before; to the visits to the last of the clinics that had preceded that funeral; to the stations on the way to the end—and the end, inevitable for all men, had been hastened in his case. Two bottles of bourbon a day for twenty years; promise and talent allowed to leach out; none of the scenes of reconciliation which she had believed must surely happen in those final weeks. Her father had lived angrily and died angrily, and now all that remained, in every sense, was to clear up.

  She could feel it mounting, block by block, as they drove, some strange female need to dust, scrub, polish, sweep; some need to spring-clean a house that was about to be sold, and clean away the thirty-one years of her accumulated memories. Then she, Pascal and their beautiful son, whom she loved with a painful intensity, would be free to leave. They could leave Washington behind and go in any direction they chose. The whole of America lay before them: east, west, north, south. Should they begin with the clean bracing air of the eastern seaboard, or head for the plantations, the Spanish moss, of an imagined but never visited deep south?

  She looked forward to an hour, two hours, with her son when she returned. He was still too young to understand Hallowe’en, but she and Pascal had made a gesture towards the date. The previous evening, they had hollowed out a fat orange globe of a pumpkin. They had given it round eyes, a triangular nose and a wide, smiling, unthreatening mouth. This pumpkin, lit from inside by a candle, would be placed in the window to welcome her home; it would greet the children who came to the door for trick or treat. Thus far, and no further, would she go to acknowledge the date; she wanted to begin giving her son Lucien the childhood she had never had, but she was too recently bereaved—if bereaved was the term—to wish to celebrate more fully the night of the dead.

  So the pumpkin would glow, her son would be persuaded eventually that the purpose of lying down in his little red cot was to sleep, then there was the long tranquillity of an evening with her husband to look forward to. They would make their plans for Thanksgiving—her friend Lindsay Drummond would be coming from England to celebrate it with them—and they would make their plans for their American itinerary, for the book Pascal would photograph and she would write. They would sit by the fireside and consult yet more guides, yet more maps.

  The journey ahead opened up in her mind and the highways of America beckoned. She had forgotten Natasha Lawrence and all those unanswered questions long before the cab driver, recalcitrant, twitching and fuming with some unspecified rage, was paid off.

  The actress, who had intended to answer no questions of any import, forgot the interview even more quickly. She undertook, on average, some two or three interviews each week, more when a theatre opening or movie premiere approached, and she regarded them as a necessary evil. Once they were over she wiped them; five minutes later she had no recollection of the interviewer or of anything either had said. She had learned years before—and she was a woman of great self-discipline—that to worry about interviews encouraged vanity and self-doubt, also, latterly, fear—so she wiped them: click; gone from the screen, gone from the memory bank. On this occasion, the only question which had caused her any disturbance was the question about the Conrad building—and she had dealt with that. Click, and the past hour was gone; she felt reinvigorated at once.

  Her life, organized by others, was well-organized. Within five minutes of Gini Hunter’s departure, she was in the back of her dark limousine, with its dimmed windows, being carried north through the darkening streets of New York. Within half an hour, she was back in her apartment at the Carlyle hotel, where she could be with her son for at least two hours before her return to the theatre. Those hours, which nothing was allowed to interrupt, were the only point in her day when she felt that, unwatched, private and secure, she need no longer act, but could simply be herself.

  Today, however, she had one small extra anxiety.

  ‘Has the package come from Tomas?’ she said to Angelica, as she entered the apartment, pulling off her coat.

  ‘No, but he called. He’s sending it to the theatre by courier; it’ll be there when you go in tonight.’

  ‘Ah,’ Natasha said, looking at Angelica and taking the pile of letters and packages she held out. She looked down at these in a nervous way; Angelica sighed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Nothing from him. I checked. And no calls either…’

  Faint colour rose in Natasha’s cheeks; hope lit in her eyes. She glanced over her shoulder at her son, who had looked up from his book. He knew better than to ask questions, or greet his mother at this point; he bent to the pages of Treasure Island again. Angelica lowered her voice.

  ‘It’s been four months now. Nothing for four months.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He’s never been silent for this long before.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Maybe he’s dead.’ Angelica lowered her voice still further. ‘Could be. Hit by a truck, jumped off a bridge, sank a bottle of Temazepam, prowled about too late one night in the wrong place. It happens all the time…’

  ‘To other people, yes.’

  ‘I dreamed he died. I told you. I dreamed it just the other night.’

  ‘Ah, Angelica.’

  Angelica placed great faith in her dreams, which were often dark and occasionally malevolent. Natasha Lawrence might have liked to place equal faith in her dreams, but she had learned from experience, and now did not. Angelica’s dreams often inverted or reversed truths, and sometimes—like most dreamers—she allowed her own desires to write her dream scripts. The actress looked at her harsh lined face, at the two wings of grey in her short black hair. In the gentle light of the room, Angelica’s eyes were small, black and glittery as jet. She was of Sicilian descent; she loved and hated with a resolve and implacability the actress often envied; she also claimed to know how to curse. Perhaps, Natasha thought, and her heart lifted, perhaps Angelica’s knotty, intricate curses had finally taken effect. She leaned across and kissed her cheek.

  ‘What time did Tomas call?’ she said.

  ‘About an hour ago. He’s sending the book to the theatre, like I said. And something with it—a surprise, he said. Some kind of present. Small. Don’t miss it, he said, it’ll be inside the book…’

  ‘A present? It’s not my birthday. It’s not our anniversary. Inside the book?’

  ‘He said it was the best present he could give you…’ Angelica’s face hardened; she did not like, and had never liked, Tomas Court. ‘Whatever that means. You’ll understand when you see it, he said.’ She paused, giving the rest of her message with reluctance. ‘He sent his love. Talked to Jonathan for a bit…’

  Natasha Lawrence crossed to her son and kissed his forehead.

  ‘You talked to Daddy, darling? Was he in Montana? Was he at the ranch?’

  ‘I guess he was; I forgot to ask. He’s bought two new horses: a grey one for you, she’s called Misty, and a little one for me—Diamond. He’s got a white blaze on his nose and four white socks.’

  ‘Oh, how lovely.’ His mother kissed him again. ‘I expect he was at the ranch then?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Her son’s small features composed themselves in a frown. ‘I meant to ask, but we got talking about my book.’ He held up the copy of Treasure Island. ‘I told him all about Blind Pew and the Black Spot. Blind Pew’s kind of scary. He has this stick, and even though he’s blind, he finds these people out; he tracks them down, and you can hear him coming with his
stick, tap, tap, tap…’

  His mother straightened up a little hastily and made a small sign to Angelica. ‘I’m sure I remember,’ she said. ‘Blind Pew comes to a nasty end. He gets his just deserts…’

  ‘That’s what Daddy said.’

  ‘Shall we have our tea, darling—our Hallowe’en tea?’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I want to do that before Maria arrives to give me my massage, then you could put on this special costume you’ve made and show me—Maria too. Let’s have tea now. Angelica’s found a special Hallowe’en cake…’

  The cake was in the shape of a witch; she was mounted on a broomstick, flying over a white-icing moon, through a milky chocolate sky. Jonathan’s excitement at this, and at dressing up in his Hallowe’en costume, touched his mother deeply. She looked at her son, who was small for his age, and who had a small, somewhat melancholy face—an expressive face, a little clown’s face—and his innocence pained her. At seven, carefully protected and nurtured, her son still did not understand how unusual this Hallowe’en was. He would not, like other children, be going out to play trick or treat. His one excursion, watched over by Angelica, would be down the hall to an elderly guest at the Carlyle who had grown fond of him and who was known to be safe. He would return here, have his costume admired by Maria, and then, when his mother left for the theatre, would watch some Disney video with Angelica, while a bodyguard, as always, stayed within reach. Her son was a prisoner of her fame and his father’s fame, and a prisoner of those people, and those forces, that such fame could attract.

  This thought, as always, she tried to push aside. Four months of silence, she said to herself. She tried hard to concentrate on the details of a day to which she had looked forward—the witchy cake, Jonathan’s magician costume, the wand he had made, and the magic stars on his cape. She tried to give him the response he needed, for she could see how proud he was of this costume. She gave the requisite cry of fear when he embarked on a spell, and she shrank back and cried out obligingly when Angelica made her entrance as a burly and convincing witch. But she found she could not concentrate; her mind was running ahead to the theatre and the mysterious present from her husband. Tomas, a man of few words, a man who used words with care, would not promise her the best present he could give her, unless he meant what he said.

  ‘You’re tense,’ Maria said to her a little later, in Natasha’s bedroom, as she began her massage. She scooped some of her herbal oils into her palm and began a slow rhythmic massage of Natasha’s back. The room filled with the smell of lavender and rosemary; Maria, a plain woman, had magical hands—but not tonight.

  ‘Feel that—all that tension,’ she said, her hands easing and pressing at the back of Natasha’s neck. ‘Try to relax it or you won’t sing well tonight. What are you worrying about? You’re worrying about something—I can feel it right here.’

  ‘Nothing. Everything. The Conrad, some interview I did, the performance tonight, Tomas, Jonathan, life, why I’ve been left in peace for four months…I don’t know, Maria.’

  ‘You’re lovely.’ Maria said, with a sigh. Her capable magic hands moved gently down Natasha’s spine. ‘You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Just lie still. You’ve been working too hard. Relax. I can get rid of all your problems—you know that.’

  Her therapy, indeed, was usually effective; it was without effect that night; Natasha Lawrence remained tense when the massage was completed. One and a half hours before curtain-up, she was back in her dressing-room, and there waiting for her, as promised—but Tomas Court always kept his promises—was the package her former husband had sent.

  It was contained inside a padded envelope, then wrapped again in thick brown paper, on which, in Tomas’s cursive script, was the name ‘Helen’. She turned it this way and that, then unsealed the wrappings. Inside, as she had expected, was a copy of a novel, and inside the leaves of the book was her surprise—a tiny clipping from a Montana newspaper, dated earlier that week.

  Her hands began to shake; the print blurred before her eyes. She read the story, which concerned the discovery of a body in the Glacier National Park, three times. Indeed, Tomas could have given her no better present than this. Nevertheless, lighting a match and watching the scrap of newsprint flare, she destroyed her present at once. She crumbled the dust in her fingers, then washed her hands and began the process of making up her Estella face.

  By the time her dresser arrived, she was—as always before a performance—quiet and concentrated. Her dresser, an androgynous young man, hired at her behest, who always dressed her for all her theatre work, was adept at making himself invisible. He helped her into the white organdie of her first-scene dress. For this act of the musical, in which Estella was still a child, no wigs were needed, and Natasha Lawrence preferred to arrange her hair herself. The invisible young man quietly withdrew; he returned only when the half was called, as he always did.

  He paused in the doorway, for the alchemy of the past half-hour never ceased to fascinate him. The dressing-room had been occupied by a woman—now a child, a wilful child, occupied it. He looked at the triplicate reflections of this child in the mirrors; the child applied one last pink stroke of colour to her lips; the tannoy crackled, the humidifier puffed.

  ‘They’ve called the half, Ms Lawrence. Can I fetch you anything?’ he asked, as he always did.

  He knew the answer would be a haughty impatient ‘No’, and he knew it would be made in the imperious English voice of Estella. The invisible young man, a romantic about the acting process, liked this transformation, this switch into character. Occasionally, boasting to his friends of the insights his work afforded him, he would also boast of this. He waited; he sniffed; faintly, through the humid air, he thought he could smell burning, an acrid scent.

  ‘Some water. A little honey. My throat’s tight,’ the actress replied, in her usual voice.

  The young man, surprised, fetched them with alacrity. He felt uneasy at this departure from tradition, but his unease proved unfounded. It was agreed by the entire cast, and all the stagehands, that for some reason, Natasha Lawrence’s performance was especially electrifying that night.

  HALLOWE’EN

  II

  THE PARTY WAS BEING held on Hallowe’en to celebrate a film; possibly the completion of a film, or its launch, possibly the clinching of some deal in connection with a film. The photographer, Steve Markov, who wangled the invitation for Lindsay Drummond, inclined to the latter view. ‘Money,’ he said, holding up the somewhat peculiar invitation card hand-delivered to Lindsay’s London apartment. He sniffed it in a theatrical manner. ‘I smell money. A co-production deal? Subsidiary rights? Video release in Venezuela?’

  He smiled one of his fugitive mocking smiles. Lindsay regarded him warily. Markov was one of her oldest friends, but his superabundant energy tended at times to swamp her. In the past, other friends, in particular Gini Hunter, had mitigated Markov’s influence. But Gini’s departure to Washington DC had left her unprotected, fighting some lonely rearguard action. Markov was currently conducting an energetic campaign to alter her life—he described it as sad; she suspected the manoeuvrings. Having smiled, adjusted the dark glasses he permanently wore, and stretched back against the cushions of her sofa, he confirmed this.

  ‘You have to go, Lindy,’ he went on, more firmly. ‘I’m going. Jippy’s going. You should go. “Nel mezzo del cammin,” my best beloved. Get a life.’

  ‘I detest that phrase,’ Lindsay replied, turning the invitation card this way and that. ‘That phrase is glib. That phrase is cant.’

  ‘Which? The Dante?’

  ‘Not the Dante, and stop showing off. Stop calling me Lindy. How do you read this damn thing anyway?’

  ‘You hold it up to a mirror, I think.’

  Lindsay did so. The invitation card, which was shocking pink and had appeared to be printed in Arabic, Sanskrit, or hieroglyphs, at once became readable, if less than informative.

  Diablo!!!, it read. Beneath that,
in a smaller typeface, was a brief command: ‘Lulu says Come to Celebrate All Night on All Souls’ Night’. Appended, in a very small typeface indeed, was an address in London’s Docklands, three fax numbers and the Hallowe’en date.

  ‘Who’s Lulu?’ Lindsay asked, inspecting this.

  ‘Lulu Sabatier. You must know her; she’s a legend. Everyone does.’

  ‘Do you know her, Markov?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ His tone became evasive. ‘I know of her; she knows of me. Now she knows of you, so she’s invited you to her party. Except it won’t be her party, not really. Her place, but she’ll just be fronting it. Welcome to Wonderland, Lindy. You know movie people. You know how they operate, yes?’

  ‘She’s in PR, in other words.’ Lindsay gave him a cold look. ‘This is a PR party. Give me strength.’

  ‘PR? PR? I’m seriously wounded by that accusation…’

  ‘It has all the hallmarks: frantic ingenuity, mirror-writing, for God’s sake. A way of attracting attention in a world with a ten-second attention span. How does she cap this, Markov? Send out the next invitations in Morse?’

  ‘It’s an idea. I’ll mention it…’

  ‘And Diablo? Who’s Diablo? What’s Diablo? Where’s Diablo?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’ Markov removed the dark glasses, the better to give her a pitying look. ‘Lindy, where have you been this last month? Pluto, perhaps? Diablo, sweetheart, is the name of Tomas Court’s new production company, and Tomas Court, white hope of American movies, is going to be at this party, Lindy, my dear. In person. Himself. Or so Lulu claims, Lulu not being one thousand per cent reliable, of course.’