A Nice Cup of Tea

by Celia Imrie

  Theresa had explained to Sally, en route, her fears that Cyril had developed a strange crush on her and that she was frightened to be alone, so Jean-Philippe had offered to walk through Theresa’s flat, checking it out for her. Sally had decided that that wasn’t good enough. She insisted Theresa stay up the hill in her house. And Theresa had willingly accepted.

  As she lay staring at the ceiling of Sally’s spare room, she remembered that La Mosaïque was closed all day today, on its weekly congé, and that Sally was due to go off working on the film set. Where could she spend the day?

  Theresa did not want to be alone. Whoever was stalking her might be watching, following her, taking photos again.

  But she couldn’t stay at Sally’s place. Sally must have things to do and lines to learn.

  Theresa got dressed quietly, wrote Sally a thank-you note and left the house, then strolled down to the seafront to take breakfast at the brasserie.

  It was a lovely spring morning. The sun had burned through the mist, leaving a gorgeous sparkling day. Theresa wished she had her sunglasses with her.

  She took a corner table on the terrace. It was heaven to be able to gaze out at the deep-blue water while feeling the sun warm her through. Taking a deep breath, she leaned her head back letting the sunlight spill over her face.

  ‘Good morning, Theresa.’ Marcel was poised to take her order. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘I’ll have the full breakfast, please, Marcel. Orange juice, café crème, croissant.’

  ‘Can I bring you the local newspaper?’

  ‘Thanks. Yes.’

  Theresa looked back at the front door of her flat, then cast her eyes up to the windows of the apartment above. She wondered, after the shenanigans of last night, how things were going inside. Sally had implied that Phoebe was a difficult woman but, lord, last night had been a real eye-opener. And to have all her own illusions shattered. So these famous people’s lives were as imperfect as her own.

  Theresa couldn’t imagine how the woman had got that drunk. She knew that after three glasses of champagne she herself had been on the tipsy side but . . . well …

  Would Phoebe Taylor be paying for the repairs to Sally’s car? she wondered.

  Would her affair with Dermott Presley be all over the tabloids?

  ‘Hello!’ Theresa’s thoughts were interrupted by a woman who she couldn’t exactly place. ‘Mind if I join you?’

  As the woman sat, Theresa recalled who she was. Frances, the drama teacher whom she had met briefly while in London on the trail of Chloe.

  ‘What a gorgeous spot,’ said Frances, pulling her chair out better to catch the sun. ‘You’re very lucky.’

  A short silence was broken only by the sound of fishing boats, clanking together along the quay.

  ‘I gather Roger was rather rude to your friend last night in some bar in Nice.’ She took a puff of her electronic cigarette and exhaled a billow of strawberry-scented mist. ‘I met them coming in last night. He’d been having a financial meeting with your friend’s daughter, he said. So he couldn’t have embarrassed himself more if he had tried.’ Another cloud of fruity smoke wafted past Theresa’s face. ‘Poor Roger! I think he’s realising what a dreadful mistake the whole business is.’

  Theresa could see that Roger being so brutish towards Sally wouldn’t have done him any favours with Marianne.

  ‘The Muffett divorce should never have happened,’ Frances continued. ‘Problem is that they’re both too proud to back down. Really, they were made for one another. Both wanted the same things – the glamorous life, a few months every year in the sun, to be surrounded by the latest gadgets . . . You get the drift.’

  Theresa did get the drift – of strawberry-scented vapour – and realised she preferred the smell of tobacco!

  ‘Then they also both got the idea that they wanted younger lovers. And that didn’t work out well for either of them. Once you reach forty it’s better just to admit it. Teenagers or even twenty-year-olds ain’t going to be sticking around for long.’

  ‘You do strange things when you start to panic about growing old.’ Theresa thought back to her own little crisis a few years ago which led to her moving here. ‘But sometimes it works out all right. Look at me.’

  She remembered her meeting with Neil’s mother, Roger’s ex-wife. ‘Mrs Muffett seems very troubled.’

  ‘You had a husband leave you, didn’t you, Theresa? Did you not find yourself pouring one too many large gin and tonics. And then another . . .’

  Theresa remembered the dark days after Peter had run off with the Italian au pair. She had turned to the bottle. There had been days when she never got out of her nightdress, days when she fed herself standing at the fridge taking bites out of blocks of cheese. She let herself go. For months she had been inconsolable. ‘You’re right.’ Theresa winced at the memory. ‘It wasn’t gin and tonic – it was whisky and soda. But yes, there were some very difficult weeks.’

  ‘Some days you get by fine, others it’s really not at all OK. That painful fear of an unknown future, when you thought you had it all worked out.’ Frances laid down her electronic cigarette, tore off a morsel of Theresa’s croissant and popped it into her mouth. ‘I think it’s the double whammy. You realise you are old and past it, and at the same moment you see that you are no longer desirable to the man who’d always loved you. And, for us women, that starts rolling on into visions of a future sitting alone in a dark empty house, knitting, darning or some other boring pastime resting on your lap, a couple of cats curled around your feet, and that’s it . . . for ever.’

  Theresa knew Frances spoke utter sense. She couldn’t imagine anything so soul-destroying.

  ‘I think also that when you’re one of those socially ambitious women, like Cynthia,’ Frances continued, ‘it all gets muddled up with so many kinds of anxiety which I never had to deal with – like “How will they think of me at the golf club?”’ She gave a bitter laugh and picked up the electronic cigarette.

  ‘Could they get back together, do you think?’

  ‘They ought to.’ Frances shrugged. ‘But I have a feeling they’re also too stupid, not to mention conceited and self-righteous, for it to ever happen.’

  ‘Poor Neil.’ Theresa thought back to his absolute embarrassment last night, as he sat cringing at his father’s behaviour. ‘He does seem to be a very nice boy.’

  ‘He’s impulsive. Like them! Doesn’t really think ahead. Gets an idea and runs away with it without considering anything even nearly related to reality. It’s all great, that kind of thing, in the drama classes but, oh, so utterly totally hopeless in real life.’

  A shadow fell over Theresa.

  ‘Bonjour, Theresa!’ It was Cyril. ‘Vous avez reçu mes cadeaux?’

  Theresa shrank back in her seat.

  Cyril tapped the bridge of his nose. ‘Je comprends! Pas de problème.’

  As though seeing her discomfort, Marcel was suddenly beside Cyril, calling him by his name, inviting him into the brasserie.

  ‘Bonne journée, mesdames,’ Cyril called over his shoulder as he was dragged inside. ‘Et, Theresa, à tout à l’heure. See you soon!’

  When Theresa turned back, Imogen was coming on to the terrace, with Chloe beside her.

  ‘So this is where you are! I’ve been ringing your flat and your mobile for hours.’

  Theresa saw that Imogen was grasping Chloe’s wrist.

  ‘I wasn’t at home . . . my mobile had . . .’

  ‘I’m not interested, Mum. This child has been sitting in the hotel breakfast room in the company of that boy, Neil. Frances? Did you know he and his father were actually still staying there in our hotel?’

  Frances said no, but Theresa couldn’t miss the blush blooming on her neck.

  ‘I thought they were living on a stupid boat down in the marina here! But it seems he sensed out my daughter, persuaded his father to come ashore and now they’re together again.’

  Theresa wasn’t quite sure what they we
re supposed to do about that. You couldn’t forbid a man from coming to stay in the same hotel as you.

  ‘Right.’ Imogen swung Chloe around. ‘From now, until we finally get on that plane home, you will keep Chloe in your flat and under your care.’

  ‘Where are the other two?’ Frances laid down the menu and stood up. ‘Not on their own?’

  ‘As you had disappeared, Frances, I’ve had to leave them in the breakfast room. I needed to get this young lady immediately out of the radar of Neil Muffett.’

  ‘I don’t think Neil will be here long. His mother is due any moment to pick him up and take him home.’

  ‘If she can stand up.’ Imogen flopped down in the seat next to her mother’s. ‘Well, as we’re here, and we’ve now missed breakfast up at the hotel, I suggest that Chloe and I join Theresa, while you, Frances, go back there and see to the others. After we’ve eaten, Chloe will be going to the restaurant to help her grandmother.’

  ‘It’s our weekly closed day.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Imogen sighed. ‘Then you must take her home to your flat. Until Neil Muffett is extracted therefrom, Chloe is suspended from the Hotel Astra.’

  Theresa gave her daughter a sideways glance. Why was she now talking like a comedy headmistress from St Trinian’s? ‘Suspended from the Hotel Astra’ indeed!

  Theresa worried that at any moment Imogen might set her a hundred lines: I shall not lose my granddaughter; I shall not lose my granddaughter …

  Sally mooched about in her dressing gown. She was slightly disappointed that Theresa had crept off so stealthily, as she had been looking forward to a debriefing session about the embarrassing and startling events of the previous evening.

  She wondered how Eggy was doing now. And had Odile continued the lecture she had started with the Markhams while she shoved them into the back of her chauffeur-driven car?

  And that awful Roger man. The Bitch Got The House? Really? Ugh. She was looking forward to Marianne waking up and trying to explain what she was up to knocking about with a man like him. And he also appeared to be at the centre of the plot with Theresa’s disappearing granddaughter. So much trouble everywhere.

  She gazed out over the rooftops at the sea.

  Fancy Phoo having been at it with that smarmy Dermott Presley all those years. She tried to do the maths and calculate if the affair could have been going on when she had worked with Phoo and realised they must certainly have been an item before the Markhams’ appearance on Ssssaturday Ssssslamerama! as Sally remembered making jokes about their characters, asking whether, after Phoo was glooped, Paddy would be coming to give her a brisk rubdown. Oops! Poor old Eggy. The meaning of his odd remark about not living with Phoo as man and wife for forty years suddenly became crystal-clear. No wonder he was looking out for hot dates in Nice.

  Today the sea looked so gorgeous and inviting. So blue, its colour enhanced by the spots of white, curling across the vast horizon. But white horses meant wind. A storm must be coming up, which was not good news for tonight’s filming. She went back to double-check on the call sheet for today’s night shoot. Yes. It was a scene where she and Eggy once more drove some boat away, only this time it was a small one, and to be shot at night from the rocky shore at Èze. Oof! The sea could be tricky at the best of times around there. Lots of undersea rocks and lethal currents.

  Ah well, Sally would be surrounded by a film crew, cameras whirring, so she would not be alone.

  ‘Morning, Mama.’ Marianne appeared, fully dressed and made up. ‘So which mystery man did you bring home last night? I heard someone furtively sneaking out a couple of hours ago.’

  ‘It was Theresa.’

  ‘God, Mum, you haven’t gone gay?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Marianne, don’t you start. I’ve already had too much of that from the barking Markhams.’

  ‘Oh, you mean that awful actress you were with last night? I remember her from when I was a kid. Wasn’t she the woman on that dire show Paddy and Pat?’

  ‘Marianne, please stop.’ Sally blocked her ears with the palms of her hands. ‘I never want to hear that phrase again as long as I live.’

  ‘What? That awful actress you were with . . .’

  ‘No. Paddy and Pat, stupid.’

  ‘Isn’t her husband in that film with you?’

  ‘Yes. So what?’ Sally threw up her arms in exasperation. ‘And anyway, what on earth were you doing drinking with that hairy ape who ruined our first, and only, boat delivery from La Mosaïque?’

  ‘He might be an irritating twit. But he has money problems. I thought I’d help out. Who knows? Might be a fee in it for me. I have to earn money somehow, now that I’ve been fired.’

  ‘Given your recent history, I think Roger would be safer getting financial advice from me.’

  Ignoring her remark, Marianne continued. ‘He’s quite good-looking, though, Mum, you must admit. I could do worse.’

  ‘Marianne! Can’t you see that the man is trouble? For a start he’s married.’

  ‘Divorced. That’s the source of all his financial woes.’

  ‘And his son ran off with Theresa’s grandchild. Please don’t complicate my life any more than it is already. And by the way, his wife is due in town at any moment.’

  ‘Ex-wife. And anyhow, what’s sauce for the goose . . .’

  Sally was trying to form the words to respond to this when there was a sharp rap on the front door.

  ‘That’ll probably be him.’ Marianne strode towards the door and opened up. But it was Eggy, standing there on the doorstep, looking penitent, stooped and beat.

  ‘Do you mind if I have a few words with your mum?’ He hovered, without stepping inside, wringing his hands, the very picture of misery. Marianne turned to her mother, pulled a face and strode past him and out. ‘See you later, Mum.’ Then she made a condescending face in Eggy’s direction. ‘And please may I say, Mr Markham, that I do so admire your work – both your own and that of your charming wife.’

  And she was gone.

  As Eggy stood there, looking pitiful, instinctively Sally rewound both Marianne’s very convincing compliment and her own life, realising that when members of the public volunteered such lavish praise they were probably lying, and had only flattered you for something to say when confronted with the presence of a famous face. A kind of nervous embarrassment. How very disappointing!

  ‘Please come in, Eggy.’

  ‘Thank you, Sally.’ Cautiously he stepped inside and closed the door. ‘Look. I’m so sorry, Sally. I don’t know where to start . . .’

  ‘Let’s both sit down, shall we? Would you like some tea, toast?’

  Eggy shook his head. Sally realised he really must be feeling bad. Tea and toast were normally top of his wish list.

  She sat down in the armchair opposite the sofa, where he perched, picking at the fabric of his trousers.

  ‘First, I will of course pick up the tab for the repairs to your car, and if you want can provide you with a hire car while you’re waiting.’

  Sally’s reflex was to tell him it was fine and that he didn’t have to, but she realised that really he should pay.

  She stayed silent.

  ‘Phoo is going through a very difficult patch . . .’

  Again Sally held back a sarcastic retort.

  ‘Nobody knew that for most of our life together she was in a very passionate relationship with Dermott Presley, family man, beloved of the nation, blah-blah-blah . . .’ Eggy sat back into the sofa. ‘I had to read all the newspaper obituaries, too. And the glowing eulogies in the red-tops. And watched all those saccharine TV memorials.’ He shook his head slowly, thoughtfully. ‘He was a friend of mine actually, Salz. Before. We’d worked together at Liverpool Rep, back in the day. And when the TV show was looking for a partner for Phoo, in the sitcom, ’twas I who put forward his name. Anyhow, one thing led to another. You know what it’s like when you’re off on location in the middle of nowhere. I thought it would pass. But no. They managed t
o carry it on in a most furtive manner right up to his death. I myself knew nothing, till a few years ago, when Phoo became very anxious, and confessed all. She was like Niobe, all tears, as she sat and told me her worries – that Dermott was seeing someone else.’

  ‘Not his wife, by any chance?’

  ‘He was married throughout, and seemingly the most assiduous husband . . . It appears that his wife never had an inkling. Still doesn’t. In fact, when Dermott was told by the doctors that he didn’t have long, he called my agent and asked me to come into the hospital for a private meeting.’

  ‘He wanted to say sorry to you?’

  ‘No.’ Eggy gave a sad smile. ‘He wanted me to do him a few last favours. One was to find a suitcase full of letters tied up in pink ribbons – his correspondence with Phoo, over the years. He didn’t want his family finding and reading them, after he was gone.’

  Sally was speechless. What an absolute horror for poor Eggy.

  ‘The other task was to remove and dispose of a box full of pornographic magazines hidden under the bed in his study. And let me tell you, we’re not talking Playboy. It was . . . well . . . appalling stuff.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Eggy nodded.

  ‘Did you read the letters?’

  Eggy shook his head. ‘Burned them on the barbecue.’

  ‘How did Dermott keep up such a pretence for so long? You’d think the papers would have been on to him.’

  ‘He wasn’t the first.’ Eggy shrugged. ‘I imagine he won’t be the last. But he always handled it majestically. Neither the public nor his family will ever know. Not unless a handful of people, including me, spill the beans. But you see, we all have so much to lose. Why would I do that to myself? To make muggins here look like a prime fool? I’d only come over as a vindictive cuckold having his last revenge on his “love-rival”? I don’t think so.’

  He shuffled around a little on the sofa. ‘Actually, Salz, darling, if you don’t mind I will have that cuppa.’