'Well?' he asked. He was smiling into her eyes, his own now bright, teasing—rake's eyes, assessing a pretty woman. 'So here you are!' He picked up both her hands and, bending his dark head to them, turned them over so that they lay defenceless, palms uppermost, in his own. Then, before she could snatch them away, he placed his lips softly in first one and then in the other.
CHAPTER TWO
His dark head seemed to bend over her hands for an age. She couldn't move and she couldn't speak, she could only watch until at last he raised his head. Still keeping hold of her hands, he simply looked into her eyes without saying anything. The room fell silent.
Afterwards Merril told Annie it was a deliberate attempt to exert his famous charm on the one person present who hadn't already succumbed. But at the time she didn't know what was happening to her. Her mind felt blank, confused. It was ridiculous, like being hypnotised, or as if her entire life had been a dream and this was the only real moment in it. It was what people called 'presence', she supposed, and it was difficult to describe by what seemingly magic art he could make everyone else pale into the background—but it was an actor's trick of the trade, nothing more, a knack he must have picked up at drama school. He'd got it down to a fine art and everyone fell. But not her. Not when she'd sussed out what he was up to.
In the silence around them, which seemed to stretch endlessly, she had time to observe tiny details of his appearance with pinpoint clarity: thick, black eyelashes, sweeping down over pale cheekbones, a dusting of fine powder over them, a trick that failed to hide tiny laugh lines at the corners of his eyes—beginnings of crow's feet, she remarked waspishly later—and designed, without a doubt, to enhance a pale, romantically haunted image, at odds with those kindling amber eyes gazing with such disturbing familiarity into hers.
That he seemed at first surprised by her silence, then amused, did not endear him to her. She felt foolishly out of step. His presence, so intimate that she could smell the exotic spice of cologne mingled with stage make-up, was a physical intrusion, demanding a response she did not want to give.
Before she could remove her hands from his he let them slip away; then, before either of them had a chance to speak, a woman with red hair and a tiny scrap of evening dress, all straps and slits, threw herself into his arms with a shrill, predatory cry.
'Darling! I knew you'd do it. A star is born!' she declaimed to the room full of people. Her arms twined round his neck before he could move, and for a moment the red hair and the sleek black ponytail mingled a few inches from Merril's affronted face.
She stepped hurriedly back to avoid being trampled. Torrin Anthony was already unlocking the woman's arms from around his neck as Merril turned, bumping into Damian who was standing directly behind her, and as she moved away she suddenly regained her voice and her composure at the same time.
'Do let's get out of here, Damian. I'm really not in the mood for all this theatrical nonsense,' she said in a loud, deliberately disparaging voice.
Torrin Anthony heard every word, because his head jerked up as if to reply. But, as he warded off his admirer's embrace, Merril, sweeping swiftly out of the room, didn't give him time to utter. The space she left was immediately filled by a wave of fans coming in from the corridor.
Damian caught up with her outside. He was not amused. 'Merril, I don't understand what's got into you—surely you could at least be civil to the man?'
'Being civil doesn't mean dropping at his feet like everyone else, thanks!'
Despite his remonstrance, a smile of satisfaction flitted across his face. 'So he's not your type, but at least think of the paper.'
'Damn the paper!' To her surprise Merril found she was shaking. She leaned back against the wall and tried to gather her wits. Damian tried to draw her into his arms, but she turned her head and he had to be content with a kiss on the side of her neck.
'I know how desperately you want to go home, darling, and in normal circumstances your wish would be my command, but I'm afraid tonight is out of the ordinary. I have to stay for the party. Damn it, I want to! Now, if you like I can pop you in a taxi --'
'No, no,' she replied wearily. Whether it was the thought of being 'popped in a taxi', or sheer tiredness, she didn't know, but she shook her head, muttering, 'I'm more stressed than I realised.' She gave him a half-smile. 'I'll stick it out. You know me, never say die! But it is so false, isn't it? All that screaming and blind adulation --'
'He's very good,' Damian reminded her.
'So, he's good! But he's only an actor!' She raised her voice. 'What's so special about that? He's not God almighty!'
Damian had been nuzzling into her shoulder in an attempt to persuade her to stay, when something about his sudden stillness made her turn to follow his glance.
Torrin Anthony had come out of his dressing-room and was standing just a yard away in the act of walking along the corridor towards them, but he too had frozen and now he stood, a somehow unhappy figure in the harsh light of the corridor. The brocade jacket and drooping lace jabot were out of place off stage, and the black liner was beginning to smear in the heat. His eyes were two dark pits focused on Merril. He looked exhausted.
He must have heard what I just said, she told herself without emotion. It would be a shock to realise that not everyone thought he was Mr Wonderful.
Damian was the first to pull himself together. 'Damian West, News and Views,' he said, stepping round Merril's inert body as if it were some fixed obstacle in his way and moving towards Torrin Anthony with a hand outstretched in greeting. Thus addressed, the actor took Damian's hand without seeming to see it, his eyes still fixed on Merril's now haughtily averted face.
'We've tried to contact you several times in the last few weeks,' went on Damian enthusiastically, 'because of course we'd like to fix up an interview as soon as possible while the show's still hot.'
Merril turned to watch as Torrin Anthony shook himself like a man coming out of a dream, then he glanced at Damian, automatically switching on the charm, hundred-watt smile going full blast. 'My agent fixes all that sort of thing. Best if you contact her.'
'Unluckily for us she seems rather keen to protect you from us big bad press boys, and --'
'Oh, yes, she does,' Torrin smiled vaguely, failing to make the connection Damian wanted him to make. His glance returned to Merril who was still standing pressed back slightly against the wall, as if expecting him to try to squeeze past and wanting to put as much distance between them as possible. She found she was actually holding her breath. But he didn't move. He merely stood where he was, as if undecided on his next move.
Poor man, she thought, he's floored without an admiring audience. She was relieved to find Damian still chuntering on about the integrity of his paper and what an honour it would be to be granted an interview. She thought he might even have said 'audience', she told Annie later, such was the obsequiousness of his manner. But it gave her time to pull herself together, and then, just as she was about to walk away, a door opened further down the corridor and a man of about sixty, sprucely rigged out in a light beige suit, came walking blithely towards them.
'Ready for the fray, Torrin, old man --' Then he stopped. 'I say, what's all this? Still in slap?'
As if released from a tableau, Torrin Anthony swivelled. 'The fray is all in my dressing-room. I haven't had a chance to unwind or change or anything --' He looked slightly harassed and held out his hands helplessly.
'Tell 'em to get lost, old boy. A chap needs a bit of privacy after a performance like that. Chuck 'em out. Come on, I'll help you.'
'Don't do that,' said Torrin Anthony quickly, but he gave a look as if he'd like nothing better than to turf out the lot of them bodily. 'I'll come down as I am. I shan't be staying long.'
Turning his back on the milling crowd by now spilling out into the corridor in full cry after him, he put a friendly arm round the other man's shoulders and began to walk off down the corridor in the direction of the stage. Before he reached the corner
he turned back to where Damian and Merril were still standing—watching, said Merril afterwards, as if we were at a private performance, all eyes on the star—and called back, 'You 're very welcome to the party. Do come along!'
'Do you think he'll bite?' asked Damian when he'd gone.
'Bite?' Merril looked at him with an image of Torrin Anthony's flawless white teeth swamping her thoughts until it dawned on her that Damian was still fussing about his interview. 'Oh, I expect so. Even Garbo didn't avoid all publicity, did she?' She went up to Damian and patted his cheek. 'He needs us more than we need him, Damian. Don't you worry.'
She allowed him to lead her backstage, stumbling after him in the half-dark over the debris of pulleys and coiled ropes and flimsy props that seemed to have been flung down anywhere in the narrow space behind the scenes. It was an odd feeling to walk on to the set of an eighteenth-century coaching inn after sitting gazing at it for so long from beyond the footlights. Everything seemed slightly out of scale, and it fostered Merril's increasing sense of unreality.
She leaned against a solid-looking piece of furniture, only to find it slide away beneath her.
'Steady, don't smash the set,' a voice reproved. It was the actor who had greeted Torrin Anthony earlier. He was by himself, and she remembered his face from countless television series. He wandered off towards a makeshift bar erected nearby.
The stage soon filled with a milling throng of what she privately alluded to as 'theatrical types'. The noise seemed unbearable. Everyone seemed to be on intimate terms with everyone else. Torrin Anthony's impossibly black hair, surely dyed, was visible now and then in the crowd that constantly surrounded him.
Damian had thrust himself into the thick of it all, tending his contacts, enjoying the backstage gossip, but Merril resolutely hung around by herself on the fringes. She couldn't wait to get away from it all, back home to watch the late movie and dream once more and undisturbed of Azur.
Before she could safely ask Damian to drive her back there were speeches to be got through, champagne, toasts to a long and successful run.
Nobody doubted that the show was going to be a raving success. There was frantic applause, more champagne. Then suddenly someone was calling for the star.
She watched from a perch at the side as hands thrust him to the front, hoisting him on to a platform so he could be seen. From her vantage point she could observe him as clearly as if she were behind the scenes, every little gesture visible. She saw how tightly his hands were clenched, partly concealed within the folds of his coat. When she looked at his face, she again saw something like strain in the dark eyes, masked quickly beneath an air of nonchalance as he swung his head to take in the whole crowd in front of him. There was a hush, the partying stopping like magic as everyone waited for him to speak. But the silence lengthened. There was a cough or two, a quickly hushed clink of glasses.
Her eyes swivelled back to him. Wearing a full-sleeved cambric shirt cut in a flowing eighteenth-century style, lace jabot unfastened to reveal an arrow slit of tanned torso where the white stage make-up ended, he had the demeanour of a French aristo about to make his guillotine speech. Merril cast a quick glance from the powerful shoulders to the brocade jacket. Even to her critical eye, it was obvious he didn't need shoulder pads. Then she watched more closely still as the silence unexpectedly continued.
A wag from the cast called, 'He's dried!' and there was a round of good-natured applause, while somebody else added, 'Better now than in the court speech!'
It's true, registered Merril in surprise. He doesn't know what to say. She watched as he slowly managed to pull himself together, and as the laughter died away he seemed to take several deep breaths before saying quietly in a voice like velvet, 'You're absolutely right.' The electrifying smile lit his face for a moment and he went on, 'As everyone knows who works with me, I'm quite useless without a script.' He lowered his head. At once everyone was on his side.
Merril gawped in disbelief. They really fell for it! People actually believed this little performance! As if an actor of his experience and skill would be scared at the prospect of getting up among a group of friends and saying a few lines of thanks! Couldn't people see it was his way of getting them to eat out of his hand?
With an expression of sheer disbelief on her face, she listened to him finish. It's like an awards ceremony, she thought from her perch—compliments all round, shallow flattery for all. And all so sickeningly false.
'Aren't we all too, too modest, dahling!' she murmured to Damian who rejoined her a few minutes later. But Torrin Anthony's hesitation, the fleeting look of panic on his face as he turned to face that sea of people without a script in his hand, wouldn't leave her. She had to hand it to him—it had been beautifully convincing.
After the speeches, the toasts and the euphoria at the certainty of a long run, the music and the dancing started, and Torrin Anthony, all 'stagefright' forgotten, became a black-haired dervish with a never ending succession of eye-catching partners.
'Let's go,' suggested Damian once it became obvious he wasn't going to get any further with the question of an interview.
'Best thing you've said all evening,' replied Merril, adding with uncharacteristic rancour before she could stop herself, 'I, for one, have had enough of the empty charm of Torrin Anthony.
* * *
Next morning she had to interview an MP at his office in Westminster. It took her twice as long as usual to get back to the office, and the first person she met was Ray Doyle, who barked, 'I thought I told you to take two days off?'
'So you can give my story to Mike, I suppose?' She glanced over at the empty desk where her main competitor usually sat. She had written up the piece about the foreign conflict and Azur's key role as mediator, but there had been so many repercussions from it, even though the two sides were now reconciled, she felt she had to stick around to field whatever else came up. Besides, there was always a faint chance that Azur would try to contact her . . .
'Don't talk nonsense, woman, pike's got his hands full with some city scandal. Here, let me see that piece you've got there.'
'Give me a chance, Ray! I know I'm Superwoman, but you want it written up nicely, don't you?'
Merril felt she could take liberties these days, and sauce was something Ray seemed able to cope with, as if he felt it defined her femininity more clearly than even the blonde curls and blue eyes.
'You twist me round your little finger,' he grumbled, 'but don't think I don't mean it. I don't want to see you in this office until --' he glanced across at the wall calendar '—next Monday morning.'
'But that's nearly five days!'
'Including today and the weekend, yes, it is.'
'What's the opposite of a slavedriver?' she flung at him as he made his way between the desks. She was already going through her messages as she spoke, and she stopped then with a memo in her hand. Damian was sitting at his typewriter on the far side of the room, and she called across, 'Here! This must be meant for you.'
Ray gave her a warning look from the door of his office and Damian, fingers still pounding the keys, glanced across at her.
'It's your invitation to meet the great man himself—at least, you're to call his agent.'
'What?' Damian looked up.
'Message from Sally Hamilton, agent to the star of the moment, Torrin Anthony. Please call me, it says. Here, it must be for you.'
Damian rose to his feet and almost snatched the scrap of paper from out of her hand. 'Quick off the mark.' He could barely conceal his pleasure.
As she went back to her own desk and began to busy herself with notes she had taken that morning, Merril heard Damian. pick up his phone straight away. Absorbed by her task, she wasn't aware of anything else until she felt a tap on her shoulder. Looking rather miffed, Damian held out the memo. 'It was for you, after all. So I'm informed.'
'Me?' She looked at the scribbled message again. It had come in that morning at eleven-fifteen and her name was pencilled in clearly
enough. 'But obviously there's some mistake --' she began.
'Not according to Miss Hamilton.'
'What the dickens does she mean by contacting me? Does she imagine I'm interested in theatre?'
'Have to ask her yourself,' replied Damian somewhat stiffly, and stalked back to his desk.
Pushing the matter to the back of her mind, Merril returned to her work, but it was difficult to concentrate now. She rewrote the same sentence three times, then gave up and dialled the number she had been given.
A husky voice answered at the other end when she got past Reception, and as soon as she knew she was speaking to Miss Hamilton herself she launched into an explanation. 'Obviously there's been some mistake. I handle hard news, not—' She broke off, not wishing to sound too disparaging.
'So I understand,' came the reply, helping her over the difficulty with a deep-throated chuckle, 'but Mr Anthony is being absolutely hounded by the press, as you can imagine, and feels it's time he came out to race them. He's particularly anxious to be written up objectively and he asked me to approach you first.
'Me?'
'But yes. You've been nominated as young journalist of the year, I understand?'
'I have?' It was news to Merril.
'Oh, dear, the wretched grapevine again! Now are you free this afternoon?'
'No, I—' A shadow fell across her desk. It was Ray. 'Yes,' she corrected. 'But I can't do it.'
The features editor had risen from her chair and was leaning forward in evident interest. I hate these open-plan offices, thought Merril, turning her back and coming face to face with Ray again.
'Do it!' he mouthed, folding his arms as if he intended to keep her there until she agreed.
'But I only interview political figures,' she said into the phone, speaking as much for Ray's benefit and that of the rest of the office. They all knew it was a blatant lie, but did Sally Hamilton?
She did. 'We saw an excellent profile of an ice hockey player recently. Wasn't that yours?' she asked.
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