Death Of A Diva

by Derek Farrell

  Ali nodded at Lyra, said “I’ll fetch that coffee,” brusquely and left the room pulling the door closed behind her with such force that the noise echoed around the room like a gunshot.

  Chapter Nine

  Liz Britton crossed to the singer, put her hands onto Lyra’s shoulders and turned the woman to face her. “Oh Lyra. You were doing so well.”

  Lyra’s face took on the look of a woman who knows the game is almost over and then she glanced across Liz Britton’s shoulder, saw me still holding the last of the dresses and the haughty look she’d worn since stepping out of the Merc slid back into place.

  “What are you gawping at?” She demanded and I went about hanging the dresses up and making wordless squawking noises, before fleeing the room.

  I headed back downstairs just as Morgan Foster stepped in through the back door, slipping a mint into his mouth. He saw me and stopped dead, a guilty look sliding across his features. “Oh, Danny. Um, I...um. Oh sod it,” he gave up: “I needed a fag. And Lyra...”

  “Doesn’t know you smoke,” I finished for him.

  “She gave up so many of her vices,” he confessed and I had to resist the urge to let him know that she might not have given up as many as he thought, “and I agreed to knock the nicotine on the head. But sometimes – when the stress levels go up...”

  “Don’t worry,” I answered, “your secret’s safe with me. Liz Britton’s with Lyra,” I added and his face brightened.

  “Thank God,” he said and excused himself to head off up the stairs. I walked down the hallway, through the parlour, nodding to Dash and Ray and into the kitchen where Ali had just boiled the kettle.

  “Ali,” she stiffened, but didn’t turn to face me. “Ali, I’m sorry about that. Lyra’s, well, she’s...”

  “A bitch,” Ali finished for me, sniffing noisily and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “She got really nasty, Danny. Told me if I didn’t bring vodka there and then she’d get me fired.”

  “She’s not gonna get you fired,” I said.

  “Too right she’s not.” Ali turned to face me, an impassive professional mask back on. “I know that type very well. She’s bullying the wrong barmaid, cos this one bites back. D’you think she’ll want chocolate biscuits or plain?”

  I went to hug Ali and she stiffened, turned her back on me, said “Sod it, let her have both,” dumped a pile of biscuits on the plate and poured the kettle into the cafetiere standing by the tray.

  “Better make enough for three,” I said, “I’ll take it up to her majesty.” I hefted the tray from the counter, “hopefully it’ll keep her sober long enough to do the bloody performance and get out of our hair. Then we can get on with the real business of running a pub.”

  I took the coffee up the stairs and was aware, as I approached the dressing room, of voices coming through a crack in the not-quite-closed door.

  “...disgusting,” Lyra was saying. “She’s young enough to be your daughter and you’re pawing her on the bloody street.”

  “She’s Jenny’s friend,” Morgan answered, his voice trying hard to sound soothing and calm, but an underlying tension evident. “I was giving her a hug hello.”

  “Lyra!” Liz Britton now. “I don’t think this is helping.”

  “Keep out of this, Liz!” Lyra snapped back. “You’re not the one who’s had to put up with years of him hiring one ‘secretary’ after another – half of whom wouldn’t know Pitman’s from a fucking Pit-bull – and slipping them the sort of dictation they don’t teach in secretarial schools. And now he’s got me doing favours for girls who went to school with his daughter? Since when did you ever do a favour for anyone, Morgan? You’re up to something, I know it and if it’s got anything to do with getting into that little tart’s knickers I’ll rip your balls off.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake,” there was a retort, like someone punching a table top and I hoped the dressing table – which had been borrowed from my Aunt Maz – hadn’t been damaged. “For once and for all, Lyra,” Foster’s voice was no longer trying to be placatory; there was a rod of fury in it, “I am not trying to shag the girl. I am trying to help you get back your self-respect, rebuild your confidence and restart your career, and all you seem intent on doing is sabotaging it at every step.”

  “And why would you want to do that?” Lyra demanded, “If not to keep me busy while you rut around with girls young enough to be your daughter?”

  “Perhaps,” he said, the calmness back again, “because I love you.”

  This seemed as good a point as any for me to step forward, kick the door with my boot and announce that coffee was served.

  I started to pour as Caz and Jenny Foster drifted into the room.

  “...so clever,” Caz was saying, “and brave too. Aren’t you poppet,” she patted me on the bum and winked cheekily.

  “Um,” I glanced at Lyra, who was giving Caz the sort of look that used to turn people to stone in Greek mythology.

  “Caz’s been telling me how you’ve really worked to get this place up and running,” Jenny said, picking a chocolate finger off the tray and popping it into her mouth, “Ooh, I could murder a coffee,” she mumbled through the biscuit, stealing one of the cups and slurping noisily from it. Lyra winced and I made sure to hand the second cup, balanced delicately on its saucer, directly to her. I didn’t really want to witness what would happen if Lyra ended up sans café.

  “So, anyways,” Jenny continued, “I think it’s brilliant that you’ve shown such gumption and got your arse in gear. Not let a few setbacks knock your confidence,” she added, popping another chocolate finger into her mouth. “Unlike some people, who’d have been more than happy to sit on their backsides feeling sorry for themselves and bemoaning the way their lives have turned out.”

  “Jenny,” Lyra’s voice was arctic, “would you be a darling and bring up the shoes; I think they’re still in the boot of the car.”

  “In a minute,” Jenny answered, “I wanted to talk to Dad about the wedding. Caz has had a brilliant idea: she’s fairly sure she can get Henry Holland to make the dress for me at mate’s rates. It won’t be cheap, even then, but it’s Holland. What do you think, Dad? Would be totally dreamy.”

  “Fetch the fucking shoes, Jenny, or you’ll be shopping for frocks at Asda!” Lyra, snapped, the cup perfectly poised before her lips.

  The two women locked eyes in the mirror and the atmosphere crackled. Then, muttering something about what the last slave had died of, Jenny stalked out of the room.

  Foster sighed. “Lyra...”

  “Oh don’t start, Morgan. And as for you,” Lyra put the cup down and swivelled to face Caz, “I don’t know what your game is, but I’m warning you to back off!”

  “Game?” Caz frowned, “I don’t understand...”

  “I don’t understand,” Lyra mimicked the cut glass accent that a lifetime of top schools had provided Caz with. “Listen, love,” she picked up a hairbrush from the dressing table and jabbed it threateningly at Caz, “you can drop the airs. I don’t know what this is all about, how you managed to persuade my idiot husband that this fiasco would be a good idea, but I’m here to tell you that whatever you think he’s gonna be able to do for you ain’t gonna happen.”

  “Lyra, for Christ’s sake,” Foster pleaded, shooting an apologetic look at Caz.

  “And lay off Jenny,” Lyra continued. “If I’m paying for this bloody wedding, I’ll decide where she gets her dress from; not some stuck up little posh tart. Got that?”

  Caz, whose father had paid a small fortune for her education, flared her nostrils, smiled sweetly, said “I’ll just go get the plunger; I think the ladies loo may be blocked,” and got the hell out of the room.

  As she passed me, her eyes were blazing furiously and her knuckles were so tightly clenched I thought she was in danger of grinding her French manicure to powder.

  Chapter Ten

  “Lyra,” Foster murmured, “give Jenny a break, please.”

  “Why
, Morgan?” Lyra asked, “the girl hates me!”

  “She’s my only child,” he answered, at which point Dominic Mouret entered, a Dictaphone in his hand.

  “Lyra,” Mouret said, “I was wondering if we could...” and that was as far as he got.

  “Children,” Lyra snarled, hurling the hairbrush at the opposite wall.

  Dominic stopped dead, his jaw hanging loose. “Lyra?” He asked, ignorant of the cause of the outburst.

  “They’re nothing but blood-sucking wastes of energy. And the sooner you get your idiot daughter to understand, Morgan, that I hold the purse strings, the better!”

  Foster sighed, “She’s a good kid, Lyra and you know she is.”

  “She’s a self-obsessed, vacuous bimbo,” Lyra snapped back. I looked at Dominic, wondering how he’d take this comment on his fiancée. His jaw had closed, his eyes were fixed coldly on Lyra and a nerve throbbed somewhere in his right cheek.

  “Lyra,” Foster persevered, “she’s a kid; she’s getting married. She’s excited. You know, you both used to get along so well.”

  Lyra snorted, “Back when I had to see her for no more than a day or two at a time!” She shook her head. “Bloodsucking little vampires, all of ‘em,” she muttered. Liz Britton crossed the room, picked up the hairbrush and silently replaced it on the dressing table. “You know,” Lyra mused, staring absentmindedly into the mirror, “I think if I’d ever had a kid, I’d have drowned the little fucker at birth.”

  “You don’t mean that, Lyra,” Dominic spoke up.

  “Don’t I? Oh you can switch that thing on and get this down on tape: some people – the dull, stupid, empty ones – and in particular, some women – the ones with no ideas, no talent and no drive to be anything in life other than a fucking egg factory – live to have babies. It’s,” and here her voice took on a whiney tone “nature’s way; the best moment in a woman’s life.” She picked up the hairbrush and jabbed it in the mirror towards Morgan’s reflection. “You can thank your lucky stars that you had the snip after Jenny, Morgan; cos if you’d ever got me up the duff I’d have strangled you first and then scraped the little bleeder out with my bare hands.”

  “She asked for a bloody dress, Lyra.”

  Lyra put the brush down and turned to face her husband. “No, Morgan. She asked you for a dress. Like you have the decision; like she can pretend I don’t even exist, blank me, go over my head to you and you would have the money to pay for a bloody designer wedding dress. Like I said, Morgan, she’s a stupid, ungrateful, spoiled and selfish little bitch and she is not treating me like that. Not today of all bloody days.”

  “She’s my daughter, Lyra. My child. Christ, woman, you’ve got forty years on her!” I heard an involuntary gasp escape Liz Britton, felt the temperature drop a good ten degrees and saw the rage flame up anew in Lyra’s eyes. “And she’s excited about the wedding. She was not disrespecting you, Lyra, she was just excited and happy and you – with your nasty little games – spoiled that happiness again.”

  “She is not forty years younger than me,” Lyra responded in a tone that could have given frostbite to a fish finger.

  Morgan was furious. “She’s a fraction of your age Lyra. She’s a bloody child and if you can’t be grown up enough to see that and deal with it then I’m bloody grateful we never had kids cos, frankly, raising Jenny was one of the best things I ever did but raising two more kids – one of them a spoiled brat like you just fills me with terror.”

  There was a moment of silence, then “Get out,” Lyra snapped through clenched teeth. We all seemed unsure whether the order had been given specifically to Morgan or to all of us and then the silence and foreign movie eye rolling ended as the brush was once again hurled across the room and the order was repeated in an ear splitting scream. “All of you! Get the fuck out of my dressing room!”

  As one, we all sprinted for the door, which swung open. On the other side was a confused Ali.

  “Um, this came for you,” she muttered, stepping into the room.

  Lyra saw the object in Ali’s arms, frowned, closed her eyes in disbelief and, when she opened them, pursed her lips and raised a surprised and puzzled eyebrow.

  “What. The. Fuck. Is. That?” She demanded.

  Ali stepped into the increasingly crowded room, put the object on the table and stepped back. “It’s sort of like a bouquet, I suppose,” she said, frowning herself.

  “A bouquet?” Lyra stood up and stalked slowly to the side table we’d lined up specially to hold the floral tributes we were sure would be coming and stood looking down on the item. “A bouquet?” She repeated, cruelly. “Love, that might pass for a bouquet in this godforsaken hole, but that is not – most definitely not – a bouquet.”

  And for once, I had to admit, she was right.

  A puff of iridescent purple cellophane ballooned out around the tribute – if tribute is the right word – that had been sent to Lyra Day – First British Lady of song stylings and Queen of Saturday night TV. Inside, a small metal bucket about six inches deep held what looked like a lavender bush. Lyra reached out and tore at the crackling cellophane. She leaned forward, inhaled, pulled the rest of the cellophane away, discarded it absentmindedly on the floor and fixed, firstly Ali and then me, with an incensed stare.

  “Is this,” she demanded, “your idea of a joke?”

  Again, I made like a fish, gawping wordlessly, before “No Lyra. I mean Ms Day. I can assure you; this did not come from anyone connected to the Marq. It’s from a fan. Obviously.”

  “A fan?” She spat the question at me. “A fan? A fan who just happens to think that what I really need on my first public appearance for over a year is a fucking bald lavender bush?”

  “Rosemary,” Liz interrupted, stoking the silvery-green needles on the plant.

  “You know who sent this?” Lyra turned her rage on Liz.

  “No,” Liz pinched the leaves again and held her thumb and finger out to Lyra. “It’s not lavender; it’s rosemary.”

  “Jesus! If I was playing a fucking kebab house it would still be a stupid present. What’s next? An ashtray full of half-smoked fag butts. A fan? And just how fucking deranged, if you don’t mind telling me, do you think my fans are?”

  At that moment, there was a tiny cough from the doorway, the words “Hello Ms Day” were spoken in the sort of voice that’s usually reserved for cheap movie psychopaths and when we all turned to the door, a man stood there with a look of almost evangelical joy on his face, what looked like a hundred red roses in one arm and a cheap carrier bag gripped in the other hand.

  “Oh Christ,” Morgan muttered.

  “Speak of the devil,” Liz, mumbled.

  And Lyra transformed instantly. “Leon!” She trumpeted, throwing her arms wide. “Darling! How lovely to see you! For me?” She asked, all mock surprise and innocence, as the creature shuffled forward and pushed his tribute into her perfectly manicured claws.

  Chapter Eleven

  It was as though someone had flicked a switch. Lyra became, before our very eyes, a fluffy column of coquettishness and started introducing the newcomer as though we were all at a perfectly lovely cocktail party.

  “Morgan, you already know,” she addressed the newly arrived ball of grease in a voice that sounded like Irene Handel doing the Duchess of Devonshire. “Morgan, you remember Mr Baker,” she prompted.

  Baker switched his carrier bag from the right hand to the left, wiped his right on a grimy anorak that looked to house more life threatening bacteria than Porton Down, blinked behind coke-bottle lenses and shoved his hand into Morgan’s. “Mr Foster. Again. An honour, it is. An absolute honour.”

  “This is your fault,” I hissed to Caz, as I spotted Ali sliding out of the room. “I can get you a living legend, you said. A cast-iron draw.”

  Caz bristled. “She is a legend,” she hissed at me.

  “She’s baby fucking Jane,” I snapped back. “And she’s going to go mental when she finds out her stage set is two poinset
tias, a sequinned curtain and a plastic Christmas tree.”

  “That’s not my fault,” my best friend replied, as I realised that she was manoeuvring us towards the door and out of the room. “It’s your lot.”

  “My lot?”

  “The gays. You know: Whom the gays would love, they first make mad. You turned Judy into a pill popping gargoyle. Marlene was a Teutonic Howard Hughes by the end, bleaching everything in sight. Shirley’s a twitching ego maniac. Madonna – a baby snatching pious gym-freak and Cher’s little more than a bag of spares these days. It’s not my fault your lot turned this one mental too. Anyways, you’ve already sold the place out. So shut up and go hide the knives.”

  “And Mr Bird, the manager of the venue,” Lyra, without wincing, put her hand on the back of the manky anorak and turned the creature to face me. It was too late, whilst Caz and I had been arguing and trying to exit the scene, we’d strolled straight into an ambush. “Daniel, this is Leon Baker, my–”

  “Number one fan,” Baker interrupted in a nasal whine, blinked, twitched and stuck his hand out to be shaken.

  “I hope you can do Ms Day justice here,” he said, his eyes locking onto mine as the shine on his forehead threatened to blind me for life. “A star of her magnitude deserves a setting as brilliant as her talent. I’ve got to be honest: I was a little concerned when I heard that her return to the spotlight was to be in a venue of this sort, but then I remembered her beginnings and, I think, Ms Day–”

  “Call me Lyra, Leon; we’ve known each other for so long, after all,” Lyra simpered.

  “Lyra,” Baker turned his face to hers with the same dopey expression I’d only ever seen in breast feeding babies when it was dinner time. “But I think Lyra’s had a stroke of genius here.”