by Ray Connolly
‘I’m not sure about that,’ I said, perfectly sure that I most certainly didn’t want Clare’s bottom becoming the object of collective lust in some pseudo-American restaurant. ‘Why don’t you go back into the rag trade, or even to dealing in second-hand cars if you really want to diversify?’
Paul didn’t know that I knew of his used-car career before he moved into the Royal Borough and a quick flash of surprise and annoyance crossed his eyes. But he brushed it away instantly. Such tiny darts meant nothing to him, he, who as everyone said, had more front than Selfridges.
‘No. It has to be something new. Maybe this furniture-for-the-workers scheme I’ve got going with Stella will be it. Sounds like a good deal. We’ll see. Maybe a new kind of crimpers— what about naked girls cutting men’s hair for a change. How would you fancy that? Very cosy it could be. I don’t know. There must be some variation on some theme, even if I can’t come up with anything that hasn’t already been done.’
‘Benedict loves variations on a theme, don’t you, darling?’ Clare had come back in with the tea, served in three Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee mugs, and was leaning quite provocatively against me, one hand resting on my shoulder. She didn’t call me darling normally, and she didn’t go in for sexy innuendoes either, so I assumed that it must have been for Paul’s benefit. What a lousy time she and Tibby must give him, I thought, having overheard enough of their contemptuous little gossip to know exactly what they thought of him. And quickly drinking my tea I made the excuse that I had to get back to work and left. If Clare wanted to torment Paul that was okay with me, he certainly asked for it, but I didn’t want to be the straight man for her quips. It looked too much as though we were ganging up on him.
‘It isn’t because we think he’s queer,’ she explained later, when I was gently chiding her about coming the vamp bit in front of him, ‘but more because he goes to such embarrassing lengths to conceal it, you know, coming and putting his arm around us and all that. He gives me the creeps, honestly.’
‘Poor sod,’ said I, and felt a bit ashamed of her intolerance.
Paul may have given her the creeps, but she was fascinated by Stella Levigne. She never said as much but Fm sure that to Clare Stella had everything she might have wanted for herself —position, grace, beauty, background, brains, education, connections and money. And on top of that she was the perfectly liberated woman. She had men, lots of them, but her life was never dependent upon their whims. She could, and she did, behave exactly as she wanted to. I could, I suppose, have badly punctured her illusions about the good lady Levigne with a few well chosen and well known little stories, but I didn’t.
They first met at the opening of a small art exhibition. Normally I wouldn’t have bothered going, but Clare said it was time we got some culture, so I allowed her to drag me to this clammy little basement off New Bond Street where someone called Kirky de Smith was holding his first exhibition. We arrived about eight, and smiling round at all the champagne faces I began to think we’d all been had. All the canvases were completely plain. A pale blue one here, a green one there next to it, then purple, yellow, red and so on round the walls of the room, and all signed with a flourish that presumably said de Smith. And that’s all there was. No pretty pictures: no conceptual jokes.
‘Perhaps you’re meant to imagine the pictures,’ said Clare, not knowing whether to giggle or not.
‘Yes. Imagine Raquel Welch, it’s easy if you try,’ said I.
At that moment Kirky de Smith appeared down the steps, linking arms with Stella, the pair of them looking for all the world like a blond and adolescent Buffalo Bill with a very sophisticated Calamity Jane, stetsons, buckskins, boots and spurs, guns in holsters—the lot. I hadn’t realised until that moment that the exhibition was being sponsored by Stella, but I might have guessed. As the couple made their presence felt an embarrassed silence fell about the place. Was one supposed to congratulate Mr de Smith on his exhibition? And if so, what exactly was one supposed to say?
‘Would everyone please stand well away from the red canvas.’ Stella was making a pathway from de Smith to the wall. Tlease stand right away. Right, darling.’
All eyes turned on Kirky as he faced the canvas full on from a distance of about ten yards, hat pulled down over his eyes, gun strapped low around his right thigh, a cheroot smouldering between his lips. Next to me Clare began to giggle and stuffed her face into my shoulder in an attempt to hide herself.
‘When you’re ready, darling!’ Stella’s voice came with a reedy apprehensiveness, sounding thin and high-pitched, not a bit like the way she normally talked, and then suddenly with a blur of speed Kirky de Smith had gone for his gun, levelled it, aimed, and was shooting shot after shot of oily paint pellets into his canvas. Blue! White! Green! Orange! Black! Lilac! In less than five seconds his red canvas was splattered with paint.
‘Oh God,’ said someone over my shoulder, while the rest of the gathering broke into a raggedly unspontaneous applause.
‘Super, Kirky, darling. Marvellous.’ Nothing could daunt Stella. ‘Now if everyone would like to inspect the red canvas, you’ll all have a chance to talk to Kirky about his work during the rest of the evening, when there will, of course, be other happenings involving the other canvases.’
The prospect of having to find something to say to this lunatic was a bit much for me so I began to edge Clare towards the door, only to find our way of retreat blocked by Stella.
‘Isn’t he an absolute genius, Benedict? He’s so talented.’
‘Eh, yes … Have you met Clare, Stella? Clare Rigby, Stella Levigne, who is tonight playing Lady Bountiful to the avant garde.’
Clare smiled a very shy hello, which Stella graciously and, I thought, rather aloofly acknowledged, and then, before I could be pressed for an opinion of the boy genius’s work, she moved on to greet someone across the room from us.
Out in the street again I began to tease Clare about her abortive plan for putting some culture into our lives, but she wasn’t listening.
‘What a beautiful woman, Benedict,’ she said. ‘I wish I looked like that.’
Which I thought was a pretty strange thing for her to say, since to me no one could be prettier than Clare.
After that we saw Stella a couple of times in restaurants, both times with a different man (I heard that poor Mr de Smith didn’t even last the week of his exhibition), but Clare was always too timid to say anything. I could understand that, because although I mocked the woman I found her a bit over-powering too. And it wasn’t, in fact, until I was asked to appear with Stella on a television chat show that they became even remotely acquainted.
The programme was one of those Sunday midnight epilogue economy slots, where people who ought to know better allow themselves to be flattered into agreeing to fifteen minutes’ inane chattering on subjects of borderline importance to Christianity. I think I was a last minute stand-in choice, because they didn’t telephone me until the night before, but that was probably just as well since it meant only twenty-four hours sweating blood instead of the usual week or ten days. Had I been less conceited I should probably have made an excuse for not being available, but television producers know well that they can invariably rely upon outsize egos to fill up their programmes for them.
There were to be three of us: Stella, who was always prepared to chat about anything, an intense little Welsh Baptist minister and me, and our subject for discussion was ‘Christ: revolutionary or dropout?’ We met Stella in a little reception room before the programme, where she was charming the minister with the shape of her outline stretched across an armchair, and arguing with the programme’s producer about the necessity of wearing make-up.
‘I don’t need it,’ she was saying.
‘Everybody needs it,’ contradicted the producer.
‘I consider that a very ungallant and insulting thing to say,’ said Stella, and blew smoke in his face.
I stayed near the door, mute with fear, trying to brave it out in fr
ont of Clare, who had been very excited and came along to see what the inside of a television studio looked like. I suppose if I were honest with myself I would have admitted that the only reason I’d agreed to go on was to impress her. I was far too nervous a character to be of any use at all in such situations.
Stella must have recognised my state immediately because straight away she was on her feet, arm on my shoulder, ignoring her Baptist friend and telling me in a very loud voice not to worry, no one ever saw the rotten little programme anyway because it was too late at night, and didn’t I know that they only put it out to appease the ITA.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I do know. But Fm still scared.’
‘Oh, you’ll be all right,’ said Clare loyally, although I could see that she was busily admiring Stella’s nerve in turning up for a religious programme in such a blatantly provocative shirt.
The programme itself was purgatory. Stella, so calm and serene, did virtually all the talking, and the only couple of points I squeezed between her and the Welsh Baptist were immediately flattened by both of them together—the only things they appeared to agree upon. Knowing that Clare was watching from the other side of the producer’s window made me sick with misery and defeat.
‘Let’s go for a drink, for God’s sake,’ said Stella, almost before the transmission light had gone off, and although I would sooner have crept silently home, she soon had us all, the Baptist included, sitting in a very sedately select late-night club off the Fulham Road.
‘You were very good tonight, Stella.’ Clare was being almost ingratiating. ‘And you too, Benedict,’ she added in an after-thought that made me feel even worse.
‘Oh, thank you.’ For the first time it looked as though Stella had become aware of Clare’s existence.
‘Clare works for your partner-to-be, Stella—Paul.’ I came in to help out, seeing that Clare had no idea of how to keep the conversation going.
‘Oh, really,’ said Stella with a total and obvious lack of interest. ‘How interesting.’ And turning away from us she concentrated her attention on charming the pants off a young programme researcher, who couldn’t quite believe his luck.
I expected Clare to be upset by what had looked to me like a deliberate snub, but if she noticed it she didn’t say anything. Not that night, nor any other. She just sat there and enjoyed being part of such sophistication, openly admired Stella’s wit and charm, and smiled nicely when occasionally her presence was recognised. Disciples are like that.
Chapter Thirteen
Christmas came into our home with a telephone call at about nine-thirty on the evening of December 12. Clare answered.
‘It’s for you. Your friend Timothy.’
This was good news. I hadn’t spoken to Timothy for ages, though I’d regularly sent off my cheques and his pictures now virtually covered every wall in the house, with the exception of Clare’s room. She preferred surrealistic photographic prints which she bought from a picture boutique in Beauchamp Place.
‘Hello, Timothy? Got any more pictures for me?’ Behind my back I could hear Clare groaning good-naturedly.
‘Stacks. What’s your news?’ he said.
‘Oh no. You phoned me. What’s your news first?’
‘Not a lot, really. Just one thing, in fact. Caroligne’s expecting.’
‘No. Really? I thought you said that she wasn’t able. Oh, that’s great news—hang on a minute, I want to tell someone …’ Turning from the phone and back to Clare. ‘Timothy and Caroligne are expecting a baby. Isn’t that great? They told her when they were first married that she couldn’t have one. It’s great news, isn’t it?’
Clare looked up from her book and smiled. ‘Yes, tell them congratulations from me.’ Then she went back to her reading.
‘That’s really marvellous. And Clare, you know about Clare, don’t you, I told you … oh, didn’t I tell you? Well she’s my girlfriend and she says congratulations. She’s very pleased for you both. When’s it expected? Oh, August. Well, that’ll be nice. What do you want? … yes, anything so long as it’s okay. Is Caroligne there? Well, for God’s sake put her on.’
‘Hello, Benedict. Good news, isn’t it? Yes, I feel fine … Well apparently they were wrong. I’m more of a woman than they imagined. Mind you, we tried very hard.’
‘I’ll bet you did, you and that randy Liverpudlian. Probably making up for all his years of celibacy. You know Benedict’s a nice name. You could call it Benedict—I mean if it’s a boy. I’ll even be godfather if you like. Or shouldn’t I ask.’ I heard Caroligne pass on the message and then come back.
‘Timothy says that he’s not having any debauched fornicating lapsed Catholic being a godfather to his child.’
‘You just tell that dropout priest of yours that, oh, what the hell. I’m too pleased to be insulted.’
Caroligne laughed down the phone. The contrast between her deep S.W.3. coming-out and at-home tones, and the rough Dingle nasality of Timothy was always funny. On the surface they seemed dead wrong for each other. But their marriage worked like a dream. At their reception I’d wanted to die with embarrassment when Caroligne’s relatives, in hats like puff pastries, had taken up a sweet patronising manner towards the bridegroom, but Caroligne’s neat mockery of them all had routed their scorn.
Timothy came back to the phone: ‘What we were really phoning you about Benedict was to ask if you’d be coming down again this Christmas—that is, if you’ve nothing better to do. You could bring that bird of yours too, if you wanted to. It’s about time we met her. And your little Suzy Wong here, remember her from last year?—well, she keeps at us all the time to know if you’ll be coming. She’s developing nicely. Seven or eight she must be now. So if you stick around long enough you might be onto a good thing when she comes of age. Anyway … we just thought, you know … would you like to come for Christmas dinner?’
‘Of course we’d love to. Isn’t that right, Clare?’
I turned just in time to see her slipping from the room, and hearing her on the stairs I sensed a momentary shadow.
‘Well, Clare isn’t here at the moment. But you can be sure I’ll be coming. We haven’t really discussed Christmas yet, so I don’t know what her plans are. You know, she does have parents, so she may be going home or something, although she never gets in touch with them. Anyway, I’ll talk to her. I’m virtually certain she’ll want to come, so you can expect us both unless you hear to the contrary.’
‘That would be lovely, then. So we’ll see you about one, okay?’
‘Right. My love to Caroligne. I always said she was too good for you, and now you’ll be adding to the desultory O’Hagan dynasty. Will you give it a double barrelled name to appease your posh in-laws? Benedict Deschampsneuf O’Hagan. Now there’s a great name for you.’
‘Bye, Benedict.’
Suddenly feeling excited, I ran upstairs to tell Clare, hesitating and then knocking at her door. ‘Come in.’
She was sitting in an armchair by her electric fire; a huge red bell-shaped lampshade, tassles hanging round the rim, cast a nice warm glow on her face. She didn’t look up from her book, so I sat down on the end of her bed.
‘You got any special plans for Christmas, Clare?’
‘No.’
‘I mean, you’re not going to spend it with your father or mother?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re staying here?’
‘If that’s all right?’ A quick smirk as she turned over a page and continued reading.
‘Will you put that fucking book down for a minute while I’m talking to you?’
She looked up quickly, her face a mask of surprise. Then with a little smile she said she was sorry: ‘What is it?’
‘Timothy and Caroligne have invited us down to their place, you know, their orphanage for Christmas dinner, and I’ve said we’d be going if it was okay with you.’
She looked back abstractedly towards her novel: ‘Well, I don’t know, Benedict. Surely there are more exciting
things to be done than visit an orphanage on Christmas Day. You’re not Father Christmas, you know, although the amount of money you send for all those paintings you get, anyone would think the whole place depended upon your philanthropic support.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I could feel the palms of my hands turning clammy with annoyance.
‘Oh. I don’t know. It’s just that you seem to be such an easy touch for everyone. I know you’re fond of Timothy, but all he has to do is to pile a great wad of some of the most god-awful drawings into a parcel and there you go shelling out your money as though you were Rothschild.’
‘Listen, you stuck-up little bitch. I happen to like those pictures which you think are so god-awful, and secondly I’d rather give my money to somebody I know will do something useful with it, which means taking in children who nobody else wants and giving them a home, than spend it on those silly trolloping people who you con into buying fake antiques every day in that junk shop up the road. And, as I come to think of it, you’ve got a very nice little home here, haven’t you? I don’t hear you complaining about my philanthropy towards you. So if you don’t mind, keep your fucking nose out of my affairs.’
Dramatically speaking I should have left at this point, slamming the door behind me and banging down the stairs. The Strong Man bit. But I didn’t. I just sat there, wondering what had come over me, and wondering what Clare would do. I suppose I was hoping for tears, perhaps. For a reconciliation. But she kept perfectly cool.
‘Benedict. I want to finish this chapter tonight. Do you think you could leave me alone, please?’ Her eyes so grey and so grave, looked right into mine, and then with a quick flash of a half-smile which said, ‘you’re dismissed’, she went back to her book. For a few moments I waited, too embarrassed to move, and then slowly stood up and went out, closing the door gently behind me.
Our first real row, although it was only a squall, and Clare had won so easily. For a while I tried to write, sitting at my desk in the living room, watching the students trailing past on their way back to the college at the top of the road. But I was too depressed.