by Susan Lewis
He started to laugh then as he realized Zaccheo was taking over the plans for next Saturday’s party. The guest list which had started life with no more than twenty people on it was already up to over fifty and Zaccheo was still reeling off names. Caught up in the spirit of it Pippa was excitedly adding to them, having, Laurence guessed, completely forgotten that it was supposed to be a party for Jane.
Laurence glanced over at Jane wondering if she minded. Probably not, he decided, if anything, knowing Jane, she would be only too happy to be relieved of the starring role. However it didn’t seem that she was going to get away with it that lightly for Tom suddenly piped up with,
‘Guess what, Zacky, Granny’s cook is making a huge cake for Jane.’
‘Oh Tom!’ Pippa groaned. ‘That was supposed to be a surprise.’
Tom’s eyes rounded as he put a hand over his mouth and looked up at Jane.
‘You’re hopeless at keeping secrets,’ Jane told him, tickling him.
‘I’m not!’ Tom protested. ‘Daddy told me a secret and I kept that.’
‘And what was Daddy’s secret?’ Zaccheo asked, winking at Laurence.
‘That he’s going to take Mummy away for a weekend,’ Tom declared proudly.
Everyone laughed as Laurence hoisted Tom on to his lap and shook him. ‘You fell for it, big guy,’ he said, planting a kiss on his son’s head, then feeling Pippa’s eyes on him he looked across to where she was sitting on the sofa beside Zaccheo.
‘Do you have a problem with that?’ Laurence asked her.
Pippa glanced uncomfortably at Zaccheo then back to Laurence.
Laurence grinned. ‘Well for sure we’re not going to go while we have a guest,’ he said.
Pippa looked instantly relieved and came to perch on the arm of his chair. ‘But we will go,’ she said, leaning over and kissing him. ‘Soon.’
It was brief, so brief in fact that it barely had time to register, but an awkward silence followed. Zaccheo instantly plunged into it. ‘So it’s going to be your birthday, Jane!’ he boomed. ‘Twenty-one. Ah, to be twenty-one again. Now let me see, what was I doing when I was this young? Why for sure!’ he cried, slapping a hand on his thigh, ‘I was a-drinking the whisky and a-loving the women and a-fighting a war.’
‘You were never in the war,’ Pippa laughed.
‘My whole life is one long war,’ he bellowed mournfully. ‘But we must not be talking of me, we must plan this party for Jane. Who would you like to invite, bellezza mia? Name any man in the world whether he be movie star, a politician or great writer like me, for I, Zaccheo Marigliano shall produce your heart’s desire.’
‘Yes, come on, Jane,’ Pippa enthused, highly entertained by the shy devotion glittering in Jane’s eyes as she looked at Zaccheo. ‘Zaccheo knows everyone, so who really gets you going?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jane giggled, blushing right to the roots of her hair. ‘I can’t think of anyone.’ They all waited. Jane shrugged, looked at them all in turn then threw out her hands helplessly. ‘I’m happy just to let you do the organizing,’ she declared.
‘But you’ve got to choose someone,’ Pippa insisted.
‘I know! Phillip Schofield!’ Tom cried, naming his current TV favourite, then looked bemused at the way everyone exploded into laughter. ‘You said you liked him,’ he said accusingly to Jane.
‘I do,’ she chuckled, ‘but I think Mummy had someone a little grander than that in mind. I know,’ she suddenly said, ‘I’ll invite Tom. He can be my partner for the evening.’
‘Oh Jane!’ Pippa wailed. ‘He’s going to be here anyway.’
‘And someone has to keep the little rascal out of mischief, don’t they?’ she said winking at Tom.
‘What do you do with her?’ Pippa sighed, going to sit back on the sofa. ‘Incidently, did you invite your parents?’
Jane nodded. ‘I’m afraid they can’t make it though, they’ve got some function on that night at Daddy’s school.’
‘On your twenty-first!’ Pippa cried. ‘Surely they can miss some stuffy old function for that.’
‘They’re taking me out to dinner during the week,’ Jane assured her. ‘Besides, they’re not really the partying types, and they’d be a bit uncomfortable amongst so many people.’
Pippa let it go at that, though Jane didn’t miss the way she and Laurence exchanged glances. Jane read their unspoken communication only too well, they had been expecting her parents to back out, mainly because Frank and Amy Cottle always did when Pippa and Laurence invited them over. In fact, Pippa and Laurence had only ever met Jane’s father for Amy Cottle had never been to the Kensington house. Jane had explained, not long after she’d first started with the McAllisters, that her mother was very shy and would be so overwhelmed by this wonderful house that Jane felt it better not to insist she came. Only on one other occasion had Jane discussed her mother with Pippa, which was the only time in the three years Pippa had known her that Jane had shown anything even approaching rancour. It had been so out of character that Pippa had tried to bring her mother into the conversation again at a later date, but Jane was completely closed on the subject. ‘I really don’t want to talk about her,’ she had said. ‘In fact, if I could, I’d like to forget that she even exists, but I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to do that.’
Pippa had been so surprised at what, coming from Jane, were such strong words, she had broached the matter with Laurence, wondering if they should try to get to the bottom of it. At first Laurence was unsure, but after giving it some thought he’d decided that Jane’s personal life was her own affair. Not everyone got along with their parents, he’d said, reminding her of her fractious relationship with her own mother, ‘besides which, there’s not one of us who doesn’t have something in our pasts we don’t much want to share with anyone else.’
That had been a mistake if ever he’d made one, for Jane’s problem had been instantly forgotten as Pippa had wanted to know exactly what it was that he didn’t want to share with her . . .
Dermott Campbell was riding high. Everyone said so, including him – probably too often, but people were as used to his immodesty as they were his vulgarity. The Kirstie Doll campaign was proving such a success that, single-handedly, he had succeeded in upping his paper’s circulation by almost twenty per cent in less than a month. Dyllis was almost as pleased with that as she was the damage being caused to the Doll’s reputation. Campbell smirked at that – in truth there really wasn’t much of her reputation left to destroy now.
He’d run his last few articles as a ‘Teach Yourself, by Kirsten Meredith’, series. There was Teach Yourself how to Exploit Your Beauty; Teach Yourself Social Mountaineering! Teach Yourself How to Inherit; and Teach Yourself How to Use a Guy. That one had really got the papers flying off the stands. Sadly, Campbell’s source, the woman he had fancied himself in love with a month or so ago, hadn’t known Kirsten’s tricks of the trade, but with the help of The Joy of Sex they had been easy enough to concoct. And, added to his scathing wit, was, of course, the fact that the Kirstie Doll was so fucking gorgeous everyone was buying the papers just to look at her. Shit, was she an easy target!
So, everything was moving along as smoothly as a train – trouble was every now and again it dropped him off at a station he didn’t much want to be at. Meaning, that for the most part he was getting carried along by the sheer momentum of the campaign. But in quiet moments he was doing some reflecting he wasn’t too comfortable with, which left him with the uneasy feeling that at the journey’s end, when that train was moving full pelt towards the buffers, he, Dermott Campbell, was going to be the only one on board.
However, he – and his source whom he hadn’t heard from for a fortnight – were beginning to run out of material. Dyllis wasn’t too bothered at this stage, after all the general public could only take so much and the signs were that their sympathy was beginning to veer in Kirsten’s direction. No, they’d relaunch the campaign once the Kirstie Doll started to venture from the ho
use.
At that moment Campbell was standing in front of his copy-strewn desk gazing absently at the photographs of Kirsten and Helena Johnson that had been taken as they were leaving San Lorenzo’s. There was nothing he could write about that. Nothing at all. But the picture of Kirsten was pretty good, in fact, laughing the way she was made her look so goddamned beautiful that if he weren’t who he was he might just find himself falling for her. His eyes moved to Helena Johnson. Now that was someone he had already fallen for, at least he thought he had . . .
Wearily he sank back into his chair, wishing the damned phones around him would stop ringing and for just five minutes everyone would stop yelling. He didn’t want to admit how much all this was getting to him but right now he had to admit that playing the role of Mr Big Shit wasn’t anywhere near as pleasurable this time round. Maybe he’d gone soft in his old age. Maybe once a man passed forty his cutting edge became blunted by sentiment.
Pushing his fingers into his hair he rested his elbows on the desk and ignored the phones. Sometimes, at least recently, he had felt as though he was playing out his life on a stage with himself, his real self, as the sole member of the audience. His acting wasn’t bad, he’d give himself credit for that, for weren’t the people fawning around him again, clamouring to get into his column, wheedling their way into his esteem, laughing uproariously at his unfunny jokes just so’s he’d write something flattering about them? God, they disgusted him at times. But without them he’d be nothing and he sure as hell didn’t want to be that again.
So, there was nothing else for it, but to pull up the curtain and get out there and continue with his sublime impersonation of a man who sneered at the world and just didn’t give a fuck . . .
‘Hey, Dermott! You going to pick up that phone?’ someone yelled.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ Campbell answered, reaching across for it.
‘Hello,’ the voice at the other end said, ‘is that you, Dermott?’
On hearing the woman he just couldn’t work out his feelings for Campbell’s back straightened. ‘Yeah, it’s me,’ he said.
‘Good. Are you ready? I’ve got something for you.’
‘I’m ready.’
‘She was at San Lorenzo’s . . .’
‘Christ, tell me something I don’t already know, will you?’
‘OK. But you’re not going to like it.’
‘Try me.’
It didn’t take long in the telling, but by the time she had finished the blood had drained from Campbell’s face. She was right, he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit, for what she had just told him was the very thing he’d been dreading. Of course he’d known it was going to come sooner or later, but he’d been banking on it being later, by that time he might have worked out a way to handle it. For a moment or two he toyed with the idea of keeping the information from Dyllis. But if he did his source would only wonder why he hadn’t gone public with what he knew, and who could say, unlikely as it might seem, she might, out of panic for her own skin, actually go to Dyllis herself – and that was a risk he couldn’t afford to take.
So now the fun really starts, he said despondently to himself, looking down at the photographs. Then he chuckled, a dry, humourless sound that in no way cheered him even though he could see the comical side of his thoughts . . . He didn’t need make-up for his role, neither did he need direction, he didn’t even need any rehearsals – all it would take was a few stiff gins and he could go out there and play the part of a complete fucking asshole. And that shouldn’t be difficult, God knows he’d done it enough times before.
4
‘I just can’t believe I allowed you to talk me into this,’ Kirsten said, as Helena walked in through the front door, clad in so much jewellery and sequins she glittered like a Christmas tree.
‘Me!’ Helena cried. ‘It was your idea.’
‘I know, but I’ve got to blame someone. In fact, I think I’ve changed my mind. Let’s stay here.’
‘Not on your life. I’ve been looking forward to this. Anyway, what was it that made you change your mind?’
‘Some kind of mental aberration. Plus the fact that you’re right, I have to face him sometime, so why not get it over with?’
‘That’s my girl,’ Helena grinned. ‘And I’ll be right there with you.’
‘You’d better be. I’ll just pop upstairs and get into my party frock, help yourself to wine, there’s some in the fridge.’
Ten minutes later, her fingers shaking so hard she could do nothing more than fumble with her earrings, Kirsten walked into the kitchen.
‘My God, you look fantastic!’ Helena declared when she saw the creamy white off-the-shoulder dress clinging to Kirsten’s perfect figure and which showed off her flawless olive skin in a way that made even Helena’s heart skip a beat. ‘In fact altogether too fantastic if you ask me,’ Helena decided. ‘Those many assets shouldn’t be allowed on just one woman, they should be shared out a bit. Pull that skirt up and let me check the thighs for cellulite, it might make me feel a bit better. On second thoughts don’t, ’cos I just know you’re not going to have any.’
‘And neither do you,’ Kirsten laughed shakily. Dear God, she really was nervous.
‘No, you’re right. Solid as a rock these thighs,’ Helena said, slapping them. ‘Comes from clamping them round young boys’ heads. Nevertheless, looking like that I should send you back upstairs to change, but I can’t be bothered to wait. So come on, your carriage awaits.’
‘You don’t think I’ve overdone it a bit, do you?’ Kirsten said as they got into the taxi.
‘It wouldn’t matter what you wore, Kirsten, you’d still steal the show. But rest assured in that dress you’ll knock Laurence McAllister right off his feet.’
‘What do you mean?’ Kirsten said in a taut voice.
‘Well that’s why you’re wearing it, isn’t it?’ Helena teased. ‘To get him eating his heart out for what he gave up?’
‘Is that what you seriously think?’ Kirsten demanded, dismayed by how transparent she was.
Helena laughed. ‘Come on, lighten up,’ she said. ‘It’s just the right sort of dress for tonight. Knock ’em dead, why not! You got it, you flaunt it!’
Kirsten wasn’t at all sure she was happy with that answer either, but she should have expected no less coming from Helena. ‘Listen,’ she said, ‘are you sure you checked this with Pippa? I mean, I would have thought I was the last person she’d . . .’
‘I checked it,’ Helena said firmly. ‘Now stop worrying and relax.’
‘What did she say?’ Kirsten asked.
‘She said that she reckons the press are giving you a real tough time, which they are, and that you haven’t done anything to deserve it, which you haven’t. She says she’d be real glad to have you at her party and that I should tell you that there’ll be lots of people there you should meet.’
‘Does Laurence know?’ Kirsten asked, feeling so sick all of a sudden that she considered asking the driver to stop.
‘Who knows? Who cares? Well, yeah, sure, Pippa’s bound to have told him. Besides, he’s just one man, Kirstie. There’s gonna be heaps of others there, you know, like writers, those people a gal like you can’t function without, and you got to get started some time. Now, stop worrying and relax.’
The party was in full swing by the time they arrived. Kirsten’s nerves were by now in such a state that her teeth were chattering. She had to be insane, she just had to be, because no one in their right mind would even consider doing what she was now. What the hell was he going to say when he saw her, but presumably he had already worked that out, because presumably Pippa had told him she was coming. Which, she told herself by way of comfort, must mean that he had gone some way at least to forgiving her for what she had done . . .
As they started to press their way down the hall Kirsten was suffering from the horrible feeling that she was losing touch with herself. But perhaps it was the noise and the heady cocktail of pungent drinks and
perfumed bodies making her feel that way. Or more likely, she realized, it was the fact that she was actually in Laurence McAllister’s house! This huge Victorian mansion with its high ceilings, black and white chequered floor and awesomely grand rooms belonged to him – and his wife of course. She could almost have been in a dream for it was exactly how she had imagined it would be, and coming face to face with the reality of it was as dizzying as the madness that had made her come here.
Suddenly she found herself smiling, for the voice booming from the room they were heading towards she would have known anywhere. Zaccheo Marigliano! And wasn’t he doing his favourite old party trick of impersonating Pavarotti while playing the piano badly? He’d done it so often when visiting Paul’s house in the South of France.
‘God, he’s so animal!’ Helena purred, as they came to a stop at the threshold of the room which was overflowing with guests.
Kirsten turned to her in surprise. ‘Who, Zaccheo? I thought you liked them in short trousers.’
‘Not quite, darling,’ Helena laughed. ‘Seventeen’s the youngest I’ve had, I think twenty-three is the oldest, but for Marigliano I could be persuaded to make an exception.’
Laughing Kirsten turned to look about her. There were several faces she recognized, but for the moment she didn’t quite have the courage to approach any of them. And no one, she thought sadly, looked as though they were going to acknowledge her. Several faces were turned in her direction, and she felt herself smiling awkwardly as her hand tightened on her bag. It took several seconds, perhaps even as long as a minute, for the silence to spread through the entire room, but to Kirsten, as she realized what was happening, it felt like eternity.
The sea of hostile faces suddenly started to swim before her as her heart pummelled her chest so hard her whole body seemed to vibrate with it. She was on the point of turning and running when Helena’s hand gripped her arm savagely.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘I’m right here with you. You can do this, Kirstie.’ Then in a voice brimming with laughter she cried, ‘Hi, everyone. We’ve arrived, so let’s party!’ and she started wiggling outrageously towards the man nearest her.