I went straight to the drinks trolley in the corner of the living room and began pouring drinks. It was a good hostesslike occupation and it kept me out of firing range.
'Let me help.' Mariah came over and began ferrying drinks to the guests. She was looking pale and shaken; she'd spent yesterday and this morning in the midst of the hostilities. You had to give her full marks for staying power.
Beau accepted his drink and retreated to stand at the floor-to-ceiling window with his back to the room, brooding out over the impressive riverscape.
'It's a magnificent view.' For once, Evangeline tried to pour oil on the troubled waters.
'I've seen better.' He took a deep swallow.
'I'm sure.' Evangeline took a deep swallow herself and persevered. 'You must tell us all about your trip.'
'It was too damned expensive!' If she had been trying to raise his spirits, she had failed.
'I thought you'd come back a lot sooner than you planned.' Somehow, Evangeline's good intentions never last long; malice was creeping back into her voice.
I turned to look at the others and felt a faint sense of revulsion. It was disgusting the way Jasper was cosying-up to his grandfather's new lady. Did he hope to curry favour with Beau that way? Or was he hoping that he could enlist the woman on his side?
The latter seemed a more realistic proposition, judging from the way the woman was responding to his attentions.
She nodded encouragingly as he spoke to her earnestly, then stretched out a hand to brush a lock of hair back from his forehead.
Wait a minute!! That was moving pretty fast for a newly introduced stranger who was usurping his grandmother's place.
I tilted my head and half closed my eyes to get the proper out-of-perspective view. That blurred the woman's face and, without that distraction, her form began to appear more familiar. Just then she dropped a quick comforting kiss on her grandson's ashen face and began patting his hand consolingly.
'Good Lord – Juanita!' I gasped. 'I didn't recognize you!'
'The plastic surgeon was too damned expensive, too,' Beau grumbled. 'Cost a fortune.'
'You've got a fortune,' Juanita said coldly.
'I won't have, the way you're carrying on. Between you and that grandson of yours –'
'Ours.'
'Whatever.' Beau shrugged and tossed down the rest of his drink. 'Y'all keep on like this and I'm gonna be bankrupt, that's all I know.'
'Poor boy,' Juanita purred. 'He is down to his last five million.'
'It's not that much!' Beau yelped indignantly. 'Nowhere near that much. I keep telling you.'
'It is more like ten, I think.' Juanita was still purring. She was a woman who could recognize the upper hand when she held it.
'Nothing like it! You're crazy! You're trying to ruin me!' Beau raised his glass to his lips with a gesture that should have tossed the contents down his throat. He choked on air and looked at the empty glass incredulously. 'What does a man have to do to get a refill around here?'
Mariah darted forward to take his glass and bring it to me. I recklessly splashed a large quantity of Scotch into it. Juanita watched with disapproval. I waited for her to make some comment, but she didn't. A frown that scarcely rippled her newly smooth face followed Mariah as she brought the glass to Beau.
'Anyone else?' I called out merrily, hoping to avert the outright quarrel that seemed to be threatening.
'It is time to eat, I think.' Juanita turned to Jasper. 'You spoke of reservations?'
'Downstairs,' Jasper said. 'Sophie and Frederick serve Sunday lunch. It goes on all afternoon and you'll get to meet some of the other residents.'
'You think that's an inducement?' Half of Beau's drink disappeared abruptly. 'Anybody would have to be crazy to live here. Why should we want to meet them?'
'The food is wonderful,' Mariah chimed in on a more practical note. 'Gourmet cooking. Delicious.'
'Well ...' Against his better judgement, Beau was going to allow himself to be persuaded. 'I am kinda hungry.' He looked at Evangeline and me. 'You two coming along?'
'It's begun raining – pouring.' Mariah had an air of desperation. She didn't want to be trapped into an intimate meal with Jasper and his terrifying grandparents. 'You'll never find a taxi.'
'We've already made reservations,' I admitted. 'We'll get dressed and meet you downstairs.'
'And' – Evangeline made a grand gesture – 'I will even look at your holiday snapshots over lunch.'
'We don't have snapshots,' Beau growled. 'We just have shopping receipts.'
10
We got back to our apartment later than we had expected. After a long and leisurely lunch, Jasper and Mariah had managed to make their getaway, while Evangeline and I had gone back to their borrowed penthouse with Beau and Juanita, who could be very good company once Beau's grievances had been aired.
'I'll get it.' The telephone was ringing as we entered and I went ahead while Evangeline switched on the light.
'Hello?' A strange gurgling sound seemed to be coming from the other end of the line. 'Hello?'
'Aaargh!' A furious male voice snarled out: 'In any right-thinking country, they hang people like you!'
'I beg your pardon? What number are you calling?' There was a crashing noise in my ear. 'Hello? Hello?'
'What is it?' Evangeline came into the room.
'Wrong number. I hope.' I replaced the receiver. 'Some very irate man just informed me that they hang people like me in right-thinking countries.'
'The world is full of critics,' Evangeline said. 'Obviously, someone just caught up with one of your old films.'
'Very funny. You don't suppose it has anything to do with Sweetums, do you?'
'Did it sound like Terence?' Evangeline dropped into an armchair, kicked off her shoes and stretched luxuriously, not even bothering to stifle a yawn.
'No. I can't imagine Terence getting that passionate about anything. It was a different kind of voice, rougher and the yawn was catching; I gave way to one of my own.
'Since the implication seems to be that this isn't a right-thinking country,' Evangeline said, 'I suggest you stop worrying about it and go to bed. It's been a long day.'
'It's always a long day when Beau is around.' But she was right. We were safe in our castle with the drawbridge up. No one could get at us and it was probably a wrong number anyway.
'I'll think about it tomorrow,' I said.
About three o'clock the next afternoon, I discovered why we had been having such a quiet day: Evangeline had unplugged the telephone.
'There!' Beau reeled in the limp cord and dangled the useless connection in the air. 'No wonder I couldn't get through to you.'
'How long have you been trying?' Evangeline took the wind out of his sails.
'Well ...' He deflated visibly. 'The past half-hour at least. Juanita said you'd never be out on a day like this.'
'Oh, did she?' Evangeline tried to look as though she went for an hour's jog through wind and rain and sleet and gloom of night every day of her life. 'What does she know about our habits?'
'Nothing good!' Beau guffawed. 'Walked right into that one, didn't you?'
Anyway, he was in a good mood. With a dirty look at Evangeline, I removed the cord from his hand and plugged the jack into the socket.
'Juanita wants to know what she should wear tonight.' Beau got down to business. 'The Versace gold lamé or the Lacroix black lace?'
'The Marks and Spencer jacket and skirt is more the order of dress,' Evangeline said.
'After all I paid for those designer rags? That can't be right. It's Opening Night!' We had invited Beau and Juanita to join us for the new show at the Happy Larry, since it promised to be cheerful.
'Face it, Beau,' Evangeline sighed. 'People don't dress up for Opening Nights in the West End any more – and this is just a pub theatre. The world isn't what it used to be.'
The telephone rang and I picked up the receiver automatically. 'Hello?'
'Who am I talk
ing to?' An arrogant male voice demanded.
'If you don't know, why did you dial my number?' I wasn't going to be caught that way.
'Aaargh! I know you now,' the voice ranted. 'And I've reconsidered. Hanging's too good for you, you dirty –'
I yanked the jack out of the socket.
'Another wrong number?' Evangeline inquired sweetly.
'There's a lot of them around.'
'Maybe you ought to change your number, if you're having trouble,' Beau suggested.
'Maybe we ought,' I agreed absently, still holding the echo of that hostile voice. It definitely wasn't Terence but, at the same time, there was something familiar about it ...
'Look,' Beau said, 'I don't want to go back and tell Juanita she can't wear any of her new finery tonight. You come back with me and explain to her.'
Why not? I realized that I would be happier out of the flat for a while, even though the telephone was disconnected. As we walked past the television monitor for the front entrance, I glanced up at it uneasily. It showed only the immediate area around the door, though. Anybody could be lurking around the corner or across the street.
I was getting that beleaguered feeling again.
We got to the Happy Larry in time to have a leisurely drink before the show. What I was beginning to recognize as the usual crowd was already there. We caused a mild stir of excitement as we entered, largely, I suspected, because Beau and Juanita were with us.
Glasses were raised in salute and it took the merest nod of acknowledgement before they were clustering around us.
'I thought you boys just went to Closing Nights,' I said. That was where we had met them before.
'Oh, no,' Vic said. 'We're the Open and Shut Club. We come to Opening Nights and go to the Closings. That's one of the things we bet on: how long a show will last.'
'One of the things.' The voice was heavy with meaning and barely audible. It might have come from Mark.
'And whether it will transfer to the West End and how long it will last there.' It seemed to take very little to make Vic go a deep red.
'I'm Adam.' With a charming smile, he moved forward to cover Vic's confusion, and introduce the others. Mark, Greg and Paul shook hands like little gentlemen and made flattering remarks, especially to Juanita.
Only Ledbetter held back; shyly, I thought at first, then noticed that he was watching Beau and Juanita with a curious, almost appraising expression. Perhaps he didn't recognize Juanita, either.
A sudden gust of cloying scent engulfed us all. Heliotrope. My throat closed up and I noticed that I was not the only one to begin choking.
Evangeline muttered something under her breath that I hoped nobody else had heard.
Ledbetter and the others snapped to attention like a line of chorus boys when the star enters and the orchestra bursts into the hit song of the show. They hadn't done that with Evangeline and me, I noted bitterly; but perhaps we had lost our novelty value by being too easily available. We were just a couple of the boys now.
'Why, Beau, honey,' the saccharine voice trilled behind us. 'Beauregard Sylvester! I do declare!' The honeyed accents of the Old South began to make themselves apparent. 'Ah thought you were still on board the Constellation! When did you hit town?'
'You two starred together, didn't you?' Terence picked up his cue eagerly. 'In The Heart-Throb of the Confederacy.'
Better known to Hollywood insiders as The Coronary of the Confederacy. I thought Beau was going to have one on the spot.
'I thought you were going back to the States,' he growled.
'Oh, but you made London sound like such fun! And it is! It's so wonderful to see my dear old friends again.'
Evangeline growled. 'Sweetums looked us up. She said you gave her our address.'
'I thought she wanted to send a postcard.' Beau knew he was in trouble. His eyes rolled wildly. 'Juanita, you tell them.'
'Oh, is this Juanita?' Sweetums looked at her with frank disbelief. 'The same Juanita I saw two months ago? My dear, what have you been doing?'
'The cruise was very refreshing,' Juanita said. 'I had a good rest.'
'Really? You must give me his name.'
The warning bell sounded, making me, at any rate, jump. It sounded like the bell in a prize fight signalling the contenders to come out of their corners fighting.
'We'd better go upstairs,' I said. 'They're ready to start.'
'Plenty of time, plenty of time.' Barry Lane, the landlord, materialized beside us, ice bucket and champagne in his hands.
'Oh, what a lovely surprise!' Sweetums simpered.
'The least I can do when such luminaries honour my establishment.' I was thankful he didn't say 'humble establishment,' that would have been carrying it too far. The look he shot the young men from under his lowered eyebrows made it clear that they were not included in the offer of free champagne.
'We ought to be getting upstairs.' Vic took the hint and started for the stairs with his friends. As they passed the entrance, I spotted a familiar head raised above the parapet of frosted glass to peer through the clear glass panel at the top of the door. It turned cautiously from side to side; its gaze rested for a moment on our group and then the head swerved and disappeared in the opposite direction.
The off-duty Superintendent Heyhoe was either going to use the public bar or patronize another pub altogether. We were more than he wanted to contend with tonight – even on a social level. Perhaps, especially on a social level.
'Why, Terence,' Sweetums giggled. I turned to see him refilling her glass. 'If I were ten years younger, I'd think you were trying to get me drunk.'
'Not even thirty years younger!' Evangeline muttered.
'I would if I could,' Terence replied gallantly, and more truthfully than he knew. It was rumoured that Sweetums had once drunk W. C. Fields under the table.
'Let's go see the show we're paying for.' Beau hauled Juanita roughly to her feet. I expected her to protest, but she seemed hardly to notice. From beneath her lowered lids, she looked at Beau, then at Sweetums, and then back to Beau again, as though trying to decide – not for the first time – just what, if anything, they had once been to each other.
Actually, she had no reason to worry. Beau had always had too good a sense of self-preservation to get too close to anyone as poisonous as Sweetums. However, it would do his morale a world of good if Juanita decided to throw a jealous fit over him.
The second bell rang with a peculiar intensity, suggesting that someone had seen Barry breaking out the champagne again and wanted to ensure that we remember we were there for the show.
'Take your glasses up with you,' Barry urged with the nervous air of a man who had been spoken to severely in the recent past. 'There'll be a fresh bottle of champagne waiting for you at the interval.'
I was behind the others as we started up the stairs. Just before the curve of the stairs took me out of the line of vision for the saloon bar below, I looked back.
At the far side of the room, the door into the public bar swung open and Heyhoe advanced cautiously into the saloon bar. An air of relief was apparent as he crossed over to Barry and began speaking. He had the field clear to himself until the interval when, presumably, he would retreat to the public bar again until all of us undesirables went upstairs for the second act.
The final bell sounded as we took our seats and settled down to watch the performance.
Gather Ye Rosebuds proved to be what once would have been called a revue, escaping that fate by a thin storyline linking the sketches and songs. The writers had obviously been traumatized by too many viewings of Citizen Kane and the end of every sketch was signalled by a sled with the name 'Rosebud' painted on it being drawn across the stage behind the actors. There were frequent sly – and sometimes lewd – references to W. R. and Marion and the real origin of the name.
However, it was bright and cheerful and a lot better than most of the shows we had seen lately. Sweetums was laughing it up far more than the rather feeble jokes call
ed for, playing to the crowd, who laughed at her laugh, and paying no attention to the murderous looks from the actors she was upstaging. Ah, well, if looks could kill, we'd have been free of Sweetums these many decades. She probably would never have made it past the first grade.
On the surface, there wasn't much in the show for us, but a couple of the songs were promising, one or two jokes were genuinely funny and it might be worth investigating just what the writers might have lying around in their desk drawers.
Rosebud tilted over on one side, revealing that it was outlined in little white lights and signalling the close of Act One. There was the usual rush for the exit, Beau and Juanita well to the front. Sweetums hung back, surrounded by the Open and Shut Club and relishing every moment of their attention.
'Hang on a minute,' I said to Evangeline. 'I just want to check something.' I squinted at the blurred and badly printed page of credits that passed for a programme.
Evangeline sank back in her seat with an impatient sigh. It was all right for her, she now had Hamlet Swoons to fall back on, stepping over Sweetums's dead body, if necessary. But if I wasn't going to get stuck playing a French maid, I still had to find something for myself, preferably a musical.
'Is everything all right?' an anxious voice asked.
'Just fine.' I looked up to see the rather charming face of one of the singers. Were they making the poor girl double as an usher? 'Thank you' – I squinted at the programme again – 'Cara?'
'Cara Knowlton,' she affirmed. 'I'm so glad to have this chance to speak to you. I won't embarrass you, I'll just say I admire you both so much. Now, can I get you a drink or anything?'
'A little information, please.' I tilted the programme sideways, trying to decipher one of the names. 'That song — "Roses All Around Us" – was the same person responsible for both music and lyrics?'
'Oh, yes.' There was a betraying note of pride in her voice. 'Ewen Elliott. We think he's really talented.'
'So do I.' I could feel myself being carried along by her enthusiasm.
'Oh! Would you like to meet him? It would mean so much to him if you told him that yourself. I'll go and get –'
Break a Leg, Darlings Page 9