by Wendy Holden
‘It’s more probably because journalists don’t print stories that hurt each other.’
Laura raised her eyebrows, but didn’t argue. There were more important things at stake. ‘Might it be WikiLeaks?’ she asked.
‘Julian says he’s as confused as the rest of us.’
‘You know him?’ Laura was never quite sure if Kearn was joking or not.
The general confusion meant that Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens were gaining ground. None were likely to champion a society in which the likes of Lady Toots would flourish. Her bikinis even less.
Perhaps this was what lay behind the sudden cold shoulder Clemency was receiving from people formerly desperate to ingratiate themselves. Laura had answered several calls in which a top designer’s assistant’s assistant explained they had run out of sample sizes, or the PA to a leading party-giver said they couldn’t possibly squeeze in one more person. Further indignities included a hot new restaurant cancelling Clemency’s lunch slot, a celebrity hairdresser ‘losing’ her booking and an airline refusing to upgrade her on a flight to an international fashion week in which she would now sit in the second row.
Laura had started to feel, to her surprise, rather sorry for Clemency. So much of her self-worth was invested in her position, a position she seemed increasingly ill-equipped to occupy. Laura was no longer privy to Society’s sales figures, but to judge from Clemency’s face after meetings with Christopher, they clearly weren’t going northwards.
She snatched up what had been Karlie’s phone. The heavy breather, again. Two or three times a day she would answer to hear a strange buzzing and beeping followed by a rasping and gasping, then a guttural mutter in some foreign tongue. It was all very disconcerting.
On Friday afternoon, Clemency stalked across to her in her trademark red spike heels. She had been up in Christopher’s office again. ‘I’m not sure the meeting went so well dear,’ Honor had confided. ‘There was an awful lot of shouting.’
Clemency’s face, framed by her roiling red mass of curls, looked shaken. Her eyes were glistening with what Laura, to her surprise, recognised as tears. ‘You’d better make a good job of it tonight,’ Clemency hissed. As threats went, it sounded more like a plea.
Laura nodded. ‘I’ll do my best.’ To know that she might hold Clemency’s future in her hands was rather dizzying. The tables truly had turned.
Clemency, spinning on her heel, paused. ‘You might need to leave early. To get ready.’
Laura recognised this as being less an olive branch, more a whole tree. She was careful, even so, not to show it. Clemency, even the new, humbled version, was still volatile, unpredictable and deceptive. ‘Okay,’ she said, guardedly. ‘Thanks.’
She did need time to get ready, and buy her outfit into the bargain. Short-staffing – or no-staffing – at Society had meant no chance all week to go back to the Notting Hill charity shop.
As she thundered down the road from the Tube station, Laura prayed that the gold suit would still be there.
It was. Along with the perfect pair of high-heeled gold strappy sandals.
‘Worn only once, on the school run,’ the assistant confided. Caspar, of course, had not given a thought to how Laura would get from Cod’s Head Row to the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where the Ivys ceremony was to be held. Fortunately, he had an efficient assistant, who sounded strangely familiar.
‘Brad Plant!’ Laura exclaimed, finally placing the voice explaining about the limo being sent to pick her up.
‘Have we met?’ the other end asked stiffly.
Laura reminded him about Savannah and Buckingham Palace. An agonised groan followed. ‘OMFG. Seriously, that was a nightmare. I thought we’d be sent to the Tower to be executed. Dogs included.’
‘You’re not working for Savannah any more then?’
I got Caspar in the divorce, thank God. Okay, so the car’s due in thirty minutes. Can I check the address? God’s Head Road, right?’
Brad had barely got off the phone before it rang again. Lulu, with last-minute nerves about her performance.
‘Am terrifying!’
‘Lulu, you’re playing a shoe. You’ve got one line.’
‘Yes, but must convict audience. Make people disbelieve suspenders, hmm?’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Laura assured her. ‘Why are you worrying?’
The reply was unexpected. ‘Is because I see girl who steal my money today.’
‘What? Someone’s burgled you?’ Laura remembered her own break-in. Were the two linked?
‘No, no. Saw bad girl used to work for me. In willage.’
Lulu had employed several personal assistants over the years, all of whom had gone by the time Laura arrived. All, by the sound of it, had sought to take advantage of her generous nature and relaxed attitude to security. ‘You saw her in Great Hording?’ Laura repeated. ‘Are you sure?’
‘She see me, she run away. Is bad person. Why she in willage, hmm? Rob more people?’
‘You need to tell the police.’ Laura’s eye was on her watch. She had to go.
Lulu snorted. ‘Police rubbish. She slimed through their toes last time. Escape.’
‘Slipped through their fingers,’ Laura guessed.
‘I will get to buttocks of this off own racquet.’
Own bat? ‘Well, good luck. Good luck with Cinderella too. I’ll see you later.’
As, finally, Laura got in the car, it struck her how closely the pantomime story followed her own. She was going to the ball, or at least the Ivys. And while Caspar, to her, was hardly Prince Charming, plenty of others saw him that way.
*
The traffic around Covent Garden was gridlocked thanks to the award ceremony. Laura sat in her car while people stared in through the windows, pointing phone cameras at her. ‘Who the hell even is that?’ she heard them saying.
While interesting at first, this soon felt invasive and eventually so unpleasant that she lay down and pulled the rug over her. It was hot, scratchy and smelt of air freshener, but at least it was private.
The car inched forward. Beneath her rug Laura heard the noise levels increase. People were shouting.
‘It’s the red carpet, madam,’ said the driver. ‘Here’s where you get out.’
Laura emerged, hot-faced and with ruffled hair, into a roar of noise and explosions of light. She closed her eyes against the painful onslaught and stumbled towards what seemed like the event entrance, waving the plastic pass Brad Plant had sent with the car.
‘Over here! Over here!’ People were yelling from all directions. Flashes were going off everywhere. It felt like torture, not the celebration of what humanity regarded as its highest achievement – celebrity.
Laura’s senses were in complete disarray but she could see, above the blaze, the white glow of the front of the Opera House and, beneath her feet, an expanse of blood-red carpet.
People were processing gradually along it, pausing coquettishly with hand on hip for the cameras. And that was just the men. Tiny women with big hair brandishing chunky microphones were commenting on their outfits.
‘Kate Beckinsale showcases a fetish tablecloth plastic sports bra...’
‘Helena Bonham Carter in furry lederhosen, rocking her trademark boho style...’
‘...Poppy Delevingne in a directional charred ballgown...’
‘...Helen Mirren in a show-stopping platform-heel hat...’
Laura, getting used to it all now, gasped with excitement as a hugely famous couple started their slow parade down the carpet. It was like seeing Hello magazine come to life.
‘Pair of fucking waxworks,’ hissed a familiar voice from behind.
‘Caspar!’
He looked almost respectable in black tie because the sleeves covered the tattoos. His shoes were polished – no doubt by the suite’s free butler – to a mirror finish. But the Jack Sparrow earrings were still there, as was the ghastly man-bun.
‘Isn’t this great!’ His teeth gleamed i
n the light of a thousand paparazzi flashbulbs. ‘It’s taken me ten years to be an overnight success!’
She clutched his arm. The sandals were much higher than they had looked. How had anyone done the school run in these? She doubted she could make it to the entrance without falling over.
She had taken a step forward, but Caspar had not moved.
‘We wait till the end. That’s when the really big stars do the carpet. When all the most important photos are taken. Right now it’s all Schindler’s B-list.’
An actress was being interviewed about her barely there bright orange dress.
‘Wakes you up, doesn’t it?’ she beamed. ‘It’s my favourite colour and it’s also the colour of hunger awareness across the globe.’
Laura felt Caspar suddenly stiffen. Presumably this was the cue to move off.
‘Ready for your close-up?’ she teased.
He looked at her narrowly. ‘BFCU.’
‘Is that a university?’ Or an insult?
‘Stands for Big Fucking Close-Up. Frames an actor above the eyebrows and below the mouth. An even tighter close-up focusing only on the eyes is known as a Sergio Leone because he filled entire screens with Clint Eastwood’s squint.’
He was jabbering, Laura saw. She squeezed his arm, touched by this unexpected evidence of his vulnerability. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said soothingly.
‘Don’t worry!’ Caspar’s eyes bulged almost into hers. His whitening-systemed teeth showed in a nervous snarl. ‘Of course I’m fucking worrying. Savannah’s here!’
‘Savannah?’ She had been nominated for an Ivy, Laura knew. Her latest film, Watery Grave, was a harrowing tale about Mediterranean people-smuggling. Savannah, playing a principled UN adviser who goes out on a limb to help, had been widely praised. ‘People think she’s a cross between Mother Teresa and bloody Princess Di now,’ Caspar had complained. ‘Bet she made it on purpose to get an award.’
‘I thought she was filming in Africa,’ Laura said. She had read a gossip-column story to that effect. The latest film was about genocide apparently; Savannah reprising her role as a principled UN adviser who goes out on a limb to help. Was it the same adviser, Laura wondered. The same limb?
‘That was a decoy!’ Caspar wailed. ‘So she could surprise everyone! Look!’
Laura hardly needed to look. She could feel how the atmosphere suddenly crackled with excitement. Not to mention the barking of a great many little dogs. The paparazzi were going bananas and the crowd was screaming. And in the middle of it all, sailing down the red carpet was Savannah, her hair piled high and secured with a tiara, her tiny, thin body rising from the huge pink tulle skirt like a stick from a cloud of pink candyfloss. From her tiny thin hand extended four glittering silver chains, each one attached to a tiny, yapping creature decorated with a pink tulle bow.
The commentators were in overdrive;
‘...era-defining gown made from recycled bottles and worn with diamonds from happy mines...’
Caspar was chewing his nails in anguish. ‘We’ll be head to head for Best Actor!’
‘Why?’ asked Laura.
The USP of the Ivys, Caspar now hysterically explained, was that they were gender neutral. There was one award for Best Actor; one for Best Supporting Actor too. This meant the Ivys was half the length of the usual film ceremony; another USP.
Nor was this all. Savannah’s appearance in the flesh, Caspar explained, drastically reduced his Best Actor chances. The way the Ivys worked, was that, in each category, the biggest star who showed up got the award. That had been him, until his ex-girlfriend’s advent. ‘She’s only doing it to get at me!’ Caspar howled. In which case, Laura thought, she had certainly succeeded.
Laura touched his arm, mid-rant. ‘Um, if Savannah’s gone in, doesn’t that mean the A-list are all in the building?’
The blood drained from Caspar’s face. ‘Oh God. You’re right! It’s just the techies now. Best Original Song. Best Use of Lighting. Aaagh!’ Grabbing her hand, he yanked her on to the red carpet just as the last of the paparazzi strolled away. Which was just as well, as it was all Laura could do to keep her balance.
‘Oh my God,’ Caspar was moaning. ‘What if she wins?’
Chapter Thirty-One
In the great red and white foyer, below the vast and glittering chandeliers, Laura stared around at the cream of the acting profession. Everyone was there. From edgy Brit actors in parkas to Hollywood royalty in Prada, accessorised by billionaire husbands.
Something hit Laura on the head.
‘Awesome!’ A nearby starlet picked a bag of Krug-flavour Haribos out of her hair. A small balloon was attached to it. ‘They’re sending sweets down from the roof. How cool is that?’
Laura didn’t think it was cool at all. Being in the Opera House wasn’t either. She had underestimated the effect it would have. Harry had brought her several times, most recently to see the tragic La bohème. Fuelled by double-distilled orange-pip alcohol being circulated on trays, the celebrity clamour around her swelled. The drinking and chatting reminded Laura not only of Covent Garden’s glamorous champagne bar, where Harry always splashed out on a whole bottle, but also the desperate end of La bohème’s poor heroine, ill-treated by the man she loved, reunited with him only when it was too late. Come to think of it, the plotline recurred in most of the operas they had seen together. Had Harry, Laura thought bleakly, been trying to tell her something? Hint at what to expect?
Caspar, next to her, was talking to a woman in a quilted jacket with watchful eyes. The editor, Laura had gathered, of an influential gossip column. Caspar’s voice came floating over, all wistful regret. ‘Savannah and I? Well, never say never. We’re giving each other some respectful loving space at the moment...’
As the woman moved off towards George Clooney, Caspar grabbed a cocktail and downed it in one. He whirled round on a young man in a bootlace tie tapping him on the shoulder. ‘I was wondering,’ the youth said timidly, ‘if you had any advice for budding actors?’
Caspar fixed him with an unhinged glare. ‘Have you got a skin like a fucking rhinoceros?’
The young man backed away, alarmed. ‘Steady on,’ whispered Laura. Caspar was obviously near-hysterical.
As he plunged away again through the crowd, Laura shuffled alone through polished doors with bevelled glass panes and found herself in the auditorium. It was as crowded with celebrities as the foyer; you could barely move for famousness, like the Tube during rush hour, Laura thought. Yet what was this but celebrity rush hour? Over there was Nicole Kidman, statuesque in a column dress and towering over her tanned country-singer husband. Nearby was a glazed-looking Leonardo di Caprio, a blonde hanging on to his arm for dear life. Laura grinned to herself. Caspar had told her it was an actual physical fact that di Caprio couldn’t see brunettes.
It was impossible, despite these distractions, to stop the memories of Harry from crowding back. In this auditorium he was everywhere. ‘It’s the most beautiful room in London,’ he had said, pointing out the Classical detail on the plastered ceiling and how the dying house lights glowed pink just before the performance started. No detail had escaped him; the shine of the conductor’s shoes, the way the trombones left for the backstage bar and skidded back in just before they were due to play. It had all been so romantic and she had loved it all so much. That he might now be showing the same things to Karlie felt like a hot knife in her insides.
An orchestra was playing ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’. Was it, Laura wondered, the one she had last seen here, that had twisted her up inside with their playing? As they switched to ‘Tomorrow’, she hoped not. After the passion of Puccini, it seemed a comedown.
It was a small relief to see that the stall seats in which she and Harry had sat had been taken out of the auditorium. They had been replaced by round dinner tables decorated on a theme of the nominated films. This simplified things. She just needed to go to the Caucus Imperative one. Presumably that was the table with Union flags fl
ying from the middle of the flowers, which were themselves arranged in the shape of guns.
Reaching it, Laura saw that the Watery Grave table had been positioned, either provocatively or from sheer bad luck, next to theirs. The four silver engraved dog bowls were a giveaway, as were the table decoration; a central glass tank of water in which a toy boat and various figures were bobbing.
The place mats were themed too. Watery Grave’s were broken pieces of wood, as if from a smashed boat, while those on the Bond table were of the celebrated scene in The Caucus Imperative when the spy, wearing Union flag swimming shorts of Tom Daleyesque skimpiness, escaped from his pursuer by joining – and winning – the Olympic 100 metres final.
The menu was propped up in the table centre, and Laura examined it with interest. Loin of venison, chocolate ganache with caramel ice cream. Delicious. Her stomach rumbled and her spirits rose. But dinner was clearly some time off. If people drifted towards the tables, it was only to move place cards around. How rude, Laura thought. Not to mention frustrating. How was she ever going to get away to Great Hording? The bulk of the gathering was still fraternising at the far end, by the doors. She could see Colin Firth and his wife talking to Eddie Redmayne and his. Fame looked smaller in real life.
‘It’s okay!’ Caspar flung himself into the chair beside her. His spirits seemed greatly restored. The orange-pip alcohol or something he’d been doing in the loos? Neither, it turned out. ‘I’ve won, apparently,’ he whispered, ripping off his black tie and opening his collar to reveal the top of a new tattoo on his chest.
Laura peered at it. She could see letters and numbers. ‘What does it say?’
‘“Best Actor. The Ivys. 2018”. I got a bit overconfident, I guess.’
No wonder Caspar had been so worried.
Ages passed and people continued to mill about. Caspar got up again and went off with his talent agent. An increasingly impatient Laura went to the loo which was full of famous people taking selfies of each other. Seeing an international celebrity everywhere she looked was beginning to feel strangely normal. Back at the Bond table, people were finally starting to sit down. Someone asked her, ‘Did you know that Cubby Broccoli actually began his career selling broccoli?’