Carnforth's Creation (11 page)

In truth, Eleanor had been collecting information about Roy Flannery with as much zeal as her father had ever brought to his life-long study of politics. But, as yet, she had
done little with her store of goodies. Convinced that nothing would alienate singer from benefactor until a clutch of hits had swollen Roy’s ego and his bank account, she had resisted the temptation to act prematurely. But the waiting seemed almost at an end. Recent despatches from the press cuttings agency she subscribed to, had given Eleanor ample proof of Roy’s burgeoning prosperity.

A profile last Sunday, in one of the heavies, had depress ingly underlined the extent of Paul’s hold.

Lord Herrick having chosen trout and Lady Eleanor sole, desultory conversation about plays and films creaked into motion. Eleanor soon sensed her father’s dissatisfaction with the impersonal tone, but since she considered her feelings
her
business, and what
he
did, his affair (as it all too often was), she spun-out her comments on a film he hadn’t seen.

In spite of her father’s spotty record as a husband, Eleanor loved him, and enjoyed his company – mainly when he wasn’t being serious. She preferred his malicious little sketches of party colleagues: ‘A really first-rate man, with a grasp of detail I admire tremendously, but what does rather let him down, don’t you think, is his lack of intelligence?’ She enjoyed his various poses too; conformity, yes, but with a hint of self-parody. Perfect suits from Savile Row, but sometimes worn with soft collars and a coloured shirt. His hair too was just, but noticeably, longer than many of his banking and political associates would consider quite
de
rigeur.
Other small things: his liking for works of modern art, paintings by Miro, Kandinsky, and so on. As he sat listening to her, looking like a rakish version of Anthony Eden in middle age, Eleanor became uncomfortably aware of the sneakily envious way a couple of men in the corner were looking at him. It didn’t seem likely that he would risk bringing ‘girlfriends’ to such a well-frequented place, but the staring eyes still embarrassed her.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he declared portentously, gazing at the red-coated sentry stamping about in front of St. James’s Palace. ‘Shoot me down if I’m being Victorian.’ His search for an expression made her think of an actor trying to decide how to play a tricky scene. His smile hovered between sympathetic brother and puzzled parent. ‘I suppose I’m asking how normal it is these days for people like us … people your age … not long married, to lead such different lives?’

‘I expect there are surveys,’ she replied, blushing fiercely.
Lord Herrick’s mouth twitched. ‘I’m not sure how to put this.’

‘Perhaps you’d better not.’

He was about to expostulate when their fish arrived, along with a bottle of Sancerre. Filleting his trout with surgical precision. Lord Herrick murmured, ‘I don’t mind
admitting
I’ve been putting this off.’ His voice had sunk to a whisper which would be driving their inquisitive neighbours mad.

‘Am I still “getting on” with Paul? Is that it?’

‘I’m sure
you’re
getting on with him. It’s more a matter of how the land lies on his side of the fence.’

The shout which burst from her lips was louder than anything she had intended; loud enough to turn heads, and bring their waiter scurrying.

‘It’s dried-up,’ she told the man with sudden inspiration.

‘Trout’s safer,’ said her father, when her plate had been removed.

Eleanor said icily, ‘If you’ve chosen a public place, because you think I’ll sit quietly rather than make a scene, you’re making a howling mistake.’

His pained expression might have convinced her several years ago, but Eleanor had learned a lot since then. A well-publicized break-up between Paul and her wouldn’t help her father’s political prospects.

He looked at her sadly as if guessing her thoughts. ‘Can’t I express concern without having some underhand motive?’ He lowered his knife and fork. ‘I
care,
Eleanor. Or is that too conventional to be taken seriously these days?’

Feeling that his behaviour to her mother gave him as much right to preach as a bishop in a brothel, she still could not help smiling. He had always juggled the claims of pleasure and reputation dexterously, and had never openly
embarrassed
his family. Nor would he lie if rumbled. A strange morality perhaps, that rated ‘being found out’ a worse sin than years of successful deception, but not without its merits for a peer who detested hypocrisy but could not afford to cause public offence.

She lowered her eyes. ‘If you
say
you care, daddy, I’m sure you do.’

With a full mouth, he grunted approval, then murmured, ‘Promise not to fly off the handle if I’m honest with you?’ He swallowed some wine and met her eyes. ‘Couple of days ago I had a call from this chap on the
Express.
Any truth in the rumour that you and Paul were splitting up? “Total
codswallop
,” I told him. Then was I aware that Lord Carnforth’s step-sister was with him every day from dawn to dusk whenever he was in town? Naturally I gave him a hell of a roasting. Any kind of sister, step-half-whole, was one of the family and only a muck-raking mind would read anything into a perfectly natural friendship.’ He stared down at his plate. ‘So then
I
did a little digging. Apparently young Gemma’s on the pay-roll of Paul’s music outfit.’

‘That all?’ asked Eleanor flatly.

‘Course I’m relieved you’re not worried … but I do think…’ he tailed off uneasily. ‘Maybe it doesn’t mean they’re up to any monkey business.’

‘Monkey business?’

‘All right,’ he laughed uncomfortably. ‘Not a happy phrase. But however unlikely it is, I still think you’d be wise to take more of an interest in his … uh … hobbies …’

‘You mean spy on him?’

‘God no. Just a shift in attitude.’

She smiled briefly. ‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘I wasn’t exactly advising.’ He raised a conciliatory hand. ‘But I did wonder … no criticism meant … whether he isn’t one of those men who find ordinary domesticity
insufficiently
involving. Perhaps he needs…’

‘Someone more exciting than his conventional wife?’

‘No, no,’ he objected breezily. ‘It’s just that some married men seem to need occasional sorties … getting involved in show business could be Paul’s way.’

‘Or getting involved with his step-sister,’ murmured Eleanor, forcing him to meet her eye.

Lord Herrick looked back without embarrassment. ‘My dear, all I’m saying is, give an
impression
of caring about his
concerns and don’t invite unnecessary problems.’ He brought his hands together with finality. ‘How about more wine?’

Eleanor pushed back her chair sharply. ‘You think
I
don’t
care
about Paul’s concerns?’ she gasped, snatching her coat from the seat beside her. ‘Well perhaps it’s time to make his life exciting.’ She stood up and began putting on her coat.

‘Please, Elly,’ he begged. ‘Eat something first.’

‘I’m not hungry.’ She picked up her bag and drained her glass. ‘Here’s to unconventional sorties.’

‘You promised not to fly off the handle,’ he reminded her, trying to look amused rather than alarmed.

‘One or two things I ought to do.’

‘Give it a day or two,’ he suggested firmly, amazing her, and the men in the corner, by planting a kiss on her cheek.

‘I’m quite able to look after myself,’ she replied, intending to convey toughness, but fearing she had only achieved plucky pathos – her mother’s speciality that always made her cringe.

As the waiter bustled up with her second, and presumably half-cooked, fish, Eleanor walked out.

*

Roy slammed down the receiver and tried another number. From behind the net curtains he could see five dumpy teenage girls huddled together over by the garage doors on the far side of the mews. It was cold enough to freeze the balls of a polar bear, but they’d been out there since before he’d got up, and now it was past two in the afternoon. Gemma was already an hour late for lunch, and he’d failed to reach her on any of the numbers he knew. ‘She’ll be back soon,’ he’d been told by three different secretaries, which meant two
had
to be wrong. Not that he minded being pissed around because he was crazy about her – he wasn’t; though he didn’t rule out a bit of encouragement changing that. No, what really got up his nose was the way she and Paul could be all over him one day, when he’d done a good film sequence or killed himself in rehearsal, and the next chuck an appointment or treat him like a hole in the air.

In some ways life had been amazing recently – getting his end away most nights, even if the crumpet he’d been pulling at the clubs wasn’t exactly top-drawer. (Half of these
fame-fuckers
would screw a chimpanzee if it’d been in the papers). His image was also getting across famously; journalists
gobbling
up the shrewd professional pitch Paul and Gemma had laid on; but sometimes he’d found it spooky. As if this Rory Craig character was grabbing all the glamour Roy Flannery had earned. This was why Gemma’s failure to turn up was such a downer. She knew who he actually
was,
so ought to treat him decently on a personal level. He wasn’t going to become one of those stars who droned on about their
celebrity
status tearing them apart, but things certainly hadn’t turned out how he’d expected.

For a start he hadn’t got anything
personal
(nothing to get hold of anyway) out of the fact that Stella Records had shoved out special publicity folders with the first thirty thousand
Image
Man
discs, and were going to do better with
Getting
Clever,
or that his face (minus a few spots) was leering down from about twice that many bedroom walls. The same with the stickers, banners, and press kits – that was all
out
there,
while
in
here,
in his dinky mews house, a bod called Roy Flannery was being ignored. If he’d built up slowly from a club following, written his own songs and really sweated to interest a record company, or even if the lads from his old group were still around to share things, it’d all feel different. But there weren’t any lads, old or new, because Exodus had done it all, so far, with half-a-dozen young session pros, who’d only turned up in the flesh for two TV studio spots he’d taped earlier in the month.

Some live gigs would’ve helped, but Paul had been dead against that. ‘The idea is to make you big-big-big
first
, before you appear live… The recluse image; get ’em thinking maybe you can’t manage live shows; then
shazzam,
you knock ’em endways with the full twenty city tour.’ The way Paul saw it, after two hit singles, hours of radio playtime, the TV spots, the LP (when he’s made the sod), there won’t be a dry seat in any cimena or dance hall from Dundee to Dover.
And another big bonus: they’d know the songs by the time he came to sing them. ‘Don’t want you stepping on at your first big venue as a maybe-he’ll-make-it hopeful, but as a
fully-paid
-up-super-tax-superstar.’ Only one drawback: Roy-boy felt he’d had less to do with his ‘success’ than Iceland had to do with winning World War Two.

But he
could
take a drive in his ’36 Bentley (a bit different, said Gemma), or spend a week in his new horror-film house in the country (Gothic revival is coming back, said Paul). And never any need to put himself out, what with the woman who cooked, the woman who cleaned; Tony who drove the car and saw off unwanted callers. His own accountant, own lawyer, a full-time bird who ran his fan club. Of course these serfs weren’t just icing on the cake. Without Tony (ex-night club bouncer), he’d be pulled apart by the kids in the mews (already they’d made souvenirs of his letterbox, doorknob, and both the Bentley’s wing-mirrors). Without his
accountant
, the taxman would eat him alive. Without a lawyer he wouldn’t know who was cheating him worst; and without Hammer Hall, and three miles of fencing, he’d be lucky if he saw another tree or daisy without running for his life. ‘But that’s show business,’ said Paul. And the way his money was flowing out, Roy reckoned he’d have to make plenty if there was going to be anything left when he jacked it in. ‘You certainly can’t afford to be a poor
ex
-celebrity these days,’ warned Gemma. ‘Not if you want to keep your balls in your scrotum,’ added Paul.

When the dainty clock on the mantelpiece struck three, Roy told Tony he wanted to eat; and a right schlop he was to have waited so long. But Gemma was like the last bus: turned up just when you’d left the stop, and zoomed off again before you could sprint back.