Cause Celeb (8 page)

“What?” I said.

“I love you,” he said. It was the magic formula, the lure, the bargaining counter: the overloaded phrase which meant everything and nothing. It did the trick, as he knew it would.

“I love you too,” I said, because it was true.

That afternoon we spent a lot of time talking about Oliver's problems, his pressures at work and why he found it so difficult to have relationships. I cooked him a nice supper, listened to him, and sympathized, and it seemed that things would be better between us. He just needed a bit of love and understanding, I decided. We spent the next night together too. It was the first time we had spent two nights together on the trot.

“Ah. Come in, come in. How's it goin'? Any news from Marchant?”

“I . . .” I could swear Sir William knew what Oliver and I had
been doing last night. I had a vision of Oliver coming towards me under the duvet, ready to take me.

“What's the matter, gel, cat got yer tongue?” The trouble was Sir William's literary mercy dash had become a taboo subject between Oliver and me.

“I don't think they're going to come out and film in Africa,” I hedged, “but I think they might include you in the discussion. We should get some decent coverage in the papers anyway.”

“Hmm. When's it supposed to be?”

“Six weeks' time.”

“Well, if the damn thing's not going to be on TV there might not be a lot of point in me goin'. Might have to send you out on your own.”

“What?”

“Might have to go on your own, gel, and see to the photographs.”

This was the first he had mentioned my going at all. I wasn't sure if I wanted to. I'd never been outside Europe before. But over the next few weeks, the idea began to seem more and more alluring.

“Ah, it's about tonight.” It was Oliver's assistant, as usual.

“Oh, hello, how are you?”

Hermione looked across at me and sniffed.

“Fine, thank you. Now about tonight. It's dinner at Richard and Annalene's for the Dalai Lama.”

“Sorry, Richard—?”

“Richard Jenner. You've seen his film?”

“Not all the way through. I mean, actually no.”

“Oh. Well. Don't worry. I'll see if I can have a cassette biked round to you. How about that? So Oliver will pick you up at eight. He said don't overdress.”

Oliver rang me half an hour later, pretending it was just to chat, but I suspected it was to check on what I was wearing. It was two weeks after we had spent that whole Sunday together, and this was our first formal outing as man and girlfriend. He said he would
come round at eight-fifteen. When my doorbell rang, it was eight o'clock. I was still drying my hair, and only halfway through my dinner party homework watching Jenner's truly terrible film which featured his girlfriend Annalene as a Polish waitress. I was nervous as hell. I was gulping at a gin and tonic to calm myself. When I got to the front door there was no Oliver but another driver in a hat.

We drove for a long way down into Docklands, stopping in a narrow alley between black warehouses. At the entrance to the building, an arch had been cut away and replaced by glass. Inside was a flag, which said, “Show Flat,” stuck in a pot full of tropical plants.

I pressed the bell marked “Jenner,” and became aware of a lens pointing at me out of the bell paraphernalia: a video entryphone. After a while a female voice said, “Hello?”

“This is Rosie Richardson. I've come with Oliver Marchant but he's running late in the studio.”

“Come on up, it's the third floor.”

It buzzed, but I pushed instead of pulled and missed it. I had to ring again.

“Hello?”

“I'm sorry, it didn't—”

The buzzer went again and I still didn't catch it in time, so I had to ring again, getting an extremely exasperated voice on the other end. This time I made it in—into a foyer which smelt like a hotel and had gray carpet climbing up the walls. When I stepped out of the lift at the third floor I could hear party sounds coming from an open door along the corridor to the right.

It led onto a tiny platform at the top of a spiral staircase. Below was a cavernous space with one wall made entirely of glass looking out onto the Thames. The whole floor was suspended on metal poles and surrounded by railings with another floor below. In the center you could see down to an unusually long thin swimming pool. Everything else was painted white.

There were about thirty people on the platform, a little group of them looking out over the river, another group peering down at the swimming pool, and the rest seated in a circle in some very, very
odd chairs, which were like wrought-iron sculptures with cushions. From above it looked like a surrealist painting, with the guests molded into unusual shapes and forms by their chosen seat. I could see Richard Jenner, a tiny, wizened pixie of a man, lying on a peculiar chaise longue that positioned him with his legs higher than his head.

I set off down the wrought-iron staircase making too much noise with my heels. When I got to the bottom I didn't know what to do. I could see several famous faces, but no one I knew. The groups looked pretty locked in, with large expanses of floor between them. No one was wearing any shoes. I stood there awkwardly, then Jenner caught sight of me, did a sideways roll out of his chair onto one leg, and scurried towards me, grasping my hand, talking in a low, nasal voice.

“Hello, my darling, have you got a drink? Hazel—drink, drink, drink,” he said, gesturing to a girl in a French maid's outfit standing by a table full of colored drinks. “Come in, come in, sit down, meet some people, now you are?—tell me remind me.”

“I'm Rosie Richardson, I was invited by Oliver Marchant.”

“Of course, my darling, of course, we've met before, of course.” We hadn't. “Lovely to see you again. Here you are, one of my specials.” He handed me a peach-colored cocktail. “Oliver has just called. He won't be long. Now, my darling, would you mind taking your shoes off? We don't want to mark the floor.”

In fact I minded very much because there was a hole in the toe of one of my stockings, but I took off my shoes obediently, feeling suddenly small and dumpy, and handed them to the waiting maid.

“Thank you, my darling. I'm afraid the Dalai's having a bit of a nightmare fitting everything in and he's probably not going to make it. But we will have Mick and Jerry—fingers crossed—and we've already got—Blake, Dave Rufford and Ken,” he said conspiratorially, waving a hand towards the window. There indeed, in a little group all on their own, were a pushy young Liberal MP, the drummer from a seventies rock band, and a commercials director who had just made the leap to the big screen with a movie set in the drains beneath London.

My appointed seat was a giant version of an ordinary kitchen chair, cast in wrought iron. I had to climb onto it, and I sat feeling like a baby in a high chair, swigging at my cocktail. It was black-frock house, as far as the women were concerned. Colors other than black did not feature in the outfit choices. A woman sitting below me craned her neck round, framed her mouth into a smile which had no effect on her eyes and was kind enough to ask me what I did. “I'm in publishing.”

“Oh, really? What do you do?”

Her interest was not able to surmount the fact that I was only in publicity and after a stilted exchange she turned away with a distracted smile. The only other conversation I had until Oliver arrived was thanking the cocktail waitress. It was impossible to communicate with anyone else in that position, but climbing down was too much of a performance to entertain. So I just sat quietly and listened.

Hughie Harrington-Ellis was perched uncomfortably on the edge of a cast-iron stool, talking to another seventies musician who seemed to be called Gary. I couldn't place him precisely but I knew he was from a band who still performed together in spite of middle age. To look at him, he could have been a bank manager. Dave Rufford came to join the group with his wife. He was tall, with a long gaunt face. He was wearing sunglasses, and a dark-green baggy suit. His wife, who was around forty and extremely smart, was holding a baby.

“Hello, mate,” said Gary. “How's it going?”

“Survivin', survivin',” said Dave. “'Ere, this is Max. Ugly little blighter, in'e?”

Hughie had got up with exaggerated cordiality to greet the couple. He was surveying the baby with a show of fascinated detachment.

“You see, what is so marvelous about infants is that they don't recognize celebrity at all,” he said. “You simply have no idea, Maximilian, do you, who you are surrounded by?”

“Right,” said Gary.

“Ugly little blighter,” said Dave.

“'Ere, d'you get that 'orse?” said Gary.

“Yeah. It's a bastard.”

“Dave's taken up hunting,” said Gary to Hughie.

“My
dear,
” said Hughie.

“He thinks he's the lord of the manor,” said the wife, in a genuinely posh voice.

“Where you keepin' 'im?” said Dave.

“We're 'avin another stable block built 'cos I've been keepin' the Ferraris in the stables so we're 'avin this new block built all in the style of the old one. I'm gonna put some of me wine in there as well 'cos I'm not happy about the cellars in the Rectory. I 'ad this bloke come round and 'e said it was too damp for it down there, so we're 'avin another cellar under the new stables that's all, like, the right temperature.”

“I do hope the horses don't crap in your Château Margaux, dear boy.”

“Right,” said Gary. “Huh huh. Yur.”

“He wouldn't notice the difference if they did,” murmured the wife.

“Do you drive the Ferraris?” asked Hughie.

“Nah. Well, a bit. It's more for the investment. No capital gains. Nah, I drive the Aston usually, or the Roller. 'Owbout you? Got a decent motor?”

“Ooooh, no, no. No, I just bang round in an old Ford Fiesta,” said Hughie. “I have so much trouble you know being ‘spotted.' I simply can't get anywhere in a more ostentatious vehicle.”

Dave Rufford looked utterly crushed for only a moment. “Yeah, well, I 'ave me windows tinted,” he said.

One of the waitresses came and bent over Richard. He talked to her, looking distressed, then stood up to address the group with the air of a man about to announce the death of a child.

“Everyone, everyone, a moment, please. I'm so sorry. Mick and Jerry can't be with us. They have a problem. I am so sorry, my loves. They send you all huge hugs.”

When Oliver appeared I had been sipping away nervously for quite some time. He came down the staircase looking gorgeous in
a large soft navy overcoat and a very white shirt. He looked around the room and burst out laughing as Jenner scurried towards him.

“Richard, you mad fucker, what on earth are you doing to your guests? It looks like something by Hieronymus Bosch.” He shook Richard's hand, allowed himself to be relieved of the coat and declined the offered cocktails. “I'm not touching one of your concoctions, Richard, I've been had before. I'll have a Scotch if you've got one.” Then he came straight over to me and kissed me on the lips. “Sweetheart, I'm really sorry, I just got caught, how awful for you. Has Jenner been looking after you? Richard, how dare you put her on this insane chair?”