Suspicious Circumstances (12 page)

‘Nicholas. Dear Nicholas.’

My lips found her mouth. She let them stay there for one second, then she drew herself away.

‘There. That’s the ritual kiss of the Anny Rood For Murderess Society. A very spiritual kiss because we’ve got to be spiritual, haven’t we? That’s how Monique-chérie would want it to be. Now, Nicholas, dear, go back and finish your letter.’

My arms were still around her. ‘To hell with the letter,’ I said.

At that moment Gino put his head around the door. ‘Nickie, kid, quick. Anny — she wants us. On the double. A special announcement. And … oops.’

His face broke into an appreciative grin and, waving a large acrobat’s hand, he went away. Instantly Delight jumped off the bed.

‘A special announcement! Nicholas, you — you don’t think she’s going to confess?’

I lay there on the bed feeling suddenly that the Anny Rood For Murderess Society had no charms at all. Everything was real again and most alarming.

‘Nicholas — come.’ Delight was tugging me up by the arms. ‘Quick. If we miss a moment of the Special Announcement, I’ll eat my foot.’

We ran down the stairs. Except for Mother, they were all assembled in the huge living-room, which was so Venetian you felt you had to be at least a Doge to have any right in it at all. Ronnie was slumped in a sort of throne. Pam, puffing at a cigarette, was pacing up and down with Tray. Gino sat with Uncle Hans on a couch.

Pam, seeing us, rushed to me. ‘Nickie, what in heaven’s name is she up to now?’

At that moment Mother came breezing in. She had changed out of her glamour black into the customary slacks and blouse and was wearing a large white chef’s apron. In her hand she carried a bottle of champagne. She took it to Gino, giving the top of Uncle Hans’ head an angel kiss.

‘Gino, darling, be a lamb, open it. Do things with glasses and things … I’ve made the sauce béchamel for the blanquette. It can all wait just for a little while.’

Gino uncorked the bottle and poured champagne into glasses on a vast and priceless Venetian breakfront which had been converted into an ‘amusing’ bar. Mother watched him indulgently. She never drank except champagne. I think it was a hangover from her vaudeville days when champagne must have seemed to her the height of
luxe
, something your slipper got filled with, you hoped.

Gino took her the first glass. We all scrambled rather undignifiedly for ours. When we all had glasses in our hands and my butterflies were beating themselves against the walls of my stomach, desperately trying to migrate, Mother lifted her champagne to Ronnie with a little rueful smile.

‘Ronnie darling, you mustn’t think I’m criticizing you when I say all this should have been taken up weeks ago. Of course it wasn’t anyone’s fault. How could we, any of us, have been thinking of anyone but poor Norma? But now I feel we can start thinking of ourselves again with a clear conscience.’

Ronnie looked as silly as the rest of us. Mother put down her glass and the luminous smile was supplanted by a look of great briskness.

‘Now, darlings, I’m going to scold you. Not you, Ronnie dear, of course, but the rest of you. I’ve been thinking about you all for a long time and really it’s disgraceful how you’ve let yourselves go.’

Pam, gulping, looked at me. I gulped.

‘You,’ said Mother, looking severely at Pam, ‘you used to be a divine dog-trainer — one of the finest in the field. What have you been doing with your ability all this time? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And Gino — when I think of those brilliant double-handsprings in Manchester, where are they now? Rotting, positively rotting with disuse, and you only thirty-nine. And, Uncle Hans, dear, sweet Uncle Hans. I know it isn’t your fault. I know people just got terribly boring about yodeling. But think — you, the greatest yodeler of them all. And as for Nickie…’

It was my turn to get the cruel-only-to-be-kind gaze. ‘Really, darling, running irresponsibly about all over the globe, trying to write boring books! Why? Why? Why? When you’re a born dancer. Don’t you remember how brilliant you were at the Dancing and Fencing Academy? All that talent going to waste. And while we’re on the subject of dancing…’

It was Delight’s moment then.

‘They tell me that you had planned a dancing career too, dear. Did you stick to your guns? Where did you think it was going to get you putting terrible sequins on the … well, never mind, I think I’ve made my point and I’m sure you’ll all agree that it’s high time an end was put to all this apathy. I’ve seen to everything, absolutely everything. Starting tomorrow, you, Gino, spend four hours a day at the YMCA gym in Santa Monica. Nickie and Delight, you will take high-pressure classes with that divine little man on La Gienega. Uncle Hans, dear, you will yodel and yodel and yodel till your larynx is back. And you, Pam, you will roll up your sleeves and get your teeth into Tray. Really, that dog is a disgrace.’

I doubt if there had ever been five more distraught people.

It was Pam who managed, ‘But … but, Anny — what … why?’

‘Why? That coming from you who groan and moan all the time about finances? Anny, why don’t you think about your career? Anny, Anny, Anny
…
If you want to put it that way, it’s you who are entirely responsible, you with your insatiable craving for money, all the time more money! Don’t you remember how you took me to task one day, right in the middle of poor Norma’s problems? Of course I couldn’t do anything then, but the moment everything seemed all right for Norma, I was able to think about you. Poor Pam, I thought; it’s a shame that she worries so much. I had hoped to have just a little rest after years of slaving, literally slaving. But I saw it wasn’t to be.’

She paused, glancing mournfully down at her smooth white hands as if her fingers had been worn to stubs. Then she came up with a flashing smile.

‘So, the moment I was free from any other obligations, I took steps. If I had to work, I thought, I might at least do something a little more amusing than the constant movie-movie-movie drudgery, something, too, which could help all of you to find yourselves again. So I flew to Las Vegas and talked to that divine Steve Adriano with that cute little baby who’s my god-daughter.’

A hardly human squeak was wrenched from Pam.

‘Dear Steve!’ said Mother. ‘He thought my idea was sensational, absolutely colossal. Anny Rood and Family. I will sing, I will dance, I will do many, many things. It’s only natural that I should be most of the act, but you will figure too. That’s the gimmick. A little tumbling from the chauffeur — not too strenuous, Gino dear — a little dog act for the secretary with Tray, a little boy and girl routine with the son and the secretary’s secretary, and a little yodeling number in the middle with my uncle and me. Steve says that with the public being so besotted about the private lives of celebrities, it’ll be the smash to end all smashes. Of course, we mustn’t rush it. It has to be highly polished. But we don’t have to worry about the material. That day I took those sweet orphans to San Diego with Billy Croft, I made Billy promise to do it for us and he’s already almost finished, songs, lyrics, continuity, everything. It’s quite wonderful. Really, that boy’s a genius. By next Tuesday he swears he’ll have it all done and he’ll even be able to direct us for the first ten days but after that he’s got a Broadway commitment so I’ll have to take over.’

She broke off with a little sigh. ‘There’s my dress, of course. Just one, because Billy has me on stage all the time — just one fabulous dress. I’ll have to fly to Paris for it, I suppose. What a bore. But M. Balmain would never forgive me if I let anyone else do it and he’s such an angel he’ll rush it through. I honestly think, if we work, work, work, we should be ready in six weeks.’

She turned the brilliant, inspirational gaze on Pam. ‘Don’t you think six weeks is enough, Pam dear? I do hope so because Steve begged me on bended knees to open at the Tamberlaine on June Fifteenth. Such a good month in Vegas apparently. He beseeched me to make it an indefinite engagement, but really one can’t stand too much of Vegas at one time — all that sand. So I told him that, to begin with, we’d only consent to three weeks. Of course, when Ronnie needed me for Ninon, I had to call Steve and tell him we’d have to postpone till after the picture. But I’ve just called him again from the kitchen and he’s seething with joy. June the fifteenth.’

She was still watching Pam anxiously.

‘Three weeks? At forty-five thousand a week? Does that seem enough for you, dear? I really should have taken you along. You’re the business head of the family, but I didn’t want anyone distracted at the time because I felt all our energies should be put into poor Norma. And, after all, it’s so boring to haggle about money.’

I was slowly, very slowly, emerging from my stupefaction. Mother! All that hogwash about my having to attend dear Norma’s funeral! This had been Mother’s real reason for dragging me home. And it was this — how appallingly efficient could anyone be? — which had been behind her sudden enthusiasm for Delight. She’d needed a dancer. And — and a smooth, green-eyed red-head to keep me happy at home?

For a moment I merely felt automatic rage at Mother for always coming out on top, and anxiety about the appalling ordeal of having to appear in public, but soon all that was whittled away because I thought as follows:

Mother had had this in her mind weeks ago, long before Norma plunged. She’d not only had it in mind, she’d had Steve Adriano, who owned Las Vegas, and Billy Croft, the Industry’s highest-paid boy wonder, tightly sewn up. So Delight and I had been hopelessly wrong. All that bullying campaign to make a new career for Norma had been nothing but what it had seemed to be, just another of Mother’s famous crusades for helping her dear old friends. She’d no more wanted Ninon de Lenclos for herself than she’d wanted an attack of German measles. So … so … so … She didn’t push. She couldn’t have pushed. She, one hundred per cent, couldn’t conceivably have pushed.

Floating in a wonderful warm glow of Peace of Mind Regained, I glanced at Delight. She glanced back and I knew she was thinking exactly what I was thinking. Vaguely the realization stirred that now I wouldn’t be able to go back to Paris, but, as long as I was looking at Delight, I didn’t seem to care. Who cared about Paris? Who, for that matter, cared about plunges and paw-prints and anonymous letters?

Once and for all the Anny Rood For Murderess Society could be permanently disbanded.

In a moment Pam, Gino and Uncle Hans and Ronnie were all going to come out of their swoon and buzz like distracted wasps, but they were still paralyzed. Mother knew it and, taking a shameless Old Pro advantage of the dazed silence, gave a little merry-merry laugh.

‘Well, back to the kitchen. Here I am chattering — and no one’s getting any dinner.’

She swept away through the interminable Venetian length of the room. At the double doors, she turned.

‘Oh, Delight. Those articles we wrote for
Photoplay
at lunch time. File them away, will you, dear? I don’t think we’ll be needing them now.’

So that was the end of L'Affaire Norma Delanay. At least I hoped it was and there wasn’t any time to brood about it because from then on Mother swept us into a hell of classes and rehearsal and creative sessions with Billy Croft and heaven knew what. She did fly to Paris to order The Dress, but even that didn’t help much because Billy wasn’t much better than she was and, anyway, she was back again before you could turn around.

Billy’s material was, I had to admit, wildly original. We, The Family, only had comedy bits at the opening and closing, and in the middle with the yodeling number, otherwise it was all Mother. But Mother, needless to say, was staggeringly brilliant. Singing, dancing, clowning, there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do, and in a few days she’d carried all the rest of them, including Uncle Hans, way, way up into an orgy of enthusiasm. But in my veins there wasn’t a drop of No Business Like Show Business blood. I loathed it all.

At least, I loathed everything except Delight. She was just as bad as the others in her dreadful enthusiasm for work. In fact, she was so determined to shine that she had a couple of stormy clashes with Billy, who felt she was giving all too much of herself. Even so, Delight was always there, always ready with her own very special brand of inspiration and always, of course, enormously smooth and green-eyed and redheaded.

I’m afraid that, partly through exhaustion but mostly through Delight, I got to be not very good at writing to Monique. But I did write, and one night in our third week of rehearsal, after we’d been at it till about three a.m. and every muscle in my body was rebelling against my own divine talent as a dancer, all the old passion overwhelmed me and, spurred by guilt and nostalgia, I wrote her an interminable letter reeking with tender memories and hopes for a Romeo and Juliet reunion.

Needless to say, Mother nosed out the letter the next morning when I put it down for a split second on the hall table. I found her with it in her hand, giving it a gimlet scrutiny.

‘Monique Alain? Who then is this Monique Alain?’

‘Just a girl,’ I said.

‘Ah! The little escapade in Paris.’ I thought she was going to plunge to the attack, but Mother merely looked sentimental. ‘So dear clever Delight hasn’t monopolized you completely. That is as well. At nineteen — a girl here, a girl there, that is the healthy way. Flitting from flower to flower.’ She sighed for a moment over the emotional needs of nineteen-year-old boys and then, reverting to the far more important matter of business, submitted me to the Field Marshal look. ‘Nickie, last night I forgot to scold you. When I’m yodeling, darling, you must please, please try to look a little less anguished.’

Billy Croft’s original conception of the yodeling number had been to have Tray sitting enraptured while Uncle Hans yodeled and then howling whenever Mother opened her mouth. I had thought it a wonderful idea so, I suppose, subconsciously I was still playing it that way. But Tray had been altogether too whole-hearted and, when Billy had to go off to his Broadway show and Mother took over, she had changed it. Now, instead of howling, Tray had to roll over in ecstasy with his legs sticking straight up in the air while the rest of us registered our own type of ecstasy too.