Suspicious Circumstances (15 page)

My magic didn’t work.

‘It’s Sylvia,’ said the voice. ‘Sylvia La Mann. Darling, we flew up — Ronnie and me — at the
crack
of dawn. We weren’t going to miss a
moment
of Anny’s Great Day. We’re heah at the Tamberlaine. Wheah’s your Mother?’

‘In Iceland,’ I said.

‘Weah, deah?’

‘She’s asleep,’ I said. ‘She’s …’

‘No, Nickie darling. Don’t wake her up. Don’t you dare to wake the poor thing. But, listen, darling, just tell her we’re heah and we’re dying to see you — all of you. The moment she wakes up, tell her you’re all coming over to have breakfast heah. Dear Ronnie and I have adjoining suites,
most
discreet. But I think my suite will be best. Darling, do you have a pencil?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Then remember, deah, Suite Number Thirty-Two, because I’m registered under an assumed name. Brown. Mary Brown. It’s those fans; they give me no peace. Thirty-Two, deah. All of you. We’re just
agog
, both of us. We’ve got something frightfully important to discuss…’

‘Discuss?’ I managed. ‘What…?’

‘Now, deah, don’t be a nosey-parker. It’s a lovely, lovely surprise. I know Ronnie would
adore
to speak to you, but he’s in the shower and we’ll be seeing you in a
trice
anyway. Come, all of you, and we’ll have a second breakfast with you, a delicious late brunch.’

‘Oh, God,’ I said.

‘What, deah?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Bye, Sylvia.’

‘Good-bye, deah.’

For a moment I stood totally paralyzed. Then I rushed to Mother’s bedroom. She was already up and in her tights, practicing bourrées on her points. Mother had never had a dancing lesson in her life and couldn’t have done bourrées in the act, even if she’d wanted to, because of the two hundred miles of pink organza, but there she was doing them for ‘discipline’ and, needless to say, she had stronger toes than Ulanova.

‘Mother,’ I gasped. ‘Sylvia and Ronnie …’

‘Yes, dear?’ she said in her maddening serene way. ‘What about Sylvia and Ronnie?’

‘They’re here. Together. At the Tamberlaine. Adjoining suites. And they want us to go over to brunch. They have something frightfully important to discuss, Sylvia says. Mother, it’s disaster. You know it is. Something appalling must have happened.’

Mother got down off her points.

‘My poor Nickie, sometimes I think you’re almost as negative as Ronnie. How could anything possibly happen? Sylvia is absolutely powerless. We’ve seen to that.’ The Field Marshal look was tall in the saddle now. ‘She wants us for breakfast, you say?’

‘Yes. Suite Thirty-Two. Mary Brown she calls herself. Her fans.’

‘Then get the others. Wake them up. Tell them to dash into their clothes. Pam and Gino and Delight and Uncle Hans and … Did she invite Cleonie, dear?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘Well, get Cleonie, too,’ said Mother. ‘She’s a dear sweet girl and I’m sure Sylvia will be the better for knowing her.’

Cleonie was the only one who entered into the spirit of the delicious brunch. Sylvia La Mann was her Mother’s favorite star.

‘Me having breakfast with Sylvia La Mann?’ she said as, around two-thirty, we all trooped past the swimming pool to the main building. ‘My, this is going to slay Mother. And Missus Johnson. Missus Johnson is Mother’s friend.’

‘Sylvia’s lovely, dear,’ said Mother, smiling but looking rather abstracted. ‘You’ll just adore her.’

The adorable Sylvia opened the door of Suite Number Thirty-Two herself. The key, I noticed, was in the lock, put here, presumably, to frustrate any Peeping Toms among the thousands of fans who were persecuting Mary Brown. The instant she saw us, she flung out her arms to us, ready to embrace us all. Cleonie threw her for a moment, but she recovered almost immediately and drew us into the living-room with little individual pats and clutches.

She was looking incredibly thin, which was one thing I’d never seen her look before and, jittery as I was, I had to admit the effect was startling — skeletal body, huge eyes, gorgeous orange curls and an emerald necklace heavy enough to break her new neck. There was something else, too, something I had expected and dreaded — the cream-swallowed look around the mouth.

‘Darlings, how
excited
you must be. The Great Day. What fun. And I hear the act is
fabulous
. Everyone, positively everyone is fighting to get in. Sit down, deahs. All of you. You too — er …’

‘Cleonie,’ said Mother. ‘Her mother is one of your greatest fans.’

‘And Missus Johnson,’ said Cleonie.

Sylvia was all teeth. ‘Thank you, deah. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get deah Ronnie.’

Until then Tray hadn’t been visible but, as Sylvia glided to the door connecting with the next suite, he waddled friendlily after her. She saw him and screamed. I’ve often felt like screaming myself at the sight of Tray but Sylvia’s scream was ridiculously overdone. She even flung a hand to her emerald-laden throat.

‘A dog! Anny, you must know how I feel about dogs. They petrify me. They …’

Tray waddled on and she screamed again.

Pam called, ‘Tray — drop dead,’ and Tray, who recently had much improved, rolled over on his back with his legs sticking stiffly up in the air. But that only made it worse. Sylvia went into the most elaborate case of jitters and then keeled over in a dead faint.

I loved it. It was worthy of Joan Crawford in one of those Woman Of Steel Finally Cracks characterizations, but in a flash Mother was rushing over being all Christian anxiety.

‘The poor thing — it’s the diet. She must be absolutely starved. Nickie, take Tray away.’

‘But, Mother ... ‘

‘Take Tray, I say.’

So I had to pick Tray up, still stiff with his legs in the air, and rush him down the elevator, past the swimming pool, and dump him in our living room.

When I got back, Ronnie was there in a distinguished maroon bathrobe. I was so used, by then, to seeing Ronnie look more dead than alive, that his ‘This is the end’ expression didn’t make me feel much worse than I was feeling already. But the atmosphere was as elastic-bandish as any atmosphere could be. Pam and Delight and Uncle Hans and Gino and Cleonie were just sitting looking into space, while Mother and a completely recovered Sylvia La Mann lounged together on a couch, exchanging professional graciousness.

‘Anny, pet, I’ve never seen you look lovelier.’

‘And you, Sylvia. The thinness! It’s a miracle.’

Sylvia’s tinkling bell laugh rang. ‘I felt I had to do it, for the picture. I mean I’m
convinced
Ninon has to be
devastatingly
thin to project the
spiritual
quality. And I’ve got this fabulous diet.
Eat Away Calories.
’

‘But are you sure it’s safe? That fainting ... ‘

‘Oh, darling, that was nothing to do with the diet. It was just the dog. I know it’s idiotic to be so highly strung, but ever since I was a tiny child when a terrible
greyhound
bit me in my kindergarten, I just can’t be suddenly faced with a dog. But, Anny, the diet — you can’t believe how clever it is. You eat everything you want — absolutely everything. And then, for one hour every day, you wallow in a delicious hot bath with these divine salts, and the salts just eat you away.’

‘Eat you away!’ exclaimed Cleonie, looking alarmed.

Sylvia purred at her. ‘Yes, deah. I know salts used to be considered frightfully
wrong
, but now they’re frightfully
right
again. This divine man, such a deah friend, too. He’s an absolute genius. At five-thirty every afternoon, regularly as clockwork, I just turn on the tap and … But, Anny, deah, how absurd. Why would you want to hear all this when you’ve always been nothing but
skin
and
bone
?’

She rose then in a billow of skirt because waiters were rolling in wagons with the delicious brunch.

For one mad moment, as the brunch dragged interminably on and nothing happened, I began to relax a little. Was it possible that Sylvia’s new figure and her improbable capture of Ronnie in an adjoining suite had been the only things she wanted to show off? Was Mother right about my negative thinking?

Once again life taught me just how fatal it is to start relaxing, because a second later Sylvia, who, I had noticed, in spite of her ‘you eat everything’ claims, had only sipped a little black coffee, put down her cup, picked up a spoon and made a dreadful clinking sound on a glass.

‘Darlings,’ she cried, ‘now you’ve eaten and got your strength back, it’s time for the lovely surprise. I was determined, just determined that you deah people should be the first to hear. This is your Great Day. It is also ours. Ronnie and I are going to be married.’

There was dead silence. Everyone was stunned. At least I imagined they were. I certainly was stunned. I looked at
Ronnie. Stoop-shouldered, he was gazing down at an uneaten waffle. I looked at Mother then, because Mother was always the one to look at in a crisis. But Mother let me down too. She had withdrawn deep behind her ‘nothing’ expression.

When the silence had stretched embarrassingly far, Cleonie, who had wonderful social instincts, said, ‘My, well isn’t that just too exciting? Miss La Mann and Mr Light. Just wait till I tell Missus John…’

‘Thank you, deah.’ All the time Sylvia had been transfixing Ronnie with her pretty smile as if to make sure he was totally defeated and was in no danger of snapping. Now she transferred the pretty smile to Mother. ‘But, Anny darling, there is one complication — one teeny complication — and we want you to help us because you, as Norma’s oldest and deahest friend, are the only one we can trust. Now I’m convinced that Norma wouldn’t have wanted us to wait. Generous, outgoing Norma. Go ahead, she would have said. Grab your happiness, children. I feel we should fly to Mexico tomorrow and do it — just
do
it. But deah Ronnie — sensitive Ronnie — feels that we should wait just a little longer, till after Ninon, perhaps, or even until after one of the next movies we’re going to do together.’

I had never realized that cobras could have pretty smiles, but there was the pretty smile and there was Sylvia being as cobra-ish as if an Indian gentleman were squatting in front of her playing a reed pipe.

‘So, Anny, we’ve decided to leave it up to you. Whatever you say, deah…’ She paused and a tongue — surely a forked tongue — flicked out on to the orange of her upper lip. ‘Of course, it isn’t quite as delicate a problem as it might be because we do have Norma’s last letter, don’t we? I really feel it is the letter which should guide us. I believe Ronnie read you the first part of it, deah, but there’s lots, lots more…’

‘More!’ The word was torn from me. I just couldn’t help it.

Sylvia’s lovely tapering-fingered hand moved to her throat as if it was going to plunge down under the emerald necklace. Then it bypassed what was left of Cleonie’s English muffin and picked up her pocket-book. She snapped the clasp, peered inside and then, very daintily, drew out a folded sheet of paper. Even without her unfolding it, I knew, of course, that it was another photostat. She leaned around Cleonie, waving it at Mother.

‘Anny deah, don’t you think I should read it to you? I
do
feel it may help you to make up your mind. Of course, it’s all rather
intimate
. The
bedroom
, I think, don’t you?’

She got up then, waggling the photostat and smiling at us all, particularly at Cleonie.

‘Darlings, you will forgive us, won’t you? We’ll be back in a trice and then, Ronnie deah, we’ll both abide by deah Anny’s decision, won’t we?’

As she started for the bedroom, Ronnie suddenly jumped up and swung to Mother. ‘Anny, she hasn’t let me read it. She…’

But Mother merely put her hand on his arm and, without a word, followed Sylvia into the bedroom.

The bedroom ordeal was excruciating, not only for Ronnie and me but for the others because by then they'd obviously got on to it or at least enough of it. Ronnie was really magnificent. Somehow he managed to cope with a long conversation with Cleonie about a cousin of hers who had just been married in North Philadelphia. And then, finally, after about a quarter of an hour, Mother and Sylvia came back.

Ronnie turned to Mother, a look of wild hope in his eyes, but his wild hope died, as did mine, when he saw the two of them. Mother was walking like the lady in
Desert Wind
after she’d decided not to become a nun, and Sylvia, in spite of the new divine thinness, managed to look like a boa-constrictor which had just swallowed a water-buffalo.

As they came towards us, she gave Mother one triumphant look. Mother submitted to it and walked over to Ronnie.

‘Ronnie dear,’ she said in a dead little voice, ‘it’s hard. Of course it’s hard. But I do think Sylvia is right. I do think Norma would understand if you flew to Mexico tomorrow and …’

‘But, Anny …’

‘No, dear. It’s all decided. I can’t … I mean, I …’ And, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him anymore, Mother turned quickly away. In less than five minutes we were all scurrying out of Suite Thirty-Two.

The moment we were back in our hacienda, Mother disappeared into her room. Delight and Pam were seething with anxiety and questions, but I managed to escape and knocked on Mother’s door.

‘Mother, it’s me.’

‘Nickie? Nickie dear?’

I went in. She was sitting on the bed. I could hardly see her because the flowers which Steve Adriano sent daily took up most of the intervening space. I crossed to her and, as I sat down beside her, she flung her arms around me and clutched me to her. She was crying. I’d never known Mother could cry. I mean, if I’d ever thought about it, I would have decided that those ducts, whatever they are, which produce tears just didn’t happen to figure in Mother’s make-up. I felt perfectly horrible.

‘Mother, please don’t cry.’

‘But, Nickie, I love him.’

‘Mother.’

‘I know it’s absurd. How could I be loving someone again after all these years? But poor, foolish Ronnie. What I’ve done to him! What a terrible thing!’

She clutched me even closer and then dropped back on to the bed, burying her face against the pillows. The spread was pink, of course. Steve Adriano knew enough to have given Mother a pink bedroom. For a long moment I just sat gazing at her bleakly and suddenly it came to me that in spite of all my peeves and clashes with her, Mother had always been the Rock of Gibraltar of my life. Now the Rock had crumbled, what was there left?