Suspicious Circumstances (18 page)

Luckily, this was a thought I didn’t have to wade around in because, as I might have suspected, Mother was tapping a pettish foot. Right in the middle of fairly sincere applause, just when Delight was getting set to be ‘at it’ again, Mother rose in a lovely cloud of new Balmain and that was the end of the party for us.

Mother grabbed me into her limousine to drive back to the Tamberlaine. I was so tired that I didn’t know whether I objected or not. It just seemed natural that mother and son should be together.

We got home ahead of the others and Mother took me with her into her room. It had been years since she’d done that. Going to bed was one of the things that Mother did alone. But that night she kicked off her slippers and dropped down on the bed with a sigh.

‘Nickie dear.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘You’re not still horrified — about Steve and everything?’

‘I guess not, Mother.’

‘You’ve got to fight, dear. That’s something you’ll realize when you’re older. If you want to get to the top and stay there, you must fight, fight, fight every minute of the day.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

She reached up behind her neck and unclasped her pearls. For a moment she held them up in front of her and, as she lay there, watching them, something about her expression made me realize that, for some people, certainly not for me, pearls and triumphs and all that could have their points.

‘Darling.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘I’m so tired I can hardly move. Put the pearls away, dear.’ She dangled the pearls towards me. I took them. Her jewel box was on the pink vanity in front of the mirror. I opened it to slip the pearls in. Then the pearls just stuck to my hand because, neatly folded in one of the compartments, was a photostat. Shivering all down my spine like Tray, I picked it up and then the shivers got out of control because under it, folded too, was a letter — no, not a letter, THE letter, which had been hidden where ‘no one would ever, ever find it'. I knew it was THE letter because I recognized Norma’s familiar sprawling handwriting at once. As I stood, gazing blindly, two sentences glared up at me from the part that was on top.

‘ … not only me. Ask my former husband, Roger Renard. He was actually there when she did it …’

Did it! Did — what? Not the secret marriage. You don’t do marriages. Then …

‘Mother.’

My voice must have given me away because she was at my side in a flash.

I dropped the photostat down on the letter. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to play this because I wasn’t angry or righteous or anything. I just felt I wanted to die.

‘What is it?’ Mother’s voice was shrill. She was grabbing up the photostat and then the letter. ‘Nickie, but Nickie …’
I didn’t look at her. I just stood there and I said,

‘So you did do it. Norma. And then, tonight, knowing Steve would fix it all up for you — Sylvia.’

‘Nickie.’

Her voice was anguished but it was far too late for Mother’s effects to do anything to me anymore.

‘Nickie,’ she cried again and then her steel hands were on my arms, pulling me around, forcing me to look at her.

‘Nickie, Nickie, believe me. I didn’t know those things were in the jewel box. I never saw them. I swear it. Someone put them there. Someone … Nickie, Nickie, darling ...’

‘If you want to stay on the top ... ‘ I heard my own voice and its bleak, winter chill seemed to belong to someone quite different. ‘If you want to stay on the top, you’ve got to fight, fight, fight every minute of the day.’

‘But, Nickie …’

There was a thing going on in my eyes. For a moment I didn’t know what it was — a sort of prickling sensation. Then I realized. I’d forgotten crying felt like that.

Her hands were still on my arms. I tugged myself free. I ran to the door.

‘Nickie,’ she called, ‘Nickie darling ... ‘

But I ran out of the room and out of the horrible hacienda and, because there was nowhere else to go, I ran on out on to the sand that just stretched on and on towards nowhere in particular.

The moon was shining. It was huge and round and yellow, a property moon. I thought, If Mother comes out after me, I’ll kill myself.

I don’t know how long I was there. Hours it seemed, and there was the sand stretching and the mountains, jagged and black against the moonlit sky, lonely, desolate, what Las Vegas was meant to be, not loused up with motels and gambling rooms and plastic pyramids — just nothing. I didn’t move about. I didn’t even sit down although my legs felt like watch-springs. I just stood and the moon shone and the sand stretched.

And then there was a hand on my arm. Its touch came so quickly, with no warning sounds before it, that I almost fell.

‘Nicholas.’

I knew it was Delight, and Delight, then, was the only person in the world who was all right. I spun around and, before either of us said anything, I had my arms around her and was clutching her to me. The feeling of her, warm, unresisting, unquestioning was wonderful.

‘Nickie.’ Her voice was as soft as a little desert breeze. ‘Nickie, darling — what is it? What’s the matter?’

‘Mother …’ I began.

‘Breaking up my act at the party, you mean? Being so tough with me all the time? Nickie darling, you don’t think I mind, do you? She’s a great Star. They’re all that way. They have to be. You can’t expect them to be delighted when pushing little girls try to…’

‘Mother,’ I broke in. And then, ‘She did it … She killed Norma. And — and now She’s killed Sylvia. It was something she’d done in Paris, something Norma knew about and then Sylvia … something ...’

Still clutching her to me as if somehow, because she was in my arms, the truth could be driven away, obliterated, I babbled it all out to her — all of it, the tub, the paw-prints, Steve Adriano, the letter in the jewel box.

‘Okay.’ I heard myself saying when it was over. ‘What do I care? What if she is a murderer? Who gives a damn if that monstrous old…?’

‘Nickie.’

‘She’s my mother. All right. But it isn’t my fault, is it? I can’t help it. I didn’t ask to be born. It isn’t …’

‘Nickie, Nickie.’ Vaguely I realized Delight’s hands were on my arms, shaking me. ‘Nickie, listen to me.’

Somehow that stopped the flow of gibbering words. ‘Nickie, you think that about Sylvia, but it isn’t true. Your mother didn’t kill Sylvia.’

Her face was turned up to mine. The moonlight was shining full on it. I could see her eyes sparkling with a weird frosty gleam.

‘The thing in Paris … I don’t know about that. Of course I don’t. But she didn’t kill Sylvia and, if she didn’t kill Sylvia, she didn’t kill Norma. Nickie, listen. After we came back from Sylvia’s this afternoon, when you were all sent off for your naps, Anny came to my room.’

‘She came …’

‘Right away. I hadn’t been in there a minute before she was in. She came to bawl me out, to tell me to tone myself down again. She rehearsed me over and over. Nickie, she was there with me right up until the time when we had to go over for the show. Don’t you see? She couldn’t possibly have done it.’

I hadn’t quite taken it in, but I knew it would come. I could feel a little bit of it.

‘But the paw-prints — the letter in the jewel box.’

‘It wasn’t Anny. Nickie, I can swear to that. It’s got to be someone else.’

Paw-prints. Not Ronnie, because how could Ronnie have got hold of Tray? Pam, then? Tray’s owner? Pam, who could have known about the thing in Paris? Pam, who would gladly have lain down her life for Mother? Pam, who, on the Night of the Plunge, had been running around the grounds, she said?

She
said!

That was when it happened. It shouldn’t have made any difference. If Pam, out of some insane loyalty to Mother, had killed two women, it should have been just as terrible as the other way. But it wasn’t. Pam was Pam. Pam wasn’t Mother. Pam was someone you could think about or not think about, pretend, if you wanted to, that it was something you’d never guessed.

The glow was back, the lovely warm glow. I clutched Delight even closer and I knew then that I loved her. For what she’d done for me? Or just because she was Delight?

Who cared?

‘Delight, baby. When I thought it was Mother, I — I thought I was going to die.’

‘Poor Nickie.’

‘I’m all right now.’

‘Nickie darling, you’ve got me. I’m always here. You know that.’

I was kissing her mouth, her cheek, her hair. She gave a little moan.

‘Oh, Nickie, I swore I wouldn’t tell you, because of Monique, because of you being Anny Rood’s son and me being me … It all looked so grabby, so calculating…But, Nickie, for me this isn’t just a thing. Nickie, I love you.’

‘Delight.’

The warm glow was everywhere, even in my toes.

The moon, huge, round, yellow, wasn’t a property moon any longer.

I woke up at noon, remembering Delight, adoring everything, even Las Vegas. I ran into Mother’s room. She was sitting up in bed with her reading glasses on, half buried in newspapers. I threw my arms around her and kissed her. She kissed me back and we both knew it was all right. We didn’t have to go into things. I flung myself down beside her on some of the papers.

‘Hi, Mother.’

‘Nickie dear! Oh, do look what terrible things you’re doing to the
Times
! Boys — really!’

The thought of newspapers brought on the jitters again, but they were only mild 'Will-Steve-Have-Done-A-Good-Job’ jitters. I grabbed up papers one after another. Sylvia’s death was all over the headlines. She had been discovered in her tub in The Hopi at seven in the morning by a maid who'd been ordered to bring her an early cup of tea. ‘An old English custom.’ Dr Woodside, the house physician, on delivering his diagnosis of heart failure, had given a stern speech about irresponsible dieting and the marketing of quack reducing salts, and there were lots of references to the decease, under similar circumstances, of the late movie star Maria Montez in her bath. Ronald Light, interviewed in his suite at the Tamberlaine, was described as ‘staggered by the loss of yet another Ninon’. ‘Was
Eternally Female’
, some paper wanted to know, ‘a movie with a jinx?’ Sylvia’s funeral would take place in Beverly Hills next Wednesday.

There it was. Good old Steve. Nothing whatever to connect it with Mother. Nothing, surely, for Inspector Robinson.

But Mother was mentioned everywhere else. Paper after paper had given splurge after splurge to Anny Rood and Family. Photographs of Celebrities lining up to get into the Mona Lisa Room. Interviews with everyone from Mike Todd to the Governor of California, all raving like madmen. Lettie Leroy was as nearly hysterical as she would ever be:

‘After last night at the Tamberlaine, Anny Rood is hotter than the hydrogen bomb. ...’

‘They seemed to like us, didn’t they?’ Mother took off her glasses. ‘Well, we mustn’t rest on our laurels. Never rest on your laurels, dear. And now, I think the time has come for a little talk with the others about poor Sylvia. So confusing for them if they happen to pick up a paper. Be an angel, darling. Run and find them. Not Cleonie, perhaps. I feel I should have a slightly different little talk with Cleonie later on. But the others ...’

I alerted the others. They all piled into Mother’s room but suddenly, when Pam came in looking like Pam, I didn’t want to be there. There wasn’t any need for me anyway. I put on swimming-trunks and went and swam for the first time in the horrible pool. To my dismay, everyone recognized me. I was swamped by ghastly women and even ghastlier children, demanding my autograph.

It wasn’t long before I had enough of that and, as I started back to our hacienda in my wet swimming-trunks, I ran into Ronnie. For Ronnie, he was looking quite wonderful —almost human again. I told him about the photostat and the letter just that they were found, nothing more than that — and from then on he looked completely human.

When we reached the hacienda, all the others were streaming out of Mother’s bedroom, looking awed. Right after them came Mother in a pink housecoat.

‘Anny!’ said Ronnie.

‘Ronnie!’ Mother gave him a ravishing smile. ‘Excuse me, dear, just one moment. There’s just a little something I have to discuss with Cleonie. Wait, dears. In the living-room. I won’t be a second.’

She floated away towards Cleonie’s room. Ronnie and I went into the living-room. None of the others were there. They must all have gone to their rooms to lie down again and digest Mother’s ‘little talk’. The telephone rang. I picked it up. A French voice said, ‘Allo, allo, Mademoiselle Rood?’

Then I heard Mother answering on another phone so I put down the receiver.

In about ten minutes, Mother was with us again, sweeping towards Ronnie with both arms outstretched. He jumped up and she did her Enfolding bit.

‘Dear Ronnie, dear, poor Ronnie — you see? It was all right, wasn’t it?’

‘Anny, you were stupendous. I can’t begin to say ...’

‘Nonsense, dear. You and I are friends. Steve and I are friends. That’s all it was.’

Ronnie was watching her with that hopeless St Bernard adoration of his. ‘Anny, I’ve got to fly back to L.A. right away. Not just for Sylvia’s funeral. I’ll have to be there, of course. But it’s the picture … Anny, we’re due to start shooting in three weeks.’

‘Yes, dear?’ Mother was getting her far-away look.

‘Anny, what am I going to do?’

‘Do, dear?’

‘It’s all set up. I could can it, I guess. Just forget it. Cut my losses. But… Anny, you’re only here for three weeks. The timing fits. Anny, please, please, darling Anny, do it for me play Ninon.’

Even then when things were all right again — almost all right — I felt the butterflies stirring. ‘If one morning I open my
Times
and read that Anny Rood is playing Ninon de Lenclos.’ There was Inspector Robinson again, crinkling away like crazy. No! I thought. My God, is Ronnie out of his mind? This is the one thing that will start it all up again.

I glanced wildly at Mother.
Mother, have some sense. For pity’s sake!
She was still miles away in her ‘absent’ reverie. Slowly she came back to us with the faintest droop at the corners of her mouth.