Jilly Cooper - Bella

‘They’re not,’ said Lazlo calmly. ‘She’s a singer, he writes. You’ll like them.’

‘I haven’t anything to wear.’

‘You won’t need anything. Cass’ll lend you a bikini.’

He turned on the wireless and the hot summer night was suddenly flooded with Mozart. Bella listened to those lovely liquid notes pouring forth like a nightingale, and suddenly the terrible realization that Steve didn’t love her any more swept over her. Unable to stop herself, she broke into a storm of weeping. Lazlo took absolutely no notice and let her cry.

Finally, when she reached the gulping stage, he said, ‘There’s a hipflask in the dashboard; help yourself.’

‘No thank you.’

Heartless beast, she thought furiously. He tricked me, he pretended to be Steve. If Chrissie hadn’t started screaming, he’d have certainly gone the whole hog and screwed me. A hot wave of shame swept over her at the thought of how much she’d enjoyed it at the time.

They had turned off the motorway into deep country now. Cow parsley brushed against the moving car, a huge moon was gliding in and out of transparent wisps of cloud. Finally, Lazlo drew up near a big rambling house, covered in wistaria. Almost at once a woman came running out.

‘Darlings,’ she shouted. ‘You have made good time. How lovely to see you.’

‘This is Bella,’ said Lazlo. ‘She’s brought nothing with her, so you’ll have to lend her everything. I’ll just put the car away.’

The woman hugged Bella. ‘My name’s Cass,’ she said. ‘Lazlo tells me you’ve been having the most awful time. I do hate the Press when their blood’s up.’

They went into a huge untidy room with crumbs all over the floor, bowls of drooping flowers and two grand pianos covered with books and music.

A man with spectacles on top of his head put down his book and came forward to welcome Bella.

‘I escaped up to London for your first night. You were superb. Come and sit down and I’ll get you a drink.’

Cass plonked herself on the sofa opposite Bella and stretched out fat legs, burnt red by the sun.

‘Grenville’s been in love with you for years, ever since he saw you on television once.’

Grenville blushed. ‘I suppose we haven’t got any ice, darling?’

‘None at all,’ said Cass cheerfully. ‘The fridge is so frozen up I can’t get the ice tray back in.’

When he had gone out she said, ‘I didn’t know the set-up, so I’ve put you and Lazlo in different rooms, but he’s in a huge double bed so you can always join him.’

‘Oh no!’ said Bella, horrified into dropping her guard. ‘I’d rather sleep with a cobra than Lazlo.’

‘How are the children?’ said Lazlo, walking into the room, his arms full of bottles of drink.

Bella went scarlet. How much had he heard of her last remark?

‘The children are away this weekend, thank God,’ said Cass. ‘I do love them, but it’s bliss when they’re away. They’re boys,’ she added to Bella, ‘ten, eight and seven.’

‘I’ve brought them some gin,’ said Lazlo. ‘I know they like it.’

Cass laughed. ‘What are you doing after Othello?’ she said to Bella.

‘The Seagull — we start rehearsing on Monday.’

For the first time in days she felt at home. So much so that half an hour later she wasn’t too shy to ask if she might go up to bed.

She slept until lunchtime, then got up, bathed and washed her hair. To her annoyance the orange rinse still wouldn’t come out and her hair had gone impossibly fluffy like candy floss. She found Lazlo in the garden, his feet up on a table, reading the racing news, drinking champagne and tearing a chicken apart. He was wearing only a pair of dirty white trousers, and his swarthy skin was already turning brown.

‘Where are the others?’ she said.

‘Working. Have some chicken?’

‘No thank you. I’m not hungry.’ It was a lie. She was starving.

He poured her out a glass of champagne and said, ‘I do hope you’re not going to be boring and sulk the whole weekend. I’m about to ring my bookmaker. I fancy Bengal Freedom, Safety Pin and Happy Harry. Shall I put a fiver on each of them for you?’

Bella picked up the paper and scanned it.

‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘I prefer Merry Peasant, Early Days, and Campbell’s Pride in the four o’clock.’

‘They haven’t got a dog’s chance,’ said Lazlo. ‘Still, if you want to waste your money.’

After he’d gone inside she skimmed the rest of the paper. On the front page was a picture of her and Lazlo leaving the theatre.

‘Who stole the diamond?’ screamed the banner headline. ‘Henriques mystery thickens as Bella declared innocent.’

With a beating heart she read the rest of the story, but there was nothing mentioned about her past. Thank God her public image was still intact.

‘I’ve backed your horses for you,’ said Lazlo, returning with another bottle of champagne.

She put down the paper and pointedly picked up her book, trying to concentrate. Lazlo looked at the jacket. ‘It’s junk,’ he said. ‘How far have you got?’

‘Page two hundred and fifty,’ snapped Bella.

‘Oh, yes, that’s the bit just before page two hundred and fifty-one,’ said Lazlo.

Bella ignored him.

She later had the indignity of watching the three horses Lazlo had backed romping home several lengths clear in three successive races. Her horses weren’t even placed.

‘You owe me fifteen pounds,’ said Lazlo. ‘I shan’t press you for payment.’

Not trusting herself to speak, Bella went off for a walk. Even the bosky greenness everywhere couldn’t cure her bad temper. By the time she reached the village shop, however, hunger overcame her and she bought two huge cream buns. She was just wandering back to the house, stuffing her face with one of them, when a dark green Mercedes glided down the road towards her. Choking with rage she turned her bulging cheeks towards the hedgerow.

‘So glad you’ve recovered your appetite,’ said Lazlo in amusement.

Cass cooked a marvellous dinner and, afterwards, Bella offered to wash up. Lazlo said he’d help her. But at exactly ten o’clock, after he’d given her back a third plate to wash because it still had mustard on the bottom, something snapped inside her.

Picking up the remains of the duck, she hurled it at Lazlo, missing him of course. Then she selected a very ripe peach and chucked it against the wall, then she kicked over Cass’s music stand.

Lazlo started to laugh, ‘Tell me, Bella, what are you going to do when you grow up?’

‘Stop sending me up,’ she screamed. Then she started breaking plates. That had Lazlo worried.

‘Pack it in,’ he snapped. Then, when she wouldn’t, he slapped her extremely hard across the face. For a minute she glared at him, her eyes watering from the pain. She gave a sob and fled upstairs. In her bedroom her rage evaporated. Feeling bitterly ashamed of herself, she undressed and got into bed.

She lay still, listening to approaching thunder — her eyelids feeling as though they’d been pinned back from her eyes. She heard Cass and Grenville come to bed, laughing fondly. At last she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

It was the most terrifying dream she’d ever had. She was suffocating, drowning, unable to escape. Then she started screaming. Suddenly the room was flooded with light — Lazlo was standing in the doorway. The next moment he’d crossed the room and taken her in his arms.

‘It’s all right, baby, it’s all right. It’s only a bad dream.’

She could feel the warmth from his body. His fingers beneath her shoulder blades. What did it matter now that he was the person she loathed most in the world? He was at least a human being.

‘I can’t take any more,’ she sobbed. ‘I get this nightmare over and over again. I dream I’m drowning in blood — and I know it’s my mother’s. Oh God,’ she buried her face in her hands.

‘Come on. Talk about it.’

‘I can’t,’ she whispered. Then, suddenly, everything came pouring out. She wasn’t really talking to Lazlo, but to herself.

‘I’ve always lied about my past,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘I was so ashamed of it. My mother was very respectable, the daughter of a Christian Science minister. But she fell in love with my father. He was divine, but as bent as a corkscrew. My mother didn’t realize he’d been in prison four times for larceny even before she married him. For a bit he tried to go straight, but he kept getting sacked from different jobs. Then I was born. There was no money, and my mother was forced to go out to work.’

‘Go on,’ said Lazlo.

‘She worked as a char, in other people’s houses, but money finally got so short my father stole the church funds. My mother found the money under the floorboards, and she went straight to the minister, her father, and told him. That night they confronted my father and said they were going to the police. Can you imagine it? Grassing on your own family? My father made a bolt for it. There was a fight; my grandfather fell and hit his head on the fender, and later he died in hospital. My father got life imprisonment for murder. My mother never visited him. He died in prison ten years later, from TB.’

She paused and the faded mirror at the end of the room glinted gold with a strange rose-yellow flash. A violent crack of thunder split the air. Rain exploded from the sky.

‘It was during the court case that my mother discovered my father was already married and I was il-il. .’ she gagged over the word.

‘Illegitimate,’ said Lazlo.

Bella nodded. ‘My mother never smiled again. She moved to another part of Yorkshire, a little town called Nalesworth where no-one knew her. She went on working as a daily and saved enough money to send me to a good school. But I hated it. All the other girls laughed at my ugly clothes and my thick accent. My mother was continually terrified I was going to take after my father. I look like him, you see. She used to beat me and lock me for hours in a darkened room, while she sallied forth to church meetings.