The roar of the party and the Friendship Duet pouring out of the speakers made it difficult to make oneself heard.

‘Tristan’s portrayed the press as so irredeemably bloody,’ shouted the Independent. ‘We’ll have to be nice about his picture to redeem ourselves.’

Gordon Dillon, on the other hand, was tickled pink to be portrayed as himself. The Scorpion was going to do a big feature, he told Granny, immediately inviting him to lunch in the boardroom.

‘Only if Giuseppe can taste the food and drink first,’ said Granny drily.

‘No chance of your bringing that Lucy Latimer as well?’ asked Gordon Dillon foxily.

There was no doubt that Baby had stolen the show.

‘What are you doing next?’ asked the Guardian.

‘Fat Franco’s broken a rib falling out of someone else’s bed,’ drawled Baby, ‘so I’m taking Otello over from him at the Met.’

‘Wow, the tenor’s Everest,’ said Opera Now in admiration.

No, thought Baby wistfully, Isa Lovell was the tenor’s Everest.

‘Did you enjoy shagging Dame Hermione?’ asked A. A. Gill.

Alpheus was in ecstasy, with so many charming young women journalists to crinkle his eyes at. He had even hung his dinner jacket over the back of a chair to show off his manly figure. George and Wolfie propped up the bar, getting pissed together, keeping an eye on Flora and Tab in case any journalist asked awkward questions.

‘It was the proudest moment of my life’, sighed George, ‘seeing Tebaldo, sung by Flora Hungerford, coming up on the credits.’

‘Hello, Wolfgang. Hi, George,’ called Helen. ‘I don’t know if you’ve met Sir David Hawkley.’

‘Hello, Mummy.’ Tab, breaking away from her circle of press admirers, came rushing over. ‘It’s so cool. Lynda Lee-Potter’s coming down to Penscombe tomorrow to interview me and Sharon. Dog News are putting her on the cover, and Celia Haddon is going to make her Pet of the Week in the Telegraph.’ Then when Helen didn’t respond, Tab asked lamely, ‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Enormously,’ enthused Helen, ‘Tristan is so clever, and the acting was wonderful. Even Hermione was better than usual. Meredith’s sets were surprisingly effective, so was Lucy’s make-up and Valhalla looked stunning. Wolfie’s also been a tower of strength,’ she continued warmly.

‘I thought your little yellow Lab stole the show,’ said David Hawkley, smiling at Tab.

‘When is your baby due, Dame Hermione?’ asked the Sunday Telegraph.

‘Early April,’ Hermione put on a soppy face, ‘an Aries bairn.’

‘Where are you having it?’

‘In the Hippopotamus House at London Zoo,’ Baby whispered to Flora, ‘David Attenborough’s on standby.’

‘Where are you staying in New York?’ Flora asked him.

‘With Rupert’s younger brother, Adrian, who owns an art gallery and sounds distinctly promising,’ confided Baby. ‘So tomorrow might be another good day.’

Looking down from the balcony, Hype-along was gratified to see all his stars still ringed, six deep, with frantically questioning press. But they were all waiting to talk to Tristan. Many of them had held their pages and were desperate to telephone their copy.

‘Where the hell is he?’ asked Hugh Canning. ‘It’s like Hamlet without the Prince.’

Hype-along tracked down Rupert, on a window-seat, talking to Taggie. ‘I love you,’ he was saying.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ murmured Hype-along, ‘but you’re the only person Tristan might listen to.’

As Rupert fought his way round the edge of the room, he heard Alpheus saying, ‘Now where in hell did I leave my dinner jacket?’

At the bottom of the stairs, he passed Wolfie in deep conversation with Helen. ‘As you’re going to be my mother-in-law for the rest of your life,’ Wolfie was saying icily, ‘it would be nice just occasionally if you could tell Tabitha how brilliantly she’d done.’

‘That’s my boy,’ said Rupert, patting him on the back.

Rupert found Tristan in a small office gazing out on the passers-by and the plane trees of Leicester Square. His face was orange from the street lights, his shoulders hunched, his desolation palpable.

‘You must be over la lune,’ said Rupert cheerfully. ‘You’ve made a bloody marvellous flick, and the press are all downstairs waiting to tell you so.’

‘What is life to me without her?’ said Tristan idly.

Next moment he had grabbed the lapels of Rupert’s dinner jacket and thrust him against a filing cabinet with the strength of a madman.

‘I’ve made you a fucking fortune, you bastard. I’m not speaking to anyone until you tell me where Lucy is.’

For a moment, Rupert gazed at him, seeing the depths of his loneliness and despair.

‘OK. I’ll lean on Gablecross. If he tells me, I’ll fax it up to the Caledonian tomorrow.’


86


Melanie, one of the Academia Awards publicity team, very young, pretty and silly, met Tristan at the airport and made him feel that by catching the right flight he had successfully landed on the moon.

‘It’s so good of you to come all this way — may I call you Tristan? We all love Lily in the Valley so much — we’re going to give away little bottles of Diorissimo by the way. It’s fast becoming a cult movie with my generation. Madame Lauzerte’, she added reverently, ‘has already arrived. She asked me to give you this letter.’

She was obviously so dying to know what was in it that Tristan had to sit with his back to the taxi window to stop her reading over his shoulder.


My darling [Claudine had written],

I am so longing to see you. It has been such a difficult seven months. Jean-Louis is still adamant he doesn’t want a divorce, but he has agreed to turn a blind eye to you and me as long as we are incredibly discreet. I am staying at One Devonshire Gardens in Glasgow tonight. You can join me there this evening, without even having to go through Reception. Call me at the Caledonian as soon as you get in. Your loving Claudine

‘Which of us is happy in this world?’ quoted Tristan bitterly. ‘Which of us has his desire, or having it, is satisfied?’

Seven months ago that letter would have orbited him into the seven hundred and seventy-seventh heaven. Now he felt like a small boy being shunted into care.

Melanie had already seen the ecstatic review Alexander Walker had given Don Carlos in the Evening Standard. Now she was going on and on, reeling off the celebs and incredibly distinguished academics who’d jetted in from all over the world.

‘We feel the Academia is more prestigious than BAFTA or the Césars or even the Oscars. Oh, look at those queues for Don Carlos already going round and round and round the cinema.’

They had reached the outskirts of Edinburgh, passing square charcoal-grey houses and sooty gardens where the first daffodils were being blown horizontal by the east wind. There was the cardboard cut-out of the castle against an angry sky of racing clouds.

Tristan gasped at the cold as he jumped out of the taxi, but as he scuttled towards the warmth of the Caledonian, he noticed a beggar slouched on the pavement. An empty whisky bottle lay beside him. In an upside-down tweed cap on the pavement gleamed a few coins. But what caught Tristan’s already watering eyes was the total despair of the beggar’s dog, a very old, lanky lurcher, whose opaque rheumy eyes gazed into space and who, despite his matted russet coat, was shivering uncontrollably. Thinking how uncomfortable the unrelenting pavement must be for his bony hocks and elbows, Tristan handed the beggar a tenner.

‘And bloody well spend it on dog food,’ he snapped.

At the sound of Tristan’s voice, however, the old dog suddenly pricked up his brown velvet ears and staggered to his feet, making little whining noises in his throat. Next moment his long tail was frantically hitting his sticking-out ribs as he lumbered unsteadily forward.

‘James,’ croaked Tristan incredulously, ‘oh, James,’ and dropping to his knees, he hugged the dog until he had red hairs like larch needles all over his smart navy blue overcoat. ‘We thought you were dead. Where did you find this dog?’ he demanded furiously.

‘He’s not mine,’ said the beggar, in a surprisingly educated voice, hastily pocketing the tenner. ‘I think he came from some gypsies,’ he added defensively. ‘He lives in a squat, but we all borrow him. He looked so thin and pathetic all the passers-by used to fork out for him. Now, he’s lost heart and doesn’t sell himself, and people tend to walk by in embarrassment. We’re going to club together and invest in a cute little terrier. Much better returns.’

Tristan rose to his feet, somehow controlling the fury gathering force inside him. ‘Go and drink yourself into an early grave,’ he shoved a wad of notes into the beggar’s hand, ‘and give me that dog.’

‘Oh, there you are, Tristan.’ It was Melanie, braving the cold again in her twinset, short skirt and very high heels. ‘You’ll be late for pre-lunch drinks. So many people want to interview you,’ she went on, through the streaked blonde hair that blew across her mouth. ‘Madame Lauzerte rang again, and this’, she handed over a fax with an excited little giggle, ‘has just come in from Rupert Campbell-Black. He’s a cult figure for our generation too. Tristan. Tristan!’

But Tristan and James had vanished into very thin air.


87


Lucy’s safe-house was a rescue kennels outside Boston. She had begged Gablecross to find her a place where she could put her terrors and utter anguish in perspective by looking after those even worse off than herself. But nothing had prepared her for the sadness of falling in love with one terrified, often dreadfully maltreated dog after another, nursing it back to health only to find it had to be put down after a few weeks to make way for a newer, younger arrival. She was tormented that she had no idea what had really happened to James and, as her longing for him and Tristan grew more desperate, she felt as in need of rescuing as the dogs, and wished she could plunge the fatal needle into herself.