‘What does he do?’ asked Lysander, shooting a red light at the bottom of the North End Road.

‘Well, he was thinking of going into the Church. He’d have packed them in like Billy Graham, but the thought of Georgie as a vicar’s waife probably put him off, so he went into Sotheby’s, he was always arty and had a terrific eye. Now he’s got his own gallery. He’s pretty successful, discovering obscure painters, then making a killing when they become famous.

‘Their finances have always been a bit haphazard, but hopefully Rock Star will put them on a secure financial footing. They need it for all the money they’re pourin’ into Angel’s Reach. The trouble is they’re too generous. Guy’s always helping struggling artists, and he does so much for charity.’

‘Guy, Guy with the terrific eye,’, said Lysander. ‘When they move into Paradise, he can take your place on all those “Preservation of Rural Gentlecats” committees, and you can spend all day in bed with me.’

‘Whay d’you draive so fast?’ shrieked Marigold, as, narrowly avoiding a collision with an oncoming bus, Lysander screeched off right into Fountain Street.

‘Because I’m desperate to bonk you before Ferdie gets home.’

Waving a friendly two fingers at the gays opposite, who were peering out of their curtains, Lysander whisked her into the flat.

As it was they had plenty of time. Marigold was changing and Lysander was watching EastEnders and giggling over a postcard of the Eiffel Tower, signed: PLASTERED OF PARIS, which he and Marigold had sent Ferdie, when Ferdie himself walked in, bringing a new dark blue pin-stripe suit, made by Douglas Hayward, for Lysander.

‘They’ll all be bopping around in black leather and T-shirts. You’ll stand out much better,’ added Ferdie as he straightened Lysander’s new blue silk tie.

‘Oh, Laysander,’ gasped Marigold from the darkness at the top of the stairs. ‘Ay’ve never seen you in a suit before.’

‘Everyone’ll think I’ve stolen it,’ Lysander squinted at himself in the hall mirror.

‘You look scrumptious.’

It was true. As decent tailoring hides a multitude of turns on a middle-aged body, it can also marvellously elongate a broad-shouldered, willowy figure. On Lysander, the suit seemed to dance.

‘Well, come on down, Marigold. Let’s have a look at you,’ ordered Ferdie. ‘Jesus,’ he caught his breath, ‘you have worked hard.’

For the most gorgeous legs encased in black fishnet were coming down the stairs. Above them Marigold was wearing the black shorts Lysander had given her on Valentine’s Day, a white silk shirt and a black velvet coat slung over her shoulders.

Meeting her at the bottom, Ferdie took her hand and raised it to his lips. ‘You look sensational,’ he said slowly. ‘Marilyn Monroe’s face and body on Marlene Dietrich’s legs.’

‘Whay, thank you, Ferdie.’

‘And you’ve got into my black shorts.’ Lysander gave a whoop.

‘And look what I’ve borrowed from Cartier’s for you to pretend Lysander’s just given you.’ Ferdie pinned a diamond brooch in the shape of a key on her velvet lapel. ‘Now take off your wedding-ring, and remember to look happy.’

‘It’ll be strange not being a waife,’ said Marigold, sliding off the huge diamond and putting it in her handbag. ‘Ay tried so hard to be the perfect company waife. Ay wore Jaegar shirtwaisters and never yawned or swore or smoked too much. Ay always read Billboard and The Gramophone so Ay could talk to reviewers and distributors. Ay even trayed to laike Grand Opera.’

‘Well, it’s high time,’ Ferdie undid two more buttons of her silk shirt, ‘you kicked over the Traceys, or Nikkis.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Lysander, seeing Marigold trembling at Nikki’s name. ‘I’ll stay superglued to you all evening — and so will every man in the room — you look so beautiful.’


12



The one person not allowed to make an entrance at the party, which was held in a large blacked-out film studio in Soho, was Georgie Maguire herself. Her husband, who believed punctuality was next to Godliness, made sure she was there twenty minutes before kick-off, only to find the place deserted except for a handful of technicians up ladders adjusting spotlights, and softening the filters on the camera lights which hung from the ceiling.

To emphasize the marine theme of the album, a large papier-mâché rock had been plonked in the middle of the room. A cardboard lighthouse flashed on and off in one corner. Lobster pots had been placed round the walls from which hung fishermen’s nets, cut-outs of fish sea-horses with lit-up eyes and clumps of seaweed which were beginning to smell.

Monitors showed the same clip of Georgie clinging voluptuously to the rock. Waitresses wearing matelot jerseys and bell-bottoms, many of whom remembered Georgie from the sixties, crunched around a floor littered with sea-shells and sand, making up a rum punch and putting out glasses. Caterers, who were knocking up a sea-food buffet, crept out of the kitchen wiping prawn juice on their aprons to have a gawp.

‘It all looks wonderful. If only I was slim enough to wear horizontal stripes! You’ve gone to so much trouble.’ Georgie drifted among them in tearful ecstasy, captivating, flattering, signing autographs, then adding to Guy in an undertone, ‘and absolutely no-one’s going to turn up.’ Then, because Guy hadn’t given her time to get ready she shot into the Ladies to titivate.

Immediately she was joined by a girl in a dark blue velvet dress with a pie-frill collar, which flattened her breasts and stopped at mid-calf above sensible, medium-heeled shoes. Blond hair, held in place by a black velvet band, emphasized a long nose and a thin beige predatory face, giving the distinct impression of the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood trying to pass himself off as Alice in Wonderland.

‘Hi, Georgie,’ said the blonde in a deep, put-on voice. ‘I’m Nikki, Larry Lockton’s PA. We met when you came to the office.’

‘Oh, right,’ said Georgie, who didn’t remember at all. ‘How nice to see you. God, I’m nervous.’

Not nearly as nervous as I am, thought Nikki, trying to soften the black kohl round her eyes with a shaking finger.

Ever since Larry had been to see Marigold last week he’d been tetchy and withdrawn and the weekend with the boys had been disastrous, not to mention the mud all over her new cream carpet. To cap it there’d been a piece in the Daily Mail that morning about the way the careers of high flyers took a dive when they left their wives for bimbos. Nikki’s aim tonight was therefore to look even more wifely than Marigold.

Georgie, who loathed being talked to when she was getting ready, was trying to secure her newly washed hair, which Guy had insisted she wore up to banish any sixties hippy image. She wished this silly girl, who was now rabbiting on about the wonders of Paradise, would go away.

‘You must drop in if you’re ever in the area again,’ murmured Georgie.

It was her standard response to any fan. She would have died if they’d taken her up on it.

‘We’d like that, Georgie,’ said Nikki. Little do you know, she thought, that I’m going to be your neighbour and the wife of your record producer, able to control your fat advances. Then she added out loud, ‘I’m dead excited about meeting Rannaldini, aren’t you?’

Momentarily, Georgie was roused out of her trance. ‘I’d forgotten he was coming,’ she said.

‘They say he picks women off like ducks bobbing past in a shooting gallery,’ said Nikki, adjusting the garters holding up her deliberately wifely, nutmeg-brown stockings.

Not that she’d attract Rannaldini like this. But there would be years ahead when, as the mistress of Paradise Grange, she reverted to her normal, shimmeringly sexy, black leather, tousled-blond self.

Having charmed a large Bells out of the waitresses, Guy Seymour was lining up glasses and press releases and delightedly noticing the number of Press who were signing their names in the visitors’ book, when Larry Lockton stormed in.

God, he looks ridiculous, thought Guy.

Larry was wearing a scowl, a black leather jacket, a white T-shirt hanging outside black jeans. Any inches added by black, high-heeled cowboy boots were negated by the weight of gold jewellery and the black hair which was beginning to cascade in ringlets over his collar and sweating forehead.

‘Of all the fucking things to happen,’ he roared, flattening the waiting Catchitune publicity staff against the walls.

‘We’ve got a lot of heavy-weight Press here already,’ said Guy soothingly, reading upside down as reporters from The Scorpion and The Sunday Times Style pages signed in.

‘Fat lot of good it’ll do us.’ Larry glared round. ‘They’ve all turned up to see Rannaldini.’ Then, as Guy drew him out of earshot of the reporters, ‘The fucker phoned as I entered Old Compton Street, saying he wasn’t coming, so I rammed the Merc in front.’

Rannaldini, he went on, who was on sabbatical from the London Met making a film of Don Giovanni, had been due to fly back for the party that afternoon. Instead he had returned secretly the day before in order to surprise the London Met who were playing Beethoven’s Ninth at the Festival Hall under Oswaldo, their guest conductor.

‘Oswaldo’s too bloody good for Rannaldini’s liking,’ stormed Larry, grabbing one of two more large whiskies conjured up by Guy. ‘Anyway, Rannaldini plonks himself down in the front row, and sits stony-faced with his eyes shut until the last moment when the singing starts. Then he stalks out, distracting everyone from the music, and telling some gleefully hovering reporter from the Evening Standard that he can’t listen to such garbage any longer.