A PORTRAIT OF OLIVIA (13 page)

“Jeff, please…Not in front of my mother…”

“Oh, you two, stop it,” Eve laughed, glad of the change in mood. “Just bring the drinks Peter…and be quick about it.”

“Well!” Peter flounced from the room. “There’s gratitude for you.”

It was later, while he and Jeff were climbing into bed, that Peter remembered his momentary sick spell earlier in the day, while the show was being taped. As he lay in Jeff ’s arms, he wondered if he should mention it.

“Yes,” Jeff murmured.

“Yes, what?” Peter asked, startled.

“Yes, tell me what’s on your mind.”

“What are you—a mind-reader now?”

“When it comes to you, yes, I am. When you go quiet like that, I know something’s up.” Jeff pulled him closer.

Peter smiled and ran his lips over Jeff ’s left nipple. “Okay, what am I thinking now?”

“Mmm, let me see…Tut, you should be ashamed of yourself young man,”

Jeff chuckled. “So tell me what’s on your mind…”

“Oh, I had one of those damned premonitions earlier…”

“What?” Jeff sat up and looked at him with concern. “Why didn’t you tell me about it sooner?”

“I kind of forgot about it with all that was going on.”

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“So who’s in trouble?”

“Y’know—you’re a lot surer of these things than I am,” Peter said, sighing.

“As usual it was just a feeling of something not quite right. A shivery, sick feeling.”

“I’m sorry,” Jeff said, stroking Peter’s hair gently. “Sorry you have to put up with this sort of thing.”

Peter tried to smile. “Some people call it a gift. I call it a giant pain.”

Jeff nodded. “So who was it?”

“Either Olivia or Luke, or someone standing close by, but I don’t know who that was.”

“Jeez,” Jeff muttered, lying down again and pulling Peter back into his arms.

He lay, silently thinking for a moment or two. “These threats she’s been getting…Maybe it’s time to take them more seriously. When
you
start getting those feelings, alarms bells start ringing in my head…”

“Maybe it’s time for Olivia to take them more seriously too,” Peter said

“I think you’re right. I’ll call Joe in the morning and see if he’s got anything new.”

“Good idea.” Peter nuzzled Jeff ’s chest. “I had another good idea…but I think I’m too sleepy…”

“Here’s a
novel
idea,” Jeff teased him. “Seeing we’re in bed—let’s go to sleep.”

“If you insist…”

“Say Goodnight, Peter.”

“Goodnight, Peter.”

c h a p t e r 8

s

If I was angry and perturbed before by Miss Winter’s obvious perverse delight in
ignoring the requests of her viewing public, I am now beyond furious!

This latest broadcast in which she paraded my own children in front of the
whole country was nothing short of scandalous. That slut of a girl, who calls herself my daughter, trying so hard to look demure and innocent as she poured forth
her litany of lies. It was more than I could bear. And my own son, Anthony—how
could he have agreed to share in her deceit?

I thought my heart would shatter into tiny pieces as I listened to him trying to
place the blame for his shameful way of life on his father and myself. Blaming me
for ignoring the lies his sisters told him about their so-called abuse at the hands of
their father. All of these terrible, untrue accusations now made public knowledge—how shall I ever live down this shame?

And those preening homosexuals, pretending to be so concerned about the welfare of abused children. Do they think for one moment we are fooled by their
superficial charm? It is the likes of them that are at the root of the problem
.
Surely,
everyone knows that
.
Can I be the only one who is not duped by them? And that
woman—the artist’s mother…sitting there looking so proud of her boy
.
She must
be as depraved as the rest of them. Well, I have taken steps to burst her little balloon of self-aggrandizement. Oh yes, she will certainly be most upset when she
reads what I, and all decent Christian people, think of her and her boastful pride.

As for the purveyor of all this sleaze—Miss Winters—I have written to tell her
of God’s judgment and how she will be afflicted. I have galvanized my allies into
action and when Miss Winters feels the strength of our outrage, she will be forced
to capitulate and humbly beg our forgiveness. She will be forced to retract every

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inflammatory statement and apologize for all these grotesque episodes and promise to never again have that type of person on her show. Nothing less will suffice.

The Reverend Jack Fellows smiled smugly as he looked at the sizeable check he held in his chubby fingers. That woman had certainly become a huge asset to his church in the last few weeks. True, she was extremely demanding; insist-ing on his declaiming against the content of the Olivia Winters Hour on his every television appearance, but if she kept sending this kind of donation, he was happy to oblige her. After all, it was the kind of fire and brimstone speech he was famous for, and what his followers wanted to hear.

He had made a name for himself, and a deal of money into the bargain, with his fiery condemnation of homosexuality, child molestation, pornography and drug abuse. According to Fellows, all of these sins went hand-in-hand.

Homosexuals were depraved child abusers who indulged in the vices of adult and child pornography while shooting up with all manner of drugs. He had become something of a must-watch guest on many talk shows. He would sit, his immense bulk filling every inch of his chair, his multiple chins wobbling as he shook his head with vehemence at every argument the talk show host would put to him.

No matter how many statistics they would throw at him to prove him wrong in his allegations, he would simply sit, smile, shake his head and utter his now famous Jack Fellows axiom: “The Lord knows I am right—and I am right with the Lord!” Oh, how his fans would whoop and applaud each time they heard those words—so clever of him to have come up with them.

He looked up as his wife appeared in the doorway. Christ, he thought with distaste, she looks like she’s been embalmed too early. Christina Fellows, approaching sixty, but dressed as someone much younger in what she liked to term her coquettish sense of fashion, frowned at him as she approached his desk, wobbling unsteadily on her high heels.

“Been at the bottle already?” he snapped at her. “We’ve got that Hastings woman coming round here at two this afternoon. She’s not gonna want to see you in your cups!”

“Fuck her,” his wife mumbled, slumping into a seat opposite him. “She doesn’t have to see me at all. She’s coming over here to rant about that goddam Olivia Winters again. That’s all she thinks about—she’s nuts if you ask me.”

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“She’s also immensely rich,” Jack said, waving the check he still held in front of his wife’s face. Christina smoothed the frilly ruffles of her blouse and belched loudly. Jack closed his eyes in distaste and sighed. What on earth was he going to do with her? he thought. She was becoming more and more of a liability. He opened his eyes and wished he hadn’t. His wife stared back at him, a bleary look of boredom on her overly rouged face. Her hair, dyed to an unbelievable shade of Lucille Ball red had been teased and tortured to an attempt at fullness he could see straight through. Her eyebrows had been plucked to oblivion and painted over to match her hair color. Her eyelids were wrinkled and puckered under the blue eye shadow that had been applied it seemed, with a trowel. Her mouth was a red gash. She looks like a clown, he thought—a bloated, drunken clown. She was the object of derision every time anything was ever written or said about her. She was his Achilles heel; there was no doubt of that. The press had dubbed her ‘Fellows’ Folly’.

Now, he grated his teeth in annoyance, as she seemed to fall asleep right in front of him. “Wake up, damn you!” he yelled at her in a fury. “Get up to your damned room if you’re going to pass out in the middle of the day. You’re a mess.”

She mumbled something he couldn’t understand, then lurching to her feet, she staggered to the door and left him alone again. Fellows drew in a deep breath and looked again at the check in his hand. This almost made up for everything else he had to put up in his life—almost. There was no doubt in his mind that he had to do something about his wife, before she ruined him. It wasn’t going to look good if he divorced her. He had to appear to be without sin before his followers. What then—an accident? A drunken fall—an over-dose? He tried to shut those thoughts from his mind. He really could not harm her—could he?

Patricia Hastings parked her Mercedes outside the Fellows’ mansion and walked up to the imposing entrance. She frowned with disapproval as she approached the solidly built oak and stained glass front door. It was not seemly for a man of the cloth to live in such luxury. In her opinion, men and women who served the Lord should live in more humble surroundings. They should not try to emulate the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church. Look where all that pomp and frippery had led their priests—into carnality and depravity.

Patricia shuddered at the thought of the houses of God being defiled by
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debauchery and perversion. It was up to her and this Jack Fellows to turn people to the true church, and to persuade them to stop supporting those who turned a blind eye to what was being perpetrated in the name of religion.

She tapped her foot with impatience as she waited for the door to be opened to her. Truth be told, she thought to herself as she waited, she was not completely comfortable in her association with the Reverend Fellows. He was not exactly what she had hoped for in a man of God. Too brash, too much the actor—and that wife of his was a disgraceful creature. So steeped in artifice and superficiality and, Patricia’s lips compressed into a tight line as she considered the most damning fault of all, she drank.

However, Jack Fellows had been the only one to respond to her letters condemning Olivia Winters for her lack of integrity in inviting such unwholesome people onto her show. She had written to dozens of church leaders of the past few months. Most of them had ignored her call to arms. Some had answered in careful and guarded language. A few had agreed with her, but had not offered any solution to the problem. Only Fellows had appeared to understand her dread of what was being purveyed over the airwaves and into unsuspecting people’s homes. He alone had heeded her call and was prepared to do battle with her against the depraved ones.

At last the door was flung open and Fellows’ large body loomed before her.

“Mrs. Hastings,
Patricia,
how good to see you again.” His smile was expansive, but never really reached his eyes. “Come in, come in.” He stepped aside and Patricia entered, acknowledging Fellows with a slight nod of her head.

“Did you receive my check, Reverend?”

“Indeed I did, my dear lady.” Fellows ushered her into his office. “It will go a long way to further the cause, I can assure you.”

“Are you receiving support from anyone else, or am I the only one willing to give in order to see this vulgarity ended?”

“Sadly, I must confess, Patricia, that you are our sole benefactor in this endeavor.” Fellows gave her a look of contrition as he spoke.

Patricia sighed as she took the seat Fellows offered her. “I guessed as much, of course. The people of this country are too complacent, too lazy, too self-satisfied to heed the warning signs of what is yet to come if we do not nip it in the bud.” She glared about her, then looked at Fellows through narrowing eyes. “I am relying on you, Reverend, to bring that woman to heel. On your next television appearance you will condemn her outright for her perversity, and encourage all her sponsors to withdraw from her show.”

“Um…well, Patricia…we have to tread carefully you know…”

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“No, Reverend!” Patricia jumped to her feet and leaned forward over Fellows’ desk, her eyes fixed on his. Her already pinched features grew sharper and her eyes narrowed to mere slits as she hissed; “We can no longer be careful.

She does not heed our warnings. She continues in this vile manner despite my letters of warning. She even had the audacity to have my son and slut of a daughter on her show. I consider that to be an insult I will not endure. She must be stopped. Either you do as I say, or I shall take back my check and find someone else to help me.”

“Now
now
, dear lady…calm yourself.” Fellows had become extremely uncomfortable on seeing the glint of insanity in Patricia’s eyes as she ranted at him. My God, he thought, Christina was right—she
is
nuts.

“I have been calm too long,” Patricia said, her voice cold and brittle. “See what it has brought me…
humiliation
. No, I won’t stay calm any longer. Can I count on you or not? Make up your mind before I leave—with or without that check.”

Fellows wiped the sweat from his brow as he nodded his agreement. “Very well, Patricia. It shall be as you ask. I have a guest spot on The Bible Today tomorrow night. I shall criticize Miss Winters and her show’s content then.”

“Not
criticize
, Reverend. Lambaste! Condemn! Tear her to shreds.
Ruin
her.”

“My dear,” Fellows murmured. “One has to be careful of libel you know…”

“How can the truth be libelous, Reverend?”

“Well…um…it’s how the truth may be perceived by others.”

“Nonsense. There is only one truth—God’s truth. And His condemnation will be terrible.” Her eyes narrowed to tiny slits as she stared at Fellows. “Not only on the depraved, Reverend Fellows, but on those who failed to put an end to it!”

Without realizing it, Fellows had shrunk back in his chair as if to avoid the madwoman’s wrath. Now he struggled to pull himself together. “Well, dear lady…I, ah…I will most definitely be most vocal about the unsavory aspects of her show…without a doubt…yes, indeed.”