Geek Tragedy (21 page)

‘Oh, Mervyn, you are so naïve. Why do you think I didn’t return for series three?’

‘Oh right. Oh.
Right
. I thought you were worried about typecasting.’

‘Darling, that was my cover story! Actors leaving parts because they’re worried about typecasting is a bigger myth than the Loch Ness monster! Surely all the years you’ve done telly you’ve realised that? No one leaves a part for “typecasting worries” unless they’re some crazed bint from Sylvia Young whose daddy owns most of Norfolk.’

‘So what about your daughter? What’s the problem?’

Something appeared on Vanity’s face that he’d never seen before. He realised it was embarrassment. ‘I…never told my daughter from what circumstances she’d popped…’

‘What circumstances were those?’

‘Um… Have you had a chance to read my autobiography yet?’

‘Only a bit of Chapter 13.’

‘That’s all you need to read.’

Mervyn’s mouth opened and closed involuntarily. ‘Ah.’

‘Perhaps you’d better finish it.’

There were a good half-dozen copies of
Vixen to Fly
on the desk. She threw him one. He sat down on the bed, and dutifully read the rest of Chapter 13.

As soon as they’d gone, I thought I’d be able to escape. Unfortunately, Bernard Viner came into the room.

I’d never given him much thought before, because he wasn’t much of a blip on the old Mycroft radar (I don’t notice back-room boys unless they are pert and pretty and Bernard—well, Bernard just wasn’t, take it from me). Bernard was the guy who made all those bits and bobs on the set, he designed the monsters (probably got most of his inspiration looking in a mirror—rreow!) He also did the special effects—he was in charge of the on-set bangs and flashes (perhaps we had more in common than I realised!).

He took all the bits of the little Styrax out, one at a time; he took such a long time to load up his car! Then he came back, keys jangling in his hand. He was going to lock up the big Styrax—with me in it!

‘Hoi! Stop!’ I hollered, as I heard the keys turn in the lock.

He was very suspicious. Of course, he asked me what I was doing in there!

‘I’m looking for my contact lens,’ I said sweetly.

And he believed me. Of course you, dear reader, as my adoring fan, know I’ve got perfect vision, but he didn’t know. He was completely fooled. Not much of a detective, not like my mate Mervyn Stone! (see Chapter 23).

Poor Bernard!

So I left the set with my dignity intact, and everyone packed everything away ready for the next season. But I couldn’t stay on for the next season—for a very good reason! It was nine months after that fateful day that I heard the patter of tiny feet—and I don’t mean having Smurf back for a rematch! I mean my darling daughter came into the world.

I won’t deny it, I was worried in the weeks and months before she arrived—I did a bit of reading, and it turned out there was a 50% chance of my child developing dwarfism, or, as it’s charmingly called in the books, achondroplasia, with all the bone, breathing and heart problems that go with it (I mean for God’s sake, I wonder if these boffins realised how tactless they were being—giving a syndrome that affects short people such a long name?!).

Anyway, can you imagine what I was going through? The knowledge that your baby might not be ‘normal’? I’m sure it’s the worst ever agony for any woman. Certainly puts the odd leg wax and a few days of tummy ache every month into perspective, I can tell you. Not that I would have done anything about it! Oh dear lord, no. My miserable Catholic upbringing might be long gone, reduced to crossing myself before a doing a take and a residual fetish for dog collars, but there was nothing on heaven or earth that would have made me even think about getting rid of my little darling. Even so, the scan that told me everything was normal came as a blessed relief.

I now have a fantastic daughter, who means everything to me, and it’s to her I dedicate this book.

End of chapter.

Mervyn closed the book.

‘You see, I didn’t tell her about any of that. When she was a little girl I spun her a romantic yarn about me being raped by a long-dead legend of the theatre during the Edinburgh Fringe.’

‘I see.’

‘You do?’

‘This long-dead legend of the theatre being alive at the time, of course. Because you do hear stories about theatrical ghosts…’

Mervyn ducked as a shoe sailed past his head. ‘Mervyn! It isn’t easy for me to talk about this!’

‘Sorry.’ Leaving aside Vanity’s idea of what constituted ‘romantic’, Mervyn pressed on. ‘So you preferred not to tell her the truth? That’s not like you.’

‘Well, she was so young and starry-eyed. She reminded me of me when I was young.’

The mental image of the thin-faced girl in the cardigan swam into Mervyn’s brain. He found it hard to imagine that Vanity could look at her and say ‘Yes, I was once like that’.

Vanity continued. ‘Anyway I left it at that. There never seemed to be the right time to say “By the way, darling, remember I told you that you were the product of me being ravished by a knight of the theatre when he was Malvolio to my Olivia? Actually I was being mauled by a midget in the back of a Mini Metro.”’ She sighed, and glided to the window.

It was obvious that being honest was not a condition Vanity was used to. Without a performance to sustain it, her face sagged. Little pouches of skin appeared on the sides of her mouth, and her upper lip puckered like an over-ripe tomato. If anything, the little signs of ageing and imperfections made her more attractive, not less.

‘I see your problem. So Simon Josh knew and turned the screws? “Dazzle at my conventions or I spill the beans to little Miss Mycroft”—that kind of thing?’

‘Exactly darling. That kind of thing. He didn’t know exactly when it happened and who slammed the door on my bun-filled oven, but he knew for certain that I didn’t get pregnant when I said it happened. And he made certain that I knew he knew. He was a worm, darling; but the thing about worms is they know how to dig. All those fans, they know so much and have so many ways of finding out—it’s so difficult to keep things from them.’

‘Oh yes. I know that.’

Vanity continued. ‘He knew everything there was to know about the show, and he used that knowledge. He had all the trivia; names, locations, dates, stored in his head like a computer… He took an anecdote here, an off-the cuff remark there… He put them together, and suddenly he’s ringing me up at
home
, darling, and I start getting offers I can’t refuse. Oh, it’s not blackmail in the strictest sense. Nothing the little bastard can be arrested for, it’s more subtle and insidious than that…’ She put her hand to her ear to represent a phone, and aped Simon’s nasal voice. ‘“Vanity darling, I’ve got a little thing going on in Newcastle, and I wonder if I could trouble you…” Every damn convention and event I had to attend
for him
. And I was paid a bloody pittance. The little shit.’ She blew air out of her cheeks. ‘Anyway, that’s all over now. I decided to end it.’

‘How did you “end it”?’

Vanity looked surprised. ‘That’s what the autobiography’s for, darling!’

‘Your book? It seems a bit drastic, to tell your daughter in a book.’

Vanity’s panda-eyes widened in disgust. ‘What do you take me for, Mervy? The book was my ultimatum to myself. It was just to help me—to
force
me—to set the record straight. I told my darling girl
everything
before we came to this convention—
and
I told her about Simon and his little blackmail scheme.’ She grinned savagely. ‘After all my fears, you wouldn’t believe how easy it was! I wish I’d done it years ago. My little girl wasn’t bothered, in fact she was more angry on my behalf about the blackmail. She was all for caving Simon’s head in with something sharp…’

Oh really?

‘She was furious darling. Really. She’s such a feisty girl. She sort of lost herself and sent Simon some very angry letters…’

Death threats.

‘…But that’s not important now. It’s all over now, in the past.’

‘And did you think to expose Simon’s blackmail in the book?’

‘The lawyers wouldn’t allow it, darling. Anyway, Simon was very clever. As I said, it was all innuendo, all open to interpretation…’

Mervyn remembered the letter he’d got yesterday. Nothing in it was too obvious. The words could have been interpreted as a friendly ‘hiya’ and an opening for negotiations for the next convention fee. Very clever of him.

Vanity stood up, and her mask slid back on. ‘Anyway. Regrets, I’ve had a few and all that…’ She resumed stuffing her suitcase.

‘Wait a minute… You can’t go…’

‘Why not, darling? I’ve thought very hard about it all morning—ever since I picked you up from the station. There’s nothing to keep me here. I’m collecting my daughter, and I’m leaving.’

Mervyn was desperate. He had a new chief suspect, and she was being taken away by her mother. Right now. He had to do something.

‘You can’t go. What about me?’ he heard a voice saying. He was shocked to find the voice was his.

‘You, darling?’ her face emerged from behind a pile of knickers.

‘Yes. Ahm… It’s a very big hotel in the middle of nowhere…’

She sashayed towards him. Mervyn found that he was being impaled against the wall by the points of her breasts.

‘Look…’ he said, ‘there’re no places to eat, no nice pubs around here. It would be unbearable to stay here without… Another friendly face.’

‘Are you saying…that you would miss me, darling?’ She started to absent-mindedly run her fingernail down his face, following the line of the bruise on his jaw. ‘Are you saying you’ll feel all lonesome without me here?’

Mervyn fastened a smile to his face. ‘Now Vanity…darling… I don’t even have to answer that, do I?’

‘Well in that case… I think I might be…persuaded to stay…’

Mervyn’s spirit wilted as he felt her arms encircle his waist. He was so damn tired. He’d been thrown off a stage, dragged to a police station, dragged back, trapped inside a Styrax, nearly burnt to death, forced to have sex twice in one night… And now…

Oh God
.

The things he was prepared to do for this investigation…

There was a knock at the door.

The spell broken, Mervyn and Vanity stared at each other, dumbfounded.

There was another knock; louder, heavier.

‘Oh my God!’ Vanity hissed. ‘It’s my daughter! She can’t find you in here!’

‘What? Why not?’

‘Think, darling! Think! She’s already coming to terms with me putting out for a midget! I can’t show her that the moment I arrive at a convention I start diving into bed with every Tom, Dick and Harry!’

‘Thank you very much!’

‘You know what I mean! She’s got a temper on her that could stop a rhino! You have to hide!’ She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and forced him to the floor. ‘Quick! Under the bed!’

Mervyn’s head thudded against the bottom of the bed, and he howled in pain.

‘Vanity! There’s no gap under here! It’s all bed!’

There was another knock. Very hard. It was very forceful—more an attempt to batter down the door.

That’s her daughter?

‘The wardrobe!’

She grabbed his collar, hauled him up and shoved him towards the wardrobe, opening the doors and pushing him in with one smooth movement. The doors slammed in his face, missing his large nose by millimetres.

Mervyn looked through the slats. Vanity had already composed herself, hair immaculate and ragged make-up removed. She was spreading a beatific smile of innocence across her face. It was beautifully done, he thought. A consummate performance. It seemed as though the years she’d spent appearing in grotty touring sex farces as her star power dwindled hadn’t been wasted. She opened the door.

It wasn’t her daughter.

‘Why little man,’ she trilled. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure…again?’

Smurf pushed angrily past her and prowled across the room. He paced backwards and forwards feverishly, always with his eyes fixed on her, like a small yappy dog waiting for his owner to take him for a walk.

‘Right. Let’s have this out. Now.’

‘Well
there’s
an offer a lady can’t refuse.’

‘Oh shut up. You bloody know what I mean.’

Mervyn saw Vanity sit back on the bed, stretch her arm across the headboard and pose languidly. It wasn’t just the hair and make-up that had been repaired. Gone was the emotionally damaged and rather vulnerable woman that just confessed her sins to Mervyn. She’d regrown her hard outer shell; her voice was once again the bored, affected drawl, the eyes now dry and flinty, mouth beautiful and full, ready to chew up and spit out anyone who inspired her displeasure.

‘I want that libel out of your book. You’re ruining my reputation.’

‘Enhancing it, darling, enhancing it, surely. It’s not as if I said you were rubbish…’ The lighter flicked open again and another cigarette was produced. ‘After all, you did very well in my league table in the appendix.’

‘It’s not true and you know it!’

He started pacing furiously again, this time next to the wardrobe. Mervyn could see his head bobbing back and forth. Now Smurf went purple. ‘And your daughter’s been following me about the convention again…’

‘Our
daughter, darling…’

‘Stop it!’

‘You can’t blame her for trying to get to know her father, sweetheart…’

‘
Stop it!
’ Smurf was literally hopping up and down with rage. ‘How can you lie to her like this? I’ve seen her watching me, looking daggers at me, all because of
you.
First thing this morning I opened the curtains, and who could I see out my window, staring up at me from the car park? I’ve been getting notes pushed under my door…

‘She’s upset her father is ignoring her, darling.’

‘But… It’s… Not… Bloody… TRUE!’ Smurf clapped his hands to his head and howled. He looked like a cartoon character who’d failed to catch the canary and blown himself up into the bargain. If he had a hat, he would have thrown it to the floor and jumped on it. ‘She’s going to do something she’s gonna regret, and it’s gonna be your fault. It’s freaking Katherine out. She and me, we were happy. We were getting along great until she got wind of what you’d put in your book.’