Rivals (79 page)

‘You look beautiful,’ said Taggie nervously. ‘And what wonderful flowers.’

‘Where’s Daddy?’ demanded Maud. ‘He should have been here five minutes ago. Is he parking the car?’

Taggie took a deep breath, and was almost asphyxiated by the heady smell of fuchsias and jasmine. ‘I’m sorry, he missed the plane,’ she said. Then, as Maud opened her mouth to scream, ‘But he’ll be here for the end of the last act and the party. He didn’t mean to.’

Going into hysterical sobs, Maud put her hands up to her eyes and deliberately smeared the make-up all over her face, neck and shoulders. Taggie winced. It was like seeing the Mona Lisa slashed with a razor.

‘I don’t believe it,’ sobbed Maud. ‘He can’t do this to me. The one night I need him. He did it on purpose because he was jealous. He doesn’t like me having the limelight.’ Her voice rose to a screech. ‘I can’t go on, I can’t.’

Hearing the din, Monica rushed in wearing only her petticoat with one eye made up, demanding what was the matter.

‘You
must
go on,’ she said in a shocked voice. ‘Don’t be so jolly wet and selfish. They’re all coming to see you.’

‘He did it on purpose,’ screamed Maud, rocking backwards and forwards. ‘If it had been an act of God like an engine fault or fog I could have forgiven him, or even a crash.’

‘Oh don’t say that,’ said Taggie, turning pale.

‘And you can shut up,’ yelled Maud. ‘You and your father are just the same, never think of anything but your bloody work.’

‘That’s jolly unfair,’ said Monica.

There was something almost obscene about Maud’s daubed screaming face and neck, and her bare shoulders and breasts as the towel slipped downwards.

Monica yanked it up round her, tucking it in, as Barton burst in. But neither Monica’s rallying exhortations, nor Barton’s hair-tearing, nor Charles’s jokes could shift Maud. Finally they all lost their tempers and shouted at her like some operatic trio admonishing a wrong-doer, and Cameron, who’d heard a great deal too much in praise of Maud recently, was only too happy to make it a quartet when she arrived.

‘For Chrissake, Maud,’ she screeched, ‘you can’t let the cast and the audience down. Don’t be so fucking unprofessional.’

‘I’m not going on,’ Maud screamed back. ‘And why did Declan miss that plane?’

‘He went to see . . .’ began Cameron, then realizing she couldn’t mention Dermot MacBride in front of Monica who might tell Tony, ‘to see someone very important about the franchise.’

It was like a spark from the fire landing in a box of matches. Maud went berserk.

‘All he thinks about is his fucking franchise,’ she screamed, her face a shuddering grotesque coloured pulp of rage and misery, and, turning on her flowers, she started to tear them apart, pulling off the heads and then the petals and throwing them on the floor.

‘Shouldn’t we slap her face?’ said Cameron longingly.

‘Stop it, Maud,’ said Monica angrily. ‘That’s wanton and destructive.’

‘I don’t care,’ screamed Maud, ripping apart poor Taggie’s yellow roses.

In despair, Taggie went out into the passage and ran slap into Rupert, who was no doubt about to add his own particularly vicious brand of invective. Behind him members of the cast and the Corinium television crew were peering curiously out of doors and round corners.

‘Where is she?’ said Rupert grimly.

‘Oh, please. They’re all shouting at her. They don’t realize how frightened she is.’

Rupert paused, weighing up the options, then, like a wand fleetingly restoring her happiness, he touched Taggie’s cheek with his finger: ‘Go and get a large brandy, angel. I’ll sort her out. Shut up the lot of you,’ he yelled, as he went into the dressing-room.

‘We’ll have to play the understudy,’ said Barton despairingly, ‘even though she’s fifteen stone and about to draw her pension.’

The floor was entirely carpeted with petals now.

‘She won’t go on,’ said Cameron contemptuously.

‘I’m not surprised with you lot yelling at her,’ said Rupert. ‘Get out, everyone.’ And he slammed the door on them.

Rupert sat down on the bed and pulling Maud into his arms, gently stroking the silken shoulders, letting her cry, until gradually the sobbing and shuddering ceased.

‘There,’ said Rupert encouragingly. ‘There’s a brave girl.’

‘He wanted me to go to Ireland with them and play Maud Gonne,’ said Maud in a choked voice.

‘I know.’ Rupert went on stroking her.

‘I wanted to do it so badly, but I funked it. I didn’t want to fail again, particularly in front of Cameron. I’m sure she’s having an affair with Declan. I kept imagining them meeting secretly after a day’s shooting, and discussing how terrible I’d been.’

‘You’re a dick,’ said Rupert gently.

‘Declan fell in love with me the first time he saw me acting. I wanted him to fall in love with me all over again tonight.’

‘Declan adores you. He’s never looked at anyone else.’

‘Then why isn’t he here?’ Maud’s voice grew shrill again. For a second Rupert thought he’d lost her.

‘He went to see Dermot MacBride.’

‘
The
Dermot MacBride?’

Rupert nodded. ‘He’s written a new play. Declan felt if Venturer could tell the IBA we’d bought an option, it would really give us the edge.’

Maud quivered with rage. ‘I loathe the franchise,’ she said tonelessly.

‘Declan’s only obsessed with it because he sees it as the one way he’ll get you out of your financial mess. You don’t want to sell The Priory, do you?’

Maud shook her head violently: ‘Could it come to that?’

‘It almost has,’ said Rupert.

There was a knock on the door.

‘I don’t want to see anyone,’ said Maud hysterically.

Rupert wrapped the towel round her again. But it was only Taggie with an enormous brandy for Maud and an equally huge whisky for Rupert.

‘Thanks, sweetheart.’ He took them from her. ‘Now beat it.’

Maud took such a huge gulp that she choked. Rupert didn’t tell her he suspected Declan had deliberately missed the plane because his nerve had failed and he couldn’t bear seeing Maud humiliated. Nor did he say that the press were howling like jackals outside and that, if she didn’t go on, the publicity, with both her and Declan letting everyone down, would be devastating for Venturer.

‘I’m disappointed,’ he said idly. ‘I heard you practising at The Priory so often. I wanted to hear it for real, and see the others make absolute tits of themselves by comparison. Look, you’ve had a shock, why not get back into your jersey and jeans and finish that brandy.’

There was a long, long pause.

‘Better not,’ said Maud shakily, putting down her glass, ‘or I’ll start forgetting my words. I’d do better with a drop of oil to get me through all those skylarking bits.’

Rupert said nothing, but, reaching for the huge blue tin of cleansing cream, he took off the lid, gouged out a white blob and very slowly began to smear it over Maud’s face, blurring away the ravages.

‘How did you know to use that?’

‘I’ve watched enough actresses take their make-up off in my time.’

‘Most of mine’s come off on you,’ said Maud, suddenly contrite, as she noticed his hopelessly streaked evening shirt.

‘Treat it as war paint,’ said Rupert. ‘Later I’ll be doing battle with Tony.’

Docile as a child, Maud let him remove all the smeared make-up: ‘You won’t leave me?’

‘I’ll stay with you the entire evening, but I have to admit making up your face is beyond even my skills.’

Outside, Barton looked at his watch for the hundredth time. It was ten past seven. The press were howling for a decision. The understudy was already changed. If only he could make an announcement that the performance was starting late at least it would keep the audience happy.

‘If she weren’t going on,’ said Cameron, ‘Rupert would have come and told us.’

‘He was always good at boxing difficult horses,’ said Bas, who had changed into his stage clothes and was now raring to go in and comfort Maud.

As her door opened, everyone surged forward. Coming out, Rupert put a finger to his lips, then made a thumbs up sign: ‘Has anyone got any eyedrops?’

‘Mine are by appointment to the Queen Mother,’ said Monica, diving into her dressing-room to get them. ‘They jolly well make your eyes sparkle.’

RIVALS

Out in the foyer, Tony was now welcoming the Mayor and Mayoress and the Reverend Fergus Penney from the IBA, who was visiting Cotchester for the performance.

‘I have to warn you there may be hold-ups,’ purred Tony happily. ‘Declan O’Hara, who usually misses the boat, has missed the plane this time and failed to turn up on the night of his poor wife’s famous comeback. She’s gone to pieces and is refusing to go on, so the understudy is waiting in the wings. I’m afraid one really can’t rely on Venturer,’ he added to Fergus Penney, ‘but at least we can all pass the time pleasantly enough having a glass of champagne.’

Steering them through a door marked
Private
, he found his latest acquisition wearing a new black and gold dress to complement her newly streaked hair and getting stuck into the Bollinger.

‘Can I introduce Lizzie Vereker,’ said Tony warmly. ‘I told you she and James are fronting our new series to discourage the spread of AIDS: “How to Stay Married”, didn’t I, Fergus?’ he added to the Prebendary, who was now licking his thin lips at the sight of Lizzie’s curves.

‘Norman and I could give you a few tips on that,’ said the Mayoress. ‘We’re celebrating our forty-fifth next week.’

‘You must come on Lizzie’s programme then,’ said Tony, raising his glass. ‘Cotchester’s most distinguished married couple.’

I can’t bear it, thought Lizzie, allowing her glass to be filled up. In this dress she felt as though she’d been gift-wrapped at Harrods. She longed to get out into the foyer and see if Freddie had arrived. Because of James’s new uxoriousness and a general tightening up of security, she and Freddie had only managed to talk on the telephone this week.

Outside in the auditorium Sarah Stratton was spinning out the signing of autographs. Anything not to be trapped in the middle of the second row with Paul and thus not able to accost James as he came past. James, absolutely livid at being mistaken for the manager by some enraged theatregoer whose seats had been double-booked, was now trying to explain the extremely complicated plot of
The Merry Widow
to the viewers.

The Bishop, mingling with his flock and pressing the flesh, misconstrued Freddie’s abstractedness as animosity and wondered darkly whether Rupert had passed on his remarks about Freddie being a rough diamond.

As the five-minute bell went, Tony glanced at his watch. Seven thirty-five. Bugger, they were hardly going to be late at all. At least they could rely on the understudy to be perfectly awful.

‘I think we’d better find our seats,’ he said.

Charles, wearing pantaloons so tight he felt he was standing inches above the ground, peered through a chink in the thick Prussian-blue velvet curtains, as he and Monica and the chorus, all in evening dress, waited in the wings to go on.

‘It’s absolutely packed,’ he reported in a hollow voice. ‘People are standing at the back and in the side aisles. The première of “The Messiah” in Dublin was such a sell-out that the men were told to leave off their swords. Pity that people weren’t frisked at the door today. I bet your husband’s carrying a long knife, Monica dear. No, it’s no use looking reproving, he’s given me the bullet, I can say what I like,’ and, turning, he stuck a rather green tongue out through the curtains as Tony came in.

Taggie helped Maud pile up her hair with two
diamanté
combs and zipped her into her slinky black ball dress. Then, leaving Rupert and Bas to do up her jewellery, she slipped into her seat. There were only two empty seats between her and Cameron, but they should have been inhabited by Rupert and Declan, so the gap seemed wider than the Atlantic. Judging by Cameron’s set profile it was obvious that she was seething because Rupert wasn’t beside her, particularly as a smirking Tony had just rolled up with the Mayor and was sitting directly behind them.

Cameron was seething even more that, after not seeing her for three months, Tony should catch her when she’d only had a few minutes to change and hadn’t showered or washed her hair. She was wearing the smoking jacket which Taggie’d tipped dessert over last year and which didn’t evoke very happy memories either. It definitely needed clean hair and very dramatic make-up to carry it off. She felt horribly butch. Dame Enid, who was conducting the orchestra in a dinner jacket, had been giving her some very hot looks, but at least she didn’t look as awful as Taggie, who must have lost a stone and was wearing a dreadful brown dress that was just the wrong length and made her look completely flat-chested.

There was a gap on Taggie’s left too. Where the hell was Caitlin? wondered Taggie. She’d arrived by taxi half an hour ago and, despite promising to behave, had promptly disappeared.

All round, Taggie could hear the roar and sizzle of anticipation as the lights went out and the orchestra started. The cameramen, who’d been forced into dinner jackets by Tony, took up their positions behind their cameras, the soundmen made a final check of the microphones, as Caitlin, apologizing profusely, clambered along an irritated row of people and collapsed panting by Taggie’s side.

‘Do up the buttons of your shirt,’ said Taggie furiously. In the row behind, from the other side, having kicked the Mayoress in the varicose veins and trodden on the Prebendary’s bunions, the Hon Archie, the bow of his black tie under his left ear, collapsed panting beside a bootfaced Tony.

Next moment Tony’s bootfaced expression turned to one of apoplexy: ‘How dare you wear a made-up tie?’ he hissed, as the Prussian-blue velvet curtains creaked back on the Pontevedrian Embassy in Paris. The Ambassador was giving a ball, and the guest of honour about to arrive was the Merry Widow.