Dinsdale, who was sitting across the table, gave me a sympathetic look and offered me a cigarette, which I took, though I did not usually smoke.
“Please do not smoke next to me,” said Corinna.
The evening had not started well. Oliver had not arrived to meet me. Instead he had sent a driver in a hat, who told me that Oliver was running late in the studio and would meet me at the Grosvenor House. I had twenty minutes of horror in the celebrity-stuffed foyer. People were staring at me, but I knew it was with pity because of the insane dress. It was Dinsdale who rescued me again. When he caught hold of my arm I had been to the ladies’ twice, stared at the seating plan for eight minutes, pretending it took that long to find “Oliver Marchant and Guest.” Only then did it occur to me that Oliver must have known he needed a date for this occasion weeks ago. Could it be that I was a last-minute fill-in? Had some other girl dropped out? Some beautiful, accomplished critic perhaps, an authority on the death of Essentialism in the Mittel-European novel, with a bottom like two snooker balls.
An old stand-up comic, Jimmy Horsham, had started talking to me and wouldn’t go away. The fact that he had a room in the Grosvenor House for the night had already come up several times. When Dinsdale appeared he slunk off sheepishly.
“My darling, my darling. Whatever are you doing with that filthy old bore? Whatever can he be thinking of? Preposterous idea. Come along, come along. Let’s go and nibble at the canapés. I’m trying to avoid Barry,” he whispered confidentially. Barry Rhys was another theatrical legend, and Dinsdale’s best friend. “He’s got that absolute sea elephant of a wife with him. Who are you here with? Is it that dirty old devil Ginsberg?”
“No. I’m with Oliver Marchant,” I said, happily.
“But wherever is he, my darling? Why has he left you here to be prrrrryed on?” Dinsdale stared at me ferociously, his brows almost covering his eyes in consternation.
“He’s late in the studio.”
“No, my darling. No no no. He is over there, look,” said Dinsdale, concern oozing from every facial feature.
I felt a stab of hurt. There was Oliver, dark-suited and tieless, sharing a joke with Corinna Borghese—well, telling a joke more like. He was leaning over her, waving a hand expressively. Corinna was staring straight ahead, with an indulgent half-smile playing on her lips. Dinsdale caught hold of my hand and started pulling me along towards them.
“There he is, my darling. Come along. We’ll soon have you sorted out.” I felt like a child whose parent hadn’t turned up at school to pick her up.
Oliver looked startled for a second when he saw me. “Rosie. Hi, how are you? I was looking for you.” He smiled, and bent to kiss me. The scent of him brought heady thoughts of the night of passion, but Oliver gave no sign that he remembered. “Do you know Corinna Borghese?” he said.
“Nice to meet you,” I said. I was getting the hang of Famous Club introductions now.
“Thank you,” said Corinna.
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“So how are you?” said Oliver.
“I’m fine, how are you?”
“Fine.”
That was about the level of it.
An hour later everyone was seated for dinner and I was praying Oliver wouldn’t look across at me and see that I was failing to talk to anyone. He looked across at me, and saw that I was failing to talk to anyone. I tried to smile but it was a most unnatural smile. It felt like the smile of a devil child, with bits of bread roll in the teeth and yellow eyes.
“You OK?” he mouthed. I nodded gaily, and decided I’d better have another go with Corinna.
“Well, this looks nice,” I said brightly, looking at the menu. It offered Gravlax, Chicken in Its White Wine and Cream Sauce with Its Ravioli, or Fresh Tuna Steak with Pommes Parmentière, followed by White Chocolate Mousse in Its Sugar Cage.
“Pommes Parmentière—I suppose that means instant mashed potato,” I said.
“This is utterly ridiculous,” said Corinna.
I thought she meant having to sit next to me.
“A vegetarian cannot eat this meal. Where is the waiter?”
“Do you not eat fish?” I said. “There’s tuna.”
“Tuna?” she said with venom, looking at me incredulously. “You do know what happens when they catch tuna, don’t you? You’ve heard about the dolphins?”
Our conversation did not improve. It was a relief when, as the last of the Sugar Cages were being cleared away, the big TV lights snapped on. The assembled celebrities rustled, swelled and settled themselves like a flock of pigeons. I was thrilled. I had watched these occasions so often at home on the television, and now I was here. There were trumpets, there was a shouty announcement, more trumpets, and a short fat floor manager, wearing an earpiece and a lot of electrical equipment strapped to his bottom, started clapping his hands bossily in the air while bending his chin onto his chest and talking into a microphone. Everyone applauded obediently. Noel Edmonds strode onto the platform and stood behind a lectern, motioning us to stop clapping.
Meanwhile a thin dark young man with glasses had come up to Corinna.
“Hi. How are you?” he said in a low, confidential voice, kissing her, his eyes darting around the room.
“. . . is someone who has been delighting audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for many years . . .” went Noel Edmonds.
“Dire, isn’t it? Have you spoken to Michael? Howard’s over there. Jonathan’s going to get it. Definitely. Just going to talk to Jean-Paul about his intro.”
“I’ll come with you. I’m not staying here if he’s going to go up and get it. Blatantly sexist,” said Corinna, and stood up and left.
*
The applause was just beginning to die down after the director’s acceptance speech for the Best Drama.
“Great. Fucking great,” muttered Bill Bonham. “He thanks the writers, he thanks the lighting cameraman, he thanks his fucking wife, and then, only then, he thinks of mentioning me. Great. I only played the fucking lead. I mean, great. Thanks.”
The Lord taketh away even as he giveth. Our table of resentment seethed and sizzled with those blessed, as if by a laying on of hands, with riches and fame, yet blighted by bitterness at those who got a bigger share.
Onstage, Vicky Spankie, a young RSC actress, was accepting her Best Actress Award. She was slight, extremely pretty, with dark hair cut in a bob, and was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. She had recently been all over the tabloids after her marriage to a rain forest Indian.
“You give, and you give, and you give, and you give, and all the time this terrible fear is eating away at you, and you want to shout, ‘Look, I am human. I am afraid,’” she was explaining.
“Oh, puh-lease,” said Corinna, who had decided to come back, and had maneuvered herself into the seat next to Oliver.
Vicky Spankie was still going on.
“I wonder if something really kind of spiritual could happen here? Where we could all think for a moment and send some kind of waves of love and sanity out to the Brazilian government, who are allowing, every single day, thousands of acres of forest to be cut.”
On the big screen above her, which showed the live TV output, the shot cut to the husband, Rani, back at the table looking bewildered. Instead of tribal robes now, he was wearing black tie, but he still had the disk in his bottom lip. In the interview I’d read, the reporter had asked Vicky if Rani took the disk out at night, which had not gone down at all well.
“Come on up, Rani, this is for you too,” she was saying. The bemused Rani was being pushed towards the stage, helped up the steps by a young lovely in a glittery sheath. Then everyone was getting to their feet, giving Rani a standing ovation.
Vernon Briggs had grabbed the fat floor manager’s microphone and was talking into it in a low furious voice. “Get her to shut up,” he was saying. “Marcus, get the Indian off the stage and get her to shut up now. Get the stupid tart to shut up. We are one hour and forty minutes
over, Marcus. Get the Indian off the stage now.”
Just then the cameraman came to our table and started to focus on Oliver, which meant that Best Arts Program was coming up. Corinna leaned towards him into the shot. For a fleeting second, I saw him look furious, then he started talking to Corinna in a low voice. Corinna was biting one side of her bottom lip and kept looking up at the camera.
The image on the big screen cut to the Best Arts Program logo. Vicky Spankie’s microphone was cut, and a girl holding a script hurried over to her, ushering her and Rani apologetically off the stage. Vicky put her head in the air, and swept towards the exit, with Rani following her, clutching the award and beaming, as far as it was possible with the disk in his lip. As she passed our table, he caught her arm. “Oh, sod off, you stupid fuckbrain,” I heard her mutter under her breath.
Oliver and Corinna were tense. The last of the clips from the four nominations was running. Kevin Garside, a folk singer with a skinhead cut, was performing miners’ protest songs. They were his own compositions performed to his own tambourine accompaniment. He was being watched by a group of Guatemalan peasants in a hut, wearing expressions of polite embarrassment.
The red light came on from the camera opposite Oliver. Onstage, Ian McKellen was opening the envelope. The screen was divided in quarters. In one of them was Oliver with a relaxed smile, and Corinna still biting her lip.
“And the winner of Best Arts Program is Sof—”
On the screen I saw Corinna breaking into a smile, and just beginning to rise from her seat.
“—Sofama Kuwayo for The Dispossessed, a Lament.”
Oliver’s smile stayed till the light behind the camera clicked off.
Onstage, Sofama Kuwayo had taken his award and was finishing his speech: “. . . in your Audis, your Mercs, your BMWs, spare a thought for those, many of them younger than your own kids, without homes to go to. It’s their words, their experience, the poetry of their lives which created that program. This award is for them.”
“Well, you made a prat of yourself there, Corinna, didn’t you?” said Oliver.
About half an hour later we were making our way to Pizza on the Piazza in a little group made up of a studiedly modest Bill Bonham, Corinna and someone called Rats, who was apparently the bass player in the group EX Gap, a still-tearful Vicky Spankie, minus Rani, a comedian called Hughie Harrington-Ellis, and lastly Oliver, with his arm around me.
“Oy, Hughie,” a group of boys yelled from a traffic island, “abso-bloody-lootely.” This was one of Hughie’s many catch phrases. “Ab-sobloodylutely,” went the boys. Hughie gave them a gritted-teeth smile and a wave.
“This must happen to you all the time,” I said.
“Oh, no,” said Hughie dryly. “First time it’s ever happened to me.”
In the restaurant everyone turned to stare. All the tables were full, but the management somehow managed to move some kids and make them split up and share on three other tables. Within minutes we were all sitting together at their table with the waiters flapping around us.
“Oh, God, this is so embarrassing. It must happen to you all the time. You don’t mind, mate, do you?” said a young boy, shoving a bit of paper under Hughie’s nose.
“Of course I don’t,” said Hughie, adding under his breath, “you little tit.”
Vicky was signing a photograph, which she just happened to have in her handbag, for the waiter.
A girl came up to Bill Bonham. “I’m sorry, would you mind? This must happen to you all the time.”
I was praying for someone to come and ask Oliver, because I could feel him descending into gloom again. Then, thank God, another pair of girls appeared and asked Oliver to sign their menu. “Sorry, you’ll have to get used to this,” said Oliver smiling smugly.
There was a commotion at the door and Terence Twinkle burst in. “Hi, everyone,” he shouted across to our table. “God, it’s a nightmare out there. Why can’t anyone leave me alone?” He was wearing a floor-length white mink coat.
CHAPTER Six
It was twelve-thirty when we turned the jeep into the gates of the compound. Malcolm’s Land Cruiser was already there, plastered in stickers. A small procession was making its way towards the latrine unit. The procession was headed by Betty, dressed in pink, who was gesturing and laughing beneficently as if hosting a royal visit. Our team had all changed into their best clothes—ludicrously garish pantomime outfits: dresses, shirts and harem pants with brightly colored spots and stripes, run up by the tailors in the camp. Malcolm was wearing a yellow T-shirt and a hat, which looked as though it had something stupid written on it. And next to him, looking away from Betty and across to the camp, was the new doctor, who was of medium height and dressed in dull colors.
At the sound of our vehicle the whole procession slowly turned round and stared accusingly. Sian appeared from the cabana as we climbed out. “I told them there was probably a bit of a crisis down at the hospital,” she said conspiratorially. “I think they’re all fine only, well, Betty . . .”
There then followed a rather awkward moment as Henry, Sian and I walked across to the latrine procession, with no one quite knowing what to do except smile fixedly. Fortunately, Henry’s breeding carried us through. “Malcolm, dear boy!” he started bellowing as we approached. “Great to see you! Hi! You must be the new doctor, great to see you, great! Great to have some more old buggers around the place to dilute the totty.”
By this time we had reached the group, but Henry was still on autowitter. “Sorry not to be here to give you the old welcoming committee—bit of an old blood bag crisis down the black hole of Calcutta.”
The new doctor looked somewhat taken aback. He seemed pleasant, but dull. Pity.
“Hi,” he said mildly. “Robert O’Rourke.” His voice was unusually deep and sounded as though it was coming from a long way away.
“Henry Montague, marvelous,” Henry was bellowing, meanwhile shaking hands energetically. “Great to have you on board. And this is our great white memsahib—Rosie,” said Henry. “I know she looks like a sex object but she’s really very strict.”
“Strict but fair, I hope,” said O’Rourke.
“You mustn’t mind Henry,” said Sian. “It’s his upbringing.”
The ice was broken now. For all his absurdity, Henry understood what good manners really mean.
“Nice to have you here,” I said. “Malcolm, nice to see you.”
Malcolm did his silly teeth-together beam, and waved both hands on either side of his head.
“Have you and Dr. O’Rourke had something to drink?” I asked.
“Well, no, we rather thought Doctor might like to have a good nosey round,” Betty interrupted. “After all, this is going to be home sweet home for our new friend for quite some time.” She lowered her voice. “Actually, Malcolm, when you have a moment I really would like to have a little chinwag.”
The doctor was looking at Betty intently. There was something rather purposeful about him.
He looked at me and gestured towards the camp. “This is a beautiful place.” Bewdaful. I couldn’t place his accent.
“Very beautiful,” I said. Then I looked down and saw his white socks. Ugh.
O’Rourke walked with a slight limp. As Linda took him off to his hut, I tried to look at his leg discreetly without him seeing. Perhaps it was a wooden one. Apart from his medical bag, he seemed to have just one canvas holdall, like an overnight bag. It seemed like traveling light taken to ridiculous extremes considering he was here for two years. I hoped he wasn’t going to start wanting to borrow everyone else’s shampoo.
The rest of the team were looking so clean and smart that I thought I’d better sort myself out. I went to my hut and glanced in the little mirror hanging above my desk, which is something I rarely did. I remember it because that was the moment when I saw, apart from my red nose and mad hair, the first line on my face, just beginning, heading from the edge of my nose down to the corner of my mouth. It must have been th
e light at that time of day which caught it. It gave me a shock. I always thought that aging should happen the other way round. Life would be so much more optimistic if you began it as a wrinkly old crone and became younger, more vibrant and beautiful as the years rolled by, secure in the knowledge that at the end of your life someone would be happy to play with you, change your nappy and push you round in a pram till you turned back into an egg. Trying to push unpleasant existential thoughts to the back of my mind, I stepped out into the hot light and headed for the cabana.
The lunch was over and there was a scene of intense absorption, furious tearing of envelopes, silent, urgent reading. It was hard to overestimate the importance of the mail in Safila, the arrival of a letter, or its nonappearance, could bring about massive mood swings. I looked around and saw that neither Betty nor Malcolm was there. She was probably lecturing him about the Teeth of the Wind. I had better make sure she didn’t put him off. With some self-control, I ignored the small pile of mail, including a parcel which was for me, and stepped outside.
Betty looked up guiltily as I approached. “I know Rosie will say I’m a silly old moo,” she said, “but, Malcolm, I really do think it is beholden on us to respond.”
Something peculiar happened to Betty’s vowels when she was showing off. Beheowlden, respund.
Malcolm already looked desperate to get away from Betty’s re- spunses. He required delicate handling. He was efficient, so long as everything was logged and predictable: which simply wasn’t the way things worked here. He also had the sort of mind which loved to walk in very slow circles around things, looking at them without getting too close.
“Has Betty explained to you about the rumors?” I asked him.
“Yes, yes. It’s, er, I have heard something of this in Sidra. It’s an interesting development. I think we must wait and see, er, see what develops.” Sidra was the nearest town, where there was a UN office, and telephones that worked on odd occasions.
“Well, the thing is if it does develop, it’ll happen so fast we won’t be able to deal with it. We’re short on stocks anyway. You know the UN have told us we can’t have the delivery? Do you know when this ship’s going to arrive?”
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