Holly Lester

by Andrew Rosenheim

  Eventually they came to Regent’s Park, then out onto Regent’s Park Road. Billings saw horses and tape blocking the road ahead with two police cars drawn sideways across both sides of the street. ‘Christ I forgot,’ the driver said. ‘That’s where Harry Lester lives. I’ll have to go round the other way.’

  ‘I’ll get out here,’ Billings announced. ‘I can walk.’

  He paid off the driver and moved slowly towards the sticky tape cordons that obstructed the pavements. A pack of journalists holding notebooks and cameras was hovering impatiently on his side of the barrier, like an itchy swarm of flies kept out by a screen door. He worked his way through them and came to a stop in front of a young policewoman. ‘Mrs Lester is expecting me inside,’ he said.

  ‘I bet she is,’ a hack standing next to him jeered, and Billings briefly blushed until he realized the man meant nothing by his remark – he was drunk. The policewoman made him wait while she motioned to another bobby standing in front of the Lesters’ front door. He in turn knocked and the large black woman Billings knew as Mrs Diamond came out. The policeman whispered, she looked up and spied Billings in the journalistic mob, then nodded, almost reluctantly he thought. As he walked through the line the journalists behind him fell silent, and two flash guns went off.

  Mrs Diamond stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. For a moment Billings thought she wasn’t going to let him in. ‘Company’s on the right,’ she said tersely, moving aside, and he walked into the grim room where he had first encountered Holly in her own house – when? Only two months before, but it seemed like years now.

  The folding chairs were gone, and people stood holding pints of beer, some smoking. They were mainly men, who wore cheap suits or bulky tweed jackets. Almost half of them were at the far end of the room, grouped around a television set that shared the surface of a long pine table with large party tins of bitter and a few bowls of peanuts and crisps. The French doors were open, and Billings could hear noise from more people in the garden outside.

  He worked his way towards the table, took a plastic cup, and for lack of anything better to drink, poured some warm Watneys out of a large drum. Turning, he found a podgy man with a red face stabbing a finger at his chest. ‘Who’d have thought it?’ asked the man, in what Billings saw right away, was a rhetorical fashion. ‘To think that I, Stanley Wells, son of a Scunthorpe glazier, would be drinking in the next Prime Minister’s home. What do you make of that then?’

  Far less than you, Billings was tempted to say but only smiled weakly. He looked around for a familiar face but found none. To his left against the side wall of the room, a middle aged blonde woman, wearing a tight t-shirt and black trousers, suddenly shimmied and shook in a sudden improvised dance. ‘Oh yeah! Oh yeah!’ she shouted, while a little man in glasses stared at her nipples bobbing up and down. ‘Old Labour, New Labour,’ the man Stanley was explaining. ‘It’s all the same party to the country. I’ve waited twenty years for this,’ he shouted as cheers went up from the crowd around the television set.

  ‘Excuse me a minute,’ said Billings, and went over to the French doors, thinking things might be better outside. The smokers were huddled there in earnest, their smoke going up like furtive white signals in the mild summer air. Further down the garden he saw odd couplings on the grass. Surely not here, he thought to himself, and stepping down out of curiosity walked closer. The couplings seemed to be moving closer; suddenly he realized he was watching a race of two wheelbarrow acts, two men stumping along the lawn on their hands while their partners laughed and struggled to keep hold of their legs.

  He had still to see a single person he recognized. Returning inside, he finally found a familiar face in a heavy-set man who wore a black pin-stripe suit. He was grinning widely, and shaking the hands of anyone walking by. Billings suddenly realized this was the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister, now coming out of the shadows as it were.

  Behind this man a small figure emerged from the door and began pointing and gesturing at Billings. It was Carrie the nanny, beckoning him, and he worked his way to her through the crowd. ‘James?’ she asked as he drew close, and he nodded vigorously.

  ‘Help,’ he said, and she looked a little taken aback, then laughed.

  ‘Follow me.’

  They went out into the hall and up the stairs. ‘You brought the Burgess picture, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said, mildly surprised.

  She shook her head. ‘Honestly, I think it has to be Holly’s favourite. She’s always showing it off,’ she added, ushering Billings into the first floor drawing room.

  Here there were also lots of people, but the atmosphere was calmer; there were more women, and they were better dressed. Again, there was a television set in the corner under the Seago, but the watchers were decidedly calmer, standing quietly in a half-circle, holding glasses of wine and watching quietly.

  Again he immediately saw faces he recognized but did not know. He decided he would enjoy himself nonetheless, and accepting a large glass of white wine from a girl wearing jeans and bearing a tray, he drank half of it right away. He looked at his watch; it was almost midnight.

  ‘Hello.’

  He swung around and took in the big black flashing eyes. ‘Hello,’ he said warmly, smiling. He saw Carrie looking at him with curiosity from the door, thought it prudent to kiss Holly hello, and pecked each of her cheeks like a warm but distant acquaintance.

  ‘Come around with me,’ she said. ‘There are some people I want you to meet.’

  The next few hours were a whirl; he drank a great deal of white wine and talked freely with all sorts of guests. Holly darted back and forth, introducing him to someone and moving away, then returning with someone else in tow. He found his inhibitions soon discarded, and talked easily and loudly with everyone he met – from a sozzled Richard Bruce, the new ‘Deputy’ Prime Minister, to a haughty society lady who specialised in AIDS charity events. Occasionally someone standing in front of the television would cheer, and they would all rapidly join them to hear of yet another Tory seat lost.

  Sometime later – hours perhaps – he left the room to find a loo, and found himself followed by a deeply tipsy Holly. ‘This way,’ she whispered, needlessly since no one was near them. He followed her down the hall towards the back of the house, and realized they were approaching the master bedroom. He felt apprehensive.

  He followed her in and saw the Burgess hanging in the corner. Holly pushed the door shut and threw her arms around him. ‘Kiss me. We’ve done it.’

  ‘Let me go to the loo,’ he said, nervous about being interrupted. He disengaged himself and went into the lavatory. He peed, leaning over and wondering how drunk he was, always a sign that he was very drunk indeed. He flushed the lavatory and started to go out again when the loo door opened and Holly entered. ‘Darling,’ she said and began embracing him again.

  ‘Shut the door,’ he commanded, and she did. ‘Lock it,’ he said, and she did what she was told. This relaxed him, and he responded now when she put her arms around him, kissing her deeply.

  ‘Let’s take a shower,’ she said, in a sultry voice, and began to unbutton his shirt.

  He reciprocated, reaching behind her for the zip to her dress, which was purple and tightly cut. He fumbled with the hook behind her neck, and suddenly Holly pulled away. ‘Damn! I completely forgot. Carrie’s with Sebastian, and I promised to kiss him goodnight. I let him stay up because with all the noise he wouldn’t sleep anyway. But if I don’t say goodnight he’ll come looking for me.’

  This was the first sign of caution in Holly he had yet to witness, so he didn’t dare object. ‘Of course,’ he said, and she left, leaving him feeling foolish and alone in the new Prime Minister’s bathroom.

  He waited for her, looking at an abstract Hockney look-alike on one wall for a while, then reading the Egon Ronay he found by the loo. It was thirty years old – the entry for a Casa Caminetti in Catford mentioned pêche melba at 3/6d. The historicism of the ent
ries palled, and when he reckoned he’d been waiting twenty minutes he decided something had diverted Holly and that he should go out and join the party.

  He opened the door and stepped out into the bedroom. A man was leaning over the bed, bare-chested and picking up a shirt. He had put one arm through a sleeve when he looked up and noticed Billings. ‘Just changing,’ said the man apologetically, as if Billings were the host and he the guest. Billings stared at the hairless chest facing him on the man’s tall and skinny frame, then realized with the sudden energy of intoxication, that this was Harry Lester.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Billings awkwardly, not quite sure what he was apologizing for, but feeling certain there was quite a lot to be sorry about.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Harry Lester cheerfully, pulling on the rest of his shirt and beginning to button it. ‘Are you one of Alan’s then?’

  ‘Sorry?’ asked Billings, then sussed. Perhaps he should camp it up a bit, but found himself incapable of that. ‘Actually, I’m James Billings. I sold you a painting – or your wife, rather.’ A sudden inspiration struck him. ‘That’s what I was doing in there,’ he said, pointing behind him to the loo. ‘Your wife hung it there when I brought it round. I thought I’d have a quick look. A thousand apologies, especially on tonight of all nights.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Lester breezily. ‘I’ve just got back from Millbank. I thought I’d better change my shirt. I probably won’t have another chance until tomorrow night.’ He finished buttoning his shirt and tucked it into his trousers. ‘So you’re the art man. Holly’s mentioned you. I like that painting – it’s over here,’ he said, pointing to the corner behind him.

  Billings made a show of noticing it. ‘Ah. It looks good there. He’s a fine painter,’ he said, feeling himself beginning to prattle. ‘He’ll appreciate, I’m sure.’

  ‘Well,’ said Harry mildly, putting on his suit coat and beginning to knot his tie, ‘We appreciate him. And your work in finding him for us. Holly loves the picture. That’s good enough for me.’ By the bed the phone rang and he looked at it. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, and Billings mumbled his excuses and left.

  In the hall the light was out and he almost stumbled on a shadowy figure. ‘Straight ahead,’ the darkened figure said tersely.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, then stopped as he recognized the voice. Of course, Terry the Runt. He started walking away rapidly.

  ‘Nice to see you again, sir,’ the voice called out from the darkness behind him.

  He came to the drawing room door, and looked at the ensemble of New Labour congregated there. People’s faces universally held messages of happiness, though the noise of greatest jubilation came from downstairs and the frenzied partying of old Labour. Alan Trachtenberg had arrived, and was talking in hushed, urgent tones with the Shadow Chancellor in the far corner, near the quite inaptly placed Piranesi. Sally Kimmo was talking with Richard Bruce, ignoring the beer he slopped at erratic intervals from a pint mug over her ruffled sleeve. She caught his eye and smiled. The Home Secretary-Designate was listening intently to a merchant banker Billings knew through his friend R-A. A policewoman in uniform was downing a small tulip glass of champagne in her left hand and refilling it from the bottle she held by the neck in her right. A working-class playwright sat on the floor with two bottles of beer, smiling and sticking his right arm out in a mindless clenched fist towards each person who came within his now limited field of vision. And the television continued with its on-going story of unparalleled triumph, now unwatched by anyone.

  There was no sign of Holly, and he decided it was time to go home. Downstairs a tired-looking bobby held the door for him. Outside, to his astonishment, dozens of people still waited behind the barricades. They were not all journalists – two adolescent girls held up a banner which read ‘We love you Harry’. As he walked towards the cordon he felt the eyes of the spectators upon him, but as he crossed the police line he dissolved like sugar into hot tea – no one took any notice as he lost his distinctiveness. He walked along Regent’s Park Road and caught a cab that was dropping off a new addition to the Lesters’ bash. He looked at his watch and found to his disbelief that it was almost five o’clock. The spring air was sharp, but it was already getting light. As he got in the cab, he was aware that more than one kind of dawn was breaking.

  Part Three

  Chapter 13

  The Professore was right. In the first ten days after Labour’s landslide victory, business at the gallery boomed. A party of three Egyptians bought all four of the Tysons Billings was showing, which paid his rent for the next eighteen months. A Reminstein sculpture of wire and Pyrex, shown by Billings as a favour for a dealer in New York, went for £11,000 to a Kuwaiti who carried it out on the spot to his waiting limousine. Even the fine watercolours of Lionel Elgar, a quiet middle-aged painter who lived in Kent, sold well, though usually as modest afterthoughts to purchases of more expensive abstracts (Tara was particularly effective at generating these add-on sales).

  Such was the surge that Billings thought briefly of opening on Saturdays, but this spasm of Thatcherite madness passed. He gave Tara a rise in salary of two thousand pounds, resisted the temptation to spruce up the gallery, and banked the rest. He had been more frightened than he had realized by the pre-Election drought in sales.

  Labour assumed power with confidence and press relations panache. Harry Lester’s cabinet appointments proved unsurprising, as all his shadow ministers assumed the posts they had in theory been preparing for, but other symbolic gestures made the news and gave an immediate air of action to the new government. Alan Trachtenberg was appointed Chief of Staff, a new position lifted wholesale from the White House, and also made a member of the Cabinet. Ten Downing Street was to be open to the public on one Sunday per month. The Prince of Wales was praised publicly by Harry Lester. Hyacinth, the lead singer in the rock group Express who had worked for UNICEF, was to be made a Life Peer in the following month’s Honours List.

  Holly rang him several times during this buoyant beginning, usually in the evening when, still light outside, Billings would sit in his living room with the windows open, listening to the news on Radio 4 with a drink in his hand. Out of interest he now watched the television news, and once found himself speaking to Holly on the telephone while watching a piece on the news showing her supervising movers outside the Primrose Hill house.

  She was vehement about the new Downing Street quarters. ‘They’re a tip. One always heard about Mrs Thatcher making late night cuppas for herself and Denis – along with the whisky. Well, the reason she did it all herself is there isn’t any room for anyone else in the kitchen! It’s the size of a galley on a tiny boat.’

  ‘Aren’t the reception rooms nice?’

  ‘They’re okay. A bit tatty. And the bedrooms are ghastly.’

  ‘Have you got to live there?’

  ‘Funny you should ask. That’s exactly what I’m wondering. If we sleep in Primrose Hill, who would be the wiser?’

  ‘I suppose security would be an issue.’

  ‘Not if we keep quiet about it. And who’s to say Downing Street is any safer? Nobody’s thrown mortar bombs at Primrose Hill lately.’

  This phone relationship was pleasant, and safe – Billings had no wish to encounter Harry Lester again in his own bedroom. He missed physical contact with Holly, but he found another kind of excitement in the vicarious thrill he got from Holly’s account of her new days in power. When Harry Lester’s first Question Time loomed, he asked Holly if Harry liked the House.

  ‘He must do – he bought it. I wanted Islington myself.’

  ‘I mean the House of Commons. Does he enjoy the debates?’

  ‘I don’t think he cares one way or another. It’s not really important anymore.’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘James,’ she said, with the impatience he was beginning to find characteristic when she thought him naive. ‘Where have you been? Do you think people voted for us because of how Harry performs
in the House of Commons?’

  ‘I guess not. It’s all television now, isn’t it? But Question Time’s televised.’

  ‘Yes, and four people watch, three of them too young to vote. The most exposure it gets is for twelve seconds on the evening news. Unless you fall flat on your face, there’s not much that can go wrong.’

  And she was right. By the first Question Time, the former Prime Minister had already announced he would stand down as Party leader, and at the despatch box he cut a lone, lugubrious figure, while behind him the few surviving Tory MPs looked around them for a future Leader. The next day, Billings could not even remember the ex-Prime Minister’s line of attack, such was the exuberant confidence which Harry Lester brought to his own replies. No dialectic characterized the exchange; the effect instead was presidential, as if the new ‘chief executive’ was being prompted rather than challenged by the nugatory queries of his adversary.

  Then one evening, close to closing time at the gallery, the phone rang and – like old times – it was Holly. ‘I’ve ditched the Runt this time. And unless he managed to drive through a 36 bus at Hyde Park Corner, he’s not going to find me anytime soon. Come on, lock up, I’m almost there.’

  ‘You must be mad,’ said Billings. ‘You should have security with you.’

  ‘Oh, not you too. Come on, I’m turning off Piccadilly now.’

  He switched off the lights and quickly locked the gallery door. He had no sooner turned around towards the street when the Audi pulled up. As they drove away he kept looking in the left side wing mirror. ‘Relax,’ Holly commanded.

  At the traffic lights at Oxford Street, a young man in worn fatigues, wearing combat boots, and trailed by a mongrel, recognized Holly. ‘It’s her,’ he shouted, to the crowd crossing the side street with him. ‘It’s Holly Lester! Look!’

  Most people seemed embarrassed by this un-English acknowledgement of celebrity, but a few stared through the windscreen. Holly hit the button for the power locks, then nimbly drove ahead when the light turned green. Only when they had crossed Oxford Street did Billings relax.