In Bed with Mr. Plantagenet

by Deanna Maclaren

  ‘And what are you going to do about the husband?’

  ‘The husband? I’m going to fight him, Patric. I’m going to get her off him.’

  ‘I know I’m late this morning, Revel. We had another power cut.’

  ‘I don’t mind what time you get here, Eugenie,’ Revel said coldly. ‘What I do mind is having to act as your social secretary. I’ve had to field two calls for you this morning.’

  ‘Oh, who from?’

  ‘Someone called Twoomy.’

  ‘Oh hell. She’s Cass Collier’s assistant. What did she want?’

  ‘She did not feel at liberty to tell me. And I did not feel it was my place to ask.’

  Eugenie felt she’d be wise to change the subject. Observing that Revel was wearing his spotted bow-tie, she said, ‘Big lunch on, Revel?’

  ‘I am not going to lunch. I am going to number ten Downing Street. I am going to interview the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Crikey! How did you get that?’

  ‘Didn’t have to try. The press office contacted me. Evidently Edward Heath’s a big fan of ours. Likes everything we do on sailing.’

  Eugenie’s phone rang. ‘Hi Evie! It’s Twoomy!’

  ‘Hi Twoomy. Hope these power cuts haven’t been affecting you.’

  ‘Hell, no. The Dorchester has its own generator.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ve got exciting news for you Evie. Fact is, Cass was very taken with you. He wants you to go with him to the premyaire of Wolf Alone. It’s Thursday night. Leicester (she pronounced it Lysester) Square. Red carpet, but don’t worry, Cass will be with you and I’ll be right behind.’

  ‘Twoomy I can’t possibly come.’

  Twoomy gasped. ‘Whyever not?’

  ‘I’m going to a book launch.’

  Twoomy spluttered in disbelief. ‘A book? Who’s book?’

  ‘Paula Montgomery.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘A cook. Look, I’ve got to go. My other phone’s going.’

  ‘Ring, ring,’ Revel said sardonically. ‘What’s all this about a book launch?’

  She handed him the invitation. She didn’t mention, of course, that it had arrived at Medway Mansions with a handwritten note on a comp. slip of Andrew’s. He’d written: Never again. Never, ever again. I promise.Ax

  Revel was examining the invitation:

  Patric Ryan and the directors of Strand Garrick Publishing are delighted to invite you to the launch of Paula Montgomery’s new book, Party Treats. 7pm, Thursday 14 February at the Fallen Angel club, Berwick Street, London Wl.

  ‘Well, with Paula Montgomery involved, at least you’ll get decent eats. Most book launches, it’s ten Twiglets between forty people. And what I don’t understand - why did this come to you?’ Revel demanded. ‘Rhoda does the books.’

  ‘Perhaps they thought Party Treats wasn’t serious enough for Miss Floge.’

  ‘Try again.’

  Eugenie shrugged. ‘It was a personal invitation. From Andrew Millard.’

  ‘Andrew – just a minute.’ Revel’s eyes narrowed. ‘He was that lawyer, on the Carter case. That’s how you got all that stuff from the Middlesex, that pic of the boy. Because you were screwing Andrew Millard.’

  Eugenie said nothing.

  Revel went on, ‘Where exactly is Mr Plantagenet at the moment?’

  ‘At home. With me.’

  Revel sniggered. ‘Well, well, well. So you’re back in bed with Mr Plantagenet. That must make a very refreshing change for you, Eugenie.’

  Revel was not to know that sharing a bed with David Plantagenet was exhausting Eugenie. He’d got over the sweats, but like many convalescents he was randy as hell. David was still too weak to move much, so Eugenie had to do all the work.

  She told David about Revel’s interview with the PM. ‘I said, well, it’s Heath for the cover, then? No, said Revel. I want a pic of a miner. I’ll get one free from the Mineworkers’ Union. Heath just doesn’t get it. He doesn’t realise, this miners’ strike is going to bring down the government.’

  *

  At the top of the stairs leading into the Fallen Angel club, Eugenie gave her name to her old foe from Strand Garrick, Veronica. The one who’d given her such a frosty reception when she’d arrived with Revel’s novel.

  ‘Oh Miss Dare! We’re so thrilled you could come. I’ll have your Press-pack ready for you on your way out.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll need a pic of Miss Montgomery looking like a cook. You know, a frilly apron or something.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Dare. That’s no problem at all.’

  Eugenie surveyed the room. She saw Paul Lockett. He was wearing lavender Loon pants, a string vest and a tweed jacket. Paul was talking to Gav Lime, the photographer.

  ‘Paul,’ Eugenie said, ‘do tell me, is that jacket in heather mix?’

  ‘Don’t be absurd. It’s Fern. Harris Tweed, a highland hue –‘ he broke off, suddenly realising who he was talking to. Then he shouted,

  ‘For Christ’s sake! Who let you in here?’

  ‘Good evening Paul. Gav.’

  The photographer grinned. ‘’Allo darlin’’

  ‘Don’t you darlin’ her,’ Paul exploded. ‘She’s scum. Remember Monopoly, Evie? Remember I told you right off the record, we were in the frame for a personalised version of it? And what did you do? You printed every word I said. You lost us the fucking account!’

  ‘That will do, Lockett.’ Andrew had planted himself between Paul and Eugenie.

  ‘She’s a lying, cheating slimebag!’

  ‘I said, that will do.’

  ‘You don’t know what she did! She-‘

  ‘Lockett, are you going to leave of your own accord, or am I going to throw you down the stairs?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m going. I wouldn’t stay in the same room as that scumbag.’

  Pathetic, Eugenie thought. In a swearing contest, Revel would win hands down.

  Andrew kept a grip on the advertising man. Outside the door, there were raised voices. A thump.

  ‘How do you do, Miss Dare?’ said a tall, dark man with a charming Irish brogue. ‘I’m Patric Ryan. Also known as Mister Paula Montgomery.’

  Eugenie laughed. ‘And I’m also known as Mrs David Plantagenet.’

  He put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Let me guide you round. Introduce you to a few people.’

  Before she left the office, Revel had said, ‘You’ve got to mingle. Find some people who can write some stuff for Stet. We’re short of people to do the Diary column. Find some. And when you meet Paula Montgomery, I don’t want any stuff about how does she do it when she’s got a big house to run and two kids and does she actually do any cooking at home and what’s her hubbie’s favourite meal. I don’t want any of that.’

  ‘Well, Revel,’ Evie had said. ‘Thanks for all your help. Thanks very much.’

  Patric Ryan was as good as his word. She found the man who ran the British Library, a woman Bridge champion, a young girl with a false leg who was training to climb Kilimanjaro, and a guy who designed drawbridges for a living.

  ‘Rock, pop, that lot,’ he explained. ‘They go for country piles with moats.’

  And all her ‘finds’ were keen to write a diary and said modestly they’d be awfully glad if Evie would give them a hand.

  ‘Now, you really must meet Paula,’ Patric said, beckoning across a pretty, dark haired woman in a white suit that showed off her south of France tan.

  ‘Evie, I just love your dress,’ Paula said. ‘Pucci, isn’t it?’

  It was. Courtesy of a large birthday cheque from her mother. The Pucci was the real thing, too, in what the fashion mags called ‘real’ silk, to differentiate between high-street versions in ‘art’ (artificial) silk.

  ‘I’ve been dying to meet you for years,’ Eugenie said. ‘Do you know, you’re still a legend at those Ten o’Clock testings.’

  Paula burst out laughing. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been to one of those?’

  ‘
I used to work for them,’

  All Crosse and Blackwell tinned food bore a logo of a clock, with its hands pointing to ten, and the legend, Ten o’Clock Tested.

  ‘I used to work in a building owned by Crosse and Blackwell,’ Eugenie told Paula. ‘Every Monday morning we were all rounded up and forced into the kitchen. I wasn’t there when you came, but no-one’s forgotten you.’

  ‘I had to taste the tinned trifle,’ Paula said. ‘Disgusting. Especially at ten in the morning. Look, shall we sit down? My feet are killing me.’

  Time to stop gossiping and get on with the interview, Eugenie realised. She had her lead question ready:

  ‘Paula, I understand there’s no copyright on a recipe. But how do you feel when a rival cook rips off something that is, in fact, your original idea?’

  ‘How do I feel?’ Paula exploded. ‘I’ll tell you how I feel. I feel like chucking fucking rotten eggs at them!’

  Thanks, Paula. Eugenie could visualise the cover strap line:

  WHO THE NATION’S TOP COOK WANTS

  TO THROW EGGS AT.

  ‘I mean, the point is,’ Paula went on heatedly, ‘I went to catering college. I’m trained. Most of the others have never done more than wash up in a restaurant kitchen.’

  More champagne arrived, and tiny portions of fish and chips, wrapped in newspaper.

  ‘Specially printed,’ Paula said, ‘so you’re not eating ink.’

  Eugenie knew she mustn’t dominate the author. She could see TV’s Dominic Drew frowning at her across the room.

  ‘And finally, Paula, could I just ask, what’s next for you? What’s coming up?’

  ‘Well there is something. It’s been totally hush-hush but I can tell you.’

  Eugenie said nervously, ‘Look if it’s confidential, I –‘

  ‘No, no. I’d like Stet to have it. I like Stet. And I like you. Oh, and I must sign a book for you.’

  At the door, Andrew was waiting on one side, and there was Veronica on the other, with her Press-pack.

  ‘If there’s any more I can do, Miss Dare, my card’s there. I am always available.’

  ‘Thankyou.’

  ‘I can’t tell you how thrilled we’ve been to see you here.’

  ‘Thankyou.’

  ‘I’ll come with you to the taxi.’

  ‘I’ll handle the taxi,’ Andrew said firmly.

  Eugenie said, as she followed him down the stairs, ‘Andrew I can get my own cab.’

  ‘This is Soho, Eugenie. You are not standing in Berwick Street waiting for some drunk to lurch up and proposition you. What would you say?’

  ‘I’d say, ‘Allo, darlin,’ fancy a bit of friction?’

  Gav Lime sidled past, and pinched her bum. Andrew affected not to notice. He’d already been obliged to thump Paul Lockett, and he didn’t fancy taking on the snapper as well. Gav’s favourite party trick was to squeeze up to a girl drinking gin and tonic and say, ‘What you need, darlin’ is a nice slice of Lime.’

  In the cab, Andrew positioned himself well away from Eugenie and said, ‘What did you think of Paula?’

  ‘Oh, she was delightful. And so clever. She knew just what I needed to hear. And she signed her book. Look.’

  Paula had written, To Evie, my new friend, love Paula.

  When they arrived at Medway Mansions, Andrew, unusually, paid off the driver. The cabbie must be new, Eugenie decided.

  ‘I’ll come in, if I may,’ Andrew said. ‘I’d like to meet your husband.’

  David was in his dressing gown and slippers, sitting near the gas fire which was turned up high. Eugenie introduced the two men, and then ran to her office to answer the phone.

  ‘Yes, Revel. Yes. Yes. And I got an exclusive. On Paula, yes. No, I’m sure she won’t have given it to anyone else. Yes. No. Yes.’

  Around his knees, David had a rug of soft greens and pinks which Andrew had brought back from Wales. Boring week, ensuring his Swansea client was kept out of the Welsh Press, the National Press, the world Press. Andrew’s only time off had been to shop for a present for Eugenie. Despite her suspicions, Andrew always chose his gifts to her himself.

  Now he was wandering round the sitting room, perfectly naturally, in the way people do the first time they visit. It was his first time in this sitting room. He’d only ever been in Eugenie’s bedroom.

  He looked at her portrait over the sofa. ‘This is terrific.’

  ‘Art,’ David said.

  ‘How’s he getting on?’ Andrew was still staring at the portrait. ‘That’s a tremendous talent.’

  ‘Oh, he can do other things as well. Went for a job as a graphic designer and told them he could get off the floor on one leg from a cross-legged position. So they all tried it and they all fell over and Art got the job.’

  Andrew had found a photo, in a silver frame, on the dresser. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Marisa. Marigold’s mother. She used to do that sort of thing, tog up like a matador so she could stop the traffic in the Marylebone Road.’

  ‘Grief. My mother would never have rigged herself up like that.’

  ‘Neither would mine. I think a mum should look like a mum.’

  ‘And here she is again.’ This time, Marisa was dressed for an evening party, resplendent in bird-of-paradise feathers which appeared to be fastened to her head with rubber suction pads. ‘And who’s this with her?’

  ‘That’s Reg. The bounder boyfriend.’

  Reg was wearing tailored khaki shorts, a straw hat and had his pipe clenched between his teeth.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Andrew said. ‘Talk about Sanders of the River.’

  So when Eugenie came back, she found David laughing. It was a good sound.

  ‘Sorry. That was Revel checking up on me.’

  ‘What’s this exclusive?’ David asked. ‘Can you tell us?’

  ‘Yes. Paula’s going to do a TV series. It was all her idea.’

  And it didn’t hurt, Andrew thought, that Paula was married to the influential Patric Ryan.

  ‘It all started in the south of France,’ Eugenie said, ‘when Paula’s girlfriend Amy was cooking a farewell lunch before she went back to England. All her friends wanted roast beef and Yorkshire so that’s what she cooked. Back in England, Amy went to see her mother. Hello, Mummy, what can I get you for lunch? Oh, you want roast beef and Yorkshire. Wonderful. Then Amy went to visit her mother-in-law. Guess what was waiting in the fridge? Yes, a big lump of sirloin. And finally, her godmother…so basically, Amy cooked the same meal four days running and each time in a different kitchen.’

  ‘Ah. I think I’m getting the point,’ David said.

  Eugenie gave him a sharp look. Was he suggesting she’d been running on? That she didn’t know how to tell a story?

  ‘The whole point is,’ she went on firmly, ‘cooking in someone else’s kitchen is hell. You don’t know where the pots and pans are, they haven’t got a potato peeler, the cooking knives aren’t sharp and you miss your favourite wooden spoon. But loads and loads of people have to cook in kitchens they haven’t put together themselves. People in rented flats, for example. Or people on caravan holidays.’

  ‘Tremendous idea,’ Andrew said. ‘And Paula would be ideal to present it. But hellova expensive to do on TV. All those different sets.’

  ‘Apparently, Patric Ryan just said that was the Beeb’s problem.’

  Andrew stood up. ‘I mustn’t tire you, David. I was wondering, when you’re better, would you and Eugenie have dinner with me? Just the three of us, go somewhere unfussy.’

  ‘Yes, we’d like that,’ David said, earning another glare from Eugenie. I am here! I like to be consulted.

  Andrew thought things were going rather well. He was glad he’d invited himself in.

  David said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t see you out, Andrew.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll see him out.’

  On the landing, Andrew avoided the lift. ‘I’ll take the stairs.’

  He ran his fingers through her hair.
‘You smell gorgeous.’

  ‘You gave it to me.’

  The perfume was Femme, by the Spanish designer Rochas. Andrew had refused to buy her any more L’Air du Temps. Not after she’d chucked the last lot into the bath.

  He bent and kissed her, very gently, on the mouth. And as he turned away, something about the energy, the purpose of him told Eugenie, he’s going to meet someone. He’s got a date. The bastard.

  *

  In the apartment, David was thoughtful. While Eugenie was at the book launch, he had indulged in a little spying. In her bathroom, he found a bottle of perfume, with its top off. She had smelt wonderful when she kissed him goodbye to go to the launch, so presumably, she’d been wearing this. Femme. He wondered who had given it to her.

  Her office had been completely hung with parchment silk.

  ‘Must have set you back a bit,’ he’d said, when Eugenie first showed him.

  ‘No, Shelagh got it all free. Left over from a previous job. Some trendy new restaurant where everything gets served up in Pyrex dishes.’

  David couldn’t imagine what was trendy about Pyrex. He’d grown up with the stuff. He remembered his mother being overwhelmed with joy when Frieda had presented her with her very first Pyrex dish.

  In an earthenware jar, Shelagh had created a silver cloud of Honesty. ‘Texture, you see Eugenie. The rough glaze of the earthenware, the delicacy of the Honesty, the luxury of the silk –‘

  The utter, and complete bollocks, Eugenie thought.

  ‘And the little Perspex table, Eugenie, is a design statement. Light-reflective, space-enhancing. Perspex, you see, is the new wood.’

  In her desk drawers, David found her unfinished novel, and her personal phone book. As he expected, it told him very little. She was cagey enough to use Christian names or initials only – Nigel, Rich, Rich-Rich, A. A* - and one was definitely in code: JOY!!!!!!!

  But tucked into the book was a comp. slip. It was from Andrew Millard. It read, Never again. Never ever again. I promise. Ax.

  Carefully, David had put everything back, closed her desk drawers, and left the office.

  *

  What had Marigold been up to? And with Andrew Millard. The guy who’d represented the Carters, for free.

  He wondered what had been going on. Whether he’d ever find out.

  But then, everyone had their secrets. He, of all people, knew that only too well.