Bella

Chapter Five

As she stood in the road, watching the taxi carry him away, she was overwhelmed by desolation. She ran past the big, white houses, set back from the road, their gardens filled with early roses and azaleas. Then she came to the whitest and biggest of all. Two stone lions with sneering faces reared up on either side of the gate. A maid answered the door, but before she could take Bella’s coat Rupert rushed into the hall, his face white and drawn.

How ridiculously young and unfledged he looks beside Steve, she thought.

‘Darling! What happened? It’s after nine o’clock!’

Bella was not an actress for nothing. Suddenly she was the picture of distress and contrition.

‘I’m so sorry! Harry Backhaus kept me waiting for ages, and then took hours over the audition, and then he made the most frightful pass at me.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I wanted to phone, really I did, but it got so late it seemed more sensible to come straight here. I didn’t even have time to change. Please forgive me.’

Any moment a thunderbolt will strike me down, she thought wryly. But Rupert, at least, was convinced.

‘Poor darling,’ he said, seizing her hands. ‘Of course it doesn’t matter. Come in and meet everyone.’

They went into a huge unwelcoming room, a cross between a museum and a jungle, full of gilded furniture and elegant uncomfortable chairs. On the wall, appallingly badly lit, hung huge paintings with heavy gold frames. Potted plants were everywhere.

‘Poor Bella’s had a terrible time,’ Rupert announced. ‘The damned director’s only just let her go.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Bella said, giving them her most captivating smile. ‘He kept me waiting for hours, and then. .’

‘We heard you saying so outside,’ said a large woman coldly.

‘This is my mother,’ said Rupert.

Constance Henriques was tall but not thin enough. Her face, with its large turned-down mouth and bulging, glacial eyes, resembled a cod on a slab. Her voice would have carried across any parade ground.

‘It’s nice to meet you,’ said Bella, deciding it wasn’t.

‘I thought you told Miss Parkinson we always dress for dinner,’ Constance said to Rupert.

Bella had had too many whiskies, ‘And I’ve undressed,’ she said, looking down at her unbuttoned shirt. And, almost unconsciously slipping into a mocking upper class accent, added, ‘I’m most frightfully sorry.’

There was a frozen pause, then someone laughed.

‘This is my father,’ said Rupert, grinning.

Charles Henriques must once have been very handsome, but had long since gone to seed. There was a network of purple veins over his face and great bags under his merry little dark eyes, which ran over Bella’s décolleté like a pair of black beetles.

‘How do you?’ he said, holding her hand far longer than necessary. ‘Rupert has talked about no-one else for weeks. But even he didn’t do you justice.’

He handed Bella a vast drink.

Rupert’s sister, Gay, and her fiancé, Teddy, were a typical deb and a typical guards officer. They hardly broke off their conversation when Bella was introduced to them.

Bella couldn’t resist staring at Gay’s stomach. She didn’t look at all pregnant — nor did Teddy look capable of fathering a mouse.

‘I told you they were totally self-obsessed, didn’t I?’ Rupert said, squeezing her hand. ‘And finally I want you to meet my cousin Chrissie, Lazlo’s sister. She’s my good angel.’

She’d be divine too, if she were happier, thought Bella. But Chrissie looked thoroughly out of condition. Her dark eyes were puffy, a spot glowed on her cheek, and she must have put on a lot of weight recently because the dress she was wearing was far too tight over her heavy bust and hips.

‘How do you do?’ Chrissie said. She had a soft, husky voice with a slight foreign inflection. ‘How foul having an audition. They must be beastly things.’

‘I always get into a state,’ said Bella, ‘but some people sail through them.’

Chrissie started to talk about a friend who wanted to go on the stage but, although her mouth smiled, her eyes looked at Bella with hatred.

Bella gulped her drink and looked round the room. That was certainly a Matisse over the fireplace and a Renoir by the door. Between the curtains there was a lighter square on the rose-coloured wallpaper.

‘The Gainsborough usually hangs there,’ said Constance, following Bella’s gaze, ‘but we’ve lent it to the Royal Academy. What can Lazlo be talking about all this time?’ she added irritably to Charles. ‘The telephone bills that boy runs up.’

‘He’s talking to some Arabs,’ said Rupert. ‘He’s been trying to get through all day.’

‘How exciting to have a wedding so soon,’ Bella said brightly.

They all looked at her. I’d better shut up, she thought. My girlish approach is going down like a lead balloon.

‘It’s your birthday, isn’t it? How old are you?’ said Constance Henriques, her mouth full of potato crisps.

‘Twenty-four,’ replied Bella.

‘Twenty-four? But Rupert’s only twenty-one. I’d no idea you were so much older than him.’

‘And you’ve just turned fifty-four, my dear,’ said Charles Henriques mildly. ‘So I think the less said about age the better.’

Bella giggled, which was obviously the wrong thing to do, for Constance Henriques had turned the colour of a turkey cock.

Fortunately there was the click of a telephone.

‘That’ll be Lazlo finished,’ said Constance. ‘We can eat at least. It’s too much to expect the young to be punctual these days, but I do hate keeping the servants waiting.’

Bella flushed. Rupert’s mother was a cow. Thank God Lazlo was going to join them now. Of all the Henriques family he was the one she felt she was going to get on with. She imagined a gay, laughing, handsome, more dissipated version of Rupert, with the same slenderness and delicate features. But as usual in such cases, she couldn’t have been more wrong in her assessment.

For the man who came through the door was tall and as powerfully built as Steve. With his sallow complexion, hooked nose, thick black curling hair and drooping eyelids, it was difficult to tell if he looked more South American or more Jewish in his appearance. But there was certainly nothing of the Jewish fleshiness about his face, nor the melting softness of the Latin about his eyes, which were as hard and black as tarmac. He looked dangerous and incredibly tough.

Rupert bounded forward, ‘Lazlo! Bella’s arrived. Come and meet her.’

Wincing slightly at the pride in Rupert’s voice, Bella gave Lazlo her most seductive smile. ‘I’ve heard so much about you,’ she said. ‘I feel I know you very well already.’

For a second there was a flicker of surprise in his eyes. He certainly took his time to look her over. Then, with a smile that wasn’t entirely friendly, he said, ‘I can assure you you don’t. How do you do?’

Then he turned to Constance.

‘Sorry I took so long. This deal’s reached a really delicate stage. If we pull it off though, Charles’ll make enough bread to pay for Gay’s wedding.’

Constance didn’t look in the least mollified. But at that moment a maid announced dinner was ready.

Until then Bella had drunk enough whisky to sail through any situation, but as they went into the dining-room she was overwhelmed with a fear so violent that she had to clutch on to the table to stop herself fainting.

What was that terrible sickly smell? Then she realized it was the lilies — a huge clump was massed on a Grecian pillar at the far end of the room and another great bowl filled the centre of the table.

Bella stared at them horrified, remembering the wreaths of lilies that had filled the house before her mother’s funeral, just after Steve had walked out on her. And how closely, at the time, the white waxy petals had resembled the translucence of her mother’s skin as she lay dead upstairs. She felt the sweat rising on her forehead. She was trembling all over.

Looking up, she saw Lazlo watching her. Immediately on the defensive she glared back, then cursed herself as he looked away. It would have been so much more politic to smile.

They sat down at a table that could easily have accommodated a couple of dozen people. Bella was between Charles and Teddy. Rupert was hidden from her by the centrepiece of lilies. A maid began handing round a great bucket of caviar.

Constance and Gay discussed the wedding.

‘It’s amazing how people cough up,’ said Gay. ‘The most unlikely relations have sent vast cheques.’

‘When I was married,’ said Constance, taking a far bigger helping than anyone else, ‘all the West Wing was cordoned off to accommodate the presents. I’d forgotten how much there is to do. I’m quite exhausted. I’ve been tied up with the bishop all afternoon.’

‘How very uncomfortable for you both,’ said Lazlo gravely.

Constance ignored this. ‘The bishop was most impressed by our work for the blind,’ she went on. ‘Particularly with the number of new guide dogs we’ve provided.’

Lazlo held up his wine so that it gleamed like a pool of gold. ‘You should start a society of Guide People for Blind Dogs,’ he said.

‘Do you know Baby Ifield?’ Charles shouted to Bella down six feet of polished mahogany.

She shook her head.

‘Should have seen her in her heyday. My word she was a smasher. Used to go back-stage and see her. Often took her to the Four Hundred.’

Constance’s lips tightened.

‘I simply can’t bear to discuss the mess this government is making,’ she said, and proceeded to do so for half an hour.

Listening to her, Bella found herself becoming more and more critical, and as her critical spirit waxed, her tact and caution waned.

Constance switched to the subject of Northern Ireland. ‘If only they’d bring back hanging.’

‘Why should they?’ said Bella, her trained actress’s voice carrying down the table.

Constance looked at her as though one of the potatoes had spoken.

‘It’d soon stop them planting bombs so casually,’ said Constance.

‘No way,’ said Bella. ‘There’s nothing the Irish like better than feeling martyred. Hanging would only make them step up the campaign.’

Constance was revving up for a really crushing reply, when Lazlo said,

‘How’s Jonathan?’

‘A case in point,’ said Constance sourly. ‘Young people today are allowed far too much freedom. His housemaster wrote to me only this morning saying Jonathan painted “Death to Apartheid” in red all over the chapel wall.’

Lazlo and Charles grinned. Rupert started to laugh.

‘But that’s great,’ said Bella, whose glass had been filled for the fourth time. ‘He’s doing something positive.’

Constance stared at Bella, her cold eyes baleful. ‘Have you ever been to South Africa?’

‘No,’ admitted Bella.

‘I thought not. People who haven’t first-hand knowledge of a country always make sweeping generalizations.’

‘But one has only to read the papers. .’ Bella was thoroughly roused by now.

‘I bought that chestnut filly I told you about, Charles.’ Once more Lazlo had interrupted her in mid-sentence.

Suddenly, the table came to life. Horses were obviously a complete obsession where the Henriques were concerned.

The candles threw sharp daggers of light on to the table. Chrissie was talking to Rupert. Bella watched the rapt expression on the girl’s face.

So that’s the way the wind blows, she thought. No wonder she hates me.

Constance was rabbiting on about the game reserves. Lazlo was picking his teeth.

I was a fool to come, thought Bella miserably. Steve was right about these people.

She felt both exhausted and depressed when they left the men to their port and cigars. Chrissie sat down at the grand piano and played Beethoven extremely well.

She looks beautiful now, thought Bella, looking at her softened face, the lamplight on the black hair.

Constance and Gay talked more about the wedding, Constance sewing a piece of tapestry of a Victorian lady with a hare lip.

Rupert joined them first and came straight over to Bella, his face drawn.

‘All right, darling?’

‘Fine,’ snapped Bella. ‘Give me a cigarette.’ She was irritated that he hadn’t stuck up for her at dinner.

‘Sorry we took so long,’ he said. ‘My father and Lazlo were having rather a heated discussion about devaluation.’

But Lazlo didn’t look heated as he came through the door a moment later, smoking a large cigar and laughing at some joke of Charles’s, his saturnine face lit up by the glitter of dark eyes and the flash of very white teeth.

He ought to laugh more, thought Bella, as he went over to the piano.

‘All right, love?’ Lazlo picked up a loose hair from Chrissie’s shoulder.

‘Of course,’ she said brightly.

‘Good.’ He smiled down at her, then crossed the room and sat down beside Bella.

He’s a womanizer, thought Bella. Maybe I’ll try and vamp him. She leaned forward to show him more of her cleavage.

‘I met a friend of yours the other day,’ he said.

‘Oh, who?’ said Bella, giving him a long, hot, lingering glance, which was immediately wiped off her face when he said, ‘Angora Fairfax. She said you were at drama school together.’

Bella had always loathed Angora Fairfax. She had been the spoilt darling of immensely rich parents, always at parties and complaining how exhausted she was next morning. All her fellow students, except Bella, had been pixillated by her. Angora, in her turn, had been jealous of Bella’s talent.

‘I knew her slightly,’ said Bella. ‘What’s she up to now?’

‘A television series, I think. She talked a lot about you.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Bella coldly.

‘She’s extremely attractive,’ said Lazlo, examining his whisky. ‘Can she act?’

Bella nodded. She wasn’t going to fall into the trap of being bitchy.

‘I hear you had an audition tonight,’ Lazlo went on.

Bella’s early warning system wasn’t working very well.

‘Yes, I did.’

‘And the director made a pass at you. How distressing for you.’

Sarcastic cat, thought Bella.

‘Who was he?’

‘Harry Backhaus.’

‘Harry?’ His eyebrows shot up. ‘Unlike him. He’s only just got married again. We’re lunching tomorrow. I’ll give him a bollocking.’

Bella felt herself going hot, then cold, with horror.

‘Oh, no! Please don’t,’ she said, far too quickly. ‘I expect he got carried away.’

Lazlo’s smile was bland. ‘Still, there’s no excuse for that sort of thing.’

At half past eleven Bella got up to go.

‘I’ll drive you home,’ said Rupert.

‘I’ll take her,’ said Lazlo. ‘I go straight past her door.’

‘But it’s not that way,’ said Rupert mutinously.

‘I’d like you to wait for another call from Sordid Arabia,’ said Lazlo. ‘You know the background.’

Wow! thought Bella, he’s really pulling rank. And she willed Rupert to stand up to him. But Rupert opened his mouth, shut it again, and sulkily agreed.

As she left, Charles kissed her on both cheeks. ‘We’ll see you at the wedding next month, if not before,’ he said.

Everyone stiffened. ‘Have you sent Bella an invitation yet, Constance?’ he added.

‘We’ve run out,’ said Constance coldly.

‘Nonsense. There are at least a dozen left in your desk. We need a bit of glamour on our side of the church.’

When they were nearing Bella’s flat, Lazlo said, ‘I want to talk to you. Shall we go to your flat or mine?’

‘I’m very tired,’ snapped Bella. ‘Can’t we talk here?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s important.’

‘All right. We’d better use mine.’

Her flat was in chaos, clothes all over the drawing-room, unwashed breakfast things lying around. Bella kicked a bra under the sofa and went into the bedroom to take off her coat. In the mirror her eyes glittered with drink. Really, that blouse was too indecent for words. Perhaps Lazlo was going to make a pass at her. When she came back she found him sprawled in an armchair playing with the solitaire board.

He’s got the face of a riverboat gambler, she thought, tough, cool, measuring up all the options.

‘Did Rupert give you this?’ he said.

Bella nodded.

‘He’s a nice boy,’ said Lazlo.

‘I think so,’ said Bella. ‘Do you want a drink?’

Lazlo shook his head. ‘Rupert hasn’t had an easy life,’ he went on. ‘Lots of spoiling but not much love. Constance has always been too tied up with her charities; Charles much too preoccupied with Old Masters and young mistresses. Rupert’s pretty unstable as a result. He needs someone who can’t only handle him, but who also loves him very much.’

‘My,’ said Bella with a nervous laugh, ‘I didn’t know you were that romantic.’

Lazlo didn’t smile back. ‘I’m not. I just hate waste.’

Bella took a deep breath. ‘You don’t want me to marry him, do you?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Because I don’t come out of the top drawer?’

‘I don’t care if you come out of the coal-hole! I just want Rupert to land up with someone who loves him.’

‘Like your sister Chrissie, I suppose? Then you’d keep all your millions in the family.’

‘Leave Chrissie out of it.’

‘Why should I? What makes you think she loves Rupert more than I do?’

‘She wouldn’t have arrived an hour late to meet her future mother-in-law.’

‘I told you I couldn’t get away. I was stuck at the audition.’

‘And not bothered to dress.’

‘I didn’t have time to change.’

‘Or arrived three parts cut.’

‘I was not. Americans just pour very strong drinks.’

‘Or been rude to Aunt Constance on every possible occasion.’

‘She was insufferable,’ said Bella in a choked voice.

‘I agree,’ he said evenly. ‘She’s an uphill battleaxe. But if you loved Rupert you’d have put up with it.’

‘What’s it got to do with you, anyway?’ Bella said furiously.

He had only a few marbles left now in the centre of the solitaire board. She watched his long fingers, mesmerized.

‘All I’m saying,’ he said softly, ‘is that if you loved Rupert, you’d have arrived on time, sober, properly dressed, instead of swilling whisky in the Hilton Bar with one of your lovers.’

Bella turned green. ‘W. . what are you talking about?’ she whispered. ‘I was having an audition.’

‘Maybe you were earlier in the evening, baby. But when I saw you, you were so engrossed with your handsome desperado, you didn’t even notice I was sitting only a few tables away.’

Confusion and horror swept over her. Lazlo had seen her with Steve. How much had he heard of their conversation?

‘He’s an actor,’ sheliedquickly.‘We. . er. . we were discussing a play we’re doing together next week.’

‘Rehearsing all the love scenes,’ said Lazlo dryly. ‘If you gazed at Rupert with a tenth of that slavish adoration, I’d be only too happy for you to marry him.’

He was left with one dark green marble now. He looked at it for a moment, then, putting the board down, took out his cheque book.

‘Now,’ he said, in a businesslike tone. ‘How much do you want? If I give you — oh, five grand, will you leave Rupert alone?’

Bella laughed in spite of herself. ‘I never realized people really said things like that! No, I won’t.’

‘Because you adore Rupert and can’t live without him?’ he said acidly.

‘I never said anything about love,’ she said. ‘It’s you who keeps banging on about it. But since you want things spelled out — I don’t intend to break it off!’

‘Ten grand,’ said Lazlo.

There was a pause. Bella looked out of the window.

Wow, the things I could do with ten thousand pounds, she thought. I wonder if it would be tax free? Then aloud she said, ‘I don’t want your rotten money. You’ll have to think of something else.’

Lazlo put away his cheque book and got to his feet. The sheer size of him made her step back. ‘Well, if you won’t be sensible about it, I shall have to try other methods.’

‘You can’t stop me marrying Rupert.’

‘I can’t?’ he said softly. ‘You obviously can’t be familiar with our family motto: “Scratch a Henriques and you draw your own blood.”’

The long scar showed white on his swarthy skin. A shiver ran down Bella’s spine.

He’s like the devil, she thought.

‘My family’s got a lot of influence,’ he went on. ‘We can make things very difficult for you if you don’t play ball.’

‘You’re threatening me?’ she said.

‘Yes, and I’d warn you, I fight very dirty. Are you sure you don’t want that cheque?’

Bella lost her temper. ‘Get out! Get out!’ she screamed. And, picking up a blue glass bowl, she hurled it at him. But he ducked and it smashed on the wall behind him. He laughed and left.

Bella couldn’t stop shaking after he’d gone.

Oh no, she wailed. Why did I blow my top? Loathsome, horrible bully. He’s only bluffing. He wouldn’t do anything really.

And yet. . and yet. . with all that money and power behind him. .

She shivered with fear. Perhaps she ought to take the money and clear out with Steve. But Steve was unreliable, not to be trusted. And then, of course, there was poor Rupert to be considered.

Suddenly the doorbell rang, making her jump out of her skin. Lazlo again? Steve? Her heart was cracking her ribs. Whoever it was was leaning on the bell.

‘Who is it?’ she sobbed in terror.

‘It’s me, Rupert.’

She opened the door and, as he followed her inside, she burst into a storm of weeping.

‘Darling! Hush, sweetheart! It went all right.’ He pulled her down beside him on the sofa, stroking her hair. ‘They’re always bloody at first. You should have seen them with Teddy. Wasn’t Lazlo nice to you?’

She shook her head. She hadn’t meant to tell Rupert, but she couldn’t control herself any more.

‘He hates me,’ she sobbed. ‘More than any of them. He said he doesn’t want me to marry you.’

‘He doesn’t? Probably fancies you, that’s why he’s so rude. Anyway, my father’s crazy about you.’

How good it was to be held in his arms and comforted.

‘I’m so rotten to you,’ she muttered. ‘Arriving late and cheeking your mother. I don’t know why you put up with me.’

And you don’t know the half of it, she thought miserably.

‘There’s nothing to put up with,’ Rupert said. ‘I love you ten times more than I did this morning. I’d kill anyone who hurt you.’

She moved away and looked at him. Harlequin’s face, sad, pale, with great blue rings under his eyes.

‘Bella, darling, please let’s get married.’

And whether it was to spite Lazlo, or to escape from Steve, or because she was drunk, or because Rupert wanted her so much she never knew, but the next moment she was saying yes.