Bella

Chapter Six

Bella woke next morning with a series of flashbulbs exploding in her head. Scenes from last night’s débâcle re-staged themselves with relentless accuracy — the disastrous audition with Harry Backhaus, the meeting with Steve, the catastrophic dinner party at the Henriques’. She was just wincing her way through that appalling moment when she’d hurled a glass bowl at Lazlo, when she sat bolt upright and gave a groan.

Jesus! She’d let herself get engaged to Rupert. But she didn’t love Rupert. She loved Steve — and that snake Lazlo Henriques knew it too, and would pull out every stop to make her break it off with Rupert.

Oh God, she wailed, pulling the bedclothes over her head, what a terrible mess!

The events of the next weeks left her breathless. Rupert insisted on looking at dozens of houses, taking her on a triumphal round of his relations and showering her with presents — including a huge plastic pink, heart-shaped engagement ring because he knew it would irritate his mother.

Bella had expected Lazlo to come round breathing fire, but he did nothing, obviously biding his time. What really crucified her was that even though Steve must have read about her engagement — every paper splashed pictures of ‘The Millionaire and the Showgirl’ — he made no attempt to get in touch with her.

The sex side with Rupert hadn’t been going well either. Now she was engaged, she could hardly refuse to sleep with him. Rupert, fobbed off for so long, wanted to spend every free moment in bed, then afterwards was desperate for reassurance.

‘Was it all right, darling? Are you sure it was all right for you?’

‘Yes, yes,’ she would say, pulling him down on to her breast until he fell asleep, and she would gaze unseeingly at the ceiling, her body twitching with unsatisfied desire and longing for Steve.

A week later, after a performance at the theatre, she slumped down in front of her dressing-room mirror, cheers echoing in her ears. She had acted superbly. Now she was all in.

Rupert had gone to a dinner in the city and wasn’t meeting her until later. It gave her a breathing space.

Convincing him how blissfully happy she was to be marrying him put more of a strain on her than anything else.

Dully, she reached for a pot of cleansing cream to take off her make-up. There was a knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ she said, listlessly.

Then her heart gave a sickening lurch. Steve stood in the doorway — lazy, smiling, impossibly blond and handsome.

‘How did you get in here?’ she gasped.

‘The doorman’s a mate of mine.’ He shut the door and leaned against it. ‘Well?’ he added softly.

‘Well, what?’

‘I thought I told you not to get tangled up with Rupert Henriques.’

‘It’s nothing to do with you!’ There was a sob in her voice. ‘A lot you care. You haven’t even rung me.’

‘I thought I’d leave you on slow burn for a week or two,’ he said.

He walked towards her and put a hand on her bare shoulder. Funny how Rupert could maul her for hours and nothing happened, but just a touch from Steve sent a thousand volts through her. The warm hand crept slowly up her shoulder round to the back of her neck.

Then he laughed. ‘You were fantastic as Desdemona, honey. I’d no idea you were that good.’

Happiness flooded through her. ‘Oh! Did you really think so?’

‘Yes. Absolutely bowled me over,’ he said, bending his head and kissing her.

Bella was kissing him back. His hand was edging down the front of her dress and everything was getting quite out of control when, suddenly, to her horror, she heard the door burst open and a voice saying, ‘This must be Bella’s room.’

Colour flooding her face, she leapt away from Steve — but it was too late. Standing in the doorway was Lazlo Henriques and Bella’s old enemy from drama school, Angora Fairfax.

‘Bella. You are frightful,’ said Angora with a giggle. ‘You’ve only just got engaged to Rupert and here you are being unfaithful already with this stunning man.’ She raised her huge blue eyes to Steve. ‘I think you should call him out,’ she added to Lazlo.

‘Rupert can fight his own battles,’ said Lazlo, looking amused. ‘Hello, Bella. How are you?’

Bella was speechless. It was Steve who came to the rescue.

‘I’d better introduce myself. My name’s Steve Benedict,’ he said, grinning.

‘And I’m Angora Fairfax. And this foxy individual here is Lazlo Henriques,’ said Angora.

She was as pretty as a kitten, incredibly slim with tiny wrists and ankles, cloudy dark hair, purply-blue eyes and pouting red lips which didn’t quite meet over her slightly protruding teeth. Angora, said one of her stage school colleagues, was the sort of girl who could get away with asking a man if he could ‘possibly carry this frightfully heavy match box’.

‘Bella, darling,’ she said. ‘Do stop looking so pink in the face. It was a lovely performance. You were so good — though they shouldn’t have given you that terrible set in the last act. I mean you were hopping all over the place like the Grand National. Lazlo was awful. He went to sleep in the second and third acts, but he’s had a rough day. Gold bullion’s gone down a halfpenny or something. Have you anything for us to drink?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Bella, grinding her teeth. She’d forgotten Angora’s ability to make her feel a complete idiot. ‘There’s a bottle of whisky in the cupboard. Perhaps you’d do the honours, Steve.’

When Steve had poured out four very large drinks, Lazlo raised his glass to Bella. ‘To you and Rupert,’ he said, with a nasty glint in his eye.

‘Yes, to the lovebirds,’ said Angora. ‘You must be in a daze of happiness, Bella. Such a relief to be settled and know one won’t end up a terrible old maid keeping cats in a garret.’ She looked at Lazlo under long, sooty black lashes.

‘Don’t fish, Angora,’ he said.

She giggled. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m a bit over-excited. Harry Backhaus has signed me up for the lead in his new film.’

‘That’s great,’ said Steve, flashing her his devastating smile. ‘How did you pull that off?’

‘Strings really, darling. Lazlo took me and Harry out to a long, drunken lunch today. I gather you went after the part too, Bella darling? But as they start shooting in a fortnight, I knew you wouldn’t want to be parted from Rupert so soon.’

‘Of course I wouldn’t!’ said Bella. And she smiled at Lazlo, her heart black with hatred.

‘What about you then?’ Angora said to Steve. ‘Where did Bella dig up something as lovely as you from?’

‘Buenos Aires,’ said Steve. He turned to Lazlo. ‘Actually, we’ve met. I own the Amontillado Club. You’ve been in once or twice.’

‘One of my favourite haunts,’ said Lazlo. ‘It’s so dark I can never remember who I’ve come in with.’

‘Is it nice out there?’ asked Angora.

‘It’s nice anywhere,’ said Steve and, laughing, he refilled Lazlo’s glass.

Bella suddenly felt twitchy. If Lazlo learned from Steve the real truth about her past, heaven knows what use he’d make of it.

Angora was rabbiting on and on about acting. Steve and Lazlo had moved on to business.

‘Money, money, money!’ said Angora finally. ‘I can see you two are going to be very bad for each other.’

Bella felt a stab of jealousy. In a quarter of an hour they’d accepted Steve as they’d never accept her.

He was talking to Angora now, turning on his homme fatal act, dropping his voice several semi-tones, flashing his teeth all over the place.

Finally, Angora stretched. ‘Lazlo, darling. If I don’t eat I shall fall over.’

‘Let’s go then,’ said Lazlo, stubbing out his cigar. ‘Why don’t you come, too?’ he added to Steve.

‘Won’t I be de trop?’ said Steve.

‘Not at all,’ said Angora. ‘Lazlo will melt into a telephone box and magic up some amazing looking girl for you, then we’ll go on the town. Thanks for drinks, Bella. See you at Gay’s wedding. Lazlo had some crazy scheme for us all to go down to the country the next day, then we can go to Goodwood. If you like horses,’ she added to Steve, ‘you’d better come too.’

And they drifted out, hardly bothering to say goodbye, leaving Bella jibbering with misery and impotent rage. Lazlo’s nasty grin stayed with her, like the Cheshire Cat, long after he’d gone.

She had even more cause to be angry with him in the next few days. Two television plays and a commercial she’d considered certainties suddenly fell through. Her bank manager wrote a vitriolic letter complaining about her overdraft.

She was also due to play Nina in the Britannia’s production of The Seagull, which was going into rehearsal next week. Suddenly, Roger Field, the director, sent for her and told her he wanted her to play Masha, the frumpy, frustrated schoolmistress instead.

Bella lost her temper. ‘Lazlo Henriques is behind this!’ she stormed.

‘Who’s he?’ said Roger unconvincingly. ‘I make the decisions round here. I feel you’d be better as Masha.’