I remember wandering into the living room with Delight behind me. Then there was the sound of a key in the lock and Mother was sweeping into the room, being glamorous and incomparable.

  ‘Darlings, how naughty we all are. Up at this hour — and off to London tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  It must have been Delight who said that. Dimly I remembered that we weren’t supposed to be leaving for two more days.

  ‘Yes, darlings, just the three of us. The others don’t have to hurry. Poor Uncle Hans should have a couple of full days in bed to get over his tummy anyway. But I have to be there. My new dress for the act, my dress for Her Majesty. I’ve got to give poor Mr Cavanagh some time. So beddy-byes, dears. All up and packed and ready to go by ten-thirty.’

  I’d been standing with my back to her, struggling against all the things that were far too much for me. Tomorrow ... London ... Just the three of us? Why Delight and me? Because she was going to keep an eye on us, of course. She was going to make sure we didn’t sneak off on our own and get married in spite of her. Intriguer ... Liar ... Mass-murderess.

  I whirled around. Now I would tell her ... what? ... how? ... Where to begin?

  ‘You!’ That’s what came out of the frenzied confusion inside me. ‘You and Monique — trying to bust it all up. So Delight isn’t good enough to be your daughter-in-law. Oh, no, she never married a National Figure. I stand corrected; she never married a cheap little vaudevillian to get a work permit and keep from being kicked out of the ...’

  ‘Nickie.’ Delight’s hand flew up, covering my mouth. ‘Anny, don’t pay any attention to him. He’s drunk. He couldn’t help it. We ran into someone who ...’

  ‘Someone!’ I yelled through her hand. ‘Not someone. Roger Renard.’

  ‘Nickie, shut up, I say. Anny, please, you and I can be sensible even if he can’t. I realize you don’t want me to marry Nickie and I don’t blame you. You’ve got every right to think I’m a phony. But, Anny, I could convince you. I’m sure I could ...’

  Suddenly the only thing that mattered to me was a bathroom. I pulled myself away from Delight and ran across the living room. I knew I passed Mother. I knew she threw out her hand.

  ‘Nickie, my poor sweet Nickie ...’

  But I ran on into my bedroom and into my bathroom and slammed the door.

  I woke up next morning feeling so ghastly that nothing mattered. Let it all go. To hell with it. We got packed. We said good-bye to Uncle Hans in bed with his tummy, to a grinning Gino and to Pam, who, suddenly, because of what I’d been suspecting about her, seemed the person I loved most in the world. Then we were on the plane to London.

  Mother and I sat together. I’d tried desperately not to have it happen, but, of course, it had happened. Delight was somewhere else way up ahead and, as I sat there, dead to the world, Mother started being ‘sweet’.

  ‘Nickie darling, I’m so glad of this little opportunity for a quiet talk. It was wrong of me to send for Monique. Of course it was. I’m a dreadful, bullying Mother and I know it and I don’t seem to be able to help it. But, Nickie dear, I did want to make sure. I mean — nineteen! But I do see now. I really do. If you honestly want to marry Delight, I won’t dream of interfering. But, dear, you must promise me one thing. I’m going to make Delight promise too. Don’t run off to some dreadful little registry office — so sordid and hopelessly against the law, dear, I’m sure, with you being under age. Just wait, darling, until after the Queen, after the Opening, then we’ll have a divine church ceremony. It’s a promise, dear. Cross my heart and hope to die. A divine wedding in a church.’

  She went on and on and I couldn’t bear it because I knew she wasn’t meaning a word of it, I knew it was gall and wormwood to her to have to accept Delight, I knew it was only because she loved me and was terrified that if she didn’t go along with it, she’d lose me. Having her love me, having her giving herself away like that, was the thing I could bear the least. It even somehow took the thrill out of Delight. Why? Did I, deep down inside, hate winning out over Mother? Was I as perverse as that?

  But this wasn’t a time for thinking. I wasn’t ever going to think again. I just let her yak and yak and yak, being motherly and affectionate and warm, and every now and then, while I stopped French air hostesses pressing interminable meals on me, I went on saying, Yes, Mother. Okay, Mother. Sure, Mother, until finally we got over the Channel and over some place like Kent and were coming down at London Airport.

  Forget it, I told myself as Mother dazzled enormously polite customs’ men. Put it all out of your mind. Marry Delight. That’s what you want. Just marry her at a divine church ceremony with Mother being a divine Mother of the Groom with a string of murders to her credit. Carry on, Nickie, old boy. Make like there never was a M. Picquot or a Norma Delanay or a Sylvia La Mann.

  We moved into a huge house, belonging, of course, to some admirer, in Kensington. Mother had intended to go to Claridge’s but some King or something was in her suite so, when this offer came up, she grabbed it. Right away the old rat-race began — cables, flowers, telephone calls, Larry, Vivien, Oliver, Cecil. Why did countries bother to have their own celebrities? Why couldn’t they just settle for one all-purpose group like a U.N. force and throw it in wherever it was needed? Mother had a little talk with Delight about the church ceremony. Delight thought it was fine and sensible and, after all, wasn’t Mother wonderful, which appalled me a bit, but not enough for me to make anything out of it. My spirit was crushed.

  Most of the first days were Mother and John Cavanagh. Apparently, it isn’t easy to cook up two 'absolutely divine' gowns, one for the Palladium and one for Elizabeth II, in a matter of minutes. Mother had also found some ‘miraculous’ little man who could help Delight with her French pronunciation for the Trenet song — so, unless I wanted to be on my own, I either had to be watching John Cavanagh’s ladies stick pins in Mother’s hems or be listening to Delight being a relentlessly cute American girl singing a French song to a rehearsal piano.

  Most of the time I wanted to be on my own. I just walked around London, which I didn’t know too well, but which seemed to be okay except that they never stopped changing the guard. Once they got a good one, why didn’t they stick to it? And then, all over town were placards announcing ANNY ROOD AND FAMILY AT THE PALLADIUM and the Command Performance of the movie where Mother was going to meet the Queen. Meet the Queen! What would the Queen do if she knew ? What if I was to write her a letter: 'Dear Queen…?’

  One morning, when I was trapped in the middle of Trafalgar Square, which is encircled by buses all thundering in the wrong direction and quite impossible to escape from, I bought a picture postcard of the National Gallery and, out of sheer hatred for everything including myself, wrote ‘Meilleurs Voeux’ on it and sent it to Monique.

  I’d lost track of the time, but suddenly it became the day before Mother’s birthday and the Presentation to the Queen. That evening, when I got home from my pointless wanderings, I found Ronnie sitting alone in the living room. I’d forgotten the lovesick St Bernard look which, in the last Hollywood days, had permanently crowded out the old Debonair Distinction. There it still was in all its glory, and Ronnie insisted on giving me the full outpouring. He just had to fly over for Mother’s opening. Would Mother be mad? He just couldn’t bear being separated from her any longer. He hadn’t cast anyone else in Ninon, he was still waiting and hoping … Did I think that possibly, conceivably, there might, just might be a chance that Mother ... Sob, groan.

  That went on for hours and then Gino arrived from Cannes loaded with all Mother’s bags which, of course, she’d left for him to cope with. Uncle Hans had stayed behind because his tummy still wasn’t well. He was out of his mind not being

  able to get to Mother’s birthday (Who cared?) but, old trooperishly, had decided it was more important to get well for the Palladium. Pam was in England but she too was frenzied at not being able to make Mother’s birthday. She'd run into trouble with Tray. Even though Mother had pulled every string in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and in Buckingham Palace to get Tray let off the six-month animal quarantine, there were still formalities and Pam was going to have to spend at least the next twenty-four hours in some appalling government kennel in Essex, boosting Tray’s morale, until they’d finally released him to his breathless public.

  Delight came in from her class and Mother came in from yet another fitting, ecstatically announcing that her Elizabeth II R dress would definitely be ready the next morning. ‘It’s divine, dears — rich but severe, positively severe.’ She seemed

  to have forgotten all about that ‘Go-go-we-must-never-see-each-other-again’ routine with Ronnie because she greeted him with little cries and clutches and kisses and talked about a lovely little party for thirty which she was going to give for her birthday just before the Queen. Then we all, in a dreadful group, went to a play and had dinner at the Caprice where, inevitably, Larry, Vivien, Cecil, etcetera etcetera.

  Delight adored it. At some point in the middle of it all, I came out of my torpor and realized that she was wallowing. Oh, God, I thought, and later, when I was lying in bed, not sleeping, I suddenly saw my married life stretching ahead with Delight being more and more of a dynamo, more and more of a success, more and more of a celebrity, more and more of a — Mother.

  No, I said. Bury that thought, Nickie, destroy it, kill it.

  I got up early the next morning. I don’t know why, but there I was awake, and being in bed was worse than anything else. I went into the living-room. Gino was up ahead of me. He was arranging Mother's birthday presents on a table by the window — his present, Pam’s present, Uncle Hans’ present, everyone’s present. It dawned on me that I hadn’t bought her anything. For one mad moment I decided to hell with it. At least not buying her anything would be a gesture, something to express the excruciating clashes inside me.

  But Gino said, ‘Okay, kid, where’s your present?’

  ‘I haven’t got one.’

  ‘Haven’t got one?’

  ‘I’m getting it this morning,’ I heard myself saying. ‘There’s plenty of time. She’s not going to open them until this evening at the party anyway.’

  The terrible party for thirty dear, dear friends, from which she’d sweep in her glory into the arms of Elizabeth II R! Gino was watching me with affectionate perplexity.

  ‘What’s the matter with you anyways, kid? You sick?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Then, for Pete’s sake, go buy your present.’

  So I dressed and left with Delight, who had to be at her French gentleman’s in a place called St John’s Wood by nine-thirty. As we went out, three women whom I recognized from John Cavanagh’s emerged from a taxi with a package. The Elizabeth II R dress? I looked at them sourly. What was I going to buy for Mother? What possibly could anyone give Mother? An automatic pusher which she could use when her arms got tired from precipitating people over stair-rails?

  It seemed for ever since I’d been alone with Delight. St John’s Wood, apparently, was way out in the sticks and she’d become a whiz, she said, at the subway. As we plunged into a main street which was loused up by people with bowler hats and umbrellas rushing to work, she started chattering about her song and the Opening and the party and Mother Meets the Queen and suddenly, in the middle of it all, I found I wasn’t with it, not even part of the way.

  ‘Darling, it is rather wonderful, isn’t it?’

  She’d snitched that word from Mother. Every other word was ‘darling’ now. I glowered.

  ‘Sometimes I still can’t quite believe it. Cannes…London… And, darling, I didn’t tell you. Last night Anny promised to take me to John Cavanagh for the wedding-gown.’

  We reached the subway and started down the steps with all the thousands of bowler hats and umbrellas and British stenographers. I was going to Bond Street because that was the place for presents, Delight said. She pushed ahead of me, put pennies in odd machines and got us the right tickets. Then we were squeezing past the barrier, sardines among sardines, going down an escalator.

  ‘Nickie, darling.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her red pocket-book was jammed uncomfortably into my ribs. ‘What’s the matter? You’re not still brooding about ...’

  ‘For God’s sake.’

  ‘But, Nickie, even if she did ...’

  ‘If!’

  ‘Darling, I should have said this before. You’ve got to settle for it. It’s done; it’s over. There isn’t going to be any trouble and it’s none of your business anyway. Besides, in spite of it all, She’s wonderful.’

  We were pushed off the bottom of the escalator by the mob coining down behind us. Then we were struggling along a passage towards the platform. Delight was separated from me; then she got back to me and clung on to my arm, the red pocket-book digging into me again.

  ‘Darling, please, you’ve got to be sensible. She is wonderful, whatever you say. We had a talk. I never told you.’

  ‘A talk?’

  ‘That night in Cannes after you’d gone to bed. You’d blurted that out about the marriage and Roger Renard. She’s no fool. She guessed what had happened. Nickie, she swears M. Picquot was an accident; that they were all accidents. And even if we don’t believe her — look how good she’s being to us. She was marvelous that night. After we’d talked, she admitted she’d been wrong to suspect me. Darling, she said, I see it all now. We got off on the wrong foot simply because we’re so much alike. So ...’

  Suddenly that was all I could take. For days it had been there, but for days I’d refused to admit it. Now there it was. I didn’t love this girl. I didn’t even like her. What had happened? How conceivably had we reached the point of the wedding-gown, the divine church ceremony, the …’

  We were on the platform, standing right on its edge, squeezed on all sides by throngs of natives. I could hear the train roaring out of the tunnel towards us. I felt panic, a terrible claustrophobia. And it wasn’t just the people pushing all around us, it was Delight. The wedding-gown ... the church ceremony ... I couldn’t bear another second of it.

  The train was roaring nearer. I could see its red nose coming out of the tunnel. I swung away from Delight and started clawing my way backwards.

  ‘Nickie.’

  I heard her voice but I didn’t care. I pushed on blindly through the people. I got to the back of the platform. I stumbled over a bench. I got myself together again and pressed on against the crowd back towards the entrance. I had reached it when I heard the scream. It wasn’t really a scream — it was more than that, a terrible, collective gasp and, almost instantly, a rending sound of brakes.

  I turned. I didn’t really go back of my own accord. I went back because there was nothing else to do, everyone was pushing, scrambling in that direction. I was in the middle of it, umbrellas, attaché cases, pipes, elbows.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What ‘appened?’

  I was right on the edge of the platform then, right where Delight had been, right where the head of the train was, motionless now, with a nightmare of faces pressed inside against the window, looking out.

  A woman screamed. Then another woman screamed. And then one voice, for some reason, sorted itself out from the jungle noises as if it was speaking to me. It wasn’t, of course.

  ‘Gorblimey,’ it said. ‘A girl ... pushed off the platform in the crush ... right under the train. ... God almighty, what a mess ... no, ‘ilda, no. Don’t you look now. Don’t you look.’

  But I looked. And there, down on the tracks, I saw Delight’s red pocket-book — and a hand.

  19

  The crowd, I thought. Anyone could have followed us in the crowd. Anyone ... Mother. ... The thought wasn’t coherent, it was hardly a thought at all and it was swallowed up in the chaos of feeling inside me, just as I was swallowed up, shoved, jostled further and further away from The Place. The police would come. I would have to wait. Why? Because I’d been with Delight. But who in that rush-hour mob would have noticed that I’d been with Delight? I hadn’t been with her anyway, not when — when …

  An eddy in the mob was twisting me against the current back towards the exit. Mother! The thought or the feeling whatever it was — surged up again, obliterating everything else. I must get to Mother. Why? For God’s sake, what do you want with her anymore? How could you possibly face…? But it was there, the way it always had been in a crisis ever since I could remember.

  Get to Mother.

  I was squashed against the tiled concave wall next to a poster saying ANNY ROOD AND FAMILY AT THE PALLADIUM. I pushed with all my strength and was shot backwards and out by the exit into the passage. Everyone was streaming down towards the train; no one was streaming out. There was a little empty track along the wall. I ran to the up-escalator, out on to the street, dodging and ducking, back to our side-street and the house.

  I took out my key. I tried to get it into the lock. There’d never been two things less intended for each other. Then, somehow, the key was in place and I was opening the door and I could hear Mother’s voice.

  I went into the living-room. There was Mother. She was wearing a pink housecoat, pacing agitatedly up and down.

  The Elizabeth II R dress was spread over a table and three women were crowding around it.

  ‘It’s always the same,’ Mother was thundering, deep in her Scourge of the Haute Couture characterization. ‘Wherever I go — Balmain, Balenciaga, Dior. Always at the last minute some disaster. You poor dears, I know it isn’t your fault, but ...’ She saw me then. ‘Nickie, a terrible crease, right under the left arm.’

  I’d forgotten the three women who’d been arriving when Delight and I left. As I stood looking at them, I could feel the relief from tension starting way down inside me.

  ‘Mother,’ I said. ‘These ladies — they’ve been here all the time?’

  ‘All what time, darling? They’ve only been here since you and Delight left. Just time enough for me to try on the dress and find …’

 

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