Bella

Chapter Eight

She couldn’t wait to get to the theatre to pour out all her miseries to Rosie Hassell.

When she arrived, she discovered Rosie was off with ’flu and an understudy was taking her place. The poor girl was absolutely sick with nerves and needed all the boosting Bella could give her.

Here I am at twenty-four, a real trouper with a Manx Fox, thought Bella, and she started to giggle helplessly. All the same, she gave a terrible performance. She couldn’t concentrate and she kept drying up and fluffing her lines.

Rupert rang her in the interval. It took all his powers of persuasion to get her to come out that evening.

‘Chrissie was tight,’ he said. ‘She’s been on a diet, hasn’t eaten properly for days, and she’s got this sort of crush on me. She passed out when she got upstairs. She’ll be absolutely mortified in the morning.’

‘She’s not coming out with us tonight?’

‘I don’t think so — just Angora, Steve, Lazlo and one of his birds.’

‘The Heavy Brigade,’ said Bella.

But she couldn’t resist another chance to get at Steve.

She made a real hash of the last act. Wesley Barrington had to carry her the whole way. There was a great deal of applause at the end, both for him and the understudy.

‘Roger’s out front,’ said Wesley, out of the corner of his mouth, as bowing and smiling, they took the last curtain call.

‘Oh God,’ said Bella. ‘I’d better make myself scarce.’

Roger, however, came back-stage immediately.

‘Well done,’ he said to the understudy, his square freckled face breaking into a smile of approval. ‘That was a lovely performance. Now clear out and get changed somewhere else.’

When she had gone, he shut the door and leant against it. ‘That was a cock-up, wasn’t it,’ he said grimly. ‘I suppose you got tight at the wedding.’

Bella shook her head. ‘Not enough. That was the trouble.’

‘Hell — was it?’

‘Hell would seem like a day at the seaside compared with that little bunfight. The Henriques really don’t like outsiders, do they? Trespassers are very much persecuted.’

She lit a cigarette with a trembling hand.

‘Putting the heat on, are they? Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, marrying this boy?’

‘Oh, not you too,’ groaned Bella. ‘I thought you were my friend.’

‘I am, and one of your greatest fans too. I know you can make it really big, but not if you go on giving lousy performances like this evening. You’re in bad shape, angel. If I touched you, you’d twang. And you look frightful too. No-one looking at you could see any reason why Othello should have the hots for you.’

‘Thanks a lot,’ said Bella, and started to laugh.

‘That’s better. Now you’ve got three days off, haven’t you? For God’s sake get some sleep. What are you going to do?’

‘Spend the weekend at the Henriques’ country hot seat.’

‘You’ll enjoy that. It’s very plushy. Hot and cold servants in every bedroom, and the country is absolutely magical.’

‘If that’s supposed to cheer me up,’ said Bella, ‘it’s an experience I would gladly forgo. You know how I hate the country.’

It was only when she got out of her costume that she realized she’d brought nothing to wear. She hated the willow green dress as she hated hell pains. The only alternative was a T-shirt with a picture of Clark Gable on the front and a crumpled pair of black knickerbockers which had been at the bottom of her cupboard for weeks and smelt of old mushrooms.

Oh well, she thought, tugging them on, I’ve got the top batting average for wearing the wrong clothes, why spoil the record?

It was four o’clock in the morning and the night had fallen to pieces around her. They had gone from disco to disco, and ended up in one of Rupert’s haunts, where the musicians played cool jazz.

Chrissie had cried off, pleading a headache.

She can’t stand seeing me and Rupert together, Bella thought wryly. And Lazlo had brought a ravishing Spanish girl with him, with a long black plait trailing down her beautiful brown back.

Steve had ignored Bella all evening. It was as though a sheet of glass had risen between them. Not once did he ask her to dance.

She was dead with exhaustion, but some masochistic streak wouldn’t allow her to go home.

They were all dancing now, Steve still laughing with Angora. Rupert, his cheeks flushed, his hair tousled over his face like some Bacchante, was pressing his body against Bella’s, muttering endearments into her ear. Lazlo was kissing his beautiful Spaniard, his hands slowly caressing her brown back, which was arched towards him in ecstatic submission, the two of them exuding so much white-hot sexuality it rubbed off on everyone else.

I can’t stand it, thought Bella in agony, and wrenching herself away from Rupert, she fled into the loo and burst into a storm of weeping.

After a few minutes she managed to pull herself together and looked at her face in the mirror. It was pale grey. She rubbed some lipstick on to her cheeks. The effect was horrible.

And you can stop grinning too! she snarled silently at Clark Gable, who was baring his teeth across her bosom.

Rupert was dancing with the Spanish girl when she got back to the table. Lazlo was smoking a cigar. Bella sat down as far away from him as possible and gazed into her drink.

‘You won’t find the truth in the bottom of a shot of Johnnie Walker,’ he said.

The light from an opening door suddenly lit up the long scar down the side of his face.

Curious, in spite of herself, Bella asked, ‘Where did you get that scar?’

‘In Buenos Aires. A man called Miguel Rodriguez pulled a knife on me.’

‘What for?’

‘He thought I was having it off with his wife.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I killed him!’

Bella shivered. ‘But why?’

‘He’d have killed me otherwise, and I was — er — quite fond of his wife.’

‘There must have been a frightful scandal.’

‘Frightful. But there have been worse since. People soon forget.’

She started to laugh scornfully but, somehow, the laugh got out of hand and went on and on.

‘This isn’t doing you any good, is it?’ he said.

‘I’m all right,’ she snapped.

He picked up her hand and examined it. ‘Maybe, but bitten nails do not denote serenity. The woods are deep and dark and full of tigers. You’d be very wise to pack Rupert in.’

‘Over my dead body,’ she hissed, snatching her hand away from him.

Then the inevitable happened. Steve and Angora were no longer there.

Lazlo gave Rupert and Bella a lift. The top of the car was down, the night all warm, and Bella looked up at the endless stars, trying to convince herself her life wasn’t over.

Rupert put his arm round her.

‘Don’t maul me,’ she yelled, suddenly at breaking point.

There was a shocked silence. Rupert went white. ‘Take it easy, darling,’ he said gently.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ said Bella, a moment later taking his hand.

But in the driving mirror, she saw a glint of satisfaction in Lazlo’s eyes.