Bella

Chapter Seven

As usual, Bella left buying something to wear to Gay’s wedding to the last minute. She knew she shouldn’t buy anything at all. There were stacks of hardly worn dresses in her wardrobe and, with the present intransigence of her bank manager, he was bound to bounce the cheque anyway.

But for the last week she’d been spending money as though it was going out of fashion, almost as though she was determining her own destiny, forcing herself into such financial straits that the only way out would be to marry Rupert.

Anyway, she had to have a new dress. She knew that Steve had been asked to the wedding, and that he’d been seeing a lot of Angora, and that she must knock him for six by looking even more glamorous.

The shopping expedition was a disaster; half the shops seemed to have sales on. Everything she tried on looked perfectly frightful and she’d no idea how the weather was going to turn out. It was one of those grey, dull days that might easily get hot later.

‘Puce is going to be very big in the autumn,’ said a sales girl, forcing her into a wool dress and holding great folds of material in at the back to give it the appearance of fitting.

Bella winced at her washed out reflection. ‘I look like something the cat brought in or up,’ she said. ‘I need a new face, not a new dress.’

By two o’clock, when she was getting desperate, she found a dress in willow green, sleeveless, low cut and clinging, with a wrap-over skirt. It was the only remotely sexy thing she had tried on.

‘Do you think it’s all right for a wedding?’ she said desperately.

‘Oh yes,’ said the sales girl, raking a midge bite with long red nails. ‘People wear anything for anything these days.’

By the time she’d found a floppy, coral pink picture hat and shoes to match she was really running out of time. But when she tried them all on later in daylight in her flat, she realized the coral looked terrible with her tawny hair.

She had an hour and a half before she had to be at the church. Her hairdresser was closed that afternoon. The only answer was to wash her hair and put a red rinse on it, but in her haste she forgot to read the instructions about not using it on dyed hair. The result was not a gentle Titian, but a bright orange going on Heinz tomato, and impossibly fluffy with it.

She soon realized, too, that half a ton of eyeliners, blushers, shaders and all her skill at making-up wasn’t going to do her any good. It simply wasn’t an on-day.

Her skin looked dead, her eyes small and tired, and no amount of pancake could conceal the bags under them.

It was also getting colder. A sharp east wind was flattening the leaves of the plane trees in the square outside. All her coats were too short to wear over her new dress. In the end she slung Basil, her red fox fur, round her neck.

‘I need a few allies to face that mob,’ she thought.

A large crowd had gathered outside the church to watch people arrive. Bella, hopelessly late, rolled up at the same time as the bridal car and fell up the steps in her haste to get in first.

‘Drunk already,’ said a wag in the crowd.

Lazlo helped her to her feet. With a flash of irritation she realized that he looked very good and that the austere black and white formality of morning dress suited his sallow skin and irregular features extremely well.

He looked at her hair and said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ and then at her bare arms, and added in amusement, ‘You’re going to be bloody cold in church.’

She wanted to slip unnoticed into a pew at the back, but, grabbing her arm like a vice, Lazlo led her right up to the second row from the front.

‘You’re a member of the family now,’ he said.

Rupert, looking glamorous, and almost as pale as the white carnation in his button hole, tried to sit next to her, but Lazlo stopped him.

‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to sit in the front and look after Constance,’ and sat down very firmly on the edge of the row, next to Bella. Bella moved quickly away from him, slap into a very lecherous-looking old man with long grey sideboards, on her other side.

‘You haven’t met Uncle Willy yet, have you Bella?’ said Lazlo.

Beyond Rupert sat a scruffy, but nice-looking boy with a pudding basin hair cut. That must be Rupert’s brother, Jonathan, let off from school.

Across the aisle sat Teddy and his best man. Teddy’s pink and white cheeks were stained with colour as he alternately tugged at his collar and smoothed his newly cut hair.

‘I comforted my mother,’ said Rupert, ‘that she wasn’t losing a daughter, just gaining a cretin.’

Bella giggled. People were turning round and talking to each other and saying, ‘Hello, haven’t seen you for years.’

The organ was playing the same Bach cantata for the third time. Bella, sneaking a surreptitious look round, realized that as usual she was quite wrongly dressed. Everyone was in silk dresses or beautifully cut suits. And the competition was absolutely stupendous. Lazlo was right; it was icy in church. Every goose pimple was standing out on her bare arms. Uncle Willy next door was gazing openly at her breasts. Irritably, to obscure his view, Bella shoved the fox’s mask down the front of her dress.

‘Gone to earth,’ said Lazlo.

Bella gazed stonily ahead at the huge Constance Spry flower arrangement. Suddenly she realized that her wrap-over dress, which looked so respectable when she was standing up, had fallen open, revealing a large expanse of thigh and the pants with ‘Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here’ printed on them, which Rosie had given her for her birthday. Hastily she covered herself up, but not before both Lazlo and Uncle Willy had had a good look.

I’ll kill him, fumed Bella, I’ll kill him, and afterwards I’ll kick his teeth in.

Another old relation, sleeping peacefully behind them, suddenly woke up and said, ‘Come on, buck up. Let’s get cracking,’ in a loud voice. There was a rustle of interest as Constance swept up the aisle looking like a double-decker bus in a dust sheet, waving graciously to friends and relations.

‘She claims she’s just discovered the tent dress,’ Rupert whispered to Bella. ‘But she needs a couple of marquees to cover her.’

Finally, when Bella was about to turn into a pillar of ice, the organ launched into ‘Here Comes the Bride’ and everyone rose to their feet.

Here was Charles, a fatuous smile on his face, wafting brandy fumes as he went. On his arm hung Gay, looking pale but well in control, and carrying a huge bouquet to conceal any evidence of pregnancy. Her progress was slow, for every few seconds she nearly had her head jerked off as one of the little bridesmaids trod on her veil.

Chrissie brought up the rear, wearing pink, a coronet of pink roses on her gleaming dark hair. She’d obviously had a professional make-up. She looked lovely, but suicidal. She halted just beside Lazlo. Rupert turned round and pulled a face at her, trying to make her laugh.

‘Dearly beloved,’ intoned the bishop.

Bella had to share a prayer book with Lazlo. Rigid with loathing, she looked down at his long fingers and beautifully manicured nails and tried not to breathe in the subtle musk and lavender overtones of the aftershave he was wearing.

‘First,’ said the bishop, ‘it was ordained for the procreation of children.’

‘You can say that again,’ muttered Rupert with a grin.

‘Second as a remedy against sin, for such people as have not the gift of continence.’

‘I do hope you’re taking all this in,’ said Lazlo out of the corner of his mouth.

Bella was not listening; she was having a daydream of standing in Gay’s place, with long white satin arms and hair drawn back to show a delicately blushing face, with an impossibly slender waist from a pre-wedding crash diet, with Steve beside her, devastatingly handsome, smiling proudly down at her, and putting a gold ring on her finger.

‘To have and to hold, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part,’ repeated Teddy in his strangulated hernia voice, after the bishop.

But would Steve ever stay with her? Was he capable of loving and cherishing anyone for very long? Would she herself ever be able to love and cherish Rupert the way Chrissie would?

Looking past Lazlo, she saw Chrissie staring fixedly in front of her, the tears pouring down her face. Oh, what a stupid muddle it all is, thought Bella.

‘I feel sick,’ said one of the little bridesmaids.

‘Immortal, Invisible God only wise,’ sang the congregation. Lazlo, next to her, sang the bass part loudly. He’s just the sort of person who would embarrass his children singing parts too loudly in church, she thought savagely.

They all sat down for the sermon. The bishop was getting warmed up about fidelity and the need for steadfastness in the modern world when so many marriages crumbled.

Uncle Willy was rubbing his thigh against Bella’s. She couldn’t move away or she would have been jammed against Lazlo.

She gazed furiously in front of her. Really, she was getting to know that flower arrangement extremely well. Suddenly, with the spontaneity that was so much part of his charm, Rupert turned round, took her hand and squeezed it. She was conscious of both Lazlo and Chrissie watching them. A deep blush spread over her face and down her shoulders.

Constance was crying unashamedly as they all went off into the vestry.

‘It’s not because she’s losing Gay,’ said Lazlo dryly, ‘but the thought of all the money this is costing her.’

A reedy tenor began to sing, ‘Sheep May Safely Graze.’

The wait was interminable.

‘You’d think they were consummating the marriage, wouldn’t you?’ said Rupert. ‘I wish we could smoke.’

Back came the procession. Teddy, crimson with embarrassment; Gay, looking relieved, grinning slightly as she caught the eyes of various relations.

‘Hear you’re an actress,’ said Uncle Willy to Bella. ‘Ever bin in Crossroads?’ (He pronounced it Crawse.) ‘Never miss it m’self, bloody good programme.’

For several minutes they were penned up at the top of the church while the photographers took pictures. As soon as he came out of his pew, Rupert squeezed Bella’s arm.

‘Christ, what a performance. Hullo, Aunt Vera. I’m not going through a bloody circus like this when we get married, darling. Hullo Uncle Bertie. It’s going to be in and out of Chelsea Register Office and straight off to London Airport to somewhere warm immediately afterwards.’

Bella put her hand lovingly over Rupert’s. ‘I agree,’ she said, looking straight at Lazlo. ‘And as soon as possible too. I’ve suddenly gone off long engagements.’

The reception was a nightmare. It was held in three huge marquees in the Henriques’ garden and Bella had never felt more lonely or out of things in her life.

There was a strange assortment of people there. Teddy’s grand, dowdy relations in their silk shirt-waisters and pull-on felts were almost indistinguishable from Constance’s fellow committee workers, who included several Chief Guiders in uniform, who brayed to one another and drank orange juice. In one corner, two bus-loads of tenants from Teddy’s father’s estate sat with their legs apart, looking embarrassed. But by far the largest group of people there, Bella suspected, were Charles’s and Lazlo’s friends, members of the international set at their richest and most international. Even though some of them had turned up in jeans, they had that kind of bland self-assurance, the gilt-edged security that enabled them to be accepted anywhere. Everywhere you looked ravishingly pretty women had emerged from their winter furs like butterflies and stood jamming cigarettes into their scarlet lips, knocking back champagne, refusing asparagus rolls and smoked salmon for the sake of their figures, and chattering wittily to the suave handsome, expensive-looking men who surrounded them. Bella had never seen so many people who seemed to know each other, or, even if they didn’t, would discover a host of friends they had in common.

Rupert did his best to look after her, but he was constantly being grabbed by Constance or Charles, or particularly by Lazlo, to go and look after someone else, or see to something.

She tried to scintillate and be amusing, but because she was nervous and unsure of herself, her voice came out far more artificial and affected than it would normally. Putting up a front to cover up her desperate insecurity, she knew she was appearing phoney and as hard as nails. Rupert kept introducing her into a group of people, but it was like feeding a screw into the Hoover. Five minutes later they’d spew her out again.

God, they were noisy too. Half the conversations were being carried on in foreign languages, full of laughter and exclamation marks, like the talking bits in Fidelio.

She couldn’t even get drunk because she had a performance that evening. In her misery, she ate five éclairs, then felt sick.

Suddenly, as though someone had stamped a branding iron on her back, she was aware of Chrissie standing behind her, her eyes glittering with misery and loathing.

‘Pink really suits you,’ Bella said nervously. ‘And you’ve lost so much weight! You really look ravishing.’

‘But not quite ravishing enough,’ snapped Chrissie, and, turning on her heel, she disappeared into the crowd. Even talking to Uncle Willy would have been preferable to standing by herself, but he was hemmed in by some aunts in a corner.

Where on earth were Steve and Angora, Bella wondered. It was almost impossible to find them in this crowd.

She couldn’t stay leaning against a pillar for ever — like a small boat launching itself on a rough sea, she began fighting her way across the marquee again — and, suddenly, there like something on the big screen, was Angora, wearing a navy blue straw hat which framed her cloudy dark hair and a parma violet suit, which emphasized her huge, purply-blue eyes.

She was surrounded by men, but lounging by her side was Steve in a grey morning suit, cracking jokes, deflecting any competition, very much master of the situation. Admire her, but keep your distance, he seemed to be saying. They made a sensational pair.

Angora was laughing at something he said, throwing back her head to show her lovely white throat when, in mid-laugh, suddenly she saw Bella.

‘Belladonna! Come here — at once.’

As there was nowhere else to go, Bella went up to them.

‘Darling, you’ve gone orange. How brave of you. Is it for a new part, or are you doing a soup commercial?’

The men around Angora looked at Bella without interest.

‘You’ve all met Rupert’s fiancée, haven’t you?’ said Angora. ‘You know Steve of course, Bella, and this is Timmie, and this is Patrick, and this is. . oh God, I can’t remember your name.’

Bella was looking at Steve. Her heart was pounding.

‘Yes, I know Steve,’ she said. ‘Or I thought I did. How are you?’

‘Fantastic,’ said Steve, giving her that curiously opaque, shutters-down look she knew of old. ‘Where’s Rupert? Getting some aunt out of mothballs?’

‘I’m glad you’ve brought Foxy,’ said Angora, patting Bella’s fox fur. ‘He looks as though he needs an outing. Why don’t you give him some Bob Martins?’

Everyone laughed. Bella blushed. Why can’t I think of some witty crack to make back, she thought miserably.

Rescue, however, was at hand, in the not very steady shape of Charles. ‘Bella, darling,’ he said, kissing her on both cheeks. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you. They ought to page people at this party. I wonder if you’d be terribly kind and give a word of advice to a young niece of mine. She’s awfully keen to go on the stage and I thought, being such a star, you were the person to talk to.’

Bella got a slight satisfaction in seeing a look of annoyance flicker across Angora’s face. She obviously felt she was the one who ought to be consulted.

‘I’d love to,’ said Bella and, without even saying goodbye to Steve, she followed Charles back into the crowd.

The stage-struck niece had a horse face and half Chelsea Flower Show on her head.

‘It must be amazing to be acting at the Britannia,’ she said. ‘I suppose you pulled strings.’

‘No,’ said Bella, ‘not even a tiny thread, but I had a lucky break. Have you had much experience?’

‘No. I played Juliet in the school play. Everyone said I was awfully good.’

Oh God! Bella groaned inwardly. ‘Have you tried to get into any of the drama schools?’ she said.

‘No. Perhaps you could give me a list of names. And perhaps you could introduce me to your director. I gather he’s very charming.’

‘Very,’ said Bella. Her mind started to wander.

The horse-faced niece droned on and on.

‘Incredible, fantastic, amazing,’ said Bella at suitable intervals. Then she said, ‘How marvellous’. The horse-faced girl looked at her in surprise.

‘How marvellous,’ said Bella again.

‘I said Mummy was in Harrods when the bomb went off last week,’ said the girl.

‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ said Bella. ‘I misheard you. There’s such a din going on.’

Next moment one of Horseface’s friends came up and they started shrieking at each other. Bella escaped, but not before she heard Horseface saying, ‘That’s Rupert’s fiancée. I don’t think she’s quite all there.’

Bella retreated to a pillar again and ate three more éclairs, malevolently surveying the rest of the crowd.

‘Don’t look so horrified,’ said a voice. ‘You chose to marry into this lot.’

She jumped nervously. It was Lazlo.

‘They’re a load of junk,’ she snapped. ‘They should be driven over a cliff with pitch forks.’

Lazlo laughed. ‘I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.’

A waitress came by with a tray.

‘Have an ice,’ he said. ‘Children are supposed to like them, aren’t they?’

‘I hate ices,’ her voice rose shrilly, ‘more than anything else in the world except you.’

At that moment Teddy came up, looking distraught.

‘Hullo, Bella,’ he said. ‘I say, Lazlo, I thought pregnant women only threw up in the morning. Gay’s puking her guts out upstairs. I’m sure Constance is going to smell a rat. She wants us to cut the cake now. She’s terrified everyone is going to drink too much.’

‘Poor old Teddy,’ said Lazlo, ‘but you did go into this with your flies open.’

‘I certainly did,’ sighed Teddy. ‘It’s hell being a bridegroom. No-one talks to you because they all think you ought to be talking to someone else.’

He wandered off, looking miserable, and they were immediately joined by a smooth looking man with auburn hair and heavy-lidded eyes.

‘Lazlo!’

‘Henri my dear, how are things?’

‘Pretty rough. I’ve had to sell half my horses and I’ve had to sell off the land, but at least they’ve let me keep the shooting. Hope you’ll come and stay for the twelfth.’ He held out his glass to be filled by a passing waiter.

‘I say,’ he went on. ‘Where’s this chorus girl Rupert’s got himself mixed up with? One hears such conflicting views. Charles is evidently rather smitten, but he always liked scrubbers. The rest of the family seem to think she’s absolute hell.’

Bella went white.

‘Judge for yourself,’ said Lazlo. ‘This is Bella.’

‘Oh God,’ said the red-headed man, looking not at all embarrassed. ‘Trust me to put both feet in it.’ He gave Bella a horseflesh-judging once-over, then said, ‘I must say I’m inclined to agree with Charles. You’re bound to get opposition if you marry into this lot; they’re so bloody cliquey. It’ll be your turn next, Lazlo. One of those pretty girls you run around with will finally get her claws into you.’

‘Hardly,’ said Lazlo. ‘Just because I enjoy a good gallop it doesn’t necessarily mean I want to buy the horse.’

The red-headed man laughed.

‘Cold-blooded sod aren’t you? I must say you’ve got a pretty smart crowd here today. Aren’t those a couple of Royals I see through the smoke?’

‘My Aunt Constance,’ said Lazlo, ‘would get blue blood out of a stone. I suppose I’d better go and organize someone or we’ll be here till midnight.’

Gay, looking pea-green but fairly composed, reappeared to cut the cake. Rupert fought his way over to Bella’s side.

‘God, what a hassle. The most terrible things are happening. Uncle Willy’s just exposed himself to one of Teddy’s female tenants. Has Lazlo been taking care of you?’

‘I’m sure he’d like me taken care of,’ said Bella.

Someone rapped the table. The speeches were mercifully short.

Lazlo stood up first to propose Gay’s and Teddy’s health. He was the sort of person who could quieten a room just by clearing his throat.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, in his husky, slightly foreign voice, ‘that so many of you have had to miss Goodwood. We all appreciate the sacrifice.’ He then proceeded to read out the Goodwood results.

God, that laid them in the aisles. They were all in stitches.

‘Bloody funny,’ said Rupert.

In a corner Uncle Willy was so drunk he was trying to light an asparagus roll.

Lazlo then told a couple of jokes — Bella had to admire his timing — before raising his glass to Gay and Teddy. Everyone round her drained empty glasses. The drink, due to Constance’s parsimony, was running short.

Teddy got up.

His heart was in his mouth, he said, and, as his old Nanny had told him never to talk with his mouth full, he’d better shut up. God, they fell about at that too. I wish I played to audiences like that, thought Bella.

He just wanted to thank Constance and Charles, he added, and toast the jolly pretty bridesmaids. The best man replied briefly and the room became a great twittering aviary again. Children were beginning to get over-excited and run through people’s legs. Grandmothers retired to the sidelines to rest their swelling ankles. Suddenly, there was a loud bang on the table and Bella turned hearing Charles’s voice.

‘I won’t keep you a moment,’ he said, his voice slurring, his eyes glazed.

‘Pissed as a newt as usual,’ said someone behind Bella.

‘I won’t keep you a minute,’ he said again. ‘But I just wanted everyone to know how absolutely delighted Constance and I are that our son, Rupert, has just announced his engagement to a very talented and beautiful girl.’

‘Charles,’ thundered Constance, magenta with rage.

‘Pissed as a newt,’ said the voice again.

‘I want you to drink to Bella and Rupert,’ said Charles. ‘I know she’ll be an asset to us all.’

Half the marquee had started mumbling, ‘Bella and Rupert,’ when Chrissie suddenly said, very loudly, ‘It’s not true. She’s not an asset. She’s horrible, horrible. She’s the biggest bitch that ever lived.’

There was a dreadful, embarrassed silence.

‘Shut up, Chrissie,’ snarled Rupert.

‘What’s that, what’s that?’ everyone was saying.

Lazlo had crossed the room in a flash.

‘Come on, baby, that’s enough. Upstairs with you.’

‘You don’t understand. No-one understands anything,’ said Chrissie and, wrenching her arms away from Lazlo, she fled out of the marquee.

Bella had also had enough. She fought her way out into the street and immediately found a taxi. Just as she had got in and was telling the driver to take her to the theatre, Rupert appeared at the window.

‘Bella darling, please wait.’

‘No, I will not,’ she hissed. ‘I’ve had enough of you and your bloody family for one afternoon. I’m not going to stand around getting insulted any more. Go on,’ she said to the driver. ‘Get going.’

‘Darling,’ pleaded Rupert, ‘for Christ’s sake let me explain.’

As the taxi moved off he reached in to grab her arm, but caught hold of the fox’s tail instead, which promptly came off in his hand.

Bella leaned out of the car.

‘And I’ll report you to the RSPCA for cruelty to foxes,’ she screamed back at him.