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?’