Score!

Gordon Dillon, on the other hand, was tickled pink to be portrayed as himself. The Scorpion was going to do a big feature, he told Granny, immediately inviting him to lunch in the boardroom.

‘Only if Giuseppe can taste the food and drink first,’ said Granny drily.

‘No chance of your bringing that Lucy Latimer as well?’ asked Gordon Dillon foxily.

There was no doubt that Baby had stolen the show.

‘What are you doing next?’ asked the Guardian.

‘Fat Franco’s broken a rib falling out of someone else’s bed,’ drawled Baby, ‘so I’m taking Otello over from him at the Met.’

‘Wow, the tenor’s Everest,’ said Opera Now in admiration.

No, thought Baby wistfully, Isa Lovell was the tenor’s Everest.

‘Did you enjoy shagging Dame Hermione?’ asked A. A. Gill.

Alpheus was in ecstasy, with so many charming young women journalists to crinkle his eyes at. He had even hung his dinner jacket over the back of a chair to show off his manly figure. George and Wolfie propped up the bar, getting pissed together, keeping an eye on Flora and Tab in case any journalist asked awkward questions.

‘It was the proudest moment of my life’, sighed George, ‘seeing Tebaldo, sung by Flora Hungerford, coming up on the credits.’

‘Hello, Wolfgang. Hi, George,’ called Helen. ‘I don’t know if you’ve met Sir David Hawkley.’

‘Hello, Mummy.’ Tab, breaking away from her circle of press admirers, came rushing over. ‘It’s so cool. Lynda Lee-Potter’s coming down to Penscombe tomorrow to interview me and Sharon. Dog News are putting her on the cover, and Celia Haddon is going to make her Pet of the Week in the Telegraph.’ Then when Helen didn’t respond, Tab asked lamely, ‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘Enormously,’ enthused Helen, ‘Tristan is so clever, and the acting was wonderful. Even Hermione was better than usual. Meredith’s sets were surprisingly effective, so was Lucy’s make-up and Valhalla looked stunning. Wolfie’s also been a tower of strength,’ she continued warmly.

‘I thought your little yellow Lab stole the show,’ said David Hawkley, smiling at Tab.

‘When is your baby due, Dame Hermione?’ asked the Sunday Telegraph.

‘Early April,’ Hermione put on a soppy face, ‘an Aries bairn.’

‘Where are you having it?’

‘In the Hippopotamus House at London Zoo,’ Baby whispered to Flora, ‘David Attenborough’s on standby.’

‘Where are you staying in New York?’ Flora asked him.

‘With Rupert’s younger brother, Adrian, who owns an art gallery and sounds distinctly promising,’ confided Baby. ‘So tomorrow might be another good day.’

Looking down from the balcony, Hype-along was gratified to see all his stars still ringed, six deep, with frantically questioning press. But they were all waiting to talk to Tristan. Many of them had held their pages and were desperate to telephone their copy.

‘Where the hell is he?’ asked Hugh Canning. ‘It’s like Hamlet without the Prince.’

Hype-along tracked down Rupert, on a window-seat, talking to Taggie. ‘I love you,’ he was saying.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ murmured Hype-along, ‘but you’re the only person Tristan might listen to.’

As Rupert fought his way round the edge of the room, he heard Alpheus saying, ‘Now where in hell did I leave my dinner jacket?’

At the bottom of the stairs, he passed Wolfie in deep conversation with Helen. ‘As you’re going to be my mother-in-law for the rest of your life,’ Wolfie was saying icily, ‘it would be nice just occasionally if you could tell Tabitha how brilliantly she’d done.’

‘That’s my boy,’ said Rupert, patting him on the back.

Rupert found Tristan in a small office gazing out on the passers-by and the plane trees of Leicester Square. His face was orange from the street lights, his shoulders hunched, his desolation palpable.

‘You must be over la lune,’ said Rupert cheerfully. ‘You’ve made a bloody marvellous flick, and the press are all downstairs waiting to tell you so.’

‘What is life to me without her?’ said Tristan idly.

Next moment he had grabbed the lapels of Rupert’s dinner jacket and thrust him against a filing cabinet with the strength of a madman.

‘I’ve made you a fucking fortune, you bastard. I’m not speaking to anyone until you tell me where Lucy is.’

For a moment, Rupert gazed at him, seeing the depths of his loneliness and despair.

‘OK. I’ll lean on Gablecross. If he tells me, I’ll fax it up to the Caledonian tomorrow.’

86

Melanie, one of the Academia Awards publicity team, very young, pretty and silly, met Tristan at the airport and made him feel that by catching the right flight he had successfully landed on the moon.

‘It’s so good of you to come all this way — may I call you Tristan? We all love Lily in the Valley so much — we’re going to give away little bottles of Diorissimo by the way. It’s fast becoming a cult movie with my generation. Madame Lauzerte’, she added reverently, ‘has already arrived. She asked me to give you this letter.’