‘Shut up, Baby,’ muttered Flora.
‘Look out!’ yelled Valentin.
For Chloe had grabbed a carving knife off the table and jumped on Baby, screaming, ‘Take that back, you little fag-fucker.’
The band stopped and a gasp of horror went round the room.
‘Was that why you killed Rannaldini and Beattie? To shut them up?’ taunted Baby and, showing surprising strength for someone so languid, yanked the hand holding the knife down to thigh level.
‘No, I did not,’ shrieked Chloe.
For a few seconds, they struggled in a deadly embrace, eyes filled with loathing six inches apart.
‘You fucked up me and Isa,’ hissed Chloe.
‘Correc-shon. You fucked up me and Isa.’
‘You and Isa?’ whispered Chloe in horror. ‘I don’t believe it, you bloody liar. I’ll kill you.’
Tangled in the folds of her mesh dress, the knife quivered like a trapped fish.
‘George!’ screamed Flora.
But as he raced in through the French windows, Hermione made her entrance from the hall with her head held high.
‘Good evening, everyone.’ Then, catching sight of Baby and Chloe locked in their dance of death, ‘Good gracious, I had no idea you two were an item.’
For a second, Baby’s face twitched, then Chloe corpsed too, and they had collapsed in helpless laughter.
‘I’ll have that,’ said George, as the carving knife thudded on to the autumn-leaf-patterned carpet.
‘We’d better have another bottle and compare Black Cobra bites,’ said Baby, ruffling Chloe’s hair.
‘I’ll never understand singers,’ sighed Ogborne, piling on a second helping of strawberry Pavlova.
‘Gifts for all, gifts for all,’ cried Hermione, beckoning in Sexton, who was buckling under a log basket of presents.
‘How exciting,’ squeaked Jessica, tearing off the paper. ‘Thank you, Dame Hermione.’
‘What have you given us?’ asked Grisel.
‘Calendars,’ smiled Hermione.
‘How clever of you to get next year’s so early,’ said Pushy. After all, she might want to work with the old boot again.
‘They’re this year’s,’ said Grisel in outrage. ‘And it’s half-way through July.’
‘No-one’s interested in dates,’ said Hermione airily. ‘Particularly if one’s bookings extend beyond the millennium, as mine do. What matters is the lovely photographs.’
‘What are they of?’ asked Ogborne.
‘Why, me, of course. Next year, I’m hoping to show some of Cosmo’s oeuvre.’
‘“There is nothing like a dime,”’ sang Sexton, as he bopped happily with Hermione. ‘I love you, Hermsie.’
‘D’you feel you can truly care for Little Cosmo?’
‘I love ’im already,’ said Sexton truthfully. ‘He’s so sharp, I’ll be able to veg out in his pram while he goes to the office for me.’
A tranquillized, cross-eyed Trevor was now lying in Flora’s arms like a baby.
‘Why are you looking so cheerful?’ she asked Meredith.
‘Tomorrow I’m flying to Oz.’
‘To meet up with Hermione’s husband, Bobby?’
‘But not for much longer.’ Meredith nodded at a bopping Hermione. ‘It looks as though Madam is at last going to give Bobby a divorce.’
‘I’m so pleased.’ Flora kissed him on the cheek.
‘Come on, Meredith, on your feet,’ boomed Griselda.
‘New trousers.’ Halting in mid-bop, Hermione looked beadily at Grisel’s Day-glo pink harem pants. ‘I’m sure you’ll find them very useful.’
‘Useful for getting the entire harem in there as well,’ murmured Flora to Simone, who, in her pretty flowery dress, was leaning against the wall, sipping iced water.
‘I think Griselda’s days of promiscuity are over,’ said Simone gravely. ‘I want you to be the first to know, Flora, that Grisel and I are an item.’
Flora nearly dropped Trevor.
‘Was that why you got over Wolfie so fast?’ she squeaked.
Simone nodded. ‘I have never been so in love in my life. We are flying down to the Tarn to meet Mama and Papa tomorrow.’
‘Will they approve?’
‘They will probably feel Grisel is a little old for me. She’s six months older than Mama, but once they meet her…’
‘Have you told Uncle Tristan?’
‘No, he doesn’t take much on board at the moment.’
Having immediately crossed the drawing room to admire George’s Picasso when he arrived, Tristan had hardly moved.
Normally at wrap parties he felt elated and disembodied: if someone rolled back the stone, he wouldn’t be there. But tonight there was no elation. His mind kept slipping into reverse gear as he bitterly castigated himself for being so brutal to Lucy. He wanted to drive over to Valhalla and find her, but having just arrived, he couldn’t abandon his cast and crew, who had endured so much.
Normally also at wrap parties he felt like a prince on a walkabout with everyone shaking his hand and thanking him for a wonderful shoot. But tonight, although no-one was openly hostile, he could feel their reproach, as palpable as the ever-increasing mountain of presents for Lucy on the polished table beside him.
‘What’s the matter with you all?’ he snarled at Valentin.
‘People may not want to work on Hercule unless you hire Lucy again,’ snapped back Valentin. ‘She was so good at calming down singers, and Oscar reckons she’s the best he’s ever worked with.’
‘That’s because the lazy sod gets more sleep if he doesn’t have to spend hours adjusting lights to compensate for the inadequacies of some make-up artist,’ said Tristan sourly.
‘Why d’you have to fire Lucy?’ demanded Ogborne, his mouth full of Danish blue.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ Tristan turned away and, for the thousandth time, punched out Lucy’s number.
‘Don’t bug the guy,’ Sylvestre chided the rest of the crew. ‘You all seem to forget that while he was losing three crucial days’ filming he was in prison on a murder charge, being put through the mangle by the flics. He’s entitled to the odd tantrum.’
‘The Vodaphone you have called is not responding,’ the operator was now telling Tristan, ‘please try later, please try later,’ until he wanted to wring her neck and hurl his mobile through George’s huge window-pane. If only Wolfie were here, he’d have found Lucy.
‘You’ll never guess,’ hissed Flora to Baby, ‘Grisel and Simone are an item.’
‘Good God, d’you think she takes her turban off in bed?’
‘“You’re lovely to look at, delightful to know and heaven to kiss,”’ sang Alpheus, as he foxtrotted past with Serena.
‘“He said that he loved ’er, but, oh, ’ow he lie, oh, ’ow he lie, oh, ’ow he lie,”’ sang Giuseppe in Granny’s ear. ‘Serena is so boring. I want to come back, I miss you.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ said Granny, with decreasing conviction.
‘Howie get me Don Giovanni at La Scala,’ murmured Giuseppe, ‘so I can take you on long holiday and pay for all things. Please, Granville.’
‘Oh, my dear boy.’
‘Excuse me, Granville.’ Hermione was scrabbling like a terrier in Lucy’s pile of presents. ‘I’ve forgotten Maria. D’you think Lucy’ll mind awfully if she didn’t get one of my calendars?’
‘I expect she’ll live,’ said Granny.
Tristan shivered. ‘I’m not sure she will. I am bloody worried, Granny.’
‘Monsieur de Montigny,’ said the editor of Classical Music, who’d disguised himself as a waiter, ‘about Claudine Lauzerte?’