Au Reservoir Read online

  There came the hiss of a collective sharp intake of breath. The story of Noël Coward’s curt dismissal had of course been widely disseminated (Elizabeth had felt it no less than her duty, painful though it was to suggest that Lulu might not be entirely truthful).

  ‘His letter?’ Elizabeth echoed. ‘Was that the one in which he told you to leave him alone?’

  Lucia gave one of her little silvery laughs.

  ‘Elizabeth, dear,’ she said, elongating the name playfully. ‘You really must learn to read other people’s letters more thoroughly.’

  There was another group gasp.

  ‘Darling Noël is so temperamental that he has spats with all his friends on a regular basis. Why he wrote to me a few days later to apologise most charmingly and say that he was so taken up with writing his new play that he sometimes forgot to whom he was writing halfway through a letter. “But I just put it in the envelope, send it anyway and hope for the best,” he said. So like him, don’t you think?’

  ‘No idea, I’m sure, dear,’ Elizabeth said venomously. ‘After all, we don’t know him as well as you do, do we?’

  Lucia was rapt in thought and therefore able simply to ignore this impious riposte.

  ‘Let me see,’ she said, weighing her words judiciously, ‘did he mention Georgie’s visit in his last letter? No, it’s no good, I simply can’t remember. Perhaps they will be able to get together and perhaps they won’t. After all, in London society so much happens spontaneously, you know. Why I remember one day Babs Shyton –’

  She cut herself off abruptly and raised a gloved hand to her mouth, clearly signalling that she recognised that she had been about to divulge something terribly scandalous to which only a small and highly select social group were privy.

  It was time to turn towards Mallards and make a gracious exit, and turn towards Mallards and make a gracious exit she duly did, waving that same gloved hand and bestowing upon her friends a serene but slightly mischievous smile that was all her own.

  ‘Goodbye, dear ones,’ she called as she departed the scene, an almost tangible curtain falling as she did so.

  ‘Au reservoir.’

  Chapter 2

  Late that same evening Olga and Georgie arrived at Sheekey’s and swept through the door to the usual burst of spontaneous applause from the assembled diners, most of whom had come straight from the Royal Opera House where they had thrilled to Olga’s Walküre. Lucia would doubtless have savoured the moment to the full, murmuring, ‘Grazie tante,’ and allowing a regal smile to play around her lips. Olga simply shouted, ‘Evening, everybody!’ before seizing the manager in a firm embrace and demanding a glass of champagne before she expired.

  ‘Always such a pleasure to see you, Miss Bracely,’ said that worthy gentleman, while attempting to disentangle himself. ‘You have a reservation, of course?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Alfredo,’ she hooted, ‘when do I ever make a reservation?’

  Alfredo gestured rather helplessly at the full restaurant.

  ‘Perhaps if you take a seat in the bar for a few moments …?’ he ventured.

  ‘All right, you old rascal, but mind you don’t keep us waiting long – I’m famished.’ Then, releasing the manager but only in order to take a firm hold of Georgie’s arm, ‘This is Mr Pillson, by the way, Alfredo, an especially good friend of mine.’

  Alfredo pretended to remember Georgie, which the latter found very gratifying. The crowd of people around the bar parted as if by magic as Olga approached and two empty bar stools materialised. Like an ocean liner she seemed to create her own bow wave, which swept lesser vessels majestically but beautifully to either side.

  Two glasses of champagne appeared equally quickly and mysteriously.

  ‘Oh, Olga!’ breathed Georgie in rapture. ‘This is simply wonderful. To be here, with you, and to have listened to you singing that wonderful music.’

  ‘Georgie, darling,’ replied Olga, ‘you know that it’s the biggest thrill in the world for me to see you too.’

  She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips, which took him so totally by surprise that it was like suddenly being in the presence of an immensely bright flash of light. As much as surprising, Georgie found it distinctly exciting in a very unaccustomed sort of way, as well as highly embarrassing, since various people around them said ‘Ah!’ and started clapping.

  He tried to adopt the expression of a sophisticated man of the world who was kissed publicly by glamorous women several times an evening but, still unsettled by the experience, found himself overbalancing and only just managed not to fall straight off his bar stool, which would have been very tiresome indeed.

  ‘Now, tell me all about Lucia,’ demanded Olga, as he tried wriggling his posterior from side to side in an effort to squirm back into an upright position. However, as he teetered precariously he ended up doing something very painful on the edge of the stool, let out an involuntary gasp and had to put a foot down on the floor. As he blinked back the tears that sprang unbidden to his eyes, he struggled to reply to Olga and at the same time scramble back into position again, trying to look as unconcerned as possible, as if he fell off bar stools on a regular basis.

  ‘Oh, Olga,’ he protested as he did so, ‘do we really have to talk about Lucia? I’d much rather talk about you and what you’ve been doing, and what your plans are, and –’

  At this point he was interrupted by the manager, who informed them that a table had just become free. The bar waiter picked up their glasses to carry them into the next room. Strangely, all the other people who had been waiting for tables much longer than they had did not seem to mind this at all.

  ‘Oh gosh, Alfredo,’ Olga said, suddenly stopping at the door of the bar, ‘did I mention that I needed a table for four? I’m hoping that a couple of friends can join us. I didn’t? Oh, I’m sorry. How wretched of me.’

  Alfredo gave a heavy sigh and returned them to their bar stools, their glasses of champagne also making a welcome reappearance.

  ‘But Lucia is such enormous fun,’ said Olga, continuing their conversation as if nothing had happened. ‘She is one of life’s truly remarkable characters. I sometimes believe that if she did not exist we would have to invent her. Everything she does is on an epic scale and she endows it all with such drama and grandeur that one can only stand back and admire.’

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ Georgie demurred. ‘What about that time you dressed up as a member of the choir to sing carols with them, and she said afterwards that one of them had stood out above all the others and sung out of tune?’

  ‘Now, now, Georgie,’ she chided, ‘anybody can make a mistake.’

  ‘And talking of mistakes,’ he continued unabashed, ‘what about the time she mistook Schubert’s cradle song for Lucrezia?’

  ‘Ah,’ Olga countered in triumph, ‘but then, as she pointed out herself, she was listening from outside the window.’

  At this both fell victim to a paroxysm of mirth, which threatened to dethrone Georgie from his precarious perch once more. Happily, Alfredo intervened and led them to a table for four, handily situated in full view of the door. Hardly had they been handed the menus when two distinguished-looking gentlemen came through the door, recognised Olga and came straight over. Georgie thought they both looked familiar but could not quite place them.

  ‘Olga, my sweet,’ murmured the first, taking his cigarette out of his mouth to kiss her tenderly on each cheek.

  ‘Noël, how lovely to see you!’ shrieked Olga. ‘I’m so glad I could get a table – and Johnnie too, what a treat!’

  ‘The treat is all mine, my dear,’ said the other rather wearily.

  They both looked at Georgie, and Olga grabbed his arm.

  ‘This is my very special friend, Georgie Pillson,’ she informed them. ‘You must have heard me talk about him dozens of times. He’s just up from Tilling, and came to see my Brünnhilde at the House.’

  They all shook hands, with both the newcomers nodding ‘Charme
d’ in Georgie’s direction.

  ‘And Georgie,’ said Olga, ‘I’m sure I don’t need to introduce Noël Coward and John Gielgud.’

  They all sat down and Noël Coward extended one languid hand for a menu and a second languid hand for a dry martini, which seemed to have arrived unbidden.

  ‘Tilling,’ he mused, rolling the word around his mouth to see if he liked the taste. ‘Oh God, isn’t that where that dreadful woman lives, the one who keeps writing to invite me to her amateur dramatics or something?’

  ‘Oh, my dears,’ gasped Gielgud in horror, ‘yes, it is. She writes to me too. Ghastly! I remember when she did the season in London a few years back and went around collecting duchesses as if they were postage stamps. Now, what was her name? Really, my memory is so shocking.’

  ‘I, on the other hand,’ said Coward firmly, ‘have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants frequently consult me when they have forgotten something.’

  ‘Her name is Lucia,’ Olga replied firmly before Georgie might feel forced to say something. ‘I know her. I can assure you that her heart is in the right place. It’s just that she’s a little …’

  ‘Over-enthusiastic, perhaps?’ ventured Georgie.

  ‘Why, how clever of you to find absolutely the right word, Georgie,’ said Olga admiringly. ‘That’s it exactly’.

  ‘And she does do a great deal for charity,’ continued Georgie rather awkwardly.

  ‘Oh, my dear boy,’ said Coward, ‘so do I. In fact, I am never happier than when in the company of those less fortunate than myself.’

  Olga screamed with laughter and clapped her hands.

  ‘Noël, you are wonderful the way you come out with these things. Give us something else, do.’

  ‘He may not be able to,’ said Gielgud. ‘After all, there is a limit to the number of ad libs one can prepare carefully in advance – even for Noël, whose powers are prodigious in that respect.’

  Coward sighed deeply.

  ‘Professional jealousy is a dreadful thing. Always remember, being an actor is easy; you simply have to learn your lines and not fall over the furniture. I, on the other hand, am something much greater. I am a writer; I am creative.’

  Gielgud appeared unimpressed, but Olga urged them to order as it was growing late (though she might equally as truthfully have said because she was hungry).

  Georgie felt the dinner pass as if in a dream. He could hardly believe that he was dining not only with Olga, his idol, but also with two internationally acclaimed celebrities. He knew that Gielgud was currently appearing as Richard III, yet both he and Coward seemed much more interested in swapping show business gossip of a particularly salacious kind. Gielgud also seemed to be taking an unusual interest in the young waiter who was serving them so attentively.

  ‘Nice boy,’ he commented, as the waiter set off once again to fetch something. ‘I wonder if I should give him something?’

  ‘Really, Johnnie,’ said Coward, ‘what a very naughty matinee idol you are.’

  Olga screamed with laughter again, and Georgie found himself laughing with her. There were many times when she laughed and he wasn’t sure that he should, or even why he should, but there was something infinitely infectious about her laugh that made it impossible not to join in. Coming from the lungs of one of the world’s greatest singers, it was loud and doubtless had she been there Lucia would have described it as vulgar, but it came from the heart, and was part of that particular, indefinable magic that was just, well, Olga.

  Three bottles of champagne later, the four walked rather unsteadily into St Martin’s Lane to where the doorman had procured them some taxis. As they made their way along the passageway past Wyndham’s Theatre, Noël said, ‘I expect Herbert Marshall is appearing here in something or other.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Gielgud, peering into the darkness in a vain attempt to see the billboards.

  ‘He’s always appearing in something at the Wyndham’s,’ replied Coward wearily. At that moment a volley of flashbulbs went off from a group of photographers who had been waiting in ambush at the end of the passage, leaving them completely blinded, though as Georgie followed Olga into the taxi he did hear them calling out, ‘Good night, Miss Bracely.’

  It was scandalously late by the time they got to Olga’s flat, nearly two in the morning in fact, and Georgie went to sleep as soon as he climbed into bed. He fell to dreaming that Noël Coward had come to perform in the church hall at Tilling as a conjurer and had locked Lucia in a cabinet, from which he had made her disappear. But Lucia, though out of sight, obviously had no intention of being also out of mind, and from wherever she was concealed had started knocking vigorously to be released.

  ‘Oh dash it all, Georgie, do wake up!’ wailed Olga, who had given up knocking on the door and simply entered his room, throwing back the curtains as she spoke.

  Georgie blinked helplessly in the sudden sunlight and then, remembering his toupee, started to grope for it on the chair next to him but succeeded only in knocking it on to the floor.

  ‘Never mind that, you darling,’ said Olga with a smile that he could not quite make out but which melted his heart nonetheless. ‘Look at this.’

  He took the proffered Daily Telegraph, folded open at the society page. Above a large photograph of the four of them walking arm in arm past Wyndham’s Theatre was the caption ‘Miss Olga Bracely, fresh from her triumph at the Royal Opera House, relaxes with Mr Noël Coward, Mr John Gielgud and Mr George Pillson.’

  ‘Well,’ gasped Georgie, rather gratified since he had to admit it was a very good likeness of himself, ‘I can’t see that there’s anything to be upset about.’

  ‘Not even when both Noël and Johnnie have refused Lucia’s invitations several times?’

  ‘Not so much invitations,’ mused Georgie, beginning to see that all might after all not be well, ‘more like royal commands.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Olga firmly, ‘the fact that they have snubbed her but dined with you was not one I was intending to have brought to her attention. Stupid of me! I should have guessed the photographers would be waiting for us outside.’

  ‘Well,’ ventured Georgie, ‘I suppose they were only doing their jobs.’

  ‘I’m glad that’s the way you feel,’ replied Olga in a rather strange tone of voice, ‘because I haven’t shown you the wretched Daily Mirror.’

  He took the wretched Daily Mirror and stared at it in horror and disbelief. There was no need to open it. Covering half the front page was a photograph of Olga and Georgie locked in what appeared to be a passionate embrace in the bar at Sheekey’s. As he over-balanced on his stool, Georgie must have put out a hand for support and he now saw that it had come to rest, quite inadvertently, on what could only be described as Olga’s thigh. This time the caption read ‘Miss Olga Bracely, enjoying an intimate night out with her long-time friend and companion Mr George Pillson, the Mayor of Tilling.’

  Georgie’s piteous gaze moved backwards and forwards from the newspaper to Olga’s face for several seconds, while his mouth opened and closed in a passable imitation of a goldfish. What felt like a severe attack of butterflies erupted in his midriff. Without a doubt this was the worst moment of his life.

  ‘Oh, my hat!’ finally came the faint bleat. On reflection he felt this did not fully reflect the enormity of the situation, so he repeated it for good measure. ‘Oh, my hat!’

  ‘Never mind your damned hat,’ came the brisk response, ‘we need to think what to do, Georgie. Think like we’ve never thought before. Oh, yes, come in, Céline.’

  She broke off and sat absent-mindedly on the bed while her maid poured out two cups of extremely strong coffee. Georgie did not normally drink coffee in the morning for fear of heartburn but today he drained the cup eagerly and happily accepted another. Even under the extreme stimulus of this unaccustomed barrage of caffeine, however, his brain obstinately refused to work. Fortunately Olga’s mind was not similarly hampered.

  ‘Céline,’ she o
rdered, ‘take the telephone off the hook and leave it off. If anybody asks, it has been out of order since yesterday and we are waiting for a man to come and fix it.’

  ‘Oui, madame,’ acknowledged the maid with a bob, and left the room to do her mistress’s bidding.

  ‘What time is it?’ Olga demanded. Georgie lifted his half-hunter off the chair beside him and gazed at it rather short-sightedly.

  ‘Just after nine,’ he said.

  ‘When will Lucia see this?’

  Georgie turned things over in his mind, which was finally showing faint signs of activity. Perhaps not springing into action, but definitely limping towards it.

  ‘She takes the Telegraph but usually reads the Financial Times first, followed by The Times,’ he said slowly. ‘She usually just flicks through the Telegraph after breakfast to see if there is anything nasty about anyone she knows. If there is, she cuts it out and puts it in one of her scrapbooks.’

  ‘The society page, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ acknowledged Georgie ruefully, ‘she goes straight to it.’

  He glanced again at his watch and added, ‘About now, in fact.’

  ‘What about the Mirror?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Georgie, thinking aloud. ‘I’m not sure if any of the servants take a newspaper; they probably make do with ours once we’ve finished them. I’ve certainly caught Foljambe reading the Telegraph.

  ‘I say,’ he said, with a sudden flush of optimism, ‘perhaps she won’t see it at all.’

  ‘Not a chance, I’m afraid,’ replied Olga. ‘Cadman probably takes a paper and the Mirror’s a dead ringer for a chauffeur. Anyway, someone somehow will see it and then it will be all round Tilling within minutes.’

  Georgie knew in his heart that she was right. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure that Quaint Irene read the Mirror.

  ‘What will she do?’ Olga asked, as much to focus her mind as to quiz Georgie.

  ‘She’ll phone of course, so jolly well done you for thinking of that and taking it off the hook.’