Waiting Game

And even an abject, squirming apology would do no good. Ackerman’s mind had already been made up. He simply hadn’t got around to burying Evening With Alex yet. All she had done was drive the final nail in the coffin with her outspoken tongue!

She didn’t know how she was going to tell Alex what she had done.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’M SORRY, you probably wanted to join Ackerman’s party,’ Fenella mumbled unhappily as the taxi sped towards Hampstead. Alex hadn’t said a word since they’d left the restaurant and, in view of her rudeness in refusing to accept his boss’s invitation, was probably deeply regretting ever having let Jean talk him into this.

‘About as much as a sharp kick up the backside!’ Alex sighed gloomily, giving her hand a gently reassuring pat. ‘We were both brilliant, all evening, but I doubt if we could have actually sat down with them and socialised without giving the game away. We need a whole load more confidence for that.’

‘I expect you’re right,’ she conceded, sagging back against the upholstery and closing her eyes. But she didn’t feel any less miserable. Alex didn’t know what had been said out in the corridor and she didn’t know how she was going to tell him.

‘We achieved what we set out to do—one of the sleazier tabloids will pick up on the “scandal” and splash it all over the front page. And I’ll be famous—or rather, notorious—for all of five minutes. And Ackerman himself saw us together. So the old has-been who once pulled record-breaking female audiences with his sex-appeal will be judged to have regained some of his touch,’ he said, sounding tired and uncharacteristically cynical. ‘As they say, even bad publicity is good publicity. I thought Jean was mad when she came up with the idea but I think we were even crazier to go along with it.’

Fenella couldn’t argue with that so she said nothing. But as soon as they were back in the flat her aunt Jean had bought with a minor part of her inheritance from her father she drew the curtains in the long living-room, poured her uncle a large slug of whisky and pointed him at the telephone.

‘Phone her now; she’ll be dying to know how everything went. I’ll lay a penny to a pound she’s sitting up in Edinburgh quite convinced we didn’t have the bottle to go through with it because she wasn’t around to make sure we did.’

Easing her feet out of her ridiculous shoes, she said goodnight and left him to it, confident that a nice long natter with his wife would cheer him up. She hated to see him so depressed. She thought the world of both of them; in some ways they meant more to her than her own parents. Which was why she’d agreed to go along with the crazy scheme in the first placemuch against her better judgement.

The guest bedroom was furnished with Jean’s unmistakable stamp of elegant style and home-fromhome comfort. Six years ago, when her uncle had been signed up for the hour-long, prime-time Evening With Alex—a combination of his light-hearted interviews with celebrities from the entertainment world, plus a couple of comedy sketches and, naturally, half a dozen of his own songs performed in his own inimitable style—the couple had bought a house on the outskirts of Tavistock to be near the main studios in Plymouth.

But Alex had missed London and when Jean had received her inheritance she had immediately bought this flat, which they used when he wasn’t recording his show.

They were a devoted couple, and it showed. And that, Jean had stated, was half the problem. The viewing public saw him as a middle-aged pipe, slippers and comfortable old cardigan man, never seen anywhere without his equally middle-aged and unspectacular wife. Now, if they could see him as a bit of a dog, some lovely young thing on his arm as they emerged from some rackety night-spot or other, then people might sit up and take notice, and his female audience might again tune in to his show and realise he hadn’t lost all the sex-appeal that had drawn them in adoring droves in the first place!

And it might have worked, too, if she hadn’t wrecked everything by the way she’d reacted to Saul Ackerman, she thought wearily, padding out of the en-suite bathroom packaged in an old towelling robe as she heard a light knock on her bedroom door.

‘She’s put us to the top of the class!’ Alex was smiling now. He looked relaxed and a good ten years younger. He and Jean had never spent a night apart in the whole of the thirty years of their marriage and he was missing her.

When Jean had stated firmly that she would visit her aged mother in Edinburgh—alone—leaving the field clear for him to ‘misbehave’ at home he had almost vetoed the whole idea, she remembered, forcing herself to return his smile.

‘Good. How is her mother?’ She had only met the old lady once, years ago, and remembered her as being quite alarming, and she couldn’t have changed much because Alex pulled a face as he told her,

‘As intractable as ever. She still stubbornly refuses to make her home with us and insists that “Young Elspeth” can look after her. “Young Elspeth” must be knocking eighty!’ He puffed out his cheeks in exasperation. ‘Talk about the blind leading the blind! But never mind that; Jean’s given me a whole list of things we have to do, places we have to be seen at. Shall we chew them over now, with a nice mug of drinking chocolate, or would you rather we left them to the morning?’

‘They’ll keep,’ Fenella told him with a sick smile. Before they worked out tactics for the coming two weeks she would have to confess that they would be a complete waste of time. After her outburst to Saul Ackerman earlier this evening Alex’s programme would be trashed—no matter what happened! No need to depress him tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

‘We did it, sweetheart!’ Alex bounced into the kitchen, his arms full of newspapers. ‘This one’s a blinder!’ He dropped a folded tabloid on the table in front of her. ‘Any coffee left in that pot?’

‘Plenty.’ Fenella made a gulping sound in her throat. When she’d crawled out of bed half an hour ago the flat had been silent. Believing her uncle to be safely asleep, she’d sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and trying to decide exactly how she would tell him of her run-in with his boss.

It wasn’t going to be easy, especially as he was looking so pleased with himself, delighted now because the plan to kick him back into the public eye seemed to be working.

‘Well—aren’t you going to read it?’ He had pulled out a chair opposite her, cradling his coffee-cup, his eager grin and boyishly rumpled blond-streaked grey hair reminding her of how attractive to women audiences he had been in his heyday.

Feeling sick inside, she unfolded the paper and ran her fingers over the newsprint. Foreign wars, the balance of payments deficit and the latest cowardly IRA bomb attack had been relegated to a few square inches of print, the majority of the front page sporting the moment when the cameras had caught her hiding her mischievous smile in Alex’s jacket. It came over as a snuggling embrace, Alex’s arms curved protectively around her slinkily clad body and the huge caption read: “Has-Been Has-Got?”

‘Don’t look so shattered!’ Alex grinned, swinging the paper round on the table-top, and read out the article, with plenty of hysterical expression.

Alex Fairbourne, whose top-spot TV show is to be axed—or so rumour has it—pictured outside one of London’s most exclusive restaurants, finally sheds his dull-dog image. His lovely young companion coyly refused to state her name or business. Maybe his wife could throw light on the identity of the Mystery Mistress? But poor old Jean, we hear, has been conveniently banished to the wilds of Scotland. Did she go willingly, or was she pushed?

‘Grief! “Mystery Mistress”! How tacky can you get?’ Fenella giggled. ‘But Aunty’s not going to like that “poor old Jean” bit.’

‘She’s going to love it,’ Alex contradicted. ‘And since when did you ever call her Aunty?’

Since never, Fenella admitted, her face straightening out. Alex, her mother’s younger brother, and Jean had always seemed more like an older brother and sister. It had nothing to do with their ages, more to do with their boundless capacity to enjoy life. Only people as perpetually optimistic as they could have devised such a scheme when faced with the persistent rumours—plus a very definite hint from Saul Ackerman himself—that Evening With Alex was to be axed. And, what was more, put it into practice.

And now she was going to have to tell him that she, who had promised to help, had thrown a ten-ton spanner into the works!

‘We’ll put in an appearance at Tinkers tonight,’ Alex told her, pouring more coffee for them both. ‘You won’t have heard of it—how long is it since you were last in England? But it’s the night-spot of the moment,’ he burbled on jovially. ‘The newshounds are always sniffing around, waiting for something to happen. Only a couple of weeks ago there was a deplorable fracas involving a minor Royal and a lady whose credentials are far from being unimpeachable. One of the pack earned himself quite a scoop that night. Since then there’s always someone hanging around, waiting for something they can blow up into a scandal.’ He pushed his chair away from the table. ‘Now, what shall we have for breakfast?’

‘Wait; there’s something you should know,’ Fenella said heavily. She felt awful. She’d let him and Jean down. She hadn’t felt happy about the idea of putting on a deception for the sake of the more gutter-bound Press but once Jean had talked him round Alex had been just as enthusiastic as his wife, pointing out that Fen was the only answer—part of the family, utterly trustworthy and, almost as important, she looked the part.

‘Well?’ Alex prodded. ‘What should I know?’

‘I argued with Ackerman last night.’ She took the plunge, her tongue feeling like wood. ‘In the rest-room corridor, of all places. He accused me of being rude when he invited us to join his party.’ She met his eyes miserably. ‘And he was right. I was rude. Then I lost my head and accused him of being blinkered. I said there was nothing stopping you working with another company where your talents would be appreciated. I’m sorry if I’ve blown it.’ She lowered her head dejectedly. ‘He didn’t come over as the type of man who would take any kind of rudeness or criticism lying down. There’ll probably be a letter in tomorrow morning’s post telling you your contract won’t be renewed. So carrying on with this—’ she flicked the tabloid disgustedly with her fingernail ‘—would be a total waste of time and effort.’

There were two more pre-recorded shows to run before the end of the current—and rumoured final— series. He would be on tenterhooks to see if all this publicity halted the abysmally falling ratings. ‘Nothing will save the show, after what I said. A flicker of public interest because you appear to be running around with a woman young enough to be your daughter won’t alter a thing.’

She had said as much when her aunt had first enlisted her help but once Jean had persuaded Alex to take the idea on board there had been no dampening their enthusiastic optimism.

And no dampening now, either, she thought despairingly as Alex hooted, ‘Rubbish!’ and started to make the belated breakfast. All that stuff in the papers this morning had made him see himself as a celebrity again; he was, once more, the idol women had scratched each other’s eyes out to be first in the queue for his autograph, a lock of his hair, the clothes off his back!

‘Saul’s too astute a businessman to let something like an insubordinate female affect his judgement. He was probably intrigued by the way you stood up to him. He’s used to having females at his feet, not at his throat. And I’d lay odds you were the first ever to turn down an invitation from him!’

‘If you say so.’ Fenella was too dejected to argue. Alex might be her uncle but right at this moment she felt more like his grandmother. Pushing her fringe out of her eyes, she laid the table while he toasted wholemeal bread and scrambled the eggs; she took over as the phone in the living-room warbled out and was still half-heartedly stirring when he rushed back in again, rubbing his hands.

‘What did I tell you? That was Saul on the phonenot his secretary, mark you—the great man himself. I am commanded to attend the open day tomorrow in my best bib and tucker. And you, my dear Fen, are likewise commanded! “Bring your niece”, he said!’ He bounced over and ruffled her hair affectionately then snatched the pan from the burner. ‘Good God, Fen, these eggs are like case-hardened rubber!’

But even the ruination of his breakfast couldn’t wipe the beam from his face and she felt a complete spoiler as she pointed out, ‘He doesn’t believe I am your niece.’

‘Of course he doesn’t. He wasn’t meant to, was he? But he still wants you along. Most insistent.’

Fen wanted to ask why but glumly decided she wouldn’t like the answer—supposing Alex knew it, which she doubted. She asked instead, ‘What is this open day? Anything important?’

‘The best news I’ve had in six months, sweetheart!’ Alex abandoned all attempts to eat his breakfast, leaning back and smiling expansively. ‘Part of the studios will be open for members of the viewing public to meet the regular presenters and the back-room crews. It’s an annual thing but this year the board, in their wisdom, decided to throw a garden party, issuing the invitations as if they were made of diamond-studded gold. Much more exclusive. Backers and advertisers in the main with a sprinkling of showbiz names. A few selected members of the viewing public—they’ve been running a competition for the past three months. Twenty-five lucky winners received a couple of tickets apiece. Not forgetting the performers in, and writers of, the most successful series we produce. I wasn’t asked. Not until today! It’s a public-relations stunt, of course—make the viewers feel part of the network. Not to mention making the invited advertisers feel important.’

‘And you!’ Fen pointed out with an indulgent smile. His high spirits were infectious and at least last evening’s piece of rudeness hadn’t produced the backlash she’d expected. That made her conscience easier.

‘Ab—so—lutely!’ His blue eyes were gleaming like sapphires. ‘Clear up, would you, Fen? I’ll phone Jean and tell her the good news. The whole thing’s beginning to work like a dream. Oh, and—’ he was halfway out of the room before he turned ‘—we’ll have to scrub Tinkers tonight. Pity, but it can’t be helped. We’ll drive down to Tavistock this afternoon and be nice and rested for tomorrow’s high jinks. Be sure to pack something sexy to wear.’

By no stretch of the imagination could the simple, wrap-over amber silk dress be called sexy, Fen consoled herself as the Daimler Jean had given Alex for his last birthday swept over the Tamar into Cornwall.

She had happily dressed for the part she’d been allotted when they’d attended the first night and shown up afterwards at the restaurant. But for some unknown reason she could no more bring herself to dress the part of a femme fatale this afternoon than fly. Long sleeves looked demure enough and the narrow belt was tied tightly around her waist to ensure that neither the bodice nor the cleverly draped skirt would gape.

A floppy-brimmed hat in fine amber straw, festooned with huge cream silk roses, completed the ensemble and, emerging from the guest room in the Tavistock house, she had blinked in surprise when Alex, looking very elegant and Fred Astaire-ish in a morning suit, had told her, ‘You look fantastic!’

It was probably the hat, she decided edgily, not looking forward to the coming afternoon one tiny bit. Certainly nothing to do with the dress which covered her from her neck to just below her knees as effectively as a shroud.

‘Don’t forget to stick to me like glue,’ Alex said tersely as he slowed down for the turn-off on to a decidedly minor road. ‘I’m beginning to get butterflies. I’ll need you to hold my hand for that reason alone.’

He was beginning to look white around the mouth, Fen noted, giving him an narrow-eyed glance as the car swept between high hedges filled with the foam of Queen Anne’s lace and pink campion. It was a beautiful blue and green afternoon, as perfect as only an English early summer could be, and everything seemed to be going to plan, so why should the pair of them be so uneasy?

‘I’ve suddenly developed a split personality,’ he confided. ‘One minute I’m up in the air and thinking all this is a superb idea—especially when it’s bringing results—and the next I’m wishing we’d never started it. Trouble is, Fen, I can’t come to terms with the thought of being on the scrap heap, reduced to earning my crust advertising somebody’s frozen dinners in some ghastly commercial.’

About to point out that he didn’t need to work at all, that Jean’s fortune would keep them both in reasonable luxury for life, she thought better of it. Jean loved him to bits and wouldn’t begrudge a penny—as the gifts she showered on him so lavishly testified. But Alex had his pride. His ability to keep himself and support his wife was important to him.

‘But we won’t get anywhere if we back out now. And Jean would clobber us senseless if we did,’ he chuckled softly, his mood swinging again as he slowed down, looking for signposts.

Fen had imagined that the garden party would be held in some suitable spot near the main studios and the information that Saul Ackerman’s country home was to be the venue had only added to the niggling sense of unease she’d been suffering ever since she’d had to admit there was no backing out, no way of rejecting the invitation to attend.

Though it was more like a royal command, she decided edgily as the high hedges gave way to a wall of rough-grained quarried stone and then to a pair of massive iron gates flung open in well-bred invitation. Uniformed men who looked suspiciously like security guards directed them along a track that branched off from the main gravelled drive to an area of grassland that served as a temporary car park.

Big white vans bearing the distinctive Vision West logo left Fen in no doubt that the television crews would be prowling, getting the glittering occasion on film to be relayed to the viewers through the local news programme this evening. And there was well over a million pounds’ worth of motorised status symbols lined up on the crushed dry grass, she noted, which meant that everyone here was a ‘somebody’, and that sent her tension-reading up another couple of notches.

Just why had Saul Ackerman changed his mind and invited Alex along at practically the last moment? He couldn’t have had second thoughts about tossing him on to the scrap heap on the strength of a few scandal-mongering write-ups in the tabloids, surely?

Ducking her head as she got out of the car, she still managed to knock her hat to a rakish angle. Muttering under her breath, she righted it. She wasn’t used to wearing any kind of headgear; she felt like a mushroom. Hitching up her skirts, she spindle-heeled her way to Alex who was pocketing the keys to the Daimler, her tawny eyes wary as she told him, ‘I don’t want to spoil your moment of triumph, but have you stopped to wonder why you’re here? We never thought about the possibility of Ackerman being disgusted by what he must have read in the papers—he might not want to employ a man who is seen publicly to be cheating on his wife. We could be letting ourselves in for a highly public snub. Have you thought of that?’

‘Yes.’ Alex smoothed down his hair then took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm. ‘It’s always a possibility, but a remote one. Publicity and top ratings are the name of the game, and besides, he’s no saint. He’s rarely seen with the same woman twice. Whatever he is, I don’t think he’s a hypocrite.’

‘Is he married?’ Fen spiked her heels into the grass. For some unknown yet powerful reason she needed to know more about the man. A case of ‘know your enemy’, she supposed.

‘He was.’ Alex gave her a look that carried a hint of impatience. ‘But it ended very messily. There was someone else involved—there always was someone else involved during the short lifetime of that marriage. Do come on, Fen!’

More cars were arriving, sunlight glittering from their faultless bodywork, more frivolous hats and sleek-faced men in morning suits. Fen gave in and fell in step beside her uncle as they gravitated towards a gateway in the fuchsia hedge, a graceful figure in the amber silk that emphasised the slenderness of her hips and long, long legs, blissfully unaware that each step she took afforded the onlooker a tiny tantalising glimpse of creamy thigh and intriguing stocking-top.

Alex’s brief words had told her as much as she wanted to know about Saul Ackerman, and left her even less endeared to him than before. His poor wife was well rid of him; Alex had spoken of the marriage ending—so presumably that meant divorce. Because he couldn’t keep his hands off other women? It certainly sounded like it.

Fen couldn’t understand why any right-minded woman wanted to get married at all. Why put yourself in a position where your happiness depended on the good nature and fidelity of one man? Generally speaking, she liked men, enjoyed their company and valued their friendship. But she would never surrender her independence to one; she knew what it had done to her mother and, in consequence, to her. And had heard enough about disastrous marriages to make any sensible female wary.

So footloose and heart-free she would remain, a citizen of the world, a happily independent lady answerable to no one but herself.

‘Fen!’ A sharp nudge in her ribs brought her wandering mind back to present circumstances. Blinking, she focused on the tray of glasses, the white-shirted, impassive-faced waiter who held it. Then, champagne in hand, she took in her surroundings. Acres of emerald-green, closely mown grass quartered by stoneflagged paths, parterres of flowers cut into the sward, punctuated by tall trees, their leaves whispering softly in the gentle summer breeze. And, beyond and above the long sweep of a closely cut yew hedge a few hundred yards away, the glimpse of the tumbled roofs of an impressive Tudor house.

Some country pad, she thought sourly, contrasting it with the humble stone cottage, the only place that had ever remotely come to resemble a home, a bare twenty miles away as the crow flew.

But at least there was no sign of the owner, so be grateful for small mercies, she told herself, wondering if they could possibly manage to avoid him all afternoon.

‘What do we do now?’ she asked. ‘Plant ourselves in front of the camera crews and grin?’

‘We circulate and give each other adoring glances,’ he said firmly. ‘Drink your fizz; it might put you in a better mood.’ He whisked her along paths and over expensively maintained lawns, mingling with various groups of guests, introducing her simply as Fenella, doing nothing at all to dampen the often openly inquisitive stares she was getting, speculative eyes watching her every move. She could almost hear them thinking, debating whether she was with Alex for love or for money.

There was a lot of well-mannered back-slapping, a lot of preening and a fair amount of talking shop and by the time they had worked their way through to the terrace beyond the hedge Fen had had more than enough.

The paving ran along the entire frontage of the spectacularly lovely house and was set with white-clothed buffet tables and bars, all perfumed and punctuated by terracotta pots brimming over with stately lilies. And in the middle distance, surrounded by a group of obvious sycophants, was Saul Ackerman.

Fen recognised him with a curious jolt right in the pit of her stomach. He was easily the most impressive male around—the handful of sexily handsome actors she had encountered notwithstanding.

Oh, drat it to Hades! She had really hoped she wouldn’t have to see him. Guilty conscience, she supposed. She had behaved badly that first time they’d met. Which didn’t mean she wouldn’t behave twice as badly if there happened to be a second time. And that wouldn’t do Alex’s career prospects a whole heap of good, she admitted. But then, she had never encountered anyone, male or female, who had aroused her to such a pitch of unthinking animosity. Her blood boiled whenever she thought of him!