Follies

Is that all? Then, more sternly, she reminded herself, what else could he say? In front of … other people?

‘Are you part of the cast?’ Pansy asked warmly. At close quarters her eyes showed a dozen different shades of blue. She was wearing a scent which reminded Helen of summer gardens.

‘No. But we will be seeing each other again. I live at Follies House too.’

‘Really? That’s wonderful. Isn’t it weird? And the woman who runs it all, Rose, what d’you make of her?’

‘Be careful,’ Helen warned her, ‘she’s a relative of Oliver.’

Oliver shrugged, not interested in the turn the conversation had taken. ‘A very distant one, for whom I accept no responsibility.’

Tom was impatient too. ‘Let’s go and eat, for God’s sake. Come with us, Helen. Are you sure you can’t do something for my production? Backstage, perhaps. ASM …’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Helen told him absently. Her eyes were on Oliver, wanting him to echo Tom’s invitation, but he had said nothing. Please, she wanted to beg him, it’s me. Don’t you remember our days together? Didn’t they happen? Then the other Helen, coolly reasonable, reminded her. Don’t grovel. He’ll hate that.

But as they turned to leave, it was Pansy who took her arm. ‘Please come. Let’s get to know each other if we’re to live in the same house.’

Helen went, incapable of walking away from Oliver just yet.

The pizza parlour next door was crowded and steamy. Oliver hung back with an expression of distaste but Tom strode past the queue and secured a table.

‘No, I’m afraid it’s mine,’ he told the protesting party who had been just about to take possession of it.

‘Neat,’ said Oliver, with grudging approval as they sat down.

When the pizzas came, Oliver scowled at his. ‘Why are we eating this garbage?’

Helen remembered the splendours of the meals they had shared and smiled to herself. She stopped herself from murmuring how the other half live. Tom, completely uninterested in food except as the means of supplying himself with more energy, said briskly, ‘This isn’t a gourmet outing. We’re here to do business.’

The conversation centred on the production.

They were drinking red plonk, over which Oliver had also made a wry face, and Tom raised his glass to Pansy. ‘Here’s to you,’ he said. ‘You’re not quite the perfect Rosalind, but you’ll do.’

‘What do you mean, not perfect? I shall be a theatrical sensation, just wait and see.’

Helen sat quietly, watching and listening. Plainly Oliver and Tom had eyes for no-one but their new Rosalind. And Pansy bubbled between the two of them, laughing delightedly and turning her perfect face from one to the other. It must always be like this for her, Helen thought. She must always be the centre of attention. No wonder she can just stroll into auditions and expect to be heard. Not only to be heard, but to walk off with the part.

Helen’s gaze took in Pansy’s expensively casual haircut, her light all-year-round tan, and her tiny, jewelled wristwatch. I don’t suppose anyone ever denies her anything, she thought. Jealousy was an unusual emotion for Helen but she felt jealous of Pansy now.

Oliver was leaning negligently back in his chair, but his eyes were fixed on Pansy’s face. He had forgotten Helen, but she was no less electrically aware of him than ever. The four of them were packed close around the little table, and her skin prickled with the nearness of his long sprawled legs. The sight of his fingers curled round the wineglass brought a flush to her cheeks and the sound of his voice, not even what he was saying, obliterated the clatter of the noisy restaurant. Yesterday, just to have been close to him like this would have enough to make her happy. But the intrusion of this beautiful, assured newcomer had changed all that. Helen looked from Pansy to Oliver, whose dégagé air had completely disappeared, and felt a twist of apprehension.

She turned back to her unwanted food, oblivious to everything but the threat that suddenly loomed in front of her. She didn’t see a pair of her College friends gazing round-eyed across the room at the sight of quiet bookish Helen Brown in such glossy company. It would have come as a surprise to Helen to know that she was part of a striking picture, with the two bright blonde heads and two intensely dark ones bent close together.

At last Pansy looked at her tiny gold watch. ‘God, look at the time. I was supposed to be at a tutorial five minutes ago.’ She made the word sound archaic and faintly ridiculous. And she made no move to get up. Instead, she poured herself another glass of wine and beamed round at them. ‘Still, I expect he’ll wait for me. I’m not a real student anyway, I’m just doing a one-year art history course. To please Daddy, really. He wanted me to come to Oxford to meet the right people. Future kings of Broadway. And lords, that sort of thing. And brilliant women dons.’ Generously, she included Helen too, and Helen felt herself warming in response to Pansy’s friendliness. ‘I have to do something while I’m here and I don’t know anything about art or history, so it seems as good a choice as any. Daddy said doing a typing or cookery course wasn’t “suitable”, and Kim backed him up. Kim’s my stepmother. My third stepmother, actually. She’s all of twenty-seven, and acts like seven. You must all meet her, it’s a real eye-opener.’

‘Why?’ asked Tom, interestedly. ‘Does she beat you and dress you in rags, like a proper stepmother does? Even though she’s a bit young for the job?’

Pansy laughed merrily.

‘Just the opposite. I don’t care much about clothes, but Kim endlessly drags me round to shops and fittings and designer shows. And she’s too languid to mix a cocktail, let alone beat me. But if you think I’m not very bright, you should meet Kim.’

‘I suspect you’re quite bright enough,’ Tom said quietly.

‘You are a darling. And don’t worry, I’ve got enough native wit to handle Rosalind. Inherited from Daddy, no doubt. Oh Lord, he’ll be furious if I don’t even get to my first lesson. I don’t even know where the place is.’

Pansy fumbled in the soft Italian leather pouch bag that was slung over the back of her chair and brought out a list. ‘Ashmolean Museum?’

Oliver, who had been watching her with fascination, suddenly stood up. ‘I’m going over there. I’ll take you.’

Solicitously, just as he had done yesterday for Helen, he drew back her chair and helped her to her feet. Pansy put her hand on his arm, thoughtlessly accepting it as her right to be escorted and protected.

‘’Bye, then.’

‘Oliver …’ Helen had no idea what she wanted to ask him, but he half turned in response and she thought his face softened.

‘I’ll see you soon,’ he said. ‘At Follies.’

He was gone so quickly with Pansy that Helen found herself staring at the empty space where they had been.

I’ll see you soon. She would have to be content with that.

Opposite her Tom was staring blankly too. It was a moment before they faced each other and realised that they were alone.

‘Well.’ Tom was smiling crookedly. ‘Shall we finish the wine?’

Helen pushed her glass across to him. Instinctively, she liked Tom Hart and – more than that – he was Oliver’s friend. She could at least talk about him.

‘I’ve never met anyone like him before,’ she said softly.

‘Oliver? Neither have I. He’s got a lot of style, and I admire that. He doesn’t give a damn about anything either, and I don’t think that’s just because of who he is. Although that helps. Think of living in a place like Montcalm. Of coming from a family like that … holders of the highest offices in the realm for hundreds and hundreds of years.’

You’re impressed by that, Helen thought. Am I? Am I? Perhaps.

Tom was still talking. His dark eyebrows were drawn together over his high, beaked nose and his mouth, usually compressed in a sardonic line, curved wider as he looked into the distance.

‘That’s quite something, you know, to a Jewish boy like me. My family tree goes back no further than my great-grandfather. He was called Hartstein, and he arrived in New York with no more than the clothes he stood in. He scraped a kind of living for his wife and kids by doing piecework in the garment trade. The business he slaved for happened to have a sideline in theatrical costuming. My grandfather had a flair for that, took it over at the age of twenty, and ended up a celebrated costumier. And my father – well, my old man has a flair for everything. Greg Hart owns five Broadway theatres now, and a string more across the country.’

‘I think that’s more impressive than just being born a Mortimore,’ Helen told him gently.

Tom smiled at her in response, and she saw that although his face was stern and his mouth ungiving, there was real kindness behind his dark, hooded eyes.

‘Perhaps.’

‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘What are you really doing in Oxford, if you’ve got all that waiting for you in America?’

Tom picked up a fragment of bread from the tablecloth and rolled it between his fingers into a grey, doughy ball.

‘I’m in disgrace, as it happens. Serving out a year’s exile in the guise of doing my apprenticeship in the British theatre. By the time I get back, my old man reckons all the fuss will be forgotten.’