Unguarded Moment

‘That I can see.’ Gemma whistled appreciately. ‘Is that an all-over tan, may one enquire? I’m brown too, of course, but with me it’s rust.’

‘Oh, Gemma!’ To her horror, Alix heard her voice become choky. ‘It’s so great to see you.’ To see a friendly face, she almost said.

‘Hey,’ Gemma took her arm, peering at her with concern, ‘what’s the matter? You’re upset—what is it? Your mother?’

‘Not really,’ Alix shook her head, fighting back her tears. ‘Oh, God, this is awful. I can’t stand in the middle of the road bawling like a baby.’

‘Then come and bawl in our house,’ Gemma said soothingly. ‘Dave won’t be home for at least another hour.’

By the time they were settled in Gemma’s small sitting room, Alix had managed to regain control of herself.

‘I’m sorry to have behaved like an idiot,’ she began.

‘Think nothing of it,’ Gemma said largely. ‘Don’t forget I’m used to it, having been at school with you. What’s troubling you? You haven’t had the sack from the dream job of yours?’

Alix smiled drearily. ‘No, but I sometimes wonder whether I did the right thing in taking it in the first place.’

Gemma stared at her. ‘Well, it has to be better than a lifetime of “Now this conveyance witnesseth as follows”,’ she said drily. ‘Is it man trouble?’

‘It is a man, and he is trouble, but not in the way that you mean,’ Alix said ruefully. ‘Look, the simplest thing is if I give you a quick run-down on “My Day so Far”.’

Gemma sat and listened attentively, her sole comment being, ‘Little bitch,’ when Alix described Debbie’s reaction to her offer of a honeymoon.

‘She must be very unhappy,’ Alix said slowly.

‘She must be very jealous,’ Gemma retorted.

‘But she had no reason to be jealous of me,’ Alix protested. ‘She’s always done exactly what she wanted, and now she’s going to be married.’

Gemma looked at her pityingly. ‘Look, love, Debbie would envy a dead man his coffin. Haven’t you seen through her yet? She’s probably as mad as fire that she wasn’t offered your job.’

‘But she couldn’t have been. She hadn’t even left school …’

‘That’s the reasonable point of view. Debbie wouldn’t see it like that. She would see it as you getting a chance she’d been denied. Being married is the only other option open to her. I hope, for her fiancé’s sake, that it works. Now, about this other business, why do you suppose Bianca doesn’t want her biography written?’

Alix sighed. ‘I wish I knew. She was all for the idea originally, when she thought someone was going to ghost it for her.’

‘In other words a self-portrait by her greatest fan,’ Gemma’s voice was dry. ‘Well, Liam Brant is no one’s fan, so I suppose she can be allowed her misgivings.’

‘Do you know him?’ Alix stared at her.

‘No, but I’ve read some of his books. Dave bought me the Kristen Wallace biog for my birthday, and what an eye-opener that was. Since then I’ve been borrowing his other stuff from the library.’

‘Have you got any of them now?’

‘I’ve one—an early one about Clive Percy, the conductor. He doesn’t pull his punches, but he really gets inside the people he writes about. He makes you feel you know them.’

‘Or at least you know what he wants you to know about them,’ Alix said with some asperity. ‘You can’t really say he’s objective.’

Gemma shrugged. ‘Well, we won’t argue about it. Have you read any of them?’ And when Alix shook her head with a little grimace, ‘Well, take the Percy one. It doesn’t have to go back for a fortnight, and if you keep it longer than that, you pay the fine. Is it a deal?’

Alix laughed. ‘Yes, it’s a deal.’ She stood up. ‘Thank you for letting me talk it all out. I actually feel much better. Instead of an early night, I might just treat myself to dinner and a theatre.’

‘I was going to offer you egg and chips with us, but your plan has far more going for it,’ Gemma said cheerfully. ‘But you will come to supper soon, won’t you? Dave would love to meet you. I’ve mentioned you often. And now you’ve got my address and phone number, there’s really no excuse …’

Alix felt infinitely happier as she left Waterloo, and hailed a taxi to take her into the West End. It had been marvellous to bump into Gemma like that. They had been so close at school, but afterwards it was only too easy to lose touch. She was ashamed to think that she hadn’t even known that Gemma was married, let alone met her husband, and she couldn’t help wondering why the family hadn’t told her, because they must have known.

I could at least have sent a present, even if I couldn’t have gone to the wedding, she thought wistfully.

Gemma had referred to her life with Bianca as a ‘dream job’, but suddenly Alix wasn’t so sure. She’d begun to realise how totally and exclusively involved she was in her new life. Was it any wonder she was almost a stranger in her own home?

She would have to insist that Bianca gave her regular time off in future, so that she could set about rebuilding some of the relationships that had suffered in the past months—especially that with Debbie. She couldn’t wholly accept Gemma’s dismissal of Debbie’s attitude as resentment and jealousy. She herself must be to blame in some way, and she could only be thankful that she had the opportunity to put things right before they went too far and there was a complete estrangement.

Working for Bianca had been allowed to take her over. She lived, dressed, snatched her meals, even took her holidays at Bianca’s imperious behest. She smiled wryly as she recalled how Bianca had tossed the plane tickets and hotel reservation in Rhodes to her quite casually one day.

‘Here you are, darling. You’re looking pale and wan, and it depresses me.’

Alix could have protested—should have done, she told herself reflectively. She could afford holidays for herself. Heaven knew, she had enough money. Her living expenses were so few that she now had a healthy deposit account in the bank.

But she didn’t argue, partly because Bianca liked to have her generous impulses received with due appreciation, and partly because she wanted to get away for a while anyway.

If she looked pale and strained, Bianca might well be experiencing guilt rather than depression, she decided cynically. And it would undoubtedly be convenient for her employer to have her out of the way for a few weeks, while the affair she was having with Peter Barnet burned itself out.

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, of course. Peter was a journalist working for a show business column on one of the national dailies, and he had been invited to one of Bianca’s cocktail parties. He was young, blond and undeniably attractive, and Alix had been attracted. She had enjoyed talking to him, and not been altogether surprised when he telephoned her and asked her to have dinner with him. She had seen him several times when Bianca had suggested, almost idly, that she might like to invite him to make up the numbers at a small dinner party she was giving.

Alix’s impulse had been to refuse. She knew what would happen; she had seen it all before. It was as if Bianca could not bear to see any personable man paying attention to anyone other than herself. Other men who had dated Alix had either found themselves frozen out, or overwhelmed with a display of charm calculated to undermine any masculine defences.

Alix had not been in love with Peter, or with any of the others, but all the same it had not been pleasant to sit on one side of Bianca’s gleaming dining table and watch Peter succumb without a struggle. He and Alix had talked and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, but he had never stared at her with that look of hot and glittering desire that he was turning on Bianca. Dinner ended, the other guests departed and Alix invented a headache to take her up to her room.

What happened after that was anyone’s guess. And Alix didn’t want to know. Nor, she found, did it help to tell herself that the ache in her heart was dented pride and no more. She was tired of having to face the fact of how easily Bianca could eclipse any charms she might have. It was hurtful to see someone she had liked apparently forget that she existed.

She knew the pattern, of course. Bianca’s little flings were unvarying. There would be flowers delivered, and long intimate phone calls, often while Alix was in the room, with Bianca lying on her chaise-longue, the receiver cradled against her cheek.

Alix couldn’t really be sorry that she was going to miss this particular episode in the long-running saga of Bianca’s love life.

And she thought, ‘I’d be frightened to let myself love someone in case she did the same thing to him. I might have loved Peter, for all she knew, but it made no difference. She still has to prove that she’s irresistible.’

As she queued at the box office of the theatre of her choice, Alix found herself wondering without too much curiosity what had happened to Peter. She could imagine, of course. One day, out of the blue, he would have found that Miss Layton was no longer accepting his calls. She wondered if he had accepted the situation with dignity, or made a scene. Not that it would have mattered. When it was over for Bianca, it was over, and there were no reprieves.

The disappointments of the day were still with her when she reached the box office window, to be told regretfully that all the seats had been sold, including the few returned tickets. And there was no prospect of any more cancellations.

Alix turned away ruefully. There were other theatres and other plays, of course, but this was the one she had set her heart on. She should have realised the necessity to book. She stood in the street outside the theatre, trying to decide what to do next. She would have dinner, of course, and then back to the house, she supposed, for an early night. Or she could always read the Clive Percy book, she thought with a glance at the parcel in her hand.

There was a small Italian restaurant just round the corner and she would eat there, she decided, deliberately removing from her mind the remembrance that Peter had taken her there.

Even though it was comparatively early in the evening, the restaurant was quite busy, its tables mostly occupied by couples. Alix was shown to a corner table, given a menu and offered an aperitif. She ordered a Cinzano and leaned back in her chair, a feeling of relaxation and contentment beginning to steal over her. Perhaps she wouldn’t have an early night after all. There was a musical she wouldn’t mind seeing—and there were cinemas. She would ask the cheerful proprietor if he had an evening paper and see what was on.

Aware that someone had stopped beside her table, she looked up with a smile, expecting that her drink had arrived.