“Many things can disturb a star’s self-confidence, but the one nightmare that every performer knows about is that no one will come to watch the show. Because without an audience, there can be no performance.” Pagan was aware of the hush in the theater, as she went on. “Tonight, for almost an hour, it seemed as if that nightmare had become a reality, for Lili, our star.…”
After Pagan ended her speech, a few scattered handclaps quickly grew into a roar of applause. Pagan hurried into the wings as the curtains drew back and the lights dimmed, leaving the stage black. Then a single spotlight picked out the silhouette of Lili’s small, silver-spangled figure at the top of the elaborate staircase.
The applause became a standing ovation, as the audience clapped, and shouted their approval, for a full five minutes before Lili could start to sing.
“C’est Paris.…”
* * *
“‘…can only praise her jaunty courage,’ that’s the
Mail.”
Lili’s agent tossed the newspapers onto Lili’s bed, pulled off his black leather gloves and unbuttoned his vicuna coat. “The
Times
says you’re the natural successor to Piaf and Garland, and the
Sun’s
given you the front page—’Sex Goddess Lili Drama.’ They’ve all run it as a news story. You’ve got great coverage.”
“And you still have no idea who planned this horrible joke.”
“All we know about him is that he must have plenty of money. It was an expensive operation.”
“Talking of expenses, did you send the money to Teresa?”
* * *
On the nightstand lay a delicate pair of gold handcuffs from Van Cleef in Cannes. An empty bottle of Bollinger, and a lipstick-smeared champagne glass stood beside a plastic bag of cotton balls and a small pharmacist’s box of amyl nitrate capsules. The other glass lay smashed on the floor, beside a purple satin, black-fringed negligee.
Teresa was wearing an elaborate, black leather Barbarella costume with four-inch spike heels on her black leather thigh boots. She was lovingly cooing scatological insults into the ear of the stout man who lay on the bed beside her.
“Please stop,” he begged. “Don’t be so cruel, I didn’t mean it.”
“You mean you lie to me as well.” She shoved him away from her and he fell over the side of the bed to the floor, yelping as his body hit the broken champagne glass.
He crawled away from the bed on his hands and knees. Nimbly, Teresa jumped off the bed, kicked his wobbling, hairy backside with her high heels, then, with a practiced hand, she flourished her thin black whip over her head, just missing the plastic chandelier.
He whimpered, “Don’t kick me, don’t kick me, please.”
“These boots are filthy,” she snarled, “you haven’t cleaned them properly!” She took another neat jab at his rear, thinking, I’d better be careful, I don’t want to mark him.
As expertly as a rodeo cowboy, she lighted flicked his ear with the whip. “Turn around,” she commanded, thinking she’d better get this over fast, she didn’t want to be late for her tennis coach this afternoon at Washington’s prestigious Potomac Club. She jabbed at the fat man’s pendulous stomach. “Now, lick my boots!”
As the man did so, Teresa could see that at last his claret-colored private parts were responding. Thoughtfully, she tickled his spine with her whip, then threw it on the bed and leaned backward toward the cotton balls and the capsules.
She kept up the litany of abuse and, from time to time, she gave him an encouraging whack with her hairbrush, as she deftly wrapped the capsules in cotton, then twisted them in a handkerchief.
“Ah … ah … ah,” he groaned in ecstasy. Teresa looked down. The John was nearly ready for her. He wasn’t a bad old boy and he was generous. She’d give him an extra kick or two, on the house. After all, she
was
getting paid twice over.
“You’ll never learn to do it properly, you filthy pig.” She pulled her feet away from his tongue and reached for the whip. Briskly, she kicked him flat, turned him over with an economical jab of her toe, and straddled the whimpering plump body. With her left hand she reached for his penis. Her right hand grabbed the empty champagne bottle, smashed it against the lumpy handkerchief, and then briskly
held it under the fat man’s nose. A purplish-red flush suffused his face and neck; Teresa heard inarticulate noises, gurgles, and groans as he turned purple and his pop-eyes looked up at her in ecstasy.
How much more can this old bastard take? wondered Teresa. By the time she got back to Paris, her backhand would be invincible.
* * *
“Would you please stick this in a red file before you leave for the night?” said Judy. In her personal office, all productive work which had an end aim—and a deadline date—was put in a red, transparent plastic envelope. These red files had their own “in,” “pending,” and “fallow” tray. All “in” red file work was always done first thing in the morning, before any other work was discussed, even before the telephone was lifted. This meant that priorities were painlessly sorted out and the achievement work was dealt with before the routine work.
The secretary left the office and Judy picked up the projected advertising figures for August. Next month looked as if it was going to be even more depressing than July; summer was always a thin period for advertising revenue.
There was a knock and Tony entered. “You left this file in the car, Judy. Gee, I’m sorry we’ve lost Lady Mirabelle.” Judy looked up in surprise. Tom had said that nobody knew they’d lost that account. As Tony left the office, he almost collided with Tom, who was entering. Tom waited until the door had closed, then he said, “Okay, Judy, we’re ready to go belly up, if it has to be. I’ve prepared for everything except hocking our watches.”
Night after night, after the staff had gone home, Tom had secretly worked to prepare
VERVE!
magazine for closure. Bit by bit, Tom had transferred every asset owned by
VERVE!
magazine into the names of two holding companies which had been set up for the purpose. Now, everything tangible, from the office lease to the messenger-boy’s motorbike, might be saved from the wreck so that they might start again. Tom had checked through all the staff contracts and, without Judy’s knowledge, quietly negotiated for two of the longest-employed editors to be offered good jobs on rival magazines, thus saving their compensation payments from his
company. He had set these strategic savings against the disastrous projected loss. He no longer felt any regret for the years of business triumph, only the calm determination of self-preservation. Tom’s clear head and inventive business brain would, he hoped, save the roof over both his families; Kate didn’t know of the impending crisis, but now she owned their apartment and their country house. His ex-wife and two sons had a trust fund that could be touched by no one. Tom had always been more realistic than Judy. Although he took high risks in business, they were always carefully calculated. A good gambler always knows bad luck when he meets her, knows that when he’s on a losing streak, he has to toss the cards on the table, stand up and say good-bye.
* * *
“I’m afraid they’ll have to be shot, Suliman, as quickly as possible. Give the orders at once.” General Suliman saluted and left the room. Abdullah leaned back and allowed his eyes to close for a few moments. He pinched the bridge of his sharp aquiline nose, where a knot of tension had formed between the winged black eyebrows. Then he rose, walked slowly to his London Embassy, over the green grass of St. James’s park and looked up the Mall, toward the severe gray stone of Buckingham Palace. He’d returned from Venice the day before, to find a crisis waiting on his desk, of course.
His ancestors had not known the comfort or the complications of civilization. Their life was simple because there was very little to clutter it up: neither possessions nor sentimental attachments; but what his Bedouin ancestors possessed was the ultimate luxury of freedom; their lives were circumscribed by the cruel physical environment and pitiless discipline of the desert, but their spirit was free. Suddenly, Abdullah felt the old, familiar urge for the harsh peace of the desert. He sighed and moved toward the drawing room.
“Well?” Pagan pushed her heavy mahogany hair back and looked at Abdullah with concern. He seemed to have grown ten years older in the two days that he’d spent anxiously considering the fate of those three terrorists.
“Execution.” Abdullah took the chair next to her, his somber face and khaki uniform contrasting with the blue silk cushions. “My father was right. Forget the smell of mercy when dealing with your enemy.”
You don’t have to teach a cat to sit by the fire, Pagan thought, and you don’t have to teach a Bedouin to be cruel. The desert is cruel, and so is anyone who survives in it. Desert life is so harsh, that punishment has to be even harsher. Pagan could understand Abdullah’s Bedouin nature, but she wondered if she could ever get used to it. “Your father never had to deal with the Moslem Fundamentalists,” she said doubtfully, privately thinking that the old bugger had only had to deal with the traditional gang of powercrazed second cousins trying to stab each other in the back.
“No, but he had his own fanatics to put down,” said Abdullah.
“Will the priests find out?” Pagan knew that if the terrorists were executed, Abdullah risked making them martyrs.
“Not immediately. When they get no news of their men in prison, then they’ll know, but too late. It’s hard to make martyrs months after the event. And if these men had been popular in their own village, there would have been a greater outcry when they were arrested. The priests were unable to whip up much of a demonstration. I think their power is weakening, at last. The priests exploit the ignorance of the people. In Sydon, we’ve had to achieve centuries of development in thirty years. It’s the same for every nation on the Gulf; I don’t want my country to go the way of Iran. I will not see Sydon hurled back into ignorance and superstition. My job is to guide my people into the twentieth century.”
He jumped up and prowled around the room, remembering his dusty country, neatly wedged between Oman and the United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf. He thought of the camels and Cadillacs side by side on the desert roads, the extremes of feudal poverty and half-assimilated modern sophistication.
“I’ve disposed of eleven revolutionary groups since I became King.” His voice was somber. “Each one of them was
led by one of my own blood relations, and they were all executed.”
Pagan thought, no wonder Abdi has only one heir.
“They all want the same thing—power. The priests are no different, except that they use the sacred name of the Prophet to justify their betrayal. They confuse and frighten my people, who, like all people, hate change. It’s difficult for them to change from our traditional ways to the modern way of life that’s been developed in the West. They prefer to rush back to the Middle Ages.”
“It’s the same choice for you, isn’t it?” ventured Pagan.
“What do you mean?” Abdullah looked at her in surprise.
“You’re also stuck between two worlds, aren’t you? You can’t be an absolute ruler like your father…”
Born in the East, Abdullah had been deliberately educated in the West so that he would be capable of dealing with the rulers of the West. Through his Western ego, he had learned to criticize his own people; he had dropped one culture and not been accepted by another. So he felt an isolation in his life and Pagan had spotted this long ago.
Abdullah perched on the arm of Pagan’s chair and kissed the tip of her freckled nose. “My father’s problem,” he said, “was persuading the nomad to build a house. Then his problem was persuading the nomad to build a lavatory in the house. After that, when I became King, the problem was to teach the nomad to stand in front of the lavatory instead of climbing on the bowl. Now, if the priests are not controlled, the nomads will convert their cisterns into camel-troughs because the priests tell them it is not the way of Allah to piss indoors.”
* * *
Where other women felt an urge to rearrange the furniture, Maxine rearranged the now priceless treasures of the de Chazalle family. Years ago, she had saved them from mildew and moth when she had saved the chateau by opening it to the public, as a beautifully presented, historic showcase which also promoted the family champagne business.
When Pagan arrived at the Chateau de Chazalle, she was shown to the wide, Chinese-yellow picture gallery on the first
floor, known to the public as the History Walk, although the family called it Ancestor Alley.
Maxine, in her stockinged feet, was standing on a chair and hacking at a gold picture frame with a kitchen knife.
“Whatever are you doing, Maxi?” Pagan blew her a kiss. “Why are you ruining that picture frame?”
“I’m not ruining it, I’m distressing it,” Maxine smiled down at her. “I’m making it look old and worn, as if it has been hanging here for at least one hundred years, instead of three days.”
“What’s the point of that?”
Maxine jumped off the chair and kissed Pagan on the cheek. “It’s the essence of shabby chic, the way that aristocratic houses should look. Anyone with money can have everything new, but it’s far more difficult to achieve this slightly worn, not-perfectly-matched, artlessly charming look of a room in which a priceless painting hangs next to a watercolor of Sorrento by your grandmother.”
“But what’s chic about having a chipped picture frame?”
“Anyone with money can buy that glossy magazine look. You need generations of family history to feel comfortable with an Aubusson carpet that’s worn on one corner, chintz curtains that are faded because they’ve been hanging at the same windows for over one hundred years and Chinese hand-painted wallpaper that is, perhaps, a little dim because it was painted in the eighteenth century by Chinese artists whom your ancestors imported from China to do the job.”
“But what’s the point?”
“Snobbery, darling Pagan. It’s the new decorator look. The point of shabby chic is that you can’t achieve it unless it is authentic, or unless you have a very clever decorator.”