The Spoiler (19 page)

She did, though, eventually have her moment at conference: a direct encounter with Austin Wedderburn. Miles Denbigh was describing progress on discussions for the new multifaith prayer room—his own office was to be fitted with an altar and prayer mat in a compromise deal to head off the irate smokers—when the editor glanced up at Tamara and held a thumb and two fingers aloft. Tamara efficiently stirred three spoonfuls of sugar into his tea and passed him a plate of digestive biscuits. He did not say thank you, but she was sure he looked up again and registered her. He would know who she was next time.

Over lunch with Simon in the Bubbles, however, Tamara was overcome by gloom. He was in a generous mood—things had gone well with Serena, and his hangover was finally clearing.

“Come on, Tamara. It’s not so bad. You did well last night on the Honor Tait story. You showed some real resourcefulness, going all the way to Archway.”

“Great! You should have been there. There wasn’t a sentence worth quoting from the entire evening.”

“Oh, come on! There must have been something you can play with. A bit of colour. A few facts.”

“Facts? They gave us plenty of facts. Facts were
all
they gave us. And what good are they? Four thousand brain-numbing words on an old lady’s charity work? Even Lyra won’t buy it.”

“You can do better than that,” he said, pouring her another glass.

“I know what I need,” Tamara replied. “The famous lovers, the celebrity friends, the heartbreak. I just can’t get a word out of her on any of it.”

“It’s not meant to be easy, is it?” he chided. “If it was easy, any mug could do it. You have to work at it.”

“What do you think I’m doing?”

Now his pager was bleeping.

“What about the Monday Club?” he asked, absently checking his messages. “Her gigolos and fancy boys? There’s the story. Go along and check them out.”

“She’s not likely to invite me to one of her swanky salon evenings, is she?”

Simon raised his eyes from his pager and gave her a withering look.

“Who said anything about an invitation?”

The Monday soirees had evolved, at the Boys’ insistence, from ad hoc drinks parties to monthly suppers that had become the only fixed points in Honor’s calendar. Her only regular meals, in fact. She had always been a defiantly inept cook and, while the maid kept the kitchen cupboard and fridge supplied with essentials—bread, milk, tea, vodka, oatcakes, a little cheese, a few tins—Honor’s culinary ambitions since Tad died had never extended beyond toast and its variants. The Monday suppers were, said Bobby, her meals-on-wheels service. They provided the food and wine, she supplied the venue and the vodka.

To them, she was a
monstre sacrée
, quixotic, witty, sometimes vicious. It was the glamour of her past, the association with greatness, that earned their fealty; they were flattered to spend time in her company, liked to drop her name, could tolerate any amount of abuse from her, and the sense that an ill-judged remark could cast them into permanent outer darkness added a thrilling edge of danger to her company.

Bobby was her stalwart. The editor of
Zeitgeist, The Courier
’s broadsheet weekly culture section, he brought her gossip from Grub Street, wine from the Languedoc, and a stream of handsome neophytes, usually actors newly hatched from drama school, tender Beauties to his swarthy Beast. He was, even by his own estimation, a failed academic. The author of two poorly reviewed biographies of forgotten modernist writers, he had been an acerbic critic for a number of minor Arts Council periodicals, which paid nothing for his pieces. His appointment as editor of
Zeitgeist
—Neville Titmuss,
The Courier
’s editor, had been impressed by Bobby’s excoriating review of a journalistic memoir by one of Titmuss’s old rivals—had surprised no one more than himself.

Bobby seemed to fail upwards, whereas poor Aidan Delaney, a rather
good poet, well reviewed and award winning but with the sales figures that went with his calling, continued to succeed downwards. Honor admired Aidan’s steadfastness and found his misanthropy curiously comforting. Inigo Wint, a public school pretty boy gone to seed, made her laugh in a way that no one else could. He was an artist with a slight, imitative skill, and his fashionable work was unstintingly championed in
Zeitgeist
. Though he was industriously heterosexual, Honor sometimes wondered whether he and Bobby had ever been lovers. A louche but loyal friend, Inigo was also, apparently, accomplished in bed. There was something of the changeling about him, and his girlfriends found him maddeningly elusive. A succession of young women, not all of them conventionally pretty—his tastes, he liked to say, were as catholic as Cardinal Hume—trailed after him with pitiful solicitousness. He indulged them for a couple of months before abruptly abandoning them for another languid geisha. “A free upgrade,” he called it.

Paul Tucker, the most uncompromisingly masculine representative of the Monday Club, was silent on the subject of the bedchamber, claimed to have no interest in art or the workings of the imagination and said he had never knowingly read a work of fiction—“apart from the front page of the
Sunday Times
.”

“Sod the life of the mind,” he would say. “Give me life!”

He was ill suited to reflection; television news was his medium. He was out there—angry, unshaven, in his bullet-proof vest, filing to camera against a
son et lumière
of missiles, or shouting over the whirring of helicopter blades, a true inheritor of Honor’s tradition of intrepid truth seeking, a defender of the weak and scourge of the powerful. How ironic that it should be television, a medium she had always despised, that had preserved at least some of the journalistic values jettisoned by newspapers.

Honor had always found men better company than women. Homo or hetero, they were wittier, lighter about matters of the heart, and more engaged with the real world. They were also more trustworthy, free from the atavistic rivalry, the sidelong scrutiny and secret schadenfreude that women engaged in. Even so, she counted two women among her Monday Boys. Ruth, round and smug as a matryoshka doll, was the efficient one, the fixer and the paymaster. It was Ruth’s capable, gym-mistress approach to life’s admin—dismal dealings with plumbers and lawyers, accountants and taxmen, restaurateurs and travel agents—rather than her publishing expertise that earned her a seat at the monthly suppers.
Her editorial skills were, as far as Honor could tell, nonexistent, or at least invisible. Which made her the best kind of editor. There had been no wrangling over points of language or structure, no sly tweaking, no “helpful suggestions.” Ruth had been the respectful handmaiden, ushering
Truth
 …, out of print for decades, back into the public realm with a tasteful new cover, and now she was about to perform the same service for
Dispatches
.

In addition to Ruth, there was Clemency. Tall, homely and bowed with guilt at her enormous inherited wealth, Clemency was a professional philanthropist. She was on the board of several arts organisations and was a rich source of invitations to first nights and gala events. She was also generous with time and money, always available for late-night phone calls, a patient, admiring and reassuring listener. When Honor was at her lowest, Clemency had insisted on flying her to Lake Garda, where she was pampered at the Twisk Foundation’s villa for two months. But Clemency was drawn to the specious, her new charity being a case in point, and could be insufferably sanctimonious. She was a reformed alcoholic and had once made the mistake of expressing pious concern about Honor’s occasional indulgence. Clemency had had to work very hard to gain readmission to the Monday Club.

Tonight Inigo was the first to arrive. His lopsided smile was a good gauge of Honor’s mood. If her spirits were low, she would find it irksomely insincere. If she was buoyant, the half-hitched grin and easy charm would cheer her further.

Still drained and somehow diminished by the recent
Monitor
interview, a feeling compounded by that late-night phone call and her debasing brush with Clemency’s latest vanity project, Honor felt only relief at the sight of her most chivalrous and supercilious courtier. He was carrying a prettily packaged box of patisseries. He kissed her cheek—a moist brush against her papery skin.

“Am I the first?”

“Of course.”

“Good. I’ve got you all to myself then,” he said, his eyebrows twitching, a satirical silent-screen seducer.

“You can fix the drinks, darling,” she said.

As he went towards the cabinet the doorbell rang again. Honor sat
down while Inigo, with the camp groan of an interrupted suitor, walked back along the hallway to admit the next guest.

It was Aidan, pink and glowing from the gym—surely he was getting a little old for all that weight training?—and mercifully alone. His difficult boyfriend, Jorge, an architect, was working late on an important project.

“A Midlands leisure centre,” Aidan said, with an exaggerated shudder. “Mutually exclusive concepts, I’d have thought.”

He had brought a carton of fat green olives and a pretty hardback edition of Palgrave’s
Golden Treasury
.

He kissed Honor, holding her a little tighter and longer than she felt was sincere or necessary, and embraced Inigo in the way that men seemed to do these days, whatever their sexual preference.

Ruth arrived next, out of breath and flustered, carrying a large tray of Lebanese meze. She looked a mess as usual: unkempt hair, frock like a beige marquee that had come loose from its guy ropes, orthopaedic shoes, all defiantly declaring her rejection of patriarchal sexual tyranny. She bent to kiss Honor with a grunt of exertion, trying not to drop the tray, then swayed into the kitchen to sort out the plates and cutlery.

“A tithe for the Empress of Maida Vale,” Inigo said, handing Honor a vodka martini.

They heard the lock turn. Bobby had let himself in with the key Honor had given him last year during a bad patch. His contribution to the evening was twofold: a case of Bordeaux, purchased on
Courier
expenses, and his guest, Jason Kelly, a laconic young actor of mesmerizing beauty.

“So this is your
amuse-gueule
, Bobby?” Aidan said, taking a step back to appraise the new arrival.

The blond, almond-eyed Kelly, whose fecund love life was the subject of intense tabloid interest, bridled. Inigo handed him a distracting cocktail before steering him over to Honor. Kelly was currently giving his Hamlet at the Old Vic, and his visceral reading of the part had attracted garrulous praise from the critics. Honor, who went to the first night with Aidan (Clemency had provided the tickets), had been equally impressed.

“Not quite ‘fat and scant of breath,’ ” was her only criticism.

Professionally Kelly was better known, and considerably better paid,
for his leading role in the recent blockbuster film version of Enid Blyton’s
Magic Faraway Tree
. Honor, though entranced by the young actor’s Hamlet, had declined Aidan’s invitation to see the film—Hollywood hogwash, obviously—in a multiscreen cinema in a shopping mall.

“I would,” she had said, “rather spend an evening doing housework, or reading Isadora Talbot.”

But the bedroom scene with Gertrude had been extraordinarily powerful. Honor patted the needlepoint stool by her feet and invited the newcomer to sit.

“Ah. The Seat of Honor,” Inigo said, as he said at every Monday supper.

The doorbell sounded again—two short rings, one long. No one stirred.

“Ruth?” Honor called out to the kitchen. “Be a darling and let Clemency in.”

“Bringing up the rear as usual,” muttered Inigo, making his regular unkind reference to Clemency’s horsewoman’s seat.

The Twisk heiress walked in, shoulders slumped apologetically, carrying a large wheel of pungent cheese wrapped in brown paper.

“Mmm,” Inigo said, sniffing the air. “What’s that scent you’re wearing, Clemmy?
Eau d’Égout
?”

“By Cloaca?” Aidan threw in.

Clemency ignored Inigo and looked accusingly at Aidan’s glass of wine.

“Can I do anything?” she called to Ruth in the kitchen.

The question was rhetorical. Clemency sat down with heavy finality before Ruth had time to answer.

“Are we quorate?” Bobby asked.

“Yes,” Aidan said. “The inner cabinet’s here. But Paul’s in town so he’s going to join us, too.”

“He’s on his way from the studio,” Honor said. “Back from a weekend in Afghanistan.”

“Of course!” Inigo said, refilling the glasses. “Where else would he be?”

Honor took a long pull at her drink. Inigo had always resented Paul’s showy integrity. She liked to see them bickering, her Boys, fighting to catch her eye.

Aidan turned to Jason.

“Congratulations on the reviews.”

“Cheers,” the actor said, raising his glass.

“ ‘The glass of fashion and the mould of form,’ ” Aidan went on. “But never mind Gertrude, the strumpet. Or that daft bint Ophelia. Isn’t the real, unexpressed passion for Horatio?”

Jason’s pretty mouth crimped with displeasure, and Bobby stepped in gallantly, shielding his trophy.

“
You
might think that, Aidan. You might even wish for it. But Horatio’s function is to be the audience’s proxy: a witness. The more interesting relationship, I think, is with Laertes.”

“Piffle, and you know it,” Inigo said.

“What kind of critical language is that?” Clemency asked.

“Tom Eliot used to say that Hamlet was literature’s Mona Lisa,” Honor said wistfully, reaching for the young actor’s free hand and giving it a squeeze.

With the subtlety that had earned him plaudits at the Old Vic, Jason Kelly recoiled imperceptibly.

“That’s no enigmatic smile,” Aidan said, raising a provocative eyebrow at the actor. “That’s the proud man’s ‘contumely.’ ”

The look that darkened Kelly’s fair features was more menacing than the stare he summoned nightly for Claudius. Aidan was saved by the doorbell.

“Hercules Tucker!” he said, springing to his feet to open the door. “Back with the golden apples.”