Cause Celeb

  “Hello. How are you?” I said.

  “I’m sorry?” She flicked back her hair and looked at me, distracted.

  “Rosie Richardson. I used to . . . be with Oliver Marchant,” I finished lamely.

  “Oh, oh. Yes, of course,” she said doubtfully. “I know, isn’t she gorgeous? I brought her over here from Romania, as I expect you’ve—I can’t tell you how she’s changed my life. How are you? I’m sorry I’m just trying to find my—”

  “I’m fine. Listen, have you got a minute? I wanted to ask you about an appeal I’m trying to organize for Africa.”

  “Of course. If you talk to my agent she’ll send you something, now I’m sorry I have to find—”

  “No, the thing is, I’ve been working in a refugee camp and we’ve got a problem and I’m wanting to get everyone together to do a fund-raising program and I wondered—”

  “Well, I’m really putting all my energy into Romania now, with the baby and so on, but if you talk to my agent . . .”

  “But it’s a real emergency.”

  “Sweetie, give my agent a ring in the morning and I’m sure you know . . . Anyway, lovely to see you again. Really good to see you. Ciao.”

  I turned back to find Corinna staring at me. This was going to be harder than I’d thought.

  “Mmmmmm. Give me a hug, my darling. Give me a hug.” Richard Jenner’s wiry little body thrust itself against me. “Now, darling. What was your name again? Tell me, remind me.”

  “Rosie Richardson, I met you when I was with Oliver.”

  “Of course. Of course. You were the girl who was sick on the table! Hahaha. Let me get you a drink. Don’t throw up this time, will you? Hahaha! What did you think of Bill? Isn’t it just garishly tragic? Paul and Linda are here. Have you seen? Over there. No, look over there. Oh, my God, there’s Neil and Glenys. We must say hello. Come along.”

  He seized my hand.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said. “The last few years I’ve been working in a refugee camp in Africa and we’ve suddenly got a famine on our hands. No one seems able to help us.” He was pulling me along towards Neil and Glenys.

  “I’m listening, I’m listening, keep talking.”

  “No, stop a minute.”

  Richard stopped and turned around.

  “It’s urgent. It’s why I’ve come back to England. I need some help from . . . you and the people here that you know,” I finished lamely. I was starting to feel a bit of a fool.

  “What kind of help? Are you looking for money, or what is it that you want help with?” His eyes were flicking towards Neil and Glenys, who were moving away.

  “We need money but more than that we need publicity. I want to do a TV appeal—maybe take some people out to Africa.”

  He caught hold of my arm. “Look around the room. No, just look, darling. Look around the room.”

  I looked.

  “You see Kate Fortune over there with the baby.”

  I nodded.

  “Romania. Dave and Nikki Rufford?—rain forests. Hughie?—Terrence Higgins Trust. Benefit show on Friday. I’ll give you a check, my darling. I’ll gladly give you a check. Call my office in the morning and they’ll sort something out. But a benefit? No, darling. No. Unless you’ve got months and months to do it properly. No. It’ll crater. Completely crater. No. Anneka! Give me a hug, sweetie. Mmmm, mmmm.” He winked at me over Anneka’s shoulder. “Call my office in the morning, darling. I’ll let them know.”

  This was awful. I decided to head for the stands at the edge of the room to give me something to pretend to be doing, then try to find Julian. I was almost at the edge of the room and then, through a clear parting in the sea of heads, I found myself looking straight at Oliver.

  His head jolted back as if he had stopped suddenly. We stared at each other like rabbits caught in headlights. Then the crowds closed in again and he disappeared. I turned to the stand beside me, shaken, and pretended to look at the crystals, feather items and leaflets. “In-terior design with FENG SHUI,” offered one. I picked up another, which said, “FASTING WALKS AS A ROUTE TO PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT.” I suddenly had to get out of the room.

  I pushed my way out through the throng, and into the cool and quiet of the ladies’ loos. I found myself a cubicle, locked the door, put the seat down and sat on it. Then I heard the door open outside and someone come in.

  “Have you seen that girl’s back?” It was Corinna’s street-cred drone.

  “Oh, you mean that girl who used to be with Oliver,” came the sugary tones of Kate Fortune. “Isn’t it embarrassing, poor thing?”

  “Crippling. Like, anyone would think she’s the first person to go and work in a relief camp.”

  “Oh, it’s a complete nightmare. You know, you want to help, but really . . . one can’t do everything.”

  “Quite. And, like, talk about Roberta Geldof. I mean puh-lease.”

  After they’d gone, I sat staring at the cubicle door for a long time, traumatized. I could see how they felt. Arrive at a first-night party and some git you hardly remember turns up with a suntan and starts demanding shifts in your diary. A vision of the camp came flooding over me: O’Rourke’s advice, the refugees on their way. Debbie, Henry, Betty, Muhammad, waiting to see what I could do. And it wasn’t going to work.

  I went out feeling anguished, and stupid, and looked for Julian. I couldn’t find him. I decided the best thing to do now was go home. I had just put on my coat and was walking towards the stairs when Oliver emerged from the gentlemen’s cloakroom. He was the same—the face had filled out a little, the hair was a touch longer, but the same.

  “Rosie!” He came towards me, smiling, poised, charming, no sign of the earlier loss of composure. “You look wonderful.” He bent to kiss me and the familiar Oliver scent, the dark stubble on his cheek, the lips just touching mine, set off the old chemical alert. Atoms and particles started rushing around, WARNING! WARNING! All systems to throb again.

  Oh, no, I thought. Oh, no. Not this. Not now. Not still. Please, no.

  I moved a few feet away. “Hello.” Unnatural squeak. I cleared my throat. “Hello,” I said, in a very deep voice now. “How are you?”

  “Plumpkin,” he said, and folded me in his arms. “I’ve missed you so much. How was Africa?”

  He was all tenderness. We caught up. I told him why I was here.

  “. . . and so the upshot was there was nothing more I could do out there, I’d tried every single thing I could think of. This seemed like the only option left.”

  His eyes were kind. He was biting his bottom lip and putting his head on one side sympathetically. “You’re right,” he said simply. “We should do something.”

  I looked at him in astonishment, my mind racing. He must have changed. If Oliver was willing to help, then I could probably pull off the appeal. He was the one person I knew I ought to avoid, and he might turn out to be my best chance.

  “What do you need?”

  “An airlift. Two, three airlifts if possible, maybe more.”

  “How long have you got?” he said gently.

  “Three weeks,” I said, and that was when his mood completely turned.

  “Three weeks?” he said. “Three weeks?”

  That tone. He looked and sounded as if I was the most loathsome, pathetic, despicable person who had ever walked this earth. I had forgotten what this was like.

  “I have to say I think you’re completely insane,” he was going on, authoritatively, dismissively as if he was in a board meeting, demolishing the opposition. “It’s a completely absurd thing to try and do in three weeks. And, frankly, I hear you’ve made a complete fool of yourself tonight.”

  Keep calm, I told myself, don’t rise to it.

  “Don’t you remember the rules I taught you?” he said. “Hmmm? Friends of the famous? You have to recognize the boundaries. You must accept the inequality without drawing attention to it. Don’t behave like a member of the public. Don’t stare, don’t look around the room for th
e famous ones and make a beeline, don’t put them on the spot, don’t demand famous-person favors, reassure, don’t lecture. You got back in the club, then broke all the rules. I saw you, you did it to everyone. You were in a perfect position to pick up again—you’re an old friend now, so you make them feel loyal. You do something nonmedia so you make them feel deep. But you ballsed up. You forgot everything I taught you.” Then his eyes were caught by something ahead. “Plumpkin,” he said, but this time not to me.

  It was Vicky Spankie, the actress who had been married to the rain forest Indian. Her dark glossy hair was cut in a bob. She was wearing what may well have been a rain forest robe.

  “Can we go now, Olly?” she said, coming up to him and fingering his lapel.

  “Vicky, you remember Rosie, don’t you?” he said, taking hold of her hand as if she was a five-year-old. I wondered what had happened to the Indian.

  “Rosie’s come back from Africa with a bit of an unrealistic plan, unfortunately,” he said, laughing. “I was just explaining to her about the horrible real world we live in.”

  “Good night,” I said, and headed for the stairs.

  “Good night” was no good. As the taxi made its way along Regent Street I blinked at the lights and thought about what I should have said. “Good night, scumbag.” No, “asswipe” was a better word. Who’d said that tonight? “Good night, asswipe.” “Sod off, you little toad.” “Still having the mood swings, then? Would you like the number of a psychiatrist?” No. I should have been more lofty. I should have chipped in, after the friends-of-the-famous speech, “I think you’re being rather hard on your friends. I think these people are better than that, don’t you?” As we left the lights of the West End, and headed out towards north London, I calmed down. Maybe it was better that I hadn’t got involved in a confrontation. Better just to walk away and leave him be. I should have done that from the word go.

  CHAPTER

  Nineteen

  All my teeth were falling out. I was holding some of them in my hand and trying to keep my mouth shut so that the ones that were left would stay put and no one would see. I opened my eyes. I ran my tongue round my mouth to check the teeth were still there, but then the memories of the party started seeping back into my head. It was a monstrous night. I kept dropping off, waking, having bad dreams again. Shirley was sleeping on the other side of the bed, her long hair spread all over the pillow. I lay motionless, trying not to wake her, remembering what had happened. I should never have left Safila. The refugees were on their way, there was no food waiting for them. I had abandoned them for an arrogant plan which would come to nothing.

  The party had rocked me far more than it ought. Out in Africa I thought I had become a new, strong person, and that all that humiliation with Oliver could never have happened to the new me. But twenty-four hours back in London had made me wonder. Maybe the chemistry between two people was something you just couldn’t change. I stared miserably at the ceiling. Oliver and the Famous Club were central to what I was trying to do and I couldn’t handle either of them. Everything was negative. Bad thoughts charged about in my head. Moments from the party, visions of the camp, loomed up, and, encouraged by the rest, the memories of the Kefti trip crept out and danced grotesquely about me. I wished O’Rourke were here. Though it might have been just one complication too many, what with all three of us in the bed.

  Shirley woke up at one point.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  “Kind of.”

  “Don’t get involved with that madman again,” she said. “Promise me. Or you’ll never sleep again.”

  “I promise,” I said uncertainly. It had been such a ray of hope when I thought Oliver would help. But he hadn’t changed and I had to keep away from him. But what was I going to do? I’d blown the whole thing. It was hopeless.

  At about 5:00 A.M. I finally dozed off. An hour later I was woken by a fearsome grinding and roaring, the sound of tearing metal, of knives scraping on tin, of ancient, rusty, groaning motors. I sat bolt upright with terror. A light, high whooping joined the grinding—dooweeedooweeedoweeedowee. Then there was silence. Then the loudest bell I’d ever heard. The grinding stopped, then started up again, louder, nearer.

  “Sorry,” Shirley said sleepily. “They’ve privatized the dustbin lorries. There’ll be two more before eight o’clock. Every shop has its own personal refuse collector and they still don’t take our sodding bags away.”

  “What about the bells?”

  “Burglar alarms,” she said. “Dustbin lorries set off the burglar alarms. Stupid dustbin lorries,” and she laughed and put her arm over her face. When she had gone back to sleep, I tried to snuggle up to Shirley without her noticing.

  In the morning, of course, it all seemed like paranoia. I decided I had to get the project on a sounder footing: get the story in the newspapers for a start and go and talk to SUSTAIN. It was early days, I still had three weeks.

  *

  “And it’s the UNHCR you’re dealing with?” said Peter Kerr, from The Times’s Foreign desk.

  “Yes, mainly, as well as SUSTAIN, and the Nambulan relief commission but the UN supply us with food.”

  “Fine. Geraldine,” he shouted across the room, “call the library, love, will you? And PA and see what there is in the last six months.” He looked at me questioningly. I nodded. “Last six months on Nambula and Kefti. Refugee story. Try under Aid and Locusts as well.”

  He started leafing through the photos. “What’s your relationship with SUSTAIN now?”

  “Fluid. I’m going to see them later today. I just put in my resignation in El Daman and left.”

  “I have to say this is not a great time for a famine story.”

  “What do you mean?” I said. “When is a great time?”

  “Come on. You know how these things go. All eyes are on Eastern Europe and the Gulf now.”

  “But does everyone think the problem’s solved? It’s not. Look at this.”

  I picked out a photograph of Liben Alye lowering Hazawi into her grave. “This is my friend,” I said emotionally. “This was last week. It’s outrageous to start applying flavor-of-the-month thinking to this.”

  He looked to either side, then picked up the photograph shiftily and put it down again. “Listen, love, I hear what you’re saying. I am just explaining—how—these—things—tend—to—work, all right? This is a newspaper.” He scratched the back of his neck.

  “Course, you could do a personal piece for the feature pages—what about that? My experience in the relief camp, my mission, personal quest sort of number.”

  “No, it needs to be a news story.”

  “Well, I think we’ll be the judge of that, shall we?” he muttered. Then he banged a hand down on the desk. “Leave it with me, love. I’ll check it out, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

  I emerged, despondent, from the meeting into the fridgelike world of the London docklands, and a blast of wind hit me, howling round the high concrete and glass buildings. A man bumped my shoulder and hurried on, sporting an ugly purple and green track suit. A lorry groaned past, changing gear, and splashed muddy water on the coat I’d borrowed from Shirley. The skies were heavy and gray. I thought of Safila at sunset, of the red earth, the hot wind, the sound of it filling the empty acres. Maybe it was all just too different and far away for people to imagine.

  Back at Shirley’s I wiped the mud off her coat, made a cup of tea and wondered which way to turn. I had envisaged front-page news stories, featuring my photos. I had thought it would be easy to talk to the celebrities. Always before, in this celebrity world, I had been the other half of Oliver. I had forgotten how alone and insignificant I was going to be. I looked at the phone. I wanted to ring SUSTAIN but I really needed something concrete to offer them first to prove this celebrity plan might work.

  What could I do? I certainly shouldn’t go around begging favors anymore from celebrities who didn’t remember me. It was behaving like Hassan’s girl in the
Safila village, who always barged straight up to us demanding earrings. Muhammad had figured out how to fit in with the ex-pats and make us work for him. I thought hard. Now, if this was Muhammad, trying to get help for Kefti at a series of ex-pat social occasions, what would he do? The answer was not what I’d done last night. He’d never try to pull off a trick like that at a UN drinks party—too crass, too difficult. He’d get a friend who was an ex-pat to help him. I had to get someone, or something, to help. But what? Who? I decided to ring some more newspapers.

  A little red light was flashing on the answerphone. I pressed PLAYBACK.

  “Hi, Rosie. It’s Oliver. Listen, I got your number from your mother. I just wanted to say I’m sorry I was a bit over the top last night and wish you good luck with your plan. That’s it. If there’s anything I can do, give me a call.”

  I was excited for about four minutes, then I calmed down. It was just part of a pattern. He’d be nice. Then he’d be horrible. Then he’d be nice again. And then he’d be horrible. He was a lunatic. He had a bad effect on me. Still. He was definitely my best shot. He’d told me last night he had a new job as some flash executive at one of the ITV companies. He was still presenting Soft Focus, which had moved to ITV with him. He had the power to get us a TV slot and the celebrities would probably come on board if he asked them. They trusted him—professionally, at least.

  Why should he do it, though? He was such a cynic. Conscience. Now there was something. Most of the time, socially and professionally, Oliver put up a very convincing front as the good guy, strong, moral and fatherly. Somewhere inside he must want to be that way, or imagine that he was. Maybe I could work on that. Then there was me. I wondered if I still had any power over him. I had rejected him once. He was a control freak, he probably wouldn’t quite be able to reconcile himself to that. But was it a sound plan to get food for the starving by attempting to manipulate a powerful loony? No, really not at all.

  Half an hour later I got out the phone book and dialed the company number.

  “Oliver Marchant, please.” I was up against it. I had to play every card I had.