Penny and I are given the job of helping behind the scenes and persuading Robin Brentford to attend the production. We decide that the best way of attaining the latter end is through the good offices of his doting daughter and it is with this in mind that we troop round to see Syllabub Brentford.
“Stupid old poof!” she says when we acquaint her with the reason for our visit. “It makes me want to puke just to think about him.”
“Syllabub! What a terrible thing to say about your father.”
“He’s not my real father. I shouldn’t think he’s anyone’s real father. He’s Mummy’s number four, that’s all. Why she chose him when she could have had the pick of any broken down alcoholic lecher in London, I’ll never know.”
“Perhaps she loved him,” says Penny.
“‘Loved him’? Mummy loved my father and maybe the one after that but she’s not going to be stupid enough to go on believing in eternal happiness for ever.” Syllabub laughs a hollow laugh. “Did you hear that? It was quite funny, really: you can’t go on believing in eternity for ever.”
“How old are you?” asks Penny.
“Fourteen.”
“Goodness me, but you’re cynical,” says Penny.
“It saves a lot of disappointment. Anyhow, you want me to get the old fink down here for the play? It’s no skin off my nose. He’ll probably fall asleep but that will be nothing new.”
Listening to Syllabub makes me feel old, apart from anything else. I had always thought of dishy Robin as being my own age, not dragging one foot in the grave. Still, these days you are practically qualifying for a pension if you reach sixteen without having a stroke.
Syllabub writes to her stepfather as promised and I am astonished when a letter comes back virtually by return of post—e.g. about three weeks later. It is addressed to me and enclosed in a lilac envelope that smells like the perfume counter of Boots. The handwriting has more swirls and squiggles than half a pound of pigs’ tails. I tear open the envelope and withdraw a sheet of thick blotting paper—at least, that is what it feels like. In fact it is notepaper with the address embossed about half an inch off the paper. “4111 Hollywood Drive, Surbiton, Northern Europe”. A photograph of my hero flutters to the floor as does a lock of hair and a slip of paper. I pick up the piece of paper. On it is scrawled “send the stupid bitch a lock of hair from one of my old toupees and a photograph—preferably mine”. Nice to know that the personal touch still survives in these rough and ready times.
“Dear Miss Nixon” says the letter—I do wish people would get my name right. It’s bad enough finding “Dixon can’t keep her Nixon” scrawled on all the walls without this kind of thing—“I will be delighted to come down and judge your knobbly knees contest. Because I am doing this at the request of my stepdaughter, whose name I have momentarily forgotten, I will waive my normal fee of one hundred guineas, paid in used pound notes while I am pretending to gaze into the middle distance, and content myself with charging travelling expenses which should come to a sum approximately twice that amount. Please do not embarrass me by writing a gushing letter of gratitude. Prompt reimbursement of the sum involved will serve as a far more permanent symbol of your understandable appreciation which it would probably be difficult to convey in mere words anyway. I will arrive at Fudgely Station at 1800 hours with friend. Please inform national newspapers if crowd likely to exceed several thousand. Your humble servant, Robin Brentford (SUPER STAR)”
“He writes a nice letter, doesn’t he?” I say to Penny.
“Yes. It’s good to see that success hasn’t spoiled him. So many of them get big-headed, you know.”
I nod understandingly. “Uum. I suppose we’d better go and pick them up?”
“Definitely. We want to get in there first, don’t we? No point in telling the girls. They’d tear him limb from limb before he had handed in his ticket.”
“It’s a pity about his friend. Some glamorous starlet, I suppose.”
“Certain to be. I know he’s separated from Syllabub’s mother. She left him during the honeymoon.”
I know it is very wicked of me but I can’t help feeling glad that Syllabub’s mummy and daddy are no longer together. It means that Super Hunk is free. I can work my womanly wiles on him without experiencing those twinges of guilt that would accompany every action were the nuptial knot still firmly tied.
On the day of the play every mistress in the school is in some kind of tizzy. Miss Grimshaw is being walked round and round the grounds in an attempt to perk her up after a prolonged bout of over-tiredness. Miss Murdstone is flapping because she thinks that something may go wrong with her precious production. Most of the other staff are involved in the play, and Penny and I are thinking about our appointment with Robin and his lady.
“You don’t think I’ve overdone the eye make-up, do you?” says Penny.
“Not if you can remember the words of Way down upon the Swanee River” I say cattily.
“That’s a lovely jumper,” says Penny. “Which of the fourth form lent it to you?”
“Are you trying to suggest that I’m flaunting my figure?” I say coldly.
“No. I just think it’s a pity that you can’t find some clothes that aren’t three sizes too small for you. I expect Robin has seen breasts before.” Relations between Penny and I become rather chilly after that exchange and the journey to Fudgely is made in silence as well as Penny’s battered sports car.
“I think we should have hired something,” I say. “This crate is not only tiny but it’s nearly clapped out.”
“You can always walk behind it with a red flag,” hisses Penny.
“Don’t you mean walk in front of it?” I correct her.
“I wouldn’t trust myself if you were walking in front of it.”
“Charming!”
It just shows how much friendship means when there is an attractive man at stake, doesn’t it? Penny parks the car between two sets of double yellow lines and we go onto the platform. There are still fifteen minutes to kill before the train is due to arrive so we go into the buffet and watch the bluebottles chasing each other round the curling sandwiches.
“Some of them have been here for months,” says Penny.
“You mean, the bluebottles?” I ask.
“No! The sandwiches. They change the bluebottles every week. They get complaints if they don’t.”
“From the passengers?”
“No. From the bluebottles.”
Half an hour later the train has still not arrived and I am getting nervous. It reminds me of the time the St Rodence Supporters Club Special came back from Guildford. It was nine hours late and only three of the carriages still had their doors on—only four of the girls still had their drawer on, but that is another story.
“It’s not another go slow, is it?” Penny asks the kindly station master, Mr Ahkmed.
“Indeed to goodness, no. If it was a go slow we would be pushing the trains back up the line. I believe that it is merely a natural disaster, look you.” Mr Ahkmed went to Wales for his holidays and found himself much in sympathy with the speech patterns of the locals. Since then he has taken to sticking a leek in his turban and singing “Land Of Our Fathers” as the commuters special pulls in every evening—or every other evening if relations with the Railways Board are strained.
“It is coming. Allah and Carwyn James be praised.”
We