FLASH! Terry got a nice one in, Sir Fred’s face a death-mask tinged with contempt. Of course the editor wouldn’t put it in the paper – no chance. But it would make a nice addition to the Thank Heavens! board, usually reserved for the photos of less attractive bridal couples (as in ‘Thank Heavens they found each other – nobody else would have them’).
A pretty girl wandered by, heading for the bar. ‘Over here!’ ordered the MP. ‘Just the sort!’ The girl smiled vaguely but walked on.
‘Over here!’ he repeated, louder. ‘Sit down, put your arm round my shoulder, smile at the camera!’ The girl blushed timidly and tried to say something, but the MP was edging forward in his seat and sticking a fiendish grin on his face. ‘Want your picture in the paper, don’t you, sweetie?’ he said through his practised smile. ‘Look at the camera now. Young adoring party worker looks up to her hero Member!’
His victim did not directly respond but said to Terry. ‘I… I… shouldn’t be here. Don’t put my picture in the paper, please!’
‘Why ever not!’ roared Sir Frederick.
‘I’m not one of your party workers,’ she said, getting up. ‘I work behind the bar. And I vote Liberal.’
Unabashed, the old boy managed to get a tickle to the back of her knees before she scooted away.
‘We’ve got all we need,’ said Terry, who always maintained a cheerful demeanour no matter the circumstances – good photographers never sulk on duty.
‘Can’t stay for the speech,’ said Betty to Sir Freddy. ‘But I’ll write that our outgoing MP hasn’t a clue who his successor will be.’
‘No you won’t,’ replied Sir Frederick with confidence. ‘I’ve got your editor’s home number.’
Good, thought Betty. No more politics for me, then.
‘So you see,’ Mrs Phipps was drawing on a Player’s Navy Cut and her quite astonishing memory, both at the same time, ‘Eglantine’s only ambition was to marry a moat.’
Miss Dimont shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. They were sitting in the coffee room after breakfast, and her old friend’s endless flood of reminiscence gushed on like a mountain stream.
‘She had a thing about castles – there were one or two in her family, you know – and she thought the only way to show you’d married well was if, when you went home, you were surrounded by a moat. Preferably with a drawbridge to pull up.
‘So she did – marry a moat, that is. She collared Sir Jefrye Waterford, but little did she know that in the wink of an eye he’d lose the lot – too many wagers, too much crème de menthe. Too many popsies.’
And were you one of those, thought Judy, and would that have been while he was married to Eglantine? She changed the subject.
‘You were going to tell me, last night, your royal story.’
‘I wonder how that particular tale escaped,’ said Mrs Phipps, her eye travelling around the room to check if the drinks waiter was out of bed yet. ‘We got talking about other things, I suppose. You really are terribly good company, Judy, it’s such a pleasure to have the time to chat.’
‘Why don’t you call me Hugue, Geraldine? My close friends do.’
‘Hugue?’
‘Short for Huguette. I stopped using it at school because they used to call me Huge – I wasn’t! Well, just a little bit, and only then sometimes… Judy’s really a work name.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ asked Mrs Phipps. ‘We’ve known each other for years.’
Because most of the time we’re talking about you, and there never seems to be the opportunity, Miss Dimont thought, but not unkindly. Mrs Phipps’ stories were worth a guinea a minute and anyway, she was an actress – and who else do actresses talk about but themselves?
‘I like it,’ opined Mrs Phipps. ‘French, of course.’
‘Actually Belgian. My father was a diamond merchant in Antwerp, though my mother’s English. I grew up there until I was four but what with the war… we moved to England when my father was imprisoned by the Germans.’
‘Did he escape?’
‘No, he couldn’t. He was treated very badly and was never quite the same again. I did a year or two at university but then I took over a lot of the business from him – travelling around Europe, buying and selling. The diamond business is like a club for men – they think you know nothing. As a result I was quite successful.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Mrs Phipps. ‘Then you must be quite well off.’
‘Well,’ said Miss Dimont, reflecting. ‘There’s a nice house in the Essex marshes, and we still have a tiny home in Ellezelles – that’s where we come from – but I’m very happy down here.’ And a million miles away from my overbearing mother, she thought with relief.
‘So you…?’
‘Let’s talk about you. You were going to tell me a royal story.’
‘It’s rather a long one.’
‘That’s all right, it’s my Saturday off. I’ll get the bus back to Temple Regis after lunch, if the snow allows. What’s it all about?’
A petite breakfast waitress was clearing away the coffee things, and Mrs Phipps fixed her with a commanding gaze, borrowed from when she played Lady Bracknell in, oh, 1934, was it? The Adelphi. And wonderful reviews, naturally…
‘Would you kindly bring me a large Plymouth gin?’ she said. It didn’t sound like a request. The girl blinked, looked at the clock over the mantelpiece and the lifting morning light through the window, then bobbed and moved away.
Just look at her, thought Miss Dimont. She’s eighty but her eyes are clear, her voice is strong, she carries herself in a commanding manner, and she oozes charm. What an extraordinary woman!
‘I was too tall for the Prince of Wales,’ began Mrs Phipps. ‘He could be quite charming but he was such a pipsqueak. And he bleated if he didn’t get his way – very unattractive in a man, don’t you know.
‘We were at the Embassy Club – it’s where we all used to go, everyone knew everyone, of course. And I could see he’d been eyeing me up. His popsy at the time was Thelma Furness, though she wasn’t there that night.
‘He sent someone over to ask me to dance, which really is not the way to go about things, but he was the future king so I suppose he could please himself. We both got up and moved towards the dance floor but the moment we met, you could tell it would be a humiliation for him – I was nearly a foot taller, or so it seemed. We managed to scrape around the floor but he was very unhappy – never liked people showing up how short he was.’
‘Did you lead, or did he?’ asked Miss Dimont mischievously.
‘Ha! Ha! I will say this, he had the grace to ask me back to his table and that’s when it all began.’
‘What, exactly?’
‘Well, there was a group there, possibly ten, can’t remember them all but Prince George was there – you know, the Duke of Kent, the one killed in the war – and he had some American girl in tow. There was Diana Cooper and her husband, as well as Lord Dudley, Lord Sefton, a few others and this girl Pansy Westerham.’
Mrs Phipps looked around the room but so far there was no sign of the gin. She plunged on.
‘Pansy and I hit it off immediately – she raised one eyebrow as if to say, who’s your short friend? We both started